The Moonbird’s Gambit is both the title of book five in my series, The Moonbird & the Seedling, as well as a game piece in the fantasy world I’ve created. It has a very, very specific use: [spoilers redacted].

It may or may not be a very subtle hint at a plot twist and the way the series ends.

In its own way, the moonbird’s gambit represents Muirgen’s arc: a character arc I’ve worked on more than any other character.

She wasn’t even hard to figure out, but she’s a good character who ends up doing messy things for the right reason. Pulling off the motivations and redemption portion have to be done just so. Muirgen must be forgivable, for both Saoirse and my someday readers.1

Especially as Muirgen’s ‘messes’ escalate in book two, and then the full ramifications are realised at the end of book three and the beginning of four.2

I’m not creating a character with a messy arc to glorify flaws, but to show even good characters mess up. Sometimes they mess up so much, they hurt the people they’re trying to protect … but there is still reconciliation, forgiveness, and healing. There’s real change in Muirgen on the other side of this.

She learns, and grows.

Not everything Muirgen does is messy though; she is a truly likeable character who loves and protects Saoirse fiercely. She brings healing, warmth, love, and security into Saoirse’s life in book one. The two have good chemistry, and I’m delusional enough to think their banter is hilarious :)3

There was a marked hesitation, but the abrupt change of subject dampened Saoirse’s mood again. She twisted her lip and edged the iron pot with a single finger.

‘Everything’s okay, isn’t it, kid4?’ Muirgen sounded hesitant and uncertain, but Saoirse couldn’t be sure.

‘I don’t know.’ She shrugged, a listless lilt in her tone now. ‘Maybe.’

‘You’ve been a little off recently. I don’t know what’s eating at you, but it’d be good for you to do something with your friends.’

‘Actually, Adam and I fought before he left for holidays,’ Saoirse blurted out, grateful her back was to Muirgen. But then she forced cheerfulness into what she said next: ‘I suppose it’s just one those things.’

She managed a convincing laugh even though the start of tears trickled down her freckled cheeks again.

Muirgen might have replied, and if she did, Saoirse didn’t hear. One thought tumbled into another: from her argument with Adam, to Eversoll’s threat, and all the way back to the night she’d met Muirgen. This went on until she became so lost in her worries, fears, and mental exhaustion, Saoirse bore down onto the bit of steel wool she used to scrub the cast iron, oblivious to it cutting up her fingers; heedless of Muirgen’s questions.

‘Hey, kid! Are you listening?’

The words barely registered, an apparition vaguely skirting the outer limits of Saoirse’s awareness. She scrubbed on. Her blind gaze went past the window to the glowing autumn that’d claimed the forest beyond Muirgen’s cottage. Faded golden and hazy orange boughs tossed handfuls of stray leaves into the air with drifting motes of snow. Beyond, the soft grey atmosphere vanished into the stunning blue of the westward mountains.

But Saoirse was oblivious to it all. The cycle of anxiety ended, reset, and began all over again when Muirgen finally intervened. She caught Saoirse’s left wrist, jarring her back to the present.

Finally aware of the pain biting her fingertips, Saoirse blinked while Muirgen lifted her hands from the water. Watered down blood dripped into the sink where the steel wool had cut Saoirse’s skin.

‘Kid,’ Muirgen gasped, ‘you scrubbed that pot and your fingers within an inch—’ A concerned green gaze turned on Saoirse. ‘What were you thinking?’

‘I guess I’m out of sorts.’ She laughed frailly.

The tears blurring Saoirse’s vision were brushed away with her own shoulder. She knew what a weak excuse it was and braced herself for the inevitable questions. A momentary impulse to confess about Eversoll and the grimmark gripped her, but Saoirse quickly abandoned it. By then, suppressed tears began rattling her body.

Muirgen would never understand, no matter how desperately Saoirse wanted her to.

‘Saoirse.’

The gentleness Muirgen conveyed in her voice broke Saoirse. ‘Kid’ was Muirgen’s fond pet name for Saoirse, but saying her actual name? That was intentional.

‘I’m fine,’ she insisted, but Muirgen’d heard her crying. ‘Really.’

Muirgen drew Saoirse to the table where she seated Saoirse in a chair and sat opposite her. With a clean cloth, Muirgen began blotting out the blood and dishwater seeping from Saoirse’s fingers. It stung, but Saoirse didn’t show it.

‘I know you’ve been pulling away from me,’ Muirgen began after she’d staunched the miniscule cuts. ‘And it isn’t much of a leap to suppose you’ve been doing it to Adam, too?’

‘M-maybe a—a bit,’ Saoirse breathed.

‘Is that what the argument was about?’ Muirgen words were measured and calculated, as though her intention was gentle understanding.

Saoirse shrugged. That was more complicated than she wanted to explain right then. But because there was immediate relief in not being accused, Saoirse didn’t pull herself free when Muirgen held onto her. Instead, she leaned into the solace it gave her.

‘Is he … hurt?’ asked Muirgen carefully.

‘He’s angry I can’t remember things from before,’ Saoirse said. ‘I … I try. Sometimes. And … I want to, but it’s so hard. But then he sees what I’m doing to help the Forgotten Things. It—it reminds him of—’

Saoirse cut herself short. If she admitted why Adam was spooked, that monster slaying and waking Forgotten Things is how she vanished the first time, Muirgen herself might put a stop to everything Saoirse was doing now.5

I mean, don’t they have chemistry? :’) These two live rent free in my head <3 Also, that bit above is very unedited as it’s from my beta draft, but I hope it’s still entertaining <3