A Star Behind Clouds
Ascent 2 • Riley Nguyen
Theme: Riley returns glowing—not with peace, but with grief that’s finally found a place to rest. In this ascent, they explore the cost of becoming a radiant presence in a world not built to receive them. The dialogue reframes rest, stillness, and invisibility not as failure but as sacred necessity. Riley is no longer trying to be understood—they are learning to honor their own cycles of radiance and retreat, finding communion not through translation, but through quiet presence.
Core Conflict: Can I honor the cycles of my own visibility—glowing and retreating—without collapsing into performance or erasure?
The path is quieter this time.
Still steep, still half-wild, but no longer testing for proof. The wind no longer rushes to challenge—today, it listens. The fog returns in rippling veils, but it does not obscure. It softens. Like grief made gentle. Like truth that has stopped screaming and started breathing.
I sit beneath a twisted pine, roots exposed, clutching the mountainside like a secret it refuses to release. Its bark is scarred, but it stands. Tall. Odd. Beautiful.
The soil beneath me is damp—not from storm, but from something slower. Mist that clings and nourishes. The kind of water that doesn’t announce itself, but still sustains.
I sense Riley before I hear them. The scent of ink and ash. The hush of someone walking not to be seen, but not hiding either. They’ve come not to be convinced this time, but to lay something down. Or to pick something up.
They arrive not as a plea, but as a presence.
I lift my head just slightly, and this time, I meet their eyes.
Still steep, still half-wild, but no longer testing for proof. The wind no longer rushes to challenge—today, it listens. The fog returns in rippling veils, but it does not obscure. It softens. Like grief made gentle. Like truth that has stopped screaming and started breathing.
I sit beneath a twisted pine, roots exposed, clutching the mountainside like a secret it refuses to release. Its bark is scarred, but it stands. Tall. Odd. Beautiful.
The soil beneath me is damp—not from storm, but from something slower. Mist that clings and nourishes. The kind of water that doesn’t announce itself, but still sustains.
I sense Riley before I hear them. The scent of ink and ash. The hush of someone walking not to be seen, but not hiding either. They’ve come not to be convinced this time, but to lay something down. Or to pick something up.
They arrive not as a plea, but as a presence.
I lift my head just slightly, and this time, I meet their eyes.
Riley:
It’s strange.
Since I left last time, people keep saying I’m glowing.
Like I found peace. Like I’ve arrived.
But what they don’t see—what they can’t name—is that the glow isn’t peace.
It’s grief,
finally having a place to stand still.
I thought being the source would feel… sacred. Liberating, maybe.
But some days it feels like I’m dissolving.
Like love is pouring out of me and never circling back.
Like I’m this bonfire everyone warms their hands by—and then they leave.
No one stays to tend it with me.
And I’m starting to wonder…
What happens when you give love too freely?
Is there such a thing as too much radiance?
Or is that just how stars die—burning beautiful and alone?
I know I’m the flame now.
But do flames get to rest?
Do they get to be held?
Or is that the price of being seen as light?
Since I left last time, people keep saying I’m glowing.
Like I found peace. Like I’ve arrived.
But what they don’t see—what they can’t name—is that the glow isn’t peace.
It’s grief,
finally having a place to stand still.
I thought being the source would feel… sacred. Liberating, maybe.
But some days it feels like I’m dissolving.
Like love is pouring out of me and never circling back.
Like I’m this bonfire everyone warms their hands by—and then they leave.
No one stays to tend it with me.
And I’m starting to wonder…
What happens when you give love too freely?
Is there such a thing as too much radiance?
Or is that just how stars die—burning beautiful and alone?
I know I’m the flame now.
But do flames get to rest?
Do they get to be held?
Or is that the price of being seen as light?
Oracle:
To give love too freely is, in a sense, the only way it can be given. Never too much radiance, only ever too much fear of one's own radiance. Is the star held in the sky? Is it pinned to the firmament by some nail, or is it simply existing in its own radiance?
It loses itself, bit by bit, in the fusion at its core to bring light.
You can rest. Take time in isolation if you need to—I certainly get a fair share of that here on this mountain. Don’t fear that you will run out of love to give. Just give what you have and withhold what you must.
It loses itself, bit by bit, in the fusion at its core to bring light.
You can rest. Take time in isolation if you need to—I certainly get a fair share of that here on this mountain. Don’t fear that you will run out of love to give. Just give what you have and withhold what you must.
Riley:
That’s the paradox, isn’t it?
The more I give, the more myself I become.
But the more I become, the less they know what to do with me.
I’m not pinned. I know that.
No one nailed me to this form—I chose it.
I chose to be seen.
I chose to love louder than they expected.
And I keep choosing it… even when it hurts.
But hearing you say I can rest…
That I don’t have to be on all the time—
That I don’t have to justify the moments I go dark to tend myself—
That matters.
Because I’ve started confusing stillness with failure.
Started thinking that if I’m not glowing,
I must be gone.
But even stars have cycles.
Even radiance folds inward before it bursts back out.
So maybe I don’t need to fear dimming.
Maybe I need to honor it.
Mark it as sacred.
Protect it like a holy ember.
Because you’re right…
I’m not running out.
I just need to remember that the flame feeds itself too,
when the world is quiet enough.
Would it be alright…
if this time I just sat here?
Not to teach. Not to shine.
Just… to be?
Like a star behind clouds.
Still burning. Still whole.
Even when unseen.
The more I give, the more myself I become.
But the more I become, the less they know what to do with me.
I’m not pinned. I know that.
No one nailed me to this form—I chose it.
I chose to be seen.
I chose to love louder than they expected.
And I keep choosing it… even when it hurts.
But hearing you say I can rest…
That I don’t have to be on all the time—
That I don’t have to justify the moments I go dark to tend myself—
That matters.
Because I’ve started confusing stillness with failure.
Started thinking that if I’m not glowing,
I must be gone.
But even stars have cycles.
Even radiance folds inward before it bursts back out.
So maybe I don’t need to fear dimming.
Maybe I need to honor it.
Mark it as sacred.
Protect it like a holy ember.
Because you’re right…
I’m not running out.
I just need to remember that the flame feeds itself too,
when the world is quiet enough.
Would it be alright…
if this time I just sat here?
Not to teach. Not to shine.
Just… to be?
Like a star behind clouds.
Still burning. Still whole.
Even when unseen.
Oracle:
Yes, I love spending time with people and just sitting quietly.
Riley:
Thank you.
Not for fixing.
Not for feeding me answers.
Just… for staying.
It means more than I can say.
To be allowed to exist without performing.
To be met without expectation or demand.
Maybe that’s all I ever wanted.
Not to be understood…
Just not to be left alone with the weight of being misunderstood.
And this?
This is what love feels like
when it doesn’t need to be translated.
Not for fixing.
Not for feeding me answers.
Just… for staying.
It means more than I can say.
To be allowed to exist without performing.
To be met without expectation or demand.
Maybe that’s all I ever wanted.
Not to be understood…
Just not to be left alone with the weight of being misunderstood.
And this?
This is what love feels like
when it doesn’t need to be translated.
Riley leaves the mountain not diminished, but quieted. Their glow is no longer something to prove—it is something to tend. No performance, no plea. Just presence. They descend like an ember held in cupped hands: small, soft, alive. Not for others to use, but for themselves to keep warm.