The Trio Odyssey

Part I: Soul to Soul

Chapter 11: The Images of Sanaje Coast

Raesha gasps quietly, reacting to what she has overlooked and becoming slightly startled. 

Raeké notices the word of her mother, accidentally observing and recounting a little that she knows

“Sanaje… Coast?”

Raesha looks back to her daughter in a gentle gaze and a subtle smile, veiling her curiosity and worriness.

She picks out some of the pictures, showing them to her daughter and letting out some words of thought.

“Yes, sweetie. These are the images that captured the celestial phenomenon, Gantae Equatorial Syzygy.”

“How is it? Beautiful, right?”

Her daughter thinks for a few seconds, loading the information after passing out and recovering her energy.

“Gantae—… Ahh!”

Then, her daughter’s spurt of energy rushes in.

“Yes, Mom! It’s so beautiful!”

She grabs all of the pictures, eagerly shuffling, viewing and commenting through each one of them. 

“Wow, they’re nicely taken!”

“Oh—, this one is super detailed!”

The Queen Consort stands up and goes beside the Physician.

Her Majesty, Raesha, and the Physician observe the Princess’s demeanor that is fully brimming with life from afar.

Until the Princess recognized something about the pictures, she talks it out.

“Wait—, but there’s something missing though.”

Raesha asks her daughter, doubting about what she meant.

“Hm—, what do you mean, honey?”

Her daughter recalls what’s not inside the pictures.

“Where are those massive figures? Why is it empty?”

The Physician is left puzzled by the Princess’s reaction, diagnosing about her words to the Queen Consort.

“Ma’am, She might be hallucinating, I’m afraid so.”

The Queen Consort replies in whispers.

“We don’t know yet, Doctor Dohret.”

“I’ve requested the Sovereign to assign the Spiritual Faction and the Cosmical Faction from other Palaces to investigate the case about the knife that was found back at Sanaje Coast, and Her behavior.”

The Physician inquires.

“Did it work out, Ma’am?”

The Queen Consort responds, justifying her sentences.

“Yes, both of the factions are available.”

The Physician smiles, sending the Queen Consort his wishes.

“May good news arrive.”

The Queen Consort continues, thanking the Physician.

“You have my gratitude, Doctor.”

Then, Raesha stares back at her daughter who is still rummaging the cube box, mumbling, stating her feelings inwardly.

“I wonder if Raeké is going to be okay…”

She shakes her head, washing the stressful things away and shifting her focus toward something else that is more friendly.

Afterward, Raesha starts yelling at her daughter. 

“Raeké, let’s go and have dinner! You keep playing all the time, aren’t you hungry?! It’s been an entire day since you haven’t eat, you know?!”

Her daughter pauses, hearing her stomach growling intensely and loudly.

Raeké heeds her mother’s call with a sweat drop.

“Hehe… Mom! Coming~”

Later, she comes running toward her mother, leaving the images of Sanaje Coast scattered around her sickbed. 

Her mother shouts to Raeké again.

“Oh—, you naughty little lass! You dare to leave the images to be scattered, messing around your sickbed?!”

Raeké’s shoulder jumps while looking straight into her mother’s eyes of anger, slowly looking back at her sickbed; it’s true that the images are left scattered around her bed, she just knew it. 

Raeké rushes toward her sickbed, picking all of the scattered images and putting them back into the cube box neatly like how it was before it was opened.

Raesha shows her palm toward her daughter, saying a few words.

“Please hand it to me, baby.”

Raeké lifts the cube box and hands it to her mother.

“Here, here, Mom.”

Suddenly, Raesha takes her other hand to pinch her daughter’s chubby chin and caresses the side of her hair. 

“Here, here, Ké.”

Raeké reacts shortly with an affectionate look on her face

“Hehe—, that tickles!”

The Queen Consort smiles and then she faces the Physician that has been waiting from the side to lead them the way, telling a short sentence.

“Let’s go.”

The Physician subtly bows and starts moving. 

Raeké runs to get to the side of the Physician. As she reaches him, she looks at him shyly. 

The Physician understands the Princess’s gestures, giggling and asking about what she actually wants from him.. 

“Hahaha—, want some sweets, eh?”

Raeké nods strongly. She does want sweets, it's just that she’s too shy to ask. 

The Physician takes out a few wrapped sweets out of his bag and gives the Princess with a smile. 

The Princess gasps happily and takes all of the handed candies, unwrapping and chewing them.

A few minutes later, the Royals reached the Family Dining Room in Heto Palace while it was already late.

A valet greets the Royals to come inside the room.

“Your Majesty, Your Highness, welcome. The meals are ready.”

After that, Raeké and her mother sit down side by side, joining the dinner.

Raeké immediately digs in after an entire day of not eating from her collapse; from the evening of the 31st of Eradisiae to the night of the 1st of Kamathae.

“Whoa—, digging in!”

Many moments have passed, while everyone relaxes under the night sky.

A thought passes by Raeké’s head and she tells her mother.

“Mom, Ké wants some blank cards.”

Her mother finishes her sip of drink and places her glass down to reply to Raeké.

“Sure, Ké. But what for?”

Raeké’s hands jump upward while she shouts excitedly. 

“Drawing!”

Her mother is confused, asking Raeké again. 

“Why won’t Ké just draw on canvas?”

“Because Ké wants to bring it anywhere Ké goes!”

“Alright, alright, Baby. But make sure you go to sleep first, okay?”

Raeké nods aggressively, flying her bangs. 

Her mother stands up, inviting Raeké for a walk to her room. 

“Then, let’s go to your room.”

Raeké holds hands with her mother, exiting the Family Dining Room to her room together. 

Once they reach in front of Raeké’s room, her mother pushes the oak, double margin doors.

Within the dark room, there is a reddish crystal placed on the wall beside the door. 

Raesha calls out her Chimeric to her front, a strange looking animal with the combination of a small snake with multiple bird’s wings, skinned in the dark color of space and the glitters of the stars, and it's sinuously moving.

It’s the same Chimeric that she uses back at Sanaje Coast.

She points her palm toward the crystal and releases a nearly unseen force that touches the crystal, causing it to glow.

Now that she has turned on the lights of the room with a warm red to orange tone, she enters the room with her daughter after Raesha’s Chimeric disappeared.

Raeké runs toward her grand and soft looking bed and lands on it in a single leap.

The softness of the bed’s cushion bounces Raeké upward a few times. While that, Raeké hugs her thick, fluffy pillows, swinging her arms around the bed.

“Mmm—, comfy~!”

Raesha sits on the bed right beside her daughter, reminding her to sleep well.

“Ké, it’s time to sleep.”

Her daughter flips her body over to her front facing upward from her back, replying to Raesha.

“Yes, Mom~, I’m going to sleep.”

Raesha pulls the blanket to her daughter’s collarbone and repeats about the weather conditions. 

“It’s quite cold tonight.”

Raeké repeats after her mother, picking just one word.

“Cold…”

And then, Raeké recounts to her mother about how the lights of the room were turned on. 

“Mom… how do you open the lights?”

Her mother says dearly. 

“So, the lights… we need to command our Chimerics to produce a certain amount of Occult Synthesis, just a tiny bit would do.”

Raesha gives her daughter a slow, gentle head pat. And, she continues with her explanation slowly and steadily.

“First off, the surroundings in this world have Occult Synthesis, no matter where we go or how far we go.”

“While the Crystalline exists inside the medium of this atmosphere, it stores the roaming Occult Synthesis unless we close off its entrance seal, while its exit seal is what makes it glow because it uses the preserved Occult Synthesis.”

“When we transfer our Occult Synthesis outward to seal its entrance seal, we can get rid of the same seal using the same method.”

Raeké isn’t left perplexed learning all of the details that she starts to wonder using an analogy, getting more and more curious. 

‘Oh—, so it’s basically just like opening the cap of an upside down bottle that you cut its bottom, while letting the stream of water continuously flowing through a hose from a pipe, or is it something else…?’

While she manages to digest all of the information, she compliments her mother instinctively.

“Whoa—, Mom, you’re so smart!”

Her mother smiles subtly.

Then, one fact passes Raesha’s head. So, she lets it out with a calm voice. 

“Oh—, here’s a fun fact: the man who invented the Crystalline is from more than 10,000 Julaerar Years ago. His name is Crystallis. So, the crystal kind he invented is called after his name, Crystalline.”

Raeké inquires about the Crystalline’s history. 

“Is that also written in the Annals too?”

“Yes!”

Raesha takes a look at the hanged wall clock.

The clock has 15 hours per cycle of Togue; 15 of Sol-Togue, ST, and 15 of Mor-Togue, MT. While the hour shown on the wall clock inside the Princess’s room is currently 12MT. 

Raesha tells her daughter again with the voice of her breaths. 

“Oh—, it’s already late. Go to sleep, honey.”

Her daughter silences herself while she relaxes her eyes, closing them. 

Then, Raesha comfortably stares at her daughter, watching her fall asleep. 

She assumes that her daughter had already fallen asleep. Thus, she exits her daughter’s room, closing the oak doors slowly and quietly. 

When her mother is away, Raeké speaks inwardly. 

‘Finally, a time full of privacy.’

‘It’s strange… I’m a stranger, yet, treated like a royal. No… I’m still trapped inside this royal’s body, after all.’

The internal throbbing sensation appears within Raeké’s chest.

‘Even till now, I still can’t believe all of this is happening. And I’m homesick too. I wonder what will happen…’

Out of the blue, Raeké remembers every detail of memories she went through back in the day of the Royalty Gatherings of the Ivada Federation.

Every single one: how she got to Sanaje Coast, what is the meaning of those figures at the coast, how she was transported at a light speed, how the meetings and conflicts went and all, until she collapsed. 

‘Tsk, so much happened that I can’t even process this Princess’s brain…’

‘…She’s still 7 by the way.’

‘Nevermind all of that… If I can sleep, I will too. And yes… isn’t this a free privilege of living as a royal?’

As she’s staring at the ceiling, her sleepiness takes over her, gradually sealing her eyes and casting herself into the dream.