Trials of the Moonlight

Blodig Ferie

Long, long ago, the Man in the Moon fashioned gifts for his guardians. For Nicholas Saint North, Tsar Lunar XI's Sword, which would bring him strength, and the gift of wonder. For E. Aster Bunnymund, two boomerangs that can be thrown any distance he desires, and the gift of hope. For Toothiana, to soar like the quickest bird alive, and the gift of memory. And for Sandman, his own special power to inspire beautiful dreams and watch over the innocent.

The Man in the Moon had not yet finished his gift for his fifth guardian, for he was still too young to receive it. The boy was also disobedient, and he feared misuse of his present. When he defied him for his final time, the Man in the Moon angrily cast out his gift somewhere on earth and left it for mortals to find. He regretted this decision, for it fell into the wrong hands and would not be used for its true purpose.

When he promised the guardians of the spirit's rebirth, he said that the only thing he could guarantee was that he would be reborn with the very element he'd had from the beginning: a heart full of love.

...

There were others that were busy on the night of the solstice. Amelia Pitchiner had to find somewhere else to do her work since the portal to her cabin had been permanently shut. Capturing souls wasn't hard anyway; she just had to take advantage of whatever opportunities she had, and men around this area were so easy to fool.

Even in life, she was called a witch. Many had not known the name Kozmotis Pitchiner by the time she was a woman, but she sought to continue what he began, even if he had been a fool and abandoned it all. Amelia liked gathering herbs for her father's alchemy; she was simply fascinated by potions. To watch the heart stop... the eyes go blind. Kozmotis said to her, "We're made up of thousands of parts with thousands of different functions all working in tandem to keep us alive. Yet if only a single part of our imperfect machine fails, life fails. It makes one realize how fragile... how flawed we are." What pulled her in was the irony... the irony that the same world that gave them life provides them the means to die.

It wasn't until she dabbled in necromancy that even her father began to leer at her with disgust. "The dead must stay dead." He said. "You're defiling their spirits." But he had already begun to change by then, and start his path to being a 'hero of the golden age.' He had disappointed her, so it was no surprise that he died by being tricked by his own prisoners he once coveted so dearly.

Some say it was Amelia that killed her mother, but it wasn't she. It was heartbreak. Heartbreak at the loss of both her husband and her once-sweet daughter. Though she gladly took credit for it anyway.

Amelia had not known about Pitch Black until recently—she was too busy trying to ensure she herself stayed alive long enough to continue her experiments. She was forty-five when she finally learned the art of soul-trapping.

As long as her soul remains tied to an object, any object, that she enchanted with her blood, she would remain on earth for as long as she wished. She came across her prized possession one day in a very strange place... one she couldn't remember now. A diamond dagger she always kept locked in its box. Now she had it laced on a necklace to make sure the Man in the Moon's little servants didn't come to fetch it. She never learned where it came from, but the dagger was the only one of its kind.

Amelia never used it for menial things, nor to hunt. Rather, it was the only dagger she used in her blood experiments. Somehow, despite cutting her palms with it many a time, the dagger never lost its shine or edge. She would need something reliable like this treasured blade on nights like the winter solstice, where dark spirits rose from the ground to lurk. She used her blood as a beacon to attract them, then she fed it to her prisoners to transform them into Fearlings. It was always a spectacle to watch a man, who was begging for his life, become her loyal pet.