• God is a woman by Arianna Grande •

The Princess giggled. "Do you mind if I go in first?" She asked, the smile lingering on her lips.

Lari ran to the bath, the candle in her hand threatening to spill the melting wax onto her hand. She couldn't deny it any longer. Lari had thought it was one-way communication, but the constant, fervent tug on her left pinky proved otherwise.

She was skillfully ignoring it on their walk back from Citra's, as she did not wish to alarm Jade. And when the Queen expressed her concerns about Pearlina finding their location, Lari realized this might further her anxiety. Rushing to the bath seemed like the only logical conclusion.

She clutched her pinky to stop the quivering but to no help. "What is the urgency?" She whispered under her breath, wincing at the twitching joint.

Lari drew herself closer to the bath, filled with water, and brought the candle close to peer in.

There he was, the boy who had cast a spell on her. The boy she was so happy to see the previous evening. He was only an inconvenience now.

"Prince...ss!" He called out through the magical tie that held them together. His voice was still shaky but Larimar could tell that the magic had improved since their last meeting.

"P...rincess, where are you? We ju...st got the news that you...were abducted. By Que...en Jade? Where did she ta...ke you to? I'll go...get yo..u myself."

Larimar frowned. If it was a day ago, she would have been moved by his heartwarming bravery and chivalrous spirit. But now - now that she was free, and away from the castle that bound her like a cage - anybody suggesting to take her back there infuriated her.

"I wasn't abducted," she asserted. "I'm here at my own will."

In the light of the candle, she saw the questioning frown on Jun's face. "Why?" He asked but all Lari could hear was the music playing outside.

She tsked. "You wanted to know if I was abducted. I just told you, I wasn't. I'll go back to Eira if and when I feel like-"

"Princess?" Jade's voice knocked the breath out of Lari's lungs and she turned to the dark void between her and the bathroom door. "Is there someone in there with you?"

"She can't see me, o...r hear me." Lari heard Jun say and sighed with relief.

"Umm..." Lies never came easy to her. "No... I'm... I was just...talking to myself. I do that sometimes. Please don't be alarmed."

She bit her lip, hoping Jade wouldn't press further. "Okay then, Princess. You can simply holler if you need anything. I'm just...outside."

Lari breathed a sigh of relief and quickly bid Jun adieu.

A notorious idea took root in her brain. The plan was to only casually flirt, to watch Jade turn visibly red.

What she didn't know was that it'd be an experience that would bring the two of them even closer, something she'd remember Jade by. When a biographer would ask Lari about her friendship with the Queen, this would be something she'd never talk about. Not out of modesty, but because it was so private. The spill of the water, the froth on their skin, the dark corners of the room where their eyes found residence - it all belonged to the two of them only.

When Jade spoke about despising her hands, Lari remembered all the current affairs lessons she had been getting from Professor Carnel for the last two years. In all the literature she had read about the Battle of Nokimetsa, Queen Jade was described as either a protector or a traitor. Never a killer. Not even by the high-ranking officials of enemy realms. They always referred to her as a doll with a sword, and when Lari laid eyes on her the first time, in her Eiran bedroom, she knew they weren't lying.

When Jade came back after her post-dinner walk around the premises, Lari was sitting upright in bed, playing with her familiar.

On seeing Jade, she lifted her pillow and drew something from underneath - a bundle similar to one Jade had seen earlier that evening. "Please keep this on you at all times," she said, handing it to the Queen. 

Jade took it and regarded it in the candle's light. Although it looked the same, its dimensions were different - it was a smaller bundle, and lighter. "It's half of the stuff Professor Carnel sent," the Princess explained.

"I'm going to try to reach out to The Moon tonight. I consulted Citra about it. Did you know it's Avento who has a deal with the Arcana? The child! It's depressing to think that a child has to..." Lari sighed. "I wonder what he had to give up."

Jade only clicked her tongue. Lari found it odd that she didn't have anything to say about it but realized that it wasn't something in either of their control. Talking to each other about it would not help the child.

"So...I'll do a little ritual before falling to sleep. In case you hear me talk in my sleep - Citra said that can happen - let me be. Okay?" Lari looked at her with doe eyes.

Jade nodded, letting go of her clumsily made hair, and watched as Mewton Pie settled on the further end of the mattress, giving her bonded companion the space she'd need for the ritual. 

Lari removed her pillow to the side, uncovering a ton of things she had hidden underneath it - her tarot deck, a tall candle, and a small wooden box. "These were there in my chest," the Princess clarified. 

She tapped on the deck, shuffled it, plucked a single card, and a satisfied smile spread across her cheeks when she saw who she had picked - The Moon. Luna must be expecting her.

Larimar struck a match and lit the wick of the candle. She inhaled the fragrance that filled the room. So rich yet so soothing, her eyelids grew heavy. She watched Jade lay down and pull the pillow under her head lazily.

The Princess opened the box and a beautiful opaque crystal sat inside. A raw Moonstone. With the crystal in one hand and the tarot card in the other, she straightened her posture and closed her eyes in meditation.

Soon, Lari started murmuring an incantation.

"Ancient Moon, lend me your power,
Take me to your realm this very hour,
I call upon your strength and might,
Bless your apprentice this secret night."

Lari repeated that at least a dozen times - Citra had said it sometimes took Avento as many as a hundred chants to get Luna to respond - before all she could hear were her own words. She couldn't hear the crickets lilting anymore, nor Mewton's sleepy purrs or Jade's light snores. The words of her prayer were pulling her into a dizzying, dark vortex.

The next time Princess Larimar opened her eyes, she was not at the house in Kalk anymore. The place looked like an underground cavern.

She was cold, and lying on the floor, within a crevice. She pushed herself up on her arms, the sharp edges of the surrounding terrain poking at her skin. On looking around, she discerned almost nothing. The light, if there was any, was in vain - this was not like the realm she had visited with Jade the previous night.

Where was the ever-extending waterbody? Where was the luminous, scar healing liquid?

She stood up and tried to feel her way forward, but there was nothing her hands touched. She tripped a few times before she became wary of stepping any further. So Lari crouched on spot. She could feel her fleeting heartbeat, her profuse sweat, and palpable anxiety.

Isn't a patron Arcana's realm supposed to be a safe place for earthlings?

Larimar sat like that for what seemed like forever. Her knowledge about all things arcane had deserted her. She couldn't remember anything she had read about The Moon and her realm.

Earthlings weren't supposed to divulge details of their visits to a different realm, but books often spoke about the feelings and emotions the authors had experienced, and she had never read such a description before. The documentarians had always talked about feeling protected, and as if The Moon was healing them of all earthside miseries.

Maybe it was the work of the Arcana herself? After all, the Moon was best known for being elusive, for hiding things in plain sight.

The darkness was eating Lari alive. And oh, the loneliness! She wished she had someone with her - Mewton, her mother, Professor Carnel, or maybe Jade.

Then she had an epiphany. More like a gut feeling, but it was enough. Luna was but testing her, she realized. Maybe the deity wanted Lari to find her. Maybe Luna would guide her but only when she finds the way herself.

Larimar stood up, the sleeve of her dress slipping past her shoulder from the sudden jerk. She fixed it, finally understanding - it was not a light source she needed, it was her intuition.

So she shut her eyes tight and whispered, "ready or not, here I come!" And although she was already sleeping on earthside, she tried to fall asleep here too. Or what one would say, try to lose touch with consciousness.

It took her several moments but she finally lost all her senses - touch, vision (which was already gone when she closed her eyes), smell, and audition. When she lost them all, she regained her intuition. Her fear left her body and she moved forward in the direction her blood asked her to go, where the joints of her toes, heels, and ankles wanted to move.

In the throes of such fearlessness, she found herself at the bottom of many stairs and climbed them to the top. When she paused, she knew who she would see in front of her.

"Well done, Princess Larimar," she heard Luna's voice and her senses came back. She heard the Arcane being's smirk before she saw it.

When she opened her eyes, the cavern was glowing, albeit not as brightly as she had seen the realm before. There were only parts of the cave where the luminous liquid seemed to stream through, thus lighting up those areas alone. Lari turned to look back to the way she had crossed, but Luna sounded a warning moan that stopped her. The same kind of warning Lari had for Mewton.

"What's there to look back at, Princess Larimar?" The Arcana asked. Without waiting for an answer, she questioned, "maybe you feel proud of the hurdles you overcame? Or do you feel nostalgia for what you left behind?"

"I..." Lari stuttered. "I was just curious."

The Moon smiled, the whiskers on her face dancing. "I see," she said. Her demeanor was quite different from what Larimar had encountered before. "So, are you proud of yourself?"

"Umm..." the Princess looked for words in the stones and the water of her surroundings. The Moon had stopped speaking, slinging one leg over another, and only stared at Lari.

It was finally time for the earthling to observe the elements in her vicinity. The feline-faced being, she saw, was sitting on what she could describe as a throne. The seat rose from the ground as if carved out from a singular block of rock until it melted into the stalactites suspending from the ceiling.

The throne had an overall morbid appearance, quite the polar opposite of the cheerful Luna who had presented herself before. The dark side of the Moon.

"I wanted to reach out to you because of what you said the last time," Larimar finally said. The Moon simply nodded, urging her to add some more words to her cause.

"Umm... you said you wanted to have me as an apprentice. So I reached out to you... to see what I can learn from you."

"Thought so," Luna replied, shifting from one arm of her chair to the other. "Well, you're in luck, for we just completed your first lesson. You can go back to earthside now." Luna had an air of dismissal with the words she said, but Larimar stood there, dumbstruck.

"Really?" Lari asked, dubious, straightening her skirt, "but...all I did was climb some stairs."

Luna pouted. "And you don't think that's enough? You were cowering on the floor only hours ago and-"

The earthling frowned. "Hours? It's been hours? You left me there like that for hours?"

The Arcana seemed to pay no attention to her. "You're afraid of heights, aren't you? And darkness, creatures with more than four legs, and loneliness, abandonment, ignorance, losing control. Goodness, sweetheart, the list is long!" She chuckled. "But you overcame quite a few of them here. And you wish to disregard that learning experience?"

Before Lari could comprehend the words that were being said, Luna continued. "When you ran away from home, what did you expect, High Princess Larimar? That the rest of the world would hold the saucer for you while you sip your tea?"

Lari felt her skin prick. "I did not run from home. You brought me here."

The Moon stood up, the folds of her robe falling to her feet, and proceeded towards the earthling. "Is that so? Is that what you were thinking when you followed the Jahiman Queen's footsteps through your castle? Maybe you wish to return to your father's abode. One word from you and I'll return you to the courtyard I took you from."

"What about... What about Jade?" Lari asked, her breath shaking. She had taken several steps backward.

The Moon was so close now, that Lari could smell her skin, and taste the Arcana's fury on her tongue. True that her senses had returned, but they brought with them the panic. She could feel her heart pounding away under her ribs.

The magic of the realm, the tingling it left on her fingertips, the vagueness in Luna's words - it was too much for her to take in one go. Lari sat down on the floor, knees first, grabbing at her chest.

"What about Jade?" The Moon asked, not sparing any concern at all. "She can live the rest of her life out in the safety of Kalk, or she can be on the run forever, or she can get caught by your father and get beheaded. She has options."

"She doesn't want any of those." The Princess replied curtly.

Luna clicked her tongue and kneeled in front of her desolate apprentice, her whiskers brushing against the soft skin of the earthling. "You want to be able to protect yourself and Jade, am I right?"

Lari only nodded, her eyes filling up for no reason she could fathom.

"And you're not someone well adept with mortal weapons?"

Lari shook her head.

Luna smiled. After being moved and scolded for so long, the thin smile was a blessing. Luna cupped Lari's face with both her hands and stroked her cheeks. "So you agree that you need to learn an art that you can make use of. Am I correct? Yes, and that's why today's lesson was so important. You learned to let go of the fears that bind you and really seek help from your core instead of waiting for someone else to guide you.

"I will teach you several things, Larimar. But until you become self-sufficient, neither will you be able to grasp any of the lessons nor will you be able to help the ones you admire. Remember that. Practice archery and if the Queen proposes to train you in combat, don't turn her down. Magic will only get you so far."

And with that, she gave Lari a strong push off the landing.

---------------------------------------------

A/N: If you liked this chapter, please consider leaving a vote. Thank you for reading.