Luna was already up by the time Evy started her, uh,<i>wake-up routine.</i>Like most dryadi, she didn’t have much trouble sleeping whenever she wanted to, and liked to be up just before the dawn. Not that the Challenger Deep had a sun other than the pretend ones Evy put up in the morning. She’d watched all of the different pretend sunrises by now, even when it meant sneaking into each different room in the morning. They were very pretty, but they didn’t<i>feel</i>like a real sunrise. She couldn’t hear sunbeams tinkling softly through the leaves, or taste it on the wind. The warm smell of breakfast was nice, but it wasn’t quite the same as the smell of ambrosia drifting on a morning breeze.<br/><br/>Her cabin reflected a desperate attempt to make things less like a cage and more like a forest. She’d picked plants that wouldn’t grow<i>too</i>big, and when she was small, it practically<i>was</i>a forest. She was lucky she didn’t need to<i>walk</i>to bed like a<i>walky person,</i>because there would be a<i>lot</i>of plants in the way. Most of the small trees were bright orange and in full bloom, since they were from Eos’s spring hemisphere, and they smelled nice, but never quite the same. On her bed was a small colony of adorable stuffed animals she was convinced actually existed somewhere.<br/><br/>Luna finished her morning stretch-flight-clean-dance just in time to watch Evy’s naked form run by as she fluttered into the hallway. She grinned to herself and sped along after her as fast as her little wings could carry her. Some days, she went to breakfast dressed only in the soft glow she could make, so that two bare butts raced down that hallway together. She considered it a form of solidarity with the strange A.I., but also a lot of fun.<br/><br/>Today was different, though. Today, she was going be to be<i>Super Serious™</i>, if<i>Super Serious™</i>meant wearing a small, translucent sunsilk slip instead of nothing. She could change clothes at a moment’s notice, anyway, which she explained as “going into a fifth-dimensional wardrobe” that apparently followed her around and existed outside the rules of space-time.<br/><br/>Luna did a barrel roll as she entered the mess hall and made a beeline for a tiny plate of blueberries much bigger than her mouth and somehow managed to bring them over to the dryadi table, spinning to the rhythm of Evy’s song and dance. She gave Eld a little curtsy he was probably too distracted to notice and began to absolutely devour the blueberries, somehow remarkably tidily.<br/><br/>She did pause at the tidal wave of coffee, but only gave a little frown when Eld finally turned Evy off. Her plate seemed like a little island on a table full of coffee. Luna knew better than to have anything to do with coffee. It was like adrenaline to her, and she didn’t really want to be bouncing off the walls just yet.<br/><br/>The blueberries were spared for a bit when Mr. Speaker showed up to give one of his calm sermons, but also the clean up the coffee, which was convenient. Of the people on the ship, Orator was one of the ones she understood the least, which meant she had a lot of names for him. Considering that watching people was basically what her<i>job</i>, Mr. Talkerson had accomplished quite a feat. She understood parts of him a lot, like his love of peace, silky robes, and silky voice. But she had no idea how he was so calm all the time. Things were too<i>exciting</i>to be calm all the time! They’d be exploring a whole new world! All those new sights, new animals, new people! She floated a little in place before landing back on the plate without really noticing.<br/><br/>She tilted her head at Eld as he fell loudly to the floor, and put a hand on her hips as she watched Evy caressing Lecturer. She coloured a little and was immediately distracted by the blueberries again. No point in paying attention to<i>people</i>when perfectly good<i>blueberries</i>were on the line! They were delicious, after all, and almost gone!<div class="messageTextEndMarker"> </div>