Claude de Lune

Ganymede

My dearest Claude, you're twelve now, almost a man. You must be growing so big and strong, into a handsome young lad. I wish I could see you. Please be good to Lylon and Gwenore.

Enclosed with this letter is another music box. Your father left it as a gift for you. I've kept the key, in hopes that when we meet again, we can listen to its song together. Until then, be good to Lylon and Gwenore.

Mother.

I wish the letters weren't so short, the words so fleeting. Claude held up the music box and twisted it around in his hand. It captured the rays of the rising sun and splashed gold against his mother's writing. The glass window on top was fashioned into a crescent moon by whatever blessed hands had crafted the piece. Your father left it as a gift for you. That was the first and last time she mentioned his father at all. He'd pondered if they were together. If so, why didn't he send letters too? No, he must have run off. Or died to the scourge.

This music box may be the last connection he had to both his parents. Will its song be as beautiful as the stargazer's requiem? Would he ever hear it?

The thought turned his stomach to stone. He could search his whole life and find nothing. Or perhaps he'd give up at some point, content himself with never knowing the woman who'd given him life.

No, if nothing awaited him at the end of this journey, he would continue to search, to the ends of this world and beyond. If they didn't reunite here, then they surely would in eternity.

Claude leaned back against the bench in the middle of Quintus' stupid garden. He'd risen early to visit the market, to buy sturdier shoes for the long walk. He'd also picked up a few balls of yarn and a bigger crochet hook, rather than stockpiling a load of textiles he wouldn't be able to carry. Tempting as they were.

The horse he'd borrowed from the castle stables was tethered to a post near an uninspired pile of rocks with no real form. Ducks swarmed around his feet and pecked at the scraps of pastry he brushed from his clothes.

Lylon wouldn't have liked this place either. He believed in gardening for sustenance, not flare. The flowers he grew ended their lives dried and squeezed for oils or thrown into hot water for tea, not rotting along a path. This place may have been more interesting if it had remained a pile of burning rubble.

Or maybe he was just bitter.

Claude retrieved his horse and rode back towards the castle. They wouldn't leave for the coast until midmorning, but Quintus had given him grief twice for being "late." He guided the horse up the sloping terrain, past people sweeping their doorsteps, buildings higher than the cathedral in Hedalda, and hawk crests flying high.

How lucky these people were, spared from all the ugliness outside these borders. Their children dreamed of running through rolling green fields, not being snatched out of their beds by living nightmares, or watching their loved one's being cut down in front of them or the sick, metallic scent of blood.

They didn't have to worry about whether they'd wake up to their homes intact or burning down around them. They didn't know the hellish screeches of the netherborne. They never might. And he envied them for it.

A stable hand came for the horse as soon as Claude rode into the courtyard. The warmth from the paving stones rose into his boots and he weaved through the guards and attendants milling around. Some carried crates, others buckets of water, some bales of hay.

Amadeus stood near a wagon, barking orders at the attendants tethering two bison to the front. The vestibule doors hung open and Claude spotted his trunk amongst the wooden crates.