Luna tore through the battlefield like a storm, black blood spilt every time she moved, it was an elegant dance of death for all the monsters that crossed her path.

There was no hesitation, there was no deliberation, only steel and blood. But as more beasts she dropped, it was beginning to look like two more took it’s place, but she wouldn’t give up. She couldn’t .

A slime covered tongue wrapped around the hand that held her dagger and she dropped the steel blade, catching it with her second hand before it hit the ground and she spun around in the same second, slicing the tongue with her dagger that now rested in her second hand.

Oil-slick blood sprayed her face, adding a new coat of monster blood to her sweat covered face.

Luna paused to catch her breath, exhaustion was creeping into her bones slowly and the beasts weren’t slowing.

A tongue shot around her hand, this time before she could cut it off, another shot around her second hand. Two shadow creatures slowly slithered around her legs, holding it in place. They were holding her down!

“Helios!” She yelled for her companion over the cry of the battlefield. A few villagers had left the grand hall to join the fight, it didn’t solve their problem though but it slowed the monsters down.

A large slug-like creature that was almost twice her size crawled up to her, darkness bubbled across it’s skin and Luna knew the other creatures were holding her down for this… this thing.

“Let go of me!!” She yelled and struggled against the monsters that held her down.

The slug blinked at her, it’s antenna peered directly into her eye till she felt like it was going pop open her soul.

It’s mouth didn’t move—not that it had any she could see, but she heard it’s voice in her head, just like the screech of the monster from the staircase.

For the first time since the darkness came, she felt fear. Pure, unadulterated, fear stronger than anything she had ever felt in her life. It creeped up her spine and squeezed her heart till she felt like it was going to pop out of her chest.

“You’re weak, broken,”

“You are nothing, girl!”

More voices joined the ones in her head already, it felt like she could hear the screeching—No, the voices of every shadowling around her. The pain built in the back of her head and it brought pain to her eyes to badly that it made her want to scratch them out.

“Please…” Her voice was barely above a whisper.

“Stop. Why are you doing this? Why are you doing this to me?”

The slug moved closer, it’s body pressed against her skin and she felt the darkness on its body slowly start to give way. It was absorbing her!

“No! Let go of me! No!! Somebody help!”

The castle walls were broken, the protection it offered no longer existed, shadowlings chased after women and children that hid in the castle, ripping them from limb to limb and tossing the bloody carcass to one another. The glee on their faces could not be missed as their fangs and claws tore through flesh and bone.

The beast was slowly absorbing her and her senses began to fail one after the other. She could no longer smell the sulfur and blood that lingered in the air, the screams of the villagers slowly began to muffle till she couldn’t hear a sound anymore, her sight when black and she waited for the nothingness of death… It didn’t come.

She was drowning! She didn’t know how, but she could feel the waves knocking into her over and over again, dragging her down even as she continued to struggle. She had never felt what it was like to drown before, the feeling was excruciating. She wanted to breathe but her brain held off as long as it could, her lungs were burning from how hard she struggled, she clawed at her chest, she didn’t know why but she continued.

“Breathe! Just breathe!”

“Just take deep breath’s,” A familiar voice said at the back of her head, it was a gentle female voice. Somehow it felt like she had heard it all her life.

Pain intensified behind her eyelids and she could feel tiny needles pricking her brain. Something flashed behind her eyes and the saw a flurry of white coats carrying her as they raced somewhere.

Where they angels? Was she finally dead?

She had always thought death would be pain free but she could still feeling the pain in her brain and a crushing weight in her chest. A wave of darkness slammed into her again and everything went dark.

Helios. Where was Helios?

“Helios!!!!!”

Bright light emanated from a distance ripping through the shackles that weighed her down instantly. She crashed on the bloody field, gasping for breathe while Helios stood beside her. His fur still glowed softly. The light came from him.

“I’ve got you buddy,” He whispered. “I’ve got you.”

–––––––––––––

“I’m weak and pathetic!” Luna yelled and screamed into the air.

“Every time we fight the shadowlings I always lose.”

“You can’t win against an enemy you don’t know, Luna,” Helios said in his usual somber manner whenever he was about to deliver a speech. But she didn’t care for it.

They had been traveling for days, fighting the darkness and the shadowlings it birthed but they always over powered her, Helios always came to her rescue. They were supposed to be partners, for once, she wanted to rescue him too.

“I don’t want to understand them. I just want them gone, but I can’t even learn how to summon light.”

“Whoa! Easy there, big guy. Channeling isn’t just something you learn in a few days, it took me years to be able to channel light. I know you want to fight the darkness, if anyone can do it, I’m sure it’s you,” Helios said and nudged her gently with his nose.

“Now, come on. Again.”

Luna shut her eyes and tried to focus on pulling the energy she needed from the air, energy thrummed between her fingers but the most she got were sparks.

No big bright light capable of eliminating shadowlings.

“Oh forget it!” Luna scoffed and stood up from where she sat to head further down the road.

Arcadia had quickly turned from the garden of the Gods to their battleground as the darkness ate at it's beauty. The once clear blue skies were now streaks of red permanently painted on it and the sun had rescinded it's beautiful yellow color and was now blood red. It's heat that once caressed the skin and gave live to Arcadia now threatened to be it's undoing as it burned away at the soils, causing the once beautiful green grasses to die out. Life was slowly slipping away from Arcadia with each second that passed.

Even the birds no longer chirped and sang, their once melodious voices now replaced by the hissing of vultures as they circled around looking for any carcass they could feast on. The air smelled like burnt sulphur and it made breathing very difficult. It wasn’t just Arcadia that suffered, Luna looked like life was being sapped from her as things in Arcadia worsened. They needed to get to a safer part of the kingdom.

Through out their journey and their battles with shadowlings, Luna had tried severally to summon light, but it was almost like the talent eluded her out of spite.

They had been wandering the forests for days with no where in mind as a destination. Her tummy twisted in hunger as she walked. Her last meal was yesterday when they came by some wild fruits which she ate with no care in the world. Helios had tried to convince her that the darkness could have infected the fruits but she threw caution to the wind. They could be damned if they ate, but they were most certainly damned if they didn't. Her fear and pain slowly grew with each passing second as she walked and she knew even Helios wasn't enough to help hold her hold the reins.

“Is something bothering you?” Helios as he hopped beside her.

“It’s nothing,” She muttered, more to herself than to him.

“Come on, talk to me. Are you still bummed that you can’t channel?”

“No—I mean I want to learn to channel, but that’s not what’s bothering?”

“Come on, talk to me. Do you want me to kneel? Might be a little difficult with this paws but I will if you say the word.”

Luna sighed, she knew Helios was only trying to cheer her up but it wasn’t working.

"I'm scared, Helios. I know I don’t show it, but I get really scared sometimes. I just… I just—I want to go home," Luna cried out as they made their way down the forest with trees that had lost their leaves, leaving them naked and exposed.

"Home? You mean the meadow?"

The meadow wasn't home and she knew it, her instincts and guts told her so. She felt she had a past, she had to have one but the memories seemed so distant and it caused her head to ache every time she tried to remember.

"I don't know, I wanna be anywhere else but here. Everything here gives me the creeps," she said as she stopped walking, afraid that if she took another step, the darkness will creep out of the skies again. She hated that she was scared. She wasn’t supposed to have fears. Warriors don’t have fears, right?

If only that could be true.

“Do you hear that?” Helios asked as both his ears perked up.

“No,” Luna answered but she gripped the dagger beside her waist. Helios could always sense whenever the shadowlings were around, it would be foolish to brush off his senses even though she couldn’t hear anything. She was scared, yes. But for now, her fears would have to wait till later. She had a job to do.

“Listen closely,” Helios said.

“Forget what you’re seeing.”

She closed her eyes abs listened closely, that was when she heard it, the sound of women wailing and rushed footsteps as people scurried around for safety.

“I hear it,” She breathed out. Her eyes scanned the empty forest, “But where’s it coming from?”

"There!" Helios said, pointing forward. "The noise is from over there," He added as he raced through the forest, urging Luna to keep pace with him.

"Wait! Helios," she screamed as she struggled to keep up.

They ran a small distance forward and came to the edge of a cliff.

"Woah! Careful Luna!" Helios yelled as manifested a wall of light to keep Luna back, preventing her from tripping over the cliff by her momentum.

"Thanks Helios,” She muttered as the construct shimmered away. “What's going on down there?" She asked. Ignoring the jealous pinch in her stomach at how easily Helios could manipulate light.

"I can't make any sense of it, it's all chaos," Helios replied.

"Let's go find out. But how do we get down there?"

“ We jump,” Helios said, giggling as he spoke as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“Are you nuts? That would be the end of us. What’s the point of running from shadow monsters if we’re just going to end it all on a cliff?” Luna yelled.

“You want to learn how to channel, right? Trust me,” He yelled as he jumped off the cliff.

She could hear him giggling as he fell. Luna gulped hard as he tried to make sense of what she was about to do. Stranger things had happened in Arcadia and at this point she was certain nothing could surprise her anymore. She walked closer to the edge of the cliff and dared herself to look down. The distance to the bottom seemed so far away as she looked around and tried to locate Helios’ gray fur.

“Stop looking for me and just jump!” he yelled, the wind seemed to carry his voice over to her making it feel like he was standing right next to her.

“Are you in one piece?” She yelled back.

“Hurry and join me, you're asking too many questions,” Helios scoffed, amusement softening his tone.

She took few steps backward as she prepared herself to follow Helios’ lead. She was certain that Helios wouldn’t do anything that could harm her and if he made it down safely, so could she.

“Trust me, Luna.” He yelled again, urging her on.

Luna increased the distance between herself and the edge, muttering to herself in inaudible words that even she couldn’t make sense of then she paced off, allowing her momentum and adrenaline push her, drowning out her fear and sense of reasoning.

She screamed as she fell freely, the wind slashed at her face forcing tears to well up in her eyes. She shut them to relief herself and when she opened them she was on the ground, standing. No broken bones or torn skin. She examined herself as Helios stood before her, chuckling slightly at her bewildered expression.

“How did that happen. How am I not…?” she trailed off.

“Dead?”

“Yes, I should be a lot more dead right now.”

“That’s easy. You trusted me.”

She checked herself again to put away her doubts then pinched hard at her wrists to be sure she wasn’t dreaming. She had seen her life flash in her eyes as she jumped, the precious little remembered of it. Not that there was much to remember.

It made no sense. How was she still alive? How did “trust” save her? And how did Helios know she could make it to the bottom alive if she jumped down.

She exhaled and let her thoughts fly with the air.

Stranger things had happened to her in Arcadia, and there was action to get to.

The darkness had crept into the fae villages with it's minions in tow, and Luna had taken it as her job to put an end to their menace.

"Someone help!" a woman yelled in the distance.

A thick black fog had enveloped the village making it hard to see through and it choked her, also making it even hard to breathe.

She heard a snarl beside her and she made a sharp turn, ramming her dagger into the eye of the unlucky creature that snarled at her and ripped off it’s eye socket as she yanked her knife out of its head.

Helios held his own, firing bolts of light rapidly at the monsters that came at him, wounding them as the light burned off their limbs slowly.

Luna dodged another shadow monster as she ran straight into battle, and used its momentum to knock it off balance and rammed her knife into its chest as it fell, not giving it a minute to catch his breath.

She picked up a discarded sword on the ground as she charged at a shadow beast. The sword glowed softly as she ran and it tore through the black fog as if it was fabric.

"Die!" She roared as she struck it's tip in the heart of the beast. The beast roared as it clawed at it’s chest drawing the attention of others of it's kind.

The fog was slowly starting to rescind and Luna noticed the group of women that some shadowlings were circling.

"I'm gonna help the women out," Helios yelled, giving another shadowling a blast to the face as he scurried away to help the women.

Some of the monsters slinked towards her, they looked hideous. Some slithered, some crawled on all fours and a few walked, each one was armed with dangerous looking fangs and claws that looked like they could cut through bones without a problem.

Luna smiled as she faced the assembling beasts. If it was the first time she was facing a group of shadowlings she would have been scared out of her mind, but she had done this dance already. She had found courage from her last success and it spurred her on.

She spun her new sword in one hand and clenched her dagger firmly in the other. She didn’t wait for their first move before she struck. She descended on them with the fury of the gods. She charged at them, stabbing and cutting at them.

"Die!!!" She screamed as she thrusted her sword through another.

She was holding her own against the shadow monsters until she felt an all too familiar pain in her head. She faltered for a second and a tail whipped against her chest sending her skidding backwards, she forced herself to her feet, biting her tongue till she tasted blood to distract herself from the searing pain in her head. She swung her sword when the attack came again, thrusting her dagger into the creature’s body.

The pain flared at the base of her skull again. She staggered back, her dagger was embedded into the creatures body but she couldn’t find the strength to rip it out.

"Helios!" Luna screamed as she fell to the ground.

The pain threatened to rip her head apart. She clutched her head firmly as she crouched in pain almost as if she was trying to squeeze the pain out of her head. The creatures almost seemed to snicker as they slowly surrounded her.

Helios was firing bolts left and right as more shadowlings surrounded him. Was this it? Was this how she was going to die?

“Leave her alone!” A little girl yelled and threw a stone at one of the creatures.

“Get away you meanies!” She yelled and threw another stone with a surprising accuracy that hit another shadowling.

The women who were watching Luna all along stepped forward, emboldened by the little girl’s efforts. Each one drew a glowing weapon, some knives, some arrows, even katana’s and charged in. The shadowlings rescinded as they fought and finally vanished.

Screams of relief and victory pierced through the air as everyone celebrated what had played out.

"Over there," one of the women screamed out. Luna was laying helplessly on the ground as she groaned in pain, she couldn't bear it anymore, the last thing she heard before she she passed out were the women shouting as they ran over to her. “Get help!”

"Get some herbs," another yelled.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

She coughed as she regained consciousness. Her head still pulsed from her last episode. She opened her eyes slowly with the sun threatening to blind her when she finally did.

"Helios! Where is Helios?" She asked in fright as she sat up, her insides were twisting into knots at the thought of something awful happening to her companion. The last thing she remembered was seeing shadowlings surround him.

"I'm right here, Luna." Helios responded, rubbing the back of her head with his furry little paw.

She coughed again as she staggered to her feet.

"You need to rest." One of the Maidens, Angel, said to her, motioning for her to lay back.

"I'm fine, " Luna pushing her hands away, she must have looked so weak in front of these women. What was the pain all about? It all started when the darkness arrived. Was she connected to it somehow? And the voices in her head… Who were they?

If only she could remember her past, maybe it would give her some sort of insight on everything.

“Who are you guys?” She asked. Angel gave her all the answers she needed, she was a tall, black-haired woman with bronze skin and a slim shape. From what she had learnt, Angel was the leader of the maidens. Though they weren't warriors, they had began training immediately after the darkness first attacked them a few weeks back, it was also around the time Luna first confronted it.

"What brings you here," Angel asked.

"We heard cries from your village, and we came to help out," she responded.

"So who are you supposed to be? Some superhero?" Another woman asked.

"She just saved us, Annika. You should show some gratitude!" Angel retorted as she gestured for her to leave them.

"That's Annika. I'm sorry about her attitude. She wasn't like that until...." She broke off.

"Until what?" Luna asked, she was filled with interest and curiosity but her face remained a mask of indifference.

"Until the darkness came and took our men from us. That's what!" Annika spat acidly before she walked into the cottage Luna found herself in.

“I told you to leave!” Angel said and shot her a glare.

“Naa. I’m good.” Annika shrugged. She had brown skin and a cloud shaped birthmark at the side of her nose.

Angel rolled her eyes and faced Luna again.

"So what about you? What brings you here?" Angel asked.

Luna paused and stared at Helios, he nodded, his little way of saying these people can be trusted.

"I'm trying to find a way home," She said.

"Home? That can't be that hard. You should have a compass or something,"

"I have no idea where home is, I've been roaming the forests for days with Helios, then we heard your cries and came to find out what was happening,"

“Oh…” Annika trailed off. “I’m so sorry.”

Luna shrugged. She didn’t know how to feel about the sudden show of concern. Was she not used to people being concerned for her? Had she grown used to Helios and his nigh omniscience?

"Oh! I know,” Angel piped up. “Hailey can help you, just like she's helped everyone of us when we needed guidance. When the men left, she was the one that kept this village standing."

"Who's Hailey," Luna asked.

"Our mother. We've pretty much called her that ever since she saved us. Some of us were just as lost as you when the darkness struck, but she gathered us together and we managed to put all of this up," Angel responded as she turned around, gesturing to explain what all of this meant.

"If you wish to find your way home, then she can help you. She knows all." She added.

"Thank you very much. How do we see her?" She asked.

"We’ll take you to her."

“Helios, wanna come?” Luna asked.

“Sure thing,” He said and hopped after them.

They walked a few meters with a couple of turns to reach her. The old mage might have been old in age but not in her appearance.

Her white hair was flowing, straight and had a glow that gave a youthful feel to it. It wasn't the white that came with aging, but elegance and her skin didn't wrinkle, she also had a warm smile that dispelled any fears of her being anything but sweet.