~Feline Settlement, north-east of Solestia~

As always, the lake lay perfectly still. The surrounding grass and trees swayed in the cold night's breeze, as if bowing in respect to the water's tranquility. Its air, carrying nothing but the sweet scents of moss and algae.

Only the rustle of Matthew's leather boots could be heard as he made his way down to the lake. The boy was young, about eighteen years of age according to his memories. Keeping track of such things had proven pointless over the years, and so he had slowly grown to lose interest on the matter. Realizing that he had arrived, he stopped walking and looked down at the calm waters to see his own reflection.

On the water, his own sorry face stared back at him, pupils too ovular for a feline and human-like ears. His hair, despite his best efforts, stood jutting out of his scalp in uneven spiky tufts. It was no wonder the other kids looked at him as if he were actually human. Looking at himself as he did then, there was no denying the oddity of his appearance. He could not blind his eyes to what the moonlight illuminated.

Moonlight?

He looked further into the lake. Surely enough, it was there. A great grey orb was reflected upon the water and it glowed with a mesmerizing hum. He quickly looked up and... nothing. No moon, no stars, nothing. The night sky was void of any light, just as it had been for as long as any living man could remember. Had he imagined it? He turned back to the lake.

After searching the water's surface for some time, with hopes to see the moon again, he finally gave up and filled the wooden bucket he was carrying with water. He lifted the bucket up to his shoulder and balanced it there, gave one last glance at the sky and the lake's dark water, and left the ripples he had caused to dance alone there, unnoticed.

*

"You've returned early today," Lilian, Matthew's mother, exclaimed.

Her wide sharp eyes quickly regarded his presence. She smiled at him. Her flat, catlike nose twitched. She blinked, momentarily concealing the emerald green glow surrounding slits that were her pupils.

"Stop grinning like that. You look like a dumb little girl," Matthew protested playfully.

He was uncomfortable with the warmth that her smiles built inside him. His mother ignored the protests and giggled, her hands not pausing as she hung almost-dry leather strips on a wooden beam.

"Why so early? You beginning to miss your ol' ma?"

"Not a chance," he placed the bucket atop a table. "Water's on the desk."

She turned around from her leather and picked it up.

"I saw something ... unusual tonight," he announced.

"Bandits?" she asked in alarm, her pointed ears standing erect, nose sniffing.

"No, no, it was the moon. I saw the moon."

"Moon?" She relaxed. " You are reading too many of your father's books again. The moon disappeared long before you were born, my little one," she said as she darted into the bedroom, ruffling his hair with her free hand as she walked past him.

He raised his own hand to parry hers but was too slow in his response.

"Well, I did see it." He shrugged, starting to doubt what he had seen.

He turned and walked towards the bedroom, dodging his mother's second attempt at ruffing his hair as she walked back out.

The house was separated into a bedroom and a kitchen by a thin timber wall. The whole building was built of wood on a wooden platform. The interior wall was thinner, and Matthew always feared he'd break it if he were to lean on it.

He rummaged through a stack of books he had packed in his corner until he found the one he was looking for. The one book he had yet to read. He felt its weight in his hands, ran his finger across its rough spine and before he could unlatch its leather bindings and lose himself in it, his mother called.

"Mat, could you run to town and get us some food tomorrow, dear?"

"I'll do it first thing in the morning," he replied.

"Oh, and also buy us a deer from that butcher...Ben, if I recall. I hear he still sells them for nine silver, and I'm running out of hide."

"Eh...I will, and it's Barry. Barry, the butcher," he reminded her. He waited for her to add anything else she might have wanted to say and when nothing came, he opened his book and-

"I hope you are not reading those 'Moon Servant' books again," she added with a laugh.

"Mom, come on," he whined irritably.

"Sorry," she responded sheepishly.

She does it on purpose, he thought, then smiled at himself. He closed the book and placed it on his hay-made bed.

"Guess I'll just come and let you continue teaching me how to weave then."

Having lived his entire childhood with only her as a parent, he'd grown to know his mother. So much so that he knew that her attempts at teaching him how to weave strips from leather were not to increase their "business' productivity" but to have someone by her side and keep her heart oblivious to the hole his father had left when he disappeared.

All he knew about his father was that he had been a traveler, constantly crossing the Walking forest to sell and buy goods in the human city. He'd always come back with jewels and books for his Lillian. Until one day he left and never returned. He never got to know that his soon to be wife was carrying his little Matthew.

*

The book's cover was still warm from Matthew's touch. It rested upon the fur wrapped hay as if it felt the comfort of the bed. Its title glowing slightly from the candle light:

BAKUNAWA

~*~