Blood Moon Princess

Rose felt her mother die, and it was already the third time today. She swayed unsteadily and nearly dropped to her knees before she found purchase on the cenotaph where her mother's name was written.

"Here lies Selene Frey. Beloved mother and daughter."

This time, when Rose swayed, it had little to do with the shades; she blinked away tears at the edge of her vision. She refused to cry, refused to show weakness. She clenched her fists so tightly they could draw blood. She should be angry, furious. And she was. But now, she was more tired than anything else. She wanted to kneel and cry or lean on the cenotaph and slide down until she sat on the grass beside the smooth black stone that marked the grave. But she couldn't do that either. Her family was here. And they were watching.

Why couldn't I have come sooner? She wondered. The news that her mother had died had come late, as though it was intentionally delayed. And it was, her mind added. Not only did the information come late, but before she'd got here, her mother had already been buried. Almost as though someone had wanted to hide something about her death. And Rose thought knew exactly who.

The first thing Rose had done had been to go home and scour the place for any magical trace she could find to piece together the puzzle of her mother's death. It had been cordoned off by yellow tape that showed the police investigation was still ongoing but Rose didn't care about that. She knew the police wouldn't find anything important and even if they did, her family would make sure it had scrubbed every trace of incriminating information clean. She could only hope that they had been negligent and had forgotten to take care of the actual scene of the crime. But to her disappointment, they had been very thorough; the magic traces in her mom's home had been scrubbed clean. When she tried to peer into the dreamscape, she'd found...nothing.

Soon enough ,the police pulled up, no doubt alerted to her presence by the report of a nosy neighbour reporting a trespasser on the deceased woman's territory. Rose had heard when the call was made but she just didn't bother with it. She was sitting on the front porch when two officers showed up. They approached tensely with their hands on their weapons, after the initial interrogation and they established who she was, they "politely" requested she follow them back to the station for an inquiry, which Rose didn't mind because she had some questions for them herself. And then came the questions.

Where were you on the night of the murder?

Did your mother have any enemies?

Do you know what could've caused that?

Rose knew they were curious, angry even for answers. Her mother had lived here for quite some time and these people had grown to be fond of her. For a moment Rose felt a pang of sympathy for their frustrations but only had boring answers for them. Why bother with the normies, she wondered, someone would be along in a while to alter their memories of the event shortly and they'd probably recall the event like a gas explosion or something along those lines. And after a while, the whole event would be like a dream. Meanwhile throughout the time Rose had been there, she kept trying to scour the place through the dreamscape but unlike at her mother's place where the vestiges had been scoured clean, these had just been scrambled. Instead of images, visuals, and impressions that she could make sense of, it was a kaleidoscopic mess that she couldn't understand. She was done here, the police - to no one's surprise - were more clueless than she was. It was time to leave. Soon enough, they let Rose go, albeit reluctantly and so she found her way to the last place she would be able to pick up any trace of her mother, the graveyard.

If her mother's body lay here, as she suspected it should, then Rose was certain she would be able to pick up clues of some kind. And the moment she neared the grave she began to pick up the scent of shades so strongly it caused her nose to wrinkle and her eyes to water. Although they were growing fainter by the second.