Moonbeam: A Timeline series companion

chapter 28 teaser

ok so this is more of an excerpt than a teaser but sue me, eclipse and darkstalker's dynamic makes me very soft. they love each other!!! fuck!! 

***

"I just don't want to fix it right now, okay?!" I blurt. "I'm just—I'm not mad at you, I'm mad at the world. And I know you're trying your best and it's really sweet but I right now, I just... kind of hate the world." I say that last part so quiet, I'm amazed he hears it at all.

"All right. Then... let's break things. Do you wanna break things? Here, I'll go first." He glares at the vase. "This is all your fault, you stupid vase! Look at you! Don't even have flowers in you, that's so dumb! I bet it took you, like, five minutes to shatter when the flood hit! Take that!" He smashes it against the floor with all his might, grinning as his very poor replica shatters into a thousand little pieces.

A smile tugs at my mouth—no matter how hard I try to stomp it down.

"Here. Your turn." Dad passes me a plank of wood, that I think used to be a shelf. "You'll feel a thousand times better when you're done, I promise."

"I feel kinda mean..." I admit.

"Eclipse, it's a board of wood. I promise, it doesn't care."

"I hate you!" I say, very quietly. "You—you stupid piece of wood. I bet you used to be, like, a super ugly tree, and then you fell down really easy and then they made you into a shelf, like a nerd! Ha!" I try to do my best Trailblazer impression. "And you were, like, really hard to... make into a shelf! I HATE YOU I HATE YOU I HATE YOU!" With a burst of unexpected fury, I throw it to the ground. Dad picks it up, holding it in front of me.

"Yes! Yes! You show it who's in charge! Come on, hit it!" He cheers. Tears streaming down my cheeks, I punch it again and again, until it cracks into two pieces on the floor.

I blink, gasping for breath. "Did I... did I just do that?"

"Yep. You did," Dad says, a little dazed. "Wow. That was awesome." He shoots me a grin. "Don't you feel, like, a thousand times better now?"

"My talons are a little sore," I admit, staring mournfully down at them. "But... yeah. I do. Thanks, Dad."

"Awww, c'mere." Dad cups my talons in his. "Is it okay if I heal you?"

I hesitate, then nod.

"I enchant, um--this rock that must have got in here during the flood somehow--to heal everything it touches." Darkstalker brushes the river-rock over my talons, covered in splinters and bruises. I watch, mesmerized, as they slowly fade away--scabbing over and disappearing, little bits of wood dislodging themselves painlessly, and falling on the floor. Dad sweeps those away with a flick of his talon, and chucks them out the window.

"There. All better," he says affectionately. "I used to do that when you were really little, do you remember that? You'd come to me crying with your latest bruise or cut or scrape or whatever, and sometimes you were so hurt and sad, I couldn't help it. So, I, uh, I'd ask if you wanted me to do a magic trick, and told you to close your eyes--and when you opened them, you were all better. It always made you so happy. Clearsight said, um, if I kept doing it you'd never learn not to touch fire or be careful with kitchen knives, or whatever. But I guess I wasn't very good at saying no," he admits sheepishly. "I think once when you got hurt at school, you asked your teacher to do it, and she was very confused. It took you a while to wrap your head around that not everyone had magic powers."

"I don't remember that," I admit guiltily. It's not fair--I only have a year worth of memories with my father, and most of them I was too small to actually remember.

He sighs. "That's all right. You barely knew how to talk, I didn't really expect you too."