"You will not like it," she said as she hung on and swung across the stars, as if they were the handles of monkey bars in a child's jungle gym. The night sky was blanketed with them, yet her fingers splayed out as she stretched for the next one and then the next.

He cradled into the crook of the moon, curling his feet up from the edge. He replied, "You do not know. I think it is beautiful."

The girl raised an eyebrow and laughed. "You think everything is beautiful, Brother. Besides," she continued, " the night sky is the most beautiful of all. Father made it for us, in the likeness of Mother. He said that he would puncture a place in the night sky for each of the things he loved about her, letting the liquid gold seep like ink onto the paper night, brightening what had once been so dark. Like his heart, he said, had been before he met her." She reached for yet another star and her lips twisted to begin another sentence, but she was interrupted.

"And I recount the story a million times over, Sister. The patterns, the shaping, the moon. It is all as it has been since the beginning. I want to see the world. I want to know the people. For as they look up into the night, what stories do they tell?" He stretched out and let his feet dangle over the edge as he turned his head to peer at his sister.

She had stopped and was still, her fingers each delicately fastened to a star above her head. "Please, Brother, do not go."

"I must. Mother came from the Earth. I must know what it is like. How beautiful it must be down there. How much beauty must exist to have a creature of the earth be a muse for this grand canvas," he sat up and threw his arm in an upwards circle, motioning at the night sky around them.

The girl bit her lip and let herself drop down. She landed, sitting, on a dark cloud below. The cloud expanded around her and drew her in, softening the fall. She sighed and seemed to play with tendrils of the cloud, lifting her hand up full of the puffy white cloth and blowing softly at it. The cloud drifted away in pieces, rising and falling and twisting away from her breath. Finally, without looking up, the girl said, "Go, if you must. I will wait for you here." Her breath caught and she looked up sharply at him. "But only as long as the moon is in the sky. Then you must come back. The other side...," she paused as if she wasn't sure how to go on.

"I have heard those stories, too, Sister. The danger of the other side... I will not stray, you can be assured. I will be back before the first light." He stood up, his eyes focused on a point below him, too dark to be seen, though he was sure of what his eyes were fixed on. A town or a city, maybe. People, certainly. They were everywhere, it seemed. He could always hear them, rustling as if anxious; poised on the brink of some thing or other. He could not be sure. He had only heard the stories and seen what could be seen from such a great height. Though, sometimes, when the night wind blew a certain phrase, he could get close enough to feel them. Feel their hearts, anyway. So strong as they beat in the night, the drumming resounded in his ears (he had strong ears, so he could hear the stars when they burnt out - that fizz and spark of last light.) Such concentration in the hearts of such a restless people. He wondered if his Mother had been like this, at one point, or if she had ever strained on the lowest cloud, stretching out to touch the feeling. He wondered if it felt like home.

He was resolute as he took a last glance at his sister, rubbing her wet eyes off on the back of her hand as she stared into the dark form of the cloud below her. "I will be back before the first light." His promise repeated over in his head as he flew from star to star, his feet barely touching one as he jumped to another.

Finally, he found the one he was looking for. This star was like a baby tooth of a child, it wiggled and the sky bled and oozed like sore gums as the star wriggled from the tight grasp. The heat from the tearing of star and sky like velcro, lashed out at the boy and he recoiled momentarily. His feet were balanced precariously as he reached out slowly, as if to catch a butterfly resting its tired wings before flight. Yet just before his hands wrapped around the star, it leapt out and attempted to tear itself from the night. The boy cried out and lost his balance as he fell towards the star. He grabbed hold of it just as the last tissues of night sky were torn away and the star plummeted down to the earth. The heat burned and scarred his hands, but still he held. This falling star, this was his only chance. It swung and tried to rid itself of the unwanted guest, like a bucking horse, but the rider stayed through force of grip and finally the weight of gravity brought the fight to a halt. The boy closed his eyes as the ground rushed towards him.

The voice of his sister called out to him as he fell, but it was lost in the rush of wind past his ears that sounded like thunder, so loud and full of threats. Before the first light, he thought and wondered how long it would be now. Already it seemed like hours had passed, his hands tired from exhaustion and pain were beginning to lose their hold on the edges of the star and he could barely keep his eyes open against the air pressing against them as he fell.

Somewhere, far off, he thought he could hear the fire bells of the people. They had seen him then, falling with the star. The ground was now rushing to meet him and he embraced it, letting go and opening his arms, a toothy grin on his tired face and the light burning in his eyes.