“Hey, Marnie, I needed your help with something.” Aster spoke into his phone while an oblivious Luna worked on a puzzle.

“You need my car seat.” Marnie smugly predicted.

“Kelly told you.” Aster answered smiling at Luna who was giddy from fitting pieces together. Who’s soaked hair dripped on the table and cardboard pieces.

“I couldn’t just let her leave with your spare key. I need an explanation.” The smug tone was gone replaced but her natural sweet and mellow tone.

“How about November 15^th, 2017?”

“That was for a good cause.”

Aster sighed at the memory, obviously still bothered by it even after 5 years. “She strapped me to my bed, covered herself in fake blood, and started seductively calling my name until I woke up. Then when I finally took in the situation she started confessing her love for me and how she murdered-“

Marlena’s infectious laugh rang from the other end of the call, unable to calm herself at reminiscing on the memory finding herself wheezing from lack of breath. Aster shook his head in dismay but couldn’t control the smile that formed on his face.

“I started locking my bedroom door after that. Something I stopped doing when she picked the lock without waking me. I swear that woman would be is a yandere in disguise.” He jabbed while recoiling at their recent history.

She eventually calmed herself enough to talk, “As I stated, it was for a good cause. A wonderful cause I would dare said.”

“I’m taking away your spare key.” Aster threatened.

“That’s fine, I made copies.” He couldn’t see her tanned face, but the smug tone spoke volumes of the shape of her ample lips.

“I’m changing the locks.”

“That’s fine. You’ll give me a new key eventually anyway.”

“Nope, never again. I’ll instead have Derrick housesit.”

“And you would come back to the house in disarray.”

“I hate this.”

“Oh, hun, it’s okay.” Her fake sympathy oozed of snark.

“Aster! Aster! I got another piece!” Luna brightly cheered as she held up three pieces combined as one.

“That’s amazing Luna!” He praised.

“She sounds adorable.”

“Can I borrow the car seat or not?” He could tell Luna was getting impatient for attention as she noticed he wasn’t doing the puzzle anymore.

“No problem, I’ll bring it by after work. See you then.” Her voice went high pitched at saying goodbye.

“Stop doing your damn anime voice. Talk to you later.” He hung up on her before she could retort.

“So how far we got on this?” He tucked the phone in his pocket and got to work on completing the cottage house puzzle.

===

Too stubborn to step away Luna was driven to complete the entire 100 piece puzzle.

“Hey, no helping! I want to do it this time.” Luna swatted Aster’s hand away as he reached for a piece. She wanted to independently complete the puzzle, even if he did help with the first half.

“But that piece-“ “Shush! I said no helping!” She butted in by putting her petite hand over his mouth before he could give her hints. Her adorable face contorted by furrowed brows and straight pierced lips.

“No hints, okay?” She didn’t remove her hand until he nodded in acceptance.

Once she returned back to her place and began methodically checking each piece against each other Aster interjected, “You should-“ Before he could finish his sentence Luna jumped out of her seat and began pushing against Aster.

“No, no helping!” She demanded; her body firmed pressed against his side in efforts to force him out of the seat. Playing along he fell off his chair.

“Out.” She demanded finger pointed towards the door.

“But,”

“No.”

“But,”

“No.”

“Luna.”

“No.”

“I’ll be good now.” Aster playfully begged with suppressed laughs.

“Hmmmm, no.” Luna was unwavering in her resolve.

“Ice cream?” He offered to appease the dictator.

“Cotton candy flavor.” She countered.

“One scoop.”

“Two scoops.”

“Two scoops of Cotton Candy ice cream and I get to stay?”

“Pinky promise!” She held out her pinky dwarfed by Aster’s.

“Pink promise.” He agreed.

===

Despite being allowed to stay he was still not welcome to help, and soon her tunnel vision blinded her from Aster’s slow movements leaving the room. He climbed upstairs to his room and sat himself in front of his computer. He repositioned his silver microphone to be in front of him and grabbed his black headphones with red accents before booting up Harmony. Harmony on top of being chatrooms was a streaming platform.

When drafting a story Aster found it enlightening to stream the writing process. He found that talking over plot points helped sift through what ideas mattered and which were meaningless. It was a little over three months since the last stream since being so bogged down with the previous story. With the new story though he wanted it to be perfect before reading it to Luna.

“Once you engage your readers, you need to give them a reason to read more. You can do this through tension, in a romance story this is done by introducing a second possible love interest that is fighting for the main character’s affection. In mysteries this is by introducing a possible suspect. Dramas introduce a conflict, and action well introduce you to action. As even after the hook the next step is true introductions to the plot. Crime shows are a good example of how you should storyboard, each chapter should be two separate stories that combine to one.” He paused to take a drink of water.

“The chapter, or arc, story and then the overarching story of the novel. I use crime shows as the example because each episode opens with the main plot and the problem they are facing currently. Then the episode plot kicks in and during the episode plot they have an epiphany of how it relates to their main plot problem. The plot problem is then tied by up the end of the episode and the main plot is pushed forward to the next hurdle. Then rinse and repeat. It never feels forced because there is constant resolution.” Aster had no trouble talking to himself instead pretending he was still in front of class teaching them the newest lesson.

“This brings us to the story I’m currently working on, a fairy tale. I’ll first admit I’m outside my depths here, I’m used to drawn out drama that require the symbolic prose of Hemmingway to be accepted in the genre; not succinct stories with easily understood word choice that allows for young audiences. So let’s learn the process together. I wrote the hook already, so let’s jump right into the introduction of tension. The cliché answer is the princess is locked away from the world and the hero saves her and shows her how to live life. The satire author in me wants to simply say, lets just turn every part of it on its head. I however know better as I intend for this to be read to a five-year-old who may not enjoy satire.” He was typing this out as he spoke, taking notes for plot ideas he wanted to touch on in the story.

“So despite my internal critic screaming, I will be writing cliché. Of the abandoned princess and her sole knight and their adventure to find happiness in the world despite their situation. It is nothing unique or even outstanding. We always have to start somewhere, and even if I want every part of it to be perfect, I have to compromise.” He felt he was telling himself something there. As if he was unraveling a knot he unknowingly tied around his fingers. That his chase of perfect only left him without it.

“Aster! Aster! Come look!” Luna’s chirpy voice chimed from the entryway.

“Come here for a moment, I want to show you something.” He spun around in his chair and patted his lap indicting for her sit there. Confused but intrigued she skipped across the room and allowed him to pick her up and be placed on his lap.

“This story is for you.” He admitted.

“For me?” She tilted her head in confusion at the information.

“Yep, a bedtime story that is special to you.” Aster explained with a sincere grin.

“For me…” She repeated with watery eyes. She never had something special to her before. In the orphanage everything was shared among all the children so now that she was being told this was special to her, she couldn’t contain the tears.

“This story will be magical, a happy story of the adventures of a princess and her knight.”

“Are you the knight?” Luna questioned.

“Of course, m’lady.”

“So, it is special to us!” She wiped away her tears with an enthusiastic declaration.

Aster was silent for awhile after the announcement. They both were. Luna was trying to make sense of Aster’s notes while he was lost in contemplative thought.

“Let’s write this part together, so that it will forever be our story.” He decided as he took her hands in his own. Using her tiny fingers to type out, “And that is how you give a story meaning.”

“Our story!” She parroted.