Dreadlilocks saw the Odsplut in a dream.

She flinched under the glare of its fixed smile, the only thing left to be seen in the darkness.

She found herself hating it, just a little bit. “Why are you smiling??” she demanded, though her mouth would not move. “You hurt everyone. My friends and family are all gone. There’s nothing to be happy about!”

“WE ARE HAPPY TO DO OUR LADY’S WILL,” it replied. “THERE IS INFINITE JOY IN THIS. JOIN US; LET GO THE ILLUSION OF FREE WILL, AND YOU WILL UNDERSTAND.”

“But it can’t end this way! Mère L’Oye wouldn’t write a story like this! It’s horrible…nothing we did even mattered…”

“THAT DEPENDS ON YOUR PERSPECTIVE…WE BELIEVE YOU AND YOUR SUPPORTING CHARACTERS HAVE ACCOMPLISHED A LOT, INTERPERSONALLY SPEAKING. PERHAPS WHAT REALLY MATTERED WAS THE FRIENDS YOU MADE ALONG THE WAY—”

“No! No, no, no!! That’s not all we wanted; it’s not enough!! Everyone else in LaConte; the Captain of the Guard, the seven stone giants, the people in the village, even Mr. Azor’s roses…they’re all counting on us! Maybe we did become good friends on the way, but we still came together to save them, and we…have to!!”

“WELL, YOU CAN’T.”

“That’s just what you say!”

“AND WHO WILL SAY ANY DIFFERENT? YOU??”

“…Yes. Me…”

~~

Dreadlilocks awakened face down in the dust.

Dazed and bewildered, she slowly picked herself up and looked around. The landscape was barren and gray, in stark contrast to the pitch black sky.

“The…moon,” she breathed.

She stood up and began to walk. She had no idea where she was going, or even where she might expect to end up. But it was all she could think of to do.

In the back of her mind, she wondered why she was still alive. Then she thought that, if she had made it to the moon, then it was possible that her friends had made it, too.

But thinking about that made her heart hurt, because it was equally possible that they were gone forever and she was all alone. So she decided to just keep walking, and to try not to think about anything.

After she had left a trail of footsteps about a mile long, she came to a large crater. She sat down at its edge and sighed.

“…Maybe this isn’t really the moon,” she thought. “Maybe this is just what it’s like to be dead, and each of the others are in an empty place just like this…”

“…I guess Mr. Azor would probably like it, though. He’d say, ‘finally, some peace and quiet…and no PEOPLE…!’”

She smiled, but only for a second. But then that reminded her of the way Uriel used to smile so briefly, as if he were afraid to show his teeth for too long.

Her heart began to hurt again, but she thought it wouldn’t be fair to remember only half of her friends and not the others. So she thought about Lucy, who would probably be trying to build sandcastles out of the moon dust, even though there wasn’t any water to thicken it with. Then she thought about Pitch, who, if she could see her now, would probably tell her to come away from the edge of the crater so she wouldn’t risk falling in, while gently brushing the tears from her eyes.

Instead, Dreadlilocks brushed them away herself. She couldn’t remember ever crying like this before, not even on the day she realized her mother and father weren’t coming home.

She decided, then, that the tears were long overdue.