“When were you born?” She asks the thing inside her, one year when she is feeling raw and alone— alone, save for that which she most and least understands.

When the morning star and evening star crossed paths, married and became one, I first burned in the sky.

Mina sighs. Even her clearest memories of that life are mosaics of myth and reality, pieced together to value beauty over truth. “Did you have calendars back then? Moon years, or something similar?”

Her arms cross, an action of the thing. Such distinctions were superfluous.We marked Our Princess’s christening day and little else.

“So she got a birthday, and you got a legend?”

The thing smiles with Mina’s lips. Which would you choose, if you could?

Utterly different, utterly the same. Mina smiles the same smile.

I was conscious some of the time, waiting for you, the thing says unprompted. All I knew had died, and I listened to the ages of the world pass until I could merge with a new star. Your ascent on my horizon is a date worth noting.

Mina can feel the thing’s loneliness eclipse her own. A void of nothing, and then one tiny light— her light, the third star of Venus. In memory she is overwhelmed with wonder, disgust, gratitude and abhorrence. Her own feelings, mirrored.

“You’re using a lot of words to say you’ve co-opted my birthday as your own.”

It passes the time.

Mina looks up to the clock, reminded at the perfect moment to see it cross into midnight. “Well, happy re-birthday, then.”

Happy birthday.

For a rare moment, they are at peace with one another, and the world. Mina closes her eyes and lets the thing have her body, lets it feel the quiet night, the warm blankets, the soft sleepiness building behind her eyes. In the light of day, they will be at war again, but here, while the morning and evening stars have crossed paths, they are one.