Work Text:
In the land of peafowls, where the wind blows freely and the birds sang in words and not chirp, a young princess turns a page of a book under the million blinking lights of a star-filled sky.
The princess let down her hair, shining like a prism of a thousand dancing colors that only the knight could see.
“Your feathers, it is the shade of the rainbow in my dreams.”
Reine rolled her eyes before closing the book. Another one of those love stories where a peafowl fell in love with another peafowl because of their feathers. Don’t get her wrong, there’s nothing wrong with the tried and trusted ‘soulmate’ trope, but it gets a little tiring when the chain of nine books that she had read all followed the same formula for their romance subplot.
It doesn’t help that peafowl courting actually worked like that.
Flicking her fingers, Reine vanished the mage-light that she uses for reading during the night, allowing the darkness to envelop everything as she lies beneath the light of the midnight sky. Still sitting above the roof of the tallest watchtower on the academy, she stared into the stars above as she reminiscent about the day that she had dreamt of her soulmate's feather pattern.
“Reine, it’s not about the realism. It’s about romance. I have never dreamt of my soulmates feather pattern, and look at me now. I’m married to a bald person.” Her brother smirked, probably laughing inwardly at his own explanation.
“Well, I mean, there’s nobody on this kingdom that has a star pattern on their feathers.”
“-I mean, you can think of it more as a symbolism… like it showed you the skies because your soulmate can fly-“
“We can all fly, Reihan. Everyone in the kingdom can.”
Reihan looked at her while scratching his head before his eyes lit up in some moment of enlightenment. “Or maybe! Maybe your soulmate is not from this land. Like, that they are from a distant star!”
“I don’t know. Sounds too far-fetched to me. Heh, far-fetched. Because they’re from far away. Get it? I get it. Do you get it?”
Reihan only looked at her in fake annoyance, before laughing and hugging her.
“Now that’s my dear sister that I know. Just, like, don’t worry about it, Reine. Just know that you will immediately know when you find your soulmate, whoever they are.”
“Do you know? How it would feel like when someone found their soulmate I mean.”
Reihan looked at her and paused, seemingly thinking about what to say before answering.
“I don’t really remember it clearly myself. But it would feel like something big just happened at that moment. One look, and suddenly you know why the skies are blue, why the annoying bugs are now beautiful, and you feel like everything makes perfect sense even if they still don’t.” Reihan smiled at her again, patting her hair as he continued his story. “The point is, it’s hard to explain.”
Reine sighed, ending her reminiscing before laying down on the cold stones of the roof.
The magic academy’s graduation is fast approaching now and she still has not found her soulmate. It would be of no importance to her now as she found herself more interested in the love stories from the pages of a book than her own, but she still cannot keep it out of her mind for some reason.
She stayed there lying for several minutes, entranced by the stars in the night sky as she thinks of what else to do, tracing the constellations above with her fingers.
“Maybe Reihan is right. That I’ll found my soulmate on a distant star.”
Sitting back up, she pulled another book from the pile beside her. Raising her finger and doing some gestures with it, another mage-light appear, illuminating the now visible cover of the book.
“But going to another planet? The chance of that happening is almost non-existent.”
Shrugging off her thoughts and hoping that the book that she had randomly chosen is not that kind of story again, Reine dragged her fingers on the rough leather cover of the book before turning to the first page of the paper.
A long time ago in a land far far away, which is actually just a couple of years later inside a busy interior of a cafe, Pavolia Reine met the love of her life.
It started with a normal afternoon, with the cold insulated winds of the air conditioner crashing against the heat of the summer sun outside. Reine is reading the latest chapter of a fanfiction that she is following while waiting for Ollie. It was already approaching one in the afternoon and the zombie still haven’t arrived, and she’s almost done with everything on the ‘new’ page.
Notes:
Reine closed the active browser on her phone as she hit the endnotes of the work that she is currently reading. Glancing outside of the café, she tried looking for her friend’s bright red hair before giving up after finding no trace of it.
Maybe I’ll try calling her?
Sighing, she looked at her phone again, inputting her password to hopefully find more stories to continue reading. Three presses of the 9 button and the lock screen image of a holomie is replaced by her wallpaper of, well, another image of a holomie. Dragging her fingers on the contact list to find the number of the zombie, she smiled as the familiar name of one ‘Kureiji Ollie’ greeted her just after a single swipe.
Reine almost pressed the call button before she was interrupted by someone trying to grab her attention.
“Excuse me.” A voice in front of her said.
She paused and smiled, expecting Ollie to greet her with an excuse for being late. She almost said the girls’ name in annoyance before pausing.
Time stopped, the world became brighter, and the perpetual mechanical humming of the air conditioner was replaced by silence.
Standing in front of her is the most beautiful girl that she had seen in her life.
A purple hair adorned by gleaming stars, flowing like a veil that was woven from the illuminated night itself. Beneath it is a beautiful shade of gold as if the stars have fallen and scattered into gleaming stardust, forming into a radiant sea as they reached the end of the strands.
A hair that shone like the galaxies themselves, surrounding a face of ethereal beauty and eyes that glow like a full moon in a peaceful night.
She felt herself getting lost in that same metaphorical night sky, a lone maiden in front of the caressing glow of the distant moon.
And while under the moonlight, she can only think of one thing. That her brother lied to her, because unlike what he said, nothing makes sense right now. A whirlpool of emotions that she cannot seem to grasp clashing within, and it scared her.
Reine almost confessed her undying love and loyalty to the moon, a desperate plea hoping that anything would make sense if she does. A hope that the warm purple light would embrace her to tell her that everything is fine.
She almost does, before noticing that the purple-haired girl is looking at her expectantly.
“Are you a goddess?” Reine said instead, still too entranced by the beautiful girl that she forgot that she is actually speaking with someone. It took her a moment before she can process what she had said, immediately correcting herself in panic as she does. “Sorry! I mean, how can I help you?”
“Oh! no worries.” The other girl smiled. “I just want to ask if you are Reine?” With her dumbfounded nodding, the girl continued. “Umm…. I’ll take that as a yes? Anyway, I’m here at Ollie’s request. She lost her phone and she asked me to tell you that she would not be able to go out with you because of it.”
“Thanks!” Reine said, before having a bright idea. “But I’ll still scold her for the sin of bothering a beautiful girl like you just to send her message.” She continued, cringing inwardly as she realized that she unintentionally replied with a really bad pickup line, again.
“Are you flirting with me?” The girl asked, looking at her with amusement clear in her purple eyes.
“Oh. No! I-I mean yes!” Reine stuttered, cringing again as she further dug her own metaphorical grave.
“You’re funny. But I think that you are already jumping several steps ahead. I still didn’t introduce myself to you, right?” The girl laughed again, extending her arms towards Reine in a gesture of a handshake. “I’m Moona.”
“Umm…. I’m- I’m Reine?” she replied smoothly, grabbing the extended hand and shaking it as carefully as possible.
Which only prompt another laugh from the girl named Moona. And what a beautiful name that is.
“Tell you what, if you really think that Ollie is bothering me, what about I take you on a friendly chat in the nearby mall instead? That way I’m not wasting any time, and we’ll get to know each other.” Moona said, caressing the back of Reine’s hand with her other unoccupied hand.
“Is that an invitation for a date?” Reine asked dumbfoundedly, noticing how the purple-haired girl’s smile turned into a mischievous one.
“What would you do if I said it is?”
Reine’s mind was thrown into disarray for several seconds, only coming back to her senses when Moona called her from the exit of the café. The girl laughed again, gesturing for her to follow.
And isn’t that the most beautiful laugh in the whole world.
Reine smiled to herself, noticing how Moona’s purple hair glow with a faint ethereal radiance as the girl stands beneath the afternoon sky. She followed after her, with steps more energetic than usual and a smile that looks like she just won the lottery.
The skies are bluer than usual, the cockroaches are now as pretty as the butterflies, and it feels like the winds are dancing in celebration for her. Even if everything still does not make sense, it does not matter.
Because for Reine, the only thing that matters now is she had finally found her soulmate.