Crystal Folly

Her Secret Revealed

Shortly after everyone else had fallen asleep, Luna proceeded to wake Ender. "Hey, I need to talk to you about something," she whispered to him. He agreed to listen, not knowing that Stella had also been awakened.

"What is it, Luna? Something important, I'm assuming?" he asked once they were outside. He noticed one of her eyes began to look more like his in his cat form. Rather than respond with words, she allowed four of her tails and her ears to become tangible. "You shouldn't go so long without reverting, you know what that can do to you," he lightly scolded.

She feigned being hurt. "I'm fully aware of that, dude. It's just..." she trailed off, unsure of what to say.

"It's just?"

"How would I explain to everyone else that I'm a kitsune spirit?" she finished, near tears. "I know you, your siblings, and Milo haven't said anything about you being spirits as well, but how do you deal with that?" She was unaware that they had a different cycle of forced reversions than she did.

"Johann and I normalized it with them. Years ago, anyway. When was the last time you were in your natural form?" He asked this to make sure she wasn't too far into her cycle.

"Five days ago," she lied. It had really been four months, but she didn't want him to freak out.

He instantly picked it up and said, "Don't lie to me, Luna. I'm asking for your well-being." Her response was to summon four kitsune, one for each month. "You need to revert, right now. You're a good person, Luna. Nobody wants to lose you. I don't want to lose someone else to..." he trailed off, unable to finish the sentence. Stella was shocked to hear all of it and wanted to intervene, but Johann had also woken up after Ender got louder.

"Don't interrupt," he told her, "that's an extremely sensitive topic for him. If he knows that you're awake when he talks about the bat, I've no clue of what he might do." A few minutes of quiet crying passed before Ender continued.

"Four years ago, while I was in Venice on my solo mission, I found... someone very close to me," he began, tears still streaming down his face. "They were a bat spirit, going through what you are. Maybe it was their personality, or my curiosity, but we were... together, at least for a bit." He summoned a few cats before sniffling. "Their name was Azazel. I wanted to keep them around longer, maybe even bring them back with me... but they never wanted to be in their natural form."

Luna, now trying to comfort him, told him, "You don't need to tell me the rest. I'm sorry. I shouldn't have put myself at risk for the sake of keeping myself... human." Her body shrunk down to the size of one of Ender's cats, revealing her natural form, with gold, blue, and onyx fur and a ruby on the end of each of her nine tails. Ender decided to continue, knowing it'd be the last time he spoke that night.

"Azazel died in my arms. They told me they had a weird feeling, and that their echolocation wasn't working for them anymore. They wanted their last moments to be with me. That's how I found out they'd been human for two and a half years. Our limit, it's one. I couldn't finish the mission that year, too emotionally destroyed. The target got away, and came to live here in Finland, free of his past. I hope he was taken with this city." He broke down, almost wailing, but managed to keep himself together long enough to clean his face with the surrounding snow.

Luna was unsure of how to respond. "I'm sorry for your loss. Of Azazel. I'm positive they were a great person," she whispered, hugging him tightly. "Let's get you back to Stella before she wakes up and wonders where you are, and let's pretend this never happened."