Aster has forgotten how old she is. How many sunrises and sunsets she had watched?
When the world was new, or at least far newer than it is now. Aster and her EverTree were only saplings amongst a world full of creation and its masters. When elder things and primordials still occasionally wandered the land, watering the ground with pieces of themselves and molding clay and earth into new things. Back then everything was a different day, there was always something new, something unknown. Before the flowers had been named, and the sky decided what color it wished to shine. Before the very edges of the Flux stabilized into one solid dimension.
In a world so new and free, Aster had her first visitor.
He wasn't much older, might have even been younger. Time is so strange once it losses its meaning. But he was like her, so very new in a world ruled by things woven by the forever. They were smaller then, both unsure of their roles and selves. Aster doesn't remember the shape she took back then, more tree than humanoid, but she can't recall where her branches ended and her hair began nor where her feet melded into the roots below. Her companion was similar, constantly shifting which features and traits he had. One sunrise he would be dark as earth with spun golden hair, the next skin of snow and hair of fire, and after that he would color himself in the shades of the summer sunset. But there was one feature he always possessed, wings of soft-tilled brown, dotted freckles of white and black on his more prominent flight feathers.
He was always flying about back then, just as Aster lived more with her tree than away from it. He would soar too high in the sky to watch, brushing his wings against the rough unfinished edges of the Flux, and Aster would watch from below, helpless and breathless, always afraid this flight would be the one where he flew too close. But he would always swoop back down before her worry could grow, and would always find a perch amongst her branches.
Then he would stay there, twinned amongst her leaven hair for time before there was time. They would talk about all the new things they had found, about the other new beings like them, about anything and everything. He would bring her stories that the other Fea would whisper to the winds, and in turn, she would tell him of the earth and of the things the plants and bees had taught her. Other times they would just rest, comfortable in each other and they would watch stars blink into creation and mountains rise and fall along the distance.
Even back then, when Fae were few and far, but growing slowly, the importance of true names was still heavy. Aster is not sure when they decided to start using names like the other Fae. Each of them knew what they were and what the other was, they never had a need for names when it was only the two of them. But at some point, it wasn't only them, others would visit her tree seeking shelter and guidance and he would bring other smaller feathered Fae to rest in her boughs.
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Though she does not remember when they started addressing each other with names that held meaning and power, she does remember the names they gave. True names hold the most power over Fae, the names that mean everything of what you are. Creation was still writing itself around them, she didn't know what her true name was, what separated her from the soil and sky. But her little bird did.
He had looked at her with a shine to his eyes, more than he needed back then. Eyes were always so interesting to him that he tended to collect them as easily as she dotted her branches with flowers and vines. Later he would adjust to the other smaller Fae around him and would only hold two, but this day he had many, all a bright vibrant blue. He had tilted his head, his dozen wings rustling with thought, and as he gazed at her like he did so often, a word came to his lips, "Aster".
She could feel something shift, something settle, and there was something different about the world. Aster, she knew, that was her now. She looked up at her little bird who was watching her intently, also unsure of what had truly happened, she smiled back and – "Sparrow".
His wings fluttered behind him as if he was going to leap into the sky, but he only clenched his talons tighter around her branches. He was Sparrow now, same for the little birds that would follow him to her tree. Just as she and her flowers were Aster.
Aster would learn far later, once all the creators had left their creations to wander the world they had left, once the EverTree had become something both separate and yet still her, once cites started to stretch across that land, that giving each other a name was something unique to them. They had done something special, but even now Aster is not entirely sure what that special was. They were so young and yet so ancient amongst the world they lived, Aster could never define herself, could not bring herself to tear down the weave to spin her own creation, but she would do it for Sparrow. And so, she ripped his name from the soil and roots and sky and stars.
They had given each other a name, torn it from the fabric of creation with hands too young to know what they were doing, and presented it at the other's feet like a bloody trophy of war hard fought. There would be no going back. They had been named now, their existences solidified into the weave of forever and everything.
After that Aster would greet her friend, "Sparrow" she would say, always with a smile, and he would shiver every time, still unused to the name being everything that was him. He would rustle his feathers, stretch his too many wings, blink his too many eyes, and would say, "Aster", back with a smile of his own.