Astral Odyssey: Dying Ember

(Edited) Ch. 6: Victor's Visit

A month later, things returned back to normal.

Victor's and Rina's reputation was restored and everyone knew by now that they had Lucas backing them up.

Erica's friends made up with her, which was not a very hard thing to do since they had stopped throwing when Erica ran into the hall calling out to Luna as her sister.

Desmond's life did not change much since the military academy, although essentially is another faculty of the school, has its own war zone which functioned almost separately from the other faculties. He has already successfully made his own connections there, who then helped to cover for him when he came to his sisters' aid.

Luna experienced a little dissing and occasional harassment but it never got too bad because she seemed to kill their vibe each time. Not only did she have a very slack expression on all the time, she also knew the right things to say to satisfy their ego.

Luna was now in the library as usual, completely immersed in her studying. Since nothing out of the ordinary was happening, she paid Lucas no attention. This made it possible for Lucas to study her at length without her knowing.

Lucas was still struggling to understand the enigma that Luna was.

He took note of what she was studying each time, thus noticed how she struggled with understanding concepts that he had long ago mastered and how she tried to make up for her slow understanding with pure and intense hard work.

He even did a little digging into her records and background to find out about the kind of person she was. Nothing stood out about her. In fact, he found out a lot more about her siblings and their achievements in the process of doing so than whatever he managed to learn about her.

Everything only served to puzzle him further. She seemed so unremarkable and common. So why could he not understand the things she said which sounded weirdly accurate? How does she stay so calm about everything that was being done to her? Why could he not stop his eyes from drifting to her from time to time? Why does she make him feel so puzzled and irritated at the same time?

Today was no different.

Lucas looked up from the screen of his laptop, closed his eyes, and titled his head from side to side. Despite his full intention to return to work after stretching his neck muscles for a bit, his eyes went towards Luna instead.

The sunlight from the large window by her side was at an angle that lit up her face. The plum blossom was in full bloom in the background. It was a very pretty scene to behold but Luna looked as ordinary as ever. If it had been Rina in her place, this same view may have been able to stir the hearts of people.

Nonetheless, Lucas found himself unable to tear his eyes away from her.

Does she not find the sun glaring?

At the same time that he had that thought, Luna happened to turn her head slightly. His eyes widened a little bit in surprise. There were some golden specks in her eyes that he never noticed before. As quickly and suddenly as it appeared, it disappeared with the slightest tilt of her head.

Was it just the sunlight? He got intrigued and waited to see if it would appear again. Without his realisation, he was effectively distracted from his work.

Unfortunately for him, he did not get to observe for long before he heard Victor's voice boom throughout the silent library. "Luna Lee!"

Everyone in the library jumped in shock and turned towards the source of the disturbance.