There once was a star named Lumi,
A tiny speck of stardust who loved to play hide and seek in the evening sky.
Every night after the moon rose and the clouds parted,
The stars would gather in little clusters and play their favourite games,
Twinkle tag,
Comet races,
And of course,
Hide and seek.
Lumi wasn't the fastest or the brightest,
But she was the best at hiding.
She would tuck herself behind passing comets or curl into the shadows of silver clouds.
One night,
She floated a little too far and drifted away from the others without noticing.
The game went quiet.
Lumi peeked out from behind a sleepy cloud,
And the sky was empty.
The other stars were gone.
The moon was rising higher,
And a breeze was pulling her down,
Down.
She drifted lower and lower,
Until her soft glowing light slipped through the clouds and floated gently down towards the earth.
Lumi landed in the quiet corner of a village where everything was still.
She blinked her tiny light,
Afraid to wake anyone.
Children were curled in their beds,
Cats stretched in windows.
The trees barely moving.
She tiptoed across a rooftop,
Her glow barely a shimmer.
She glided past an owl who blinked at her slowly,
Then tucked his head beneath his wing.
She whispered through a garden of sleeping flowers,
Their petals closed tight.
She didn't know how to get back.
The wind changed direction,
Soft and warm,
Brushing her gently towards the hills.
There,
A moonbeam reached down like a silver thread.
Lumi followed it up and up,
Slowly rising with the soft breath of the night.
She floated past the rooftops,
Past the sleepy owl,
Past the clouds that no longer drifted.
She rose higher,
Blinking gently in case the other stars could see her.
And there they were,
Her friends twinkling,
Waiting,
Laughing softly when they saw her tiny light return.
Lumi curled into her favourite spot between two quiet stars and gave one last little blink.
Down below,
No one stared.
No one even knew the sleepy star had wandered,
Except the owl perhaps.
And high above,
The game of hide and seek began again,
As it always did,
Softly,
Slowly.
