Chapter Nine
The Magical Adventures of Moonie and Sola: The Starglass of Onamar
Mr. Cooper’s boat rests in perfect stillness, its hull barely brushing the sand, like it was placed there by something gentle and unseen. The sky above is lavender-gray, braided with gold and silver strands. The clouds move in slow spirals, not like anything I've ever seen. The air feels soft but heavy, like it's made of something held. The water before us is quiet. No wind, no waves. Just the soft hum of something new. The three of us, Moonie, Vivian and me, we don’t speak. We haven’t even looked at one another.
I am the first to move. My sandal sinks into the sand, but it’s not like any sand I’ve ever known. It’s cool and fine, like powdered pearls. It shimmers faintly as my foot presses down. The moment I touch it, the hum deepens. Not louder. Just closer. Like the world has noticed us and says, ‘Ahh. There you are.’
Vivian steps off the boat behind us, one hand on her hip, the other gripping the edge like it might vanish behind her.
“Well, this ain’t Calypso.” she mutters, her voice quiet but laced with awe. She glances around, eyes wide, taking in the lavender sky, the luminous sand, the hush that is not really silent. “I feel like I have just stepped into a painting.”
The air opens, warmer now and drifts past, soft and sweet, carrying the scent of the storm. I hear Abuela’s voice again, barely a memory. ‘When the veil grows thin, niña, there is beauty the world forgets.’ And this place - it feels like that beauty. Like something that the world let slip, but the birds remembered.
“Thassira.” Moonie’s voice flows along with the hum. I turn to her. “We’ve landed in Thassira,” she adds.
I don’t have to ask how she knows. I know how she knows.
Beyond the shoreline, Thassira rises in quiet layers - silver-barked trees with leaves like translucent shells shimmer in the soft light, their branches swaying even though the air is still. Pools of glassy water scatter ground, reflecting not just the sky above, but the stars that don’t exist here. Low vines curl lazily across stones that hum with a pulse just beneath hearing. In the distance, something glows - a soft mossy blue, like light filtered through deep ocean water.
Vivian crouches beside one of the shallow ponds, her hand hovering just above its surface. “Would you look at this...” she whispers.
The water doesn’t ripple, but the light gathers beneath her palm, forming gentle spirals that mirror the ones in the sky.
“... I feel like I’ve been here before. Like a dream I forgot to remember.” She shakes her head, blinking fast. “That doesn’t even make sense.”
I know what she means. This place. It doesn't feel foreign at all, but it should.
Moonie has already started walking. Not far, just a few steps ahead, but she’s moving with purpose, like her feet already know the way.
“Do you hear that?” she asks without turning around, I listen, but all I hear is the soft breeze and the hum.
“It’s not a sound-sound,” she says as she brings her hand to her chest, toward the burlap bag tucked beneath her arm. “The Starglass feels it too.”
Moonie steps lightly between the glowing pools, her eyes fixed on something none of us can see. Vines unfurl at her feet, curling back as if making way. The trees lean ever so slightly. They are listening. I hurry after her, careful where I place my feet. The air grows colder, denser, not cold, just... aware. Like the world around us isn’t just alive, it is awake. Watching. Waiting.
And then I see it - up ahead, half-covered in moss and ash-blue petals. It is a stone archway, broken at the top, but still, pulsing with the same soft light as the Starglass.
The archway isn’t grand. It is worn and uneven, half-swallowed by the land around it. Carvings twist along the base, faded with age. They move when I don’t look directly at them. Not letters. Not symbols. But they have meaning.
Moonie runs her hand along the stone and closes her eyes. “This is where it was cast,” she says softly. “The veil. The Web.” Her voice trembles, like the words don’t come out of her mind, but from somewhere deep within her. “This is the place the star first touched the earth.”
Vivian catches up to us, her eyes locked on the archway. “Now that...that is…” She can’t find the words. She places her hand on the nearest stone, brushing away the petals. Her eyebrows lift with sudden joy. “It’s warm. Not sun warm. Heart-warm.”
Her fingers linger there, like they are listening, hearing something she doesn’t expect to understand.
I step closer, drawn not by the archway, itself, but the feeling curling out form it - something ancient and gentle. Moonie shifts beside me, the burlap bag clutched tightly to her chest. A soft glow seeps through the fabric, pulsing in rhythm with something I can’t quite name.
My hand moves to my own heart, not to mirror Moonie, because something inside me is stirring too. A pull, like a thread catching beneath my ribs. It’s not fear. It’s not even wonder. It’s... recognition.
Moonie holds the bag even tighter. “It’s waking up,” she says. “This place. The glass. All of it.” She steps closer to the archway, eyes flicking across the weathered carvings. “I don’t think we’re just supposed to return it. I think... it wants us to know something first.”
Vivian moves beside her, tracing a curling pattern in the stone with one finger. “These marks... they don’t look like anything that I have ever seen,” she says, then pauses. “But they feel like - like a promise.”
Vivian’s finger pauses over a shape that, for a moment, looks like a bird mid-flight. I blink, and it’s just a swirl of lines again. I step back, and suddenly, a whole flock of bird shapes move across the stones, wings outstretched in a swirling dance. A murmuration, I think. I heard that word once. It's what starlings do when they move like one great breath across the sky. Then, just as quickly, the shapes settle back into swirls.
“The birds know,” I whisper, the words escaping before I realize I am speaking.
Abuela’s voice echoes through me, soft and certain. I glance up, half expecting to see wings overhead, but there’s only the gentle spiral of clouds and hushed leaves. Still something inside me moves.
“The fisherman,” I say, turning toward Moonie and Vivian. “He’s still out there with the final shard. And Nerivion... he’s still trapped. The storm, it must have brought them here, too.”
As the words leave my mouth, the archway pulses once. A low, deep thrum, a breath drawn in. The carvings glow faintly. This place, it heard me.
The carvings shift again. I don’t read them - not the way you read words. I feel them. A warmth spreads through my chest, rising behind my eyes like tears that are not mine. The bird. The star. The sea. The joy. It all unfolds.
“Long ago, the two worlds danced together. Magic and earth. Sky and tide. Humans once sang with the elementals, lived with them, created with them. There was a promise then, one whispered to the sea, offered to the stars, rooted in the soil. We will live in wonder, not in ownership. We will ask, not take. We will honor the life that sings in all things. We will remember that joy is not a possession. It is a bond. That promise was kept for a time. Magic flowed freely between realms, not given, not taken, but shared. Used gently, wisely, with care. It flowed freely, feeding everything with joy. But over time, people began to forget. Not all, but enough. A desire for power, the kind that grows too fast and feeds too loud came swiftly. Some pulled magic into themselves, not to nurture, but to claim. They twisted it, wielded it, bent it toward their own wants. The balance hollowed. The joy that once fed both realms became something to own, to spend. And the beings who had once been kin - guardians, companions, teachers - were made into tools.” I stagger back, hand on chest, breath shallow. Did I just say that out loud?
Vivian exhales hard, like she’s been holding her breath through the whole thing. “Holy cow,” she says, blinking fast.
“That’s why,” Moonie chimes in, clinging to the burlap bag, the Starglass inside cradled between her two hands. “That’s why the veil was made.”
“That’s what Lynira and the Eldersmith meant when they said our world is not ready just yet --”
“And we’re not.” Vivian interrupts, nodding slowly, brushing her hand down the side of the archway like it is something sacred. “Because people... we forget. We stop listening to the natural way of things. We get scared, or greedy, or both. We rush and take and try to control what was never meant to be owned. Magic isn’t something you can keep in your pocket. It is something you become harmonious with - or not at all.”
Vivian looks at us, eyes soft but steady. “And too many folks have forgotten how to live in harmony, even among themselves. If the veil lifted now, it wouldn’t bring wonder. It would bring ruin.”
A lump of truth rises in my throat. I thought I understood before. But now - now that Thassira has spoken through me - I know it’s something more. We broke the promise once. And if we’re not careful, we’ll break it again.
The archway pulses once more, then stills. The light that moved through the carvings begins to fade, but the weight of what it told us lingers heavy in the air. I glance at Moonie, then Vivian. We all feel it - the truth isn’t enough on its own. Knowing why the veil must stay closed doesn’t fix what’s breaking.
“We still have to find the last shard,” I say, my voice steadier than I expect.
“And that means we have to find the fisherman.” Moonie’s grip tightens more around the burlap bag.
“And Nerivion,” I add. “We have to save him too.”
Vivian nods and pushes up her sleeves, already stepping toward the trees. “Then we’d better hop to it.”
A breeze curls through the clearing, lifting petals from the stones and carrying them down a narrow path we hadn’t noticed before - half-hidden beneath the fern-like leaves and the shimmer of shallow light. It winds gently toward the trees, deeper into Thassira.
Moonie follows her, the Starglass humming quietly in her hands.
I press my palm to the archway, just beneath the bird etched in stone. Abuela’s words. The promise was just that, a promise. Not a law. Not a rule. But a vow.
Given to the sea. To the land. And to the stars above them. And when it was broken, something beautiful went quiet. This is the place the star first touched the earth.
I step through the Archway and follow Vivan and Moonie along the path. Behind us, the archway stands silent, but it is watching - not with warning this time, but with hope. A hope that I feel deep inside of me. Maybe we can’t lift the veil just yet. But maybe we can help people remember why it was ever needed at all.
I am very much enjoying this chapter. The deep wonder, promise, your explanational insight put into dialogue is so full of sacred wisdom. I really enjoy the lucid/vivid colorations and scenery. I feel like this is the space where crossing from mental construct finds beyond, essence and purity, the un named consciousness unseen and woven into experience, sense and there to explore. Im likely not making good sense, when I try to desribe, I ussually write it out and stare at it until I find the way I think I can desribe accurately.
This chapter excites me for what's next. The archway, ancient symbols, and a threshold crossed. Brilliant storytelling, full of awareness, wisdom.
like reading a medicine journey in storyform.