Anais leapt into the clearing and noticed too late that it was night out.

 

She cursed under her breath. Tunnel vision wasn't a new problem for her during a hunt, but utterly failing to notice the setting sun was certainly a new level of hyperfocus. She heard the beast she'd been hunting dart away and cursed again. Losing her quarry was demoralizing, but probably for the best. It's not safe to be out in the wilds at night, and she was deep in the wilds.

 

The hunter examined her surroundings, attempting to get her bearings. The clearing she stood in was unremarkable, save for the pond in its center. It was circular, nearly perfectly so, and placid save for around the rock in its center, which bore markings indicative of it being a shrine. And concerningly, she didn't recognize it at all. She started to put together just how bad her tunnel vision had gotten as she realized she had no recollection of the path she took to get here. If she could determine which way was east, she could at least travel in a straight line in that direction until she found a familiar landmark. She looked up and found the moon...

 

Was it always so pretty?

 

She stared up at it for a minute, until she was interrupted from her reverie by a voice.

 

<Who has trespassed in my sacred grove?>

 

The voice spoke no language she knew and seemed to come from nowhere, existing only in her head yet sounding like song reverberated off of stone walls, defying strict comprehension but expressing its meaning directly. Anais looked around for the source of the voice and found nothing. She turned back to look at the moon, and discovered a moonbeam shining down onto the surface of the water, just in front of the stone at its center. A graceful figure descended moonbeam, clad in billowing robes flowing in a breeze only they seemed to recognize and giving off their own pale light. It looked to be about six feet tall, with alabaster skin and a pair of antennae jutting from its forehead. It wore its flowing platinum blonde hair down to its waist.

 

The moonbeam faded, and the figure opened its eyes, both solid black and contrasted by the simple, near-circular platinum eyebrows that sat above them. The voice spoke again.

 

<Tell me, little hunter, how have you come to be in my grove?>

 

"U-um, I was hunting? And got lost. Then it was night, and- I should leave-."

 

<Stay. You will do as I command of you, little hunter.>

 

Anais decided to stay. She couldn't be certain if this was a fey, or some other sort of spirit, but in either case it would be unwise to provoke its anger. (Well, provoke it further than she already had, probably.) She also felt flustered by the creature's attention on her.

 

<Return your gaze to the moon, little hunter. Bask in its light, take in its features.>

 

Anais did as commanded. It was a reasonable command; the moon was very beautiful, especially tonight for some reason. She stared at it, focused on it. She began counting its markings, lost count, and began again. It was fascinating celestial object. Dim enough to look at directly, bright enough to still light the ground beneath it. It was a potent source of magic, associated with both fey and celestials. Water charged under the moon's subtle power was a common ingredient in potions and spell components, especially folk magic, and the more powerful magic that often protected against fiends and monsters often drew on the moon's protective power.

 

<That's right, take in all you can of the moon's endless splendor. Let it fill your mind and push out your worries.>

 

She felt her worries about getting home or avoiding danger start to melt away, as the pale light stole more and more of her focus and pushed her deeper and deeper into relaxation.

 

<Look on the moon, and listen to my voice. Lose yourself in its beauty and sink deeper under my control.>

 

She kept her half lidded eyes on the moon, staring dumbly upward as the world around her vanished from her mind. She dimly felt her clothes slip off of her form. She wasn't sure when the creature had approached her, but she didn't have it in her to care. She was lost in the moon's beauty, deep under the creature's control.

 

<You have committed a grave transgression by hunting in my sacred grove, little one, and the price for such a transgression is normally severe. But for a beautiful thing such as you, I am willing to extend a different fate.>

 

She felt profound love bubble up from her core for the powerful creature that had seen fit to spare her in its mercy.

 

<Your transgression is a gift to me, little doll. You will surrender yourself to me, pretty thing that you are, that I may take in your beauty at my leisure. Just as the moon hangs in the sky to to accept your gaze, so will you stay in my domain to accept mine.>

 

Anais blushed at the realization that this creature wanted her, and not as a lover but as decor. She knew this was bad, but any part of her that could act on that knowledge was buried under a heavy blanket of trance. Instead, she found herself looking forward to the prospect.

 

<When I snap my fingers, you will drop into a deep sleep, from which you will not awaken. You will be eternally preserved by the magic of my domain, but your personhood will be stripped from you.>

 

Her blush intensified. The concept should be horrifying, but instead she felt her excitement at the life ahead of her pool in her gut.

 

<What are you?>

 

She struggled to find an answer under the weight of her trance. She dimly remembered a life of physical exertion and danger, but the more she thought about that life, the more she realized it didn't belong to her. It belonged to somebody like her, somebody she might have once been, but it was not who she was to be. The answer came to her, and she replied.

 

"A doll..."

 

<Very good. Now, sleep.>

 

*snap*

 

She relished the feeling of her drop, and sleep took her.