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The waterfall formed a perfect ring around her like the column in the library above, but the water…

It was rushing upwards.

Creatures swam and played in its depths, spawning from flecks of nothing and growing before her eyes. Plants stretched from their seeds, flourishing, their leaves and blooms cycling in perpetuity. Like morning dew, the mist built and gathered, sliding up her skin. It landed on her tongue and filled her senses. Sweet and salty, sour and spiced. The most perfect thing she ever smelled or tasted.

On a burst of joy, Lunara sprinted, the gushing streams beneath every step coiling her down and around, deeper and deeper. Her laughter rose up and exploded from her, bounding in perfect harmony with the music that accompanied her descent.

She’d never been happier. More at ease. More at one with herself.

When she reached the base some time later, Fern was waiting. A grin split her face from ear to ear, her arms outstretched to catch Lunara, and they collided in a crushing embrace.

“Have you ever seen anything like this?” Fern squealed.

“No!”

“I know!”

Sokar stomped by them. “Yes, yes. Very beautiful. Come.”

They giggled and followed behind him, making faces at his back. It was impossible not to skip and twirl, water splashing around her ankles. So warm. So welcoming. She wanted to lay down in it and never get up again.

A blink and she was doing just that, cheeks and stomach sore with gasping mirth as she and Fern rolled around.

“No. No, no, no.” Sokar grabbed both of them by the elbow and heaved them from the ground, dragging them along on either side. “You cannot listen to it.”

He led them to a platform of diamond spinning slowly in the underground chamber and shoved them onto it. “Up you go.”

“But I want to stay here!” Fern protested.

“I know you do, but you can’t. You, Fae, have already been here a dangerously long time as it is.”

“Dangerous! Do you hear yourself?” Fern dissolved into peals of laughter again. “You should’ve told us you weren’t any fun, Sokar.”

“You’ll be thanking me in a moment.”

Lunara blew a raspberry in his face.

Without warning, the platform dropped and Lunara’s soul left her body. The world blurred as she shrieked, Fern no better. Their speed was impossible. Dizzying. Nauseating. They were going to die when they⁠—

Sokar was the only reason the two of them survived when it bottomed out with a clang, his grip on their arms saving them from the fate of being flattened on its crystalline surface.

Every agony Lunara had forgotten slammed back into her, no choice in the wrenching gasp that seared her lungs. No control over the tears that flowed or the sobs that left her. No remedy for the torment.

Was this what she’d been living with?

Weeping fucking moons.

Lunara had been shoving and beating it down for so long that she’d stopped noticing how dreadful it really was. How draining. Stars above, the sheer burden of it…

“What in the fucking fuck, Sokar?” Fern wailed, face buried in her hands.

“I know. I’m sorry.” He let go of them and stepped off the platform with a sigh, murmuring, “Welcome to the Fountain of All Life.”

That snapped Lunara out of her pain somewhat. “Did you just say…” She dashed at her cheeks, trying to remember how to breathe. “You mean…”

“Yes. You stand in the tears of our Weeping City. That most glorious Heart of hearts. The perpetual source of all creation.” He stretched, loosing a groan. “It is…awful in its beauty. Beckoning. Coaxing. Teasing. Within minutes, you’d have gladly fed yourselves to its waters, and not a single creature who’s ever felt its power would blame you.”

“Not even you?”