It's been some time since the city had been opened, but still it was all so amusing! On one hand, LuMin felt as if nothing had changed, as if they had always lived like this, as if there had never been hundreds of years when four impossibly huge walls separated them from the world outside. On the other, she was constantly forgetting and rediscovering just how new everything was! Dad had explained to them what the day and night cycle were, because the very first night LuMin experienced, it had genuinely thought the roof somehow closed again. Sure, when they had looked up, they had realized it wasn't really a roof, at least not of their city, but that had only raised more questions. He knew what the sky was, but they didn't know it could change – no one ever talked about that and all depictions of it were showing it to always be endlessly blue. Funny, she knew some stuff about stars and planets, but for some reason it never clicked. The moon was very pretty... But where was he? Oh, right, the world outside! LuMin did everything in their power to exit the city and get outside as fast as they could. The exit... The Companions there were so weird. They didn't seem alive, exactly. That encounter left them with mixed feelings – LuMin felt both uncomfortable, almost creeped out and at the same time so, so curious! He and all the others were just like these Companions once... Probably. In the sense that... For some reason LuMin just could not see themself as a "janitor". She never thought about it, but now she wondered who she used to be. Was meant to be? Wait, stop. What was it that he was thinking about? What was he...
LuMin frowned for a moment when the train of thought stopped, then looked up at the sky. Ugh, they hated this feeling – they knew they had some thought, that they wanted to tell themself more, something else, they even remembered the general direction their thoughts were going in, but they couldn't remember the exact thought for the life of them. Their speaker hissed in irritation as the Companion looked at the lonely cloud. Speaking of clouds; they too were so strange. Back when the city was still closed, dad had told her about them, and had even shown her some experiment with an artificial cloud. That was cool. A huge mass of water somehow staying up there and even moving – sounds extremely unrealistic, yet here he was, sitting there and watching one right that moment.
LuMin noticed something on the edge of their field of vision, so they looked down. The grass swayed slowly, up and down, leaning closer to the earth, then reaching up into the sky again. The wind. Quite a weak one, but LuMin knew it was there, caressing the metal of its own body.
LuMin fidgeted with a pencil in its fingers for a little longer, then finally decided to put both it and their notebook back into his pocket. They stood up, glancing in the direction of the white-and-green Companion that slowly stood up too. Slowly, LuMin left the shadow of the tree, walking forward, examining everything they noticed. It was still hard to believe that all of this was finally real. The unrestrained, endless freedom. Surprisingly, not that many Companions had tried to leave the city yet. Maybe they were afraid of the novelty. LuMin, on the other hand, has been there for the last several days, not yet willing to go back, exploring everything that wasn't too far from the city's entrance. She was mostly doing it for herself, but she did cross paths with several groups of Companions that were doing something similar, but seemed more serious about it. Most times LuMin joined such groups, both to listen to others and to show off his own knowledge. Sometimes Clementine was there too, explaining stuff to other Companions. It reminded LuMin of the times back in the Antvillage, a feeling both warm and melancholic, almost sad. Each time LuMin stayed around for as long as it could, listening, asking, sharing their own thoughts – until he couldn't handle it anymore. They had just left another one of those groups, actually. Hehe, this time she had even managed to show off! Good thing she once got way too fixated on reading as much as she could from dad's library.
LuMin laughed softly, but the emotion only grew – and, hey, he didn't have any reasons to hold back! The Companion started clapping its hands and spinning around, laughing happily. Free, she was free! And she was here, in this strange yet so beautiful world, where so many new and exciting things were still unexplored, and that promised so much more to come! And he had all the time in the world to learn everything about it, to try out everything it could offer, to explore everything it could be hiding! And, maybe, even start something from a completely new page! Freedom, and happiness, and hope, and confidence, and so many opportunities! LuMin stopped for a moment to grab and pull Boosha in for a dance, seeing them getting startled for a moment, but then smiling warmly, returning LuMin's own smile. The grass showed the pattern the two were leaving behind. The flowers swayed, as if encouraging their excitement, dancing along to their joy. The endless blue spun above them, watching and remembering this moment for years to come. The black-and-orange Companion let go of its friend, spinning faster, bolder, until it stopped suddenly, throwing out their arms and shouting something up into the sky with a laugh – something about promises, gratitude and love.
To the whirring of his own cooling system, LuMin lowered his head and turned to Boosha. Emotions still strong, she quickly approached, almost squeezing them in a hug. They had centuries behind them and infinity before them, but in this moment LuMin was the happiest she's ever been.
