Luna [Eclipse]

Luna spent a lot of her early life in and out of hospitals—at first, not for herself, but for her mother. Not that her mom was sick—or not sick in the way she claimed to be sick: She had a factitious disorder. Or, as it’s more widely known—Munchausen’s.

Luna calls her “Momma Munchie” now, and laughs sardonically, but it’s not that funny. Her father was a workaholic; too absent and too enabling for too long. Her mother was wrapped up in her illness performances, taking up every spotlight and leaving Luna in the shadows or putting her into a caretaking role at a single-digit age.

Luna was invisible, being taught the cure for it: Suffering. Suffering, sickness, injury—the key to visibility and attention and love. She made her first suicidal gesture at age 9.

By the time she was in high school, she was in hospitals almost as often as her mom, her father had essentially divorced them both, and Luna had accumulated all kinds of ways to desperately try and avoid being abandoned, or else to control who was doing the abandoning. And that’s what it ultimately was, for her: Avoiding her mother leaving her emotionally in the dust for the umpteenth time.

Luna left instead, chasing freedom in a life that maybe could prove more fruitful than the constant hospitalizations and flaky psych ward friendships that always turned competitive. She and Aven bonded over their adjacent reasons for taking to the road, and in joining the rest of the group, picked names in defiance of their old realities. Aven, who had spent so long cold and in the dark of her room, adopted the alias ‘Mercury;’ hot and bright and as close to the sun as could be. Luna went with ‘Eclipse’: No longer watching others cast shadows over her, she was the eclipser now; the sole body standing in the light.

She struggles—a personality disorder characterized by fear of abandonment doesn’t mesh well with a support system of people always on the go and moving on—but they come back. Most have taken her under a wing; are patient with her emotions and make sure to check up on her so that she doesn’t feel forgotten. She’s trying to stop blowing up on Aven and running off with strangers so often. It’s hard work. She’s trying.

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