Chapter 2

Amira stares at the young goddesses playing outside. She smiled bitterly as she remembered how she wanted to play like them too when she was their age but her mother told her that she can’t just carelessly run around just like them.

She sighed and looked back at the glowing scrolls placed on her bed that were made of stars.

“That’s still a lot. How does mother never get short of stories for me to read?” she asked exasperatedly as she begrudgingly walked back to her bed and started opening the scrolls of love again.

She sighed and choose one of the brightest scrolls in front of her. She figured that the brighter the scrolls were, the greater the love shared. The scrolls of love contain stories. Stories of the matches, pairings, her mother, and all the former goddesses of the moon had made. The scrolls record everything the match had to undergo for their love, how they met and how they ended.

Some of them end up happily but the ones with the greatest love shared mostly end up tragically.

“Amira?” She raised her head and looked up to her mom who just entered her room.

“Yes, mother?” Amira loves her mother and she knows her mother loves her too. But sometimes, her mother was just really… too much.

Celestia walked towards her daughter’s bed and smiled as she watched her diligently reading the scrolls of love she gave her to study. She was sure, her daughter would be one of the greatest moon goddesses of love the Bulan ever had.

Unlike what the creatures thought in the living realm, there are a lot of moon goddesses who bless and guides them. The moon goddess for prosperity, for death, for wealth, for birth, for love, and many more. Some creatures from the living realm had the ability to connect with the moon goddess of goodwill. Who passes their reasonable requests to other goddesses.

But the most powerful of all the goddesses is the Moon Goddess of Love. She rules the whole Bulan and the other goddesses bows down to her.

Celestia knew that her daughter was much more powerful than her. She wasn’t just the next Goddess of Love, she also possesses the power of light. She touched the tiny stars hiding behind Amira. She smiled when the tiny creatures snuggled even closer to her daughter.

“The stars love you so much,” she said and Amira turned to look at the tiny stars struggling to hide from her mom.

“They’re my only company.” She said in a rather bitter tone.

Celestia caught her daughter staring at her seriously.

“Why can’t I just be like the other goddesses, mother? I know I had asked you this a lot of times already, but still. I want to know. I wanted to explore and roam around Bulan! I never liked being confined in this room reading someone else’s love stories, mother! I wanted to be out too,” Amira said with her tears flowing.

This isn’t the first time Amira told her mother about what she felt. She had always had this hope that her mother would understand her soon. But her mother just stared at her gently and cupped her face.

“You’re alright, Amira. You just think of this because you’re too young—”

“I am not alright, Mother!” she said as she put down the scroll of love she was holding earlier.

“I am not alright and I wanted you to know it! Yes! I am young! That’s why I wanted all of that! It is because I am young… I am young and I wanted to experience all of that!” Celestia watched her daughter critically.

Moon goddesses’ emotions were a mystery to everyone, even to themselves. Rationality always won over their emotions that they forgot how it feels like to feel. She watched how the bright tears of her daughter fell slowly on her face.

This is the reason why she chose to confine her and isolate her from other goddesses. Her daughter was filled with so much emotions inside her. And she can’t risk the others to see that.

“You have the stars to play with, Amira.” She pointed out.

“But they’re not enough…” Amira answered in a broken voice. She started losing hope that her mother would ever understand her.

"They were never enough..." she muttered in a low voice.

Amira stared at her mother’s face before wiping her face dry and forcing a smile after realizing how useless those words are.

“I’m sorry about that, mother. Just don’t mind everything I’ve said.” She said as she collected the scrolls of love on her bed while the stars helped her. She then stepped out of her bed, put all the love scrolls on her desk, and closed her eyes tightly to suppress her tears as her back faced her mother.

She took a deep breath and faced her mother with a small smile.

“I’ll just take a short nap before I resume reading,” she said and Celestia nodded before smiling. She tucked her daughter on the bed and kissed her forehead before leaving the room. She wasn’t able to see how tears escaped Amira’s tightly shut eyes.

When she was sure that her mother was no longer around she sat on her bed, hugged her knees, and buried her face on her knees as she let out the sobs that she had been hiding. The stars tried their best to wrap her with their warmth but even with their greatest effort the coldness and emptiness she felt inside her heart didn't even falter.

Amira silently sat beside her mother as they watched the young goddesses dance gracefully in front of them. She watched how they gracefully moved their hands, feet, and even their fingers. It was as if they were one with each beat of the music produced by the stars.

Celestia held a feast to celebrate another successful matching between a werewolf and an enchantress. This is a rare matching so everyone was so thrilled to know that their love endured everything and was now living in pure bliss together. Such rare and strong love deserves to be celebrated.

The Moon Goddess of Love turned to her silent daughter beside her and mistake the forming tears beneath her eyes as the sparkle of amusement while watching the performers. She smiled adoringly and softly caressed Amira’s hair.

Amira turned to her and with a small smile excused herself to get something to drink.

The other goddesses followed her every move while she was exiting their Pavilion of Gratitude. She sighed heavily after finally getting rid of the suffocating attention.

She exasperatedly sat by the last step of the stairs and opened her palms in front of her. Not even a second passed, stars started to glitter and appear around her hands. She smiled and looked at the tiny glowing creatures who were dancing along with her palms.

The stars were her only companion in the whole Bulan. No one or more likely, she wasn’t allowed to interact with anybody else. She sighed heavily as she stood up after getting bored watching the stars. It was only with these times where a celebration occurs was she allowed to get out of their fortress. Her mother keeps her inside and just lets her read hundreds to thousands of scrolls of love every day.

She looked back at the entrance of the pavilion where the Goddesses were having a blast inside. She wished she could enjoy such events too but she really felt out of place inside and the watchful eyes of the crowd were suffocating her so much that she can’t even sit comfortably.