Road to Ruisea

❆ ❆ XIV. KUMARI ❆ ❆

Kumari's both too excited and too nervous to fall asleep.

She wonders if there's a word for that feeling.

It's like anxiety, but nicer... It's like anticipation, but sharper.

She opts to call it being nervouscited, and leaving it at that.

She is very nervouscited.

So no sleep tonight.

Kumari chose the top bunk, and she looks over the railing to check on her goose. Goldy — who has the bottom bunk all to herself — is resting on one of the round plushy pillows, letting out soft, unnoticeable honks, sound asleep.

Kumari wonders if there'll be any eggs on the pillow later on, when Goldy's awake.

That'd be fun. Little goslings!

Might make it harder to travel though...

Her mind wanders back to the train itself, how she'd spent the first few minutes there staring out the window, waiting for the the train to move.

Then it did move, and Kumari could barely keep in her excited squeals as she saw Cevalon's harbor get further and further away, leaving her home behind and laying the whole world ahead of her.

There was the voice of a woman, probably prerecorded, speaking Qilucan, sounding out throughout the entire train. Kumari knew what her voice was saying, but then she repeated it again in Cevalonian, and then in all the other languages as well.

"Thank you for boarding Ocean Express. We are now leaving Cevalon, kingdom of sunset and sunrise."

Pause.

"Next destination: Huven. Kingdom of flowers and forests."

Kumari had only read about Huven in books. The secretive people with temples and pyramids rumored to be built out of pure gold, hidden in the depths of the rainforests...

It sounded like a dream, but here Kumari was, well on her way there.

After another squeal-fest and ten minutes of staring out at nothing but moving bright blue water, she then started exploring everything in her room. The soap in the shower was lemon-scented, there were five pillows on each bed, a tiny mint left on both bunks. Kumari hated the taste of mint, but the wrapper was sooo pretty.

But she wasn't sure what to do now, seeing as she couldn't exactly sleep.

If she didn't rest, she wouldn't be strong enough in the morning to explore the rest of the train.

So she lays there, nervouscited, desperate to pass out but completely unable to.

She hums a Cevalonian lullaby to herself, keeps readjusting her pillows, climbs down to drink water, tries counting sheep, fantasizes about adventures with her friends and dancing with a prince on the ocean...

Nothing works.

She's wide awake.

Kumari resigns herself to her situation with a sigh, climbing back down the ladder to grab her book, the book Chiro and Jae had went to such lengths to retrieve. Switching on the lamp in her room, she sits down on the bottom bunk, opting to read on the ride.

There's a sleepy honk, and Kumari hushes Goldy.

"Baaaack to sleeeeep," she coos, and the honks become soft squeaky snores once more.

She continues to read, flipping through the pages, becoming thoroughly engrossed in the adventures of the two men, wondering at the back of her head how she ever could've bore it if she hadn't brought this book with her.