The midnight moon played its morose melody across the night sky. Tcheyelle imagined it began with some light strings, rising gently to be followed by the soft kisses of a piano, delicately played. The strings would rise and fall before the soloist took centre stage overwhelming the starry audience with gentle tones. She would close her eyes and hum the tune in her mind as the moon waxed and crossed the sky. Tcheyelle sometimes caught herself wishing that she was the moon from time to time, imagining what it would be like to drift through the night sky to the accompaniment of such music.  

Such sad music, she mused. But so peaceful…

Tcheyelle sighed deeply, the same way she always did when she had listened to her midnight moon and knew she must leave this place. Finishing off the last of her canteen, she rose from her perch on the cliff’s edge and looked out over the city and its vast dock lands which sprawled out in the basin below.

Thousands of lights permeated the view, glowing and adding their glare to the landscape. The entire city was built within a giant crater carved out countless millennia ago by wrathful rock. The sky tower dominated the area, as was to be expected. It rose up into the clouds above, its lights blinking on and off since time immemorial.

But there was a time when the moon and the sky tower had not yet met and she kept closer company with the stars than with humanity…She thought to herself.

On ground level sat countless structures of varying height – in the centre, clustered around the sky tower itself, were the larger buildings rising high into the night but completely dwarfed by their gargantuan sibling which stood as the centre piece of the financial and industrial heart of the city. Dotted around the western edge of the basin were the hovels and shanty towns where the unwashed masses played out their lives, rotting, stinking and dreaming of a better life. The affluent holdings were located primarily on the northern edge, in huge lavish apartment complexes and grand villas. Surrounding them were the entertainment hubs – grand parks, theatres, bars and clubs and, like a barrier between rich and poor lay the brothels, the casinos and places where you could satisfy any sort of desire…for a price. The pleasure hubs…Or so they were called here in the city.

Tcheyelle had been perched in her favourite spot, on the rim of the basin’s southern edge, close to the docklands which stretched across the south and east of the crater. Whenever they came here, usually to resupply or refuel she would come to the same spot up on the cliffs above the city and she would watch and listen as the moon assembled her orchestra and played her concerto into the night…But soon the day would approach, guided by slivers of fiery light and she must leave once more for the stars.

Reattaching the canteen flask to her belt she began her descent to the docks below where, amongst the myriad of craft, lay her own vessel – inert and slumbering. The rest of her crew had likely finished their supply details and were probably sleeping, gambling or “sleazing” somewhere in the city. Tcheyelle wasn’t a gambler and she certainly wasn’t about to go “sleazing” anytime soon so she figured that sleeping was probably the best option.

Midnight was long past and the moon and her orchestra were fast approaching the curtain call as the slivers of morning were approaching. Tcheyelle slept soundly, dreaming of sorrowful music and of names long forgotten. Such joyful sorrow…