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A/N: for the First Memory and Evanescence/Within Temptation challenges. Luna's first memory of loss...
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Suddenly I know I'm not sleeping
Hello I'm still here
All that's left of yesterday
"Hello", Evanescence
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It was not her mother's death that haunted her, as much as some people believed otherwise. The death itself had been the result of an experimental spell that was never supposed to work, performed just inches too close to the wrong substance. What Luna remembered was the aftermath, feeling very alone in the world for the first time ever. No nine-year-old should ever feel that, and yet she did.
She would rather forget the wake - black-clad people haunting her house, all saying how sorry they were if they happened to see her. They thought she was too young. They didn't think she understood what they were doing. Instead of being sympathetic, many of them were merely making her feel so much worse. You'll never be normal now, their voices seemed to say. Who would want to befriend or care about a half-crazy, unfortunante motherless girl? She didn't want to listen to these voices, but they were there - only she could hear them, but they became part of the horrible memory
She would never forget the smell of flowers. Her mother's friends - the only truly sympathetic people in sight - had decided that the best way to remember her mother was to fill the house with roses and daffodills and carnations and crysanthemums. Flowers were everywhere, in every size, every shape, every color, every kind imaginable. Some were in vases, as flowers generally were when they'd been purchased in memory of ordinary people, but most were placed randomly - behind picture frames, tied around doorknobs, and in other places no ordinary person would think to place them.
Most of all, she remembered the feeling of fur underneath her fingers, and a calming voice washing over her. She didn't know who the voice belonged to - probably one of her mother's friends - but it spoke the truth. "It's not over," the voice said. "Don't forget your mother, but don't dwell on her passing."
As she stroked a cat that had appeared from nowhere and curled up on her lap, she reflected on those words and decided that whomever had said them was right. It wasn't over.