So would you call it a merwolf?
A werehigher,
a startiger,
the last Werelionsman of the Republic of
Vyarapare.
Bara Vedra.
Pedra Draku.
Harinusa.
A place without compare,
inside you; an island
left bare in the sun, and drowned by the sights
of her people in pain.
One more name we cannot do without.
When did you forget how it sounds?
Mama Ujong has waited her entire life
to come back to you, little shadeshifter,
and to revive
everything hurt and tormented about you,
everything that deserves a key to the might
of the Island at the End,
the Golden One left behind
By our hopes and dreams, and everything else ripped under
the tides that bind us to night's
worst retreating, the greatest feeling
of heightening terror:
Mama Ujong has you, dreamtiger.
On your feet.
On to the sea,
where you learn the names
of everything you believe in:
sun, and planets, and base-16 numbers
and the way to call the ocean
to your indomitable vision:
I will see you in the new constellations tonight.
I will see you naked as I am, and ready to be with me, in darkness and light.
I will see you ready to stand for all people, and fight
for our right to be left behind, to the swirling tides
and the way the islands look up to the sky in the darkest of night:
and you will see me, little lion child,
at the dawn of the new, heavenly, hybrid space-time.
This is what it really means to be well-met by moonlight.