I will not see
Seven-year-old Luna, Timeless City
"How wired she talks," laughed the little girl with blonde locks dolled up in a princess manner, pinned up with pink fluffy clips.
"Better look at her with that haystack of hair," said the girl's deskmate. He picked up his bottle and mockingly pretended to throw the water on Luna's face. She shielded herself with both hands, and the bunch of bullies burst into a peal of laughter. The boy glanced at his friends and then looked at Luna again. He commented, "Grandma has a mop just like that."
The pleasure of bullying that the four kids were enjoying, as it was the best moment of their lives, became Luna's trauma.
The four kids dominating the threshold of the classroom forced all the children to bear the torture as they entered or left the classroom, and they fearlessly played various pranks with their classmates—such as tripping or sticking various things on the backs of the ones passing through—on whomever they felt like or whoever could be pushed easily.
Among their prey, Luna seemed to be their favorite for such amusements; thus, she avoided going to the bathroom during recess; however, it wasn't the solution; she had to walk through the dreadful door when it was their time for the gym.
"Does your mom understand what you're saying, freak?" Nora Valdes, the blonde girl, asked. With her hands on her hips, she took a step toward Luna. "Or do you both speak the same language?"
"How about we lock her up and never let her out?" The girl next to her commented, playing with her hair and chewing a piece of gum.
Luna hesitated to protest for herself, her legs shaking as she clutched her spare equipment bag in her arms. Feeling like she was about to collapse, she turned to run, but the arrows of the remarks coming from behind reached her and stung deeply. "Oh, she's after the teacher! If you tell her anything, you'll see tomorrow!"
Luna's heart felt like it was shattering in her chest as she waited for the teacher outside the office. She positioned herself away from the other kids, hoping for some privacy. But she kept glancing down the hallway, anxious that someone might come by and see her there.
The bell for the start of classes had already rung. The hallway was empty, and she studied the large pots of giant plants that were otherwise unnoticeable when it was full of teachers and students. Even the walls stood out, decorated from place to place with paintings and screens that displayed pieces of information.
Luna searched for the familiar face with hopeful eyes. She bit her lips and rolled her eyes, fidgeting her body back and forth.
"What are you doing here? Why aren't you in class?" Mrs. Catty Jeerin, her teacher, was just coming out of the chancellor's office with her catalogue in her arms and her bag over her shoulder. She was a woman of middle age with relatively short, wavy, dyed blonde hair. She was obviously irritated by her presence there, as evidenced by her small eyes and constant frown.
With renewed fear, Luna swallowed hard at the lump in her throat. "I... I wanted to wait for you because Nora and the others are making jokes about me," she said in one breath.
The teacher interrupted her with a click of her tongue, displaying annoyance, and strode towards the lecture hall without a second glance at her.
In the classroom, the foursome sat exemplarily. Nora's face, sitting in the first row, showed utter disregard and unconcern, as if absolutely nothing had happened. Luna had expected her to be at least uncomfortable.
"Go to your seat, Luna!" The teacher settled at her desk. "Nora, I understand you're making fun of your classmates. Care to explain why Luna is mad at you?"
Nora stood up and turned to Luna with her most innocent face. Pure wickedness played in her eyes for a split second, disappearing instantly and giving way to a sweet and kind voice. "I'm so sorry, Luna. Please forgive us; we didn't know it would upset you. We didn't mean it."
The girl looked back at the teacher. "It wasn't on purpose, ma'am. It just sounded funny the way she was talking."
The next day passed without any major events, except when Ms. Jeerin asked everyone in a literature class to say a few words about how they had spent their recent long weekend. When it was Luna's turn, not knowing what else to say, she tried to talk about the day she spent with her father in Ether.
"Mine father took me along while he inspected the lands of the duchy. 'Twas a warm day, and he allowed me to dabble mine feet in the lake within yon meadow. Then we ventured together to witness the works crafted by the blacksmiths and carpenters..."
"What did she say?" While some students genuinely asked questions because they could not understand her, others laughed so hard that Luna's eyebrows curled downward and insecurity pinched her constantly.
"That her father is a duke."
"What?!"
"I think it's time to stop watching so many movies!" Mrs. Jeerin observed the commotion in the class; she didn't even glance at Luna, sarcastically suggesting, and the whole class burst out laughing at the teacher's comment.
Shame burned her cheeks and her legs quivered.
During the following recess, it rained jokes on the subject from the children all day.
"OMG, your dad's like a king or something! Did you hear her? She thinks she's a princess!"
"Princess of the freaks!"
Luna didn't know anymore what was okay to say and what wasn't. Fighting back tears, she peered around the classroom, which had immaculate walls and floors and was brilliantly lit by large windows. They had a huge interactive whiteboard, the Internet and a projector. They had possibilities here that Ether had never heard of, such as the ability to make it hot or cold at the touch of a button. Nevertheless, the people here seemed to have fallen out of the wolf-in-sheep's-wool story that Mother Delmyra sometimes told her.
From Ira's reactions at home, she had already understood that she shouldn't mention anything about Ether, but she hadn't known that it applied everywhere and to everyone. Whatever she said or did seemed to bring more ridicule or trouble.
All the time after what happened and until she went to sleep, Luna felt lost, terrified to even speak. The mocking faces of people and her helplessness in speaking even when she had a voice made her miserable each passing day. It suffocated her that she had so much to share and nobody to listen to. She realized after her nightmarish experience that she needed to learn to keep everything to herself.
─── ･ * ｡ﾟ ☆ *.☽ .* ☆｡ﾟ *･ ───
As soon as she woke up in Ether, she quickly changed with the assistance of the maid, Athalie. Instead of going to the dining room, she enjoyed a breakfast of a mushroom omelette with cheese and milk at the kitchen table. She preferred to eat here in the company of the servants, taking in the mouthwatering smell of what was cooking—now potatoes baking in the big oven—and balancing her feet as she watched the cook and his helpers bustle about.
Afterwards, her feet carried her across the main courtyard, where she played with a torn plant she held upside down, pretending to be a doll whose dress was the leaves.
It was warm, and the sun pampered her. The sadness and the grievance from the Timeless City were momentarily locked away. Luna wanted to comfort herself in the Ether City as long as she was 'here', knowing not how long her good time would last, and when she would again open her eyes in the world that was her nightmare.
She looked up at the clear sky with her hand over her eyes, as she loved to feel the sun's rays on her face.
Hopping from foot to foot, she reached the small round courtyard just outside the main entrance where her father's office was, the door leading directly into the courtyard. Luna knew better than to disturb her father when he was working, so she didn't come here very often.
Those who had business with him could go straight to him after passing through the entrance control, cross the small courtyard, and wait to be invited in. There were also two wooden benches, the legs of which the ivy had thought would look better covered, and it had also taken care to decorate their backs and sides with her dark green, glossy, slightly serrated leaves.
She sat down on one of them and played with her little plant for a while.
"No prince for the fair maiden, eh?"
Her father's voice, appearing in the doorway of the study, made her jump to her feet, straighten her back and adjust her posture, as her mother had always taught her in her etiquette lessons. She fidgeted, hiding her hands behind her back.
Caedmon tilted his head slightly to the right and said, in a tone not directed at her, "I'll be back in two hours!"
"My Lord, the meet..." Luna heard Sir. Rusara's voice, her father's chief advisor and adjutant, who was always in that office. Luna often wondered if he slept there as well, never seeing him come or go. Her father only stared inside for a moment before closing the door behind him.
"What do you say we go check on the rabbits? Maybe they've bred more?"
"Yeahaa..." Luna jumped up and clapped her hands, then quickly adjusted herself.
Caedmon held out his hand and Luna lost hers in its warmth. Whenever that hand was near, she always believed that nothing bad could occur. Her head tilted back to look up at him, high up there.
A broad smile and eyes wrinkled at the corners greeted her. He raised his eyebrows briefly. "Come hither, noble steed!"
"NO!" She shouted, laughing and didn't even have time to blink before she felt herself being picked up and lifted into the sky, both screaming and laughing at the same time. Then she was sitting on his broad shoulders, both hands wrapped up to her elbows in his, and she screamed even louder as Caedmon took off with her.
The warm air whipped across her face as he ran, and she saw in a blur the servants who stopped their work to stare after them as they passed through the workshops centre.
When they finally crossed the square full of their people and came out into the first meadow before the livestock area, her father slowed down.
However, she didn't sense that he was tired or breathing heavily; he just seemed to be stopping to enjoy the walk on the grass that was almost ready to be mown instead of walking on the wide cobbled path that crossed the duchy to all its areas.
Bundles of everlasting daisies were everywhere.
Near the pond where they kept koi fish, the croaking of frogs could be heard, like in a massive concert for the summer. She breathe in pure air, looking at the vastness of the meadow. It was a clear area with just a few trees, especially left for the grass, which they mowed several times a year.
"Daddy, what fancied thou as a child?"
"Ah, many a thing, anything in particular thou seek?"
"Hadst thou friends?""
Her father took a few more steps before answering, "Yeah, I had."
For a while, Luna just watched how the horses' stables—the first that came into view—grew bigger as they approached. "Were they ever unkind to thee?"
Slowing the pacing to minimum, her father squeezed her hands to ask, "Are our folk unkind to thee?"
"Nay, father! All here are wondrous! I merely... I sought to ask... Hast thou ever felt fear?"
Another set of steps followed before the answer came.
"Even now, fear doth visit me at times."
"Forsooth?"
"Mhm."
"And what dost thou when none dost accompany thee?
Already they were nearing the stables, and the neigh of the horses reached them. Luna could see two grooms tending to them.
She felt herself being lifted and put on her own feet, and her father crouched near, holding her hands in his like in a giant shell, strong but warm.
"We all bear fears, child of the moon. Dost thou wish to share thine with me? I am forever at thy side."
"Not here." She whispered, looking down, then back up at his face. 'Not here; there is the nightmare I fear.'
Confusion appeared on his face, and he looked around as if to search for what made her uneasy. "Doth this place stirs thy fear?"
Luna shook her head when his eyes searched her face.
"Then where?"
Looking at their hands, she wasn't sure how to answer. She looked up as she felt herself patted on the head and said in a low voice the only thing she dared to say, "In my dream."
Her father let out a sigh as he continued to stroke her hair, "Whenever it doth betide, dear child, thou art welcome to seek us out, and we shall stand by thee."
"I know," she said, then met his eyes,"Does it not trouble you when I speak like this?"
"Speak like what?"
"That my words differ at times? That I sometimes say 'here' in place of 'hither,' or 'you' in place of 'thee or ye'?"
His arm went around her knees and he lifted her up. Wrapping her arms around his neck, they headed again towards the livestock.
"Do you want me to talk like you from now on?" He said, using the exact words she used and heard in Timeless—it sounded funny in her father's accent—and pulled away a little so she could see his face, looking at him wide-eyed. With soft eyes, he laughed and one corner of his mouth lifted slightly. "What did you think? I didn't know the language my daughter spoke."
─── ･ * ｡ﾟ ☆ *.☽ .* ☆｡ﾟ *･ ───
Eventually, after a few more similar occurrences of Luna's mistakes of sometimes mixing things up in both worlds, Mrs. Jeerin called Ira to the school. And Luna had to come together with her mother.
"I think it would be good for her to cut down on her TV time because it gets pretty exaggerated the way she talks. And she can't complain about people making fun of her when she's the one causing all this. I appreciate a rich imagination and even encourage it here at school, but Luna needs to learn the difference between reality and imagination. And most of all, she needs to stop this old-fashioned wordplay. It was cute for a while, but it's getting to be too much."
Luna didn't see what watching TV had to do with her language, but she didn't dare object.
☆ .☽. ☆
When they got home, Ira turned into a dragon. Luna had felt her mother was boiling all the way home and had shrunk into the car seat. As soon as the door closed behind them, she started to scream.
"Are you kidding me with this bullshit? What are you? Cut the crap and act like a normal kid!"
She stormed into the kitchen like a whirlwind and began pulling various pots and utensils out of the cupboards, slamming them on the table in frustration.
"Like I have time for anything else. Now I have to deal with your nonsense!" She paused to stare at Luna, who stood motionless at the door, trying to imagine her father's hands wrapped around hers with the warmth and strength of a giant. Her legs trembled so badly that she could melt on the floor at any time.
"You won't watch TV for a whole month! Don't you dare ask for it! And don't leave your room unless I call you to eat! Do you hear me?! Stop standing there like a goddamn statue. Go!" Seeing her mother's temper, Luna was terrified to cry, even afraid to be afraid. Her father could not be here. She knew that now.
"I won't see! I won't hear! I won't see it! I won't hear!" she repeated endlessly. The trauma entering her heart and soul, making hertremble.
Gifts
-- Gift
received Weekly Power Status
-- Power
Ranking 
-- Power
stone