1Prompt #1: Tenkai Star
"Enlightenment is Man's Release from His Self-Incurred Tutelage"
A/N: This oneshot collection will follow the set of Suikovember 2019 prompts compiled by skidipapafuku and Hawksperch on Twitter. I can't draw, so have words! I own nothing. Title and description came from Immanuel Kant.
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"So why wasn't I born under the Tenkai star, Lady Leknaat?"
"Luc, each of us was born for different reasons. We are but one speck, a tiny drop in the ripples."
"But the Tenkai could change their fates, as well as everyone around them! Was it not you who told me so, Milady? Why is it so unfair?"
The blind sage could only watch her disciple sadly as he spat out each word in vehemence. The grand expanse of celestial movements swirled around her, around him, around the world, and she could see them clearly not with her physical eyes but something else far deeper. She knew a lot, she knew nothing, for she was unable to form words of comfort to this distraught young man.
"Each of us has designs in our own fates. Those born under the Tenkai simply possess a greater awareness of their ability to do so."
Luc sighed. "And what mine dictates? A guardian. I have enough of it, waiting."
"Luc, the stars should merely serve as a guidance. They're never the ironclad truth. That's why even people sharing similar stars could lead such different lives."
For the first time ever, Leknaat sensed something she had never felt before coming from him: distrust. It was then she realized with a pang of grief that it would be another disaster she couldn't prevent, this time going away with her dear children.
From the corner, little Sarah peeked shyly, unable to pick side. She had been increasingly concerned about Master Luc. He was having nightmares, Sarah was sure of it. (Sarah knew nightmares. Before the makeshift family in the tower, before quiet stargazing and dusting starlores, it was blood and darkness and death until time bleed and blurred and stirred into hazy nothingness). He did not tell Sarah. No one told Sarah anything.
"Then it's time to take fate to my own hands, as you said, Lady Leknaat."
His eyes were deep well of abyss, filled determination not unlike what the Tenkais Leknaat met before had with them, only darker and more raw. Leknaat tried, but no amount of study, no amount of meditation, no amount of rites was able to fulfill the missing part in Luc's heart. She thought she had taught him well. He absorbed knowledge like a sponge, but that same knowledge now had burdened him so. A man shouldn't be so close to the truth without a proper teacher, and it seemed like she had failed in her purpose.
"Perhaps a day will come where I have to bid you goodbye, Milady."
Was the pull of fates perhaps a little bit too strong? They were but children in the face of power so ancient.
Leknaat had seen futures, multiple of them, with all the possibilities that might incur. In all of them, she played little part, but a tiny part of her hoped that she still held a bit of a sway for her students.
She was only human, after all.
