Echoed Lullabies (Lunar Chronicles x Reader)

Chapter 119

I stood beside Isaac, watching the roads from the shade of the woods. We were back in the lumber sector, helping to oversee the construction being done there—restoration of people's houses, planting of new trees, etc. Cinder had even talked about building a legitimate training center for the civilians there so they could keep up their combat skills.

Not that they needed to, now. But the option was there.

I had been walking for a few days now. And while my stomach still throbbed everytime I thought about it, it was getting better.

I was getting better.

I knew the war would not be something I'd get over immediately. There was too much that had gone into it to forget, and everything was still fresh—Levana's death, Thorne, reuniting with Isaac, no one knowing anything about Michelle.

Aimery.

It was strange thinking about it. I should have felt some sort of regret, but...I didn't. He deserved to die. Now that he was gone, it was relief that possessed me, not remorse. Maybe that made me some sort of monster. I wasn't sure. I wasn't sure that I cared, either. If me becoming a murderer meant that others were not affected by men like him, then so be it.

A steady breeze drifted through the trees.

"It's strange," Isaac said. "I thought that I'd feel lost when the war had ended—after all, what's a soldier's purpose without battle? But the quietness..." He inhaled. "It's nice."

I smiled. "What do you think Mom would say if she knew her kids were caught up in the middle of a revolution?"

"She'd probably rag on us for not wearing clean socks everyday."

"Well it's not like we can help it!" I laughed. "My entire wardrobe lately has been stolen!"

Isaac grinned and shook his head. "That dress you wore was ridiculous."

I folded my arms. "I was trying to look Lunar."

"You looked like a walking disco ball."

I slugged him in the shoulder and he faked a wound, though we were laughing through the entirety of it.

When our smiles had faded, another issue came to mind. "So you really don't remember anything about Michelle Benoit?" I had given Isaac a basic explanation of what I knew so far, which wasn't much. Isaac was taken to the opera house in France. I had been caught trying to sneak in to break him out. I also apparently had time to pose for a picture with Michelle, shotgun in hand. Oh, and I had zero memory of all of this.

He shook his head. "I've never even heard that name."

A commotion on one of the residential streets drew my attention immediately. I was about ready to jump and pull my gun, but it was only Princess Winter.

I calmed myself. There's no more reason for that.

Isaac and I walked out to greet her, though she was not alone. For a moment, I thought she was walking between two Jacin's, but a second glance revealed one of them to be much older. His face was deeply lined and there was a stilt in the way he walked, as if he had one day suffered an injury that had maybe not healed all the way. But his eyes were not blue like Jacin's. Instead they were a deep golden brown, like warmed honey.

People bowed as she passed. One man bent so low his nose nearly touched the ground.

"Princess," I greeted with a fist over my heart—the commander side of me still showing through.

She was nearly bouncing on her toes when she said, "Hello, Y/n-friend. Jacin and I have someone we'd like you to meet."

Jacin cleared his throat. "This is Garrison Clay."