Lunar woke up gasping, hands scraping against something smooth and cold. She pushed herself upright, breath coming too fast, and froze.
The ground stretched on forever. An endless plain of obsidian, flat and unbroken, swallowing everything it touched. No walls. No sky. No direction. Just black, spreading outward without end.
Her chest tightened. "No… not again," she whispered.
She stood quickly, turning in place, eyes darting as if something might rush at her if she stayed still. Nothing moved. Nothing answered. Her footsteps made no sound. The silence pressed in, heavy and wrong, like the world swallowed it all.
"I don't want this," she said, voice shaking. "I don't want to be here."
Her breathing grew shallow. Too fast. She wrapped her arms around herself, trying to feel something familiar, but the cold of the darkness seeped through her anyway. Panic clawed up her throat.
Then she looked down.
The surface beneath her feet reflected her clearly. Not warped like the rest of the field, but sharp and intact, as if the darkness had chosen her alone to mirror. Lunar slowly lowered herself to her knees, hands braced against the ground, staring at her own face in the black.
Her reflection stared back.
For a second, nothing happened.
Then it moved. The mouth in the obsidian opened before Lunar could pull away.
"This is the last time I can help you, little moon."
Lunar's breath hitched. The reflection beneath her palms began to change.
At first it was subtle—a faint shimmer crawling along the edges of her mirrored outline, like heat rising from coal. The surface beneath her hands warmed, no longer cold, no longer dead. Fine threads of light crept through the black, tracing the shape of her reflected face as if something beneath it were waking up.
Then the reflection smiled. Not her own smile.
The obsidian beneath her fractured—not breaking, but unfolding, peeling back in slow, deliberate layers. Her reflected hair lengthened, darkening until it swallowed all light, midnight-black threaded through with a long streak of soft, molten gold. That gold pulsed gently, like a living current, flowing through the strands as though sunlight had been caught and lived in each of its thread.
The face that formed was older than Lunar's. Refined by time and distance. Her beauty was not gentle, nor inviting. It was the kind that made the world hesitate, the kind that belonged to myths and margins of history rather than to any living place.
Eyes opened.
Deep black pupils bloomed first, endless and starless, then rings of gold ignited around them, molten and slow-moving, circling like captured suns.
The transformed reflection beneath Lunar's hands rose.
Slowly, deliberately, as if the ground itself had decided this shape was necessary. Darkness gathered first, then light threaded through it, limbs forming with careful precision. A figure took form in front of her and came to rest on one knee.
Then she stood.
She wore black, but not cloth—pure shadow woven into something elegant and alive, trimmed with faint gold that glimmered at the edges like an afterimage. Her presence bent the darkness around her, not pushing it away, but commanding it into stillness.
Lunar couldn't breathe.
She stared, wide-eyed, frozen between fear and wonder as the space around them shifted. The endless black receded.
The obsidian surface lost its glassy stillness, deepening into something layered and faintly responsive. Subtle currents of pale light moved beneath it, shifting when Eclipse shifted, like a surface that listened.
The endless void parted—and a sky emerged, not gradually, but simply there, as if it had always existed beyond a thin veil. A single, impossible sight dominated it.
A solar eclipse hung overhead, vast and unmoving. A perfect ring of blinding gold crowned a moon-black center, light spilling outward in a soft halo that bathed the world below in silver-gold twilight. It illuminated everything without warmth, without shadow, as if this place existed between moments rather than within them.
The familiar world had returned.
Lunar's chest rose and fell in shallow breaths. "…Eclipse," she whispered.
The gold in Eclipse's eyes slowed, the molten rings turning with measured calm. Her expression did not change, but something in her attention softened.
"Little moon." she said quietly.
Her voice was low and steady, carrying across the plane without effort, without echo—as if sound itself deferred to it.
She took a step closer. The ground responded, light blooming beneath her feet in gentle, restrained pulses.
Lunar didn't move.
She could only stare, awe washing over her in waves too large to name, as Eclipse stood again before her.
Eclipse closed the remaining distance between them and knelt.
Up close, she felt impossibly solid—real in a way the dream had never been before. She reached out, fingers cool but steady, and wrapped a hand around Lunar's wrist.
"Up," she said, simply.
Lunar barely realized she was shaking until Eclipse pulled her gently to her feet. The moment she stood, the pressure in her chest eased just enough to breathe again.
They stood facing each other beneath the eclipsed sun.
Lunar swallowed, eyes burning. The words had been building since the moment she woke, piling up behind her ribs with nowhere to go.
"…Where is my momma?" The question came out small. Barely more than a breath.
Eclipse did not look away. "She's gone," she said.
There was no hesitation in it. No gentling of the truth. Just a statement, clean and final.
Lunar's breath hitched. "That's—" Her voice cracked, and she had to stop, swallow, and try again. "That's not what I mean. You—you both left together. You ran together. You're here now. So where is she?"
Eclipse straightened slowly. When she spoke again, her voice was colder—not cruel, but distant, like stone that had learned not to feel the weather.
"She didn't leave you behind. She ended." The words landed heavier than anything Lunar had heard before.
"She was not taken," Eclipse continued. "She did not get lost. She did not wait somewhere else for you to catch up." Her golden rings turned, slow and inexorable. "She reached the end of her path."
Lunar shook her head, hands clenching at her sides. "Then why does it feel like she's still running ahead of me?" Her voice rose despite herself. "Why do I keep ending up here if she's really gone?"
Eclipse gestured outward. The obsidian plane pulsed faintly beneath their feet, ripples of light spreading in slow circles.
"This," she said, "is why." The light overhead dimmed, the ring of the eclipse tightening, its gold sharpening at the edges like a blade drawn a fraction closer.
"You keep running after what no longer exists," Eclipse continued. "You keep listening for a voice that cannot answer you." Her gaze stayed fixed on Lunar, unblinking. "And each time you refuse to accept that truth, the world beneath you.This world, hollows itself a little more. It devours you."
The plane of obsidian darkened a little.
"This place is not punishment," Eclipse said. "It is accumulation. Every step you take without accepting the truth adds another layer."
Lunar's chest tightened, the ache spreading slow and deep. "So I'm just supposed to stop?" she whispered. "Pretend she didn't matter?"
Eclipse's eyes hardened not with cruelty, but with something final "No," she said. "You are supposed to carry her properly."
The words hung between them.
Silence stretched, dense but not empty, pressing in on Lunar's ears until she became acutely aware of her own breathing, her own trembling hands.
"…Then why does it hurt more every time I do?" Lunar asked. Her voice was smaller now, frayed at the edges. "Why does it feel worse instead of better?"
Eclipse did not answer immediately. When she finally spoke, her voice was quieter—still cold, but with something more. "Because you are confusing remembrance with refusal."
Lunar looked up at her, lost. "…What does that mean?"
Eclipse's gaze didn't waver. "Remembrance allows something to change," she said. "It accepts loss and still lets what remains grow around it. It reshapes you. It moves with time. But what you are doing is refusal."
The word settled heavily between them.
"You take everything—your grief, your memories, your feelings—and you press them inward," Eclipse continued. "You seal them away untouched. Unspoken. You keep them still because you believe that if they never move, they will never decay."
Her fingers curled slightly.
"But nothing kept that way stays whole." The obsidian rippled again, faint fractures spreading outward.
"It rots," Eclipse said. "Quietly. Without sound. Until one day you realize you cannot move the way you used to."
Lunar's chest tightened. "I can move," she said quickly. "I can run. I just did."
Eclipse finally shifted, turning fully toward her. "No," she said. The word was calm. Absolute. "You are not running."
Lunar frowned, breath shallow. "I was on the track. I moved. I—"
"To run," Eclipse interrupted, "is to move forward by your own will." The gold circling her pupils narrowed, not with anger, but with judgment.
"What you do is different. You let the wind take you. You let rhythm carry you. You let the ground decide your pace. You disappear into motion and call it progress."
The eclipsed light dimmed further, shadows stretching long.
"There is no you in it," Eclipse said. "No choice. No direction. Just momentum swallowing you whole."
Lunar felt it then—a hollow recognition, sharp and undeniable.
"That is why you end up here," Eclipse went on. "Every time. This plane is what happens when movement has no self. When grief is stored instead of lived. When you refuse to step forward, and are instead dragged by your surroundings."
She stepped closer, voice low.
"You are not stuck because you are weak, little moon. You are stuck because you are holding everything still and calling it preservation."
The obsidian beneath Lunar's feet pulsed once, slow and deep. "And until that changes," Eclipse finished, "this place will keep finding you."
Lunar's breath hitched—and then snapped. "No," she said, voice rising sharp and sudden. "Don't say that."
Her hands clenched at her sides, nails biting into her palms. The obsidian beneath her seemed to shudder in response.
"You don't get to say that," Lunar shouted, the words spilling out faster now, burning. "That's how my mother taught me to run. She said to feel the ground. To listen to the wind. To let the rhythm carry you when your legs get tired." Her voice cracked, but she didn't stop. "She said running wasn't about forcing yourself forward—it was about trusting what's already there."
Her eyes burned. "So don't stand there and tell me there's no me in it. Don't twist it into something wrong."
For the first time, Eclipse looked… taken aback. Not startled. Not offended. Something quieter passed through her expression.
Her shoulders lowered by a fraction. The sharp line of her mouth eased, barely, and when she spoke again, the edge in her voice had softened into something closer to pity. "…I see," she said.
She studied Lunar with a long, measuring look, as if adjusting the shape of her understanding. "You are angry because you believe I am mocking her," Eclipse continued. "Because you think I am undoing what she gave you."
She shook her head once, slowly.
"No. Little moon."
Her voice softened, and with it the eclipsed light warmed by a degree, gold edging deeper, steadier.
"I am reminding myself of something I forgot." She stepped closer. Her presence no longer pressed in, but steadied the space between them.
"You are still a child." The words were not unkind.
"You remember the instructions," Eclipse said. "But you no longer remember how your mother truly ran."
Lunar stiffened. "I do—"
"You remember how it felt to run beside her," Eclipse interrupted gently. "Not how she moved when she ran alone."
Her molten-gold gaze met Lunar's, unwavering. "So let me remind you, little moon."
The obsidian brightened beneath them. Above, the eclipse sharpened, its ring of light drawing into focus. "Let me deliver the last lesson," Eclipse said, "in your mother's stead."
Then she turned—and ran. No warning. No explanation.
Her form pulled away from Lunar in smooth, effortless strides, black and gold cutting through the obsidian like a blade through water, every movement precise and unquestioned. The ground answered her immediately, light blooming in her wake as if the world itself bent toward her pace, rhythm folding neatly around her will.
Lunar's breath hitched. "Wait—!"
She lunged forward, feet striking the obsidian hard, expecting—hoping—for something to rise and meet her. But nothing did.
No rhythm surfaced beneath her steps. No warmth guided her pace. The ground felt dead beneath her soles, slick and unfeeling, as if it refused to acknowledge her existence at all. Her legs moved, but it was wrong—disjointed, hollow. She pushed harder, desperate, but the distance only grew.
Eclipse was already far ahead.
"Don't—!" Lunar gasped, the word breaking apart as her breath tore at her lungs. She tried to listen, to feel for anything familiar—wind, pulse, the echo of memory—but there was nothing to grasp. No guide. No answering presence. Just the sound of her own breathing, ragged and alone.
Her steps faltered, and she stumbled, barely catching herself as Eclipse's silhouette thinned against the endless dark. Her eyes burned, frustration blurring her vision, until the fear boiling in her chest gave way to something hotter and sharper.
Not at Eclipse.
At the emptiness. At the stillness that had swallowed her every time she tried.
Her chest heaved. Her hands curled into fists.
"No," she whispered, shaking. Then louder, raw and trembling, she told herself the truth she'd been avoiding—
Her chest heaved as she straightened, hands curling into fists, her whole body trembling with the effort of standing her ground in a place that offered none.
"No," she whispered, the word shaking loose. Then, louder—raw, unguarded, and finally honest—she said what she had been avoiding since the first step.
"I want to run." The words tore free without polish or restraint, driven by want rather than thought, and she surged forward again.
This time, she didn't listen for rhythm.
She didn't wait for the ground to answer.
She didn't chase memory or shadow.
Blindly, imperfectly, straight into the darkness, her steps slamming into the obsidian again and again until—
Something shifted.
Not the ground.
Her.
Her stride steadied. Her breathing fell into a pattern she set herself, uneven at first, then growing sure. The darkness no longer resisted her movement; it peeled back instead, unsettled, uncertain, as if surprised by her refusal to stop.
She was moving. Truly moving.
The distance began to close.
"Eclipse!" Lunar shouted, her voice ringing clear and alive as she ran, reaching forward with everything she had, fingers stretching through the air as the gap between them finally began to thin—
Eclipse turned—and smiled.
It was a brilliant smile, bright enough to reach her eyes, molten gold flaring warm and sure. It caught Lunar mid-stride, stole her breath more completely than the run ever could.
"See?" Eclipse said, voice carrying easily as Lunar drew alongside her. "Now you're able to run."
Lunar was still running when the realization struck her. Confusion fluttered through her chest, sharp and breathless.
"I—" Lunar struggled to keep pace beside Eclipse, eyes wide as she searched for answers. "I can run. I am running. But… how?"
Eclipse did not look at her right away.
The obsidian world held steady around them, the false sky fixed in place, crowned by the vast solar eclipse above. Its golden corona burned clean and unwavering, the black disk absolute, casting long shadows that stretched beneath their feet.
"I've done my part," Eclipse said at last. Her voice was calm, but there was distance in it already. "It's time for you to become your own moon, little moon."
Then she accelerated.
She leaned forward, stride lengthening with impossible grace, as if the world itself had decided to follow her lead. Gold flared brighter at the edges of her form, her silhouette sharpening, pulling light and rhythm with it. Each step she took drew the plane into alignment, the obsidian responding eagerly—yes, yes, yes—until she was no longer simply running through the world, but carrying it with her.
"Wait—!" Lunar called, instinctively reaching out.
She ran harder, chasing that brilliance, but the gap widened all the same. Eclipse was already slipping beyond reach, her figure stretching thinner, brighter, faster—becoming less a person and more a force.
The solar eclipse above trembled. Its golden ring dimmed.
Eclipse pulled farther ahead—and with her distance, the world began to unravel.
The warmth beneath Lunar's feet thinned first. The light that had traced her steps flickered, then vanished. The rhythm she'd built faltered, uneven and fragile without anything to anchor it.
"Eclipse—!" Lunar cried, panic threading back into her voice as the ground beneath her began to forget her again.
The sky darkened rapidly, the great eclipse overhead dissolving into nothing but black. The plane of obsidian lost what little depth it had gained, flattening, cooling, growing heavy once more.
Her stride broke. The ground stopped answering her.
"No—no, no—" Lunar gasped as her feet tangled, her body pitching forward. She barely caught herself on her hands and knees, breath tearing in and out of her chest as the full weight of the world crashed back down on her.
She tried to stand, pushing against the obsidian with trembling arms, but her legs refused to respond the way they had moments ago. Whatever she'd found was gone.
She couldn't run.
The darkness surged inward, swallowing distance and sound alike. Cracks spiderwebbed through the plane beneath her, thin veins of light leaking out only to be crushed beneath the encroaching void.
"I can't—" Her voice fractured as panic tightened its grip. "I can't—!"
The world began to collapse. The obsidian split apart beneath her, the silence roaring, and Lunar screamed—
___________________________________________________
She jolted upright, gasping.
Warmth met her first. Real warmth.
Her vision swam as the darkness tore away, replaced by soft shadows and unfamiliar walls. The remnants of the dream clung to her for a heartbeat longer before reality finally pushed through, steady and undeniable.
Her hand was being held. Lunar froze, breath still trembling, and slowly looked down.
Saiya sat curled beside the bed, fast asleep, her head resting against the mattress. One small hand was wrapped around Lunar's, fingers loose but certain, as if she had taken it sometime in the night and never thought to let go. Her breathing was shallow and even, her face peaceful.
At the sight, the pressure in Lunar's chest eased—just a little. She didn't move. She didn't pull away.
Instead, she let her fingers curl gently around Saiya's hand, grounding herself in the warmth.