Quick note to judges n peeps: these first two stories ("Seven Twisted Stars" and "The Demon Queen") are from almost two years ago, and are definitely not my best work. Feel free to read them, but you can also start with the stories "The Fate of Fire" onward, which in my opinion are a lot better.

However, if you're reading this for fun... the stories in this collection are "independent" and "not connected", but you should ~probably~ read them in order just in case. The first ones are short anyway.

Thanks so much for reading, and I hope you enjoy! :)

Stella sat on the bench, her pencil trailing across the page before her. The dusk sky hovered above as she drew quietly, a blend of dark colors. Thick gray clouds reflected the glowing light from the newly-departed sunset, lighting the open park around her.

"Excuse me," a voice said. She jumped, turning to see a man behind her. "May I sit down?"

Stella nodded, scooting over and pulling her sketchbook with her. The man glanced at her drawing, then pulled a scroll out of his pack and unrolled it on the table. It was filled with rows of five-pointed stars. Some looked to be drawn hastily, some meticulous.

As she watched curiously, he took out a pen and a ruler. Lining up two points of the first star, he drew a straight line between them. The original star wasn't perfect, and its original line curved away from the new straight one before rejoining it at the next point. He continued, tracing over the star with straight lines until the whole thing was drawn in double.

When he moved the ruler to the next star, Stella spoke up. "What are you doing?"

He smiled, pausing his work. "These are the hearts of stars, taken from an ancient temple," he said, pointing up at the dusk sky. "There's a legend that says that you can find the true soul of a star by tracing over its heart in perfect lines. I work with a group of people that trace the stars."

"What can you do with a star's soul?" Stella asked.

"Nothing, on its own," he admitted. "But there's another legend of seven special stars... stars with twisted souls. Those stars were lost long ago, bringing the downfall of the very civilization that once drew the stars' hearts. These seven twisted stars will bring down every civilization after until we find and destroy them. So we trace the stars to find their souls in the hopes that we may extinguish them."

She shivered. "What makes those stars so twisted?"

"They are perfect," he said simply. "When traced, the lines are already perfectly straight, perfectly symmetrical. And perfection is the worst form of monstrosity. To find their souls, one must make the tracing itself twisted."

He paused, then slid the scroll over to her. "Here, why don't you try tracing a star? After some practice, of course. May I?" He gestured to her sketch pad.

She nodded, handing him the pad and her pencil. He scrawled a quick star on it, then handed it back to her. "Try it without the ruler first; we'll see if you have a knack for it."

Stella took her pencil back, then carefully connected the corners with straight lines. She couldn't help feeling proud of how good her tracing looked, even without a ruler.

The man stared at the tracing, then lined up his ruler with her marks. "Perfectly straight," he muttered quietly. "Perfectly symmetrical."

He turned to face her. "Perfect."