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lunamaraproject · 2 months

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LUNAMARA: Fragments [9]

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Pg. 2-4 Authored by Avellana Corylus

Celebrating 4000 years of AVE! Publications, we are honoured to have the assistance of famous fashionista and heir to the Lux brand name, Aurelia Lux to walk us through four monumental centuries of fashion, from the Lunar Migration to the Platinum Age to the Post-War period. It has been a time of much change from the era of our great, great grandparents, one of cultural exchange, social upheaval, and fashion from the properly practical to the retrospectively ridiculous. We are also delighted to host Felix Cygnus' latest shots wearing various historical recreations, and even some vintage pieces from the Lux vaults!

First, The Lunar Migration. As our ancestors crossed the stars to reach our home, some practical considerations had to be taken in hand when it came to designing clothing. While the lack of gravity in deep space would at first seem enticing for the safety it offers, it only means that sudden stops are more dangerous for snap-points. This lead to a fashion of inflated, flexible joints around ankles, wrists, necks, and even on the sides of the head. These were achieved either through padding, or more commonly through magical air buffers. The materials used to make these clothes are, these days, prohibitively expensive to make, as the resources required are hardly as common on the Surface or on Luna. Studying legacy garments, Aurelia Lux has here presented us with beautiful recreations that are as close to the originals as is possible with current provisions.

🌗

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8] [9]<-- More every Thursday!

Comic [Prologue]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com/)

#lunamara #lunamara project #pidgestories #nousanti #felix cygnus #artists on tumblr

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lunamaraproject · 2 months

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LUNAMARA: Fragments [8]

👑

The old paper crinkles pleasantly under Felix’s fingers. For all he loves the sleek design of the tablets he usually teaches from, sometimes the tactile realness of paper is more enjoyable. Plus, when it comes to educating the princess, such luxurious materials are nigh on expected, so he can get away with requesting them.

“So this is you,” he explains as Elsie leans halfway over the desk, her hair spilling over her shoulders and nearly blocking his view.

“It doesn’t look like me,” she critiques with the honesty one can only expect from a girl barely 60. She grabs the nearest pencil and starts drawing hair and a dress onto the anatomical model.

“Okay, you fix it. Will you listen to my explanation while you fix it?”

“Mmhmm!”

She’s fairly good at multitasking, so he presses on. “When you eat manna, it goes down into your stomach here,” he both holds his hand on his belly, and taps on the diagram with his highlighter. Helpfully, she draws a star where he tapped. “Yes, there. Once it’s in your stomach, your body takes the manna, and breaks it down. What does it break it down into?”

“I dunno,” she says first, but he waits, until eventually she hedges a guess. “Maen?”

“Yes!” he grins brightly. “Maen is the energy that makes up all magic in the universe. It’s actually a shortening of ‘magical energy’, neat right?”

Elsie is too busy adding frills to the hem of her dress to actually agree with him about how interesting etymology is. A shame.

“Once the maen is in your body, it travels around it on the maen circuits. They run right next to your veins and nerves, and have special ‘pools’ all over, where the maen gathers. Can you draw more stars where I point?”

“Yeah,” she agrees, and he begins working around the body. First, travelling up the chest, then the neck, then the head. She has to draw the stars very small here, because there are so many points particularly on the face and skull. It looks like the figure sneezed on a constellation. “I can’t even see the eyes any more…”

“That’s okay, we’ll draw a bigger head in a minute so you can fit the stars in better,” Felix chuckles. “It’s important to know where the pools are, because they’re the places where maen exits the body when we use it to cast magic. Different kinds of magic use different pools on the body. So when I give you a kiss on your booboos, it’s not because I’m trying to eat you up!”

Elsie gives him a dry look. “I know that. I’m not 40.”

“I know you’re not!” he holds his hands up in surrender. “But I’ll always remember the time when I pretended to eat you, and you got really scared!”

“Well I don’t remember that at all,” she sniffs, then turns back to adding more details to her dress on the paper. “Are there pools on the hands?”

“Yes there are, very good! And also all up the arms here…”

It doesn’t take long to cover the rest of the figure in stars, on the front and the back side. Meanwhile, Elsie’s dress design is also coming along swimmingly.

“Did you get the idea for this dress from the present you got from the Naribians?” Felix asks.

“Yes, but I’m making it better with my own parts,” she says airily.

“You know, humans have maen circuits too!”

Now this finally gets her full attention. She looks at him like he’s grown a second head. “They do?”

“Yep! They’re veeeery thin and don’t get used much. Unlike starfolk, humanfolk can’t use their maen circuits by just thinking about it. So do other animals and plants, but even smaller, nearly not there at all.”

“Ohhh…” she trails off, mulling this new information over. “Doesn’t it hurt?”

“No, it’s not like with us where it hurts them to not use magic every now and then. They can live their whole lives and never use it, and be perfectly healthy!”

She continues to chew on this new fact for another minute of silence, before suddenly saying. “But what if that’s why they die fast? Humans, and animals.”

Admittedly, Felix wasn’t expecting that. Leave it to kids to come up with unexpected questions. He’s struck silent for a moment, pondering this himself. Who knows, maybe that was the reason. He’s not educated enough to know for sure. But then, when he’s not even an adult himself, he’s not sure what people are expecting.

“You know what, I don’t know!” he finally says with a laugh. “Let’s make a note of it, so we can look it up later in the library or with one of the professors.”

“Okay,” she agrees, scribbling the note in the top corner of the paper. “It doesn’t make much sense that the plants like trees live almost as long as we do, but the humans don’t. Humans look almost just like us, but their ears are weird and small and their bodies are big and hairy.”

“Sure do!”

"Do you think if I tried I could grow hair on my face like them?"

"... Maybe one day, Elsie!"

🌗

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7] [8]<-- More every Thursday!

Comic [Prologue]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com/)

#felix cygnus #princess elsennae #lunamara #lunamara project #pidgestories #nousanti #artists on tumblr

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lunamaraproject · 2 months

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LUNAMARA: Fragments [7]

🦢

“A little to the left… no, no, the other left,” Felix tilts his head, squinting. “No, too far. Back to the first left.”

“How are you half a century older than me but don’t know your left from your right?” Rufus grumbles, adjusting the picture on the wall again. He steps back and checks his work, and then walks away before Felix can annoy him by asking for more adjustments. “That’s the last thing in the living room box.”

“Thanks again for this, Rufie,” Felix says, tottering after his superior and out of the living-dining room. He really does think it looks nice, though for the sake of Rufus’ patience, he’ll wait until after he’s gone home to tweak things a bit.

“Cassius Corvus has informed me that you are prone to ‘chipping a dainty little finger’ if you’re not supervised while doing heavy lifting tasks,” Rufus replies, with a bit of heat, probably from the unwanted nickname. He strides down the hallway to the bedroom ahead of Felix. “And I owe him a favour, so.”

“Aw, I thought you were here because you wanted to help me unpack out of the kindness of your heart!” Felix trails behind him, skipping a little. “And hold on, how long have you and Cas gotten along?”

“Since we found we could commiserate over having to look after both you and the Princess,” Rufus glowers at him over his shoulder. He nearly walks into a low ceiling beam by doing so, and dodges at the last moment. “Why in Luna’s name are you so obsessed with these low ceiling apartment designs?”

“It’s cozy! I save on the heating bill! I would think that someone as energy efficient as you would appreciate that!”

“You are going to crack your head open on one of these and then all will be able to see what I suspected for the past century: that it’s empty!”

“At least when they’re this low you can reach to hang the ceiling decorations– woah!”

Felix is proud of himself for dodging the slipper that Rufus just threw at him. It was, luckily, the first thing he happened to grab out of the box labeled ‘bedroom’, rather than the ornamental globe, or the lamp. That might have been a greater test of Felix’s reflexes.

“I can leave you to do this yourself and if you chip then that’s your problem.”

“No sir, pwease sir, not my delicate widdle fingies! Pwease, merciful Lowd Canis!”

The look that Rufus gives him could, as the humans used to say, sour milk.

“Never speak like that again.”

“Yessir.”

Rufus turns back towards the box, and drags it further towards the center of the room. The nicknacks inside are practically overflowing, and it’s only one of three fairly large containers Felix has shoved his entire bedroom into. He did have to sleep here last night, so the bed is made up, but it looks a little sad and lonely without its dozen throw-pillows and blankets to drape here and there. Rufus starts taking out these things and looks more and more aghast at how many there are.

“You do know that your family crest is not an excuse to start actually nest building, yeah?” he says, holding out a particularly obnoxiously coloured pillow. It’s bright pink, and fluffy, and shaped like a heart. Felix plucks it out of Rufus’ hands and hugs it to his chest.

“The Cygnus family does not hold a monopoly on enjoying comfortable living! But we are very good at it,” he places the heart pillow directly in the middle of the large pile against the headboard of the king size bed. “I like collecting these sorts of things. They make my home feel like my home no matter how many times I move!”

“If you just stayed in the palace you wouldn’t have to move at all,” Rufus fires back, taking out a jewellery box and showing quite a sweet amount of care in delicately placing it on the dresser. “You know the Princess would be delighted. And Cassius would be relieved. And I wouldn’t have to deal with your stupid excuses for being late to the office.”

“But unlike you, I like to keep this mythical thing called a ~work-life balance~,” Felix wiggles his fingers and releases a light sparkle into the air. Rufus looks disgusted at him for wasting magic for dramatic effect. “Which is much harder to do if I live in the same building where I work.”

“Seems to work fine for the royals.”

“Ah, but as you have likely seen from existing in the proximity of the palace and around some extremely stressed out royalty, it really doesn’t,” Felix counters, dusting off a small mirror and setting it to one side. “And I am not a royal, so I’m not obligated to put myself under that kind of pressure. So I won’t.”

“So you’re just going to live in one crumbling ruin of a building after another?” Rufus frowns as he sets hairbrushes and polish onto the dresser.

Felix watches him for a moment, and then smiles. “Thanks, Rufus.”

It catches him off-guard. “What? For what?” Rufus asks, squinting at him as though expecting some sort of stupid joke.

“For caring. For worrying about me,” Felix says, entirely sincere, picking up an empty box and folding it closed. “I know you don’t want me to get caught in some sort of cleaving event and end up in a million pieces on the surface. But I promise I do thoroughly check the location of my apartments, and that they’re not likely to fall off the side of the city at a second’s notice. I’ll be fine here. Really.”

There’s an awkward silence, wherein Rufus won’t look directly at Felix, a soft scarlet glow at the tips of his ears, which is how Felix knows he was right on target. For a man who keeps people at arms length, Rufus is certainly easy to read once you know how.

It’s sweet, really. Felix appreciates it.

With a purposeful flourish, he hefts up one of the two large boxes remaining onto the bed, and opens the lid. The inside is almost exploding with fabric. “Anyway!” he declares. “Onwards to putting away all my wardrobe! Rufie, grab the other one!”

“... Wait, are both of these just clothes?!”

🌗

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6] [7]<-- More every Thursday!

Comic [Prologue]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com/)

#lunamara project #lunamara #nousanti #pidgestories #felix cygnus #rufus canis #artists on tumblr

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lunamaraproject · 2 months

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LUNAMARA: Fragments [6]

🦢

Felix is sure he once heard a philosopher say that only two things were certain: death and taxes. Having been embroiled in the political sphere quite against his will for the past 140 years of his life, he can say with certainty that not only is that true, but that people will occupy 90% of their time arguing about one or both topics when presented with the option to do so.

He doesn’t, technically, have to be here. He’s a mid-level bureaucrat at best, these days, and he worked hard to make himself less significant in the public eye, so he’s not obligated to turn up to public senate meetings. But Cas asked him, and Elsie– well, she didn’t ask, she’s too proud for that, but she also didn’t forbid him to come, which for a girl just a couple of decades past a century, means she desperately wants his company.

Cas plays his role as a guard very well. He looks imposing and cold in his gleaming armor, standing at attention with his spear in hand next to Elsie’s seat at the head of the long wooden table. His gaze is hard and constantly moving, sweeping over the irritated expressions of the senators in front of him. Behind them and further back, a much less organised gaggle of common people, those who are interested enough to take time out of their day to watch old fogies argue with a girl young enough to be their granddaughter.

The room is packed. He’s not sure what that says about their society, or whether the situation has simply gotten to a point where nobody can afford to be “disinterested in politics”.

“My Lady,” says a senator through his teeth, as Elsie inclines her head in his direction. “If the Queen’s government doesn’t disclose to its people the full details of the incident, I fail to see how we can maintain mutual trust!”

“You are expected to trust your Queen by her nature of being Queen, Senator Aurelius,” Elsennae replies. “And all the relevant details have already been disclosed to your office, and to the public.”

“And yet none of it pertains to exactly how long we have left running on our current power!” he snaps back, raising his voice and drawing a few shouts of agreement from the crowd. “The people need to know exactly how much is needed to keep their homes aloft. How else are we to live our lives?!”

Another senator slams her hand onto the table. “How long do we have until another cleaving event like this!?”

“If we don’t know, how are we going to evacuate people from the area in time?!”

“How long before Lunamara itself drops out of the sky!”

Elsennae raises her hands to calm her people, though it takes a few seconds before they quiet down. Felix feels his skin crawl with an unpleasant feeling. For some reason, it reminds him of the whistling of a mortar shell through the air.

“In the interest,” Elsennae says loudly and clearly. “Of the people of Lunamara not living their lives in anxiety and fear, we have chosen not to openly disclose the numerical values of the power needed to maintain current altitude. Regardless we ask for people to continue operating on minimum power at all times, and encourage those who feel ready to enter the Dream–”

Felix moves, but Cas moves faster, smacking the bolt of magic out of the air with his spear, and sending it careening into the nearby wall, where it explodes with enough force to knock multiple senators from their chairs. The crowd panics, as do the politicians, but Felix scrambles to Elsie’s side.

“Felix!” Cas barks, standing between the princess and the crowd. He’s looking for the offender, but in the chaos, it’s unlikely he’ll find them. If he does, Felix doesn’t envy them. “Get her out of here!”

He doesn’t need to be told twice. Elsie’s still small enough to be picked up, which he does, sweeping her into his arms and escaping out of the side door. The palace is a maze, but he’s as familiar with it as he is with his own face, so he takes a winding route that would lose any pursuers that could somehow get past Cas. Again, unlikely, but he’s not made it this far without being careful.

Finally, he stops in a small side room. Closing the door, he seals the edge of it with crystal. Hardly the strongest, but better than nothing. Then he leans against it, sliding down until both he and Elsie are sat on the floor.

This room used to be for servants, he’s fairly sure. It hasn’t seen use in a century, and the dust is prevalent. Elsie would probably use that as an excuse later, for why her eyes are bloodshot and her throat sore. A princess ruling in the place of her sleeping mother can’t afford to look weak.

For now, here with him, she’s just a little girl crying in his arms, shoulders shaking with the weight of an entire crumbling city upon them.

If Felix can bear at least some of the weight for her, he’ll attend every farcical meeting until the end of time.

🌗

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]<-- More every Thursday!

Comic [Prologue]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com/)

#lunamara #lunamara project #nousanti #pidgestories #cassius corvus #felix cygnus #princess elsennae

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lunamaraproject · 3 months

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LUNAMARA: Fragments [5]

💥

If Felix closes his eyes, he can pretend that the distant rumble is merely thunder. That the pattering against the canvas of the tent is just the rain. That the cries of shock and pain are…

Well, his imagination isn’t all that good.

“Why is it that I’m always the one who has to patch you up?” Cas grumbles, Felix’s wrist held delicately in his hands as they glow with magic. The wound isn’t that deep honestly, but you’d think he was about to lose the hand if Cas wasn’t there to heal him.

“You say that like you’d let anyone else do it,” Felix teases, and receives a sharp look for his attempt to lighten the mood.

“It wouldn’t make us very good morale boosters if they saw us getting blown to pieces,” he snaps, before turning his attention back to the gash. Felix’s own crystal has hardened around the wound itself, leaving a large chunk missing, a ravine between his palm and his forearm. Actually, with the right angle, it is possible that someone could chip a little further in, and then he really would lose his hand. The pain is dull, and it tingles as Cas uses his own magic to fill in the gap, glimmering midnight obsidian against garishly bright fire-opal.

Temporary measures secured, Cas closes a gold cuff around Felix’s wrist and sits back to inspect his work. Like this, you can’t even see the injury.

“It’s only a chip,” Felix utters softly. “And we’re more than just morale boosters.”

Cas huffs an unamused snort out of his nose as he stands up, moving back over to the medical supply kit. “I’m not a military grade healer and you’re not a military grade anything, so tell me what exactly we’re here for, Fel.”

“Hey, I resent that! I’ve been really useful!” Felix frowns.

He doesn’t even get a reply to that one, as Cas pulls his armour back on, marking him as a medic. Felix worries about him when he’s walking around with a great big target on his back. The enemy has shown they’re not averse to shooting non-combatants. For all that Cas frets about Felix’s safety, he’s the one who is most at risk here. There’s only 15 years between them, but that’s enough for Cas to assume that Felix doesn’t know how to take care of himself, or what their real purpose is here.

And it’s not for morale. The soldiers that see him and Cas rarely ever smile.

Anger is a great motivator. Poor wretched orphans, we - your starfolk brethren - will avenge your losses for you.

Like Felix even asked.

Another great rumble of not-distant-enough thunder, another chunk of a beautiful world rendered into ash and dirt to rain down on the surface again, wrenching trees from the soil, lakes from their beds, and people from their lives. Felix would rather not have any of it associated with his name, nor with Cas’.

But the Queen said they had to, and what authority have either of them got to say no?

🌗

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]<-- More every Thursday!

Comic [Prologue]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com/)

#lunamara #lunamara project #cassius corvus #felix cygnus #artists on tumblr #pidgestories #nousanti #fragments

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lunamaraproject · 3 months

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LUNAMARA: Fragments [4]

🐴

“Touch it.”

“Absolutely not.”

“You’re being a baby. Just touch it!”

“I’m going to lose my fingers! Its head is bigger than my whole arm!”

“It’s not going to want to eat you, it’s vegetarian! You heard the teacher!”

“I don’t know what that means, Cas!”

Before Cas can answer Felix, the creature next to him snorts another hot burst of air into his hair, ruffling it and startling a laugh out of him, and a shriek from Felix. Cas doesn’t see what the problem is. The teacher said that as long as you didn’t stand directly behind the creature and spook it, nothing bad would happen.

“Humans ride on these things!” he reassures him. “Look, it’s friendly, you overgrown mote, it just breathed on you. Vegetarian means it only eats plants. You know what a plant is, don’t you?”

The sour look that Felix gives him, half hidden behind a hay bale, could easily wither the oldest oak tree. “I’m not stupid Cas.”

“Coulda fooled me,” Cas teases, grinning as he watches the glow rise in Felix’s ears.

“I’m going to bite you, if you keep talking like that,” Felix threatens, still very much glued to the hay and not threatening in the slightest, especially since Cas grew half a head taller than him 2 years ago.

“You’ll chip your little soft teeth.”

“I’m not soft!!”

“Then come and touch the horse!”

Cas watches Felix fight an internal war with himself. Admit that he’s soft and would chip if a branch hit him, or pull himself together and come touch the earth creature. It’s not like Cas means to be mean - rather, he thinks Felix’s fear is based entirely on not trying, and Cas hates to roll over and give up on anything. Seeing other people do it, honestly, pisses him off.

His mother would give him a glowing hide for swearing, even in his head. But she’s up on Lunamara, and he’s on the coolest field trip, and Felix is still acting like he’s 45 not 90, so he has other priorities.

Finally, movement. Felix edges out from behind the hay bale, practically hugging the side of it still, his pin-straight amber hair falling forward as he ducks his head. Cas has always swallowed his jealousy at how pretty it is, especially compared to his own, dark and fairly thin locks. Maybe the horse will think it’s like those karots it eats. That would definitely set back Felix’s progress, but also, it’d be really funny, and therefore worth every additional hour he’d have to spend hyping him up again.

Once his friend is within range, Felix clings to Cas’ arm and stares up at the horse. The enormous creature stares back down its long snout, its dark eyes and long lashes blinking slowly at them both. There are no horses on Lunamara, of course. The air is thinner up there, and they wouldn’t survive - really, only certain kinds of birds can manage it, and not for long.

A shame. He’d have loved to prank Felix by putting one in his room.

He almost misses the moment when it happens, but in a sudden burst of bravery, Felix holds out a shaking hand towards the horse’s long snout. After a beat of curiosity, the horse gently nudges into his fingers, making Felix jump and nearly stand on Cas’ toe. He lets him off for it, because this time, he’s won.

“See?” he says lowly. “And you didn’t lose any fingers.”

“Yet,” Felix mutters, but there’s a growing light in his eyes, a fascination forming with the softness of the creature’s skin, the place where hair transitions in, the restrained power in how it moves. “Cas.”

“Mmhmm?”

“Thanks,” and he’s smiling, that infuriating smile where Cas knows that later, he’ll look up every scrap of information about horses, declare them one of his new favourite things, and become absolutely insufferable about them for the following half a decade.

Still. Worth it.

“Any time, softie.”

“Hey!”

🌗

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]<-- More every Thursday!

Comic [Prologue]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com/)

#lunamara #felix cygnus #cassius corvus #nousanti #pidgestories #lunamara project #artists on tumblr

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lunamaraproject · 3 months

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LUNAMARA: Fragments [3]

🦢

“What’re you doing?”

Felix doesn’t startle - Elsie is hardly the most stealthy in her approach. He pulls himself bodily out of the large filing box he was halfway falling into, having to unstick a stray notepaper from his long hair, and turns to smile at the young girl.

He would never call her that out loud, now that she’s reached that particular age where a youngster insists they’re grown enough and hates to be treated like a child. To do so would be inviting her wrath, which in turn would mean Rufus’ wrath, and Felix can’t afford that.

“Sorting through some old historical documents,” Felix replies, holding up a few sheafs of paper. “Though, it hurts my soul a little that items from my youth are now called ‘historical documents’.”

“Well you fought in the war, you must have known you’d be making history,” Elsie says, sitting on the edge of the box in her wide, poofy skirt, quite unlike the typical style of courtly formal wear. Her moonlight silver hair is worn in two buns on either side of her head, which always makes Felix think of those adorable ‘bear’ animals from the surface. He knows that if she let her hair down and dressed appropriately, she’d be the spitting image of her mother the Queen. Perhaps that’s why she never does so.

“Actually, at the time, I was more worried about where the next meal was coming from. We were on the surface, and there’s no manna there, so it was quite nerve wracking,” Felix chuckles, turning the old scraps over in his hands. “And I wasn’t the only one. We don’t have many official documents left from that time, since all of them were digital, and the systems are down or gone now. Mostly just these letters sent to home by soldiers, or other odds and ends.”

“Hmm,” she kicks her feet back and forth, craning her neck to look at what’s in his hand. He shows her, though her face immediately twists in a frown when she realises it’s in Common. He should really teach her how to read it, but they have other priorities than learning nearly-dead languages. “If there was no manna, what did you eat?”

“Surface substances. They grown on the plants, and sometimes it’s the plants themselves. I was somewhat loathe to eat any of the moving, breathing creatures, but the humans weren’t, and nor were most of my comrades by the end of it,” he tucks the sheets into a pocket in his tunic, and glances around the cavernous shelves of the palace archives. “It tasted amazing.”

“Tasted?”

Felix smiles at her, chuckling. “Surely when you were very, very small, someone brought you something from the surface to eat…? Someone devastatingly beautiful…?”

Elsie looks thoughtful, then snaps her fingers in realisation. “Oh, yeah! Cassius brought me that thing! An ah-pull!” “I did! I brought it!” Felix whines miserably, hanging his head by her knees like a forlorn pet. “I can’t believe you forgot my thoughtful gift! My beautiful apple!”

“Oh please, I was like, 25!” Elsie huffs. “How am I going to remember one gift from a century ago!”

Felix clutches his chest. “So cruel! I got that apple from one of the last attempts to reclaim the surface! I almost got chipped! Look!” And he hitches up the edge of his tunic to reveal…

“...I can’t see anything,” Elsie declares, squinting at his thigh.

“There! This hairline fracture!” he pokes pointedly at the thinnest, most nigh-invisible line just above his knee, showing the faintest glimmer of orange fire-opal bright crystal underneath. “Never been the same since!”

When he raises his gaze, he’s met with the patented ‘Totally Over It’ Elsie look. “How can you be so old and such a whiny baby at the same time.”

“Ack! You’re too cold, Princess Elsennae!”

“Ugh, stop! Stars, can you be any more embarrassing?” she shoves his shoulder, though with no real force, and stands up, dusting off her skirts. Certainly, this room isn’t the cleanest. “I’m going back upstairs, come find me if you discover anything actually cool or useful.”

And with that summary end to the conversation, the last of the royal family of Lunamara marches her way out of the archives, leaving Felix in the dark, surrounded only by the history he himself is a part of. He smiles, and tries to remember what an apple tastes like.

Maybe one of the files in here will describe it.

🌗

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]<-- More every Thursday!

Comic [Prologue]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com/)

#lunamara #lunamara project #nousanti #pidgestories #artists on tumblr #felix cygnus #princess elsennae

50 notes · View notes

lunamaraproject · 3 months

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LUNAMARA: Fragments [2]

🦢

Felix makes sure to stop at the Overlook, as ever. No need to rush through the palace halls to her highness’s side with more portents of their once glorious city’s decline. Instead, he takes a moment to enjoy the view of what else they lost, in the century before. For a short while, he can forget even the weight of the report he carries in his arms.

The Surface is beautiful, even now.

“Felix!”

He turns his head to look, though he needn’t do so. He knows he will find Cassius Corvus there, and a smile comes easier when he is proven right. It’s returned, though neither of them hide their tiredness from each other. It would be silly to do so, when they know each other’s tells so well.

“You have manna dust in your hair, Cas,” Felix says, but only after he’s started sweeping his fingers through said dark locks. “You’re meant to eat it, not wear it.”

“I thought you might appreciate the fashion statement,” Cassius bats his hand away, though not hard. “You’re so predictable. Aren’t you bored of looking at it by now?”

“Why would I get bored of it when it’s always changing?” Felix turns his gaze back out to the world below. The glow of their great city used to illuminate all of its trees and mountains as it passed overhead, glimmering off of lakes and rivers and oceans, even highlighting the movements of the many myriad organic animals.

And the little human towns too, though those are long gone from the Surface now. The scars carved into the earth are all so overgrown one could mistake them for cliffsides and ravines, if it weren’t for how eerily, unnaturally straight they are.

Cas peers down. “Looks the same to me, Fi.”

“That’s because you have no eye for beauty.”

“I have an eye for you.”

“Oh stop,” Felix laughs, hip-checking him with a grin. “Aren’t you meant to be with little Elsie?”

Cas’ smile falters a little. His gaze moves away. “I’m giving her some space. She tried to commune with Her Majesty again.”

Felix’s own cheer cannot sustain itself. “Still no luck, then.”

A shake of the head.

“I guess this would be a bad time to deliver this report then?”

“Mmn.”

Silence falls between them, punctuated only by the sound of distant, crumbling rock. Something large has collapsed, but the echoes indicate it’s quite far. Hopefully no district that still has anyone awake in it.

“You know this isn’t sustainable, right?” Cas says lowly, voicing what they shouldn’t voice. It’s not that anyone would berate him for saying it, but still.

“It’s what the Queen decreed before she lead the charge into the Dream,” Felix shrugs a shoulder. “Who are we to deny orders?”

Cas’ jaw clenches. “She’s not going to wake up, Felix.”

“I’ve been accused already of treason today, you know.”

“Be realistic! It’s been 120 years of decline now, as of yesterday!” Cas raises his voice, gesturing around him at the once glorious spires and pillars and waves of carved stone that established Lunamara as the most beautiful city in the sky, the jewel of a golden crown. Now it is the only city in the sky. “Things are not getting better, are not going to get better, if we all just try to sleep through it! We’ll end up lifeless rocks!”

“I, personally, wasn’t ever intending to do any such thing.”

“Then you’ll be left here alone in an empty city!”

“No I won’t,” Felix says, looking right at Cas. “You’ll be here.”

It’s clear that Cas has a lot to say about that, but can’t seem to pick one to start with, and so like too many people trying to cram through a door at once, nothing comes out at all. He stands there, fists clenched and shaking a little like he used to when they were children, and would bicker and argue about meaningless things like archery games and who sat in the front of the skysail. No matter how old they get, however many centuries pass, some things never change.

Cas finally opens his mouth, but Felix doesn’t get to hear what he intended to say. There’s a crunch and a rumble, and Cas is suddenly much taller than him. Felix's stomach lurches, and he flails his arms helplessly. He’s falling–

And then Cas snatches him, right out of the air, yanking him close with a glow of magic and backing well away from the sudden chasm in the overlook. They cling to each other for a long, silent minute, almost straining to hear the sound of the broken chunk of Lunamara hit the ground. They don’t, of course. The surface is much too far away. Felix is supporting Cas as much as Cas is supporting Felix. Once the numbness of the near-fall passes, Felix immediately turns and starts moving them both over to a bench carved into the wall, sitting down with Cas leaning against his shoulder. “... you could have saved your magic and let me fall,” Felix says eventually.

Cas lifts his head and squints at him. “Why in Luna’s name would I do that?”

“Well,” Felix holds up his empty hands. “I dropped the folder. So it would have saved Rufus the trouble of throwing me off himself.”

Considering this, Cassius pats Felix’s arm. “Let’s just… keep it between us.”

🌗

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]<-- More every Thursday!

Comic [Prologue]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com/)

#lunamara #felix cygnus #cassius corvus #lunamara project #nousanti #pidgestories #artists on tumblr

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lunamaraproject · 4 months

Text

LUNAMARA: Fragments [1]

🦢

It’s not like Felix enjoys unpleasant jobs - it just seems that it always falls to him to be the one to do them.

Perhaps he has too much of an approachable face, so people feel comfortable with asking him to do more than others would. He would like to think it’s because he’s more capable, but he knows he isn’t. He doesn’t enjoy paperwork and slogs through it with gritted teeth. He’s much more comfortable dealing with people face to face, but knows that even in that area, some people find him too chummy and familiar for their tastes.

Still. Unpleasant jobs must be done.

Felix takes a deep breath, and knocks on the door of the Office for Administration of Internal Affairs. It’s a name as vague as its purpose - a catch-all term for rooms full of people who pick up the pieces when things go wrong.

“Identification,” says a tired voice from the other side, muffled by the door. It used to be that an automated responder would ask and identify him, but now they’re back to the old fashioned way. It’s funny, really.

“Case Manager Felix Cygnus,” he replies, smiling to himself.

“Access denied,” comes the sour-sounding not-auto response.

“Awww, come on,” Felix pouts, leaning against the door forlornly. “I’ve traipsed all over Amethyst Ward today and you’re going to shut me out? Me? Your beloved Fifi?”

“You aren’t my beloved anything.”

Felix gasps. “Liar!”

Behind the door, there is a heavy sigh like all the moon's fragments have weighed themselves upon one set of stooped shoulders. Then, Felix practically falls to the floor as the door swings open, unlocked. He makes sure to sprawl himself out dramatically, including fanning his hair out in a way pleasing to the eye.

“Ow! Owwie! Owch! I think I chipped something!” he cries, writhing this way and that. “Rufie, I will sue for compensation!"

Sat behind a wide desk and nearly obscured by the sheer amount of paperwork, an impassive and unimpressed face stares down at him. Rufus Canis is young in years but with the soul of an ancient, and was already tired of Felix’s attempts to lighten the dour atmosphere of this place by hour 2 of working there. Felix fully suspects that the only reason Rufus hasn’t fired him is out of a sense of respect for a colleague he eventually came to be promoted ahead of, despite Felix having worked there since before Rufus was even born. His golden hair is cropped short for ease of care, and his dark green eyes have lost most of their shine from how long he’s spent staring at case files. There’s no glimmer to any of him, actually. He probably needs a nap. Lunamara will fall out of the sky before he ever takes one.

“Are you going to get up off my floor, or are you going to stare at me, Cygnus,” he gripes, already turning his gaze back to his work. “I’m busy. If you have enough time to play around, I have errands for you to run.”

“Ehh, but I just got back!” Felix whines, though he does get (gracefully) to his feet.

This, too, is ignored. “Is Amethyst fully closed up yet?”

“Ah, mmm…” The hesitation is answer enough.

“Those selfish bastards,” Rufus mutters under his breath. “The more districts and wards we have to keep open and supplied, the worse off the essential services are. Can’t even afford to run power to my intercom…”

“I’m working on it, Rufus, I promise,” Felix assures him, placing four more case folders on his in-tray. With how full it is, one would think he wouldn’t be keen for more. “They just need some time to come to terms with it. Find the right people to settle with.”

“If they don’t hurry it up I’ll put them to work myself or throw them off this stupid rock.”

Felix can’t help but smile at him. Rufus would, of course, never resort to such a thing. He’s all bark and no bite, like those adorable animals from down below. Dogs, that’s it. Still, it won’t do to tease a creature with teeth.

“What else can I assist you with today?”

Rufus reaches to the left and picks up a folder with several colourful tabs sticking out of it. “I need you to run this report to Her Royal Highness for her perusal and approval.”

“Poor Elsie,” Felix pouts, taking the folder - and nearly dropping it, now that it’s become so dense and heavy. “She might start crying again if she sees this.”

“Every day I wonder how you haven’t been arrested for treason, Cygnus,” Rufus mutters. “Princess Elsennae is perfectly capable. She’s only 20 years younger than me.”

“Aww, Rufie, that means you could have a chance! Think of it like an office romance–”

“OUT.”

Felix makes quick on his escape with the folder, before Rufus really does start throwing something at him. The banter has cheered him up though, enough that the long walk from the offices to the palace’s main halls doesn’t seem quite so daunting.

There was a time when this information would be transferred over connected terminals, rather than on foot by one particularly good looking Case Manager, but such frivolous uses of power are long since past. He steps over another chunk of stone and makes note of the gap in the archway that it came from - nobody will do anything to fix it, at this point, he knows, but he’d like not to get hit on the head if he can avoid it. At least the lights work. It really would be something desperate if even the palace couldn’t keep the lights on.

Not that they aren’t in rather dire straits already.

🌗

More from LUNAMARA:

Fragments [1] [2] [3] [4] [5] [6]<-- More every Thursday!

Comic [Prologue]

Art by Luka (http://nousanti.tumblr.com/) Story by Pidge (http://pidgestories.tumblr.com/)

#lunamara #lunamara project #nousanti #pidgestories #artists on tumblr #felix cygnus #rufus canis

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