Baineshee Winning Entry

It wasn’t my fault he loved me more. We were the perfect complement—my silver and his gold lit up the heavens night and day, to glow down on Mistica. Our dance was perfect, as we traced a dance of waxing and waning to cast shadow and light across the land. It was uncountable that we were a pair, so why couldn’t they just have accepted that?

I was the most beautiful of our trio, it was no doubt. My surface, unmarred by craters, was a glowing silver cast from mirror pools, connected and webbed by streams to leave an interlacing light display. Unlike either sister, I had no need to try to be better—I was who I was—the best. Lysithea the Silver, they called me. Lysithea the Lovely.

Himilia was too pompous and full of herself to see past her imperfections. She always had a cloud of red dust floating around her head, claiming the dust layering her surface made her somehow more appealing, yet she looked nothing but a clown. Himilia, narcisstic, bloated, Himilia, would never listen to me of course, and forever flounced about with her red powder leaving a trail behind. He had a right not to love her, even if I had not been there.

Europa had even less of a chance than my red-in-the face sister. Of course, Europa was homely enough to draw even the sympathy of a floating satellite—she is not even perfectly formed, not round like him or me, instead bearing a cracked, oblong shape in the stead. Her surface was pocked with craters, and what might have started as water was frozen over, cracked and broken. Europa never even chanced at love—she was much too shallow, and cold. Emotion never flickered on her pale blue surface, save the jealously that led to her cruel actions. All this he whispered in my ear warmly by him—I am not jealous, I know this to be true. All of it.

No one believes in evil step-sisters, or even simply evil sisters. I still don’t know if the meant for it to happen. Maybe it was simply a joke gone wrong, or a petty plan for vengeance Himilia had thought up and pushed Europa into. Maybe they had only been trying to help me—but no, maybe is not what happened. How can I forgive them, even if it was an accident? I shall never be Lysithea the Silver anymore. New names are given to me now, bad names, because of what they did.

Despite knowing they were jealous, despite know, that when I was at his side, that they would cast hopeful gazes on to be in my place, I was foolish to think no ill of those who I had always treated fairly. Foolish young me, in the bloom of love, to stray so far from a perfect life, for want of knowledge. Himilia had known, surely, and had been the mastermind, but it was young Europa, innocent Europa who I trusted so much, who brought me the false news of his call for help, trapped by black magic on the land of Mistica, hidden from the Heavens in Darkwood Hollow. Europa, for cold and colorless she might be, waxed eloquently of the magic’s effect, trapping him and dampening his golden rays of light. I was devastated.

If there had been no victim to their treachery, I would have applauded my sisters for the careful work they had done. First to give me such a belief, then to carefully maneuver me, as the night was dawning, to witness to flicker of light streaming through the trees of the thick forest. They never had the chance to even prompt me into actions—away I flew, much like a comet in my haste to get just a bit closer, ever nearer, to where he, my love, was.

Never had I danced outside of my orbit before, and never had I felt the effects. It came slowly, unnoticed, until it was too late—evil, hateful gravity took hold of my, cruelly yanking me off balance and sending my plummeting down at an unsafe speed to the surface of Mistica. I could not slow, nor stop. The impact came all too soon.

They call that fateful place Dire Morana. Once a part of Darkwood Forest, it was I who destroyed it, accidentally. I could not stop my descent, and into the trees, into the fire. The forest was dead. As for me—I was broken, deprived of motion as I lay on the surface of the earth and slowly, painfully, sundered and fractured and lost myself.

It was a miracle, really, that I did not die there. I have Pandoria to thank for returning me to the heavens, though she could not heal the wound that broke my heart in two and left me a crescent of my old self. Eons have passed, now, as I trek the skies, no longer a dance but a labor, to orbit and live while all I wish to do is die. I do not talk with my sisters—the sky is big enough to never catch sight of them. To this day they may still flirt and chase him—he does not want me now, scarred, marred, and broken. I am alone, and will be till the end of the universe. I am without love, without liking. There is nothing for me here anymore.

Lysithea the Broken.