[Silver]

The sky had not yet faded to darkness, but was painting the sky with brilliant colors, reflecting off the few clouds that still hung there. Though it was not yet dark, a smattering of bright points could be seen through the varying hues of sunset. They were tiny stars, likely unnoticed by the citizens of the world as the day melted away. There was one man, however, who was all too interested in these stars.

His silvery eyes, flicked back and forth between the specks of light and a journal in his lap. He was sitting haphazardly with his legs crossed in the middle of the park. Now and again he would hastily scribble something into the sprawled, dirty notebook on his lap. It looked like a dog had gotten a hold of it, perhaps more than once, and dragged it through a puddle or two in the meantime. None of this seemed to faze him as he went back and forth through the pages, scribbling here and there.

Cygnus was so absorbed in his work that nothing else existed to him. Not the grass blowing against his shoeless feet, or the birds singing their evening songs overhead.

[zapdragon555]

Sunsets were always special to Crow. As many of them as he'd watched fade from blue to orange to the most brilliant shade of violet, they never really got old to him. The young boy reclined haphazardly against a tree, his legs dangling down on either side of the branch that held him up several feet above the ground, his rather worn and vintage-looking hat tucked carefully beneath his hands; he wanted his vision as unobstructed as possible to take in the sight of the sun setting.

But said event was soon over and gone, and Crow was left with a sort of chilled feeling, had he known what such a feeling was. Time to look for better entertainment. With a grunt Crow pushed himself into a sitting position and hopped off the tree, landing on his feet with a thump as he surveyed the park. It wasn't long before his yellowgreen eyes fell upon a man sitting in the middle of the grass, hunched over what looked like some kind of book. Interested, and just a little bit impish, Crow crept closer, his hands folded behind his back once his hat was placed safely back on his mop of dark hair.

[Not all my posts will be this long, haha, usually when it's back and forth dialogue I'm a little bit shorter. x'D]

[Silver]

His hair was always in his face. Every now and then as he was writing, Cygnus brushed his shaggy hair out of his field of vision, only for it to stubbornly fall back again. His hair was tousled and unkempt, just like his clothes. It wasn't as though he was unclean, more like scattered. Perhaps he had been fixated too long on whatever it was he was doing to care or even notice.

He tapped his pencil against his journal, looking briefly from the sky to the tattered pages and back again. He frowned for a moment, then went back to writing. His pencil moved quickly across the page, even when he wasn't looking directly at it. Despite his disheveled appearance and vehement scribbling, he still gave off a sense of unyielding calmness.

"Now, what does it mean?" he said these words out loud, though he was speaking to no one. If anyone was around to hear, he wouldn't even know.

[zapdragon555]

Crow paused when he heard the man speak. Perhaps it was strange, very very strange, but that simple phrase tickled Crow something awful, and he let out a laugh as he stopped a few yards away from the man. "What does what all mean, raggedy man?" he asked, somewhat delighted with the man's mumbling to himself. It didn't exactly occur to him that his outburst might startle the ruffled-looking man, but then again, it wasn't every day that he met someone quite like this person. Especially not this late in the park, when most people were heading home to their beds. "And what are you mumbling about, anyway!"

[Silver]

Cygnus froze in place, awkwardly holding his pencil mid way through whatever it had been writing. He was not alone, and that made everything much more complicated. Here he was, trying to get something done, but now he had to entertain a guest. Now was not the time for pleasantries, but saying that likely wouldn't go over well. So, he swallowed once before looking up at the other man.

"Oh, nothing, just writing," he said, closing his journal with one hand and waving it about a bit for display. It was a raggedy, plain leather bound journal that had obviously seen a lot of writing in its days.

Though he had been interrupted, his voice did not sound annoyed. He sat calmly looking up at Crow with his bright, moon-like grey eyes. His expression was very neutral, very calm. Internally, he was scanning his memories, wondering if he had ever seen this man before. Nothing came up, so he just gave a small smile and waited to see what would happen next.

[zapdragon555]

Crow stared down at the man, not flinching as the man looked up at him, but Crow's eyes widened just a little bit as he stared at the man's eyes. "Woah," he mumbled, blinking a few times, then glanced at the book, then back at Cygnus' eyes. He tilted his head, not saying anything more until he realized something, and he straightened up a little before promptly plopping down in the grass beside Cygnus, giving him a friendly smirk. "So whatcha writing?" he asked, leaning closer, trying to see if the book had a title. Crow loved books, especially old ones, though he liked the ones with drawings in them a lot more than the ones without. "Anything good?"

[Silver]

Cygnus sat quietly, unsure what Crow would do next. He maintained eye contact and his small friendly smile. Not wanting to seem impatient, he waited for Crow to make the next move. Not that he really had anything to say at this point.

Cygnus breathed a small sigh of relief when Crow spoke again and flopped down beside him. Though this meant it would be longer before he could get back to his journal, it also meant that the stranger wasn't intent on assaulting him. Not yet, at least. "Nothing interesting, really," he admitted, glancing back down at his old journal.

"I'm writing some notes," he continued, pointing to the sky. "You see those there? There's a few stars in the sunset. So I'm keeping track of them." It was a perfectly reasonable explanation, if a bit boring. It was close enough to the truth, though it was a little more complex than he led on. It wasn't really worth explaining the details to a stranger. Even if he did try to explain, nobody really understood anyway.

[zapdragon555]

Crow blinked owlishly at Cygnus' explanation, then slowly followed his finger to the stars, squinting up at them. "Oh... stars, huh?" he asked, blinking a few times. So that's what those were called. He was quiet for a moment, before an incredulous little frown came over his face, and he looked back at Cygnus curiously. "Why, though?" he asked, leaning closer to the book, reaching for it with one hand. "Where are they going, anyway? Think you're gonna lose 'em unless you keep track of 'em, or something?"

[Silver]

In the moment of silence from Crow, Cygnus found himself wondering if he was all there. Perhaps he was just tired or something. He certainly knew that feeling himself, so he tried not to pass judgement on the stranger. Everyone had their moments, and he'd rather believe that this was just a moment and not a trend.

He found himself wondering how to answer the questions that eventually came. It was a very complex situation, one he didn't entirely understand himself. He always loved the sky, really, ever since he was a wee baby. The stars always drew him in, even before they began to speak to him. Now that they did, he made it a point to listen as often as possible. If he didn't, well...

"Well, no, they don't exactly go anywhere. They come back each night," he laughed a little at that. "I'm sure you've noticed that."

He tapped his pencil against the journal as a habit before continuing on. He made sure to hold it very tightly, just in case the other man had any idea of snatching it. "You can learn a lot from the stars. They move each and every night, just a little bit. If you watch them move, you can tell where they're going to go. Then, you can watch them, and listen to what they tell you. Look at the stars," he pointed, directing attention away from his journal. "What do they tell you?"

... What a weird man he was.

[zapdragon555]

Crow stared at the man for a moment, listening attentively, the smirk slowly falling off his face to a look of genuine interest. He blinked a few times, taking his hand back despite the deep desire to snatch the book away and see it, then looked back up at the sky. "Well," he began, musing, his eyes locking on the pinpricks of light. "Ehhm..." Crow trailed off, leaning back on his hands as he stared up at the darkening sky, and he frowned. "It... kinda looks like a tree," he mused. "If you connect 'em. Wait..." Crow's eyes went wide and he sat up straighter, staring at Cygnus. "Do you mean, like, tell tell? Like talk? Can you talk to stars?"

[Silver]

It was always interesting to ask people what they thought of the stars. Many people took them for granted, but everyone seemed to have their own theories. Some thought it was silly to watch the stars, that they were just useless balls of gas too far away to be concerned with, but those people weren't any fun. It was an especially great conversation to have with a child, who hadn't yet been told what to think.

Still, he found Crow's answer interesting. A tree? It was a fairly common response, for people to connect the stars to form a picture. Someone some time ago had grouped the stars together by the pictures they made. He had even been named after one such group. It seemed arbitrary to him, but who was he to question it?

Cygnus let out a soft chuckle at the question. "Well, I guess you could say that. Anyone could talk to the stars, though they don't always answer back..." At this point, it was hard to tell if he was being serious, or just joking along for amusement.

"You just need to learn how to listen."

[zapdragon555]

Crow stared very intently at Cygnus as he spoke, as if trying to absorb his words, and he squinted, his catlike eyes narrowing in thought before they went wide as saucers. "So... do the stars know things? If they've been around for a long time, would the know just about everything that's already happened?" he asked in a hushed, excited whisper, leaning closer to Cygnus as he spoke. "And, I could trust them right? To tell the truth?"

[Silver]

Cygnus was a bit surprised by Crow's revelation. It wasn't very often that people took so well to his ramblings. It took him a moment to come to terms with everything that was said before having something to say of his own. He was almost glad he had gotten interrupted; this might just be a very fascinating conversation after all.

"Now you're getting it," he said with a pleased smile. "The stars have been around for a long, long time. Longer than we have, longer than even the first person."

Now, as for whether you could trust them, that was a little more complicated. He had learning in his days of listening that they should not be ignored. Too many times had he come up on a bad situation for doing just that. Still, what they showed him was not always clear. He could believe it for sure to be one thing, only to discover that he was very wrong.

He, too, whispered as Crow had gotten much closer, "Do you really think they would lie?"

[zapdragon555]

Crow's green eyes flickered at Cygnus' soft answer, and his voice dropped even lower, feeling the need to be quiet suddenly. "If... if they always tell the truth..." he began, then suddenly shifted to dart a hand into his pocket, fishing around for a bit until he pulled out an old weathered photograph. "Okay, see this? This is something really important to me. It's a picture of me, I think, and that guy--" Crow pointed to a very elderly-looking man in the photo standing beside him-- "Is who I'm looking for. Can you ask the stars where he is?" Crow asked excitedly, clearly not fully understanding what Cygnus meant by listening to the stars. But the excitement and hopefulness in his voice shone out his eyes, and he held the photograph closer. "If they've seen everything, then they can tell me if he's still around, yeah?"

[Silver]

Cygnus tilted his head at the photograph, finally starting to put things together. Was this why he seemed to eager to talk about the stars and what they could tell him? Cygnus almost felt bad, leading him down that path. He could always try to see what he was asking, but there was never any promise he'd come out with any useful information. Still, he felt like he owed it to him to at least try.

He looked back from Crow to the photograph a few times before saying something. "I could always try," he sai somberly, "but I can't promise they'll have anything useful to say."

It was not likely for him to get information he directly asked for. Usually what he saw was just snippets of things that didn't make sense until it was too late. The stars had little care for the every day concerns of mere humans. However, they had brought the two of them together like this, so maybe they had something to say. Just maybe.

"Give me a moment, if you will?" he said softly, looking up into the sky. His head lolled back, and his already pale eyes lost the bright shine they once had.