Sanity Comes Through Lunacy

A Legions of Lyric Tale

Hacienda Bambata, south of Naurlinz, South Wisana
11:11pm, Sowenmoon 27th, 456 NE

In the old hacienda that Governor Maritus had generously leased to the platoon, Tadashi slept curled in a spooning constellation around Emmylou, like a mother with a child.
Tadashi was a petite Xapii woman but compared to the petite Flirnii woman, she was big.
The women’s bedrolls were combined on the packed earthen floor of the adobe walled room just below an open window. Their load out was piled at their heads, feet and door facing side. Muskets and such ready for action lest that fiendish gargoyle returned. Although its focus, Chazzz, had gone in with Ricky to check on tardy squad members, who knew.

Garibaldi (Gari), the ocelot, and Pantalaimon (Pan), the pine marten, stalked in slowly at intervals adding to their pile of night kills adjacent the sleeping companions. The long-abandoned complex would provide game for long to come. This was exciting to the two consummate carnivores.

A shaft of moonlight coming through the window slowly crawled across the floor towards the sleepers as the night progressed. As high moon came close the light fell upon the sleepers.
Emmylou languidly tossed and moaned until she had squirmed onto her back out of Tadashi’s embrace and into this moonlight.
Her eyes were moving rapidly under their lids.

The Secret Garden
Untime
The young witch sat next to a round pool perhaps thirty feet wide. It was ringed with rune riddled alabaster cliaked in splats of lichen. Closing in around the pool was a thick and unkempt leafless hedge bespangled with blossoming datura stuffing the air with its aroma, at first something akin to honeysuckle with an earthy almond undertone. Heady.
No paths approached. No traces of there ever being a path. It felt concealed, secret.
The sky was devoid of any moon yet the pool was reflecting the moon. It nearly filled the whole surface of the water. The magnified details of the moon’s textured surface were clearer than usual.

The universally apparent “Woman in the Moon” face was blatant instead of requiring a bit of imagination as it normally did.
She could almost make out two calico koi leisurely swimming below the surface. Each was spiralling in then out, one going clockwise, the other going counter clockwise.
Hundreds of tiny black specks moved in random paths across her face.
Emmylou first thought were water striders. Then she realized they were part of the reflection. Due their miniscule size the detail was near impossible to make out but they almost looked like ships sailing about or above the moon’s surface. Some left faint dark streaks or tracks behind them.
The largest concentration was around her right eye.

Emmylou watched fascinated.
Pan stood upright across the pool with his arms reaching up to the dark and starry sky. He was pure white. His eyes glowed bright white light. The strong empathy they shared told her it was something akin to rapture he was experiencing.

The fascination exploded in her head when The Woman in the Moon’s face twisted from serene to tormented. It, she, was looking at Emmylou with pleading eyes. Eyes that that darted side to side as if conspiring. She slowly began to move her lips. She was speaking but had no voice.

Emmylou noticed the moon repeating each phrase three times and pausing between each set.
Time felt it had stopped or expanded. She could subtly feel the rotations and revolutions of the cosmos, oddly soothing but unsettling.

Emmylou attempted to read her lips, managing to make sense of most phrases.
“I need your help…
When…(unknown)…from the triangle…
…(unknown)…my powdery (?) gift…
…(unknown)…ships…
My captor shall come…
Please… it is for the good of all the…
I implore that…(unknown)… promise you will help…
I have known you for so long…
…(unknown)…is brought to you this way…
Help me before they mine…(unknown)… the magic.”

The Woman in the Moon’s face scrunched in sadness.
She spoke between sobs. “This is for my suffering children…”
A tear fell upwards from her face. It was like a pearl.
“…may it calm their rage…”
Emmylou watched it fall up towards the jewelled blanket of stars.
Pan floated more than leapt up after the pearl. Grasping it, he clutched it to his chest.
He then exploded in a blinding burst.

Emmylou awoke with a start. She was crying. Pan looked down at her with his little head tilted and a squirming bloody white* mouse in his mouth.
Not so far off, she heard the long lonely howls of a wolf.
Sadness, fear of the unknown, urgency and confusion began to submerge her.
Tadashi reached over without waking up and pulled Emmylou close. The love dampened her anxiety and she began to drift.
“No.” she said quietly with conviction.
Forcing herself out of the comfortable cocoon, she dug out her notebook and recorded her dream. In so doing, the worries came back but now she was facing them even though she didn’t understand them.
Yet, she knew this was the only path now.

*white mice rarely appear in the wild, <2%.