Alitia: In Heavenly Light

XII: Electric Pulses

Cerise was overwhelmed with relief when the rest of the group looked away from her to continue their own discussion. "I guess that this just means that we're going to have to do some old fashioned investigation," Cessair declared with a smile. "If you all think that there's something wrong about this, then I believe you completely. It's up to us to get to the bottom of this, and I think that we can do it if we put our minds together and focus on where the logic takes us."

"The logic so far has seemed like it was going to tell us that Mars was the one who's been handing out those Moonlight Blessings, but apparently, it isn't that easy," Helena sighed. "I think that the Keeper of Moonlight was there during the final battle on Igni too, though they didn't show their face, obviously. We would have spotted them if that was the case unless they were hiding among the crowd, but... Okay, I'm just going to confuse myself if I keep talking like that. The point is that the Keeper of Moonlight was there reinforcing the Shadows that attacked the old capital as soon as we came to occupy the city. That was all that we figured out at the time."

"We're going to have to be careful from here on out. I'm glad that we were able to come here and get at least a little bit of extra information, but there isn't anything that we can do to jump to conclusions right now. As much as I would love to just finish everything off here and now, I really do think that there's foul play going on here, and until we have concrete answers about who the person distributing Moonlight Blessings really is, then we're not going to be able to do much of anything about this," Tanith declared. 

"Maybe we should all try and get some sleep so that we aren't up all night talking about this," Anneliese suggested. She glanced over to Nebula, who had been rubbing at her eyes ever since the conversation started. "Nebula looks exhausted, and to be quite honest, the rest of you do too. I think it's time for us to try and rest. We're leaving Enmity tomorrow, and we can start thinking about other possibilities after that."

"Okay," Luce agreed. She was quick to ease herself back against the ground. The room's floor had been transformed into a large cot since there wasn't enough space for individual beds for all of them. Nobody seemed to mind given that this was no different from sleeping within the ship, though they were on the floor this time rather than being on benches that lined the walls of the ship. "Night, everyone."

Iris, who was the one closest to the switch, reached up and turned the lights off. From there, everyone seemed to settle down on their own over the span of a few minutes. Cerise did the same, staring up at the vacant ceiling overhead. She let out a small sigh, unable to hold back her dissatisfaction with the situation. 

Cerise really didn't know what to do. She hadn't known for a long time. It wasn't as if she was going to be able to forge connections with the others in this company on the flip of a dime, but it was so much harder than it felt like it had to be. December had been right to push her to step out of her comfort zone to try and get to know them, but that did little to lessen the sting that made Cerise feel so damn alone in a place where she should have felt at home. 

The bottom line was that it felt like intrusion. They had their preexisting dynamics before Cerise showed up and, as far as she was concerned, mucked it all up with her unexpected Sealing. She wasn't meant to be there. She didn't even deserve them. As a member of the Alight Five, she had done awful thing. One could argue that it was in the name of survival, but Cerise had gotten sick of that excuse a long time ago. She had been raised to act as Surion's perfect soldier, but that did little to keep her from wanting to throw up when she thought about the Alight Five. 

And yet, at the same time, she wanted to go back to that. Cerise found herself strangely desperate to return to the times before all of this had appeared, when she had been with December, River, Arisu, and Eros without a care in the world. They had been her family for so long, and they were unstoppable. Outside of combat, they cared about each other in their own special way. Eros always denied it, and Arisu was always teasing when others tried to poke fun at them. River was soft-spoken but had a powerful sense of justice, and December was the mother figure. They were flawed as all hell, but Cerise enjoyed having them in her life. They were a family, and that same connection hadn't appeared with Cerise and the Second Camaraderie.