The Smallest Star
Two hearts find each other in a world too big to face alone.
They sat on the castle roof, legs dangling over the edge, watching the stars prick holes in the velvet sky.
Cian fidgeted with a loose tile. “I don’t understand how we can mean anything.”
Aisling tilted her head. “What do you mean?”
“All of this,” he said, waving at the sky. “It’s endless. And us? We’re barely candle smoke. If I disappeared, the world wouldn’t even blink.”
She reached out, threading her fingers through his. “Then it’s lucky I’m holding on.”
He gave a dry laugh. “That helps.”
“Of course it does,” she said. “You’re not lost. You’re found.”
Cian worked in the royal castle, a low-ranking apprentice to the Master Planner. Most days he swept chalk dust from floors, ground pigments for ink, or carried messages between offices. But his favorite task was helping build the king’s massive diorama—a detailed scale model of the capital’s planned expansion.
Stone towers no taller than his thumb. Tiny bridges. Market squares no bigger than his palm. It was a world frozen in time, unmoving but full of promise.
And Cian loved it more than the real city.
He stayed late, adding flourishes no one asked for. A rooftop garden here. A fountain with carved dolphins there. At night, when the castle slept, he’d kneel beside the model and whisper, “I wish I could live in you. Where everything makes sense.”
The night it happened, moonlight spilled across the tiles. The hall was silent.
Except for a voice.
“You care so deeply for something no one else sees,” the voice said. “That’s rare.”
Cian turned.
A woman stood near the model. Pale dress like rippling silk. Silver curls flowed to her waist. She didn’t walk—she glided.
“Who—?”
“A friend,” she said. “Or a dream, if that’s easier.”
He stammered, suddenly embarrassed. “I didn’t mean— It’s just a wish. A silly one.”
“No wish is silly if it shows you who you really are.”
From her sleeve, she drew a slender wand made of glassy blue wood, tipped with a star that shimmered faintly in the candlelight.
“Would you walk those streets, if you could?”
He hesitated. “Yes.”
“Even if it meant being smaller than a mouse?”
He nodded.
She touched the wand gently to his shoulder.
The world surged like a wave.
The City of Wonder
The cobbled street stretched before him like a royal promenade. Lanterns he'd painted with a trembling brush now rose above him like real iron fixtures. The rooftops shone with lacquered slate. He walked beneath archways he had carved from walnut and set with grains of colored glass.
A bakery window glowed with golden panes—resin baked to a warm hue—its display stacked with tiny, perfect loaves. He passed a stall of carved apples, round as marbles, resting in a basket of twine.
He reached the cathedral and placed a hand on its great door, once smaller than his palm. Now it towered above him, every chisel mark a groove in the stone.
It was silent—but not dead. Reverent.
For the first time in memory, Cian felt peace. No voices barking orders. No confusing questions or lost messages. Here, every line and angle was where it should be. The world made sense.
His world.
He wandered in a kind of quiet awe, like a pilgrim in a sacred shrine. Every doorway felt familiar. Every street bore the echo of his fingerprints.
And when he turned a corner and saw the fountain—the one with the tiny dolphins he’d carved for no reason except joy—his throat tightened.
He sat on its rim. Leaned back. Smiled.
For once, he wasn't a speck in a vast and careless world.
He was a maker, walking his own creation.
A sudden draft rolled through the castle’s high, arched windows, sending a gust that knocked him sideways into a miniature fruit stall.
Then came the shadow.
A sparrow—small in the real world—had flown in through the open window and now perched on the diorama’s edge. It tilted its head, eyeing the tiny streets, and hopped down into the model’s town square.
Its claws scraped against painted tiles. With a peck, it toppled a fruit cart carved from walnut, spilling tiny wooden apples that bounced and rolled across the square like runaway marbles.
The bird peered around, twitching, alert.
And then its eye landed on him.
Cian froze.
The sparrow flapped its wings, let out a sharp chirp, and launched back into the air with a whoosh that shook dust from the rooftops.
He barely had time to breathe before the floor began to tremble.
A new shadow fell.
A hand—pudgy and curious—descended like a god’s. The king’s young grandson had returned, unsupervised, and had found his favorite plaything.
“Oops!” the child giggled, lifting a watchtower and turning it upside down to peek inside. Roof tiles tumbled. A bridge collapsed under his elbow.
Cian screamed—but the boy didn’t hear.
He ran.
Slipped beneath a fallen beam. Dove into a crack behind the city wall.
The place he built had become a cage.
The world above—a sky of giants, birds, and winds—had never felt so terrifying.
That night, he curled beneath the hollow of a broken shrine and whispered her name.
“Aisling…”
Aisling searched for him for days.
When castle servants whispered about “a flicker of light near the model,” she followed the rumor. She waited until the hall was empty. Lit a single candle. Sat beside the diorama and whispered:
“I know you’re in there.”
No reply.
She began to cry.
The candle flickered—and went out.
A cool breeze stirred the air. The woman appeared again, her eyes full of moonlight.
“You care so deeply for someone no one else sees,” the fairy said gently. “That’s rare.”
Aisling looked up, startled but unafraid. “He’s not gone. I know it. I can feel him.”
“And would you go as small as love requires?”
“I would go smaller,” she whispered.
The fairy smiled. “Then take heart.”
She lifted the star-tipped wand—and touched it to Aisling’s shoulder.
The world tilted—and shrank.
Inside the city, Aisling wandered for what felt like weeks. She called, sang, tied red thread through alleys as she searched. Her dress caught on sharp edges, her feet bled, her voice cracked.
She nearly gave up—until she heard his voice.
Weak. Hoarse.
She turned a corner and found him, collapsed beside a miniature fountain.
“Cian,” she breathed.
His eyes fluttered open.
“You came,” he rasped.
“I told you,” she said. “You’re not lost.”
She held him. The world rippled. Stone turned to light. Towers melted upward like candle wax.
They gasped—and sat upright on the floor of the castle hall. Full-sized. Whole. Holding each other like a tether.
The master planner later claimed the enchantment had been a dream. The court dismissed the tale as apprentice nonsense. But the royal diorama was never quite the same—sometimes two tiny figures could be seen sitting on a rooftop, stargazing.
And when the ache of smallness crept back in like a cold wind, he found her warm hand in his—and remembered.
It didn’t matter how vast the sky was.
He was no longer alone in it.
Epilogue – The Great Descent
They say we were once the crown of creation.
Beloved. Named. Held.
But somewhere along the story, we lost the plot. Chose lies that promised elevation and ended up smaller than we’d ever dreamed—trapped in cities of our own making, crying out with voices too tiny to hear.
And yet.
Love did not stay distant. Love stooped. Love shrank.
Not to punish, not to tower, but to find us. To walk our narrow alleys. To bleed from scraped knees. To hold us where we were and whisper, “You are not lost.”
The Maker of the stars became small enough to fit in a manger. The Infinite became finite, fragile, findable.
And in that embrace, the spell was broken.
Another marvelous story, Father Roderick! So glad that the interview I wrote with Brother Guy inspired it. When I was a kid I was fascinated by dioramas (I still am!) I used to daydream about shrinking down and getting lost in them.
Beautiful story! I loved it.
I love the name Cian. I’m actually using it in the lore book that I am writing.