Of the Moon
I only recognize time by the moon any more. But days are not my domain, for that is when I am hidden the most. I cannot say how much time has passed since I left Tiffith in those woods with tears streaked across his face. I’ve watched him though. I watched him drowning his sorrows of losing his goddess in every tavern from that forest to our apartment in Portiko. I watched him travel to the cairn for the bards and weep for his loss, and the loss of all those who have ever loved a bard. He was calm and collected when he told the lady of Portiko that Gwendolyn was gone. He relayed the story of the demon that had been mimicking her life, and wreaking havoc on all of the Northern Cantrevs in her name. Lady Steafens understood. He told her what the demon had told us, that his mission was given to him by the Delving Glade, and that I was chosen because I was their biggest advesary. It was the demon that took the scale of Slackamok and killed the bards, and before the end, that I, as Lunestra’s avatar had banished him from the Prime Plane. He stopped by the cairn again, before leaving Portiko. This time he did not weep. For this time something was different. This time although the weather was still extremely warm at dusk, there was a cool feel of moonlight across the cairn. Where there had been the feeling of loss, there was a sense of peace as he realized I was watching him. That I had blessed this place, I had taken that place and made it mine, the bards lying under those stones were now mine. Tiffith glowed in the moonlight with a smile playing on his lips.
But Tiffith is not the only one I watch. His life is still the most dear to me, but there is another that I keep as close a watch on, one who is also blessed by the moonlight. When I was changing, at that moment when I decided that Gwendolyn would be the one to carry back my life from the weird, what kept me drawn to the reality of life was the heat and breath. The one that helped Gwendolyn understand her task, her abilities, her destiny. It was her music that drew me out of my entrapment, but it was his breath that kept us tied to the Prime Plane. It was his long dark hair, dark eyes, his music, his love that one night that kept us tied. When we decided to bring back the imposter, his master to the Prime, he abandoned his post. He felt sorrow. And when he realized that Gwendolyn was lost, that she was me, and that meant her eventually ascension, that meant she would leave, he felt broken. We both felt his pain, felt him inside, that he was broken, that we had broken his heart. Though before she may never had accepted him, that one night saved us from losing it all in the lost city, and for that I watch him now. Pelleth. I watched as he left his master, for he could never forgive his treachery, and went off to spread his music with the world outside the city of Trestra. He did not mourn openly, but the heat, the breath, draws me to him still. I watched as he got himself in more trouble than he probably should have, as if we were inviting death. It was as he tried to escape into the shadows, only to find there were none, only moonlight, and yet his pursuers could not find him. It was then that he felt peace, knew that I was now his protector.
Yet it is now, that I watch all bards. Every time one of us, the gods and goddess of the Prime take one from the earth to join us, a piece of them becomes a god. Gwendolyn became me. She is one with the moon. But from her life, I am changed forever. It is from her love for the bards that I become part of the life of the bards. If the time comes that my presence is needed again on the Prime, it will be a bard that will call to me. It is her love for those mortals that keeps me connected on some level to the Prime in which I was not connected before. It was those last moments of Tiffith’s embrace that will be remembered in my lifetime, long after his is gone. I can hope that he will succeed in his destiny. That he will become that which he has always hoped to become. One of us. One of the gods. And I will do my best to help his on his way. I must watch for I too wish his dreams to come true. I watch him every night as the moonlight descends over the earth as he climbs to the top of the place that he stays and lies in the light I provide. I listen as he tells those he meets that he once loved a goddess. He tries to mix his pride with his sorrow, hoping to feel less pain, and more hope that we may once again be together.