AN: Warning for mental illness (Depressed!Luna) (I know that's the standard way of writing it, but the exclamation mark seems unnecessarily sarcastic...)
Written for the Weekly Elimination Competition, for the following prompts: between 1,000 and 3,000 words / someone spends the entire story playing wizard's chess / a star-shaped sapphire / seahorse / Dragon Pox / blue crayon / a plush toy Thestral / moonlight / an obsidian mirror / [character of your choice is a bunny Animagus / aloe vera / a solid gold suit of armour
Written for the Vocabulary challenge, for the word: Ameneurosis, n., the half forlorn, half escapist ache of a train whistle calling in the distance at night.
Written for the Huge TV Show Quotes Bucket, for the quote: "You think you're going mad, so you came to see me to see what a mad person looks like." - Skins
Words: 1,871
Luna stared at the obsidian mirror, waiting for an image to strike. Passion, or humour, or anything that would make her feel something. She was numb to the world, and she hated it. She had always been a thinker, but lately those thoughts had turned on themselves, fighting for attention. They told her she was not enough. And when she thought about them, when she analysed her own thoughts, she felt ashamed for their negativity. It was a vicious circle.
She looked up at the night's sky and was made peaceful by its serenity. The moonlight danced on her limp, long, blonde curls, lit the bags beneath the bags under her eyes. She looked back to the obsidian mirror in her hands, reflecting just enough of the night's illumination to make its surface dance with the gentlest of movements. It had worked for her before, she'd seen all manner of things. Her mother, most of all. But tonight, she saw only darkness.
She threw it to the grass, where the heavy stone landed with a dark thud. Sighing deeply, she turned towards the house, looking in through the living room window to her father, where he was sat at a Wizarding Chess board, agonising over his next move. He had told her that people's outlook changes on a daily basis, and so he was playing himself, making one move each day. He had taken to his distractions and eccentricities with a strength Luna had not seen before as he agonised over her, his daughter, and how he could not seem to help her.
She looked away, unable to say which of them was the most pitiful. The end of the war was supposed to bring happiness, calm. It was supposed to be a time of great celebration. Luna did not understand it. All she'd seen was death and destruction, treachery and black. The whole world had been as black as that obsidian mirror.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard a train whistle, and her head turned towards the sound. The distance distorted the sound, elongating it with echoes, until the high notes fell in a minor key. It sounded, to Luna, forlorn that never stayed in one place, and yet eager to silently witness more of the world at the same time. It sounded like her.
As the wind began to pick up, a shiver wracked through her frame and she was forced to return indoors. She did not look at her father as she passed him to head upstairs. He did not look at her.
Stepping into her childhood bedroom, she eyed the objects she once held dear and felt no connection towards them. She moved over to her shelves, picking up a small wooden seahorse, painted in shades of orange. She remembered this. Placing it back down, she turned to the Thestral teddy and stroked its soft fur gently. Her father had bought it for her after she'd first seen a Thestral, after her mother's death, to show her that she did not need to feel afraid of them. Now, as she looked at it, she no longer felt the absence of her mother, and the fear she once held seemed a little humourous. What was the use of fear, after all?
She picked up a small blue crayon next, half melted at one end where a makeshift wick was poking out, and the memory began to rush back to her.
Luna was lying on the couch, skin tinged green and eyes glazed over. She had never been so ill, and her mother spent every spare moment by her side. Her mother had insisted it was good for her to be out of bed, but the young girl with wide eyes and long golden ringlets hadn't made it any further than the living room in her sorry state.
Even her father was worried. Luna watched the concern worrying his eyebrows as he played Wizard's Chess at the breakfast table, finishing the game he and Luna had begun before she fell ill. He stole glances at her every few minutes, as if checking the lime tinge to her skin was not any darker than it had been.
Her mother was in the kitchen, preparing aloe vera to sooth the girl's fever - swearing by an ancient remedy - and warming up the chicken broth in the hopes that her daughter would keep something down.
Her mother re-entered the room carrying a tray with the two bowls and set it down on the coffee table in front of Luna. She perched on the settee by her daughter and fixed her with a pitying glance as she wrung a cloth out in the aloe vera water, bringing it gently to the girl's face.
"You'll be okay, you know. It's only Dragon Pox, deary, and we're getting all the help we can," she told her daughter, brushing a lock of her blonde hair back behind her ear. Luna smiled weakly, unsure if she believed her mother or not. But the aloe vera was soothing, and she was hungry, so maybe her mother was right.
"I know what'll make you feel better," Pandora smiled, and looked around the room for the little girl's toys. "Your favourite colour is still blue, right?" Luna nodded in response, too weak to talk.
Pandora picked up a blue crayon from the mantelpiece and drew her wand. Aiming it at the crayon, Luna watched as she bore a hole through the middle of the crayon. Pulling a piece of string out of her pocket, Pandora charmed it to slide into the hole, leaving it poking out the top a little. Lighting her wand, she held it to the string, and Luna found herself looking at not a crayon, but a blue candle. Warm, and gentle, and her favourite colour, Luna smiled as her mother set it in a candle holder on the table in front of her.
Luna loved that candle. It told her there were still things in the world she hadn't seen and ideas she hadn't thought of. It comforted her with its warm glow, and she found herself soon heading into a restorative sleep, even as the soup sat there untouched.
Luna gently placed the crayon down, willing her heart to feel sadness at the memory. It didn't work. She turned to the other objects lay scattered about the room, and picked them up in turn, trying to feel the connection she used to feel to them. The sapphire star, the last present her mother ever bought her, it's six points twinkling in the moonlight. Nothing.
She didn't sleep; tiredness was a constant state for her these days so it wouldn't have made a difference. Her father didn't sleep, either, or at least he didn't go upstairs. Luna liked to think he'd agonised over the same move on the chessboard all night. The sun soon rose, warming the air around Luna, but the cold still held strong in her bones.
When Luna heard a knock at the door, she was taken aback. She didn't know it had got to the time of visiting already. She slowly made her way downstairs, wondering who it was that had come to gape.
She opened the door to see Hermione stood in front of her, looking small and nervous.
"Hello," the brunette said, attempting a small smile that didn't reach her eyes. Luna held the door agape for her old friend to enter and followed her through to the kitchen.
"I came to see how you are. Life's been really busy at the moment, all over the place. I barely get time to stand still, it's weird. I thought things would be different, somehow," Hermione rambled on, her nervousness creeping in to her voice while she spoke. Luna wondered if she thought she could elicit a response from Luna by just saying the the right thing.
"I'm the same as ever," Luna replied, tone flat. "How are you?"
"Honestly, I'm not sure. I don't know how to think about anything, how I'm supposed to feel. I haven't had a moment to look at things and really consider them," Hermione replied as the pair took seats at the old wooden table.
Luna smiled, a humourless expression. "You think you're going mad, so you came to see me to see what a mad person looks like," she said.
Hermione frowned. "I came to see my friend."
Luna looked away, face stoic, unmoved by the words.
"Luna, you aren't helping yourself," Hermione said, her tone betraying the first signs of anger.
"What am I supposed to do?" Luna asked.
"You're supposed to try! See friends, leave the house, eat, sleep! I know you're an Animagus, go hop around and enjoy the sunshine!" she responded.
Luna briefly wondered how the other girl knew of her other form, the little cookie-coloured rabbit she once enjoyed pretending to be. It had been a long time since she took that form.
"I don't… I don't want to," she told Hermione.
Hermione sighed and looked away from her friend, before looking back with determination in her eyes.
"Let me tell you a story," Hermione said, not waiting for Luna's response before beginning. "Once upon a time, there were two brothers, knights. They were brothers-in-arms, and in blood, vowing to always stay together. They were valiant, courageous, brave and loyal - everything good Knights should be. Life was happy for them, for a while, until a Dark Witch came along. An evil queen, if you like. She saw the brothers' happiness and grew jealous. She wanted that for herself, but she could never find it, and so she didn't see why anyone else should have it, either. She met the eldest brother on the battlefield, and instead of killing him, she did something far worse. She rose her staff and turned the man into a solid gold suit of armour, right where he stood.
"The younger brother was distraught, a real mess for a while, but he made a vow to find a way to bring his brother back. He searched high and low, over seas and mountains, travelling the world for a way to break the curse. For sixty years, he tried. At a complete loose end, the old man hobbled to the statue of his brother, finally willing to admit defeat, broken. He reached out and embraced the golden armour, tears shining in his eyes. As the first droplet fell, landing on the shoulder, something magical happened. The gold began to slip away revealing the silver armour beneath, the armour his brother had been wearing to war that fateful day. Soon, there was no gold left, just a man. His brother, young and handsome as he had been, aglow with innocence.
"At first, he was confused, unsure where he was, but as he looked at the old man, he saw his brother in those eyes, those same eyes. After sixty years, the pair embraced and were happy once more," Hermione finished, searching Luna's face for the first signs of understanding.
"Not everyone can keep fighting for that long. What if I don't have that long?" Luna asked, and Hermione smiled.
"How will you know unless you try?"