The world beneath the lilac moon glistened with stillness. Bioluminescent plant life pulsed slightly with ghost-like breezes passing by. My long silver hair danced in its melody. Ethereal crystals pierced the ground with edges as sharp as swords meeting the moon's embrace, reflecting its emotions - my emotions. The air was dense with magic, humming an eternal lullaby. A lullaby my heart too sang. Everything here lived beneath my breath.
Except for him.
The warlock named Valen.
His name echoed crimson in my veins and smoke through my thoughts long before I was met with his presence. I felt a shift in the equilibrium tugging me, pulling at my being, a wrongness that pulsated in my heart. When he made his presence known the forest dimmed around him, but not from his darkness alone. He carried a far more dangerous weapon: Hunger.
"You are trespassing, warlock," I said with a stern voice holding my head high as to not show fear, nor weakness. "The pact forbids dark magic in this forest, and it seems that you are seeping with it."
He faintly smiled, looking down, enraging me even more. "The pact you speak of was written by those who are afraid of the things they cannot comprehend. You perhaps, moonspirit."
My light flared instinctively, gleaming with fury. "You twist and break all that you touch. Even the air recoils in your presence."
"I, Lira, daughter of the second moon, command you to leave!"
Instead, he dared to step closer, unintimidated by my illuminated power, strong enough to turn his void-like eyes into glass. "Maybe. But have you considered that there might be a slight chance that, that which breaks was weak to start with, and those that twist bends towards me?" I could now feel his breath on face.
"I, Valen, warlock of Thundercove, refuse," he said in a witty tone challenging me.
I looked straight in his eyes, strands of his dark hair hanging on his chiseled jaw. Before I could utter even a mere sound I felt something tremble within me - a strange sensation flowing though my body, suffocating me. I told myself that it was anger, an instinct of protectiveness of Lunar Glade, my home. As guardians of the moon we are unable to feel mundane emotion in order to keep balance within the realm which dark magic could destroy. Therefore, we are light not warmth.
Yet, as our eyes locked and his breath became my own, I felt seen.
The lilac moon became bigger as it dipped lower, bleeding lavender across his face. The glow gathered at my fingertips - power, light, the very essence of me. "The moon has reached an unknown equilibrium, but how is this possible?" I thought out loud, escaping his gaze. "I am the essence of light and you are darkness, yet instead of chaos the crystal veins approved your channeling."
"Their answers are true, it is perhaps their way of telling you that they are not only yours," he said in a low voice, his gaze softened. He reached out his hand and guided my face to meet his gaze once more.
As we touched the world screamed. Crystals cracked, the plants exploded a white light, and time stopped. I felt his pulse - mortal, raw and alive. Something I did not know I craved.
But the sad reality was that If we were to touch again, I knew one of us would shatter into nothingness.
"Don't please," I whispered, begged.
"Then let it be me," he said.
"I will go now, Lira. That's what you wanted." He said in hesitation, a sadness, a sense of loneliness gleaming in his eyes.
"I never came to cause trouble, I was just passing through as my quest goes beyond Lunar Glade. But it seems that trouble has found me," he uttered.
I wanted to scream at him that he was foolish to leave, that we could find a way, that the moon would mourn his absence. But my words dissolved like mist. Instead I stood frozen watching him disappear into the trees leaving the air hollow of his warmth and full of his shadow.
Now, when I rise with the lilac moon, I feel magic beneath the soil of Lunar Glade. A type of magic that was weak before that needed to be broken in order to be fixed. Valen's words became clear to me, I only now understood what he meant. For the first time I felt a heartbeat echoing in the roots of my light, a warmth beneath the iciness of my being. The crystals hummed a different tune as if remembering him, longing for him. And perhaps I do too.
We probably weren't supposed to meet, but the moon had other plans. Plans to shift Lunar Glade as we knew it. Plans to change me and all I knew.
They say spirits are incapable of emotion, of love. That we are the moon's reflection, perfect and untouched.
But his voice, Valen's voice rang in my thoughts, his defiance echoed in my heart. I knew this was wrong, against the pact written by the high oracles.
I am no longer balance, nor light.
I am the wound in it, tethered to darkness.
However, when the moon portrays its fullness once more, I will find him.
Even if it means breaking the pact, and shattering me into dust...
