Task 2: Meeting the Lady

For

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The stone is a strange little bauble.

Within the orange stone are small flecks of black connected by thread-thin cracks that made it look like a checkmark. It's crystal clear and cut smoothly, much like a piece of amber, but it's just too sturdy for that to be the truth. There are also no bubbles, no clouds, no other inclusions at any point in the stone. Barus cannot even begin to guess what kind of gemstone that it could be, but the inch and a half wide cabochon had caught his fascination so strongly that he wants more than anything to know about it.

He can't explain the fascination, although part of it could have come from how it came to him; the beautiful piece sitting proudly in the locker that he habitually used at the gym. On any other day, with any other piece, he would have turned it in to the lost and found. He knew that he should have, that it wasn't his to keep despite it being in what he considered to be his locker. The problem was that the very thought of doing so was enough to turn his stomach and make him ill. The abrupt sensation of ownership is unlike anything he'd ever felt before.

And so Barus had tucked the piece into his dufflebag with a quiet promise to himself that he would keep an eye out for any missing item posters around the gym, and carried on about his day. Now, in the dark of night and leaning against the banister on the front porch, he finds himself digging it out and inspecting it yet again.

The silver-colored metal that it was set in is warmer than he expected, and as he raises it up to the sky he cannot help but note that it almost looks like it's glowing. In fact, if not for the color, it looks like it could be a part of the sky behind it. The warmth from the stone seems to spread down his arm to settle in his chest, and it makes him smile.

He's been staring at the stone for so long that it almost seems like there's a reflection in it, but that can hardly be true; a reflection would have been of himself not the elegant woman he's caught a glimpse of. Her hair is long and dark, and her skin is darker than his own. She's dressed in fancy dress and draped in blue stones-- more to the point, he finds her so familiar that he can almost hear her voice as she smiles at him.

"It's time, Canes Venatici. It's time."

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I would like to point out that this isn't my original idea for how it happened, it's just the way it turned out after thinking about it on my Weekly Walk Home (it's an almost three hours walk from work to home, and I do it once a week because I'm a sucker for punishment apparently) which might be why the drawing looks kinda awkward but whatever! I like the way the Lady came out, even in Barus looks like a HUGE FUCKING DORK (proportions, what are those?)

The Lady of the Stars is the creation of nickyflamingo for Constellation-Senshi