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you be the m o o n

Fog kills all sound, always. It covers everything, hides dangers in its depths. It protects you and your family. There are few of you, so very few. The faces of your parents blur and fade, gone away with a flash of red and a strike of thunder. Yet you remain with her. Your older sister remains stoic, immobile, a constant in your life much like the fog. Your days are filled reading. Texts after texts after text. You learn to read with pages inscribed with old magic. You memorize tomes of old history, old names, old times. Legends lost to time are at your fingertips and at the tender age of seven you do not understand the knowledge you hold, and the secrets you keep as a member of the Seekers of Silverbark. [break][break]

You grow up confined. When there’s so few of you left in your commune, you can never leave unescorted. Not anymore. You grow used to not speaking at all, alone with your thoughts swirling idly by. You go through scroll after scroll, perfectly preserved and protected and guarded. Always guarded. [break][break]

but knowledge comes at a price [break][break]

And family is stripped from you. Whether it’s fate that takes your parents as they moved through the swamps, devoured by the unknown or the curse of bearing the knowledge of the forgotten you don’t know. When you ask your sister, who comes back with the husks of your family she doesn’t know either. [break][break]

“But you can learn,” an elder says, “You can understand that in your life, family and blood are not your bonds. Your loyalty lies in Truths and the Seekers of it.” [break][break]

Your vision blurs and you can’t make out the face of your sister who bows her head under the weight of your duties. Your body is heavy, and it moves on its own as you stand up, fists curled so tight your fingers turn white. Your lips move but the words that come out are being ripped form your throat, and sound unnatural. There is an unfamiliar mix of voices and you shake, both in anger and exhaustion as this pulls from somewhere you don’t know. The words you say leave your sister barely able to hold back her sobs and your family, the seekers, are ecstatic, numb to whatever your sister felt. [break][break]

i'll be the e a r t h

We are not alone. [break][break]

You don’t understand this dream, but you wake up feeling a bit at peace with your new reality. The numbers dwindle once more, but the adults don’t worry. There will always be seekers of truth, tested by ritual and cleansed by time. You are witness to it, even a participant at times as you learn your way f life, your customs. All the while, she watches over you, guards you. Sometimes her presence brings comfort. At others you feel cold because the look in her eyes is distant. She has never looked at you the same since that night. You learn to read the stars and bones, and you dream of leaving the swamp. Not in search of new truths and forgotten legends, but to become truly alone. There is an emptiness that comes with being surrounded by those who to you are strangers. Yet you are assured, this is your family. It always has been. You miss your parents. You miss your family who had been denied the ritual to pass on. You miss your parents who, you knew now, wished only to rest. [break][break]

When you cry out for your parents in your sleep you see them again, and you are forced to look. She brings them to you every single time, dried husks moving erratically, bones creaking and snapping in place and she whispers once more the mantra she was forced to recite so many times before. [break][break]

“Your only family is truth.”

She breaks something in you, as you beg her to stop every single time, as decrepit hands paw at your clothes and wrap around your screaming mouth. You don’t black out instead your throat, dry and hoarse, seeps words that are heard through the corpse’s hands. You do not feel anger, and you understand only fragments, and you cry and they are not your tears. [break][break]

When you wake up, she’s gone and you don’t see her until dinner. [break][break]

The call comes for you and your sister. A special delivery, to a place far north. You nod along, happy to be considered. You see a purple seal, broken by an elder’s hand. You don’t see the sigil on it.[break][break]

“You are a guardian of truths.” She whispers, cupping your face in the moonlight as she cuts your hair. Flowing white tresses and braid fall to the ground to be collected and burned. [break][break]

You leave with her, for the first time. She helps you walk out of the swamp unharmed, and she takes you by the hand north. You walk and walk. You see different scenery and you easily blend into the sprawling forests that beckon your sister like a siren song. [break][break]

And when she’s dragged into the forest amid snarls and shrieks you don’t think twice about leaving her. She does the same, passing the delivery onto you. You don’t smile at her. You don’t ask her to reconsider. You simply turn tail and run as fast as your legs can carry you. That is the last time you see your sister. That is the last time you see your parents’ corpses, as sight that had become familiar and almost comforting to you. Every step you take is another crack in your soul as something deep within howls against retreat. But you press on until you don’t know how far you’ve run, and you are left with dust in your heart. The solemn trees that tower over are your only company. You wretch on the ground and in the silence, remember what you had done. The realization finally hits and finally, ”finally,” a scream shreds as it escapes your tightened throat. Hot, fat tears are squeezed out of your eyes and your nails dig into the earth. [break][break]

You are breathless, free. Everything bottled inside flooding outwards now that you were truly, finally alone. It’s as lonely as you imagined it. [break][break]

“We are not alone.” [break][break]

A gentle voice taps your subconscious and holds you in their embrace, and you sigh softly. You know this voice. [break][break]

"We will be alright." [break][break]

& when we burst start over

begin again, begin again, begin again

You do not go back after your delivery, and instead send message. You will continue you journey with your patrons, allies in the war against the concealment of knowledge. [break][break]

And then, you don’t think of them at all. Taken in by your coven, you seek to learn. That natural curiosity is written in your bones, and that voice in your head is all but willing to comply. The coven doesn’t ask much of you only your silence and your loyalty, which it seemed to already have by nature of your connections. You nod along, and then make your own way. You learn how to act among your peers. You play the part you are given grateful that it helps repel those more easily fooled. You develop a taste for trading in secrets, eager to hoard the business of others, but always remain at an arm's length. You take up learning at Lux University, eager to explore something other than forgotten history, though you love it anyway. [break][break]

No one bothers you for more and you are content with that. [break][break]