(Untitled)

[fortunes_phase]

[OOC: Part of the Duet for Claws and Swords plot.]

Moon is still in her tree.

It's become a comfortable place, really. She doesn't have to eat. She doesn't have to drink. She doesn't have to sleep. She can just sit in the quiet, occasionally dealing with family or the wolves.

She has grown fond of her tree.

Moon, it seems, has no intention of

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[bright_daughter]

She's drawn there by the light she knows second to her own, among other things. Trailing slowly through the forest, the cape of the forest floor undisturbed by her feet or the swish of the long white skirt as it passes half an inch over.

Star doesn't look up until she's actually made the bottom of the tree, but when she does there's a faint smile plucking at her lips as her gaze go to the only place it could be drawn here.

[fortunes_phase]

Moon peers down, still huddled in the V of her tree.

"Bright sister, you've come to find me?"

[bright_daughter]

There's a lingering moment, or is it minutes, before Star's fingers reach out to trace a line on the tree bark.

Her eyes are bright, warm but there's a level of absent inquisitiveness after her first statement. "I missed your company. You've been here a while."

[fortunes_phase]

"Hiding."

She looks up at the branches.

"Safe here. Can't break the rules. Can't overstep. Can't be tempted."

[bright_daughter]

Her head tilts, eyes unblinking. Fondness and truth are two different things, but sometimes they touch.

"Can't shine down."

[fortunes_phase]

Moon shakes her head, clutching her knees.

"Ruin stalks his steps. He's not here, though. Gone. Gone away. Further down the path. Far, far away. Can't protect, but, oh, Star-sister, I want to!"

This causes her voice to quaver a bit.

"The path is drowning in blood, in guilt, and he will slip beneath the surface."

[bright_daughter]

"He can not go up first," Star responded, gentle tone as she was trailing her fingers along the bark walking upwards in a shimmering spiral. "It would all be lost. There would be no way, no lesson -- he would be more lost to himself."

[fortunes_phase]

"He will suffer."

Moon sniffles.

"I don't want him to suffer."

[bright_daughter]

Star continued making her way round and round and round until she stopped in front of her sister. She reached out and stroked The Moon's hair.

It's in who she is.

It's in who The Moon will always be to her.

"You would not wish him to be less than he is meant be."

[fortunes_phase]

"No, I would not."

She lifts her head, gazing at Star.

"I am afraid," she breathes.

For the wolf. For the warrior. For the cards. For herself.

[bright_daughter]

"The tide is turning," Star uttered, a whisper in the ruffle of the breeze through the leaves and branches that surrounded them, in answer to the weight of the words and what they meant.

It was coming.

Moon was right to be afraid.

They all could have been; would be.

Star still wasn't. She was what she was.

"But the morning will still find all those who come in from the sea."

[fortunes_phase]

"The tide will rise up and devour us all."

Moon squeezes her eyes shut.

"Gurgle gurgle and the clawing for air, but it's bitter. Thick and rotting and the stench of it all."

[bright_daughter]

"Necessary," Star said, easily.

Which was not the same as happily.

Even if hers was a countenance of light.

[fortunes_phase]

Moon opens her eyes, reaching out to thread her faintly luminescent hand with Star's glowing one.

"I see the moon, and the moon sees me," she says. "We are duty. Awoke to it. We will see all duty through. Necessary," Moon echoes.

[bright_daughter]

Star entwined her fingers with her sisters. The action was without thought or consideration, and even already smiling the shimmer of her skin shifted subtly brighter.

"Together, we will weather."

[fortunes_phase]

They share the sky.

They strengthen one another.

Moon's eyes shine brighter, lucidity filling them as she gazes at her sister.

"Will we?" she asks.