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Chang’e would not have lasted as the goddess of the moon if her story had not been circulated across the earth. Each hint of belief was like a breath of magic: it validated her, made her more corporeal, and allowed her the ability to shape and morph Lunaria as she wished.
But no matter her magic, there was one thing she could not do: she could not reunite with Houyi.
Her passing days - so many, so long, so endless - were filled with distractions. Anything and everything to keep the darkness at bay, to leave the shadows of wolves baring their teeth as she felt the threat of heartbreak choking her once again from the inside-out.
Chang’e’s greatest enemy was herself, really, especially when her sadness became a visceral thing that engulfed Lunaria in cloaks and shrouds of dark.
Always, however, she came out of it more magnificent than before. While her darkness could eat up pieces of Lunaria’s glow, her bright moments could suffuse the moon with vibrance. Even so, it was so easy to forget the light when you were eclipsed in darkness everywhere you looked.
The lunettes themselves knew best when to shy away and retreat to other tasks around the moon, and that was when Chang’e refused to sing. That was always the first sign of danger.
Gobi had once been the best one to tread the murky and mercurial waters of Chang’e’s moods, but he had been banished for some slight. Some said he had yelled at Chang’e to forget Houyi once and for all; others said he had told her a joke that had offended her so much that she had picked him up by the scruff of his neck and thrown him to the lunar dunes. Gossip flowed like water even on the plains of the moon.
When Chang’e locked herself away in her chambers for days on end and left her offerings of mooncakes untouched, the lunettes feared the fall of the darkness again. Only Jade had the power to intervene at such moments; he was the one always to leave her with a ray of hope because he was ever searching for a way to reunite Chang’e with Houyi.
But it had been thousands of years since Chang’e had alighted to the moon. It had been centuries since Lunaria had reached its height as the place to be in what the earthians now called the Milky Way galaxy. And it had been decades since Chang’e had begun her nightly performances that kept her high on her pillar as the goddess of the moon.
Chang’e herself would fall into spells where she would stare at the earth, her gaze lost there as if she still wandered those lands she had left behind. The stories about her were numerous there, she knew: some thought her a beguiler, others thought her a victim of the gods’ gambits. But she alone knew the truth. She was just a player in the long history of the galaxy. Someday, the earth would forget her, and someday she would vanish like dust because gods and goddesses were only worth the power of the belief in them. Old gods had died when the religions that had been built in their names had transitioned to the way of myth. Such was the way of things.
Nothing could last forever.
But still Chang’e held out hope. She sang every night, even when her voice felt like it might be raw from the exertion, and her lunettes cheered after every single rendition, even some that they had heard hundreds of times since Lunaria had become a place of music and brightness. When she closed her eyes, she saw Houyi’s smile and remembered a time when love had seemed like enough for any obstacle on earth.
But earth was no longer her home. Even if the day came when Houyi came back to life, there was no guarantee they could even be together. She was the moon goddess, and he would still be in mortal skin on mortal ground.
The Chang’e who had loved Houyi also felt like worlds away from the Chang’e who had become the goddess of the moon.
These were idle thoughts, perhaps, but they plagued her nonetheless. Some days she nearly felt drowned by her own self-pity that she was doomed to a life without end - even though any earthian would have told her she had a great blessing. Who else could see the turns of history from afar? Who else could wield power like she did?
But she allowed herself to feel powerless too often. When she looked at herself in moonglass, she saw only that woman who had done everything for love, only to be cursed because of it. She still saw the flawed mortal woman who had been a plaything of the gods. She still saw Houyi’s wife who was known for being quiet, meek, and kind.
By nightfall, however, Chang’e stood on a stage in ever-changing colors. She knew no bounds, she stretched the limits, and she could make magic with a snap of her fingers or a note from her voice alone. She flew through the night sky and performed her heart out each and every night as the earth turned over in sleep. She was so much more than she had ever been. If radiance had a form, then she was the very personification of such brightness.
But after each performance, when she was alone in her chambers with Jade curled on a cushion beside her, she remembered how Houyi would embrace her and how it had felt to be secure in another’s arms. She had not known such affection for hundreds of years. And even if she could have made a man from moondust, she would not have done it. Houyi was her one true love. No replacement could ever be found or made.
The only breath of life was the performance that came every night whether the moon waxed or waned.
For now, Chang’e was like lightning captured in a bottle, and one day she might shatter the glass. But would it be for better or for worse?
Whatever the answer, each night she sang.