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Luna had a lot of things to think about.
She hadn’t had much time as of late. Everything after leaving the Glowwood felt like it was moving at breakneck speeds. What she wanted, so desperately wanted, was a minute to just… sit. Sit and think.
She found that during the trip to Menzo.
It was weird. She didn’t need to sleep, and she didn’t need to trance for nearly as long as the others did. So she found herself on the roof of the wagon, looking at the ceiling far above.
Something about it itched in the back of her mind. Something about laying under the stars with someone. Many someone’s. Her family.
Skies above, her family .
There was something so lovely – and yet so terrifying – about having a family she didn’t know. She had hoped she had one, ever since she found herself outside of the Glowwood and learned what a family even was. But thinking about them, knowing they knew things about her she didn’t know about herself, made her feel sick. She wanted to know those things. She deserved to know those things!
Madame Eva claimed she told Luna the important things. Surely she wouldn’t lie. But everyone lied, especially to Luna. If there was one thing Luna was familiar with in her short memory, it was lying. It was people hiding things from her for any number of reasons.
It was exhausting to never have the answers. Sometimes she felt like someone was playing a game with her, tugging her around on strings from place to place. Luring her in with the promise of just a little more information. Just come here and you’ll learn what you want to know. Just do this and I’ll give you this to do that and on and on and on. It never ended.
She felt like there were very few concrete answers in her life. Her name was Luna von Zarovich. She was part of Troop B84, and they were no longer part of the Order Under. They had left Rainer to pursue… something. There was a soul inside her named Evelyn. The Unhollowed’s name was Mason. He was sad. He apologized to Evelyn. He… apologized to someone else, too? Lathander.
That was too much.
Luna stared at the cavern ceiling. It was dark here, so dark her vision couldn’t pierce it. They were far from the familiar overhead lights of Rainer by this point. They weren’t as pretty as stars, in her opinion. As the moon.
Luna missed the moon. Even in such a short time, knowing there was something concretely hers felt… good. Well, not hers, but also yes hers. Like this troop. She didn’t know what they were called now, they were hardly still Troop B84 now that they’d left the Order Under, but they were hers. And she was theirs! That was concrete, to her.
The wagon hit a particularly hard bump and Luna jolted as her head hit the wood. She grumbled and rubbed the back of her head, frowning in the direction of nothing. Yeah, pain was another concrete thing.
She didn’t think she was supposed to be as familiar with pain as she was. Though, that might just be because they were in the Order. Maybe, now, it would be less common. Or… after they figured out all this stuff with the Black Hand. She frowned again, more this time.
Soft shuffling from inside the wagon drew her attention and she shifted to look inside. Cassia’s soft eyes met hers, familiar even when she was hanging upside down like this. Maybe more familiar that way.
“You’re awake,” Cassia breathed out.
“So are you,” Luna agreed, nodding sagely like this was very important information to share.
Cassia smiled a little. “Yeah, I… guess I’m not surprised. Why are you on the roof?”
“Stargazing.”
Cassia gave her a strange look. “Is that… What’s that mean?”
Luna blew out a long, long breath. There were some things she wasn’t supposed to tell the others, but the stars weren’t one of them, right? “You know the lights above Rainer?”
Cassia nodded.
“Well, in the sky on the surface, there are lights kinda like that. But they’re smaller, and really really far away. Like further than the cavern ceiling.”
Cassia pondered this. “But… we can’t see the lights from here.”
“I know. I’m just imagining them. Do you want to join me?”
“I don’t know how good I’d be at imagining stars.”
“That’s okay. I don’t know how good I am at it either.” Luna smiled.
Cassia slowly smiled back. She walked over and carefully, with Luna’s help, pulled herself onto the roof of the wagon. She sat down and tilted her head as Luna sprawled out on the wood.
“Lay down with me,” Luna directed.
Cassia almost laughed and did as she was told. The two blinked at the cavern ceiling above for a long moment, the only sound the rattling of the wagon wheels and the stomps of the strider pulling them.
“I’m not really sure what I’m supposed to be doing,” Cassia confessed in a hushed voice.
Luna rolled her head to the side to look at her. “Me neither. I’m kinda just making it up as I go.”
Cassia hummed, biting her cheek. “Do you think the stars will mind? If we get it wrong? Are they alive?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think they’ll mind, though. They didn’t seem like they were alive when I saw them, but I guess everything in the Glowwood was kinda weird.”
“There were stars in the Glowwood?” Cassia’s eyes were on Luna’s now, sparkling.
“Yeah.” Luna hesitated. “I’m not really supposed to talk about everything there, but yeah. There were stars.”
“Can you tell me about them? So I can imagine them?”
Luna nodded. “The sky was black. Like the blackest black you can imagine. And in the black were like… small dots. Tiny dots of light. Like someone took a black sheet of paper and shone a light through tiny little holes in it. But it covered the whole sky. Everything you could see up above you was just darkness and tiny, glowing dots.” She hesitated. “And there was the moon. A big, round thing. Glowing brighter than any of the stars, like an eye watching over us.”
“An eye?”
“Yeah. But white. And glowing, so it’s not fully dark out. A light.”
Cassia didn’t speak, enraptured.
“It’s where my name comes from. Luna. It comes from the moon.”
Cassia hummed a little. “Well, maybe you were sent to watch over us. Our own little moon.”
Luna looked at her again, searching her face for a long moment. “Yeah? I wouldn’t mind that.”
Cassia smiled. Wide and concrete. “Me neither.”
The momentary silence was broken by another rough bump in the road. Cassia took a shaky breath to steady herself.
“I should get back to sleep.”
Luna nodded seriously in agreement. “You should. I’ll stay up here.”
Cassia nodded and didn’t move to leave, just laying back down next to Luna. “I hope you don’t mind if I stay up here. Basterfield takes up so much room.”
Luna looked back at the cavern ceiling. “I don’t mind.”
“Great. Goodnight, Luna.”
“Goodnight, Cassia.”
Cassia was quiet after that. Luna didn’t know how long it usually took people to fall asleep. They were typically asleep by the time she woke from her trance, so she never really got the opportunity to check.
Still, the sound of Cassia’s breathing joined the steady noises around her. It was nice, it was real .
So Luna just… laid there. Staring at the cavern overhead and imagining the stars she’d seen before. She hoped she’d see them again someday. Maybe then her friends could remember. Or maybe they could stargaze together. Her new family.
Luna smiled and continued to stargaze.