LIGHTNOVELONLINE 31: Airspace Violations
With their date having been a great success, Valencia and Astrid spent the next few days maintaining a low-key presence in their tea shop. One goal was still on Valencia’s mind though: introducing Astrid to the others.
Of course, she had mentioned them before, so she was just trying to figure out how in the world she was going to set up a situation in which to introduce them.
There were just a couple of issues. For one, it was hellish just trying to get everyone in the sample place at once. Of course, that was mitigable by just introducing people one by one, or in small groups.
The larger problem was just Astrid’s schedule. Valencia could never be sure if Astrid was going to be healthy. After all, like before with Estelle, Solomon, and Joanna, she could introduce Astrid to the various primordial deities without much issue, but if Astrid didn’t meet them, what was the point?
Valencia didn’t care if they knew about her girlfriend. She wanted her girlfriend to know about them!
Plus, there was the whole ‘Astrid doesn’t know about deities’ issue...
Spending a few days mulling over the problem as she ran the shop with Astrid, Valencia, without too much luck, could only come up with a plan for proposing...
Not helpful.
Swearing that she’d tell Astrid everything before an eventual proposal, Valencia tried her best to reconnect with the various deities in the city and in the surrounding area. By just using texting and calling—methods far easier than what she had used in the past—Valencia managed to contact a couple people.
Estelle was open to meeting up. Texting her was just annoying because she kept trying to tease her but it was still a fun time.
Being the member of the Primordial deities most consistently in the city—other than Solomon and Joanna—made Estelle quite busy. However, by using a video of her spinning, flipping, and striking a pose to proclaim how she’d put aside everything for her favorite fight-addict, Estelle had grinned after leaving Valencia speechless.
Valencia, facepalming as she couldn’t do anything about Estelle’s antics, had just tried to wrap up the conversation only to get embroiled in another friendly cussing match over the phone...
Moving on, Solomon and Joanna, on the other hand, had a lot of spare time as an elderly couple. Even though they maintained the city, they somehow had the most time out of everyone...
As for their texts, they just replied with love and appreciation for being let into Valencia’s life. They even offered to bring flowers and gifts! What kind friends!
If only everyone could live life on the same wavelength as those two...
As a bonus, to Valencia’s total surprise, there were two other people who replied with a positive answer.
Rainier and Sylvia!
Rainier, though saying he was open to meeting Astrid, did say he still was about a week and a half away from the city. With Rainier even offering to skip the last few items on his list of objectives to come back sooner, Valencia almost teared up with how kind he seemed to have become.
Maybe she wasn’t the only one to have changed in the past couple decades!
Reassuring Rainier that he could take his time and enjoy the week and a half, Valencia just marked the date of his arrival on her calendar before setting a reminder on her phone.
That left her with Sylvia.
With Sylvia making her various rotations to check on the swaths of nature flourishing outside of Marcen’s Cliffs, Valencia wasn’t confident in getting to meet up with her. Sylvia, however, clarified she was only about an hour out from the city for the next couple of days.
Making some quick decisions, Valencia closed the store for the day, clarified the situation with Astrid, and headed out.
Floating her way through the city with lackadaisical swoops and dives, Valencia ignored the looks coming from those on the ground—and from the few others who were also able to fly like her.
Making her way past the Dynasty’s pagoda-like headquarters, the Church’s grandiose cathedral, and the Federation’s skyscrapers, Valencia violated every airspace boundary outlined in the Library of Truth’s maps before heading to the outskirts of the city.
Unbeknownst to her, her actions caused a couple of near heart attacks, but that was a secret for the three organizations to keep to themselves...
“I forgot how large this city was...” Valencia sighed to herself as she floated her way further inland. “Perhaps the inland portion of the city’s gotten bigger while I was gone.”
Taking mental note of all the different date spots she and Astrid could go to, Valencia did a couple twirls as she flew past the various academies. Accelerating into the distance before anyone could identify who she was, Valencia slowed down once she was out of sight.
“There’s the portal I came in from... still looks futuristic as always.” Valencia reminisced as she checked the time. “Okay, I still got a little longer. Should I bring Astrid to that park? Well, hmm... she might not like seeing the portal because it's so similar to the portal those cultists used back then... I’ll ask her later.”
Monologuing to herself as she floated through the air taking notes on her phone, Valencia kept murmuring to herself for another couple minutes while surveying the inland portion of the city. “I forgot the big organizations had their main headquarters over here as well beyond their buildings sitting along the outermost ring.”
With all their airspaces already violated though, Valencia just zipped off to the land outside of the city.
With their meeting spot being a little closer to Sylvia, Valencia geared up for a forty minute flight. Putting on some headphones to listen to some music, Valencia pushed her speed to the maximum as a faint purple glow began to take shape around her once more.
Kicking off the air, Valencia transformed into a purple line flashing towards the horizon as she disappeared without a trace.
---
“Whew, it’s coming together!” Astrid laughed, leaning back and propping herself up with her hands.
With the day off, Astrid was just spending it to get some work done on her drawing. She had a brilliant idea! Even though they weren’t going to school anymore, why not draw something depicting a similar situation? Some sort of improvement or training image? After all, training together had been how they bonded back in the day...
After a few days of brainstorming and internal debating, Astrid settled on what she felt like was a cute idea: becoming goddesses so they could live forever together!
Wasn’t it a romantic idea~?
With her sketch taking shape, Astrid couldn’t help but giggle to herself.
Pushing herself back up to return to her cross-legged position on the ground, Astrid continued her sketch on the coffee table in the center of the living room. Taking a moment to adjust the paper, Astrid ended up just slumping back on the ground as her motivation left her like a spirit leaving a dead body.
The hours she was spending drawing was reminding her that she needed to get out more...
She needed to start doing things on her own again! She needed to make some friends of her own!
Maybe there were art gatherings she could go to!
With art getting put on the back-burner, Astrid spent the next couple minutes just splayed out on the floor brainstorming a variety of potential ways to make some friends.
“Teaching art lessons? Going to a yoga class? What about a dance thing... Or maybe I could just go on walks in the park? Feed some birds? No, no, that’s senior citizen talk Astrid... you have to be young and cool!”
