Chapter 4- Luna

Luna's bright translucence, normally alluring to look at, didn't seem so bright anymore. Her face was solemn, flushed red as her forehead was wrinkled with anger. After Relic's harsh words stirred her deepest emotions, she expeditiously went to find her mother, the Queen, and found her smugly and selfishly enjoying herself with satisfaction.

"Orion, isn't this wonderful? I have everything I want, and my daughter does too. I can't imagine things getting any better than this." Selena grinned with selfish delight in her own words. The moment called for a time when some would prop their feet up and pat themselves on the back for a job well done, but not Selena. She would be too good for some extension of graciousness to herself.

"Well, I can imagine things getting worse if you do not do what you said you would do to help the guides, Mother!" Luna dashed in interrupting her mother. Orion stood silently as the heated exchange was on the cusp of getting scorching between the feisty and fierce Fairies. Selena rose to her feet without hesitation. Her mysterious eyes swirled with colors of amber and emerald green around her cat-like pupils. Her thin rose lips pursed to the point of disappearing as her jaw locked.

"Luna! What is this? You have what you want!" Selena shouted back.

"No, I don't! You forced Relic into this, and I only went along with it so the guides could be relieved of your debt! Relic only went along with it for the same reason. He

does not want to be with me, and I doubt he has any respect for me. I know he does not have respect for you!"

"Luna, calm down. Why should it matter how you got what you want as long as you have it? My child, you will never make it here with this sympathy. In order to lead you have to take what you want and move on," Selena lectured.

"Mother, if that is leading then I don't want to be a leader! I want someone to want to be with me, and now because of your greed, I have lost what could have been mine the right way. You have ruined everything." Luna began to cry. "I am not like you…" She threw her delicate arms up above her shoulders as she slumped in discouragement of her mother.

"Luna, this is how things are, and there is no changing it. We cannot help the guides with Warrick in power, and you know that. We can't worry about everyone else; we can only worry about ourselves. I have existed for thousands of years, nothing in this universe has ever changed, and you can't survive trying to help everyone else." Selena was desperate to get the attention of her upset daughter, and it was clear she was losing the fight.

Selena moved off the steps that led up to her grand seat in the chambers and stood over her daughter. Her face softened, and she reached to Luna as though to embrace her, but Selena was hesitant as she could see the rushing anger swimming in her daughter's eyes. Luna kept her hands raised to keep a border between her and her mother.

"Mother, if you do not fix this then I am leaving. I will find somewhere else to go and live out my existence. I cannot do this anymore. My husband is off on Earth looking for Meridian to try to fix what you failed to, and he doesn't even want me to go because of you! I don't know when he will be back, and I know if he comes back he won't stay with me." Luna was turning to walk away. Selena began walking swiftly after her with her arm out as though she was reaching for a ghost. Luna turned her back to walk away but was momentarily stopped.

"Wait! Luna, I know how you feel. I used to be so much like you. I am only looking out for our kind. I know you are disappointed. What else would you have me do?"

Luna turned around to face the disappointment of her mother both physically and figuratively, but with one last request for a beacon of hope, she found the demand that she was too afraid to let out a time ago, left her lips as easily as it was to tell Relic she loved him.

"I want you to do what you promised and help the guides, and that starts out by you turning the fallen back to guides, so they can take back Etheria." Luna demanded it, and she was not backing down. If there is one thing in her existence that Selena could not handle was losing her only daughter. Silence fell between the two as Luna awaited Selena's response.

"Okay, Mother, have it your way, I am gone!" In a flash, Luna disappeared.

"She will be back. Just wait," Selena said to Orion. Orion seemed to be even taller than usual in Selena's eyes as he stood over her. As she took her seat, she refused to make eye contact with her strongest and closest advisor. She felt small, useless and vulnerable. Not anything Selena was used to feeling and looking at Orion's face would seal in the reality she would like to avoid facing.

Luna quickly created her portal to Earth and went to the only place she knew she could find Relic to tell him what was in her heart. She knew this was the only way to start to put things back together the right way. With or without her mother's help.

Luna made it right outside Tallulah's place. It was dark with no one around. Across the street, Meridian was working, so Luna went inside the palm reader's place to see if she could find any clues.

"What are you doing here?" Relic had been sitting on the couch in Tallulah's waiting room where Talon and Meridian had spent a long evening getting to know one another before everything took a turn for the worst. The dark red couch stood out even in the darkness of the room. Relic had been holding a pillow in his lap, resting his long arms across it and fidgeting with his fingers.

"Oh, yes, I was looking for you. I can see you found Talon. Where is Meridian?" Luna was on a mission as she stood over Talon who had taken a seat at the kitchen table looking out the window for any indication of Meridian.

"Why do you care?" Relic was displeased to see Luna, and he could not understand why the one person he had rejected would care enough to help him find a spirit guide who he was in love with. The one spirit guide that had always just seen him as a friend and nothing more. Yet still the one in Relic's mind he was destined to be with.

"Look, I know you don't want to be married to me, and I can't blame you. I also don't blame you for hating my mother. I walked out, left, and I am not going back," Luna spouted.

"What are you crazy?" Relic shouted at his wife. "Your mother will have it in for the both of us and besides, where are we going to go? Wait… what did you say?" Relic rose to his feet to look into Luna's eyes, her beautiful eyes that resembled deep, blue pools. He was in disbelief. "You want to help me?" Relic began to pace, folded his arms and broke contact with Luna.

"We can stay here on Earth and get to work to get Meridian back." Luna watched Relic's face as she said the words he needed to hear.

"You are willing to do that?" Relic raised his chin and his eyebrows, giving his face a more relaxed composure, a sense of relief.

"Yes, I will do it for you. I love you, Relic. I know that just because I love you, doesn't mean you feel the same. I can't allow this to go on. I want you to be with me because you want to, not because you have to. It ends here and now. I know it is just us three, but I think we can find a way out of this."

With a hesitance, he allowed his fairy wife to join them. He was writhing with guilt to be this close to someone he knew he would hurt.

"Well, the bar is getting ready to close, and Meridian will be off work. So, it looks like a waiting game for us, at least for now," Talon said as the door opened, and Meridian came walking in, but she was not alone.

"Apparently finding Aiden isn't her top priority," Talon wised off.

Meridian had a customer with her from the bar, and he was one of the rowdy college guys that came by on occasion. "Hey, I will just be a minute. I need to leave a note for Tallulah in case she gets back before I do!" Meridian shouted from upstairs as her new friend waited.

Meridian was upstairs freshening up her look and gave no care to leaving with total strangers. Meridian was new to being human; she did not have either responsibility to herself or any self-respect. The joy all this attention she had garnered brought was something new to her - along with all the feelings that she allowed to lead her in her new human existence. The feelings that washed over her with every moment spent with a cute guy was an anecdote for the feelings she had been missing…subconsciously.

Meridian had not connected the meaning of her actions and the message she was sending to the men who had their way with her. Tonight, after the bar, was like any other night where she would go off and spend some time with a stranger. This night, in particular, would bring a little more enlightenment for the spunky ex-spirit guide. The distinction that Meridian had not connected was, the men she spent time with never came back or even called her again. Fueled by the high of any attention she could garner, and a need to fill a black hole that her curse gave her, Meridian naïvely continued her thoughtless and destructive lifestyle. For now, anyway.

Meridian skipped downstairs like a child on their birthday. The pair left the house and headed back over to the bar where her new gentlemen friend had parked his car. His other buddies were waiting in the car.

"If you are going to follow Meridian, I think I will take Luna with me to check in on Aiden on his campus to see how he is. We will meet you back here at sunrise." Talon and Luna were gone in a flash, and Relic took off to follow Meridian, leaving the palm reader's house empty and quiet.