Canvas's Third Birthday

It was daytime. That was all the knowledge that Maia needed to locate the OC.

Canvas was a fan of all light, not that it surprised Maia, considering her powers. She was a fan of the outdoors and could often be found enjoying the fresh air, whether it was day or night. Either way, the African American was able to find her on a hill not far from the mansion.

“You know that you just made me exercise, right?” Maia called out to Canvas as she saw the rainbow girl in the distance. She turned and smiled at the sight of her creator, yelling back, “I thought you always wanted excuses for exercise!”

“Not when they nearly kill me!” Both Maia and Canvas knew that she was exaggerating. In this form, Maia didn’t have to put in much effort to move around, much less walk. She jogged her way up to meet her OC, looking down at the short female. “I was just wandering around and hoping to wish you a happy birthday!”

Canvas’s smile grew. “So the others were right. You are giving out presents.”

Maia nodded, knowing that Black was probably the one to tell her. “Do you know what it is?” Canvas shook her head. “Well, it’s basically putting you in a hallucinate state-don’t give me that look-and allowing you to revisit your favorite moment prior to your life here.” Unlike the others, Maia was sure that Canvas wouldn’t hesitate or pale at the mention of her old life. She accepted it as the first chapter in her life, and while it solidified her need to protect her little sister, Canvas overall had a good childhood, minus the attempts on her life, of course.

“My favorite moment?” Canvas echoed, excitement shining in her multi-colored eyes. “Like…the time when…” Canvas played with the ends of her star shawl, remembering how exactly a year ago she was wearing it as a cape for the last time. How she decided to wrap the ends around her wrists and escape the childish image of the cape, but still keep her most prized possession.

“Yes. You would probably want to lie down, though. Otherwise, you’ll fall.” Canvas didn’t hesitate to lie on the ground. She remembered the feelings of happiness she felt in her favorite moment, but with age she had forgotten it to such a large degree. She wanted the memory back.

Maia laughed and waved her hands above Canvas. “I guess you’re accepting the present. Okay, no just relax…and…soon…

…you’ll slip into sleep…

…and find yourself…there…”

Canvas fell into the darkness.

***

“The sky’s really pretty tonight, isn’t it?” Canvas asked the slightly older girl sitting next to her. They were sitting next to a waterfall that Scu and Rain had discovered a few weeks ago. Canvas loved the spot (though not as much as her sisters) and enjoyed just sitting on the stones next to the drop, watching as the water fell with a roar into the river below. While most would find the view threatening, it actually calmed Canvas, especially when she saw-or created-a rainbow as the light bounded off of the vapor.

There was silence. “Isn’t it?” Canvas said, a bit louder. Still nothing from her right side. “MORA!!” she shouted, making the girl jump.

“O-Oh! Sorry! Yes, it is really pretty!” Mora said, folding her hands in her lap and staring straight up at the sky. Canvas knew that Mora never lied, and with that sky there was no way it could be, but as naive as she was, she would have to be pretty dense to not notice her behavior.

“Mora, are you alright?” she asked, concerned. There was no telling what could distract Mora. Of course, with her…kind, Mora probably had the weight of the world on her shoulders.

Mora was an angel. Canvas didn’t even have to ask her; it was obvious. She appeared out of nowhere after Scu saw a dolphin trapped between two rocks in the distance. Scu had tried to rescue it, but she couldn’t find a way to save the poor creature without harming it. Scu had panicked, as was common when she saw aquatic wildlife in danger, and Canvas didn’t know what to do either. Scu ran off to find someone to help, leaving Canvas alone.

Then, out of nowhere, a purple blur fell from the sky and landed on the rocks. Canvas was able to make out a purple-haired girl in a white dress and what looked like brown skin. And wings. Big, feathery light purple wings that were larger than the girl attached to them.

Canvas had never been religious, considering she hadn’t learned much about any religion, but she knew what an angel was supposed to look like, and if that girl wasn’t one then her irises weren’t rainbow-colored.

She had stood, rooted to the spot, as the angel helped the dolphin from the two rocks, and it swam away. This same dolphin would come back, as proven by the slight scars on its sides, and Scu would name the dolphin Lily and claim it as her own.

Canvas and the angel locked eyes.

The purple-haired girl smiled and waved, and all Canvas could do was wave back in shock. The girl flew over and introduced herself, saying that she was around and couldn’t resist saving the dolphin when she saw it. It took her a few moments to realize why Canvas was so surprised, like she forgot that the wings on her back weren’t exactly common.

Of course, neither was Canvas’s appearance. With a head of hair half brown and half rainbow (though the rainbow was fading to brown near the top), rainbow-colored irises, a diamond “mole” below her eye that couldn’t be removed, and her…abilities, she couldn’t really say anything about appearances.

They became friends quickly, and Mora told Canvas as much as she could about “home” (she never called it “Heaven” for whatever reason) without breaking any rules. How it was beautiful and how she guided children’s spirits there as a job, and how her mentor, whose real name Canvas always forgot, was very strict and stubborn. Mora often just called him-yes, HIM-Lily, which was made more amusing when Canvas told her the name of Scu’s dolphin.

Mora often visited Canvas like she was now, enjoying themselves in comfortable silence until Canvas broke it.

“Yes, I am fine! I was just thinking. Sometimes I wonder if Lily will suddenly appear from there—” Mora pointed to the sky. “—and start scolding me. He isn’t a very big fan of humans. He has never liked how I casually interact with them, though I assure him that I only allow myself to be seen by a few.” She turned to Canvas and smiled. “Like a girl with rainbow hair and control over heat and light.” Canvas giggled at this.

“I don’t control it very well,” Canvas said, this time lying back onto the rock.

Mora stared at her. “What do you mean? Canvas, you’re quite exceptional at using your powers, from what I can tell!” Canvas glanced at her friend with confusion. Mora shook her head. “You’re very good at using them,” she said, forgetting that human-or those that lived as human-children had a far more limited vocabulary than Mora’s kind by the same age.

Canvas pouted. “Then why can’t I do it?”

“Do what?” Mora asked, wondering what the rainbow-haired girl could possibly mean. 

“Make a star cape!” Canvas answered angrily. Mora had to restrain from laughing.

“A star cape?”

“Yeah, a star cape! I always try to pull the stars down and make a cape or a blanket outta them, but they won’t come down!” Canvas reached up with her hand and closed it in a fist. “It never works!”

Mora really was trying to keep from laughing, now. Canvas might have been seven, but she occasionally seemed to have the mindset of someone a bit younger. She was sure that by the age of seven, a child would know how distant the stars were and how impossible it was for them to just grab them and change their shape, and that wasn’t even going into the catastrophic damage it would have on the planet if even one star was on Earth. As in, it would burn the planet in an instant and nothing would remain.

But with her head full of dreams and the knowledge of her powers, Canvas probably wouldn’t care even if she did know.

“I even know how I would do it, too! I’d take a lot of stars, sew them together with light, and just wear it forever! Scu told me that even if it worked, I’d never be able to take it off again.” Huh. So maybe she knew some of the consequences after all.

Mora shook her head. “Canvas, I don’t think that it would work either. Scu is right.” Canvas sat up. “Why not!?” she exclaimed, insulted that even her friend with wings didn’t see any possibility in her plan.

Mora got to her feet. “It would probably be better if I showed you,” she said, though a hint of nervousness remained in her voice that Canvas couldn’t detect. She flew up until she was out of sight, and as Canvas watched the sky, a small, insignificant star that she didn’t even notice before disappeared. She felt a tap on her shoulder a moment later. She screamed, but it was just Mora. Occasionally, she liked to teleport.

Canvas was about to tell her not to do that when she saw the light within Mora’s small hands. “Being an angel has some advantages,” she admitted. If she were human, she would have blushed. “If an astronaut were to see this before I took it, it would have been larger, and it would be impossible to transport. Now, I’m going to hand this to you. If something goes awry—” Which it certainly will. “—I’ll teleport it as far away from the planets as possible. Alright?”

“Okay!” Canvas said with childish excitement, outstretching her arms, her palms up to accept the star like it was a present and not a practical bomb waiting to explode.

Mora took a deep breath and moved the star closer to Canvas, moving it into her right hand so her left hand was free to react to the chaos sure to erupt. Canvas was powerful-powerful enough to delay the star’s explosion for two seconds, which was a lot-but it was still a ball of gas, and she was still a child.

“Focus on keeping the star in your hands, alright?” Mora requested. Canvas nodded, and Mora knew that she had no idea what she was talking about.

And with the largest amount of regret in her life, Mora placed the star in Canvas’s hands and let go.

Canvas looked at the bright light, squinting her eyes before they adjusted. Her eyes seemed to glow in the presence of the star, and Mora found them almost entrancing.

And then she realized that the world wasn’t dead.

Canvas continued to hold the star in her hands, staring at it with wonder, and Mora looked at the display in amazement. She was holding it. She was holding a ball of gas and heat in her hands and nothing was happening. She laughed and threw it in the air like a ball.

That’s when Mora snapped out of it and vanished it.

As the light disappeared, the night just seemed to become darker, but Mora could still see Canvas’s disappointment. “Awwww!” she complained. “It was so pretty!”

“By the Father, you did it…” Mora said. “You did the humanly impossible…” Mora couldn’t believe it. Canvas was more than a mere human, but she had proven in the past to still be prone to human faults and pain. Was her power so strong that she did it subconsciously? Mora didn’t know what Canvas was. She, her biological sister Rain, and her adopted sister Scu, were a race that she had never heard of.

Canvas, the one girl out of the three that she had met, was the most powerful.

Mora told Canvas to create that thread of light that she mentioned earlier. Canvas happily did, using her finger to draw a long thread in the air, and she put the star on the thread like it was a bead on a necklace. Mora then flew up back to the sky, and she returned with two more stars. These two didn’t seem to disappear from Canvas’s view, and Mora explained that if she took all of the stars from one section of space, then it would become cold and freeze that same section of space.


Two at a time, Mora brought down stars from different places, and Canvas took them, either placing them on the “thread” or holding them, making sure she had either direct or indirect contact with the stars. She started “sewing” them together when there were twenty, lengthening the strand as she went along.

Two hours and over one hundred stars later, and Canvas held a glowing blanket in her hands. She laughed and danced, and Mora watched with a smile. Together, she and Canvas had created a beautiful and once-thought impossible accessory. Leave it to an angel and a child with an overactive imagination to make it.

“Do you need help tying it?” Mora asked. Canvas shook her head and tied the ends around her neck. Her eyes were glowing again, and Mora could tell that somehow, the cape made her more powerful. Perhaps because her element was so close to her.

Canvas grinned as she spun around, observing the cape. “I love it!” she said. “Aloha au ia!” She repeated what she said, slipping into Hawaiian, which she admittedly didn’t prefer to English. Despite Mora being able to understand Hawaiian, Canvas hadn’t spoken it until now. “Mahalo!”

Mora laughed. “Why are you thanking me? I simply gathered the stars. You did most of the work.” Canvas turned red with pride, but Mora noticed the slight bags under her eyes. They had been out very late, and Canvas had put a lot of effort into the cape. She was probably exhausted.

Extending a hand to the small girl, Canvas accepted it without hesitation. “I’m so happy, Mora! I have a star cape!” She was going to fall asleep any second now. Mora decided to just teleport her back to the house, right in the entryway. “I did it…” She snuggled into the cape. Mora smiled calmly.

“Go to bed, Canvas. I’ll see you again soon, and yes, you did it. You have a star cape. You made it. But now, you need sleep.” Canvas nodded, still grinning. Mora disappeared, and she made her way to the room she shared with Scu and Rain.

She made her way to her bed, and she snuggled under the covers, glad that the stars didn’t set them on fire. She truly had control over her own creation.

“Canvas…?” Scu muttered from her bed.  “Canvas, is that you?” She lifted her head, her wavy blue locks falling over her face.

“Yeah?” Canvas said, her voice drowsy.

“Did you just…come in? Where were you?” Scu tried to prop herself up on her elbows, but she was too tired.

Canvas played dumb. “Whaddya mean, Scu?” Even in the dark, Canvas could tell that Scu was glaring at her. “You’re an awful liar. You snuck out, didn’t you?”

“I didn’t!” Scu just glared at her, then after a few seconds sighed. “What’s that light coming from your bed?” Canvas glanced at her bed. The stars were glowing through the fabric. She would have to learn how to dim them, if she could.

“I’ll tell you in the morning.” And before she could be questioned, Canvas went to sleep.


Canvas woke up to the the bright yellow sun. She had adapted to looking directly at such bright lights a long time ago. When she thought about it, it might have been when she looked at that first star.

She sat up slowly and and turned. Maia was next to her, trying and failing to make a daisy chain out of the flowers surrounding them. She glared at the mess, sap all over her hands, before turning and seeing Canvas awake.

“So you finally woke up. You were out for over an hour,” she said, slight annoyance in her voice. But that was probably from her failure to do something a five-year-old was capable of doing.

Canvas nodded. “It was…it was…” She closed her eyes again and saw the cape in front of her. Recalling the power that surged through her. “…Beautiful.”

“Well, that’s good,” Maia said, standing up and offering a hand to Canvas. Canvas accepted the hand and got to her feet. “It’s weird. You’ve known Mora the longest out of the others here. It’s strange, but also pretty cool.”

“We were both weird,” Canvas said with a shrug. “Scu used to mention her hair, but when we were little almost my entire head was rainbow-colored. It just faded more to brown before stopping here.” Canvas tugged on  her hair, with maybe a tenth of the length being the odd colors. “Plus, there are my eyes, my ‘mole,’ and after I made the cape, I couldn’t take it off.”

Canvas played with the tied ends once more, this time so much that the one end fell to the ground like a cloth. After a moment of panic, Canvas grabbed the end and retied it. “I dunno. After coming here, I felt…whole. Like there was something missing that I didn’t know was missing. It felt really good.”

“I know the feeling,” Maia sighed. “Hey. Now that you’re awake, the others were planning a birthday brunch. Apparently Mikey knows a place.”

“When does he not?” Canvas giggled. “Sounds like fun. Are you joining us?”

Maia shook her head. “No…it’s also Mother’s Day. Need to spend time with the woman that gave birth to me.” Canvas understood.

Maia ruffled the girl’s hair. “Happy third birthday, Canvas.” Canvas hugged her creator. “Thanks, Maia.”

And with that, Canvas ran down the hill, back to the mansion to go with her friends to celebrate her birthday.