Luna
She remembered this pain all too well. The way the air felt oppressive and bleak. The smell of mold and horded trinkets mingled with clothing and filth. It was a smell of squaller, poverty.
It was also the smell of home. The smell of one home, in fact, she had lived in most recently. When the people she called family still recided beneath a single roof. When her bedroom was the basement, where all his festering junk resided. It was the only place she could find quiet. Solitude.
She let the feeling take her a little back to that time. She knew this must be born of some illusion. A safeguard that Marika would surely disable while she was beneath its glow. Still, all this spell could do was paint pictures with her memories. Two lives of her most recently hummed and were also the two most filled with pain.
She saw herself in that basement with its dull lights and mounds of junk that lined the room from wall to wall, save for the walkway into the laundry room. Just beyond it was a few wood blocks shenhad been slowly carving for the coming holiday that year. In this life, confided to humanity as a means of helping see their worthiness, she was still deeply fond of crafting. If only the world had cared.
She hward his voice again. A voice she hadn't heard utter air in over half a decade. "Joshyyyyy, time for work!" She heard the gruff, blue collar man intone. Heavy bootsteps clambered down old creeky stairs and long matted carpetting. A modest man with a grey hoodie over flannel and jeans that were torn with time and labor appeared. His face adorn in a thick grey and black beard that likely hsd never been groomed, and dark eyes hidden behind workers' spectacles. "Hey, off your ass and get the mower pushed around."
The mere sound of his voice sent fire through her veins as she turned and slashed at the memory. Her hand found an old wooden block that she had once used for a practice design, and it tore across the man's lip.
The man spat out blood, chuckling and sighing as he turned back towards her. "Shouldn't of done that, Boy. Your moms gonna ask a whole lot of shitty," as knuckles quietly cracked, "questions, now."
Pain filled her mind, as bruised and bleeding filled her body until she found herself again on the floor of a cage. A cell, where only grey lights and a small blue stuffed toy are her only company. She felt the cold metal beneath her fingers and knees. She felt the eyes, unseen, of hundreds of scientists. Their little theorizing whispers and ideas as hot syringes began to poke and prod her from every side. She screamed, she begged, and she pleaded to make it stop. Her only answer came inside as a voice called to her. To protect her. A friend she once feared, who now was half of her in more ways than any other. Her friend who was born from that horrible fear. An aspect of her that was even more dangerous than the power her eyes held back. Her secret weapon against the darkness. Perhaps if the scientists had sought out to craft her, the knight would have forgiven them before her vengeance took root.
Sadly, her other side was a consequence of those terrible experiments. An accident. Not the goal.
She could still feel those eyes staring down from a deck she could not see. Intelligent eyes swirling with theorizes. Ways to turn this small baby into a perfect weapon. She had succeeded. It had only taken her thirteen tries. The knight wondered as the visions began to change again just how many souls had never even been given a number.
She felt herself enter a small room with furniture that smelled of old perfume and motor oil. It was her grandparents' home among her human life, and the smell at first brought a sense of peace. They had been lights in the dark tale of her life there, among their kind. Gentle, kind, accepting, uplifting, and spoiling, the two had always sought to ensure any choice Luna had made was one she knew was supported.
So when the smell of rot began to hit her nose, she was dragged back to the grim memory of why all these thoughts were in the past. Turning towards the favorite love seat that had once belonged to her grandparents, she saw her beloved grandfather. The man who adored her. Who always ensured she went home happy. The singular good man in her life for countless years.
There he was. Skeleton, and cobwebs. Dressed in his favorite blue workers shirt with a singular breast pocket and black slacks. A corpse long decayed as the cancer that had stolen him away still throbbed inside his ribcage where once lungs had sat.
The knight turned and ran. She could not look at it. Look at the bones that once held wisdom of ages and brought her the small sense of peace she had attained. She burst through the glass door that opened onto their backyard and took off amidst the vast web of trees. They had lived just before a thick forest that Luna had always dreamed of exploring yet never managed. Rushing by the big garage that once housed her grandfather's tool, she nearly made it to the tree line before darkness surrounded her again.
She felt the hot sting of summer and metal between her fingers. The loud drown of a lawn mower cycling in front of her as her face stung with sunburn. Her muscles throbbed, burning with hours and hours of labor. Trees felled, warehouses cleaned, yards trimmed and maintained from nearly forests. Yet never once did she see a fruit of her labor. All she felt was the cruel laughter in her ear as she tripped on a soaked cliff as rain had never been allowed to dry, and the sound of a mower coming down on her head before darkness once more took her.
This time, it had been a vision that was not her own, but instead, a tale told to her. A tale she had gripped onto in her darkest moments to know that no amount of hate would ever be worth its cost. The story of her human mother's adoption.
She saw herself being marched into a bedroom. Her body felt weak as if it hadn't eaten properly in days. She felt so small. She was thrown onto a bed before a pillow smothered the cries that ripped out of her own throat before a belt descended on her back. She felt heat, pain, anger, and desperation. She felt so small as an hour of whippings only ended by being thrown into the smallest of closests where darkness became her only friend. Her mother's fear of small places began to turn her own mind to chaos and panic.
The welting pain, the difficulty breathing, the tightness, the heat. The panic of it all became overwhelming, and yet it did not break her. She gripped tight to that thought. This is what suffering truly was. The deepest pits of sorrow.
It had broken her human mother once. She had eventually grown stronger and overcame the demon that ruled her. She would not let her down.
She would not let this fear take her over.
There was a crack that formed in the door as she began to stand up. She felt the chains that surrounded her of pains weaken just a little as her armor once more weighed on her bones. She gripped onto that crack and yanked. She saw the door give way to a singular open field of flowers. There, across the meadow in the gleaming sun, sat her most beloved.
A gentle smile painted warm cheeks as a black beanie covered their head. Hazel eyes reflected the sun so perfectly that it nearly made daylight worthwhile again. The knight felt for a moment tears well in her eyes as that beautiful ring gleamed on her finger, matching the same on her own. It was a simple silver band that had a leaf connecting it.
"I love you.." her voice shook with desperation.
"I love you, too." Her own was kind and so very loving.
"She is so... hurt." The knight choked out as she approached.
"I know she is. Heal her." Her beloved said as she smiled to her dear wife.
"... this isn't the real you..." The knight slowly dropped her hand as she stilled her approacj.
"No, but this is your memory of me, silly kitsucaw. Whatever comes, I will love you still." The memory of her wife said with no drop in assuredy.
"How can I be sure?" The knight asked frightfully.
"Consider it a sure thing already. Now go. She's still so young in her journey. It is a long road yet." She said with a tender voice.
"I do not know if I can be strong enough..."
"Love her, and you will be."
"But -"
"You know me. Angry, maybe. But I will see what you did for what it is. Just remember your butterfly, no matter the strife, baby."
"I will... Mi mariposa..."
"Mi Luna."