In the dark, bad ideas often masquerade as good ones. In the light, it is clear which is which. -Unknown origin

Lin didn't know what to say. How could he? He wasn't a father. He and Hanako had agreed never to have children so that the prophecy about her child could never come to pass…for all the good that did. Yet, here he was.

It was a small miracle that they'd noticed the two children in time. Surrounded by an onslaught of spirits, barely holding back the tide with a wall of plants, neither he nor Satoro had noticed the pair of lights moving around the edge of the square. It was only when Lin had caught the sound of crackling lightning that he spared attention enough to look around. When he had, his heart leapt into his throat.

Satoro had been quick to leap into action, hopping on his glaive immediately to fly to Xinya's aid. Even as he held the line at the armillary, Lin watched anxiously, hoping desperately that they weren't too late. He didn't want to bury another member of the Lang family. He didn't think he could bear it.

He'd only just finished dispersing the last of the shades and spirits that had survived the relighting of the armillary when he'd turned to see the Oni Prince and the two young cultivators approaching.

Xinya had her head bowed. She was supporting Xiaolong, whose gold blood was staining both his clothes and Xinya's.

"Uncle Lin," she greeted nervously. Her eyes flicked around, as if she were trying to come up with an excuse for her presence here.

"Was Yoru unclear when he told you to remain at Half-Moon Harbor?" He asked, his voice even colder than he'd intended.

"No, but-"

"But what? You could have been killed! Worse, you could have gotten Xiaolong killed! What could have possibly motivated you to leave Ishida's side during a crisis?"

"I…I just…" She looked down. "Uncle, please forgive this reckless niece. She did not mean to bring harm."

Lin's heart softened a touch. Xinya so rarely showed such politeness to anyone. Based on the slump of her shoulders, he was sure that if she hadn't been supporting Xiaolong, she might even have kowtowed to add weight to her plea.

He sighed. He knew she was a willful and reckless child. He'd known that even before she'd become a significant part of his and Yoru's lives. In that regard, she was a lot like her mother, wild as the wind and fierce as the storm. Lin knew Shen Reixin well. She was a fellow cultivator, and one who frequently ignored the rules of society and tradition.

If only she could have lived to see her daughter now, Lin thought.

Xinya stood awkwardly before him as he wrestled with his thoughts. Should he punish her? Did he have that right? She'd taken an inexcusable risk and had dragged Xiaolong along with her. Both children had injuries, though it was clear that the boy was worse off than Xinya was. They were young. They would recover. But when they did, would they remember the lessons that accompanied that pain? Or would they forget as children so often did after the wounds healed?

"I shall leave it to your master to decide your fate," he ultimately decided. "But know that I suspect Miss Ishida will want some form of retribution from you for endangering her ward."

Xinya stared at the ground. "Yes, Uncle."

"Speaking of, it looks like he's returning now," Satoro interjected, pointing behind them to the armillary.

Lin turned to see several threads of voidlight emerging from the sphere. They spun and swirled before converging on the dais beneath the sphere, exactly where Yoru had been when he left.

Wisps of light, blurred in Lin's vision, seemed to flit around. They danced like butterflies, and each one glowed with brilliant blue qi, the exact same icy shade as the voidlight. It took a moment of analyzing their qi to realize that they were lunar moths. They lazily danced around the coalescing threads of voidlight, the light shimmering in the dust they left in their wake.

Lin's breath caught. The threads converged until Yoru was left in their wake. The void spirit seemed to have changed, ever so slightly. In Lin's qi sight, he could see the void that normally darkened his hair was speckled with tiny voidlight stars, and his clothes were an almost royal blue that contrasted with the inhuman paleness of his skin. Even the dark wood of his bow seemed to be decorated with bits of voidlight.

However, what was most striking about the cultivator as he held out his hand for one of the moths, was that his chains were gone. As he stood upon the dais, a moth in hand and a smile upon his face, it was as if Lin was seeing the Darkened Moon as he was long ago, before the madness and tragedy of his past.

Yoru stroked the moth's wings gently, and several more came to rest on his shoulders, drawn by his qi as if to a brilliant flame. His lips moved, whispering something to the moths, and smiling as he brought the creature to his face.

Then, as if to remind him of his bitter reality, silver chains began to reform from the ambient qi, draping themselves across Yoru's limbs. Lin frowned. The void spirit didn't seem to notice they were ever gone, but he did. The chains seemed to drain the light from Yoru's smile until he was the same sad immortal that Lin had come to know. However, knowing that Yoru, who was already an extremely attractive individual, was even more striking when his eyes were free of sadness made Lin wonder. Was there a way to banish the chains for good?

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I stroked the moth's wings, studying the creature intently. Lunar moths were some of my favorite animals, and they served the vital role of pollinating the gardens in old Half-Moon Hearth, but these ones were strange. At the height of my reign, the moths I brought to the capital were green, and after much thought, I crafted much of my wardrobe to match the soft turquoise color of lunar moths dancing in the moonlight. Even up until the day that Pollen and Pharyx had gone shopping for me in Heimian, I wore silver and green as my primary colors, in honor of the moths that flocked to my city.

But these…these were blue. More than that, they were the same blue as the voidlight that emanated from the armillary above. What had caused the moths to change? And, how long had they been here?

I smiled at the moths. They didn't care for the hows and the whys of the world. They only lived in the here and now. They knew I was a source of light and qi. They knew that I was safe.

"Did the void spirits frighten you away?" I asked in the barest whisper. The moth in my hand waggled its fluffy feelers at me, and I raised the creature to my face. It brushed those feelers against my nose, tickling it. "You're safe, now. Be free, my friend."

I dropped my hand away, letting the moth take flight before me. It wobbled in flight for several moments before landing again on my shoulder. It crawled onto one of my chains and rested.

"I suppose I don't blame you for not wanting to brave the dangerous world," I answered. "Very well, I will be your shield, little one."

Raising my head, I looked around for my companions. A wall of vines around the edge of the armillary dais was the only trace of the battle that had been waged in my absence. As I descended the stairs, I found Lin and Satoro near a statue I immediately recognized to be my sister Chouko, maintained in near-perfect condition even after all these years.

Lin stared at me as I approached.

"I take it everything went to plan out here?" I asked. When he didn't answer, I snapped my fingers before his nose. He jerked to attention, and I repeated the question.

"For us, yes. But, we did have a pair of uninvited guests show up," he answered. He stepped aside, revealing Xinya and Xiaolong both looking sheepish. The boy was bleeding, the gold ichor of his life staining both their clothes as Xinya supported him.

"Well, I didn't realize we were hosting a dragon in our midst," I breathed, bowing my head to the boy. Even young as he was, dragons were powerful and mystical creatures rarely seen, save for in times of exceptional need. "We should get him back before others see."

I moved to leave, but both Lin and Satoro blocked my way. In their haste, they spoke over each other, and I understood none of it. In the end, they paused and glared at each other until Lin sighed and bowed his head.

"Apologies, Elder. Forgive this young cultivator for his haste," he apologized. Satoro didn't acknowledge the apology, not that I expected him to, given his sullen and taciturn attitude. Instead, he just began again.

"Did you fix the armillary?" he asked.

I rolled my eyes. "No, the light is just for show. It's just a coincidence that it happened to banish the void at the same time."

"Is that voidlight?" Xinya's voice was quiet and hesitant, as if she were trying to remain unnoticed, even after voicing her question.

I nodded. "The moon qi within was being drained and suffocated by the void, so I gave it an alternate power source. If I can mix my qi with void qi, then there's no reason that the qi of the system I created can't do the same."

Lin and Satoro exchanged a look before Lin spoke. "Aren't you the one who was convinced that your voidlight alters people luck? Is it safe to put it in the middle of town?"

My smile faded to concern as I turned back to see the armillary. In my haste to relight its lunar core, I had entirely failed to consider the dangers of what a voidlight sphere of that magnitude might do to the district. Surely, it would be better than leaving it to the void, right? A bit of bad luck was better than death, right?

Threads of voidlight coiled around the sphere, joining the silver dragon as it floated around the device. From this distance, they didn't seem to be reaching for my companions, but would they react to a passing civilian? Rather than test that theory on an innocent, I grabbed Satoro by the shoulders and moved him closer. He grumbled in protest, but I ignored him. After all, he was nigh impossible to kill. If anyone would survive a bit of my misfortune, then it was him.

As we got close, threads didn't seem to react at all. Then, it was as if we'd crossed a singular threshold. They struck like vipers, faster than I'd ever seen them react before, latching onto Satoro before streaking to the side and exploding into sparks. A tear of black ripped itself through space, opening a rift into the void.

I shoved the Oni Prince back, reaching out to the void tear. It echoed with voices seeking destruction and qi. They crashed against my mind, but I remained calm. This was no different than the spirits that had just been purged. With a thought, I formed my qi into a moth made of voidlight. It danced and fluttered towards the tear until it entered, and the tear was stitched up until it vanished without a trace.

"That was unlucky," Satoro muttered. "What did you need me for?"

"Unlucky? That was a tear to the void." Why was he so calm about it?

He shrugged. "Little tears open up now and then all over the city. It's just bad luck."

"I'm the Demon of Misfortune," I countered. "Nothing that happens near me is 'just bad luck.'"

However, if there was one thing our experiment proved, it was that the unfortunate side effects of being bathed in voidlight didn't seem to be acute unless someone got too close. With Satoro as bait, I began to trace a circle in the ground around the armillary marking the safe distance. By the time we'd finished, the civilians had started bravely venturing out of their homes to see the changes to the armillary. I marked the area with the character for 'danger,' then tried to rush back to the others before anyone noticed the dragon bleeding all over my disciple.

An old kitsune with her muzzle streaked with white caught my arm. "Young man, did you do this?"

"Uh, yes, grandmother," I answered politely. "It just needed a small reconfiguration."

"First the eclipse in the sky above, the first moon seen here since my great-great grandmother's time, and now you fix the armillary?" she took my hand into her paws. "Blessings of the Moon be upon you. Our Lunar Prince has acted through you, this day."

I gripped her hands tightly. "There's no need for that, Grandmother. I am not worthy of your praise. I simply helped where I could."

"Yeah, after a swift kick in the rear to get you moving," Satoro grumbled. A cane cracked down on his head. I bit back a laugh as he stared at her in shock.

"My eyes may be failing me, but my ears are still keen, young man," the old kitsune snapped, then she bowed to me. "Thank you, child. You've rekindled hope for me and mine."

"It was nothing, grandmother," I answered. She gripped my hands one last time before releasing me.

"Crazy old bat," muttered the Oni Prince as we returned to Lin, Xinya, and Xiaolong.

"Don't speak poorly of the elderly," I chastised.

"Says a man who's six or seven times her age, at least."

"Come on, we should get back to the inn and see to Xiaolong's injuries," I said. I knelt, putting him on my back. Lin threw his outermost robe over the boy to hide his blood, and we set off.

News of the blackout's end was slower to reach the streets further from the square, and we were able to make it back to Half-Moon Harbor before anyone else could stop us. I slid the door open, only to find a war zone within.

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