Daydreams And Nightshade (DaN #1)

Chapter 3: The right crowd

It wasn't that Luna particularly disliked her high society friends. They were nice enough in their own right but there was something about banquets that made everyone the worst version of themselves. At least outside of gatherings her friends pretended to laugh at her jokes, while banquets allowed them nothing more than a blank stare with the occasional forced smile.

And a banquet hosted by the Hargreaves family and their trading company was no exception, so while Alicia and Lyra eyed the other guests with a surprising amount of judgement, Luna had a servant refill her glass of lemon water for the third time that hour while she scanned the room for her adult associates. They'd better not gone all tipsy from the array of drinks servants seemed to more or less flush down people's throats in a possible attempt to drown them all in revolutionary fashion.

"Look, there's that new family's son," Alicia leaned in to whisper, rudely interrupting the search but fortunate as she was, Luna was benevolent enough to humor her, so she let her eyes wander in the direction Alicia had nodded. "What do you think?"

"Uh..." Luna eyed the boy she was looking at. Light-skinned, dark hair about shoulder length and what looked like blue eyes if she squinted. Conventionally attractive, she supposed, and she suspected the classy outfit he sported was not just event-appropriate.

She knew what kind of reply the other two were fishing for, but Luna had run out of humoring for one evening and decided to be her hilarious self instead.

"I could probably beat him in a fight," she therefore claimed with a shrug and Lyra almost spat out her drink, much like Luna had expected, and she would not be robbed of the amusement.

"While that would not surprise me, I was thinking more about his appearance."

"Oh, I see." Luna raised her eyebrows in mock surprise, looking over in the boy's direction again. "Well, he's easy enough on the eyes, I suppose. Were you planning on introducing yourself?"

Lyra snorted a little too loudly and nudged Alicia's shoulder.

"Right, and this one should be the next queen of Wypera."

"I wouldn't complain," Alicia pointed out. "I bet it would be fun."

"Being queen?" Luna asked, fidgeting with her bracelet in thought. She was rather certain Prince Eiven was already engaged, and unless Lyra could muster up a sinister plan to get rid of him after marrying one of his siblings the dream of being queen was very much just a dream.

Prince Eiven was also rather old compared to Lyra.

"A lot of stress I imagine," she said as her mind returned to reality, only to notice the other two had moved on from the royalty talk.

She moved around a bit where she sat. Either the dress was uncomfortable or she just had issues with sitting still, she was never sure which one was correct.

"So, um... speaking about boys..." Alicia nodded towards something behind Luna. "... What is your brother doing?"

So they were back to boy talk, and not just any boy. The unfortunate burden of a boy Luna had been settled with at birth, so she withheld a sigh before looking over her shoulder.

"Well..." Luna blinked through an ill-fated attempt at looking nonchalant as Noah stood by a wall, seemingly mumbling to himself while staring at the floor, and she considered her options of defending her brother or destroying him. Unless she could do both.

"... why not go ask him?" she therefore suggested. "Since you're on a boy hunt, and all."

Alicia chuckled.

"Yes, but not—" Alicia interrupted herself with a wide-eyed stare at Luna, who wrinkled her eyebrows. "I mean... he's..."

"... handsome." Lyra filled in, and Alicia joined her claim with a nod.