Once upon, the god of light fell in love with a mortal woman, and together they had a daughter.

Now, the god of light was a god and therefore a very inattentive father. His daughter was only his daughter in blood, and she was raised by her mother on tales of glory and adventure. In those stories, the children of the gods were destined for greatness, and the girl knew in her bones that one day she too would become great and famous. She bore very few marks of her divine ancestry save for her hair: ever since she was a baby, the girl's hair was a mass of white, gold, and red as fire itself.

When the girl was nearly grown, she set off to find her father and seek her fortune. She bid her mother goodbye and left for the holiest temple to the god of light: a great city alive and shining even in the middle of the night. The journey was long and arduous--the girl had not left home before, and it took her days of walking, sneaking aboard trains and trucks, and the occasional kindly gesture from a stranger. Eventually, however, she reached the city of light and began to ask after her father.

It was not difficult to find her father once she set about to ask: the god of light had no reason to hide in his own place of power. Making her way to the heart of the city, the girl found a place of revelry, filled with light and dancing. As she made her way within, she spotted a radiant man on a neon throne. She approached the throne, and the man looked at her with interest.

"Are you my father, the god of light?" The girl asked.

"Yes," the god answered. He had known this and many other facts about her since the girl had walked through the door.

"Why have you not come to visit me even once since I was very small?"

"Because I am a god. Gods do not pass many moments with their children, especially so far from their place of power and worship." The god watched her with little compassion but some curiosity. "You are here now. Do you wish to join your siblings? Many of them are here with me, amidst the revels."

"No," said the girl, for revelry was well and good but not for her.

"Have you come for a boon, then, something to bring home to your mother?" The god settled back upon his throne. "You have not made a habit of worshipping me, but I might spare a trifle or two for my daughter."

"I need no boon from you!" The girl said sharply. She found the very thought of traveling such a distance for a god's trinket embarrassing.

"Very well. Tell me, why are you here?"

The girl drew herself up. "I am the daughter of the god of light, and destined to be great and earn wide renown. But," she admitted. "I don't know what kinds of great things there are for demigods nowadays."

The god considered this. "Many of my children have risen to become stars, shining eternally down upon the world. Is that the kind of destiny you wanted?"

The girl thought of shining clear and bright, forever looking upon the world amidst the sable night. "Yes, that destiny will do very well. Can you make me a star?"

"I can," the god allowed. "However, there are rules to these things, even for gods. No demigod may rise to the heavens without first accomplishing a great task beyond the capacity of mortals. Such a task will be difficult and deadly if you fail. Are you certain that this is your desire."

"I am destined for greatness," the girl replied. "What task did you have in mind?"

The god nodded, satisfied with her resolve. "Seventeen years ago the god of wind lay with a mortal woman and sired a terrible monster. The monster was hidden away by its mother in a hidden valley to the west, where it is guarded by a ferocious warrior. Slay this monster, and you will ascend to the stars."

The girl put on a brave face, though she quailed at the thought of a slavering monster ready to eat her whole. Seeing this, the god made a mystical sign in the air: a bow of shimmering starlight coalesced in front of her, with three arrows shining like the sun. "You may take this with you to slay the monster--I will know you have completed your task as soon as an arrow pierces its heart."

Feeling a little better with the bow in her hands, the girl bid goodbye to the god and left the city of light. Turning westward, she set off to kill a monster.

~*~

Hidden valleys are by definition difficult to find, and the god of light had been frustratingly opaque on the precise location of the monster. For a year and a day the girl traveled west. She wandered through grand forests by the shores of great freshwater seas, asking after valleys and warriors, gods and monsters. She trekked across broad prairies where the wind heightened to a shrieking storm, and through snow-capped mountains. It was by the shores of the sea, however, that she finally found the rocky valley filled with the sound of rushing air, and the tiny house within.

Steeling her nerves, the girl crept up to the little house, drawing the bow which the god had given her. The window was open, and the girl peeked inside, reading to take aim, when she heard the sound of singing from behind her. She spun around immediately...and lowered her bow in astonishment.

Walking through the valley towards the house was a boy, handsome as the sunset. His hair was dark as a summer's evening, and his skin glowed brown with health. The girl had never seen a boy who looked like him, and the impression was only confirmed when he got closer: he looked at her with eyes an inhuman, electric blue.

"What are you doing here?" The boy asked. "This is my house, and I never have visitors."

"I've been sent by the god of light to kill a terrible monster," said the girl. "He said that a ferocious warrior was set to guard it. Is that you?"

The boy gave her a very bitter smile. "You're thinking of my older sister. It would be wise of you to leave quickly--she's very powerful and very protective."

The girl frowned. "Well, then who are you? And where's the monster?"

"You came all the way here without learning that much? I am the monster, the son of the god of air." The boy sighed. "You were sent to kill me. And you'd best be quick about it too, or my sister will get back and do something terrible to you."

The girl eyed the boy suspiciously. "You don't look like a monster. You look like a boy. I didn't agree to kill a boy."

"I am a boy right now," he agreed. "But when I was born, an evil spirit was created inside me named Gale With A Thousand Teeth. A wizard managed to keep it contained when I was young, but the Gale grows with time. Now, only my own calm mind and will can keep it restrained, and one day even that will fail. My sister has surrendered her own chance at happiness to keep the world safe from me, but more importantly to keep disturbances from breaking my concentration."

The girl was taken aback. "Does that mean you have to stay in the valley forever?"

"Not forever," the boy reassured her. "In a few years, the Gale will be too strong for even my will to contain. When that happens, it will tear its way out of my body and ravage the countryside. It is for this reason I must stay away from people, so it has nothing to harm when the time comes."

The boy seemed entirely unconcerned by this prospect, and the girl was horrified. "How can you be doomed to die and not care? What about your father? Your sister? Who is going to mourn you?"

"My father is a god, and therefore cares very little for his children. My sister..." At this, the boy's face fell, and the air about him began to stir into a strong wind. After a moment he composed himself once again. "My sister will have to run when the time comes. I will beg her to run."

The girl had heard nothing so tragic and seen nothing so beautiful as this lonely boy, and with the resolve of a demigod she made up her mind. "What if there was a better way, where nobody had to die?"

"There is no other way," the boy said placidly.

"You don't know that," said the girl with a snort. "The world is broad, and you have seen very little of it. How did the wizard know to contain the evil spirit when you were a baby?"

The boy frowned, puzzled. He did not know the answer to the question, not being a wizard. "He is a wizard. He knows many things."

"Does he know how to permanently contain or destroy the monster?" The girl pressed.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But it doesn't matter--the wizard lives far away, in a city on the eastern sea. I can't risk going to him and letting the Gale out to kill an entire city."

"Your will is strong to remain intact all these years," she insisted. "I'll go with you to keep you safe and calm until you reach the wizard. Then he can tell you what to do."

The boy was very doubtful. Nonetheless, he thought back to his old fears, where the Gale killed his sister upon its escape, where he died an agonizing death as it tore its way free. He looked at the girl with fire in her hair and a bow of light, and for the first time he wondered if his fate could be altered.

"Very well," he said eventually. "But we must hurry. When my sister finds me gone, she will hunt us down."

The two of them left the hidden valley with great haste, and turned their faces east.

~*~

The journey east was a long one, but not as arduous as the girl had feared. With the boy by her side the steps seemed light, and the wind was always at their back. During the day, they walked or rode with whoever was willing to take them. At night, the boy sang to the wind and the wind sang back to him, carrying news of the world and all the things within it. Sometimes the girl would join him in song, voice light and shining the way her mother had taught her. Sometimes she would dance to the wind's music. Most nights, though, she would speak to the boy about all manner of things--her fate to become a star, the stories she had learned when she was small, the dreams of light and shadow which followed all demigods.

In turn, the boy would speak back to her of the tiny creatures of the rocky valley, and the songs of air, and the play of the breeze with the ocean spray. He told her of the chains and walls in his mind crafted of his will, and the techniques by which they were forged. Little by little, the girl realized she would not be able to bring herself to kill him. More and more she began to keep the bow away and hidden, until she began to forget it was with them at all.

It was almost with disappointment that they reached the city upon the sea where the wizard lived. He was staying in a small street named for the cedar tree, and the boy and the girl eventually knocked upon his door with equal parts fear and hope.

The wizard was a very wicked wizard from the southern islands, but the boy had told her her could be easily appeased with the proper offering. Thus, when the wizard opened the door, the girl bowed and presented him with a bottle of fine rum and a book of love poems.

"Wise wizard," she began. "We have traveled very far in the hopes of gaining your aid. My friend is under a curse--he has inside him an evil spirit named Gale With A Thousand Teeth. Did you bind this spirit when he was a baby?"

The wicked wizard snatched the book and the bottle from the girl before grinning at the boy. "So I did. I remember you, little blue-eyes. Your mother paid fifty years of her life in exchange for my aid then. Have you come to request I do it again?"

The boy looked at him with eyes wide. "Would you do it if I paid whatever price you asked?"

The wizard cackled. "Such an enchantment is well beyond my power, little blue-eyes! It's too far gone now: the spirit must be slain or released. Should you select the latter, I would appreciate some warning--the slaughter of a city is quite a melodrama, and as such best seen from a safe distance."

"How can we kill the spirit?" The girl asked. "It's inside him, and I don't want him to die too."

"Wanting something does not always make it so," retorted the wizard. "The Gale With A Thousand Teeth is a child of the wind god, much like your friend here. When does wind cease to be wind and become simple air?"

"When it stills," answered the boy with a frown. "Do you mean that...to kill the spirit, I have to stop breathing?"

The girl lit up with fury. "You can't just say he has to die! There has to be a way for him to live and also slay the spirit!"

The wizard watched her shrewdly, and for once in his long life his cold heart was warmed by her passion. While the boy walked away dejected, the wizard caught the girl by the arm and added in a cryptic tone: "Darkness begets darkness, and light begets light. So too with life. This is all I can give you, little firebrand." With that, he shut the door and locked it.

Confused and miserable, the girl followed the boy to a park in the middle of the city, where they sat on a bench and watched the strengthening breeze tug on the trees.

"He was a useless wizard," the girl complained. "Wizards are supposed to be clever and help people."

"You can't blame him," the boy told her, looking morose. "There are some problems that can't be fixed. I should have known it from the beginning, before we wasted so much time and effort on the journey. I should have known better than to try, to hope..."

The girl watched with dreadful sorrow as the boy began to weep beside her. A moment later, however, sorrow turned to alarm: as he wept, the wind grew stronger and stronger, answering him not with song, but with a terrible shriek.

"What have you done to him!" A woman shouted. The girl turned to see a ferocious looking women a few years older than her who had the boy's build and complexion. She was armed to the teeth, a map and compass were clutched in her hand, and her eyes blazed with rage. "You have broken my brother's calm and taken him to the middle of a city! You have doomed everyone!"

"I only wanted to help him!" Cried the girl. "He is innocent and doesn't deserve the curse!"

"Innocence and just deserts have nothing to do with fate!" Scolded the sister. "I spent years keeping him safe in a tranquil home where he can be safe. You have undone it all!"

"Oh, oh!" The boy cried out, staggering up from the bench in the howling wind. He looked at the girl and his sister with glowing blue eyes. "Please help me! I cannot kill all these people, I would rather die first."

With trembling hands, the girl withdrew the bow of starlight and nocked an arrow. The sister too raised her weapon, tears streaming down her face. Then, as one, they hesitated and lowered their weapons, remembering the happy boy who sang to them of light and air.

The wind grew louder, and both were ashamed of their weakness but could not bring themselves to kill the boy. In desperation, the boy snatched a second arrow from the girl's quiver--and plunged it into his own heart.

For a moment, the gale rose louder in the shriek of the frustrated, furious spirit. Then all was calm.

The girl knelt by the body of the boy and touched his face. The electric blue of his eyes had faded to black, and she closed them with her hand.

"It wasn't supposed to be like this," the girl said through her tears. "I was going to cure him and save him. Monsters are supposed to die, not kindhearted boys who would give up their lives to keep evil away."

"A fine job you've done of that," spat the boy's sister. "He could have lived for years yet in peace and happiness if you hadn't lured him here. Why did you disturb us? What did you care?"

The girl looked at her starlight bow and cast it aside in shame. As she did, though, she noticed her skin was glowing. The light grew stronger and stronger, and the girl felt lighter and lighter, and she realized with a start that the god of light was keeping his promise: the arrow from the starlight bow had slain the monster. She was becoming a star.

As she glowed brighter, the wizard's words echoed her ears: Light begets light. So too with life. With a start she understood, and she leaned down and pressed her lips against his open mouth.

Into the boy's mouth she sent living breath, the light and song of a star, the very divine nature that could live forever. Air became wind, and light became life. The light began to fade, and the white and gold of divinity faded from the girl's hair, leaving human red behind. As she finished the breath, her skin was once more pale and human, and her limbs trembled with fatigue.

She could not help but smile, however, when the boy's eyes opened, a simple human black.

"You saved me," the boy said with a cough. "You gave up your destiny as a star. Why?"

The girl had no answer for a long moment. Eventually, however, she said: "There are many stars. There is only one you. And knowing you has been much better than being a demigod--or a star."

The boy smiled at her and said nothing, simply taking her hand.

"What are you going to do now that you aren't fated to die?" The girl asked after a moment.

"I don't know," the boy answered. "What are you going to do now that you aren't fated to ascend?"

"I don't know," the girl answered.

The boy considered her for a second, then laughed with delight. "Well then! If neither of us know what to do, there's only one option."

"What's that?" Asked the girl.

"Find out."