Luna's breath came out shaky as she stared at the woman in front of her.
No. Not a woman.
Herself.
Same face. Same eyes. The same faint scar above the left brow she'd gotten as a child climbing too high in her mother's garden. But this version of her looked... untouched. Calm. Powerful. Like someone who had never been afraid of the dark because she'd *become* it.
The white world stretched endlessly around them, silent and alive at the same time, breathing with a rhythm that matched Luna's racing heartbeat.
"Where am I?" Luna asked, her voice echoing softly through the emptiness.
The other Luna smiled, slow and knowing. "Outside the cycle."
"That doesn't explain anything."
"It will," she said gently, voice layered with patience earned through suffering. "Just not all at once."
Luna folded her arms, trying to ground herself in something familiar. "You said this is a future I was never meant to reach. Why?"
The smile faded like the sun behind clouds.
