Lunar did not cry at the funeral.
Not because she was being brave.
Not because she was holding it in.
She simply… couldn't.
Something inside her felt locked, frozen, as if the part of her that knew how to cry had been buried with her mother long before the coffin touched the ground.
She stood among the murmuring villagers, small and rigid, hands clasped in front of her the way someone had gently positioned them.
Faces blurred—somber, pitying, drifting like shapes behind fogged glass. She didn't look at any of them. She barely heard the priest's voice or the soft sniffles from the crowd.
Her gaze stayed fixed on the wooden coffin.
It looked too large for the woman she remembered. Too still. Too quiet. The blanket folded on top—her mother's favorite, the one they shared on stormy afternoons—looked wrong without a warm body beneath it. Wrong enough that Lunar kept staring, waiting for it to move, lift, breathe.
But it didn't.
And neither did she.
Someone touched Lunar's shoulder.
A gentle hand, careful, warm.
But she didn't look.
She couldn't tell who it belonged to— maybe an elder, a neighbor, a distant relative. Everyone was nothing but soft shapes and muted colors to her, drifting like silhouettes through haze. Their voices blended together, muffled, faraway, as if she were underwater.
Only her mother had ever been clear. But now even that felt like it was slipping.
Before the lid was closed, they had let Lunar stand near her mother's body, though she barely remembered walking there. The image had burned itself into her instead, sharp in its stillness:
Her mother lay on a bed of white cloth, dressed in her favorite deep-grey ceremonial robes. The gentle drape of the fabric made her look almost like she was merely resting after a long run. Her silver hair had been brushed smooth across the pillow, shining faintly under the lantern light, but it looked duller than Lunar remembered—missing the warm shimmer the sun once gave it.
Her face was calm. Too calm. Softened by death into something serene but lifeless.
Her lips had been cleaned, though Lunar could still see where the color had drained away. A faint trace of pallor clung to her skin, as if someone had painted her in ashes instead of light.
Her mother's hands—those gentle, warm hands that always held Lunar steady—were folded neatly over her chest. They looked fragile now, thin and unmoving, like porcelain that might crack if touched too long.
Lunar had stared at her, waiting for her chest to lift, for her fingers to twitch, for anything at all.
Yet nothing had moved.
She wanted to see her mother's face one more time. Even though she already knew it wouldn't change. Even though she knew it would still be pale—too pale—its warmth gone forever.
A pair of adults guided her forward again.
"Lunar… sweetheart… go say your goodbye."
Goodbye?
The word didn't fit into her understanding. It slid off her like rain.
She stepped closer, not because she chose to, but because she was nudged. The world had shrunk to the coffin, the dark wood reflecting the blurred shimmer of her small form.
She reached out—tiny fingers brushing the polished surface.
Cold.
Cold like her mother's hand had been.
Her voice barely carried.
"…Momma…"
Her breath shook.
"…I'll… I'll catch up… one day…"
Then the coffin was lowered.
Ropes creaked—thin, straining whispers that felt too loud in the still morning air. Soil shifted in slow, reluctant cascades.
And with every inch the coffin sank, Lunar felt the ground inside her chest giving way too, collapsing grain by grain. It was as if the world she knew—warm hands, soft stories, the gentle rhythm of feet beside her—was being lowered into the earth with her mother, sealed beneath layers of silence she could never dig through.
By the time the ropes were pulled free, her breath had gone thin.
By the time the first shovel of dirt fell, she felt nothing at all.
When it was over, the crowd drifted away in small clusters.
Voices buzzed at the edge of her hearing—condolences, sympathies, blessings—but they reached her as distant vibrations, nothing more. A blur of footsteps, skirts, murmurs… all meaningless. All wrong. None of them were her mother, so none of them mattered.
Lunar remained.
She sank to her knees before the fresh mound of earth, the cold seeping through her clothes. Her hair fell in pale-grey wisps over her eyes, sticking to her cheeks where the wind brushed past her. She didn't bother to move it. She barely remembered how to.
The tombstone stood before her—pale polished stone, still smelling faintly of dust and tools. Newly carved. Newly placed. Too new for the person it claimed.
She forced her trembling hands forward, fingertips dragging across its surface. The stone was unbearably cold, as if carved from winter itself.
Guair Light
Loving Mother. Cherished by All.
May the Three Goddesses Guide Her Run to the Afterlife.
Lunar traced each word slowly, carefully, as though losing her place would make her lose the last pieces of her entirely. Her finger snagged on the grooves of each carved letter; the hardness of the stone pressed back into her skin with an indifference that made her stomach twist.
Her lips parted. A ragged breath escaped.
But no sound followed.
No wail.
No whisper.
Not even a broken "Momma."
She only stared—wide, hollow, unblinking.
Like if she looked long enough, the stone might warm.
Like if she waited quietly enough, the earth might stir.
Like if she held still, perfectly still, the world might return to the one she remembered.
But nothing moved.
Nothing warmed.
Only the wind answered her, curling around her small form as if trying to fill the space her mother once held.
Lunar stayed there—empty, frozen, uncomprehending— a child waiting for a warmth that would never come again.
As if recognizing her despair, an unexpected warmth slid around Lunar's shoulders, gentle yet unfamiliar.
It wasn't her mother's warmth—not the sun-soaked comfort that smelled of carrot bread, grass, and the soft graphite of old sketchbooks, but it was warmth nonetheless. Steady. Living. Real enough that her breath hitched.
For a moment, Lunar thought she was imagining it.
Her mind had been drifting in and out of memories all day, blending dreams with reality until she could no longer tell the difference. Maybe this too was another ghost of the past reaching for her.
Then something brushed her cheek. Not the coarse wool of someone's sleeve, not the cool touch of a stranger's hand, but hair. Long, smooth, and strangely soft, like silk trailing across her skin.
A faint scent followed, delicate and unfamiliar: sea wind mixed with crushed lavender.
It anchored her in place.
Lunar blinked.
And in the blurred edge of her vision, color bloomed. A streak of vivid, glowing blue—then another—falling like loose ribbons into her line of sight.
Arms tightened around her, careful and unsure, almost trembling in the way they tried not to hold her too tightly. It felt like someone piecing together a broken vase with their bare hands, terrified they might only shatter it further.
Above her, a voice finally broke—the sound thin and trembling with grief so raw it barely held itself upright.
"Lunar Light…?"
The voice knew her name. Lunar did not answer. Her throat worked, but her voice stayed locked behind it.
The arms around her pulled closer, steady but shaking, and Lunar felt the stranger tuck her face into her tangled hair. A trembling breath escaped her—heavy, aching, and full of something Lunar couldn't name.
"Oh… child," the woman whispered, voice cracking like thin ice. "You look just like her…" Another breath, choked, almost swallowed. "I'm so, so sorry…"
Lunar blinked once. Slowly. Her mind felt thick, muffled, drifting in a fog she couldn't push through.
She didn't pull away. She didn't lean in.
She simply sat there, held by a warmth she didn't understand— a warmth that wasn't the one she wanted.
The woman pulled back slightly, just enough that Lunar's hazy vision could make out the shape of her face.
Color bled back into the world in thin, cautious strokes. A tall uma musume knelt beside her, dressed in dark shades that blended with her mid-length hair. The strands were black on top but flashed with streaks of vivid electric blue underneath.
Tear tracks cut down her cheeks, shining faintly. But she tried—really tried to keep her expression steady, her brows soft, her lips gentle, as if Lunar might break with even a wrong glance.
"Oh, dear…" she whispered, touching her cheek carefully. "You're trembling. Come here, sweetheart… you shouldn't be alone right now."
Lunar didn't react. Her gaze stayed empty, drifting somewhere past the woman's shoulder, as if her mind had slipped through the cracks.
The woman swallowed hard, steadied herself, and drew in a shaky breath.
"I suppose I should… introduce myself." Her voice was thin but careful. "My name is Black Caviar."
The name meant nothing to Lunar. It passed through her like wind through an open window. Her eyes remained blank. Her world remained dull. And the warmth around her, though real, felt like a fragile echo of something she'd already lost.
But the woman continued, voice softening into something painfully tender.
"I am your mother's friend. We grew up together… trained together… dreamed together." She swallowed, breath faltering.
"She trusted me with something precious. With you."
Lunar's head tilted, barely perceptible. Her eyes flickered, dull but questioning.
Black Caviar's hand cupped her cheek, thumb brushing away a tear Lunar didn't even realize had fallen.
"Guair… asked me to watch over you," she said, voice cracking at the name. "She told me, 'If anything happens to her…'"
The wind blew then, carrying the raw scent of freshly turned soil and the fading sweetness of incense.
Black Caviar closed her eyes, drawing a slow breath, fighting her grief back into something steady enough to offer the child in front of her.
When she spoke again, her voice was softer, steadier, full of quiet promise.
"I'm here now, Lunar," she whispered. "I promise, you won't be alone…"
Her embrace tightened—not replacing the warmth Lunar lost, not trying to. But offering a new warmth, fragile and imperfect, yet honest.
For the first time since waking that morning, Lunar blinked as the fog around her vision thinned by the slightest margin.
Not understanding. Not believing. But at the very least— recognizing… that someone was holding her.
And she didn't push that warmth away.