📜
✦ story by desertwind
How Coyote Lost the Moon
Coyote gambles the moon away in a game of bones — and the nights have been dark half the month ever since.
In the old days the moon was always full, and Coyote grew bored of a world with no shadows to hide in.
So he wagered slivers of it, night by night, in a game of painted bones against the patient badger. Badger won and won, and pocketed each sliver, until the sky was black.
Ashamed, Coyote begged, and Badger — who never meant to keep it — returned the moon a piece at a time. That is why the moon still waxes and wanes: Badger paying back a debt Coyote should never have made.