Moonrise ✔ [Complete]

43 Trust (Part 1)

Before Maeyune turned eight and had been restricted to reside at the moon temple, she had lived at the Ursan celestial base. While other celestial children had been allowed to paint and scribble, the men and women in white coats and military uniforms had given Maeyune texts to study.

She had wanted to play with the other children, had wanted to participate in their predictable games of hide-and-seek. She had even wanted those pretty, little dolls that the other girls her age had played with.

But having been fated as the world's Moon God incarnate, she had been excluded from all of those unnecessary childhood pleasures. All Maeyune had known as a child was the exact hour of training, how to defeat her simulated enemies with real bullets and real steel, the important histories and practices of magic, and how she would become the planet's hero.

The routine had defined her life.

Then, days after turning eight, she'd killed five innocent people.

Maeyune had known what fear was. She had seen it through the eyes of children and adults who had walked past. They'd known what the girl with the Moon God's power was capable of doing, and behind their small talk and pleasantries, they'd wanted only to avoid her if ever and whenever possible.

She hadn't minded, though. If she'd had the desire to, she would have coerced their friendship. All she'd had to do was implant the suggestion in their minds, and they would have been hers forever.

It had been early in her Aegis Team's formation, and she'd had no conception of real friendship yet. No, the others had been too busy wetting themselves in terror whenever around her.

Normalcy had not been an option for someone like her, so she had aimed for acceptance.

But when fabricated friendships had turned out to be mundane and uninteresting, she'd fallen into a state of quiet and confusion. She had submitted herself into a lonely darkness so deep that not even Aunt Lyn, Master Jorin or the moon temple guardians had been able to pull her out.

On one evening after a ruthless session against four automechs, she'd lain in bed and curled into a ball to weep away the pain of her bruises. She had refused healing. She had decided to wear her bruises as a reminder to herself to be stronger, that if she were to find acceptance, it would be as the world's best warrior. Bruises were evidence that she wasn't good enough, and if she wasn't good enough, then she was unacceptable.

But as tears and all awful matters of liquid drenched her pillow, a calming sensation overcame her. It soothed her to sleep, and she dreamed of a silver, glimmering dragon.

That had been the first she had ever seen Shivra in her dreams. And since that night, whenever that same quiet and confusion came to greet her, he was always there, his power reminding her that she was not alone.

Calm and serene, the moon dragon taught her that power was neither good nor evil, that it was the wielder who determined that path. His presence had always been good to her, and so she wanted to be good, too.