It was a quiet night as Noë walked with Villiso and his gaggle of boarlets. They squealed and scrambled around their legs playfully as they walked. Villiso was dragging a giant leaf full of moonflowers to Aiti’s Pool for the ritual. The aitielkh around had all gathered to help Villiso’s boarlets gather these special flowers for tonight; Noë was looking forward to seeing what the ritual would bring. The group soon reached the pool and saw none other than Usnea waiting for them.

“Welcome.” Usnea’s quiet and warm voice greeted them as Usnea came out from the undergrowth. “I heard you’re looking to use the pool tonight, Villiso.”

“Hello, Usnea.” Noë greeted the shaggy aitielkh warmly with a touch of their nose to Usnea’s. They watched as Villiso began pouring the flowers into the pool.

“Yes, I had a strange vision.” Villiso mused as his boarlets watched from behind him, “Something of corruption, something of…moons.” he trailed off as the water had already begun shining. Noë’s eyes widened and they backed up to stand beside Usnea.

Villiso laid down by the pool and closed his eyes, focusing hard on remembering his vision. The water began to swell, getting brighter and brighter, the water taking on the soft pink colours of the petals. Noë and Usnea watched, their mouths agape as the water swirled into a towering whirlpool and began reflecting the stars of the sky.

“Wh-whoa…” Noë let out without even thinking.

“Look!” Usnea exclaimed, peering out from their overgrown mane at the sky. “The…moons?” they finished confusedly. Noë looked up to see that two additional moons had slowly begun to appear in the sky.

“Three moons? We have three moons?” Noë said in disbelief.

“Not that I knew of.” Usnea replied, way too nonchalantly. Noë shot them a dirty look before continuing to watch the starry whirlpool. Villiso had now opened his eyes, beams of light coming out of them.

“It’s almost done.” Villiso said with laboured breath as the whirlpool got bigger and bigger, faster and faster; until it stopped completely and crashed down, splashing everyone around the pool. Noë flinched at the splash and shook their pelt annoyedly. When they looked to the pool again, the moonflowers were gone and the water was normal again. The only thing that seemed to change was the sky, the three moons looming in the night sky mysteriously.

“Was…that it? We have three moons now?” Noë said in disbelief.

“I don’t think so, Noë.” Usnea said, shifting on their feet uncomfortably, “I feel something.”

“Me too.” Villiso replied, getting to his feet and looking up to the sky. Noë looked up to the three moons with him and after a few seconds a hole opened up in the sky between the moons.

“Oh!” Noë exclaimed, “A… hole? A black hole?” Noë said fearfully.

“I don’t think so, it feels…” Usnea began, but was quickly interrupted as black mist started pouring out. Villiso quickly started wrangling his boarlets, all of his hair standing on end.

“We need to get away!” he shouted, the urgency in his voice scared Noë as they continued to watch the black mist. “That mist, I recognize it!” Villiso continued, “It must be corru-” Villiso was cut off by a grating screech that shook everyone to their very core. Noë crouched down, pinning their ears to the back of their head in pain. A huge shadowy figure began to descend from the sky. It looked like some sort of huge, shadowy sea creature with giant fangs and a pointed tail.

“What is that thing?” Noë yelled over the noise.

“It doesn’t matter, let’s go!” Villiso started pushing Usnea away as Noë continued to stare. Noë’s hooves felt glued to the ground. They were frozen in terror. “RUN!” Villiso’s booming voice snapped Noë out of it and they turned to run.

Noë raced through the forest, their heart pounding in their ears as they heard frenzied hoofbeats all around. The entire forest’s inhabitants were running from that thing. They heard the screech again and stumbled on a rock, falling painfully to their knees.

“Help!” Noë screamed as the beast in the sky started hurtling down towards them. They were scrambling to get to their feet when they saw a giant black beam of mist heading towards them. Noë sprang to their feet and tried to dodge out of the way but the mist had hit them on one of their eyes. They bugled in pain as the searing mist scorched through their fur and hide. Breathing heavily, they scrambled behind a tree and began running again, not having time to worry about their wound. As they were running they heard a familiar, metallicy sing-songy voice.

“ᏁᎧᏋ, Ꭵ ᎦᎧᏬᏁᎴ ᎩᎧᏬ, ᏇᏂᎩ ᎥᏕ ᏖᏂᏋᏒᏋ Ꮧ ፈᎧᏒᏒᏬᎮᏖᎥᎧᏁ ᏰᏋᏗᏕᏖ ᎥᏁ ᏕᎥᏝᏦᏦᏗᏕᏕᏗ, ᎧᏂ ᎷᎩ ᎷᎧᎧᏁᏕ, ᎩᎧᏬᏒ ᎦᏗፈᏋ?” Noë screeched to a halt, looking around wildly. They recognized that voice and that jumbled mix of bepotelkh-tongue and lunerestian speech.

“Matka! Matka, you’re here!” the fluffy, flying creature came into view. Matka was the Lunerestian ambassador moxyn that Noë had come to know so well. “What are you doing here?” Noë said between gasps.

“Ꭵ ፈᏗᎷᏋ ᏰᏋፈᏗᏬᏕᏋ Ꭵ ᏂᏋᏗᏒᎴ-” Noë interrupted them,

“Slow down, Matka, I can’t understand you when you talk so fast!” Noë chided. Matka took a deep breath and landed in front of Noë.
“I came as soon as I could! I felt a familiar magic tonight… why are Lunerest’s moons showing up here?” Matka questioned, glancing to the sky where the portal had opened up. “Why are there corruption beasts? Your face…Noë…” Matka’s brows were furrowed.

“I don’t know! Well, I know some of it. Villiso had a vision that we needed to do a ritual, we gathered moonflowers and went to the Aiti pool. It summoned those moons at first but then… something else came out.” Matka’s fur began bristling and their expression was of pure fear.

“What!!! That is so incredibly reckless!!!” Matka hissed. “It seems there was corruption here that is now MUCH STRONGER because of that portal to Lunerest and I-” Matka was interrupted as a blast of corruption shot past the two of them. “We need to get somewhere safer!!! Follow me!” Matka took flight and began leading Noë away.

“Wait, I’ll just use my magic to-” Noë began to turn to face the beast, but was quickly grabbed by Matka’s magic by the antlers.

“NO!!!” Matka yanked Noë’s face towards them. “They EAT magic, you’ll only make them stronger! We have to GO!” Matka let go of Noë and began flying, signaling Noë to follow. Noë almost protested but pushed it down and began to gallop after Matka. The sounds of chaos and ruin filled the forest. Screams, hoofbeats, screeches, Noë was growing more and more distressed.

Soon the two came to a large, thick grove of trees and pushed their way in. Usnea was inside waiting for them.

“Noë, your face!” Usnea gasped upon seeing the two enter. They tried to run up to touch Noë’s wound but Matka pushed their way between them.

“Usnea, no! You’ll get corrupted too.” Matka held their paws up.

“Why do you guys keep talking about my face like that?” Noë said, distraught, “Is it that bad?”

“It is strange.” Usnea cocked their head as they observed the black patch over Noë’s eye. It was gently oozing black moon and star shapes off of it.

“I’m not really sure how corruption affects aitielkh.” Matka said, hovering near Noë’s effected eye and observing. “Usually for xyns it causes us to be leeched of our magic and enter a semi-feral state where we cannot control ourselves.”

“WHAT?” Noë cried, “I’m going to lose control of myself? No, no, no!” Noë reared up in distress.

“I’m not sure!” Matka cried, “All we can do is wait and try to keep you safe.” Matka looked worriedly at the two, “We should reach out to Lunerest’s queens and get help. I’m sure we can heal you.” Matka gently pet Noë’s mane to try to comfort them, “Usnea, what should we say?”

“Well,” Usnea laid down, Noë and Matka following suit. “I guess we should begin with, ‘we opened a portal’”. The three laid together to hurriedly craft a letter. Matka finished it up and held it in their magic.

“I have to go report to the queens with all of this information, you two have to start warning everyone and trying to get anyone magical to a hidden place. These beasts will eat all of your magic and only grow stronger.” The two aitielkh nodded, their lips pressed tightly together. “We’ll fix this.” Matka said and quickly hugged the two aitielkh before grabbing onto their warpstone and disappearing. Noë looked to Usnea and the two elkh got up and set out to find the others.