Tahlia's Starlit Magic

It was the first time Tahlia had ever seen a star fall. She shivered in excitement, the goosebumps on her arms growing more accentuated as the lone point of light plummeted to the earth; she held her breath as it came closer, and closer - until it splashed into a river in front of her home.

Tahlia watched, breathless. The star's fire died down, and then there was only darkness - a blackness that made her eyes hurt, and her heart ache. It was a blackness that lingered long after the rest of the sky had faded from the blackest of blues to a deep blue-violet just before dawn.

She almost didn't notice the star begin to shine again; small at first, but then brighter than any star she'd ever seen before. She blinked at it, and found that when she opened her eyes again, there was something else in front of her: another star, this one much larger than the first - and much closer to her home. It seemed to be hovering above the ground not far away. A smaller one darted out of it and flew around in front of her face before vanishing back inside its mother.

Tahlia giggled softly and reached out to touch it. Her hand passed through it without feeling anything more substantial than air; she pulled back quickly and stared up at it. It was so close to her that she could see that there were thousands of stars inside it, all dying slowly but steadily like all the other stars did until they were silent and dark once more - except this one shone with a brilliance that made even the brightest of stars seem dull by comparison.

She turned around slowly, taking in the sight of the star-fallen cow standing nearby; its legs folded beneath it like a deer about to take flight would have its legs folded beneath it, its long horns twisted back over its body like those of a bull ready for battle would twist back over its head - but instead of fur or hide or scales, its skin was made up entirely of stars, each one shining with a light more brilliant than any other in the sky. Its eyes glowed with a golden light so bright that Tahlia had to look away from them; she didn't think she'd ever seen anything so beautiful before in all her life. Not even when she'd been able to see for herself how beautiful everything truly was - before all the other little children had started withering away until there were none left but herself left on their planet to remember what things had looked like when they'd still been living well enough to grow taller than most adults who cared for them. All because their sun wasn't strong enough anymore to give them everything they needed to live like normal people.

The star-cow's eyes suddenly began glowing brighter still; Tahlia couldn't look away from them this time despite how painful they felt against her own eyes as they came closer and closer until they were right in front of hers - until she saw nothing else but two gleaming points of golden light staring into her very soul with joy and warmth and happiness that made tears spring up behind her eyelids and spill onto her cheeks even as something warm flowed into her mouth instead of water or sweetened milk or soup like all she could usually get anymore whenever she touched this cow's horns or face or hooves...

...and then everything went dark once more, save for the blinding golden glow that made everything look washed out like an overexposed photograph too bright for human eyes...