Moonborn Extension

 Hello again, readers! Remember Luna and Flame from Moonborn? Well today, they're back! In the exciting extension known as Chapter 3!! (Warning, there's a bit of mild language in this story!)

Chapter Three (sorta)

She looked at her makeshift camp. How pitiful it looked, just a pile of smoldering embers and a

terrified fox pup. Flame pawed Luna’s leg. Perhaps he knew what lay ahead of them.
“Don’t worry. It’ll be okay,” Luna commiserated with him, wishing the empty words were true. She shuffled to the edge of the lake, grabbed a large leaf

from nearby, and collected some of the sparkling water in it. She poured it over the fire, and

stirred it up with a stick. She then picked up her mouse (she had eaten the squirrel earlier),

put it in her pajama pocket, and made a clucking sound at Flame. He got up and rubbed her

knee. She scratched his ears in return, stuck her “dagger” and the map in her other pocket, and

started for the trees, Flame trailing behind her.
Along the way, Luna spotted sunlight dappling the mossy ground of the forest, heard twigs

snapping, and saw creatures darting in the underbrush. She ignored them. If something was

going to attack her, surely it would’ve done so by now.
Finally, she reached the edge of Silverbell Forest, the boundaries of her protection, the silvery line

that marked her safety. Beyond it, a vast expanse of black sand lay.  Luna collapsed, panting,

on a fairly large, orange mushroom. Flame barked and whined at once and flopped down next

to her, looking like a large, fluffy extension to the mushroom. Luna spread the map on her lap,

and tapped the edge of Silverbell forest. “This is where we are,” she said to no one in particular.
She traced her finger from the Forest to a stretch of parchment labeled Darkfall Sands, then looked at the black desert, and back again. How could she survive without water while traipsing

through that?There was no way a leaf could hold it for that long, and she didn’t have anything else to collect water in.
Then Luna spotted a small blue circle drawn on the Sands. In minuscule writing above it, were the

words Celestial Fountain. Worth a shot, Luna thought. She stood up, put away the map, took a deep breath, and took a step across the

threshold of the forest. Nothing happened. Luna simply felt a tingling in her foot, where it was

half-stepping on the silver protection line. She lifted her other foot and placed it across the line

too. Still nothing. “Come on, Flame,” she said to her fox.

Flame rather grudgingly stood up and stretched, displaying his small, half-grown teeth in a yawn.

“Destiny waits for no man.”

Luna’s entire head and neck were burning. Her bare feet were screaming for relief from the

blazing black sands of the desert. The near-setting sun beat down mercilessly upon Luna and

Flame,

mocking them. Around it, the world was tinged scarlet and orange, like trails of blood across the

sky. A lizard scuttled across Luna’s blistered feet. Flame’s eyes drooped. Luna suddenly started

to

see in double vision. Something whispered in her ear. It sounded like a snake, hissing and

whispering. Is this really worth it? Are you really worth it? Don’t you want the pain, the mystery, don’t you want it all to be over? Yes. Yesssss.

We can help you. Black shadows swam in front of Luna’s eyes. No. Don’t listen to them, A stronger voice said, You have to fight. People are dying, hurting, wounded. Desperate for hope. They need you. But the shadows were closing in, the voices had multiplied, echoing around and around. Come with…

no… fight it… not forever… make it stop… please… hope. Luna couldn’t take it. She was going to go with it. But she remembered Nashai, screaming in pain.

Flame, crying over his mother’s bloody corpse. And something else… a face. A woman with curly

dark hair was lying next to her, dead. A man was on her right, in the same state.

A girl with cruel black eyes and dirty blonde hair was standing over her, clutching something

dark, something dripping, like liquidized shadows. The girl above Luna raised the dripping

object and pointed it at Luna’s chest. The darkness assumed the form of a knife, and streaked

toward her, the blade gleaming, a weapon forged of pure shadows.
Suddenly a blur of color shot for the blonde girl, knocking her away from Luna.

The knife disintegrated. Luna caught a glimpse of reddish-orange, blue, green, and white, before

plunging into darkness again.

Chapter 4 (kinda)

Luna awoke with a start. She was bound, gagged, and tied to a palm tree. Beside her, a

beautiful blue-green lagoon made small ripples that brushed her feet, cooling them. In front of

her, a few extremely large canvas tents were erected, clustered around a campfire that was

sending

embers into the night sky. Night? Yes, there were galaxies far above her, twinkling kindly. She must’ve been brought hours ago.

Nobody was in sight.

Suddenly, the sound of hooves could be heard nearby.

“Get in there, go on!” Whining, laughter, something being hit or kicked, like a dog in pain.

A small growl, then one of the voices howling in rage. “He bit me! The stinking vermin bit me!” Luna felt a stab of fear. She knew that tiny growl. Then she noticed the long stick hanging over

the crackling fire. Putting two and two together, Luna let out a blood-curdling scream of horror that was muffled by the gag. The owners of the voices were going to cook Flame! The rough

bark of the palm tree scraped Luna’s arms and neck as she fought against her restraints.

“Eh? Someone ‘ear tha’?” One of the voices had heard Luna’s scream.

“Probably the girl. I think this mutt’s her pet. I’ll go and quiet her. We don’t want to be found.” More malicious laughter. The sound of clip-clopping hooves was

growing louder and the creature belonging to the voice emerged into the firelight. Luna stopped

struggling from shock. It was, from the waist up, a thin, black-haired man, joined to the

dapple-grey body of a horse with feathered hooves. It was a centaur, holding an enormous,

carved bow (Luna noted the rune-like symbols engraved along it), with a quiver of arrows

strapped across his back. Luna had been so distracted by the centaur's looks that she was

surprised to see those fierce brown eyes glaring so vehemently at her.
“What’re you playing at?” he asked in a thick British accent. Luna fought down an insane desire to

laugh. Instead, she rolled her eyes and pointed at her gag, raising her eyebrows. The centaur

faltered a little at this, but quickly regained his composure. “You can scream all you want, you

brat, but we’re going to eat your little pal anyway, aren’t we?”

“Hell yeah we are!” One of the centaurs answered from the shadows. “We haven’t had no

decent food ‘cept lizards and crabs for months! We ain’t gonna pass up this free dinner, right boys?” He kicked something metal, and something, probably Flame, whined in pain.

The others laughed. Burning rage and hatred rose inside Luna, but she couldn’t do anything

about it.
“No!” The centaurs chorused, laughing maniacally again.
“Oi!” The centaur in front of Luna bellowed at them. “Shut up!” And they did. Luna guessed that this centaur was their leader. She tried to kick him, but her legs

barely reached his hooves. The centaur laughed and with a sickening crunch, stepped hard on Luna’s foot. It broke. Blood spurted from the wound, pouring over the centaur’s

hooves and gushing into the lagoon, where it promptly disappeared. The centaur bent down and

started to remove the gag from Luna.

“Rowan, why’re you takin’ off that gag?” One of the centaurs questioned.
“Because, Athistos, I want to have a little fun with our capture before we eat her pet,” Rowan smirked. He threw the fabric aside, and knelt in front of

Luna, his four legs bent underneath him. Luna spat furiously at Rowan’s feet. He ignored it.

“What do you want?” Luna asked loudly.
“Why, how polite you are, Star Eyes,” Rowan answered, leering.

“Oh shut up, you’re not funny to anyone. What do you want with me?”

Rowan’s eyes darkened. “We don’t want anything to do with your scum. Centaurs are above lowly humans. But we need money. And money’s what we’ll get with your pretty neck.”
“I figured that you stole everything you want,” Luna challenged, “what do you have to buy, a

manure shovel?” Rowan struck Luna across the face. Little rainbows appeared across Luna’s

vision. “We can’t evade capture forever,you stupid girl! Korthos is only so big. But, if we hand you over to your delightful twin Umbra in Deathsong Cliffs, we won’t need to steal ever again."His voice had become calm and oily again by the last few words. It all comes back to Umbra.

“Ah, so decent of you,” Luna said sarcastically. “You should be given a prize. For the worst-smelling horse in all of

Korthos.”

Rowan raised his chin and glared arrogantly upon Luna, who scowled right back in

defiance.
“I’ve had enough of this brat,” Rowan said finally, replacing Luna’s gag with some fresh fabric.

“Now, let us roast her pet over the flames, before they die out.” And the centaurs, at last,

stepped out of the shadows. They were all sizes, shapes, and colors of horses, and each of

them carried one weapon or another, though most held bows. A red roan and a flea-bitten

centaur carried a large, metal cage into the clearing. Inside the cage, the small ball of red fur

whimpered. Luna felt her heart break. Even though she had known Flame for so little a time,

he was an innocent, playful companion, and she would miss him terribly. Tears stung her eyes

as the red roan centaur took Flame out of his prison and tied him roughly over the fire. He

barked at Luna, who turned away, so as not to see those fear-filled, fire-reflecting eyes…
Suddenly, a warm and cold sensation swept through Luna. Her skin was turning silvery-white. She

felt like she was going to burst open like a dam--

A blinding white light abruptly engulfed the camp. The centuars’ screams and Flame’s barks

were lost in the rush of blood pounding in Luna’s ears. She was floating away, leaving her ropes

and gag behind and-- and the light exploded, the feeling was gone, and Luna found herself

once again against the palm tree, though untied and free, surrounded by a camp of

unconscious centaurs.

She was panting hard, watching the skin on her aching hands slowly turn back to its regular color. Flame barked softly, still tied over what had once been a roaring fire, but was now a mound of ashes.

Leaping up, Luna cried out in joy and flung herself at Flame as much as her foot would allow. She untied her fox friend, and then he was upon her, barking and licking her face demonstratively, and she was crying, tears running down her face, but laughing all the same.

They rolled together on the ground for a while, until they bumped into Rowan’s body. Still laughing, Luna stood up, leaning on Flame for support, and kicked the centaur with her uninjured foot.

He flopped over satisfyingly. Luna grinned at Flame. She started collecting all the items that the centaurs had possessed and choosing which ones she would need.

At last, she had four flasks of water, a rucksack (containing a tent, some blankets, and a considerable amount of fried lizards), a sword plus bow and arrows, and a dark purple traveling cloak. She had also taken back the map Nashai had left her.
Gathering up her selected items and still feeling giddy, Luna marched out of the oasis and into the desert, Flame trotting behind her.