Moonlark Madness: Ruckleberries and Reminiscing

“Do I… know you?” The hideous elf narrowed his eyes at Luna as he stepped into the room. She cleared her throat and cast her eyes down.

“No. I’ve just heard about you. Your, uh, smell gave you away.” She scrunched her nose and realized that Blondie was glaring at her. She stuck her tongue out and glared back.

“Mr. Forkle,” the female Telepath turned to look at the ‘old’ elf, “her mind is… very…” she looked back at her, clearly not wanting to complement Luna in her presence. “Unpleasant.”

“Blondie and Wonderboy can’t get into her head,” Annoying—whose actual name was Ro—said with an expression that was half frown half grin.

Mr. Forkle’s eyes widened. “That’s impossible,” he muttered, looking over at Luna. “I thought…” He trailed off, his expression blank.

“We can do it, Sophie,” Gorgodon insisted. “We’re Cognates. Let’s keep trying.”

“Yes, let’s, and I’ll keep keeping you out without so much as a bat of an eyelash,” Luna flopped back down on her bed, bored again at being held captive. The glaring eyes. The heat. So much heat.

The door slammed shut and Luna looked over to see that Mr. Forkle had gone. Uh oh. Had he figured it out? There was no way… right? Luna felt a tiny prick in her mental barrier and noticed that Blondie and Gorgodon were staring deep into the other’s eyes, doing their stupid Cognate thing and oh barf. Luna decided to play a trick on them. She shut her eyes and retreated into her mind, pushing forward daydreams of hers. Ones where she was a normal elf, with a family, attending a school named after fungus, with friends and a normal life. (Ha! If only…)

Finally, she pulled in the Telepaths. She stayed in her mind so she could make sure they didn’t see anything she didn’t want them to see. Blondie and Gorgodon sucked in a breath, their hands finding each others’. She almost laughed, but reminded herself that if she did that could be very bad. She could laugh at them later.

The Cognates fished around her daydreams, thinking they were memories, and found Luna hanging out with her group of girl friends, fighting with her family, making up, being asked out, being… normal. Watching the two elves leaf through her fantasies thinking they were realities made Luna… sad, somehow. Which was ridiculous.

After a few minutes, she followed the elves to the edge of her mind and shoved them out, resealing the barriers and pretending to be asleep.

She could hear hard breathing from the other side of the room, and then Blondie spoke,

“We did it.”

There was a high-five and then a groan of satisfaction from Gorgodon.

“Great job, Foster,” Gremlin whispered. “You did it!” Oh my, how considerate. Whispering for the eavesdropping girl. Luna didn’t hear anyone congratulating her on her part.

“We did it,” Gorgodon huffed, speaking at a regular volume. “Because—”

“You’re Cognates,” the entire group chorused with him.

He bit his bottom lip to keep from grinning.

“So? What was in there?” Suspicion asked eagerly. Luna was glad she’d decided to fake sleep, otherwise they’d have had this conversation elsewhere.

There was a silence as Gorgodon and Blondie exchanged a guilty glance. “She’s… normal. She goes to Foxfire, she’s a Polyglot—no second ability—and she’s just… normal,” Blondie said again.

“Well, don’t you feel like a jerk now,” Luna said, eyes still closed. She didn’t get to see it, but everyone looked as though they’d been caught red-handed. She opened her eyes and peered at the group. Observer had a twinkling smile in his eyes that he tried to hide beneath his bangs.

“How long were you awake?” Blondie asked suspiciously.

“Long enough. Can I go now?” She thought about adding a please, but allowing the sorry excuses for Telepaths into her mind was polite enough.

“Not yet,” Gremlin, a boy with blond hair and ice-blue eyes said in sync with Blondie’s muttered “Yes.” She raised a confused eyebrow.

“Hey, I just think you guys owe her an apology, is all,” he put his hands up as the Flasher inched closer to Luna.

“Yes, please take this off,” she sat up and thrust her wrists at him, punching him on the nose by ‘accident’. “Oh. You got in the way,” she shrugged as he put his hands to his face.

“I’m not apologizing to her,” Blondie said firmly. “She’s obnoxious.”

“Must run in the family,” Luna muttered without thinking.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” she snapped.

“…Nothing.”

“Well,” Suspicion’s voice was soft and remorseful, “I’m sorry, for everything I said.”

“You probably didn’t say half those things out loud,” Luna replied.

Suspicion’s face grew a pleasant shade of red beneath her silver and black hair.

“Aw, so now we’re letting the little sass elf go?” Ro pouted. “I thought maybe she could be my Iggy. We could have matching hair.”

Luna took one look at the ogre’s bright orange pigtails and shuddered. Thanks but no thanks. She’d take loneliness over being an ogre’s pet any day.

Gremlin’s face lit up. “She could help me write Bo and Ro’s poe—ach!” He was quickly strangled by the ogre.

Blondie smirked, but shook her head. “No, Ro, no, Keefe. We really need to let her go. Wylie, you can unbind her.”

Luna’s legs itched to jump up and run far, far away… away from these annoying elves, the fantasizing ogre, and especially Mr. Forkle.

“Anyhow, let me apologize for her,” Gremlin massaged his neck tenderly, his ice-blue eyes flashing with a mischievous light. “We’re very sorry for harassing you, and I’m even more sorry that you had to witness that Fitzphie moment.”

Gorgodon rolled his eyes, but he seemed humored.

Luna felt it the moment Suncatcher removed the light. Her wrists felt… free. They were also a little darker than the rest of her skin, but it didn’t hurt. She stood up and smiled. “Thanks, I guess. Anyway, I’ll be leaving now,” she stepped through the small crowd and opened the door, thankful for the breeze that hit her in the face the minute she did.

She walked a couple paces so that she was staring down into the water, but just as she was about to jump off a cliff—

What are you doing? A voice flooded her mind. She whipped around and saw Observer standing behind her, his eyebrows tilted up slightly.

“Oh, I was… admiring the view,” she said awkwardly, edging away from the drop.

He squinted at the scene behind her. The water was murky and the sky was filled with dull clouds, and the only sunshine that peeped out looked a sickly shade of yellow.

His eyes flicked to her. “Right. Anyway, the others told me to make sure you got home safe, so. Here I am. Making sure. Tam Song,” he held out his hand. “And you?”

“Luna Thistlewood.” She wasn’t sure what the hand was for, so she grabbed it and pushed it back down.

Also, Luna doubted that ‘the others’ cared at all about her. From the beginning this ‘Tam’ had seemed very curious, however, and Luna wondered if he was suspicious of her at all.

“Well, uh. Bye!” Luna waved awkwardly and side-stepped Tam. Phew. After a few steps, though, Tam called out to her.

“Where are you going?”

“Uh, home?” she turned and gave him a weird look.

“Walking?”

“…Yeah?”

“We’re on an island,” Tam informed her as he jogged over to her. She took a small, instinctive step away from him. “The only way out of here is by light leaping.”

“Light leaping?” Luna furrowed her brows. Wait. Wasn’t that how the elves had taken her here? There had been some crystal lifting, and then they’d all sparkled away, and… oops. Of course she remembered now, but she’d never needed to use it before in her life. “Right! Light leaping, duh,” Luna laughed awkwardly and fished in her pockets as Tam narrowed his eyes at her. She didn’t have a crystal, but she’d never expected to find one in the first place. “Oh, I must’ve dropped my crystal when those guys grabbed me!”

“Oh, that’s alright,” Tam said, stepping towards her again. “Here—we can take mine.” He produced a clear crystal from his pocket.

“‘We’?” Luna liked the conversation’s direction less and less.

“I’ll take you,” Tam shrugged. “Where do you want to go? I don’t have many places, but… Oh, what about Atlantis? So you can get a new crystal?” He held out his hand to Luna.

Why was he being so… nice to her? And even after she screamed in his ear, too. Luna could just say, nope, thanks but no thanks, jump off the cliff and Teleport away, but she didn’t really want to. She hadn’t spoken to another elf in a long time.

(And, well, he was kinda cute.)

“Um… sure, I guess,” she bit her bottom lip uncertainly. She grabbed his hand to push it back to his side like she’d done before, but this time his fingers closed around hers, and he pulled her close. Something stirred in Luna’s heart—a feeling she wasn’t familiar with—but before she could place it, Tam stepped into the circle of light, and they shimmered away…