I awoke tired and uncomfortable, the bed I was lying on of clearly cheap manufacture. Bricks met my gaze and a familiar room showed itself to me as I sat up; I was, once again, waking up in Luna’s place.

A stray thought passed through my mind that I had forgotten to text my grandparents again but I quickly banished it; I’d rather not have to worry about that right now.

Instead, I wandered on out of the room and down the connecting hallway, opening up to the warehouse proper.

“The slumbering princess awakens,” Luna’s voice called out as soon as I came into view, delectably bright and cheerful. She was lounging lazily on the sofa. The only servant in view was S1, who was standing in the small kitchenette.

“Is it late, then?” I asked. Knowing Luna, though, it could’ve been really early and I’d still be up after her.

“It’s only about eight. I was tempted to jump into your bed to wake you up but chose not to,” She replied.

“At least it’s not the afternoon, then,” I choose to ignore her comment.

“Would you care for some breakfast?” She asked as I unceremoniously plomped myself down on the sofa with her.

“I wouldn’t object to something to eat,” I replied, expecting this to mean we’d go out to eat somewhere.

Instead, Luna shouted over to S1 to cook breakfast. What ‘cooking breakfast’ actually entailed, it seemed, was to dump the ingredients of a silvery packet into the camping stove--much like C1 did when I met her--pour water in, and then heat it up, waiting for it to cook.

“Is ‘breakfast’ soup?” I asked uncertainly.

“No, it’s breakfast,” Luna replied, drawing out her words. “It was labelled as an ‘all day breakfast’,” She explained.

“Okay. Where are the S1 and S2?” It felt weird not seeing Luna surrounded on all sides by her gang of servants.

“I left them sleeping. They looked too adorable together to wake them up,” She answered, a smile on her face.

It feels a bit like she treats her own servants like they’re cats instead.

I didn’t respond and just leaned back, closed my eyes, and relaxed.

I didn’t relax for long, however, as a pair of arms gently wrapped themselves around my torso and pulled me towards a body. Instinctually, I thought it was C1 again but, opening my eyes, it turned out to be Luna.

“Do you mind?” I asked, trying to instil annoyance in my tone. It annoyed me that I had to look up at her while she held me to make eye contact; made me feel like a child.

“I thought I’d redeem my daily hug,” She replied shamelessly, still holding onto my body.

She wasn’t gripping me tightly--she wasn’t really doing anything apart from just hugging me--but I still felt mildly uncomfortable with this situation.

“That hug yesterday was a one-time thing, okay?” I answered, my voice wavering slightly as it was injected with emotion.

“That doesn’t have to be the case.” She seemed intent on not letting go.

“Yes it does; I was scared and you were nearby so I hugged you. That’s all. No reason for more hugs,” 

Please stop talking about it and let me go; this is embarrassing!

“Does that mean if I wasn’t there, you’d hug someone else?” Luna asked, the smile never seeming to disappear off her face. In fact, it only got larger.

She had trapped me with that question; she knew me well enough that I wouldn’t hug a stranger.

But she’s still insinuating things!

“No?” I tentatively got out.

“There we go; you clearly want to be hugged by me and so I will indulge you in your desires,” She answered, both my speaking and squeezing me tighter against her.

It was clear by now that I wasn’t going to win so, instead, I just let her do what she wanted until she would release me which she, thankfully, did.

I scrambled over to the other side of the sofa, my face red.

Luckily, S1 had quietly brought over a plate as well as a knife-spoon combination utensil so I had a reason to be silent and ignore what just happened.

‘Breakfast’, as it turned out, was some low quality meat and beans. There were probably meant to be varying forms of meat but, to me, they all tasted like the same bland meat. The beans weren’t any better in that regard.

While it wasn’t delicious, it was at least appetizing and satiated me so I wasn’t complaining.

“Do you eat this everyday?” I asked, handing everything over to S1 once I had done, presumably to have it either washed or thrown away.

“Only sometimes. What do you think?”

“It’s not much,” I answered.

“It’s not? I’ve always been fine with eating it,” She replied. It seemed quintessentially Luna, her reply.

“I usually just have cereal for breakfast,”

“You do you, I suppose.”

Following that revelation, we just talked.

Normally, small talk, idle chatter, would be boring; both parties have no interest in the conversation and neither is illusioned to the extent they believe they can derive any meaningful talk from what they’re saying.

However, with Luna, it’s different. It’s like she takes everything seriously. If I ask for her opinion on the weather, while others may say it’s too cold or too hot, Luna looks at it from a different perspective; if it’s hot, she explains how that’d exhaust people more and so if you’re better prepared, it can actually be an advantage.

She also ordered me--not suggested, ordered--to drink more water once she realised that with all the exercise and physical exertion I’ve been doing recently, I hadn’t increased my intake of water. As much as I didn’t want to comply with a blatant order, I knew she only wanted what was best for me and I knew that I probably needed more water in my body anyway.

But that’s the thing! She’s always enjoyable to talk to; she surprises me in fun, novel ways and her imaginative insight into many a mundane topic prove endlessly interesting.

Even her servants, once they woke up and joined in the conversation, were fun to converse with. Part of it was from a clinical perspective--how they’re all hearts given form by Luna but show fascinating differences--but part of it was that Luna deliberately crafted personalities that were nice to be around.

S1 was stoic and quiet but I could relate with her reservedness and I appreciated the sensibility and responsibility that felt lacking from the master herself.

S2 was cheerful and bubbly and, overall, reminded me of a dog (as mean as that could be to say). She lightened up the conversations and was a joy to be around.

C1, though I hadn’t known her for as long as the rest, I liked her. The bursts of emotionality from her otherwise timid persona were adorable to watch, as well as how close she was with S2, occasionally grabbing each other.

They all seemed like real people who I could be friends with and that’s just so… Refreshing. They formed a well of joy in my life.

Sooner or later, the topic of lunch was brought up.

“Are we planning on eating out again, today?” I asked Luna.

“I wasn’t going to but if you offer something enticing, I might be pliable to do so...” She hinted, leaning towards me with a cheeky smirk on her face.

“I’m sure I could convince S2 to give you a hug,” I answered after taking a second to think. Hearing her name, S2 stared at me before turning to look at Luna.

“Give me a hug, S2,” Was all Luna said in response. With a delighted squeal, S2 clambered over the sofa to come to rest hugging Luna like an adorable puppy.

It felt odd and slightly disturbing to see that, merely because she looked like me.

“You need to offer something harder for me to get.”

“Well… We don’t need to go out for lunch...” I took a gamble, calling Luna’s bluff.

“Fine. We’ll eat out for lunch,” She relented, caring more about lunch than dragging an unwilling hug out of me. At least she respected me that much.

“Speaking of which, what about the money from the hive yesterday?” I asked as Luna tapped S2’s back in quick succession before whispering something in her ear.

Almost as quickly as she jumped on Luna, S2 jumped down and ran off somewhere. I showed a questioning face as I watched her disappear to the bedrooms.

“She’s going to get the money,” Luna clarified.

“Ah,” I wasn’t sure what to say.

It only took a minute before S2 reemerged, this time without C1 but with a wallet. She handed it over to Luna who withdrew £345.

“I expected more,” I said as soon as I finished counting the money.

“My, my, being a little greedy, aren’t we?” Luna asked as she placed the money down on the sofa in the space between us. Both of us were sitting cross-legged and facing each other, now.

“No, not like that; I mean, the warehouse paid us £150 and that one was only a weak hive. This one was an intermediate but it’s only £200 more,” I explained my reasoning.

“And there were far more people this time. When I went to get the money from the first hive, I was told that someone had already cleared the hive and took payment for it. That means that the £150 is solely from the parts of the Manifestation that we harvested.

“With this hive, because of what the Manifestation was, there was nothing to harvest from it. The money instead comes from what we took from the monsters as well as the flat payment for clearing a medium, intermediate hive.

“As well as this, there were six members of the Wayward Gloves as well, each taking their own cut,” Luna was patient as she calmly broke down the finances of clearing hives.

Not knowing any of this before--it turned out to be more complex than I imagine--I inwardly thanked her.

“In total, the hive paid out a little over £1000, and that’s without harvesting the Manifestation. All for a single day's worth of work.”

“That sounds quite good.” Truthfully, since I didn’t have a job, I didn’t know how it compared that well but, simply imaging that you cleared a hive a week, that’s over £50,000; it sounded like a good bit of money for relatively little work.

I suppose death being an occupational hazard accounts for the high pay.

“I guess that makes sense.” I paused. “Then, how are we splitting it?”

“£173 to me, £172 to you,” Luna succinctly answered, piling the money up into one pile because it was of too large denominations to make such a specific cut.

“No; you should have more money,” I replied, taking the--now neatly stacked--pile and checking over what notes were there. I placed five fifties in front of Luna and the rest in front of me.

“You should get £250,” I firmly stated. “S2 and C1 did far more work than me.”

“But it was only us two who were hired; if someone ran out from the crowd in a football match and scored a goal, you wouldn’t pay him money for being on the team,” Luna argued. A surprisingly logical argument coming from her.

“But they’re your summons; hiring you hires them by proxy.”

“But you went in to fight the Manifestation while S1, S2, and I didn’t, so you deserve danger pay.”

I didn’t respond, silently trying to think of a counterpoint.

“Additionally, I’m the team leader so I have final say on where the money goes. To make it easy, you get £170 while I get £175,” She stated with finality, splitting the notes to reflect that decision.

She grabbed my hand and stuffed my pay in it before letting go to emphasise her decision. I just stared at my hand full of money, unsure what to say.

“With that done, let’s go out to eat.”