A Flaming Furnace Of Radiant Stars and A Torrential Tempest Of Transcendent Femininity

The Haunted House, December 13th

Maria, Elena and Sapphire sat in mentally constructed table in their mind. Sapphire says to the two asserting faerself “I am going to confess my feelings to Astra when they get over here. I need you two to go to sleep.”
Elena groans “but I want to be the hostess, I made...”
Maria interrupts “We’ve been too emotional is the problem, feelings bleeding out.”
Sapphire quickly says “It’s not like y’all feeling your feelings is bad, just, for this I want to be feeling like myself and I can handle serving food or talking about swords or whatever. If I need you I’ll wake you up.”
Elena nods her head and hugs Sapphire “Totally, it makes sense. I’m sorry Sapphire.”
Sapphire hugs back and assures Elena “You have every reason to be upset, I am too. Nothing's gonna stop us Elena.”
Elena grabs Maria’s hand and waves goodbye to Sapphire with Maria before fading into the darkness.
Sapphire snaps back to reality, the kitchen alarm goes off and she dashes to the oven pulling out the star shaped cookies. Fae takes a deep breath and then runs over to the mirror to make sure they look okay. Purple Pig Tails looking cute and fluffy, check, cute trans pride dress, check, sapphic flag nails, check, make up fabulous as fuck, check. Good, Sapphire was ready to roll and with...a couple of seconds to spare given the average amount of time it took Astra to fly here on Nebulim. Sapphire opens the door hoping faer timing was just right and that it be cute and impressive.

Unfortunately, when fae opens the door, no one is there. A few seconds go by, and only then Astra turns up having shot straight down from the sky on their Nebulim, as they land on the path in front of the house.

“Heya Sapphire!” They greet, combing a hand through their now bright light blue short hair to style it up a bit after it got a bit tussled in the wind. “Sorry if I came a bit late, I was practicing some loop-the-loops in the air for a bit on the way.”

They stove away Nebulim in their pocket as they walk up to the door to the haunted house. “So, what’s up? You wanted to see my new look?”

Sapphire felt like a clown opening the door thinking fae knew Astra like that. That changed though the second Astra appeared they were blushing. Sapphire compliments Astra “You are looking extra cute.”
Sapphire quickly regains focus from gay vision and adds “I wanted to hear how the new look happened and stuff, we just got back from space a little while ago...also there is something I’ve been wanting to talk to you about for a while.”
“Thanks!” Astra beams at the compliment. “Yeah, it was a wild story, I can’t wait to tell it to you. And you have one as well, right? With the whole space thing you mentioned on Chitter? So cool.”

Astra skips into the house. “Oh and uh,.. something you wanna talk about? Is it serious?”

Sapphire closes the door and then grabs a star cookie letting Astra know “We made this with space flour. We got back a whole bunch of space stuff to try cooking with.”

Fae was clearly trying to avoid the topic for a moment but dammit, they had to just say it. Maria and Elena would do that, they are so bold and brave, you gotta be too Sapphire. Sapphire says “Well it’s not that serious, I just want to talk about my crush on you and stuff but we can talk about space and new bodies and stuff first.”

Astra just stands stunned, looking at Sapphire, until they start uncontrollably smiling and blushing. “You got a crush on me? Wow, that’s... I don’t know what to say, I didn’t expect that.” He giggles. “Um, sorry but, you can’t just say that and not expect us to immediately talk about it. Like damn, since when? Why haven’t I noticed?” They grab a cookie and start munching on it before they can babble more questions, so fae can answer.

Sapphire thinks for a moment, when did they start having a crush on Astra? Gosh it was probably before their first mission together, they looked him over trying to think of an exact moment. There were so many moments flashing in faer mind of Astra just being so cute and cool and heroic and ahhhhh. Sapphire explains “I am not sure the exact moment, I think it happened when we were touring earth stuff together and I realized how similar I felt to you but back then I wasn’t even sure I was a person?”

Fae’s feelings were so complicated, Sapphire takes another second and adds to explain “Remember when I said I knew there was other people who had a crush on you, I was one of them, not the only one but ya, I had a crush but I didn’t want to mess anything up so I didn’t say.”

Astra nods attentively as they are floating just a little bit off the ground. It was not everyday you get confessed to, especially not by someone as cool and friendly as Sapphire, so at the moment they are feeling very elated.

“Oh, that’s quite some time, huh? But I guess that makes sense why you haven’t told me sooner.” They smile. “But better late than never, that’s so rad. So... does this mean you want to go out with me? Cuz, um, I guess we completely forgot, but I haven’t actually talked with A-Vis about whether we’re cool with dating other people, I mean it’s not like we agreed to be monogamous either, but ya know, I don’t think I would want to agree to anything before I’m sure it’s cool, and I hope it is, because you’re cool and awesome, and... um... yeah.”

Sapphire nods their head, trying to think of what her headmates would do without waking them up.Maria would probably like dramatically hold a thorny flower in their mouth just right so it didn’t hurt them and romantically seduce Astra while holding a sword. Elena would maybe like, say something like *“oh gee well A-vis is a cool cat and I wouldn’t want to mess up anything for your swell relationship I just wanted you to know I’m the kind of dame that likes you” or something like that.*

Neither of those really seemed right for Sapphire though, Sapphire wanted to do this their own way, whatever way that was. Sapphire shrugs and says “I honestly wasn’t expecting much, I mean I would love to go out with you but obviously I’d never pressure you into anything, you're my friend first.”
Sapphire moves in closer and moves closer to Astra’s but not touching without permission “I just, you know, wanted that to be out there so when we hang out, if I was awkward or anything you would know why, if you and A-vis want to be monogamous that is valid. Plus I wanted to know how you felt even if we can’t do anything about it, even if it’s like eww sapphire, she is super fabulous and fem and I hate it. I just want to be honest with my feelings.”

“Ok, yeah, of course. That totally makes sense. Well, except, the ‘eww Sapphire’ bit like c’mon,” Astra giggles. “But yeah, that’s good to know. Thank you for telling me.” Astra moves in for a hug.

“Oh! I got like a movie date with Johnny after he comes out of the hospital, he got hospitalised by the way, he was really cool and saved the day, I’ll tell you about it in a bit, **but anyway** I think it’d be good to have the talk about it on the date about like where we stand with like polyamory or monogamy and how we want to go forward with that. Cuz even if he wants to be monogamous, I could go either way of course, but if he wants to, then that’s still good to clarify and such?” Astra looks to Sapphire in a way that was asking whether that made any sense.

Sapphire totally understood, at least, fae thought fae understood. Sapphire says “Ya I get it it’s like umm Boon said he’s open to polyam but their relationship is monogamous so Maria and Boon get all that heated tension between each other but don’t act on it cuz they're good people.”

Sapphire tries to envision faerself in that kind of friendship with Astra, *the dramatic starlight daggers pinning Sapphire down as they gaze into each others eyes, grinning as she raises up a sword at him haven gotten a sword lose, brood voice saying “your gonna have to try harder than that if you want to beat me” and the reply of the soft Astra voice “Oh, I can beat you all right.”*

Ya, nope, not that but maybe something else,whatever their friendship looked like, Sapphire knew fae never wanted to stop being friends with Astra even if they left this world, fae would go and visit all the time. Sapphire moves in and hugs Astra tight, closing faer eyes for a moment.

“Yeah, totally, just like Boon and Maria, *if* A-Vis wants us to be exclusive.” Astra closes his eyes as well to enjoy the hug.

A sweet and wholesome moment passes, before Astra speaks again. “So stories huh? You said something about Elena having made some food, maybe some we could share those stories over?”

Sapphire smiles, fae knew what Astra wanted from that, which was cute, well only time would tell what that stuff looked like, onto story time. She hops up on the kitchen counter grabbing a cookie and tells faer tale “So, it was a normal day like any other, we were looking super hot and cool and everyone was admiring us, most in secret which is understandable given we’re bad girls.”
She flips a pigtail and groans for a moment “Bounty who is this super shitty space facist and worse than that terrible mom and now adding a new bad thing to her list of titles, a CEO, sent the team a bunch of phones. So we went to go see that old dragon and she did some fancy talk about synergy or something at the Liminal Memorial center. ”
Sapphire’s voice shifts to an impression of Elena “Elena was all sad because Liminals like her old dead friend and also got all like, gee wiz missy, you listen here if you damage my friends memorial center I’ll destroy you. ”
Her voice returning to normal “So anyway, I think I lost the point but basically evil space dragon mom was like earth is gonna get destroyed, I’m having a totally fake redemption arc trust me, here take a ship and go to space. So we did with EliZe, Epoch, and some gay space dragons cuz like we love earth so much. Turns out some evil space witch wanted to destroy earth to kill EliZe and Maria killed a hoard of space aliens and we finished off the alien queen, got the witch to fuck off and stopped the meteor from hitting earth but the hyper drive was broken so we got stuck in space, it was probably on purpose if I had to take a guess, keep us off earth while everything went to shit.”
Fae jump off the counter and open the pantry “also we bought a bunch of space groceries while we were stuck in space so Elena could master interstellar foods.”

Astra has been listening while partaking of the cookies, which there are now plenty fewer of. “Wow, that does sound like a cool trip. But wow rude of that space witch, who would want to kill EliZe? But I’m looking forward to see what Elena can make of those, sounds super rad.

“But yes, down here on Earth, things did get close to hella fucked. So it started when A-Vis took me on a tour of the AEGIS facility, because he wanted to show it off as well as have some lunch. We had mac and cheese in the cantine there. But first he wanted to talk to this wolf guy who was destined to eat the moon somehow, despite not even being aware of how big it is, his name is Hati. They talked about Ragnarok happening soon because of the whole big winter-storm happening. So after that, we had the mac and cheese, and guess what? A-Vis gets a message about some ice-wolves and other bullshit happening near this closed museum.”

Astra floats up in a more horizontal position while leaning against one of the walls in the kitchen. “So me and him, plus Mel, Ryan, and Merlin went to it. We took Nebulim since it was faster than Mel’s Lugnut, but he didn’t think so, so we had a race. I won of course. When we got there we split into two groups, one to sneak in there, and the other to burst in and be distracting, Mel called us the ‘Kool-Aid Man Group’ and he showed me and Merlin who the Kool-Aid Man was. But anyway, we burst in there and were really awesome and cool, and fought these big dudes that were part of the Rokkr and kept us from interfering with the weird ritual they had going on with a big rune-stone. It was wild, they were pretty tough. At some point this big wolf dude got a real solid hit on me and **BAM!**” Astra smacks their fist into their hand for emphasis. “...I flew into a wall and almost passed out. In fact, I would have, I got really fucked up by that. But you know, it was looking really tough, so I didn’t feel I could just have a nap while the rest fought them, so you know I just...”

Astra makes a passing motion over their body. “...shucked the old... thingy, and made a new one. That’s how I got this new look.” They say posing in the air.

“But after that we really went on them hard, and A-Vis pulled off a really awesome stunt coordinating us all to destroy the rune-stone, which was like opening a portal to some place or another. It was really cool, but they also got some wounds from it sadly. That’s why AEGIS took them to the hospital afterwards.”

Sapphire listened intently, it sounded loaded, from chitter and everything it sure did seem like a lot happened, it’s why fae couldn’t remove the possibility that Bounty was playing nice as a move to get EliZe and Epoch off planet, after all EliZe has all her god powers and in Bounty’s mind Epoch is this amazing war hero who she heard about growing up. Then we were just, kinda brought along, although predicting them being the ones to go way unlikely, maybe, anyway, focus on Astra.

The girl+ was taken on the ride of Astra’s words, she was visually reacting including a gasp at the BAM. When the story ends Sapphire’s eyes gleam and she asks the most important question she could “Did A-vis look hot with those battle scars?”
Another moment passed and Sapphire adds “Also seems like it wasn’t just your body that changed, are you feeling any different, still feeling, Astra?”
Fae had noticed they were acting different for a while but obviously Sapphire was sensitive to that, still if anyone knew about being different or whatever it would be faer so fae wanted to make sure they were offering their ear at least.

Astra ponders for a good moment on the very important question of the hotness of A-Vis’ battle-scars. “Hm, not in the moment, no. But maybe likely when they heal?”

They float down to grab some more cookies as they continue on Sapphire’s next question. “Oh yeah, my gender changed. It’s now the flaming furnace of a radiant star instead of the glittering of the stars. So that’s cool. And yeah I think my personality changed a little, or at least I feel more willing to just go for things when I want them to happen. But I’m still the mostly the same Astra you know and crush on.” They give a cheeky wink as they bite into the cookie.

Sapphire nods their head, sounds like that was a healthy way to react to the chaos of battle, wow imagine being healthy? Fae smile wide at the rad gender and hears about the transformations. They honestly had a really cool vibe going on although they were always really cool, obviously. Sapphire teases “Good, wouldn’t want to get over you as soon as I tell you how I feel, I need to brood if you end up not being interested.”

She then laughs out loud at her own joke, stopping faerself before assuring to make sure they weren't misunderstood. “That’s a joke by the way, I am gonna be good no matter what. Plus we both got nice partners we’re dating.

Astra giggles. “Hey no, I get it. Even if you got some awesome partners, which you do, the Luminaries are hella rad, you’re still totally allowed to sulk and brood if your crush doesn’t reciprocate. I mean, that’s just how emotions work, right? At least in this situation you got some cool peeps to comfort you.” Astra smiles, now floating lazily on their back looking at Sapphire with their head upside down.

Sapphire shrugs, I mean, feels we’re complicated, it was kinda pointless to mop about people you weren’t dating right? Like, they didn’t want to date you then like, that should be that but emotions were not logical. Just, fae hadn’t been rejected before but had felt Maria and Elena both get rejected in the present and some of the more messy relationship stuff in the past. Sapphire guessed it just like, got normalized for them. Sapphire says “I guess so but I probably won’t even if you're really hot and cool, I respect your choices and anyway, I got to get second hand rejected a lot so I got practice in dealing with the emotions.”

Astra nods. “Oh yeah, makes sense.”

They spin halfway in the air so they’re stomach down, still munching on a cookie. “So these cookies were made from space groceries, right? They’re really good! Compliments to Elena. Has she made anything else yet, or is planning to?”

Sapphire shakes faer head no and informes the adorable star enby “No, she hasn’t had the time yet. These are using space flour but everything else is from earth. ”
She grabs another one for herself and notices how few are left now, Astra’s impulse control seems to be on the lower end that or regening just makes a demi-god really hungry Sapphire looked at him in his sparkling star eyes and blushed again, whatever, it was fine Elena made them for him anyway.
Sapphire pulls three aside so Maria, Elena, and EliZe could have their own but the rest were fair game for Astra. Fae lean against the fridge and suggest “I could cook if you’re really hungry?”

“Ooh, can we? I’ll totally help and stuff, but yeah I am feeling pretty hungry.” Astra giggles and floats upright closer to the ground.

Thinking about EliZe while Sapphire started getting out ingredients fae feels it’s important to tell Astra “You can totally help but I wanted to say before we totally dropped the topic. If you and A-vis decide you wanna be polyam but also that you don’t want to date me, like, that’s cool, I want you to have as many happy relationships as you want.”

“Oh yeah totes. But honestly, you’re really cool, so like,” Astra gives faer a bright blushing smile, “I do want to at least try out some dates,” they say as they start helping take out some utensils.

Sapphire blushes and grabs one of Elena’s cook books “Alright well with that, let’s decide what yummy stuff we’re going to eat, I was just taking out random stuff without direction before.”

Whatever the future held between Astra and faer didn’t matter right now, Sapphire knew as long as she spent time with her friend she would be happy.