The impressive and different shapes of houses stand against the sky. They create a well-shaped and recognizable silhouette on the ground, but someone suddenly destroyed them when he passed by. A shadow of a weird creature or a boy who walks swiftly, as if he were in haste. Ahead is another shadow of a girl, but weirder than the first. Because of this, the boy stopped, and because he walks swiftly, he was already at her front. When he looked up, surprise attacked him with what he saw.
Kesrick was going back to the palace of Antipatris when he met someone. It was none other than the Princess of Strangeness, dressed in a black robe and wearing eyeglasses. His eyes were enticed by the girl, because she was the only one in this place, especially in the middle of the night.
"Good evening, miss, weird, girl. Can I know what you are doing here?" Kesrick asked.
He was surprised when Lyra suddenly looked at him, because he saw her red-sparkling eyes. He was drastically bewildered and didn't know what to do. He wanted to run, but there was something that seemed to stop him. Maybe it's also the terror.
"Hey!" Lyra exclaimed. "What's happening to you?"
From looking down at his feet, Kesrick slowly looked up to see if what he saw was real or just an illusion caused by tiredness. For the second time, he was surprised because the girl's eyes were—it had changed and they were no longer red. Consequently, he thought that what he saw was just an illusion and far from the truth.
"You had reddish eyes a while ago. How could it be possible that you don't have them?" Kesrick asked.
"What?" Lyra pretended not to know. But we just met each other, so you must not talk to me like that. Maybe you're just tired because it's already midnight and you're still here."
Lyra is lucky and grateful. It's just because of a boy that she seemed to be spilling the beans. Fortunately, she knew some magic tricks to cover her real identity. Meanwhile, Lyra knew that the efficacy of her magic would not last much longer because she hadn't mastered dark magic yet. She doesn't have enough time to practice using dark magic because her grandfather ordered her to draw the shortest straw.
Kesrick wondered if the weird girl in front of him wasn't totally weird. She has a high nose, long, curly white hair, brown eyes, pinkish lips, thin eyebrows, high eyelashes, and an average height. In a nutshell, she looked like an ordinary Antipatrisian, but a beautiful one.
There's something inexplicable crosses his mind, and the boy dubbed as the Prince of Sorrow changes his mood. It was as if the thing tickled him and gave him a gratifying smile.
Lyra noticed that the boy in front of her seemed to be laughing. "Hey, are you making fun of me?" She asked. "Maybe you're also thinking that I'm a princess of weirdness because of my outfit—you're just like those other people who are so judgemental."
"No—I'm not making fun of you—you looked so beautiful in whatever you were going to wear and even if you didn't wear anything," Kesrick replied. "In contrast, I'm just smiling because even the weirdest person in this world could make someone smile regardless of the sorrow in their lives."
"Blah, don't be rude. And, it always depends on you. Happiness is just within us and it's us who decide if we will thrust it out or just frown there."
"Whoa... I've never heard that word before. Seriously, I wanted to say thank you for making me feel that there's someone who cares for me?"
"And what are you thinking? How can you say that I care for you if we're not close and we don't even know each other yet?"
"O! I'm, Kesrick. How about you?"
"You have a nice name. Anyway, I'm Lyra. So, what are you doing here in the middle of the night?"
"Do you really want to know why? I must be the one to ask you because you're a weird girl that I have never seen before in this place."
"Nothing—I'm just drifting here for I can't sleep. Maybe you had not seen me before because I was always caging myself in the house."
"We may have different reasons, for I'm now going to the palace of Antipatris. I just wanted to be alone, but now I realize that being alone and having friends both have advantages and disadvantages."
"You have a point. Sometimes I also wanted to be alone, especially right now that I'm between the devil and the deep blue sea."
"If you want to be alone, then I will go home now."
Lyra is interested, as she remembers Kesrick's words that he lives in the palace of Antipatris; therefore, she stopped him from going away.
"So you're living there in the palace of Antipatris?"
"Yup, my father had just passed away, and that was also the reason why I wanted to be alone, because if someone became close to me, the God of—"
It came to Kesrick's mind that he must not call Zadiv the God of goodness, because if he's a good God, then Kesrick is not in sorrow right now.
"The God of Cinos will take their lives," Kesrick continued.
"Oh! That's scary—I'm sorry to hear that—I didn't know that you were the son of the dead—" Lyra hadn't finished saying her words when Kesrick interrupted.
"Please don't mention that again, and you don't need to say sorry because you didn't do anything wrong."
Lyra thought that she seemed so unconcerned if she talked about Kesrick's family, because his father had just passed away. Although she was interested in the boy, she considered his situation.
"Sorry Lyra, but I'm now tired from strolling anywhere. I will just talk to you tomorrow or the other day, but now we both need to have rest."
Consequently, Kesrick used his power to get to the palace of Antipatris quickly. In just the blink of an eye, he appeared in his bedroom. He ejected air from his mouth while lying down on his bed. Because of his tiredness, it does not take him a second to fall asleep.
Lyra, on the other hand, is alone again. She slowly changes her eyes' color back to sparkling red; therefore, she wears her eyeglasses. She used dark magic to get back to the house of her friend.
The roasters crow. The dazed sun comes up like a gecko, thrusting itself towards the unblemished cerulean sky. Birds begin to fly and grass dances on the hill. Roads, streets, boulevards, parks, houses, yards, and structures become busy when the Antipatrisians walk back and forth anywhere as the wind blows hither and thither.
Hada had just woken up and she was curious why her friend was still dead to the world although everyone was already awake. Inside her bedroom, Lyra was still lying on the bed and seemed very exhausted.
Flashing back: the three moons are now on the horizon, but inside her bedroom, Lyra can't sleep. She's thinking about the three boys that she just met. They are all handsome, but they are very different from each other. She doesn't know the real intention of Thoreau because his behavior is difficult to understand. He's a bit grouchy towards her. Ylarry is a good-humored boy, and it's not impossible for her to feel relieved or fall in love, because he's not just open to someone who wants to talk about their problems, but she felt that Ylarry is the prince of kindness. She knows that love isn't about appearance, but about what makes someone walk on air.
Meanwhile, she felt that Kesrick was filled with sorrow and that he seemed to be an abandoned boy. She thought about how she could be happy if she was always with him, because he didn't even know how to smile, and he seemed to be faking a smile at her. Actually, she wonders that their God will take her life not because she has become closer to the prince of sorrows, but because she has bad intentions towards them.
Lyra realizes that she's sometimes luckier than the other children because she still has parents, though they are cat and dog when fighting. She thought that if she only had good parents like Ylarry, she would not be stuck between the two huge rocks. She tried to remove everything from her mind, but the chattering of thoughts about her father again interrupted her. He eventually fell in love with the silence after she quieted her mind and let her soul speak.
Sitting on the balcony, Hada is drowned in boredom because, though there's someone with her, she feels like she's the only one in her house. She's curious why Lyra was always absent. She's not even eating a meal with her. Lyra was doing wonders when she was going somewhere. She had a hunch. She didn't know her friend well, and she could only know more things about her if they were always with each other. It crossed her mind to ask Lyra to let her go with her, so that she could have friends too.
Consequently, Hada walked towards the bedroom where Lyra was in deep slumber. She knocked on the door several times, but nobody opened it. Meanwhile, when she applies a little force, it opens and is not locked.
There are just a few clothes hanging on the clothesline beside the window. It seemed that Lyra hadn't brought anything else besides her black cloak, robes, and eyeglasses. She doesn't really need to bring anything because she can use magic to change her clothes in just a heartbeat, but sometimes it won't work, especially now that she's in Antipatris—a kingdom where goodness greatly prevailed. It would be easier for her to perform dark magic in the place where darkness reigns.
Except for those things, Hada didn't see anything else but Lyra, who was in a deep slumber. Her chest is moving up and down as she breathes. Hada noticed that her friend looked very exhausted; therefore, she chose not to wake her up. She was about to step out of the room when she noticed something. Besides Lyra, there was a tiny black case with a symbol of the lyre. Hada wondered if Lyra was good at playing lyre, because most of her things have this symbol.
The truth is that her name also came from the word lyre. They believed that if Lyra grew up, she could be the best lyre player. It seemed that her family were disappointed because they had guessed her wrong. Without hesitation, Hada took the small case beside her friend. She tried her best to open it, but she could not. Meanwhile, Lyra suddenly woke up and saw Hada was touching things that didn't belong to her.
"Hey, what are you doing to my case?" Lyra asked. She sprang out of bed and pretended to have a headache because she pressed her forehead, but in truth, she was covering her eyes so that Hada could not see it.
At the same time, Hada was surprised when Lyra suddenly woke up; consequently, the small case fell to the floor. Hada was in a daze, but Lyra didn't say anything, but bent her knees to reach the small case that had rolled down below the bed.
"Sorry, I didn't mean to touch your—" Hada hadn't finished her words when Lyra interrupted. "Just calm down. You don't need to say sorry."
Lyra stood up and avoided having eye-to-eye contact with Hada, who was doing the same with her. She could not look directly at her either. Lyra put the small case above the table and got her cloak that was hanging on the clothesline. Definitely, she's not angry because her friend touched things that didn't belong to her, for she also lived in her house.
The princess of weirdness went out of the bedroom with her back cloak and eyeglasses in hand. Hada didn't follow her, so she went back to the living. Lyra's footsteps are high and low as she walks towards the washroom. She went in and washed her face with cool water. Then she changed her clothes and put on her black eyeglasses.
There were too many things to chew the cud about, but Hada was thinking about what was inside the small case that she saw beside Lyra. She wondered if that case was important to her because she slept with it.
Lyra went back to the dining room when she saw Hada sitting on the chair beside the table. "Good morning, Hada."
"Good morning too. It's still early and you're going somewhere now?"
"Yup, I just have important things to do. I don't want to waste my time wool-gathering. I really need to go back to Satan—" Lyra stopped.
"To go back where?" Hada queried.