Daughter of Moonlight

The sounds of the wind and the birds were all I could hear as I was tracking a deer I had been hunting for the past few hours. The sounds nothing new to me were somewhat soothing.

I shifted my quiver and bow on my back as I crawled over a fallen tree. Oh, you don’t know who I am. Well hello, there my name is Blake Oíche I’m nineteen and I’m female. Yes, that may sound weird that I’m female though I have been confused for being a guy, as Blake is often a guys name and I don’t show myself out in public very often.

What else I can say about myself… well, I’m 5’9’’ I have short platinum hair, crimson red eyes, a pale white complexion with a crescent moon scar around my right eye, and for some reason I am unable to get a tan. I live in the mountains with my dad… well used to.

My dad taught me everything that I knew, I would recount what he taught me, but we would be here all day. The reason he home schooled me was because kids from my old school made fun of me because of my hair colour and pale skin. They called me a vampire because of it. Luckily it wasn’t the vampires from the Twilight book series like really sparkling in the sunlight... So yeah he taught me everything, even how to survive in the wild and how to hunt, he even taught me a few languages like Russian, Japanese, Latin… kinda, but mostly Irish since my mom loved Ireland.

My mom… I never met my mom, all I knew of her is that she was my mom, of course, and she left me when I was born. My dad told me not to hate her, she couldn’t stay with us because she had a mental problem, something like a split personality or something along those lines.

So back to my Dad, he was a professional hunter that sometimes traveled the world. Well used to, but since I was born he had to stop traveling until I grew older yet he still got some hunting in with deals from the locals. He told me that I was born to be a hunter for the fact that I was born on Halloween at the witching hour under the Hunter's moon,  or blood moon for some. Anyway, he taught me how to hunt and well I’m really good at it. It was just him and me together.

Well, it was until he died.

There was something wrong with his heart and the doctors had no idea how to treat him so he died from it. His final words to me were that I shouldn’t be sad, he had his run and now it was his time to rest. Now I live by myself in the old cabin in the mountains, sure it’s nice but it’s not the same.

Back to my hunt. I found the deer that I been tracking in a clearing, I crouched down and unslung my bow and grabbed an arrow. Sure I knew how to use a gun I just preferred to use a bow. It was much easier and quieter than a gun. I took a deep breath as I drew back the bowstring and aimed.

“Aim small miss small, aim small miss small,” I repeated quietly to myself. It was something that my dad told me to remember. I took aim where the heart was and as I exhaled I let loose my arrow. The deer let out a cry and fell to the ground with a thud. I got up from my spot and headed towards the deer. As I got closer I saw that it was still breathing somewhat. I let out a sigh and pulled out one of my knives.

“Sorry about this, but I need to eat tonight, you understand right?" I said to the deer.

“A hunter saying sorry to her prey, now I have seen everything.” I heard a voice that came out of nowhere. I looked around to see where it had come from and looked back at the deer to see it stand up on its hind legs and dust itself off. "Wait, what?"

“What the?” I said as I pointed my knife at it. “What are you?" How the hell are you standing, And why do you sound like Q from Star Trek?” Yes, I know who Q is, my dad was a big Star Trek fan.

“Wow, it’s been awhile since someone has called me that, but just to let you know pointing your knife at somebody is really rude.” The deer told me crossing his arms in the process.

“Uhh, you're a talking deer....”

“That I am!" It said as he looked down at itself. "Hold on as I get into something more comfortable.”

As he said that, he kneeled down and pulled up a shower curtain from the ground and started to hum. I blinked at this in confusion and started to back away but the curtain dropped down to reveal a guy in a mismatched outfit. I’m not into fashion but this was... something.

“Ahh much better, so hello there Blake it’s nice to meet you.” He said.

“How do you know my name? Who are you? WHAT are you?"I asked him.This had to be a dream, this can’t be real. The mad man leaned forward and pinched me.

"Ow! What was that for?” I asked him.

“Oh, to let you know that this wasn’t a dream of course.”He told me with a sly grin.

“Wait how did you know that I was thinking that this was a dream?”I asked him as I rubbed my arm where he'd pinched me.

“I just read the script that the author has typed out.”

"Wait, what? What script?" I questioned. This did make any sense.

"What are you talking about?”I was getting more confused by the second.

“Never mind about that.” He said to me. I was about to ask him a question, but I saw that there was an arrow sticking out of his chest.

“Umm, you got something on your chest.” I told him, he stared at me.

“I do?" "Oh my, excuse me for a moment.” He said as he pulled a cloth out of his pocket and started wiping down his jacket. When he was done he threw the cloth behind him and it turned into a snake and slithered away. The arrow was still in his chest.

“Uhhhhh…” Was all I could say.

“Never mind that let’s get down to business shall we?" "I’m here to offer you a deal, a deal that could change your life forever.” He said to me. I frowned at him as I put my knife away.

“Yeah, no thanks, I was told to not talk to strangers and you're a stranger so nice to meet you and goodbye.” I told him

I turned around and headed back home. I guess it’s box mac and cheese again tonight.

“Oh come now little angel, don’t be like that." "

What if I told you that you can see someone special, someone, like… your mother?”

I stopped when I heard him say that. My mom, he knows of her?

“You know her?” I asked him.

He snorted at me.

“Know of her? Heck she and her sister are always such a pain in my backside, but yeah I do."

"So do you reconsider, there’s nothing here for you that's making you stay.” He told me.

I thought about it, it was true that I don’t really have any connection here anymore but this was too far-fetched to be real, But if it was real…

“Alright I’ll play along, I’ll take your deal but if this is some trick I’m going to take my knife and jam it up your...”

“Woah! Hold up that’s a little gruesome for this story, this is just the beginning and we still have a lot more to go before we get to that part.” He said to me.

He then pulled a piece of paper and a pen and handed them to me. I looked at it and read it. It was...weird but I took the pen, wrote my name down and handed it back to him.

“Excellent! Now just to let you know that whatever happens in that world, you can’t sue me or anything of the sort.” He said. I again frowned at him.

“What do you mean ‘that world’?” I asked him.

He didn’t reply as he pulled the arrow out of his chest and snapped the head off tossing it at my feet. I watched it sink down into the ground as I felt myself slowly being pulled down into the ground. I tried to move but couldn’t. I looked up and saw him waving at me with a crooked smile as my head disappeared into the ground.

At first, I could feel, see and hear nothing. Nothing at all, I thought I was dead. Well, it would make sense since I was dragged into the ground. All I could think of was what my cause of death would say. ‘Blake Oíche, died from being buried alive under unknown circumstances. If I could I would chuckle at that.

Before long I started to hear the chirping of birds. I moved my hands and found out that I could feel the grass underneath them. I took a deep breath and smelled the forest around me. Odd, I didn’t realize that my sense of smell was also gone. Does that mean I just died?

I opened my eyes to only see darkness at first, but then slowly my sight returned to me in some white flashes. I blinked a few times and sat up to look around.

…

Oh my god the colour. It was so... Vibrant. I took a good look around and noticed was that everything was brighter and popping, and that’s a word that I would never think to use the word… popping.

I got up and stretched, I hearing my back pop a bit. I heard something fall to the ground behind me. I turned and saw that my bow was broken. I frowned at it as I checked if anything else was damaged, luckily nothing was. I looked around to get my bearings, why was I here again? Oh yeah, that weird guy sent me here, I don't even know who he is… or better yet, what he is.

I heard a rumbling sound coming from overhead and looked up to see a storm brewing. Black clouds floating slowly towards me. Better find a dry place before the rain hits.

I searched for a few minutes and found a place right before it started to pelt down with rain. It was a cave that was abandoned, for a few months by the signs of activity left inside. I pulled out some pieces of kindling which I'd found along the way, plus a small tree that could be turned into a new bow for me.

I quickly made a fire and started rifling through my pockets and small bags to see what I had for supplies. I got some rope that I could use as a bowstring along with some other stuff; a small garbage bag, a compass, a map (Both of which are useless to me right now) a bottle of water, some granola bars, a MRE, some matches, my hunting knife, some throwing knives, about sixteen arrows and a sling.

I opened the MRE and pulled the bag which will heat up the food and looked at the main meal. It was chunky soup. I put it into the bag with some water and set it aside to heat up. I opened the animal crackers and started eating them as I began whittling the small tree into a new bow. After working on the tree for a bit I set it aside, grabbed the bag and pulled out the other bags and opened them. Rifling through the bags again I found one of those spoon fork things… Sporks?

I sat there eating the soup and animal crackers, watching the fire as it burned away. When I finished had my soup I put the garbage into my bag. (Even if you are in another world it doesn't mean you can forget your manners) I picked up the whittled tree and went back to building my bow. It took a few hours between building it and managing the fire I finished my survival long bow. After testing it to see if it's strong enough I leaned back against the wall of the cave and watched the fire. I felt my eyelids grow heavy I shifted my gaze outside to see it was night. I got comfortable near the fire as I let sleep take over.

Luna traveled down one of the many paths in the dreamscape watching the dreams of the many ponies that were asleep in the waking world. She smiled at the dreams each of them dreamt up and had to admit that some of them are very creative while others… well, she doesn’t want to see those that may offend. She saw a few of the dreams that were beginning to turn into nightmares, but she warded away the ponies fears, ensuring a peaceful sleep. She was the protector of the dreams of her subjects, it was the least she could do.

She watched as all of the bright and colorful dreams floated around her as she continued on. She stopped near one dream which was… different. It was dark in colour. There was no nightmare about it, yet Luna couldn’t understand why it was so dark.

“Why are you so different little one?” Luna asked the dream as it floated over and sat in front of her.

Luna thought about it then placed both hands on the dream to take a look. The fog wrapped around her as she slowly entered the dream, blinking a few times as she looked around she gasped at what she saw.

It was… beautiful.

Luna looked around the dream with amazement. Sure she had seen dreams which had tried to copy her night sky, and they were good, yet they were just that, a copy.

But this, this was something else, something that she has seen only a few times. Times that he had shown her.

She closed her eyes as she felt tears beginning to form.

“I'm sorry…” Luna whispered before she and left the dream. What she had failed to notice was a figure wearing Arctic gear looking up to the sky. A tear rolled down the figure's cheek as she watched the colours shift and change.

“I miss you, dad, I miss you so much.”