Birthday gift for the wonderful @hollypies ! I really would've done something bigger, but didn't remember it was coming up for a while and I knew I'd be busy all weekend!
While awakening from the dream is something experienced by all Sylvari, it varies wildly from person to person. For Luna, it was a rough and harrowing experience. She found herself fighting creatures she didn’t know the names of with weapons she was yet to understand. Somehow, she held her own through the waking vision and followed the call of Caithe’s voice into the waking world. The Circle of Night placed its claim on her, the last sapling to be added to its branches of the night. By the time her twin Ashal had awoken from her far gentler experience within the dream and left their shared pod, it was Dawn that called her its own. Despite their immediate differences, the twins were inseparable in their first few days.
There was, however, something beyond The Grove that called to Luna in a way that Ashal did not feel, and their split destiny only became more apparent when Luna made her first steps out of the city. The first steps that would only take her further and further from her sister.
A sapling of less than a week, she stumbled her way through the outside world and found herself being asked for assistance far more than she was offered it. Many things were confusing and often she found herself overwhelmed by the sheer chaos of existence. A month passed, feeling so long to someone so young and yet still seeming as if it had passed without her noticing the days slipping past. It seemed too long to have been without her sister for, and she turned to return to The Grove. Whatever was calling her beyond Caledon was still out there, but it had waited this long for her. It could wait a little longer.
Her plan fell flat when just outside The Grove she met another who seemed disjointed with the world around him. Deciding she would not just leave him and walk past like so many had done to her, she approached and gently offered him assistance. Just a few days, she decided, then she would go visit Ashal again.
Luna did not go home to her sister for nearly three years. Tomomi, the lost sylvari she had met outside The Grove, became her travelling companion and they quickly went from friends to seeing each other as siblings. She travelled far beyond the forest of their home with her brother and together they learnt more about the world than they ever could have conceived would exist.
Drinking with the Norn became a favourite pastime of Luna’s, even if she does hate the cold of Hoelbrak, it was worth it for the company. No one knows how to throw a gathering like the Norns do. The Asura technology left them both confused and they had little interest in the city other than the fact it floated. They also both knew enough of their race’s history to make them wary around the less morally inclined Asura. The Black Citadel is nothing but harsh metal and rough scrub, a far cry from their own lush tree-grown home and did little but make Luna ache for the company of her sister. Divinity's Reach was her favourite of the other races’ cities. The gardens felt the closest like home Luna had found since leaving, and the humans seemed cheerful enough. She found their fireworks fascinating and loved to be there whenever they had a festival. The city felt like a new creature when the roads were decorated and spirits high, music playing all hours of the day as games and races fill any empty space that can be found.
Upon reaching Lion's Arch, they parted ways as he became a soldier of Vigil and she stepped back into the shadows of Whisper. They would still visit each other when they could, but while their bond grew stronger with time, things began to change as they both lost the innocence and childishness they had left. War was not kind to them, and they did not realise that it had barely begun to touch them yet. None of them were prepared for what was to come.
