the moon be still as bright {shelby!standalone}

I slept with the light on tonight.

For my sister no longer existed in the realm of our home, and therefore could no longer protect me from the monsters that hid under our bed and in our hearts. And those previous nights I fell asleep with security in my heart, for even if danger was imminent my sister would die before letting life fall from my own lips, and as selfish as it might have been, I took consolation in her selflessness.

Those were the nights that she would tell me stories.

She always incorporated the same elements: a moon held high in the sky, a pair of lost souls tied to a ground in which they could never live, and stars that lit a path unmarked by previous footsteps. Because in the mind of Cha Leviane, these were the only things you needed in order to live a full life. They started the same way, too. She would make herself comfortable on the edge of my bed, and I would scramble to pull the covers to my chin and turn out the light, for then she’d draw back the blinds before returning to her previous position, and for a few moments before her tales we would watch the stars that flickered through our window. I would point out the few that I knew the names of, occasionally pointing out a constellation if I was feeling brave.

(“And that’s Orion’s Belt, right?”

“Almost. A little to the left.”)

It seemed as though we could map the night sky upon bedroom sheets, if we tried hard enough.

But after five or so minutes had passed she’d begin, and every time she began with the same line:

“They travelled from a far off land, one which we do not know of anymore.” (And here I’d pull the covers even closer to my chin in anticipation for what was to come, and from the corner of my eye I could see a smile tug at her lips, though her voice never faltered in noticing so). “They did not know the destination, yet they followed without a second glance, for they knew that whatever lay at the end was far greater than what they left behind.”

“What’d they leave behind, Cha?”

“Oh, they left behind many things, Shelby. They had family and friends and a life that could have been well-lived, but despite all this they were never truly content, and with discontent comes a trembling of the soul, a reminder that we cannot live our lives sheltered by false security. They took steps of confidence across all types of lands, oh Shelby, how they saw a world you and I can only wish to see in an existence past this! They saw fields of green and oceans blue; their vision stretched above the clouds and to the lowest points of the earth, oh, how they saw it all. And though they considered the hours of daylight nice, it was at nightfall in which they really took comfort. They’d lie on their backs in those same fields of green and watch stars flick light upon a world which deserved none, governed only by a moon which despised tyrant’s thrall.”

(If I paused here, the faces of unfamiliarity took on a specific form, and instead of seeing faces blurred I saw those of my sister and my, eyes cast upon a world which gave us no real view, for we never saw the mountains and valleys which my sister spoke of so fondly.)

“And Shelby, how they adored those nights. It was said that those two were the ones who gave names to the stars, and they never missed a one.

But come morning they’d pack up and move on, not stopping again until dusk and sometimes not even then. They did this for years, and eventually the first grew to an age at which she could never carry herself anymore, and then—and this was the remarkable thing, her companion hoisted her upon her back and the two they travelled that way for years more. It was said that if you looked upon the hillside in the dead of night you could see them plodding on, sometimes one carrying the other and sometimes they were hand and hand, but they were never more than a foot apart and those that saw them, yes, some called them foolish but others called them the wisest they had ever seen.

They never reached their destination, Shelby, for there never was one to begin with.

And when the eldest could no longer bear to be a burden upon her companion’s back she requested that they take her to the top of a mountain, and indeed the other found a suitable peak for this, not quite mountain in specifics but close enough to do the same, and the last bit of life exhaled from the eldest girl’s body and landed upon the stars. They say you often see the other standing there, watching the sky for any sign of the one believed to be her sister.

Sometimes, they say, if you catch the night when the sky is crystal-clear, you can see the outline of two girls holding hands with their feet planted firmly upon the sky as if it was as solid as the ground we walk on now. But that’s only sometimes, for they were not infinite, not like their celestial counterparts.

That’s why we look upon those with such favor, no? For the moon and stars are constant, and as sure as you are that the sun will rise so am I that the moon will chase it back again, and that offers me more consolation than any spoken word, even the ones I’ve told you now.

Don’t trust a spoken word, Shelby, for it never holds much stock.”

And it was this night in particular, after Cha had only been bathed in darkness for a day, that nightmares haunted me even when I was not yet asleep. She told me many things over the years, stories one could twist to the point of being true, and along with these she told me that there were indeed no monsters under the bed. But recalling upon her stories now, a contradiction shown clear, for if we were not to trust words spoken, what was to be deduced about the confidence my sister had in our security. She never feared what she could not see, and I suppose it was this blind faith that convinced her to pass along the same advice to me, but I was not as shaded as my sister, for I found confidence only in what I could touch.

For this reason, I suppose it was good that my sister had to take refuge in the arena in which she did currently. And despite the countless hours I spent huddled in front of our static-ridden television I could not find the same comfort she had once taken refuge in (and at this moment, I doubt she found it either).

My sister said not to put stock in a spoken word, and if this held true, than almost every single thing Cha Leviane had spoken to me was just as empty as a starless night sky.

I slept with the light on tonight, because if words fell through than the monsters of my imagination quite possibly slept under my bed as well as deep within my rapidly beating heart.