Wyn was walking back up from the city as darkness fell, having been at the meal house most of the day. She had been working in the school and gardens to help with the ever-increasing bounty of food that was being produced. 

It had been a good day, in the busily productive sort of way, from the practice in the morning to all the work that she had accomplished. Wyn was beginning to picture that she could live here happily, perhaps as an ambassador on a future council. She could spend the winter working on other things, then return here and find a permanent role until another election took place.

She smiled to Lyana who approached her on the way to her rooms. "Good evening Lyana."

"Wyn! Do you have company for dinner? Everyone is all over the place, and I hate eating alone."

"I had no plans, do you want to join me in my apartments?"

Lyana nodded, lacing her arm through Wyn's as they walked. "I would love to. I know it's silly, I've had to eat by myself plenty of times, but it's nicer to be with a friend, especially for dinner"

"No, I understand, a meal is more rewarding when you're sharing it with someone." Wyn thought for a moment, raising a brow. "You said everyone had scattered, is there something wrong?"

Lyana shook her head, letting out a breath. "No, I think it's to do with the Council meeting this morning."

Wyn frowned while trying to recall what was supposed to have been going on today. "What happened?"

"I'm not sure, but my brother said he had to go off and do something tonight, Prince Caelur is in a weird mood and I haven't seen anyone else around."

"I miss all the fun, don't I?" Wyn laughed softly, offering a shrug.

Lyana nodded. "What do you do in the city? I'm sorry, I've never asked."

Wyn shook her head. "It's alright, I know you've been busy learning a whole bunch of different things while working with your brother, you've been occupied. I was employed to set up a public meal house and schooling system, to help feed and educate the city's less fortunate."

Lyana's eyes widened by that. "Oh! that's amazing. You do that all by yourself?"

"Well, I plan it and raise funds and hire people and teach others to do my job. And then try to help out here and there. I was really just gardening today." Wyn ducked her head, blushing a little bit at the girl's enthusiasm.

"That sounds pretty amazing, still. You do that in Aupana?"

"Yes. I have been working on this kind of thing for several years now. And the Prince has asked me to propose it in Sellexu. I would need to travel there with you this autumn, and probably be there all winter long if things went well." Wyn was happy while talking about her passion, and enjoyed seeing how interested Lyana seemed in it. She had almost forgotten Caelur's proposal until she mentioned it, though she wasn't even sure if he had been completely sincere about it.

"Could I help?"

Wyn blinked and shook her head. "Help?"

The other woman nodded, stilling herself for a rare occasion of seriousness, grabbing Wyn's hands and squeezing them gently. "Yeah. You said you taught people to help you, could I travel with you? I'll help you in any way I could, I could help introduce you to people, take you to different Cities, do your numbers. I'm well read, trained in accounting and all that, I've been helping my brother out with it this summer."

"You certainly have enthusiasm for it. But you just now heard of what I'm doing." Wyn said thoughtfully, trying to temper the girl's excitement with realism without being too harsh. "You don't really even know what it entails, you probably have other things to do when you return home.

Lyana paused for a moment, then nodded, smiling brilliantly. "I've been trying to figure out what to do with myself. I don't want to go back home and fall into what it was before, moving from ball to ball, only focusing on what could make me a brilliant match in marriage. I want to do something, like you and Nerini."

Wyn watched the younger woman with more understanding, nodding slowly. "I haven't decided if I was going. But we have a bit more time to decide, so maybe follow me around a bit here, and you can figure out if you're interested in it, then I'll figure out what I'm doing too, ok?"

As they came into the modest apartments that Wyn allowed herself to occupy, they sat down at the small table in the open air of the balcony, enjoying the warm breeze and a light dinner was brought out to them. Lyana grinned happily, quizzing Wyn for most of the night on her job, seeming to not tire of the topic, or lose any enthusiasm on its novelty as the night wore on.

As dessert was served, Lyana fell silent, looking up at the moon which had just started to rise. "Beautiful, a nice clear night for the full moon." Wyn said, noticing what caught the other girl's attention.

"And for the eclipse, I've never seen the moon be eclipsed before."

Wyn turned from the view, back to the other woman, as the world began to slow to a stop. She felt as if the ground was dropping away from her feet, sending her plummeting back to a time when she was a child, on a winter night. "Pardon."

"Every twentyish or so years, the full moon is eclipsed. It's the first time I've ever been able to see it. I'm so glad the sky is clear for it here."

"And the sky will go dark and the only light will be the sea." Wyn murmured, letting out a slow breath, telling herself she was being silly.

Lyana blinked and tilted her head. "Well, I'm sure we could still see stars. Have you seen it before? You must have been a child the last time it happened. My brother said he saw it while healing from a broken leg. That he probably wouldn't have stopped to watch it, if he hadn't been bored out of his mind, laying on his back anyways."

Wyn nodded  numbly, finishing her dessert and smiling to the other woman. "My friends and I were up to trouble the last time it happened. It's a special night, do you want to go down to the beaches, to see it from there?"

She had to hope that Nerini didn't know that this was happening. Her friend hadn't mentioned that myth since they were children.

***

She was standing in the growing darkness near the edge of the water, tying her hair up out of her face as Shiar approached. The wind caught up off the water, allowing her a cool relief from the warm summer night though she shivered at the sudden chill across her skin. 

Nerini had been following the course of the moon and upcoming eclipse idly for a while, remembering the tales from her childhood. Today when talking to Shiar, the realization had come to her. She was being tugged there now, so strongly that it nearly stole her breath away. Tonight, it would be different than it had been all those years ago.

"What are you wearing?" High Lord Shiar's tone was odd, curious, but as if affected by something else.

She turned around, looking down at her skin-tight breeches that stopped above the knee, and her sleeveless, similarly tight, shirt, patting the daggers she had strapped to each thigh. "I'm not actually sure what's out there. Figured weapons would come in handy"

"No, I mean, your clothing." His features were obscured from sight, standing in the shadow as he was, but he was watching her intently, his voice a little rough.

"It's better to swim in, anything else will drag you down." Nerini glanced down at herself again, running her hands over her legs again.

"We're going out there? How far?"

"You start swimming the moment you see the moon rise and you keep going until the eclipse starts. Then you dive and you follow the light beneath the water." She shrugged, turning her back as he pulled off his shirt and started taking his boots and weapons off.

"What light?" He asked as he was undressing, though she was surprised that he didn't argue at the vagueness of her answer. Shiar didn't strike her as someone who was capable of following myths into the depths of the ocean.

Nerini laughed and started walking into the water, in taking a sharp breath at the coolness of it. "The light of the diamond. It should be obvious. I hope."

"You're absolutely insane, woman, you are in need of being locked up in a room somewhere, to stop you from running around half dressed with insane plans of glory. I'm even worse, following you out here and not making someone lock you up. I agreed with all this." He strode into the water as he talked, until he was right behind her, his tone exasperated but also tinged with wonder.

She stopped, turning to look at him when they were close enough that in the cool of the night,  they could feel one another's body heat, "but you're coming, right? You believe me, and we're going to do this?"

"How long can you hold your breath, under water?" He asked finally, just watching her as he let his body acclimatize to the temperature of the water, as they waited to see the moon.

"A while. You?"

He nodded, turning and starting to walk deeper into the water. "We used to have free diving competitions when I was younger, you'd see how far down and how long you could stay down. I never had a lot of trouble beating people at that game."

She looked at him for a moment, then nodded to the sky, where the first light of the moon started to glimmer over the horizon. "You ready?"

He dived into the water as answer, pacing himself, but swimming with a slow, powerful stroke, hearing her dive and swim after him.

And that was how Shiar found himself swimming out into the bay of sorrows beside a woman who had barely talked to him since nearly bleeding to death in his arms a couple months ago.

***

Kannein stood up from the table, looking out at the full moon, watching it raise into the sky, bathing the earth with light. "I've always hated full moons, you know."

Rael shook her head and stood as well, moving to stand beside him. "They're beautiful, peaceful. I love them in the winter, when the whole world looks silver."

"Couple months ago, the full moon was the night Nerini almost died. My mother left on the night of a full moon, my father died the full moon before that. I just have horrible luck on full moons." He shook his head, walking away from the window, half lost in his own world.

"You're just being superstitious, you mother left a month after your father died because everything had sorted itself out. Her heart broke the day he was gone, I can't imagine the pain of it, the echoes of his ghost all over and what they would mean to her"

"I still wish she would have stayed. For me, for Nerini, for Eric."

Rael let out a soft breath and nodded. "It's hard. I know. But she had made a promise to her people, to return and take her place with them"

"Eric wrote to me a week or so ago, said he's looking at travelling across to Sellexu, to study some of their histories. He wants to see if he can find any similarities, trace things down. Things my father was trying to put together for as long as I remember. He'll be there all next winter."

"Oh? Good for him, is he going to come home at all? To Lansen?"

"Maybe, for a week or two before heading over. He'll probably take one of our ships across."

Rael paused for a moment, still at the window, feeling an odd chill go through her. "Kannien, I think it's an eclipse of the moon tonight."

"So?" He stopped and turned to look at her, watching her as she turned around.

"They are extremely rare, I haven't seen one since I was a little girl, in Lansen, remember?"

"An eclipse? Why would I remember an Eclipse, Rael?" he sounded amused at the idea, chuckling and watching the sky for a long moment before turning to regard her concern idly.

She gave him a frustrated look, shaking her head and walking back into the villa, poking his chest gently. "Cause the last time there was a lunar eclipse, your sister tried to swim across the bay."

"She said she was going to the beach, when she left earlier." Kannein let out a slow breath, rubbing the back of his neck, before letting out a curse.