Alright, look... look. I was laying in bed at 1 am and got struck by motivation I couldn't ignore. I don't honestly know where I'm going with this story, but I had to write it out so I could sleep. It's not proof read and was written like a fever dream, so you've been warned. I could give some long winded attempt at explaining myself. I could wax poetic, but... how about I just let it stand for what it is and if it interested you enough you shoot me a message to chat about it? Maybe we make a story out of it together, or you decide you like my writing enough to do something totally different. Also, bonus points if you figure out the motivation that hit me. G'night!

Cold was the wind that drew the girl from her room. Through the window she climbed with naught but a candle in hand and one of her blankets wrapped around her shoulders. Outside was a world she so rarely saw. To her, it almost wasn't real, and the lunar light in the night made it all the more dreamy. The first night she went she found that the cool breeze blew her candle instantly out, and so there she sat by the willow tree out her window staring at the stares nearly drowned out by the moon glow.

When the need next struck her, she tried again. Her bare feet struck the dirt and she instantly cradled her hand around her little candle to protect it as it protected her. Now she was truly on the other side, taken over by the moon glow. Entranced, driven by the lunar light she walked to the willow tree and then ran. Breathless and laughing while the darkness of the night fell in around her she made it to the edge of that which was her home, to the place where not even the light of the moon penetrated except in pillars of pale ghost light. Her candle seemed the only color in the world, and the light it sent flickering across every geometry around her seemed to have born a new world.

Once more she lost her light and inevitably returned to her bed for the night, but she saw again the world aflame in her dreams lit by naught but candlelight and the moon glow.

Enchanted she returned again and again, past the willow tree, through the damp night grass and to the edge of the woods. It soon began that even when he candle failed her she felt compelled to stay and linger. Defiant of the dark, cradled in the lunar light, she struck forth. She saw the light of her candle in her mind's eyes, traced its shadows and danced with them over the roots and around the bushes. She found a whole new world alive only in what seemed to be dreams.

Beautiful beyond reason, she saw birds fly overhead as silhouettes against the precious moon glow. She saw flickering eyes and Cheshire smiles in the bushes. Sometimes they frightened her, but every time she was forced back by fear the need came for her again another night.

Soon, she feared nothing of the night. There was a call unable to be ignored shouted by the moon above whenever it was full and she couldn't keep from running into the dark even when her family took from her the candles, even when they waited with their lanterns to chase her down. She only laughed at them, danced around them too enchanted by the freedom of the night to care if she was caught so long as she got to feel the moon glow, not warm but comforting all the same.

And one day, she men a boy. She ran through the forest chased by her supposed protectors when on the other side of her path she saw him doing the same dodge and weave through the ghostly pillars coming from the trees. Like her shadow, he paced her, the both of them nimble in the night unlike the others could ever be. For they were both fearless, understanding of the darkness and its careful pact with the moon above.

Together, they went to the other side.

On the other side, deep in the forest where the moon glow was strongest, they were taken by the lunar light to its world. The trees curled onto themselves in spirals and the moon above seemed to ring like a bell, pulsing rings of evanescence like a beacon not disappearing at the horizon, but resting there like a marble, hypnotic. It had kidnapped them, but they never once tried to return. The night was bright as day, and the world they'd left behind was long gone. They danced through, disappearing and reappearing in the lunar light and the shadows between its pillars. They laughed and they loved in the sparkling waters of the endless horizon. It was a cool as the night air, and in that way familiar.

But when she awoke, the girl found that the boy had been taken away. She still was on the other side, the world of the moon, the curled trees and the glowing night eyes... but as she had on her first night stepping out her window, she felt alone. The willow tree tempted her with a candle set at its base, beckoning her to take it and return to the place from whence she came. Instead, she took off again, chasing the coastline with the moon glow ringing long a far off bell in her ear.

Eventually, she found a road, carriages traveling along it tall to the point of being unreal. They rolled along without horses, and the silhouettes of their occupants inside were both human and foreign to her. Though she was afraid, the moon glow emboldened her as it had on her first night, and she took hold of the rear of a passing carriage. Immediately it felt to her as if she was being yanked horizontal to the road, her feet flying behind her at a great speed. The road curled around itself in loops and when she eventually left go her fingers she tumbled until the rise of a bridge caught her.

There she lay a moment, expecting another cart to trample over her, but none did. There was only the constant presence of the moon glow, that lunar light hypnotic and all powerful. Soon, the girl raised her eyes and peered over the curve of the bridge to see that it lead along a cobbled path into a town of the night, the buildings curved like the trees, as if stretched on canvas. She heard voices, and she wondered if the boy had come this way. If so, then she determined they would be lost together. Never had the thought of turning back crossed her mind. The call of the moon was loud and vibrant and she wanted nothing more than to lay in the lunar light again in his arms.