[The moon of Achernar]

For Nihal we learn to care

Weakest of the two sisters

For Arneb we learn to see

Strongest of the two sisters.

May life see its course,

Either crushed under hooves

Or escaping wounded with wings of white

Over an endless river of yore.

Be reborn in Achernar

Sculpted to be my shell anew

I will keep you, Atargatis, my savior

Until the day I hold you again

Under your new name that shines bright at night…

-A

❀

When Tsuki woke up, it was night. A cart carried her for some time on the road filled with misery. Although some people were sleeping, most were still trying to recover from the last night in their own way.

“Here, take this.” Said a girl next to Tsuki who gave her a cold soup. She was about the same age as Tsuki, with dark skin and violet eyes, which reminded her of Kanga. “Eat, you slept for too long.”

“Hn, thanks.”

Tsuki took the bowl and noticed this person was missing an arm and had a broken leg. By her side was a large pot filled with food that might have been warm at some point.

In total, there were about ten wounded in this cart which left almost no place for privacy. Some were sleeping while others were writhing in pain.

“Hoomaikai…” whispered a woman in her mid-forties taking care of changing a boy’s bandage. “I’m sorry, he’s not—”

“—I know,” cut the dark-skinned girl. “Throw him with the others. He can rest easy now. Like he always wanted…”

And so, the lady left with the corpse of a young boy in the darkness of the night. In turn, the one called Hoomaikai simply covered her face in her knee and said nothing for some time. The one to break the silence was a bald old man with crazy eyes. “Susapa ho Tatala, bermidon a bowl. My bala balada, bermidon a bowl for my bala!” He spoke pompously while polishing the many rings on his fingers.

No one responded to him, either just confused or frustrated by him. “Susapa ho Ta—“SHUT THE HELL UP OLD MAN!”—tala, bermidon a bowl. My bala balada, bermidon a bowl for my bala!” The wounded girl tried to silence the old man’s strange chanting, but he ignored her scream and kept talking after she was done.

“I-I think he’s just hungry.” Tried to interject Tsuki.

“Hell no,” brushed off the girl. “We gave him a bowl and he threw it at someone outside so hard that their nose broke.”

“Maybe I can try to feed him?”

“Hey pipsqueak, eat your own share and just shut up. He threw his, then he can starve.”

“We can’t j—“Hell yeah, we can. And we will. We’re all going to starve to death!”—… What do you mean by that?”

“We literally don’t have enough food to reach the nearest town! He doesn’t want our food? Then feed him yourself!”

On this, the harsh truth hit Tsuki like a hammer. Everyone ran for their lives after being woken up during the night. The little food stashed away for an emergency combined with what little people had time to take before escaping would never be able to feed a few hundred people for the few weeks needed to reach the next town.

“Some dumb nuts tried to go back and get resources, but those disgusting fish chased them away. So, we’re stuck with our thumb in our ass, only able to move forward and hope we’ll stumble on a giant apple or whatever those lund-face who think they are kings hope to find.”

“Lund-face?” asked Tsuki, confused as to what this might be.

“What? You never saw those shit-flinging, flying balls of fur? There are a lot of them in the southern district of the capital. They hunt annoying bugs and create good compost for farming.”

“…Never saw. Is the capital big?”

“Hmmm, I guess. I don’t know how big it is compared with the other ones in the world, but it takes a week of walking to go from one side to another.”

“Liar, it can’t be that bi— “Susapa ho Tatala, bermidon a bowl. My bala balada, bermidon a bowl for my bala!”—… are you hungry mister?”

“My bala balada. Ho please, I piroudi and titourdi if you bermidon a bowl. Or NO! A loaf of tamtam with a udup of utup as my cara is carada.” Said the old man who changed his script after Tsuki asked him a question.

“Sure,” said Tsuki whose answer surprised the wounded girl. “I have some bread in my bag. I can share some with you, along with my soup, which will have to do in place of utup, but you have to promise me to eat it.”

“I balpori to my Mag Mell. I will balaby, I will balaby.”

“See?” said Tsuki to Hoomaikai with a smirk after giving a small loaf of bread and half her soup to the man who then ravenously ate everything to then only fall asleep like a baby.

“I’d punch your face if I could.”

“Try me.”

“Yeah no, not now. Anyway, what’s your name? Mine’s Hoomaikai.”

“I’m Tsuki. What were you doing in this village, Miss Hoomaikai?”

“Just Maikai is fine. You know, what I’m doing here is confidential information that can only exit my mouth if something equivalent enters it…”

“Jerky?”

“Hooo, a brat like you does understand me. Thank you for this gift.”

“Hn”

“Anyway, it’s boring. The dumb academy my parents forced me at had the brilliant idea to force its student on a uselessly dangerous trip just so they can give us the last few credits needed to pass this semester. It’s either that or we lick their ass with wads of cash…”

“…” In the end, Tsuki regretted trading one of her precious jerkies for this useless information.

“Like, what even is the point in visiting a dirt-poor village that stinks of rotten fish if your end goal is to study magic at a so-called prestigious academy? It’s filled with nobles with sticks in their ass who only know the magic of licking higher up’s boots like horny mutts. I’d be better up sitting all day on my butt reading books than following their so-called ‘way of the mage’. Gosh, they disgust me more and more. Anyway, what were you doing in this village…Hey? Are you there?”

“Hn! Say say! You said you’re studying magic, right?”

“Well yeah, I di…Don’t tell me—”

“—Can you teach me?!”

“Damnit…”

“Please~~~”

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

“Hurg.”

“Please~~~~~”

“Haa! FINE. But you need to do something in exchange.”

“Yes!”

“I can’t walk; I can’t really collect food. Thus, you get me food until we reach Daybreak. Is that good?”

“Yes Yes!”

With this, Tsuki made her first friend in this world. They talked for some time about how they escaped the village. Hoomaikai showed Tsuki her magic while Tsuki showed Hoomaikai her beautiful glaive which she could change into a dagger at will.

In the end, the two girls didn’t share their life before coming to the now-destroyed village. They did act well with one another, but there were limits as to what could be shared with someone you just met, after all. Since Tsuki wasn’t really injured, and the cast put on her leg only existed as someone over-wrapped her wounded leg in bandages, she decided to go look around to understand the situation.

As soon as she left the cart, she was surprised by what it really was.

“Don’t worry,” said Hoomaikai from within the ‘creature’. “they’re golems made from an old stick in the mud teacher. Like, he could totally make them more interesting to look at. But no. Can’t waste magic on useless things like looks. No wonder his wife left him to sleep with the son of a baron. Hoo yeah! That noble even went to his class with her as his ‘assistant’. Gosh, you should have seen his face!”

The girl in the cart kept rambling for some time while Tsuki inspected the strange stick bug whose chest low to the ground was the cart itself. It had a long head able to eat a few leaves in the trees. She petted it for a few moments in the hope to be able to feed it an apple she held in her hand as if it was an animal.

*Buuuuuuu*

It looked at her with a head similar to a mosquito and instantly, its long tubular mouth pierced the fruit which it then drank from the inside.

“Good boy—”

“—Yeah Tsuki, don’t feed those things if possible. They get sick and start smelling.” Said Hoomaikai who couldn’t see what Tsuki was doing.

“…”

Tsuki gave a prayer of good health to the golem and left without saying that she did give an apple…

❀

Her leg did hurt a bit after walking for some time, but she stumbled on something that managed to numb her pain. She had no clue if her senses were tricking her because of the curse or if what was in front of her was usual in this world. She looked to her side, at a strange kind of scorpion about her own size with its sting replaced by a man with an open chest showing his organs dangling, and she thought he looked more normal than the burning pyre in front of her.

“Hmmm, mister?” she tried to call the scorpion-centaur.

“I…I don’t know little one…” he said, already knowing what she was going to ask.

“Are bunnies used as logs somewhere in the world?”

“No…No…They shouldn’t burn that well.”

“Mister…Aren’t they multiplying too fast?”

“Yes…Yes, they are.”

“Meat?”

“No. We tried. Wood. Wood bunny…”

“Soooooo, how do we stop them?”

“I don’t know, little one. I don’t know. They scare me…”

In front of them was a large pyre powered by many bunnies jumping in the flames. One went in and burned to a crisp only to then have two new ones jump out from the charred body only for them to jump back in the fire. It was an infernal loop that increased the strength of the fire. It grew bigger and bigger in front of them.

Though something like that wasn’t normal, the survivors surrounding it used the heat produced to cook some food, warm themselves, and do other menial tasks. A man, seeing those strange animals, took one of the rabbits by its ears to see how it would react. Surprisingly, it tried to play dead, or more precisely, it completely stopped moving and turned into a wooden sculpture. Its pure white coat dripped down like paint and from the blob on the ground came out frogs who jumped in the fire and exploded like small water balloons that extinguished a portion of the pyre.

“Hey! Catch a frog to see what it’ll become!” said someone boiling water.

And so did the one who caught the white bunny. But to catch the frogs, he had to let go of the bunny which then managed to jump into the fire. As for the frogs, they simply dissolved into the ground.

“No free food I guess…”

Tsuki got bored looking at this fire. She had no clue how it even started and didn’t care much about it. Her only goal in mind was to secure enough food for her new friend. Thus, she left the pyre built for the dead that was now turned into a joke by the forest they had intruded…

As the dead and slaughtered cried of their fate,

Their loved ones laughed around their burning flesh

Not seeing beady eyes with more life than a critter ought to have

They hopped around listening to those whose tears they ought to have

Split in half, split in fourth, split in eight; they jumped into the pyre

Their memories turned to cinders.

Take them and hold them dear as nothing more than memorial

As paint drip when the tears dry

The flame of love once sung extinguished forevermore

Until they fade one morning like a dream of a mournful past.

As on one morn, we forget the joy of mourning.

❀

For the moment, Tsuki felt like she needed to distance herself from the mass of people. She just wasn’t used to being surrounded by so many strangers. They laughed and cry. Talked and whispered. Lived and slept. She didn’t like them, didn’t trust them. Loneliness was best for the tired mind.

She went deep into the darkness made from twirling branches and dry canopies. Be it mushrooms, roots, flowers, berries, fruits, or small animals existing in this forest, she needed to harvest as much as possible to help feed the wounded. But she would find no such thing in the forest of dreams…

Those who led the long line of survivors choose to deviate from the usual path. There used to have a direct path, many years in the past, that joined the fishing village to the closest town. Merchants came and went safely as the road traversed Yassil territory which he protected dearly. But as he retracted from the world after his daughter’s passing, the minions of the Great Devourer became more brazen. They feed on the people traveling on a road that should have been safe. Guards were used to protect those traveling but as the danger increased, the road people used moved closer to the limit of the forest until one day, the only safe path was where two dangerous forests met.

But with the recent event, the Great Devourer manifesting in the sky, a major issue appeared. The minions it vomited were numerous. So much so that they began pushing around the forest outskirts to feed themselves. They couldn’t go north as it was mountainous with little to no food. In the east was a poisonous plain that separated them from a dangerous fort. They did go toward the now-destroyed village but there was still so little food for them for the population that was stranded without their god. Thus, some were forced to push south, into the forest of vorpal shards’ border.

For the survivors, they would either have to drown in wave after wave of starving abominations or test their luck in the land of dreams. The choice was simple. Only death would have awaited them on the usual path.

“Even if the night is dark. Even if nightmares hunt our sleep. Even if we are scared of the unknown. Morning comes to all, and we wake up more refreshed.” So were the reasons they chose to enter a crawling nightmare.

Its claws that grab already taking hold of the poor survivors’ minds who only traded one suffering for another. Deeper and deeper in the forest in tain wait its jaws that gnarl ready to consume the dream and aspiration of those who might rise the lord of sleep.

The survivors might hope to leave this forest intact. Thinking that a dream is but a tale of the brain…But so is life. It is nothing more than a beautiful dream that a mind imagines. And the beast, its wings that flutter, who desires the knave and the brave…stories entwined for bedtime tales. Its teeth that rake, desire the princess’s tears and the hero’s blood. In its play of nighttime stories, the survivors are puppets playing the part of the braves on the stage dedicated to the lord of dream…

❀

Tsuki got lost in such a forest. The trees all looked the same. So, she bravely walked in the dark armed with her glaive. With a light shining in the distance, she pressed forward in this depth of the night, lured onward. It finally came into her view. A building of tired white, cracked in parts, and illuminated by a blue neon sign: Alice’s Supermarket.

Tsuki unsurprisingly went inside. She took the first basket available and walked with confidence between the many shelves filled with strange products marked with unknown prices. A bucket of orange pulps for three disdains / a chocolate coated in almond for an almond coated in chocolate / the quack of a passing duck for a lemon and a pinch of salt / a singing hare (Special – cursed! – Special) for a song / a half-price coupon, buy one get one, for two twice-price coupons…

Tsuki placed a fire-resistant rabbit, a glove made from missing socks (-Washed-), and a left-handed straw in her basket out of curiosity. She was just curious about this strange market and had to learn more about it.

As she was about to head toward the strange wooden dolls with dripping red paint working the checkout, something small pulled on her coat. It was a small creature wearing a maroon trench coat and a hat with an overly large brim. Only a burning red stub could be seen of its perfectly black furry head as the thing sucked on a cigarette while never letting the smoke out. It finally opened its eyes, overcome by many sleepless nights which showed a deep and profound gray bustling with intelligence and two vertical slit-like pupils.

“Tell me tell me little one,” he said with an excessively low voice strained for the stress his mysterious job required of him. “Lost, are you? At this time of the night? I say, what you’re planning to buy is mighty suspicious. Don’t you think?”

Then, the cat standing on two legs turned around Tsuki. He inspected her as if she was planning a murder which he lacked any evidence to prove. “Say, little girl,” he added. “I have a few questions for you. I’m sure you won’t mind following me in the back, right?”

“Sure.” Said Tsuki who was starting to feel excited by those strange turn of events. She wanted to see where this was going and followed the little cat in the back of the store on an adventure to find a table of good quality to lead an interrogation.