When she was a girl, she had raced about her backyard, reaching out her arms to snatch at fluttering butterflies. They would always elude her; just when she was sure that inside her gripped hands, a small butterfly lurked, she would peek through the cracks and see only darkness.
Naturally, this only made her want to catch one more.
She knew that many people would have wondered why she wouldn't just get a net, but she wanted to catch it with her bare hands, and although she couldn't altogether explain it, using a net would be cheating. The butterflies didn't have any extra help to escape her, so she wouldn't use anything outside of her own body to catch them.
One day, when she was about eight years old, she caught one, and she was so shocked she almost couldn't believe it. She kept her hands clasped around it, feeling the vibrating of the air inside as wings whirred about. Its feet tickled her, and she let the laughter wash over and through her.
She put it in a container and watched it, for the next week, and named it Pericles; but she began to notice things happening as time progressed. Pericles began to grow lethargic, out of laziness or misery, Luna couldn't tell. Finally, when she couldn't bear it any longer, she released her pet back into the backyard.
She wanted to watch it regain strength in that moment, and soar off into the distance in a small blaze of blue and purple; but Pericles didn't move, and she sat there for an hour, watching. Finally, she tentatively prodded the butterfly's wing, and although her finger became coated with powder, Pericles remained still, a fallen soldier.
This wasn't the way it was supposed to happen; if Pericles had had to die, he should have had other butterflies surrounding him and digging him a grave. He shouldn't die alone, with only his murderer for company.
He looked so unnatural on the grass that she had to do something. She placed him on the branch of a tree, carefully balancing him, so that he wouldn't fall. There, he looked as if he was simply resting, while alive.
When her father airily asked what ever became of that butterfly a month later, she swallowed hard and said, "I set him free."