Tonight is the Festival of Stars. The shrine grounds are full of hopeful girls in bright clothes, each with her tanzaku, hoping that the boy whose name she has written will love her as the Ox-herd loves the Weaving Maid. The River of Stars hangs overhead; according to the story the birds form a bridge on this one night of the year so the lovers can meet. Then they must go back to their duties, he to keep the herds of heaven, she to weave the robes of the gods. I have brought no tanzaku to tie to the sacred tree, for there is no river of stars between my love and me, only a river of tears that no birds will ever bridge. The movement of the stars rules everything, but no star can bring him back to me. He is dead.

My friends say he didn’t truly love me, that he was using me in some scheme I don’t really understand. But I don’t believe them. Maybe that’s how it started, but I think he really did love me at the end. He died in my arms, loving me. I’ll never know if he could have turned out to be a good person after all, or if we could have been happy.

There is a tree a little apart from the others. No tanzaku flutter in its branches; it looks sad, not really a part of the festival, like me. I approach it, and see something caught in its branches. A silver chain, gleaming like starlight. It is a pendant, a little green stone heart. My mother owns a jewelry store; I know a little about stones. This is the kind of jade called nephrite. Jade is supposed to always feel cool to the touch, but this is warm even before I put it on. Warm, the way his touch was warm.

The movement of the stars rules everything…

The river of tears in my heart is a river of stars, and the birds are singing.

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NOTES, EXPLANATIONS ETC:

I can’t believe I wrote a Sailor Moon fic! Actually, I hadn’t seen a whole lot of Sailor Moon back when I first wrote this, but Neflite’s death haunted me. Of the several stories I tried to write around lines from “Alchemy of Love,” this is the only one that survives as a stand-alone. It’s probably way too serious for Naru.

Tanzaku are little strips of paper used at the Tanabata festival. You write a wish on the strip and tie it to a sacred tree.