LUNA

            Luna Love sat in silence at the round table where she occasionally had her dinners with Myranda Glamour, the beautiful Empress of Sootopolis. She hated Empress Glamour. Luna hated how she had sent Ahab to murder her daughter, and she even hated how the woman was still so gorgeous, though she was supposedly older than herself.

            Tonight was a special dinner, Glamour’s loyal Chiefs from Lilycove and Pacifidlog were in attendance, along with the Lord Commander of her royal navy, and many other high ranking military officers. Seated next to Luna was Ahab himself. Though he had washed to be presentable at this high council, the reek of alcohol filled Luna’s nose, and a mix of hate and fear swelled through her every time he touched her leg under the table.

            Empress Glamour had just finished the last of her food. She lightly tapped the end of her three pronged gold-plated trident on the marble floor. The tapping sound echoed in the hall and through Luna’s mind. The captive woman trembled as the Blue Orb embedded below the prongs seemed to ripple in the light. The vision was true, Luna thought as she held back tears. Chris is dead. My son is dead, just as she foretold…

            At the tapping all the commanders and Chiefs silently gazed at the Empress. “We’ve received word from Starfall,” she said, her voice near as beautiful as her body. “The Mt. Chimney Kingdom is secure. As we speak he is mustering his armies to assault the Fortree Kingdom on my command. When the time comes, you will attack Mt. Pyre from the east as Starfall invades from the west, and we will crush them between our fingers.” She smiled and her eyes quickly gazed over Luna. “Soon, the Forrests will suffer the same fate as the Marshes.” She turned to the Lord Commander of her navy. “How fare your scout ships in Slateport’s waters?”

            The grim old man spoke in a raspy voice. “We dare not encroach too far, yet,” he said. “Our spies have gathered intelligence that Marcus Spark has arrived in Slateport, bringing one hundred ships with him. He has put the call out to the rest of the Kingdom to begin mustering their forces.”

            The Empress chuckled. “It seems things are progressing rather quickly, but everything so far has gone according to plan. Chief Wake, send a message to Starfall, tell him to proceed with the invasion of Fortree in all haste. We must keep Fortree, Slateport, and Mauville from uniting against us so soon…” She traced the shape of the Blue Orb in her trident with her finger and stared into it. “We must keep them divided long enough to secure our ultimate weapon.”

            Luna trembled and looked down at her half-eaten plate of food. She flinched as Ahab leaned over the table and put his whiskered face into his hand. She remembered the vision she saw in the Blue Orb again… A stormy sea, and soldiers floating dead in the water. If only she was as strong as she once was, she would have picked up her knife and thrown it at her… But now she was too scared to even move.

            Glamour continued: “Lord Commander, begin sending more scouts and raiding parties into Slateport waters, ten ships.”

            The Navy Commander looked at his underlings. “Your Grace, if we may, it would seem to send ten more scouting ships, we would need seven more scouting ships built. We have our war ships at the ready, but many of our smaller, swifter scouts have gone missing.”

            A glimmer of doubt passed in front of the Empresses face. Ahab grumbled low, but his voice was loud and angry as thunder in Luna’s head as she flinched again. “You’ve lost them?”

            “Begging your pardon, sir, fishermen from Pacifidlog to the coasts of the Green River in the Fortree Kingdom tell us an unfortunate tale. They speak of a pirate lord who can melt into the water and drown whole ships in the night without being seen.”

            Empress Glamour was unfazed by the news. “Petty pirates… I thought I had rid myself of them years ago when my glorious empire was born. Chief Rapid,” she called to the short Chief of Pacifidlog. “I offer ships and wealth to whoever can bring me this pirate lord, alive. Kill all who are known to assist him, be they fishermen or members of your own tribes.”

            Chief Rapid bowed over his plate. “It shall be done, your grace.”

            “Luna my dear, please stand,” Myranda Glamour said sweetly.

            Luna Love trembled as she staggered to her feet, nearly tripping over her own chair as it was scooted back. She bent over to one side due to pain in her left knee, and when she raised her head, she saw herself in a mirror at the far end of the hall. Her face was bruised and her lip and cheeks were swollen. Her hair had begun to turn grey, and her very expression seemed a permanent contortion of agony. Her head began to hurt again when she saw it, and for a moment she forgot where she was. It had been less than three months since she was captured, but it was as if she had already aged thirty years.

            “It pains me to say this, my sweet guest,” she said. “My dear brother seems not to be interested in you anymore. He says you grow ugly, you’ve become terribly boring, and no matter what he does, you always refuse his noble hand in marriage.”

            Luna turned to look at Ahab, still seated. She had to shuffle her feet to look that way, for her neck and shoulders were stiff and sore from the almost nightly beatings. The Empress’s half-brother seemed to not understand what she was saying. His eyes were confused as he looked at her unsurely.

            “I never said-”

            “He says,” interrupted the Empress, silencing Ahab a she pointed the three pronged staff in his direction. “He might like someone a little younger… As you’re not like to last very long.”

            Oh thank the gods, Luna thought. It will be over at last. Please let him be tired of me. Let it be true. Kill me now and let me join my children and my sweet Sam in the next world…

            The Empress smiled wickedly, her serene crystal blue eyes flickering in the light of the dining hall. “But we have a little dilemma. You are the rightful ruler of the Slateport. If you were to, by some misfortune, leave us, then your brother would become the new King of Slateport. No matter how I speak with him, my dear Ahab refuses to marry your brother. Now that there seem to be no more Marshes to be found-”

            Luna sniffled out loud. She couldn’t hold back the tears anymore. She hated them all. She looked at them. Perhaps the Chiefs of Lilycove and Pacifidlog pitied her. The commanders of the Sootopolis Navy tried to avert her gaze. She began to cry.

            “They were my children.” Hopelessness took over her heart. Her whole body began to tremble. Glamour stood up and put her slender, perfectly shaped arms around Luna.

            “Don’t cry, my lady,” she said softly in her ear. “The good news is yet to come.” She helped sit Luna back down into her chair at the table. Ahab still wore that stupid confused look on his face, as if he didn’t know what was going on, either. Empress Glamour spun the trident in her hands, and the Blue Orb seemed to dance. “But after we conquer Slateport, and dispose of your brother, I thought it would be just perfect if Ahab would marry your little niece. What was her name again? Arra?”

            “Hera,” Luna croaked, as her heart dropped another beat. “Her name is Hera.”

She thought about Apollo’s young, beautiful daughter the last time she had seen her. She remembered Hera and Kirlia dancing and playing games with little Lily. Part of her wanted it to happen and leave this world behind… But then Hera would be subjected to the same horror every night that she had experienced. Her sweet, innocent niece would be beaten and tormented, sometimes for no reason at all.

            She realized that the ghosts of her husband and children must wait. She had other family to take care of. Her brother and her niece were all she had left.

            “No,” she said wiping a tear from her eye. The tears stung when they rolled over her sores and bruises. Her arm trembled as she put her hand on Ahab’s rough, calloused ones. “I will marry Ahab.”

            The room full of Chiefs and commanders was silent. Finally, Empress Glamour sat back down. “Oh that is wonderful news. We must have you wed immediately, then, with my Chiefs and commanders as witnesses.” She clapped her hands loudly. A side door in the marble room opened, and a few handmaidens came in to escort Luna away from the dining hall. “I want her clean and somewhat beautiful for my dear brother,” she told them.

            Luna stole a look at Ahab as the handmaidens approached her seat. His face was greedy and lustful. Luna knew that the worst of him was yet to come, but in her heart she knew she had saved her niece from certain terror.

            Luna was born to House Love, the Chiefs of Oldale. She had married Sam Marsh and become queen of the Slateport Kingdom… but before dawn broke tomorrow morning, she knew she would be Luna, wife of Ahab. She cried as the handmaidens washed her and dressed her in flowing silks.

            She saw herself in another mirror when they were done, and she was forty-five again. She had makeup on that covered the wounds on her face. For two and a half weeks, she had felt broken. Now, she saw herself as a queen once again.

            As they handmaidens escorted her out into a courtyard, she thought of her children, Lily and Chris, and of her husband, and of Hera, who she was giving up her life for. Empress Glamour sat on the back of her Milotic in a flowing fountain, while Ahab and his Gyarados stood waiting for her.

            The Chiefs and Naval Commanders stood straight in a line as witnesses to the marriage. The handmaidens held her hand as she walked down the stone courtyard, eyes fixated on Empress Glamour…

            The ground smacked up to meet her face, and she heard Ahab snort in contained laughter. She had tripped on her silk gown. One of the maids offered her a hand to help her up. She smacked the hand away.

            “Let me walk,” she said, her voice sterner than it had been in weeks.

            And walk she did. She stumbled, and limped, and staggered her way towards the fountain. In the moonlight, Myranda Glamour appeared older.

            Finally after what seemed like an eternity, she had made it to the fountain and she looked down at her reflection under the moon in the water. A strong woman looked back at her.

            I am beautiful, she thought as the Empress began reciting the traditional marriage ceremony. I am strong, she thought as she looked at her reflection. I am a mother, and a sister, and an aunt, she thought as she looked at the moon and stars, the brightest of which reminded her of the children she had lost.

Finally she turned to Ahab when the time came…

“Do you take Luna to be your lawfully wedded wife?” Glamour asked.

“I do,” Ahab said, the greed and lust dancing in his eyes and fluttering in his voice.

“And do you take Ahab to be your lord and husband?”

“I do,” she said. And there will come a day when you let your guard down when I will slit your throat in your sleep.