The Moon Whispers Its Goodbyes

The sky stretched endless and pale, painted in dying shades of lavender and dusk. A thin crescent moon hung low on the horizon, watching, waiting. A quiet omen. 

They stood at the threshold of their home— no, not home, not anymore. The air inside was stale, thick with dust motes that drifted lazily through a shaft of silver light. It had been lifeless for some time now, but today, it felt final. 

They slung a weathered satchel over their shoulder, fingers ghosting over the worn fabric. Once it had been the color of a spring sky, the same color of their hair, but after serving its purpose for so long the color was now dull. Inside, tucked neatly between ink-stained journals and blank parchment, lay the last remnants of their life here: a few letters left unfinished, a small silver knife, the quill and no ink well, and a pressed sprig of lunar ivy. Things that once mattered. Things that would soon be meaningless. 

They stepped out into the night, into a village that had once thrived under the moon’s gentle glow. Now, it was a husk of itself. 

The streets were empty, silent but for the whisper of the wind through brittle leaves. Most of the market stalls stood abandoned, wooden frames stripped bare, canopies sagging like wilted petals. A shop sign creaked, swinging loosely from a rusted chain. The scent of old magic clung to the stones, but it was fading, unraveling like a thread from a fraying tapestry. 

They exhaled. 

A single grave stood out among a sea of stone. Fresh with no chips or marks as time had yet sunk its claws of insatiable hunger into it. It stood at the village’s edge, half-shrouded in shadow. The stone was unmarked as Lunar Elves did not carve names into tombstones. Instead, a sea of constellations was drawn on, each unique to every grave. They were meant to be remembered in whispers, memories, the moon, the stars. Not in writing, like other beings.

They were watchers, and caregivers, meant to silently observe and protect others from a distance, such as the stars hung above the world every night. That was what their Goddess had desired when creating their race. Had given the task of writing and preserving a special title, and to one elf with their following generations.

They lingered. 

Their throat tightened. A weight, deep and suffocating, pressed against their ribs. The moonlight cast long, wavering shadows, and for a fleeting moment, they swore they saw the silhouette of someone familiar standing beside the grave.

They turned away. 

And did not look back. 

The village had once been hidden, sealed away behind a gate of woven magic, unseen by human eyes. But magic was a dying thing, and the gate had withered along with it. The once-glowing sigils etched into the archway were little more than dull carvings now. Where once a murmur of intent could open the path, now there was nothing left to keep them in. 

They stepped forward, past the invisible threshold. With whispered promises to a people long gone already, they sealed the archway for eternity. The world opened up before them. 

─── ⋆⋅ ☾⋅⋆ ─── 

The road stretched long beneath their feet, winding through hills streaked with dying grass. The land had not yet collapsed, not yet crumbled like the merling villages or the magical groves, but it was sick. They could feel it. The air was thinner than it should have been. The sky was paler than Before. 

Their destination lay ahead. The great Elven city, one of the last bastions of true magic. But the road was a fickle thing, twisting and turning, leading them where it pleased. And today, it giggled at misfortune and played cruel tricks. 

The scent of smoke reached them first. 

Not the crisp, clean burn of a hearth fire, but something acrid, something ruined. 

They crested the hill and saw it. Below them, the land stretched out in ruin, a vast and aching corpse of what it once was; a valley of withered trees, their skeletal limbs reaching skyward as if in prayer to a god who had long stopped listening. The rivers, once swollen with the songs of the earth, had shriveled into mere veins of cracked mud, their dry beds whispering secrets to the wind. 

They could hear it, the death of magic. It was not a sound in the way mortals understood, but a feeling. An unraveling thread at the edge of perception, a hollow ache in the bones. The earth’s lifeblood, stolen and siphoned away by desperate human hands, had left the air brittle and gasping. 

In the middle laid a village, or what remained of one. 

The houses were charred skeletons, little more than blackened beams and crumbling stones. Ash swirled in the air, mixing with the scent of decay. The earth had been scorched raw as if something monstrous had torn through it in a blind fury. 

They knew what had happened here. 

There had been whispers. Of creatures turning on humans, of magic-born beasts lashing out, enraged by the theft of the world’s fading power. Maybe once, they had been gentle things. Now, they were desperate. And desperate creatures showed no mercy, only teeth and claws. 

They moved through the ruins in silence. 

A wooden sign lay face-down in the dirt, its lettering scorched beyond recognition. A doll, missing an arm, sat half-buried beneath a fallen beam. The scent of dried blood lingered in the air, woven between the ashen remains of homes and shattered lives. 

Tired eyes swept across the ground, then narrowed upon seeing a couple of the little magical items humans like to cling onto like their life depended on it. A drop of stronger magic they could never naturally wield, and they grew addicted. Killing and destroying innocent creatures and plants to forge their little sticks called wands and staffs. Digging and digging into the earth to steal her jewels, and disfiguring them into balls.

Forcing the items and the magic within to do their bidding. Calling the strongest that wielded these items insignificant titles. Poisoning their own cores to become stronger, just to fight and kill each other anyway, rendering all their efforts useless after. They killed to create the opportunity to kill some more, a never ending cycle that would only end when there was nothing left to murder.

A breath in, out, repeating until they no longer wanted to stoop down to the human level of destroying for no reason.

And then, movement. 

A small shape, curled in the shadow of a broken wall. 

They stilled. 

The child was barely more than a bundle of rags, skin smeared with dirt and dried blood. Her hair, perhaps once pink, had been dulled to a sickly brown, stiff with grime. Her eyes, when they met them, were striking. Green, bright, alive. 

Too alive. 

She should not have been alive. 

She did not speak. 

She simply stared, wide-eyed, trembling but silent, as if the wrong sound might wake the ghosts of the village, human or not. 

They exhaled slowly. 

They had no use for a child. 

They had no space in their journey for strays, no time for lost things. Especially ones with dulled ears, plain skin, and little natural magic to their names. No, they had no need, or want, for a human child.

Maybe they were bitter at what humans had done to the world, to their home, their life. Perhaps they simply did not care for children. They couldn't care enough to think harder about it. 

The girl blinked up at them. 

They turned away. 

They eyed the edge of the ruins, where the road stretched forward, untethered and empty. The wind sighed against their back. It whispered into their ears, calling them further into the village, offering something worthy if they accepted. Possibly, they could spare a slip of kindness, a drop of sympathy. 

They never were able to say no anyway. 

And then— 

Footsteps. Small, uneven, but unmistakable. 

They didn’t need to turn to know the girl was following them. 

They closed their eyes. 

The road ahead was long. The world was dying. And now, they had a shadow, regardless of how tiny it may be.