Luna and the Sunwaker #midnightsunmovie

Luna and the Sunwaker

I feel the warmth of him before he raps his knuckles on my window. My heart pounds though no one will hear him over the sounds of my mother's carnival masquerade downstairs.

The boy enters my room like a summer breeze. "Moonwarden," he whispers, naming me.

On my sixteenth birthday, the Council of Astral Guardianship gave me the moon. It's a dusty little thing, the moon. I keep it in a gilded box, tucked between petticoats in my bureau. "An honor unmatched — a celestial guardian — to keep the moon safe, to set its courses and to place it in the sky." I'm eighteen now, but the conte and the contessa are still too afraid to let me leave the tower.

The boy traces the map laid open on my drafting desk.

I first saw him a year ago. He stood on the bridge over the canal that runs alongside the villa. He looked no younger than me. His hair dark, his skin tan, his nose was freckled like stars on a clear winter night. Our eyes met and his lips unfurled into a smile, a promise of something to come.

"My name is Luna." My first words to him.

"Elio," he replies.

Something glows against his chest — the sun rests in a vial tied around his neck.

"Sunwaker." I step towards him, finally understanding. I know him in the way he must know me. Do guardians always meet this way: drawn together by an unexplainable tug under their ribs?

"Shall we?" He offers me a hand, an escape.

* * *

I hold on tight to the Sunwaker. The streets swell with music and revelers in masks; the last night of carnival is a desperate grasp at living before the city puts on the somber veil of the Lenten season. Crowds push our bodies together, so he takes me in his arms and we dance.

Dawn approaches and we find a quiet place. A secret entrance, a winding stairway. We emerge on the rooftop of the Basilica di San Marco. The air is cool here and I press into Elio to borrow his warmth.

"It's almost time," he says, lifting the cord from around his neck. He unstoppers the vial and the sun falls into his hand.

I hold tight to his shirt. Pushing onto my toes, my lips find his and I kiss him. He kisses me back and something comes to life in my chest. Elio feels as familiar as the beat of my own heart. I don't want to break the embrace, but the bells in the tower ring. As their sound barrels through me, I feel him slip from my grasp.

The world grows impossibly cold and when I open my eyes, he's gone. I shiver against the wind and turn East. There is a sliver of gold on the awakening horizon and I only have to wait seconds to catch him on my cheeks.

A caress. A goodbye.

We'll share the heavens again soon enough.