The sky tore open like a wound as the ancient airship, *Starfire*, soared toward the Shattered Moon. It was a place lost to myth—a broken celestial body orbiting Moonshine, torn apart in an ancient war of gods and dreamers.
Tara stood at the bow, wind in her hair, the feather talisman glowing like a heart aflame.
Jasmine stood beside her, wings folded. Neha tightened the straps of her glider. No one spoke.
They all knew—this was the end.
Arrival at the Ruins
The Shattered Moon was a graveyard of floating stones and drifting memories. Silver dust swirled around them. The ruins of palaces and temples hovered, frozen in time. At its center: a vast platform made of obsidian glass, reflecting a starless sky.
There, waiting, was the Mirrorborn.
He had taken Tara's shape now—her face, her eyes, her fire—only colder. Hollow.
"Welcome, Tara of the Flame," he said, smiling without warmth. "You have come far… only to find you were always me."
The Truth Revealed
The Mirrorborn raised a hand. Around them, visions shimmered—scenes from Tara's life, but changed. Twisted. In each one, she saw herself fail. Falter. Fall.
"You were never chosen," he hissed. "You were forged. A spark born from Moonshine's sorrow. The Princess didn't find you by fate—she created you to fight what she couldn't."
Tara gasped. Jasmine flinched.
"That's not true!"
"It is," Jasmine said quietly. "Not all of it… but some. I saw you in the mirror-realm when I was young. You were already there, waiting to be born. A protector. A sacrifice. I didn't want to tell you."
Tara stepped back. "So I'm not real?"
The Mirrorborn smiled wider. "You're as real as any dream… and just as fragile."
The Final Battle
Tara closed her eyes.
She remembered the friends she'd made. The worlds she had saved. The songs sung in her name. Her fear. Her strength.
Then she opened her eyes, filled with light.
"No," she said. "I'm not your shadow. You're *mine*."
The talisman burst into flame. Wings of golden fire erupted from her back. The platform cracked under her feet as she launched forward, blade blazing.
They clashed—light and darkness, memory and truth, sky and shadow.
Jasmine and Neha joined the fight, guiding winds, creating vortexes of feathers and flame. The sky itself bent from the force of it.
One Last Choice
Tara stood over the Mirrorborn, her blade at his chest. But he didn't resist.
"Destroy me," he whispered, "and you destroy part of yourself."
She hesitated.
Then lowered her sword.
"I won't become you."
Instead, she placed her palm on his heart.
"I forgive you."
The Mirrorborn screamed—not in pain, but in release. Light poured from him, cleansing the broken platform, the ruined moon, and the fractured sky.
And then… silence.
Return to Moonshine
The Shattered Moon began to heal, its pieces drawn together by glowing threads of memory.
Tara, Jasmine, and Neha floated back to the *Starfire*, quiet, solemn.
Back in Moonshine, the people welcomed them with cheers, tears, and songs that would echo for generations.
The Skycore was restored. The city beneath the sky rose higher than ever before. The balance had returned.
Epilogue: A Feather on the Wind
Years passed.
Tara sat beneath the Moon Tree, a sapling grown from the last feather she shed on the battlefield. Children gathered around her, wide-eyed.
"Tell us again about the Mirrorborn," one said.
Tara smiled.
"I will. But not as a monster. As a part of me. Of all of us."
Jasmine stood nearby, a crown of living feathers on her head.
The wind whispered.
The sky sang.
And above it all, the moon—whole again—glowed with peace.