The Lunarians are truly an amazing race. They built a ship the size of a moon, filled it with ancient palaces and beds of crystal in which time is defied... They even made the crystals that I had once used to awaken an ancient weapon that they, in their foolishness, had locked onto the planet of my mother.

Wisdom, intellegence and common sense are indeed three very different things.

My fingers trail over the ice-layered walls...with the Lunarians all in their sleep, they saw no reason to try to maintain warmth...the machines of this vast ship generated so much heat the cool of this void helped keep a steady temperature. I've had time to look the machines over- time to learn anything and everything of how this place worked, and of it's race's ancient history. A proud, ancient people....

I don't belong here.

FuSoYa, my uncle, had said it would be a long sleep. But try as I might, I cannot join them in it. The sleep does not still the mind- the Lunarians watch from their crystalin beds over their miniture world and those they pass. They speak to one another, a hundred thousand voices no one will ever hear in the waking world- but that is all I can do. Hear them, when I sleep. When dreams try to come- dreams of a world of blue skies and oceans, tall mountains and endless forests- their voices drown them out, call out to me to respond as they do.

I cannot. I am not one of them. I share only half of their blood, and that is not enough to speak with them.

And so I do this...I leave my bed and wander the halls...and every day the longing grows worse. For warm, living air to fill my longs, filled with the scents of a world, not the lifeless cold of halls made of metal and crystal. To look up and see a sky with clouds, not a ceiling painted with surrealistic version of them. To see rain, to feel the wind- every day, it grows worse. The more final my departure from it becomes, the more I long for my mother's world.

I cannot stay here. I am a fool for trying.

My fingers curl into a fist against the wall...I look out the window I had watched the blue planet vanish from...how long ago? I don't know. How does one measure time in a place where you are the only one awake? Where no sun rises and sets, and darkness always fills the air around? How indeed...

"Golbez."

I start and turn, caught unawares...I had thought all the Lunarians asleep. But of course I should have expected him to come. FuSoYa has tried to make me feel welcome and at peace here. I am all he has left of his brother after all, who's remains rest in the Shrine atop Mount Ordeals. He saved me once from Zemus because of that. And of his two nephews, I was the only one who could go with him...

"Golbez...why aren't you resting?"

So concerned...would he have been so if I had merely been Zemus' pawn, not his nephew? Resentment coils suddenly inside...No, he would not have. The Lunarians are a practical people as well in some cases. Had neither me nor my brother been kin to him or his people..Cecil he still would have helped, but I? I would have been killed as merely another tool. I shake his hand off suddenly, not bothering to reply- but at the look of worry- and hurt- the resentment begins to fade...What am I thinking?

"I..just needed a break from them all, Uncle. There's just so many of them...all at once...I...."

I'm lying. I know I am. Or at least not telling a full truth. But can he tell? I don't think so. He nods a moment, hand tightening just a bit on my shoulder, meant to be reassuring...

"I understand..but please don't stay gone too long in these halls. You'll catch ill quickly in this cold if you do...I must return to the Chamber now."

He smiles slightly and departs...I wish the problem were that simple. How can they live in this place. It's so cold, so barren...how can they be happy here? I don't want to stay. I said I wanted to learn about my father's people- and I learned more than I ever wanted to. Now, I want to go "home", wherever that might be. Some place alive....some place warm and bright.....

I return to my bed for a time....long enough to reassure FuSoYa and set his mind at ease. But I flee it again as soon as I possibly can..it's like being in a room full of people who keep talking to you- unable to understand that you are mute and unable to reply. They are curious about me...some in an almost childish fashion, others in a friendly way- and still others look at me as one might an oddity landed before their eyes. Uncertain if they should be amused or disgusted with it.

I spend my waking times in the library- delving into magics the poor mages of the blue planet couldn't even begin to comprehend. So far advanced from their simple Black and White magics...there is even tell of people who could envoke a power not unlike the Callers of Mist, only using symbols to force the beast to come.

My studies fade from hours to weeks...How long beyond that I cannot say. A spell is slowly being formed..one to escape this place. An act of deseperation- and of simple hope. My main hope lying in the very crystals that give balance to this place. They share a tie to the blue planet stronger than anything else on this ship. I too have a tie there...but I do not want to face him. Cecil thinks me gone. Let him continue to think so. It would be better..for both of us.

And still it takes time..waiting for the rare time when FuSoYa is taken up by other responsibilities, his mind turned away from the chamber. I work quickly but carefully...a diagram laid out, joining the various crystals. And I must draw it around myself- stepping over the lines would break the web I am so delicately weaving. When it is at last laid out, I cast my eyes about the chamber- I will never set foot in this place again. I don't think they will turn around to come back for one halfbreed who left by his own wishing.

I kneel in the circle's center, fingers just against the lines making the barrier and begin my chant..and the crystals begin to gleam brighter and darker both...Light Crystals and Dark Crystals both responding to my call. Soon one cannot even see the chamber I stand in- at moments it's all blinding whiteness- at others, it's a purer darkness than the void this prison flies through. Then I'm falling...true darkness closing around me and drawing me away..with a final farewell to the one who now bursts into the so distant chamber, calling my name, telling me to stop...

"Goodbye, Uncle..."

(Continued in Dark Moon-Arrival)