Moonrise ✔ [Complete]

03 Family (Part 1)

The drive back home was quiet as Maeyune kept to her own thoughts. In the temple's car, she sat beside Jorin, who also enforced silence. Her Aegis Team rode in the car behind her. She could only imagine how they would react when they learned of the alliance.

An alliance with the country that was home to the Sun Goddess incarnate.

With the influence that the Iron Prophet was administering across the seas, she knew it was only a matter of time before something like this happened. Despite the partnership between Shivra and Yunra that had defeated the aliens twenty years ago, the world had kept them apart. Would she as Shivra recognize Yunra again when they met?

Given the colossal size of the Iron Prophet forces and their advanced weaponry, how long had the Sun Goddess incarnate been fighting them on his own? Was he the reason why Bera continued to stand tall in the face of terror? Did he not require her assistance?

Questions poured relentlessly into her head, questions that she had been asking for years. She was ten when Jorin had told her that she was not the only dragon god incarnate.

What was that boy like? Had he been raised into a warrior, like her? Was he everything that the temple guardians said Yunra was, gold and bright like the sun?

Beside her, Jorin began tapping his fingers on his knee. He only tapped his fingers when there was something he did not understand.

"Master?"

"Of all days, the Iron Prophet chose today to attack Suolan," he said. "And in the heart of Ursa."

"Perhaps it was fear they were looking to instill," she offered, her brow wrinkling.

"No," he replied. "If they had wanted that, they would have succeeded in the attack. Instead, they were foolishly outnumbered and did not have the proper weapons to defeat the celestials or the guardians. It was all strictly suicide."

She cocked her head to the side in confusion. "Why would they sacrifice themselves if it did not further their cause?"

Jorin turned his head to her. "Their cause, Maeyune, was to expose you to the world. At any cost."

She waited for him to explain, but he returned his gaze to the trees that sped by outside the window. "They knew you would be there to protect the king at his coronation. However, it appears it no longer matters, seeing as Chiyan and the Beran Council plan on announcing the alliance and revealing both the incarnations anyway."

Maeyune sat in silence for a long minute, feeling restless with all the secrets that Suolan had kept about her.

"Why does everyone go through so much trouble to hide me and Yunra's incarnation?" she demanded. "We protected the world in our former lives. Why has it taken so long for us to work together again?"

"You know exactly why, Maeyune," he answered, looking at her sidelong. "King Shuren's fear for the future of his people is what kept you hidden. He was right not to trust the Berans. Even though Bera has been a republic for over a century, the Berans are no different than the Nomenians. Both nations were born from war.