Endless Sky ~New Beginning~

Chapter Fifteen

The first day of three.
OStar had decided that when the day came, she would leave at night, midnight, the moment the third day had ended.
The night before she had slept dreamlessly, not wanting to meet either side just yet. It was a nice peaceful break, she felt like she got more sleep when she had no dreams.
Unlike the day before, OStar managed to wake up before nearly everyone else.
Eight twenty-seven. Avaro would already be awake, he seemed to normally wake around seven.
It didn't matter though, no one knew what OStar was planning except maybe Mystic, and she had left without telling anyone.
OStar felt a little bad that she was going home alone for her first trip. She still wanted to bring her friends along. It wasn't their fault that Mystic was annoyingly vague about everything she said.
"I said I would bring them next time, and that's what I am going to do," she thought as she left her room, heading to the kitchen to get something to eat.
Roxxan was already up and had started to cook, Avaro having been ordered to leave before she'd even started.
The dragon waited in the main room, unable to stay in the kitchen because of his terrible cooking skills.
"Why can't you learn how to cook?" OStar asked as she padded over to where her friend sat, allowing the robot to cook in peace. How do cats cook? She had no idea. She guessed that given a brain similar to a human's, even a cat could figure out how to do things a normal cat couldn't do.
"I tried but nothing makes sense," Avaro answered with a huff. "Why does turning up the heat burn instead of cook faster? What's the point of having a high temperature when it's advised not to be used?"
OStar snorted, "I dunno, I guess it's there for other reasons."
Avaro shook his head, "I don't get it, never will. I can just eat things raw anyways, like I did most of my life. We didn't really have 'stoves and ovens' back at my home," he said, rolling his eyes. OStar sat down by the couch, curious about what Avaro's old home was like. "So, what did it have?"
"Fire obviously. Get some branches and set them on fire, then cook. Easy," he replied. "None of this, season this, season that. Flip now, sizzle this, add that. Wait this long and lower the temperature. If I wanted my wild boar charred to a crisp, then I would eat my wild boar charred to a crisp!"
"Wow he's getting really heated over food," OStar thought as she tried to hold back another snort of laughter.
"I didn't know things were like that back in your place," she meowed.
"We are dragons in the wild, what do you expect? We don't have technology!"
"But you have magic," OStar pointed out.
"What magic?"
"You can turn into a human."
Avaro blinked, becoming thoughtful. "Huh... How did we even get this ability...?"
"I'll leave you alone to think about that," OStar said as she got up and walked off, leaving him staring at a wall in his own thoughts.
Talking about Avaro's old home got OStar curious. She wanted to know more about the normal origins of the people here. She knew Lucerne came from space, but what was it like? What did he do?
Rual was from a village which Charlotte had described as, "always full of nature's Christmas lights," whatever that meant. But Charlotte had also said her own old home before Rual had no magic. Creatures like OStar and Avaro either wouldn't exist or they would have been put in someplace called Area 51.
Again, OStar didn't know what that was.
She wanted to know more. She didn't have any dark intentions, she just wanted to know what it was like to live there. What fun things they did and how they acted.
"But everyone I want to talk to is still asleep, only Avaro and Roxxan are up..." OStar thought with a frown, standing and looking down the hallway with the guest rooms.
"I guess someone is getting awakened today," she huffed, making her way to Charlotte's door.
After the mistake she'd made yesterday, avoiding Charlotte seemed like a bad idea. The teen was a good but reserved person. Ruining the friendship and avoiding her seemed like an unbelievably bad idea.
OStar tapped the door with her claw before messing with the doorknob, having no hard knuckles really made it hard to knock. Estella should really add small mini doorbells onto each room.
The image of Avaro rapidly clicking a doorbell and running off popped up in OStar's mind.
Maybe doorbells were a bad idea.
OStar waited at the door, ears twitching before messing with the knob again.
There. The sounds of someone getting out of bed and feet hitting the floor.
She shuffled her paws and waited as Charlotte opened the door, looked around, then down.
"Oh, OStar, it's you," she said in a tired voice, already looking like she wanted to close the door instead of talking.
"Why are you waking me up this early?"
"It's not that early," OStar protested.
"Well, it's early for me," Charlotte stopped to yawn again.
"I just wanted to hang a bit, chat, relax," the white cat meowed, making a small hopeful smile.
Charlotte had the look that said being with OStar was the last thing she wanted to do right then.
"Well too bad, I am not leaving without you," she thought.
"...Fine," her friend sighed before going back into her room for a brush, leaving the door open.
Once again OStar wanted to walk inside, but she stayed put, waiting for Charlotte to return.
After a much longer wait than OStar liked, the teen came back with well-brushed hair and new clothes, yet she still looked tired even with half a face.
"When was the last time you got a haircut?" she asked.
"What's that?" Charlotte jokingly replied, a small smile flicking across her face.
"Snip, snip," OStar snickered.
Her friend only shrugged. "Nah, I don't think I need a haircut. If I can manage to keep my hair clean and well-kept in the wild, I'm sure I'm fine," she chuckled, closing her door behind her.
"That's right!" OStar realized. Charlotte had lived with Rual for a few years. Hairless giant scaly lizards that had no showers or shampoo, so keeping bugs and dirt out of her hair must have been a challenge. In fact, keeping good hygiene in general must have been hard.
"So what's the plan? Staring contest?" Charlotte asked once OStar realized she had been lost in thought again.
"Oh, sorry. Well, I have no idea what there is to do in this place," she answered sheepishly.
"Well, neither do I really. I only know a few places, the arcade being one of my favorites. It reminds me of a place I used to go to when I was a kid," Charlotte chuckled as she turned and started walking off.
"Really? How so?" "I thought it would be much harder to get her to talk about her past home... Guess I was wrong," OStar thought as she followed.
"Well, all the games are ones I'm familiar with back in my old home. You know, games like Tetris,"
"I have no idea what Tetris is,"
"Yeah, figured that," Charlotte sighed with a small smile, "So I'm going to show it to you."
OStar flicked her tail with excitement. Already the issue from the day before seemed behind them and things were going to go back to normal very quickly.
They chatted a little bit more as Charlotte led the way and stopped at a thick door.
"This is it," she said before slowly opening it.
The room seemed dark at first, but very quickly arcade games started to light up, their logos shining as they tried to tempt one into playing their game.
"Woah, you really went to a place like this?" OStar asked, following her friend inside and letting the door close behind them.
"Well, kind of, there were half the number of games and many more people. Not only that, but the games there cost money to play," Charlotte patted one of the sides of an arcade game. "These bad boys are all free to play. Occasionally some people in OCTown come, but it's usually empty. I like it."
OStar blinked and looked around, the place appeared to be empty at the moment. But with all of the games and the darkness, OStar couldn't really tell if someone might be behind something or not.
"You really like games," she meowed, turning back to Charlotte.
"Well, it's easier to use than this place's internet. I also didn't want to be scanned and linked to my hometown internet. What if they somehow connected back? That would be hard to explain," the teen replied with a nervous laugh.
"Enough about that, help me find Tetris, that good old game."
OStar nodded in understanding and quickly went on the search for the game, despite not knowing at all what it looked like.
"Just look for the words 'Tetris', shouldn't be too hard," she thought to herself, weaving around games whilst keeping an eye on Charlotte as to not get lost.
"Over here!" she suddenly called out, grabbing OStar's attention.
Without full blown running, she quickly slid back over to where Charlotte was. Indeed, the game was Tetris, its logo glowing in the dark.
"This is Tetris?" OStar asked, examining the game, it seemed to be based on blocks. And stacking them. "It looks a little... Boring," she confessed.
Charlotte made a small, offended scoff. "It may look basic but it's a good game, practically everyone in my old home knows what it is."
OStar made a slow nod and shivered, something seemed to give her an uneasy feeling. Maybe it was the game, or the name of the game, she wasn't sure. It could've been something Charlotte said for all she knew.
Speaking of Charlotte, she was still talking and OStar had completely forgotten to listen.
"Got all that?" her friend asked.
"Oh, uh, yeah," OStar lied, nodding.
"Great!" Charlotte exclaimed before starting and playing the game.
OStar watched at first, but gradually lost interest. This game just wasn't her type.
"So when did you start playing Tetris?" she questioned, trying to spark up a conversation.
"I didn't play often, but my brother showed it to me when I was somewhere between six and eight," Charlotte responded, still focused on the game.
"Brother? You have a brother?"
"Y-Yeah, I do, two years older than me..."
OStar quickly went quiet, she could hear the unease in her friend's voice.
"Maybe getting her to talk about her past is hard after all..." she thought as Charlotte continued.
"He is a good guy, should maybe already have his own job and perhaps even his own place to stay by now," she said, no longer talking in a very enthusiastic voice. It was more... sad.
OStar flicked an ear, thinking carefully about what to say next that won't put Charlotte in a bad mood.
"He was fine when you last saw him, correct?" she finally managed to ask.
There was a long silence, making OStar's anxiety grow.
"I didn't say something wrong already! Did I?"
"Yes, he was fine, our aunt too. I'm sure they are both fine, better even. Things should've started getting better anyways," Charlotte eventually replied, watching the screen change to "GAME OVER" and stepping back.
OStar quickly bit her tongue to hold back another question that she was sure would make Charlotte snap. Instead, she glanced at her face, though half was fabricated and expressionless, the other side wasn't. Charlotte's face was full of sorrow and regret. Whatever had happened back then, it wasn't good.
OStar decided it was best to drop the topic now before she pushed her friend over the edge. If the past was that painful, she didn't want to hear it.
OStar would rather have unanswered questions than to see her friend suffer. Maybe she would learn about it later, or never. At this point she no longer cared.
"You want to play another game?" OStar offered, trying to get Charlotte out of the past before she fell in too deep. "Another? Oh, sure. Let's look around," she answered, slightly shaking her head to get back into the real world. OStar nodded and followed Charlotte around the arcade, looking for a good game to get lost in and forget about everything else.