Chapter 5 - Friend & Family
Newne, Lunara (The Moon Empire),
On the bed a girl of youth lay prone, her head held up by her hands and elbows, her slender legs bent up swaying back and forth. Her silver hair ponytailed with few strands freely hanging by her ears. Her sapphire eyes blinking gazing on an open book in front.
"The Neirreed Archipelago consists an astonishing value of almost three thousand islands varying in size. Each of which blessed with beautiful, coconut-palm beaches, reefs which are habitats to exquisite marine lives of multiple shapes and sizes," the girl read quotes from the book, "This is a sight only one can bear imagining. A sight of extreme awe—"
"Livia!" interrupted a feminine shout, "Your friend, Cassie, is here... I'm sending her up."
"Yes, mom," Livia shouted back.
Livia closed the book, got to the door, and opened it wide; but no one was at the door. Livia frowned as she looked around, but just then a girl jumped at her and hugged her tight.
"My bestest B-F-F, how have you been, girl?" said the curly-haired girl.
"Cassie..." Livia said, hugging back and smiling, "I'm doing fine..."
"It's been a month since we finished academy," Cassie said, "but you haven't visited me, not even once. You could've at least written to me..."
"I was going to write, but I forgot your gateway code." They both entered the room.
"You could've visited then."
"I could've, but you know I don't like going out." They both sat on the bed cross-legged.
"Yea right, I forgot..." Cassie said, "You don't like being ogled by guys..." her eyes moved across Livia's figure, "You, who'd rather keep her self protected and unused is gifted with such beauty while others who make use of their God-given faces and bodies to find a man aren't even near you on scale... It's sad really."
"I didn't ask to be beautiful... I sometimes wish I wasn't like this..."
"Now that sounds depressing..." Cassie sighed, "Everyone's getting married these days... Even my boyfriend might propose any day now... What about you? Are you gonna camp at home all your life? Don't you want to find yourself a caring young man?"
"I don't know..." Livia said.
"You perhaps like girls instead. Livia, are you gay?" Cassie smiled excitedly.
"No, I'm not." Livia blurted.
"You don't have to hide it from me."
"I'm not."
"Asexual?"
"No, I like boys!"
"Then why do you show no interest in 'boys'?"
"Coz they are boring, ignorant, and stupid..."
"Not all are. Lucas, the mayor's son for instance... He is hot, smart, and intelligent. His grades were the highest in school... He even proposed to you."
"I don't like him... To me, he's only a pretentious egoist after me only for my looks. He doesn't care about me, not a bit. There's nothing not-boring about him. He's the same as everyone aside from his so-called handsomeness and his social status..."
"Well, that's the case for almost everyone..." Cassie sighed, "So, you've never met a boy toward whom you felt a sense of attraction? Not a single one?"
"..." Livia's eyes strayed as if lost in thought.
"Uh-hmm," Cassie coughed, "Who was it? Whom did you think of just now? Tell me— Tell me now."
"Umm— What are you talking about? I didn't think of anyone," Livia said, her face faintly red.
"Fine, don't tell me. But remember, you can't hide him forever." Cassie picked up the book on bed, "Oh... You've been reading about the outside world again... Didn't you say you didn't want to go out? Then you read this stuff," she pointed at a shelf filled with books.
"That 'out' and this 'out' are different... The 'out' I want is out of this empire; the rest of this world, different terrains: mountains, rivers, deserts, beaches, and every other exotic thing." Livia said, "Not out of this house which filled with building and nothing but people... boring people..."
"Well, let's not talk about your depressing dream... it's saddening," Cassie said, "What's not saddening is the Moon Ceremony that is only a few days away... Isn't that exciting?"
"Yea, I guess..."
"I just can't believe it's being held in our small city. Such an honor for a city our size." Cassie said, "I just wish I could afford a ticket to the ceremony... but with people from all over the empire hoarding, that's just impossible—" she then saw Livia's bored face, "You don't even care, do you?"
"I just don't see how it matters to my puny self."
"Hmm... it's our empire's grandest occasion... Every single moon-man should be excited about it... Besides, it's your and my first time to witness the ceremony."
"Guess I'm not every moon-man..." Livia smashed her face into a pillow.
"Well, if you hate it here so much, why don't you run away. Newne is at an edge of the empire, and they haven't barricaded the region since it's a forest, you can easily run away like you did last time. I mean you've been there before..."
"Running away is stupid, and I stopped doing stupid things since that time... If I ran away, they'll find me eventually, and the consequences aren't pretty..." she said, pillow still in the face, "My parents and sister will face tribulations for my actions, how can I do that?"
"mmm—hmm— Oh, a projection globe," Cassie said as she took out a globe from inside a cupboard. "I wonder what's recorded in it," she said, placing the globe on the floor.
Livia pulled her head up in a hurry and shouted, "No, don't—"
The globe emitted light on top and a figure of white light formed above. The shape twitched, deforming and twisting; in the end, stopped as Vill from three years ago, but translucent and made of light.
"It's not what you think," Livia uttered.
"Aha-ha-ha, the cat's out of the bag. So you do have a boyfriend... He's cute..." Cassie grin wide across, "But Umm... Isn't he a bit young though? You're eighteen and he looks fifteen at most... but that's kinda romantic too."
