Solace in the Beyond PV Archer D.

The stars were eternal.

Whenever he missed home, Archer was told to look up at the canvas of the night sky, lit bright by a million dying suns of different solar systems, for despite their rotations and their flickers, it was the stars that never changed among the turmoil, always shedding their light down to the earth in the darkest of times. The world, with all the misery and trouble it brought, was not a forgiving place, but the skies — the skies, up above and out of reach — offered some sort of solace despite its distance. Perhaps it was this very distance itself that kept it immortal. Even when life became tumultuous they would always draw out the same patterns in their constellations, forming great hunters and heroes, the great bear and her child.

He remembered the story his mother always used to tell him. Of Ursa Major, Ursa Minor. Archer had requested to hear it again and again, and even one he thought he would have grown sick of it by then one more time. He could have almost been certain his mother was tired of the retellings, yet each regaling only grew all the more exciting, and as he grew older, all the more saddening. Eventually, he had realised, it was the story of a mother who tried to do everything for her child, her life a mere side effect in the process.

How he remembered the nights where they would lie on the rooftop together, having climbed out through the attic window with a basket of assorted breads, fruits, and cheeses, wobbling slightly on the unsteady tiles — and then they would name their own constellations, make up stories so absurd he could have laughed now. They had pointed up, his mother’s hand holding his as they traced the outlines of the stars, their own, they proclaimed, with such pride it ought to have resounded throughout the entirety of the isle. That protruding beak and those august wings — that was the falcon; that little head attached to the child’s body with the bow and quiver — that was the archer; that lopsided man with the star suit and the bird of prey at his arm — that was them both. Little by little they formed their own mythologies.

And that was the point of mythology. Carved in stone, retold by generations. It was a forever… right?

Archer was still in search for that forever, always in search for that forever. He would never give up the endeavour of the stars. He had gazed at them with those pensive eyes for as long as he could remember, from that night he was born with tears welling up and sobs crying out to now, when he climbed the steps of the astronomy tower, carrying nothing but a sole pen and a piece of paper in his pocket, for today, he did not intend to observe nor analyse, but simply to exist with, and to allow himself to be peaceful with that existence.

It had been far too long since he had simply sat with these stars above, allowing himself to bask in their glory.

He pushed open the door to the highest observation deck, a gentle creaking made with wood against metal, before realising someone had already occupied the space. Yet the boy was undeterred as he took cautious steps towards the edge of the deck, boots clicking on stone despite his best attempt to silence his footfalls. His eyes could not help but wander to the skies above, and his heart even further.

His usual seat was still there, waiting for him, the imposing castle arches casting long shadows in the moonlight. Near the edges were railings just barely short enough to push oneself onto, just barely thick enough to sit on comfortably. For the past nights he had spent under the astronomy tower skies, it had been his home. Perhaps this was what home was. Lethal, yet he always returned to it anyway. He climbed up onto it, the perilous position familiar despite its treacherous location — no safety terraces, just the endless expanse of night below and a fall that would surely be nothing but deadly.

He ought to be cautious — that was a thought that had never crossed his mind.

But oh dear Archer, dear, oblivious Archer… even stars die.

@Erast Yan | banner by Adeline Spinks

"Falling, sinking deeper and deeper into the uncharted abyss..." Date: November 2025 A response for: @Archer Duncan

It was said that the Aquila constellation is symbolic of the power of the Roman king of the gods, Jupiter. The famous tale of how Jupiter transformed into a mighty eagle in the abduction of the Trojan prince, Ganymede. It was representative of unrivaled strength and willpower. He spent years tracing its pattern on his charts, reciting the tale his mother had told him, and praying for the strength to break free from his cage.

Now, thrust into the vast world that he had yearned for, Erast found himself praying again for the same strength to stay in that freedom, searching for comfort in the skies beyond to survive this creeping loneliness. Just as his finger began absently tracing the beginning of the eagle’s wings on the cold floor, footsteps approached. The brunet shot to his feet. The astronomy professor? Had he been caught? He tensed at the door opening, bracing himself.

In strode a slender teenager, not the adult Erast had expected. He was a brunet like himself, tall in height, with an angular face that blurred the youthfulness within. The stranger was not a professor or a member of the school staff. Not a prefect either, to his knowledge. Erast blinked as he was swiftly ignored, watching the teenager walk further up onto the deck. He stared after the mysterious teenager, an odd sense of comfort settling in when he saw an appreciative gaze being offered to the night sky. A fellow lover of the skies and stars? Erast blinked again, curiosity prickling. A rare few knew how to appreciate the study of astronomy. His mother said so. He, too, had yet to meet anyone who yearned for and adored the skies for its nightly gift to the world as much as he did. Could it be true that destiny has drawn in a kindred soul? Excitement buzzed as he trailed the older boy from a distance. He must find out.

However, with each step the stranger took, chilling confusion took wonder's place. Further and further the other walked, nearer and nearer to the railings he went. Then, at the edge, the older boy leaped. Erast’s heart stopped. The stranger landed atop the railings, perched precariously on it. The railings weren't meant to be used like that. He has seen the distance down. It was a death wish, an accident waiting to happen.

Fear took root. Erast has heard the stories: Aching souls with hearts so heavy that they depart within the blink of an eye. Surely not. His legs moved before his mind. A rush of a breeze, then the brush of fabric in his hands. It was the stranger’s sleeve in his grasp, the sensation catching his mind up with his body.

“You mustn't.” His voice was but a whisper, gunmetal blue eyes wide with alarm. Words always seemed to be so out of reach in the face of such a scene. He only tightened his grip, giving the sleeve the lightest of tugs backwards. A silent request.

Trigger Warning: dark humour regarding suicide

“You mustn’t.”

The voice of another cut through their truce of silence, the atmosphere of the Astronomy Tower’s quietude silenced in an instant of protective instinct. The interjection was sharp, authoritative. Archer’s breath hitched, then fell, controlled by the strings of fate he was not quite sure what wanted him to do. He glared into the distance, at the unforgiving twinkling of the stars and the low hanging moon above and a part of him understood. This life. This purpose. Suddenly, the other’s words hot too the touch, his soul comprehended before his mind, and his body almost followed the calling of his spirit rather than his psyche.

Instead, he uttered a mere word. “Quoi?” A delayed response, but blatant bewilderment had been the first emotion that seized Archer, so much so that he let slip out the word of questioning in another language entirely, a world removed from his rational counterpart’s. Feeling the immediate offence of touch, Archer’s free hand rushed to remove Erast’s fingers clinging onto his sleeve as if trying to anchor a floating boat back to shore. With a gentle tug his sole connection to the material world, his lone word a silencing keystone between the arch that they built, he turned a reluctant head backwards to meet those eyes — such a deep reckoning in them, such a powerful request, he could not help but swing one leg back onto solid ground. He regarded the boy’s insistence with a face of bafflement, and spoke no further words for beating moments.

Then, as if overtook by an urge of recklessness, Archer turned his eyes downwards, blinking lashes flashing a deep black in the night. Suddenly, as the wind blew his hair into his eyes, he realised Erast’s undeniable panic, and a heart of ice was almost touched by licking fire. To the stray passerby, a boy sitting on the edge of a tower doubtlessly seemed to have plans other than admiring the constellations above, for not everyone’s balance — and will — was not as strong as Archer’s. To say the idea had enticed him was an understatement; he had shared dances with death unscathed, and played winning games of poker with his psyche as the chips being gambled. He could never put Erast to blame for assuming the worst; rather, he ought to appraise him for his eyesight for danger.

“Relax, kid,” he reassured, and let out a laugh of relief for his own self. “I think I’ll save that for another day.”

“You seem to be quite the endearing child,” he observed with the clean efficiency of a researcher, a slight furrow of his brows emerging as he scrutinised the boy, shielded by the darkness of night. His figure was a mask of unclarity, yet from the ivory of his skin to the melancholy scrawled across a face in languidness, as Archer’s gaze wandered to meet his, he was faced with a colour strikingly opposite to his own rich hazel brown. If eyes could be angular, the deep flecks of gunmetal blue in his were, and if a look could be killing, the boy looked more like his pain’s perpetrator than saviour. But there was something hidden beyond the stark coldness of his faerie exterior, the open fields of valley after the treacherous mountain hikes, blooming wildflowers and clear cerulean sky. Archer harboured a whim he was just two steps away from showing the eternal flame that burnt within his heart’s glacier. A few swift cast glances later, he settled his eyes back on the stars, yet his heart could not move on.

He was almost touched when the stranger’s fingers graced his wrist, the same arm that bore reminders of the scars of a foolish past. He had flinched away on instinct, yet there was nothing more he wanted than to drown in the outsider’s grip. He was merely a viewer into a life he could never understand, yet his presence was almost comforting, and at that, Archer smiled, not a sly twist of the lips or a forced laugh from the throat rather than belly, but rather a truth he would never admit aloud. He sighed, but this tie, it was content.

“I hope that wasn’t too traumatising for you,” he said, cocking his head with a sliver of a smirk sneaking up his lips. Replaying the innocence of his reaction, the sudden shock followed by immediate action, from the hand on his sleeve to the pleading that laid between them, in words unspoken, he just hoped dearly he had not shaken the foundations of a growing mind, and planted his darkness in the heart of a pre-teen child. He shifted his shoulders, pointed them away from the soft edges of the other’s cheeks, and flicked his gaze up to the stars, who twinkled with second-hand awkwardness at their earthlings’ exchange. He who brought a wave of corruption wherever he graced, met with a boy whose first inclination was an urge to assist, did not deserve the attention of his antithesis. He did not deserve to promise someone safety in a world where he was the active danger.

Something, however, possessed Archer to reach out: “Archer Duncan,” he introduced plainly, devoid of titles or accolades. Then, as emotion overtook rationality, he extended an arm, both for a handshake of acknowledgement, and a beckoning for his company.

Perhaps, for once, he could bid this starlike solitude adieu.

@Erast Yan | banner by Adeline Spinks

"Falling, sinking deeper and deeper into the uncharted abyss..." TRIGGER WARNING: Humour regarding and allusions to themes of suicide (implied) A response for: @Archer Duncan

The Universe never paused for the whims of the few. That was reality; irrefutable, irrefragable, eternal. Reality taught that silence always spoke louder than the words of the insignificant. Life has proven as much. The decade spent concealed in the shroud of scorn has stripped his speech and rendered it weightless, reducing his words to merely a feather’s lick against others. Yet, the instant those words tumbled from his tongue, the world fell silent with a force so heavy that even stars seemed to stare unblinking. Significance, and this weight, was frightening.

Tense lines defined the unturned back faced towards him. The angles drew sharp; a hitched breath, then released. There was no indication of whether he was heard, or if that tensed figure was mere seconds away from leaning into the tempting sway of the night winds and falling into the forever embrace of the ground far, far below. Erast's hands twitched at the thought. Surely not. Not here. Then, as if awareness finally hit, a blunt, bewildered sound in a language that he could not comprehend shattered the silence. Is this… French? Spanish? What did it mean? What should he say? It caught him off-guard, so much so that the hand that snapped up to disentangle his own was able to do so without resistance. Panic pulsed in his chest in the absence of fabric in his palm. It clogged up his throat, washing his next words down into an airy, accented mess. “Sorry, I… I don't understand.” Confusion for the unknown language bled into the worry over the stranger's precarious positioning on the railings.

Sheer willpower kept his hands still at his side, unsure of what reaction would be sparked by another attempt at reaching out. His thoughts felt scattered, words akin to fine grains of sand falling through the cracks despite his earlier instinctive request. Thankfully, speaking became unnecessary because the stranger shifted on his own. One leg fell back to the side of safety, and a hint of determination sparked in the younger boy's heart. The instant he raised his gaze, Erast’s shoulders stiffened instantly at the other's expression. The shadow of a past night threatened to slip over his mind's eye; a night almost a mirror reflection to this night, where another face turned towards him, softened with confusion yet heavy with melancholy, illuminated only by the gentle glow of the same starry sky.

“Relax, kid.” The switch back to English was almost jarring, pulling the world back into focus. The understanding that came with the spoken words was a small comfort, and Erast braved a glance at the other boy's eyes. A complex, pretty mix of brown enhanced by flecks of a brighter gold and olive. The intensity of those eyes was startling, as if brewing with a perpetual tempest, seconds away from imploding and taking its host. There were reassuring words spoken aloud, but in came a sneaking feeling that he was being lied to, or at least being coaxed away from the entire truth. At this moment, he felt wholly inadequate to live up to his bold command just minutes prior. What could fiction and the life of closeted dishonour do to help a situation like this?

Erast's shoulders drew tight at the laugh accompanying the next words. ‘Another time?’ His expression contorted into a frown that bordered on a confused pout. There would not be another time, not on this tower, beneath such a lovely sky. To imagine another instance of such a scare and dance with death would strip a soul of future pursuits of freedom and happiness, deprive a person of a life that could bring so much more… He almost felt upset on the other's behalf. Erast would have made another silly comment, perhaps a rebuttal to that foreboding comment, but the stranger spoke first. Truly, it was an innocent claim, a flattering one even. Not many described him with such a positive word. The words were like a hook, piercing his mental barriers and yanking the wisps of the lingering shadow to the surface. A blink, a breath. Before him, suddenly it was no longer a boy on the railings before him, but a familiar, softer figure on an open windowsill. Umber brown, wavy locks and features almost a mirror to his own, a shocked, infinitely loving expression ever tainted with melancholy gazing down at him from the open windowsill. “Endearing.” That was what she called him, too; that day, in the dead of night at the family's owlery, surrounded by hundreds of letters marked with a crest he could not recognise. A harsh blink blurred that gentle face, angles sharpening back into reality. He drew a tiny breath of cold, dry air. Allowing his eyes to drift over the other’s shoulder ever so slightly, Erast allowed himself comfort in the presence of his twinkling companions overhead, who, through strife and fright, will always remain a comforting constant, a forever blanket over his world. Phantom pangs withdrew its thorns from his heart, washing away with the cool embrace of the late-night breeze. The spark of warmth helped coax his regular, crescent-eyed smile back to the surface. “Hardly, but I'm glad someone thinks so.”

Tension bled out of Erast as the older boy tilted his head towards him, watching as the hints of a smirk seemed to reveal a sort of underlying playfulness beneath that sullen exterior. Smiles are good. Looking at the other's steady gaze at the sky, the last of that dark shadow dissipated, sinking back deep into unreachable depths. It became easier to believe in those earlier words of reassurance that this was, truly, just a misunderstanding. Ever the malleable mirror, Erast let out a playful huff and made an attempt to bounce off the now lighter atmosphere, “How silly. It would be disappointing if I am so easily shaken, you know. That’s not important anyway.”

Erast had expected their exchange to continue this way, for this to become a repartee of sorts. He had even braced for a slow conversation, a subtle melting of the frigid air into something warmer, before trying to yank the stranger the rest of the way back from that concerning choice of perch. Even with reassurance, Erast had learnt better than to rest until safety was guaranteed. He had planned to do so, until the stranger extended his arm. The world paused at the introduction. Suddenly, the boy on the railings became Archer Duncan, a stranger no longer. He blinked, and looked behind his shoulders. Oh. He has never gotten an invite before. Excitement surged at the realisation. It fizzled in his veins and blossomed on his expression, like firecrackers lighting up a winter's sombreness. For a moment, mental notes and rationale discarded themselves at the wayside, and he stepped closer, taking the offered hand. His grip was light, but steady despite the unfamiliarity of a larger hand on his own.

He shook Archer’s hand, “Erast. Erast... Yan.” Looking to the railings, he pondered the potential consequences for a moment. Ah, why does it matter? Lending the other’s strength with a soft apology, he propped himself onto the flat surface of the railings next to Archer. The sudden distance from the balcony was startling at first, if not a little exhilarating. The view of the castle, and the far, far way down? Terrifying. Lingering fear of what he had done, and what could happen, threatened to bleed into the bubbling euphoria of being on equal grounds, and so, both his legs remained cautiously thrown towards the side of safety. Yet, against his better judgement, he shoved it down in favour of a glance over at the faint glow of constellations overhead, and suddenly, all doubts were doused with a blanketing tranquility.

“I get it– Why you like this spot,” Erast hummed, words slipping off his tongue before he could stop them, “There are much better views of the stars in life worth perishing for though...” A moment of silence as he trailed off. He registered his audience, and it dawned on him. He slapped a hand over his mouth as panicked mortification pricked at his skin. He scrambled to find better words, to apologise for such insensitive rambles, but his mind drew a painful blank. His eyes flitted between Archer and the path to the exit of the Astronomy Tower, worried that whatever little good will given to him had become poisoned in his hands again.