Luna held the korral-tipped quill with sharp, deliberate precision. They had moved her to a new room—though "new" meant nothing here. It was the same cold stone, the same stale air, the same four walls pretending to be different.
She pressed the quill to the wall and carved into it.
Thin blue lines scraped across the surface glowing, and forming symbols and curves she'd copied from the Book of Enchantment Codes Dimitri had left her. Or loaned her. Or trapped her with, she still wasn't sure.
After hours of flipping through the small leather book her eyes landed on something interesting. Ter-Oten. She thought it sounded like, "tear open", at least as much as "Retunii" sounded like, return.
She tried copying the words, exactly as they were, carving with care, but after each finishing stroke of the quill. Nothing. No whisper against her soul, no spark of manea, no gust of light blinding her eye.
Each enchantment was a dud and with each dud the walls around her felt tighter almost almost as if they would witness her last breath.
Her heart felt cold, colder than the stone cell around her. She blamed it on being homesick, she hadn't seen her parents, or her uncle, or Gorchid in weeks.
But the coughing? That was harder to explain away.
"Ack, Huaghk!" She doubled over as blood splattered from her mouth, smearing on one of the many failed codes scratched into the wall.
That's…not good.
She cursed the thought, and went back to her wall of failures. It was the only way to keep her mind occupied, the only way to keep her distracted from her broken reality.
In the courtyard she sat on the floor near one of the walls, nibbling on a fruit she finally could name.
A Loo-Baum, a pomme blue in color and sweet in taste. She had one everyday, it was her favorite, of the moonie food she had tried, better than anything she had eaten on Earth. Even blueberries.
Her eyes locked onto the planet hanging in the sky, like a faint memory. That's how everyone on Akrinn saw earth, as something to be forgotten, and as hard as she tried to fight it the same notion crept into her mind. Lingering with each day passed.
"Ya' out 'ere broodin' again?" Hat approached her, hands full of the blue fruit. "I 'ave somethin' you might like." He sat near her and offered her two more Loo-Baums, "My sponsor got me extra, for…reactin' well to Lycan's proddin'"
Goosebumps formed on Luna's arm as she heard that name.
Lycan she thought, holding her arms close.
The doctor scared her, in ways the oldlands never could. She dreaded each visit to her lab, praying to the spirits each one would be her last.
"Thank you Hat," she said, her voice low from constant fatigue. She hesitated before taking them. "I won't get a demerit for taking extra will I?" She scanned the yard looking for a scientist that might be watching.
Hat replied gently. "No, Eighty-One, I doubt they'll miss a few, Baum's—'sides you look like ya' need it."
Luna managed a smile. "Are you calling me skinny Elf?"
He shot back. "That I am, I've fingers bigger than you, my pinky namely." He raised his finger, bending it to drive his point. Luna threw her half–eaten Loo-baum at his head. "See? Wastin' your food is only gonna keep ya' skinny."
"Screw you!" She said, her laughter betraying the ache in her chest.
"There she is, the foul mouthed earther!" he countered.
"Me?! Like it isn't, forn this and forn that, whenever you talk"
"Forn, ain't a foul, not really." He murmured defensively.
"Oh? Then what is it, I'm dying to know." She coughed again, catching the blood in her fist. "Literally," She said, as she wiped the blood on her gown.
His smile vanished as soon as her words left her lips. "Oi' why you say that? Ya' feeling the depth's creep to ya' bones?" His voice was steady, stern.
Luna felt as the mood shifted somberly. She smiled at him, trying to ease his worries, "No, I–it was just a stupid joke—"
He cut her off "Aye, it was—to laugh at death." He scoffed. "I worry for you Luna, you get more Lycan trips than any, and you always come back worse for wear."
He looked at her arms, his eyes confirmed his words.
She had bruises, scattered across both her arms like a wildfire, that had left its mark.
She noticed his stare, closing herself up a bit.
Why does he care so much about me? It's…annoying. She wished he'd look anywhere else.
"I'm fine," She mumbled, begrudgingly. "Don't have to worry about me."
"Can't help it, if I do." he insisted. "We're mates now, I care for my mates."
Luna shook her head as she took the Loo-baums, Hat gave her and handed them back to him. "We're not friends Hat, we're just two stupid kids who got lost in the same place." She rose from the ground, her back to him.
"You're just a number to me…we're all just…numbers in here." She walked without saying another word. Hat watched, as she left him, alone. The closeness he felt with her drawing thin.
He looked at the Loo-baum's he had meant for her, their small cube-shaped bodies stacked neatly on the tray. He looked up at Luna now sitting at an adjacent wall, still brooding. His eyes drifted back to the fruit, an Idea forming in his head.
Luna sat out of the sun under the shade the wall had often provided her at noon. She rested her eyes, and for a brief second her mind forgot the circumstances that brought her here, as she breathed in the smooth air of the Shorr Isles.
I would love it here. She thought, holding to her aching stomach. If mom and dad were here. And Dimitri, Tara. She hesitated, still wondering what to think of him. Even Atreus. She grinned, finally giving in.
She coughed again swallowing her own blood in an attempt to hide her condition from Hat who was still being annoyingly snoopy.
She slowly slumped over as the exhaustion behind her eyes spread through the rest of her body, hushing her thoughts, to make way for dreams.
She awoke back in her family's old tipi. It looked different than the one in Astoria, but still vaguely familiar. She grabbed at her chest—the pain that had been there moments ago was gone.
Only the cut on her leg remained: fresh, bandaged, bloody… but manageable.
"Ahh…" she exhaled.
For the first time in weeks, she could breathe easily, without that metallic taste of blood coating her throat.
She took several long breaths, silently vowing never to take them for granted again.
Sitting up on her fur cot, Luna looked around, trying to make sense of things.
The courtyard she'd been sitting in…
Was that just a bad dream
The trials? The tests?
Nightmares?
She wiped her eyes clear—and only then noticed her arm. Tattoo-less. Void of the white symbols her uncle stitched into her skin years ago.
What the…?
She checked the rest of her body. The scars from years of bull herding—
Gone.
The freckles scattered across her skin from the Oldland sun—
Missing.
She reached into her father's satchel, pulling out the mirror he always kept to "pick out his hair when it got too nappy," as he'd say.
Her reflection stared back, unfamiliar.
"Why am I so… young?" she whispered, feeling her unnervingly smooth face.
She looked ten years old—maybe younger. Without tattoos, she looked even smaller.
A chilled breeze crept through a crack in the tipi flap, a cold she hadn't felt in years.
Wyoming.
She wrapped herself in furs and crawled to the opening. When she pushed the flap aside, a harsh gust slammed into her face, stinging her old scar like ice on an open wound.
Snow was falling.
The mountains framed her camp. The layout. The smells. The sounds.
Nostalgia swept through her like a tide, and slowly, her confusion fell into place.
Her eyes widened. "I'm in Cody?" she murmured, her voice higher, younger.
"Yeah you are, little monster," a warm, familiar voice said behind her.
"Dad?" Luna spun, her eyes landing on Joseph—bundled in far more cloaks than anyone needed. She leapt toward him, forgetting entirely about the wound in her leg.
Joseph caught her mid-jump, panicked. "Woah—careful, Luna. That bull grazed you pretty bad back in Yellowstone. You were out the whole trip."
He lifted her cloak to check the wound, frowning as fresh blood seeped through the cloth.
"Shit, you opened the stitches." She only smiled back, happy just to see his face again.
She remembered this. All of it. It had happened before—five years ago. Her first big scar.
Joseph gently unwrapped the bandage, studying the gash deep in her leg. "You're not feeling this?" he asked, shocked by her cheeriness.
"Not really— I mean, it hurts a bit, but I've had worse." She smirked proudly.
His brow pinched. "You have? When?"
"Don't you remember that rattlesnake that bit me?"
Joseph stared at her, baffled.
"Back in the Mojave?" she added.
"We've never been to the Mojave, Luna—are you feeling alright?" He touched her forehead.
Never been to the Mojave? Am I really reliving a memory? It feels… so real.
Her father's worry cut through her thoughts.
"Are you listening to me? You're acting weird. Maybe that concussion's getting worse." He rummaged through his satchel, the bulk of his winter clothes making every motion clumsy.
Luna giggled. "Why are you dressed like that?"
Joseph muttered, "You know me, Luna… As much as I hated the place, at least the Boroughs had heaters. It's cold as hell out here—my ass is forming icicles."
She laughed as he pulled out a small orange container with a white cap.
"These are some pills I found scavenging an old pharmacy with the raiding crew," he said. "It's called… 'Ibu-proof-in,' I think."
He handed it to her. "It's for headaches. Drink some water and use it. And don't let your mom know I gave it to you—she don't trust the ways of the old world."
He winked and ruffled her hair. "Now go play with your brother, he's annoying the hell out of your mom—cause let's face it, there ain't nothin' to do out here…just, watch your leg, please."
Joseph ducked into the tipi unknowingly leaving Luna standing there—frozen.
A breath caught in her throat. The world began to swirl, the entire mountain range pulsing in time with her heartbeat.
Callisto is still alive?
She clutched the air like it was a weight she couldn't afford to drop. She didn't want to see him. She couldn't. Not if he wasn't real.
Not if he wouldn't stay.
She pinched herself—hard—trying to tear herself out of the illusion. Nothing happened. She pinched harder, nearly breaking skin.
Wake up Luna, this place isn't real!
Her feet stayed planted in the snow, cold and wet. Her hair still swayed in the wind, free and heavy. Her breath stayed visible in the freezing air.
Everything stayed real, too real. More real than the courtyard she'd drifted off in.
She looked down at her leg in panic. The scar didn't look like a wound anymore—it looked like a key.
She shoved her finger into the gash, her nerves igniting in white-hot pain.
"Spirits!" she screamed, the entire camp whipping toward her, faces snapping her way—
and then flickering into the faces of the subjects in the courtyard.
It's working, she thought, tears falling hot and heavy.
"What are you doing, Luna?!" Joseph burst from the tipi, his face twisted with fear.
She pushed her finger deeper, hitting bone.
"Shit!" she spat—borrowing her father's curse.
"Stop it, Luna—you're hurting yourself!" he cried, grabbing for her hand, trying to pull her away from her own leg.
She ignored him, twisting her finger inside the wound.
"Stop it, Lun—ty one!" Joseph's voice cracked, his face phasing, melting into someone else entirely.
Joresh. Trying desperately to stop her from doing more damage.
Wyoming shattered. The snow, the camp, the mountains—all peeled away like torn paper. And she was back. Flat on the cold tile floor of the courtyard. The Oldlanders gone. Replaced by horrified patients—Hat included—staring at her as she lay in a spreading pool of her own blood, pouring from her leg.
"Finally you've stopped," Jorrsh said, quickly tightening a tourniquet around her leg. He looked around at the other sponsors who stood there motionless as she bled on the ground.
Jorrsh's voice bellowed through the courtyard in frustration and panic. "Don't just stand there help me get her to a surgical lab—Now!" The Sponsors quickly snapped out of their stupor and ran to Luna's side picking her up carefully, blood now soaking their white coats.
Luna looked at her leg, and it was a gruesome sight. Flesh hung off the bone, with strips of skin being the only thing connecting her foot and her leg.
"My—leg—who…" Luna's words dragged out slowly, thick from blood loss.
Jorrsh shushed her quickly, answering before she could finish.
"You did, Eighty-one!"
Luna blinked up at him. Beneath his calm voice, she saw it—fear.
Fear of her.
They rushed her into the lab, setting her onto a medical cart. Cabinets slammed open and shut as Jorrsh searched desperately for something, anything, to dull the agony.
"An alleviation potion won't help," he muttered. "The wound is too grave—it'd risk sending her into shock."
He grabbed a Numb-er potion instead, uncorked it with his teeth, and poured the shimmering liquid down Luna's throat.
Her pain evaporated almost instantly. Her vision swam. Her consciousness slipped.
She only caught the last thing Jorrsh barked—sharp, urgent, final:
"Amputate the leg. There's no saving it. I'll report to Lycan about her condition."
Then, softer—low enough she wasn't sure she heard it:
"She'll want to know about this… breakthrough."