Lunamara Project

“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]

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]

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]

“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]

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]