Chapter 6 - 5 - The Lunar's New Clothes
It started with the clattering of food into a metal bowl. "Mangia, C'è neve da pulire," an older female voice spoke before leaving the Resonator in her tiny room. In all reality, it wasn't even a room, but a crawlspace under one of the stairwells. There was only enough space for her bed and food as well as the few books she could store in a small cut-out portion of the wall.
Panic immediately ensued.
She was back there. It was a dream! She didn't get whisked away by a caring Maestro. She didn't escape from this hell.
Taika was trapped. Forever a slave to these awful people.
And then she woke up. Tears streamed down her face as she was covered in the coldest sweat she had ever felt. It was quiet and dark. She could see perfectly fine through the veil of night thanks to her element. "It was just a dream..." she told herself. "A terrible, terrible dream." She curled up with her lovely plush blanket.
Every time she closed her eyes, however, she kept returning to the crawlspace. The agonizing possibility that none of her new life was real haunted her for the rest of the night.
Shouri slowly opened his eyes as the sun poked in through the large window that flanked his bedroom. The boy sat up and stretched, yawning as he did so. He crawled over to his nightstand and retrieved the black tuner from its resting place.