Echoed Lullabies (Lunar Chronicles x Reader)

Chapter 19

The tiny globe in the corner of the netscreen turned over once, twice, three times...

"Is this even going to work?" Thorne asked impatiently. He leaned back in the cockpit chair and propped the heels of his boots up on the dash in front of the screen.

"Quiet," Cinder said.

Thorne held out his hands. "All I'm saying is that we shouldn't trust her right away. If Levana's head thaumaturge is her guardian—"

"She risked her life to warn me and Kai the night of the ball," Cinder replied. "She's not a double agent."

Thorne rolled his eyes. "We don't know that—"

He cut off when the chimes that signaled the connection going through sounded throughout the cockpit. The netscreen flickered, then an image replaced the blackness that was there a moment ago.

The girl on the other side of the connection had a delicate look, like a porcelain doll. She had a sweet heart-shaped face, giant sky-blue eyes, and a sprinkle of freckles across her nose.

That wasn't the most noticeable part. She also had the longest, waviest, most unruly mess of tangled blonde hair imaginable. The golden nest around her head was tied in a big knot over one shoulder and cascaded in a jumble of braids and snarls, wrapping around one of the girl's arms before descending out of the screen's view. The girl was fidgeting with the ends, fervently winding and unwinding them around her fingers.

"Aces," Thorne murmured. Dropping his feet to the ground, he leaned forward to inspect her closer. "Is that all hair?"

The girl squeaked, and a moment later she disappeared.

Thorne furrowed his brow. "Wha—where'd she go?"

"Honestly, Thorne," Cinder said, exasperatedly. "Do you ever think before you speak?"

"What? What did I say?"

*

"Did you see it?" he craned his neck to look back at the four of us. "It was like a cross between a magpie nest and a ball of yarn after it's been mauled by a cheetah."

"A cheetah?" I asked dubiously.

"It was the first big cat that came to mind."

Cinder rolled her eyes. "Let me speak to her." She shoved Thorne out of the chair and took the spot as her own. She leaned forward. "Hello?"

The girl was still out of sight.

"I know you can hear me. I'm sorry my friend is such a wing nut. You can just ignore him."

"That's usually what we do," said Scarlet.

Cinder bit her bottom lip. "We need to talk to you. I'm ... This is Cinder. The mechanic who fixed the android?"

Something smacked the girl's wheeled chair and it was launched across the screen. A crash.

"Um, hello?" I asked hesitantly. "Is this a good time?"

No response.

"Are you there?" Cinder asked.

Thorne snorted. "Yeah, this is going really well."

A moment later, the blonde head peeked out from underneath the desk. Wide blue eyes came into view as the girl crawled out from her hiding space and sat herself down in front of the screen.

"Hi," Cinder said, her voice taking on a friendly tone. "Sorry to surprise you like that. Do you remember me? We spoke a couple weeks ago, on the day of the coronation and—"