moonlight, pt. iii

Vaelyn sits on a bed where she spent many of her nights. She gazed at the stars from this window, her pillows holding thousands of dried tears, and the expansive imagination of a newborn star filled blank pages with a universe over her desk. She finds the same golden bear that was gifted to her lying next to her over the blankets. She stares at it, and it stares back. She takes the bear, looks deep into its eyes, and squeezes its sides.

She loved Katherine and her outlook on the surroundings that towered over her. She cared so much for the world and the beauty that it carried. She was gentle with every life she touched, the voice of nature calling her name at every dawn, and she guided the lost in her small hands. She was the one to carry the stray back to their homes, and the weight of their burdens rolled onto a delicate flower that always found a way to bloom again when the tide swallowed her innocence away. Even beneath the dreary skies of the night where darkness reigns, the lotus still returns to glimmer in the moonlight.

It was within this moment that Vaelyn decided she would care for that flower until it was the last thing on the earth to wilt away, and therefore began to love herself as she held a purpose in her hands. She looks once more into the dark pupils of the bear, the tears of her guilt turning into beads of hope, and she closes her eyes as she whispers with a wish to return home.