novelraw Chapter 303 - Interlude 10 - Lunar New Year (Part 2)
Chapter 303 - Interlude 10 - Lunar New Year (Part 2)
"Why are we cleaning your room, Emmy? Don't you got like, people for that?" Ritika questioned, as she leaned on the broom she had been given.
Soot, meanwhile, went through some boxes in the closet, while Albarich used his flight magic to dust off the corners of the ceiling.
Emily, previously focused on her computer, looked over her shoulder to her cat.
"Everyone cleans their rooms the week before New Years! How else are you supposed to welcome the New Year if you have last year cluttering everything up?" the princess tittered, before she returned to her screen.
"Yeah, but why do we have to do it?" Ritika complained.
"It's more about the act of it," said the Maestro. She shut down her computer and crawled under her desk to start unplugging cables. "Even Mom, Dad, and their court clean the throne room and their personal quarters for New Years."
The cat sighed and returned to sweeping (not that there was much there to begin with.)
After disconnecting her tower from all its peripherals, Emily pushed it out from under her desk. "Soot! Can you get me the box?!" called the princess.
Soot emerged from the closet, cardboard box in hand.
"Great! Can you find some padding?" she requested next.
While her loyal golem wandered off to go find some packing material, Ritika set her broom off to the side and joined the Maestro.
"What are you even doing?" asked the cat.
"Packing up my computer to get it shipped home," replied the princess, while she hopped up to attend to her monitors.
"Oh?"
"Figured having a real computer in the office will be nice." She smiled at her presently disassembled PC set up. "Plus, it'll let us use the laptop for other things. Dunno what, maybe traveling like this? We'll figure it out."
The rest of the New Years clean up went well--Soot returned with way too much packing material and Emily packed up her computer, alongside all of the peripheral devices that went with it. Ritika and Albarich in the interim finished the scant dusting and sweeping; with the only real difference when all was said and done being the missing computer.
With the traditional New Years cleaning completed, the quartet sauntered down the halls of the palace. "We'll drop this off in the mail room and hit the town," Emily said, patting the big box Soot carried. "Hopefully, it should get there a day or two after we get back."
Emily showed no fear of the Lunar postal system (especially since she could use the royal coffers to pay for the good shipping), and dropped off her computer without a second thought.
All of her chores handled, Emily directed her trio to the parking dock where she picked out a car from the many options available to her. Just a standard model, nothing too fancy or elegant. After all, bringing a fire and earth element into town was already going to attract enough attention as it was.
This didn't bother the quartet--especially with all of them armed with the solar ossias. If someone did want to play the fool, they'd get a swift kick in the ass.
"My god," Emily uttered as they drove.
"Hm?" Albarich raised a brow, looking over from the passenger side window.
"Shouri really is a bad influence on me," she mumbled, though chuckled to herself after a moment.
The dragon didn't get it and went back to watching the city pass by through the window.
While the sky box displayed the bright hues of a clear blue day, the festivities wouldn't begin until dark. That didn't mean there wasn't anything to see.
Albarich yawned, bored out of his mind. None of what passed them by was new to him--this was the place of his birth after all.
Ritika and Soot on the other hand, took in all the sights with wonder. The technology that kept the billions of people that called the space rock home was impressive, otherworldly even. Massive cities lay buried beneath the lunar crust, the Riterrans none the wiser to their presence on this foreign world.
It was astounding that such large cities thrived in a hostile environment like space. Soot noticed the general construction of how the country of Luna was laid out.
Interlocking bubbles where each one contained a different aspect needed of society. They started in the administration sector--the castle, where the chaos was unified under one ruling body. Simple enough.
Through their travels they encountered industry, residential, and even farmland. A lot of farmland. Way too much farmland.
"It's crazy how many farming cities there are," Ritika noted.
"We have a lot of people to feed," Emily commented without missing a beat. "Even so, we are importing a lot from Terra these days," she added.
The cat nodded. There was probably an insane amount of logistical hurdles to overcome when it came to feeding so many people in an environment not suited to their survival.
Something else the cat noticed is when they were in the tunnels connecting the domes, the car moved way faster. Ritika had expected to feel the shift, but the increased G-forces never came.
Finally, the cat had enough and spoke her curiosity. "Are we going faster?"
"Yeah, they got some kind of like vacuum or magnet system or something," Albarich lazily chimed in.
"Don't remember the exact name for the tech, but Al's right. When you're in the tunnels like this, the car travels at crazy speeds. We can cross half of Luna in a couple of hours like this," Emily explained.
"Woah, wild." Ritika placed her hands on the window and watched the lights of the darkened tunnel streak by.
Finally, they arrived at their destination--which looked less like a city and more like a massive machine.
"What in the hell!?" the cat screeched, pointing at what lie ahead.
"Welcome to Procellarum, the beating heart of Luna."
"This is like every steampunk book I ever read," Ritika uttered, her jaw hanging open as they walked through the jungle of metal and machinery. Massive cogs spun overhead, their teeth joining in an incomprehensible mess. People milled about, having casual conversations with one another and going through the motions of their day, as if such scenery was normal.
There were even buildings built into and nestled among the massive structures. Given the scale of the metal monstrosity, it felt as if the inhabitants were less owners of the land and more like they were in a mutualistic relationship with the very city itself.
"Procellarum is one of the main life support system of Luna," Emily told the uninformed pair in their midst.
"Everyone here has a job. Nobody knows what their job actually does, but that's just the way the upper crust likes it," Albarich commented.
"What do you mean?" Ritika questioned.
"Only the Fourteen's court knows how Procellarum works. It's by design to make sure that no one person can sabotage it," Emily explained.
Ritika frowned. "But then how do they maintain it? How does anyone know if something's wrong?" wondered the cat.
"Like Al said: everyone has a job. Usually, it's stuff like 'grease this wheel', or 'change that filter'; something very simple and mundane that's hard to mess up or forget about since it's their singular responsibility. The people that work on these machines get paid very well to live here as far as I understand. So they usually don't complain and do their very simple job," replied the princess.
"There's also that bit of Lunar patriotism baked in," Albarich added. "The prockys always looked down on the rest of us, more so than even the nobles in the castle," the dragon huffed.
Emily patted her dragon's back, rolling her eyes and shaking her head. "It's worked for thousands of years, so nobody complains about it." She shrugged. "I never questioned it, either. If it ain't broke don't fix it, I guess."
The princess' expression darkened. "I suppose there is that one story, though," she mumbled.
"Hm?" Her three Resonators looked to her expectantly.
It was clearly an uncomfortable topic, as her gaze was anywhere but her loyal three--she scanned those around them. She had been trying to ignore the suspicious stares of the workers that lived on the machine. They were clearly listening and hadn't been too kind in how they were watching the foreign elements.
"A-anyways! Let's look around more!" came the quick deflection. She tapped her shoulder twice, then held a fist on her gut and the other on her forehead. She dropped her head bound hand down to her other fist, making the thumbs connect on their nails.
Ritika and Soot responded with an outstretched palm and tapping the bottom of it with their index and middle fingers.
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Albarich silently cursed his continued unwillingness to learn the language.
The quartet slipped by the wary gazes of the rabbits and made their way down the streets. Procellarum felt like any other Lunar town, but at the same time was a beast of its own. It was just so strange seeing the entrance to a maintenance tunnel be someone's home. People lived within the gears, vents, and machine parts, as if they were average brick and mortar.
Children played like their environment wasn't actively hostile towards such frivolity. One wrong move could crush them. Yet, they chased one another with reckless abandon.
Even the machine town was in the festive mood--with plenty of people wandering around in plain clothes rather than ready to work. Little stalls were set up for various foods, games, and other New Years festivities.
"Oh! Come here!" Emily grabbed Ritika and Soot and dragged them to one particular booth.
An older rabbit woman shuffled a deck of cards, awaiting the next wayward souls. Thankfully her boredom would be alleviated by the Lunar princess herself and two non-lunar elements; far from typical guests (though the rabbit couldn't intuit the identity of the Maestro).
"O' blessed mother, may we have our fortune told through the art of hop?" asked the princess.
"Of course, deary. Will it be just you three?"
"Yes! I'll go first, since these two have never done it."
The elder nodded and shuffled her deck, she dealt cards out in a formation of ten--three in a single file line, two next to each other, then one, then another two side-by-side, and finally two more single cards. She handed a coin to Emily who smiled and stepped over to a set of ten connected boxes.
Upon closer inspection, the boxes were laid out just like the cards the rabbit placed.
Emily flicked the coin onto the course before her. The coin spun through the air and landed all the way at the far end of the arrangement. The Maestro took a breath and began the game. On one foot, she hopped through the first three squares. She was methodical and made sure her footing was good and that she didn't touch the lines. When the fourth and fifth boxes approached she landed on both feet, one in each square. She hopped onto her opposite foot for the sixth. At the seventh and eighth, she planted both feet down, and the ninth had her back on the foot she used for the first three squares. She jumped to the last square and knelt on her one leg.
"Tails!" shouted the princess. She picked up the coin and rose, all on one leg. Then she completed the course in reverse with perfect grace.
"Whew." She let out a huff as she returned the coin to its owner.
The rabbit flipped the tenth card in the set. "Hoh hoh, what a busy year you're going to lead. Full of new burdens and responsibilities, but it is only temporary despite how overwhelming it may be," said the elder.
Emily giggled. "Yeah, that sounds about right."
The elder scooped up her cards and looked to the fire and earth elements. "Who will go next?"
Ritika stepped up to the plate. Her coin landed on the fifth square. She followed Emily's motions, though the Maestro noticed her cat was using her tail alongside her arms in the balancing effort. Thankfully, she landed in such a way that she just had to balance normally to scoop up her coin.
"Heads!" said the cat.
She completed the course, ending the thing shakier than she thought she should have.
"Oh goodness, my poor dear, your year will be quite unstable. I hope you rely on your family in times where it might feel like life is out of control."
The cat hummed. The situation with the vampire came to mind. She had tried to push it back, but there was a dark thought in her mind of things escalating further than that.
Ritika offered a strained smile. "Yeah, you're good; I'll try to keep that in mind."
Finally, Soot took the plate. Unlike his two companions, he flicked the coin with far too much power. Instead of sending it at the court, it flew straight up like a bullet. It landed square in the first space and he proceeded to follow the movements of his two companions before him.
The difference was, he was made of rhythm and lunar regolith, not blood and muscle. As such, he completed the course without difficulty. He did have to show the coin to the rabbit due to his non-existent vocal cords.
"Stay focused, old one. Even if your life is full of new and exciting things, don't allow the offerings of the wish sage to cloud your judgment."
Soot nodded slowly, as contemplative as ever.
"Hey, where's Al?" Ritika wondered.
"He wandered off. Probably to get some kiwi," Emily said. She pulled out a few coins from her pocket and dropped them into the tip jar the old rabbit kept on her table.
"Thank you, dearies. May your new moon shine brighter than the last."
With their New Years fortunes obtained, the trio continued their walk down the "main street" of Procellarum. It was mostly black haired rabbits, with very few other Resonator species mixed in (all lunar element, naturally). Emily's company of distinctly non-lunar companions earned the watch of the suspicious public.
Ritika grabbed her Maestro's hand and loosened the mouth of her sand pouch at her waist.
Soot made no additional movements, but kept all of his senses open for any danger.
Emily walked on, pretending to be oblivious to the attention garnered by their casual stroll. Would they be as suspicious of the Maestro if they knew who she was? Or would they think her a traitor? Either way, she knew all of their tricks and had no fear or ill-will towards any of them. They were just people living their lives, and she was living hers with the partners she chose.
Thankfully, no one was foolish enough to mistakenly attack a member of the royal family (even if it was a meaningless title). The trio found their meandering lunar companion, looking over a mound of fresh fruits. There was the expected assortments of little brown fruits, but there was also a much more unique prize Albarich had his eyes on.
"What's that?" whispered Ritika, pointing to the strange five pointed yellow fruits.
"Oh! They have star fruits!" Emily rushed over. "The harvest must have been really good this year if they're selling them here," she commented, picking up one of the mysterious fruits.
"What's so special about it?" wondered the curious cat, also picking up one of the fruits to really appreciate it.
"From what I understand, they're hard to grow in greenhouses here on Luna, but grow extremely well under the few places where you can see the unobstructed night sky," explained the princess.
"Too true little miss!" exclaimed the old man that ran the humble little fruit stand. "These fruits take the wisdom of the stars to grow, hence they grow in the likeness that they strive for," he waxed poetic.
After paying for their selections, the quartet parted ways from the kind fruit vendor and continued to wander through the machine city.
"You know, it's said that star fruits were the favorite of the Traveler. He brought them to Terra as a show of good will to the terran people," Emily explained as they walked.
"The Traveler?" questioned Ritika.
"It's a really old story. One who was blessed by Seres who could see the future foresaw a great disaster and left Luna to warn the people of Terra of the coming calamity. He foresook the modern pleasures and conveniences of Luna to warn those below."
"If it was such a big deal why did he do it?" wondered the cat.
Emily beamed pridefully as she spoke. "Simple! Because it was the right thing to do."
Ritika hummed, mulling that over. "I suppose that makes sense," she mumbled. "I mean, is it really that big of a deal though? Couldn't he just come back?" pondered the cat.
"No, this predated the era of the Seven Heroes. Going to Terra was a one way trip--they didn't have the infrastructure for space flight. We could send people down, but getting people back up was nearly impossible. Even then, the trip down wasn't without risk since landing conditions were uh… tricky, to say the least."
"The lunar heroes did that too, right?" Ritika asked.
"Yes, Princess Shona sent her twin brother down to Terra to take part in the prophecy, as foretold by the Traveler."
The quartet came to a stop in front of a gate that barred their way. Within the walls of iron and steel was machinery that extended up into and through the sky box above.
"I wonder what it was like for them, knowing they could never go home?" Emily whispered.
"Probably liberating," Albarich finally spoke.
"You think?" asked Ritika.
"Too contained, too safe here. Terra's got its own problems, but at least y'all are free," commented the dragon.
Emily smiled. "Yeah. You're probably right."