Stardust [PRIVATE for The Heart of Gold and Arya Stark]

Dino was wandering around, searching for a quiet and comfortable place to just sit, read and procrastinate, when he found the perfect spot at the perfect time. It was like a bed of soft moss at lakeside, in which he could sit and contemplate the pleasing view of calm, dark water as far as the eye could reach, while the multicolored lights of that beautiful sunset lit his reading. He settled there and began to leaf through his copy of "Love in the Time of Cholera", but eventually he forgot what he was doing, and just leaned back there to watch in awe as the first stars appeared discreetely in the clear sky at the end of the day.

OOC: Who needs a font, after all? You're welcome.

Dino was a bit startled as he suddenly heard a cheerful girl voice. He could swear that he was completely alone in there. He didn't see anyone around as he arrived. His deep dark eyes examined around, and soon he found the source of the voice: a girl who looked a bit too old to be at CHB, who wore a billowing white toga, and who seemed to be shining slightly in contrast to the half-light of dusk. He would guess, just by that first impression, that she was one of those nymphs who liked to jig around the forest. There were many in CHB, but he rarely saw one, as they were often hidden in the bush. Anyway, he didn't find that weird at all, and after he recovered from that small scare, he smiled warmly at her. "Hi. I'm Dino. I guess I didn't see you there."

The way how she introduced herself, so merrily, made Dino feel even more shy. He almost stuttered when he tried to reply, after a few seconds wondering about what he should say, something not stupid, preferably. Well... Yeah. I was just wandering around, searching for a quiet place to take a rest. I've never met an Asteria before... Do you live in the night sky or something?" That was a kinda obvious question, he knew that.

"Actually, I live here in camp, but once a month, I return to my star for a while, the third tar on the right of Orion's Belt." She said. "Yeah, no ones met an Asteria for a long time......I just hope I'm not the last of my kind." She said fearfully.

"Please, be hopeful. There are millions of stars in the sky. I'm sure that most of them are Asteriae." Dino replied with genuine compassion showing on his voice tone. "Where do you live in Camp? I'm a son of Hecate. We, demigods, live in proper cabins. But I sincerely have no idea of where nymphs like you live. Pardon for my ignorance. Do you live among nature, hiding on trees, or something?" Suddenly he felt really curious about the nymph's lifestyle.

"No, I actually lie in a treehouse. And thanks for the hope." She said with a small smile. "It's a PVC pipe observatory/home that I built. I'm kinda proud of it. After all, it took me 30 years to build."

Dino was a bit surprised with her reply. "Wait... 30 years? How come... You seem to be, at most, 20 years old." Nobody ever told him that nature spirits were immortal. Wait... Are them even real people? He wouldn't offend that girl asking if she was really a person. She didn't seem to be very different from him, although, he didn't know if it was only an effect of twillight, but she seemed to be shining slightly. Before he realized it, he was asking a pretty stupid, funny and random question. "Do you also shine like that in the daylight? Maybe I need glasses."

Stella have a small smile. "We age differently. I'm 63." She said, blushing. "Glowing, eh? I've never heard that before, but I suppose I do glow." She said with a shrug.

OOC: Could you please try to detail a bit more? Therefore we can make a richier plot.

Dino grinned at her reply. "That's really cool. It must be nice to be a nature spirit. Rather than being a bastard demigod who is destined to die in battle." He sighed and looked back at the starry sky, without realizing how harsh those words could be. He needed to tell someone about how much he felt displaced in CHB sometimes. Dino knew that he weren't brave or epic. But the fact that he was the child of a greek goddess forced him into being a hero. He was disappointing even for himself, and overthinking about it only made things worse.

OOC: sorry! I'll try and post a bit more!
BIC: "Not all demigods have to die in battle! Take a look at Dionysus! Look how he turned out! Wait, bad example." She said with a frown as distant thunder was heard. "Sorry!" She yelled at the clouds and rolled her eyes. "Hercules is a better example. He was a demigod once. Maybe you'll gain immortality like them!" She said with a small smile and a light shrug. "You never know."

Dino laughed bitterly. The gods were always hearing them. Well, that wouldn't stop him from making a sincere complain. "That was because the gods liked him. Once Hecate materialized in front of me, not because I was honored and made her proud, but because she wanted to yell at me for being negligent to my little sister. And I still don't know what I've done wrong." He paused for a second and his eyes were glazed as he suddenly lost himself in thoughts. "I take care of my sister so well that I decided to send her back to Italy, our home. This place may seem safe, but it's too dangerous for a 10-years-old demigod. Yeah. I'd really rather to be a nature spirit."

Anna laughed. "Italy? Nice. A 10-year-old demigod would do fine here, though. Haven't you seen Harvey, the little 5 year old Hecate kid? He's fine here, but very lighthearted and doesn't know how to sense danger. Like that time he levitated a hammer into someone's head. That was one hell of a day." She said, remembering it.

Dino smiled slightly again as his bad mood dissolved. Making Stella laugh, so softly and spontaneously, helped. "Yeah. Those children are all the same. Mainly when they can have fun with serious things like magic. Sometimes when I make a lot of effort I can remember the time when I used to be careless and just happy like that." Dino sighed. Maybe he was exaggerating. He needed to spend more time stargazing like that.

"We all were, once. When I was only 35, I travelled to my star without my parents knowing and vowed to stay there for the rest of my life because it was so pretty. I stayed up there for about half an hour, but my parents were so glad when I came back. After that, I devoted my life to science and that carefree life just......ended." She said with a small sadness in her smile.

Dino tried awkwardly to comfort her. "Hey, you are still young... For a nymph. You can still change your ways and give a new direction to your life." He had the impression that he had lost the subject of the conversation. Such a pity, he was actually enjoying talk to that stranger. Dino grabbed his guitar, which was laying nearby, and began to play the first song which chord he remembered, "The Moon Song" by Karen O. He also sang quietly to the relaxing rhythm of the song. It was easier then talking. Maybe Stella would sit by his side and listen, instead of just going away and leaving him in complete loneliness again.

"Maybe I can change, if I'm lucky. That's my curse, I've crammed so much information in my head that I can't go back to a normal life. I'll keep questioning and questioning, and that will deprive me of answers, and deprivement of answers is what I dread the most. It would be hard, living a normal life." She said sadly but brightened up a little when Dino started to strum a guitar in a strange but familiar way, creating a tune that Stella hadn't heard for a while. The melody cominued and Stella sat down on the rocks and sighed as she looked out over the lake front.

Dino nodded, but he couldn't say he understood how she felt. Although he also overthought sometimes. That should be the first symtom of madness. When you reflect so much about your life, you hesitate, and realize the bad side of the world. It was definately healthier to act instead of think all day. After he finished playing that song, he couldn't think of any other to play. So he lay back on the grass. Suddenly he realized how tired he was. He closed his eyes just for a few moments. And accidentaly fell asleep, leaving Stella by his side.

Stella saw Dino nod. He soon stopped playing and fell asleep. Stella smiled and looked up to the stars. She outlined her favorite stars and looked around the constellations. She eventually found the Huntress and looked at that one for a while. The newes constellation in a long time. Scientists claimed to have missed it before, but how could they have? Who knows....
Stella thought like this for a while. She eventually thought about herself. What would it be like if she had never been here? Been there? Been born? What was her purpose in life? Did she have one? Maybe it was to teach others, or become great, or something as small as becoming an object to warm the rocks she was sitting on. Stella pulled out her iPod and turned the shuffle button on. The first song to rise from the pit of technology was a song she wasn't expecting. "Re/Sail" by AWOLNATION. She was caught by the words "maybe I'm a different breed", "this is how an angel dies", and "maybe I should kill myself". Stella realized that she wasn't human and she wasn't intended to be, now matter how human she looked. She was an Asteria, not a human. She realized that this was how she looked at herself most of the time. A silent tear rolled down her cheek for reasons unknown, and she fell asleep on the rocky shore of the lake.