HtH116 – What have you been up to, Mistrál?
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Mistrál reveals a big secret.
"Hikari bids you good night, Minara. May harmonious nights bless our paths---"
Those words cause Minara to give a start.
It had been after Reading Day at the Echoes Chamber, and both house and guests alike were heading back to bed after a sumptuous supper.
Hearing the resident neon diva wish good night to her felt... strange. It was so casual, like she were wishing someone like Ablam goodnight instead.
The blue-haired girl stands rooted at the spot with goggly golden eyes, watching Hikari ascend the staircase, long-sleeved kimono trailing on the barrister. Hikari did not seem to mind, and smiles a vibrant farewell before disappearing into the upper floors.
It is only when Hikari exits the stage that Minara gives a sigh.
All five of the girls who lived at the theatre house had their own personal rooms upstairs on the third floor. They were the actresses of this theatre house, so it was only natural that they had their own rooms.
What Minara has however...
... is the room under the stairs.
Rather than a room, it more resembles a broom cupboard. It is small, cramped, and barely has enough space to fit in two people and a beanie chair.
Still, it was granted to her by Eclair rent-free. [HtH60]
That was the most important part.
She had come to Vespana [23] with little more than a flying drone and a quest to find her lost brother. However, try as she might, she barely found any clues to where he is now. The only clue, a photograph that showed that he lived here for an indeterminable amount of time, had burned away in an accident. [HtH81]
The house... certainly is doing well for itself.
Their days are spent with visiting guests, rehearsals and voice practice. When not doing theatre house stuff, they seemed quite free to roam wherever they please. Sometimes, one of them would wander off for days at the time, and return with lively stories to tell the other girls.
The girls all seem to be moving forwards.
For Minara however, she feels stuck.
Stuck in the little broom cupboard, stuck in her ways and how she lives.
"Screw it, all-nighter livestream, here we come!"
That was when she hears another set of footsteps coming down the stairs...
"Hello there, friend Minara! Have you been doing well?"
Almost gliding down the first floor staircase is our local tinkerer, Mistrál! The girl has both hands wrapped around Rover, the flying drone, in her lap.
"Good sister-in-law?" The girl's dull auric eyes go goggly for a second, "Where have you been all this time?"
For some time now, the other blue-haired girl would disappear from the house for long periods of time, nowhere to be found. Even knocking on her basement laboratory, "Mistrál's Fun Place" yielded no response.
Why, it had come to a point where Minara was attending more Reading Day sessions than her fellow actress now!
Our tinkerer smiles warmly, and she holds back Rover's backpack in her lap, as if to stop the drone from spoiling the surprise!
Her good sister-in-law had reached the first floor landing when she realizes something strange: all the furniture... is gone! It was not like there were a lot of her stuff to begin with, but even the beanie bag she sleeps on, the monitor she uses for off-stream gaming... all gone! The only thing not cleaned out from the room is the rug on the floor; could this be her good sister-in-law's idea of a mischievous prank?
"Hey, good-sister-in-law? Have you seen my monitor? I need to livestream in maybe an hour..."
Minara palms the back of the empty and battered old cupboard, thinking that it had been hidden there.
"--- Tell me, friend Minara? Do you like it here?"
What was this about all of a sudden? Her good-sister-in-law had asked that question out of the blue, how could she answer immediately?
Was this a trick? Had Mistrál started the livestream early and the microphone on Rover is already live? What should she even say in response to a question like that? What did it even mean anyway? Was it about the food here? Definitely, it was miles better than anything she had eaten in ages.
Or perhaps Mistrál was asking about how the girls treated each other here.
To be fair, it weirded her out initially. The way the actresses here help each other out had once seemed so foreign to her. They laugh together, they work on projects together, and they seem to genuinely enjoy each other's company.
It is a culture that Minara has no dictionary for.
And yet, she couldn't bring herself to say she dislikes it.
It is different, so very different from the world that she is used to.
To make matters even more complicated, it feels like some part of the house had started to seep into her as well.
Why did she volunteer to hang up posters for the first Reading Day? Why did she help Lumi water the roses over the new year's?
In her heart, the girl had an answer already...
"I... don't dislike it."
The laughter that comes from her good-sister-in-law is bright--- like she had expected this sort of half-answer from her friend!
"Well, Mistrál has observed friend Minara for a long time already. Mistrál wonders ---" Standing at the broom cupboard doorway, she releases Rover into the room, where is hovers low to the ground. "--- if there is something that Minara could have in this house, what would it be?"
"I wish... no, I want for a bigger room."
It was a simple, almost silly request.
But a room of her own had its own meaning.
Of course, Mistrál had long predicted this response. As she had mentioned earlier, she had spent a long time observing Minara.
But more than that, Mistrál is Minara's friend.
The girl waves her hands in circles around the air, fingers wiggling in from of her good sister-in-law looking on with a half open mouth!
"Shaazam! Your wish is granted! Rover, show friend Minara the surprise!"
With an attached robotic arm, Rover lifts up the sole rug in the room, revealing...
Something foreign and impossible had appeared in the room, causing the ahoge on Minara's head to point straight up...!
"Is that... is that a manhole cover?"
Glossary
[23] Vespanola - The continent where the Hell's Theatre story is set in. Vespana is a magickal and wonderous place!
Recall
[HtH60] - "This is your home now.", where Minara moves into the room under stairs rent-free!
[HtH81] - The chapter where the Drawing Room became the Echoes Chamber today!
We are trying something different! This is a simul-posting at the same time as the Scribblehub release! Go check out the entire series at this link!
