The Emotional Core of Moonborn: A Journey Through Darkness and Homecoming

For all who have felt invisible, powerless, and trapped—may you reclaim your soul and find your way home.

There was a time—long before Moonborn found its shape—when I wandered through my own wilderness, searching for a place that felt like home. I have always been drawn to the stars, to the hush between worlds, to that ache of not quite belonging, and it is woven through every page of Laïna’s story.

Spiritual awakening is not a single revelation, but a journey—a slow unraveling and reweaving of self. For me, as for Laïna, it began with questions: Why does it feel like I don't belong here? There were years when emotional overwhelm pressed so close I could scarcely breathe; when the idea of escape—of letting go—seemed gentler than the rawness of living. Laïna’s longing, her sense that the death might offer solace, is not a metaphor, but a memory. Not my present, but a shadow I have walked through.

There is a darkness that comes before the dawn—the so-called “dark night of the soul.” It is not dramatic, only silent and consuming. In those years, I searched for answers everywhere: in rituals and books, in the slow discipline of morning practice, in the hope that somewhere, if I looked hard enough, I might find the thread that would lead me home. The journey was not linear. There were moments of clarity, then sudden plunges into confusion, grief, or anxiety so dense it seemed to swallow the air itself. I wrote these moments into Laïna—not as a catalogue of pain, but as a way of tracing the spiral of awakening, the way healing circles back on itself, always deeper, never quite the same.

Yet even as I wandered, I began to sense that home is not a place, but a recognition. A returning to oneself. Laïna’s journey across Rea is not only a flight from danger, but a movement towards this inner homecoming—a willingness to be seen, to ask for help, to let go of the old belief that survival depends on carrying everything alone. This, perhaps, is the heart of transformation: not the absence of darkness, but the courage to reach for connection while still inside it.

I am no longer lost in those shadows. But I remember them. And in writing Moonborn, I wanted to offer a hand to anyone who has felt the same—who has looked up at a foreign sky and wondered if they would ever belong. If you find yourself somewhere on that journey, I hope you see yourself in these pages. The search is not a failing. It is a kind of devotion—a way of honoring the longing for home, even as you are still on the road.

You can read a preview of Moonborn by clicking here.