Hours later the corrupted beasts arrived before her parents could return, waves of twisted flesh and malice that poured into Starweaver territory like an infection spreading through healthy tissue.

Luna was still locked in the castle's most secure core with the strongest guards forming a desperate perimeter around her. The last line of defense between an innocent child and horrors that should never have penetrated this deep into this wall protected territory.

Hours passed with agonizing slowness while the world outside descended into a worst nightmare. Each hour meant fewer living guards as they fell one by one buying time with their lives. Each hour meant more beasts finding paths inside through their sheer overwhelming numbers that made defense impossible despite superior power or skill.

The guards fought with a desperation born from knowing what would happen to the child they protected if they failed. They died holding ground that couldn't be held. They sacrificed themselves buying minutes and seconds for reinforcements that took too long to arrive.

Luna had cried behind her protectors, her small voice breaking with questions that couldn't be answered. "Where's Mom? Where's Dad? Why aren't they coming?"

But nobody had answers that would comfort her, and the truth would have been worse than silence.

Time ran out with its terrible inevitability despite everyone's best efforts.

The guards at the last door shouted that they couldn't hold anymore, that the breach was imminent and they should prepare for the end. Voices carrying resignation that came from fighting until nothing remained but acceptance.

And then Luna heard it through all the despair, a familiar roar that made her heart leap with desperate hope.

Her father's tiger… Explosive and furious. Desperate in ways she'd never felt from him before because Sirius Starweaver didn't despair, didn't lose control, didn't let emotion override his tactical thinking.

Except when his daughter was about to die and nothing else mattered beyond reaching her before it was too late.

The door burst open with mana force that tore it from reinforced hinges, and Sirius Starweaver could be seen from the distance like a storm given human form.

His manifested claws tore through corrupted flesh like it was paper, mana weapons enhanced beyond normal limits through pure desperation. His black serpent coiled around the beasts closer to Luna and crushed them with force that made bones snap audibly. Light and darkness working in perfect tandem to eliminate threats with an efficiency that should have been beautiful if it wasn't born from terror.

Finally, after many hours… no corrupted beast was left standing.

"LUNA!" he'd roared, voice carrying anguish that a small girl couldn't fully understand but felt in her bones. His eyes found his daughter immediately despite the chaos of bodies, locking onto her with a focus that excluded everything else.

Luna had run toward him without thinking about any remaining beasts or danger or anything beyond the need to reach her father. "DAD!"

She'd launched herself at him and he'd caught her mid-air, pulling her against his chest and holding her like she was the most precious thing in the world and he'd nearly lost her. Arms that had just been killing compressed carefully around a small body that fit perfectly against his chest.

And then Luna noticed what her relief had initially hidden.

Her mother wasn't coming behind him like she should have been.

She twisted in her father's arms, searching the doorway with growing dread. Looking for that warm smile that should have been there.

"Mom? Where's Mom?"

The question came out smaller than she'd intended, a childish voice that hadn't yet learned to hide fear perfectly behind composure.

Sirius had gone completely still in a way that felt wrong. His body tensed with something that wasn't combat readiness but something else, something that made Luna's stomach drop before she understood why.

And in that moment of terrible silence, Luna knew something was wrong.

She knew it by the way her father's shoulders drew up tight. By the way he avoided meeting her eyes when he'd always looked at her directly before. By the way his face could hide a grief so profound it leaked through the control he'd spent years perfecting.

By that expression on his face that would haunt her forever, the look of a man who'd lost something so important and had no idea how to tell his daughter that half her world had just ended…

"Dad," she whispered, her voice already breaking because part of her understood what was coming even if she didn't want to believe it. "Where's Mom?"

Sirius held her tighter, his arms becoming a cage, a barrier trying to hold her together before she could shatter. His face pressed against her hair so she couldn't see the tears that were already falling, his croquet mouth despite all his efforts to remain strong for her sake.

And finally, after a silence that lasted eons, he spoke five words that would echo through every day of her life that followed.

"She's not coming back, Luna."

Five words delivered in a voice that cracked halfway through despite a desperate attempt to keep it steady.

Five words that destroyed her world more thoroughly than any corrupted beast could have.

"What?" Luna didn't understand, couldn't understand because understanding meant accepting something impossible. "What does that mean? Where is she? Is she hurt? We need to go find her!"

The logic of a seven-year-old who hadn't learned yet that some losses couldn't be fixed. That some people who left didn't come back no matter how much you needed them to.

"She's not coming back," Sirius repeated, and his voice shattered completely on the frist word this time.

And then he began to cry in ways Luna had never seen before.

Her father who'd always been strong, who'd faced beasts and battles without showing fear. The great Sirius Starweaver, one of the kingdom's strongest fighters, Gold-rank tamer who'd survived things that killed thousands of lesser men.

Crying while holding his daughter with wrenching sobs that shook his entire body.

His shoulders heaved with each breath. His hands clutched Luna almost painfully tight.

And Luna began crying too because if her father was crying like this...

Then her mother really wasn't coming back, and the perfect day that had started hours ago was gone forever.

She'd wanted her mother to be less embarrassing, had rolled her eyes at overwhelming affection, had thought the dramatic declarations were too much.

Now she'd give anything, everything, to be embarrassed one more time. To have those arms hold her too tight. To hear "my perfect little star" declared with intensity that made other nobles uncomfortable.

But wishes didn't bring people back from places they'd gone, and crying didn't undo tragedies that had already occurred while you weren't looking.

Luna cried into her father's chest while he cried into her hair, both of them broken in ways that would never fully heal.

And somewhere far below in sealed chambers, a crystallized heart rested on a pedestal, containing everything that remained of a woman who'd loved them both with an intensity that was embarrassing.

Too much love compressed into too small a space, waiting to be recovered by a daughter who didn't yet know that's what she'd be searching for when she grew old enough.

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