She looks at Nicolai expectantly, waiting for him to start talking.

     He looks back at her with so much written in his eyes that she can’t read, and with a deep sigh, he grabs his pack from where she left it and sits down next to where she’s standing. “It’s difficult to explain, Kae, but I will do my best. I just don’t know everything yet. I’m still trying to find the answers. Here, we need to eat.” he says, patting the ground next to him. 

     As she sits down beside him, he hands her some bread and cheese, then unwraps a cloth full of pink berries between them. She didn’t realize how hungry she’s been until now. “Well, this is bound to be an interesting story.”

     “Four years ago - or a lifetime ago, it seems, ”he begins, “ back in Tavedor, the last time I was with you… something happened. I didn’t know why. I still don’t even know how. We parted ways on the docks, you going home and me going to the market to pick up some things for my mother. I watched you walk away. I remember thinking how beautiful you looked, and I was already looking forward to being with you again. I went to the market, and that’s when the memories get fuzzy.”

     She’s hanging on his every word, waiting for everything to finally make sense. “What do you mean?” 

     She remembers that day perfectly. They had such a wonderful time together. They always did. After midsun, they’d been sitting on the docks, side by side, watching the ships come in and unload. Tavedor’s harbor offers such a spectacular view of the open horizon. The balmy breeze kissed their skin and tangled her hair. The way he looked at her made her heart melt again and again. They were so in love. They had no idea they might never see each other again. 

     “I woke up in a cell, across the ocean, in the Moon Lands.” he tells her, and she can hear that the confusion still haunts him. 

     The Moon Lands? Neither of them had ever been there before. She still has never left the Sun Lands, only traveling among the kingdoms here under the Two Suns. 

     “How? Why?” she asks with trembling lips, remembering the heartache of discovering him missing the next day. “In a cell, really?”

     The light has faded now to the most muted it ever gets, because here in the Sun Lands it is always day with varying degrees of brightness to help them mark the passing of time. They sleep in the muted hours, their eyes gifted with thick lids to help them find the darkness they need for resting. She is very tired, and Nicolai looks downright exhausted, but she needs to hear the rest of his story.

     “I still don’t know how. I didn’t even know where I was, though I quickly began to suspect that I had somehow crossed the ocean, because it was colder than it ever gets here. I’d never been more confused, and there was no one to demand answers from. They left me alone, in the light of a single fae star, with nothing but a pile of hay, a bucket, a canteen, and a loaf of crusty bread. It must have been several days before anyone came. I had already run out of bread and water, even though I’d tried to make it last. I was so weak. I had no idea how long it’d been since that perfect day on the docks with you, but I clung to those memories and the smell of your hair.”

     Her heart clenches with such deep sadness for Nicolai and what he’s been through. She knows a little of how he felt, clinging to those memories as she had when she'd thought he was dead. At least she hadn’t been taken away and kept in a dark, cold cell, alone for who knows how many days.

     The phases of the Great Moon mark the passing of time, similar to how the brightness of the Two Suns does here. Legends say that once, very long ago, both continents had moon and suns, until a powerful royal angered the Gods. The Gods punished fae-kind by cleaving the sky into night and day, the cosmos no longer rotating as they always had. Now, the Great Moon and the Two Suns simply brighten and dim throughout the day, as they circle higher and lower over their respective continents. Whether that’s all true or not, she doesn’t know. 

     Her sweet Nicolai had been alone in the dark for so long, not knowing who had done this to him or why. 

     “When the silence was finally interrupted,” he continues, “it was by the arrival of two males with their faces hidden behind plain masks. They spoke with unfamiliar accents, and I did not recognize anything about them. I wondered why they bothered to hide their identities if I wouldn’t know who they were anyway. 

     No matter how I pleaded for answers, they only spoke to each other and never to me. One told the other he hoped they wouldn’t regret what they were doing. The other responded that what mattered was doing the right thing. I was confused, because as far as I could tell, all they were doing was bringing me a meal. After sliding the plate into my cell, they quickly left without another glance in my direction.

     I was so hungry, I can still recall the smell of that food. They had brought cooked meat, still warm, with mashed root vegetables. I didn’t waste any time before desperately shoveling bites into my mouth. It did occur to me the food might be poisoned, but at that point I hardly cared anymore. Turned out, it wasn’t poisoned, but enchanted. Right away, I began to feel stronger than I had since I’d first woken up there in that cell. I couldn’t figure out why they would starve me and then give me food imbued with strength. 

     About halfway through the chunk of meat, I began to understand, when I bit into something hard and metallic. A lockpick! Those males had smuggled a lockpick into my cell, and then left me alone with it. They were helping me escape.

     Nothing made sense to me at all, except that I needed to get out of there and back to you. I thought we could figure it out together, and desperately hoped we could simply move on from it as if it’d been a strange fluke. So, I picked the lock and went up the stairs to find the small building was empty. It was nothing more than a small prison, a few cells downstairs and a sitting area upstairs. The only door was unlocked, and I stepped outside into the night for the very first time in my life. I remember the awe I felt gazing up at the Great Moon.”

     Despite the gravity of his story, she can’t help but sigh wistfully. She can hardly imagine what it must have been like. Not to go through what he’d gone through, but just to see the Moon, to stand in the night under the stars. She wonders if she will ever have that opportunity. She wishes none of this had happened. She wishes she could erase all the misery they have both experienced in the last four years, that they could make plans to cross the ocean and see the Great Moon for the first time together. Foolish wishes. They were no longer those simple dreamers holding hands through the Tavedorian streets. 

     Her thoughts break apart as Nicolai continues. “I was in the legendary Moon Marshes,” he explains, ”with nothing around for miles, save the building I’d just exited. Standing in the night with nothing but the Moon reflecting off the shallow waters and the pixies silently flashing through the tall grasses.” He pauses there, as if remembering how it had looked and felt. 

     She gives him a few moments before she asks, “And what did you do then?”