In time, all will be stardust...

This composition was born out of a fugue idea I had in 2020 around the same time as my other two published fugues. At the time, I could not work the material into a proper fugue and gave up. Now I revisit the same material, worked into a fugal ballade. To me, this piece evokes reminiscing about old friends, both in a bittersweet and magical way, as I tried to capture in the title. There was supposed to be a second part of this composition, but I ran into a creative block halfway through composing it. Maybe in another five years...