My name is Luna, I'm twelve years old, my father is Hudson, my mother is Jaceline, and we live in the floating continent Whartonte.

Whartont in the light mist, neat houses and villas shrouded in the shadow of the Capitol estate to the east, cedar-lined boulevards, glittering lakes and fountains, everything is wonderful.

We are nomads from afar. It is also a fortunate people, and throughout Whartont we have a privileged class. The proof of this lies in the fact that we can travel across the Wharton districts without a visa, and even enter the palaces of the Wharton box court nobles at will without a visa.

The maglev oil lamps float in the air to illuminate the main city of Whartont: in Whartont, we use these lamps, but as for the poor people who live in the sewers, they use clam oil candles, and the smoke from the burning of clam oil floats around and over the floating continent like a shroud, which not only stains the skin, but also makes it difficult to breathe.

The poor were dressed in rags, bent by physical burden and mental exploitation, and they walked through the streets and alleys, ending up in the dark sewers, and the harsh environment kept them from seeing the sun all day long.

The street was lined with open gutters, where sludge and sewage flowed freely and spilled on the axles of the locomotives, while we sat in the back compartment and watched the scenery out the window.

After that, we arrived at the station in the Wharton Center, where we could take the silver-gray bullet light rail. During this period, when passing by the biological farmland on the outer side of the floating continent, through the gray-yellow mist, I saw ghostly figures. The barefoot peasants tended the fields of the nobles, and when the grain failed, they starved and were completely slaves of the landlords.

At family gatherings, I heard from my father's friend that the peasants were forced to drive poison dart frogs in order to give the landlords a good night's sleep, and that death seemed very indifferent to the age of exploitation. In order to survive, some hungry farmers had to eat wild grass to survive, even swallowing poison dart frogs, which could poison ten adult males.

At the same time, the nobles of Hakoba lived a prosperous life, without paying taxes, without military service, and without having to sit on the undignified free labor.

My parents said that the young Queen Anne Michel wandered the corridors of the palace, between the banquet hall and the antechamber, and was hidden from the outside world by the surrounding officials, like a canary imprisoned in a golden birdcage.

At the same time, the king of another palace: the regent Adolf Babas. He sat comfortably in his royal seat in the palace and passed law after law that harmed the poor, starved them and made officials richer. With serious expressions, they said that such an act would provoke an uprising sooner or later.

My father had several "friends". Those were his advisors: Othello Amadeus Zack, Mr. William Tesla Christian, and Ms. Klein Nightingale. I called them "Black Widows" because they had a white funnel on the back of their long black coats, and they wore black top hats, and there was no smile in their eyes, and even if they were, they made me tremble, except for Ms. Nightingale, of course.

"Haven't we learned the lesson of Scarlet Christmas Eve?" Mother said.

Of course, my mother told me about Scarlet Christmas Eve. It was the assassination of the previous queen, and her death shattered the stable world.

"It doesn't look like so, Ella." The father replied with a smile on his face.

There is a word to describe the moment when you suddenly understand something, and that is "suddenly realized".

As a child, I never understood why my father taught me history, not etiquette, rules and postures; I never asked my mother why my father would always go out with the Black Widows after dinner, and argue with them in the same voice; Nor did I question why she had no interest in popular topics and court gossip.

I never asked my mother why he was different from other people's mothers.

Until that day comes.

Of course, my mother was very beautiful and well-dressed, although she never bothered to study the costumes of the ladies of the court. According to her, they are obsessed with appearance, lust and status, and other things.

"They don't have the ability to think at all. Promise me, Luna, never to be like them at any time. ”

I wondered what I could do to avoid that, so I hid in a vantage point, my mother's skirt, and tried to look at the disgusting women. What I saw, however, was a group of rouge-smeared, gossipy men pretending to be loyal to their husbands, but looking beyond the edge of the fan to scan the room for a candidate who would not easily arouse suspicion.

I hid in my inconspicuous skirt, waiting for the contemptuous laughter to cease and the mocking eyes to fade; I'll catch a glimpse of the truth behind those rouge masks. I would look into their hearts, see their worries, worry about falling out of favor. Worried about the impact on his position.

My mother, unlike them, never cared about gossip, I never saw her use a fan at a party, and she hated fat powder, and she never used charcoal and skin cream to embellish her beauty. Her compromise with the popular was limited to shoes. Other than that, she groomed for one reason only: to follow etiquette.

And my mother was dead set on my father, she valued being with him, supporting her, and as a wife, she was unwavering in her loyalty to her husband, always speaking for him in front of outsiders, and gently reassuring him even if they argued in private.

The last time she had a fight with her father was a long time ago.

We live happily every day.

Until that day, my father opened the door anxiously, and in my memory, it was probably the first time I saw him in such a hurry, and he wandered, beating his hand against the wall from time to time, looking very anxious.

"Hudson, what's wrong?" Mother asked.

My father thought for a while, and then walked over to my mother and me, "Ella, you and Luna sit down first, I have something to tell you." ”

"Huh?" Before I could say anything, my mother carried me to the couch next to me.

"Ella, listen up, there's something important for you now, you must be calm." The father put his hands on the mother's shoulders and said.

The mother nodded, the father sighed deeply, and after a moment, he spoke: "Last night, there was a terrorist attack in Cagalli, a municipality in the northeast district of Whartont......"

He paused, then said in a heavy tone, "Your mother, Luna's maternal grandmother, died in this attack. ”

The death of my grandmother was very sad for my mother.

That night, I sat at my mother's bedside, holding her hand and talking to her, and for a moment I mistook for being comforting her, until she turned her head and stared at me with cloudy eyes that could see through her heart, and I realized that the opposite was true.

Last night, I wandered several times by the window, through which the children were in the courtyard below, unaware of the grief of this distance, which made me very envious.

From the time I was born to the present, the only person who has been good to me besides my parents is my grandmother. Deaths and injuries from plague terror were not uncommon in Whartont, and people died every day, even among the wealthy Hakoto nobles in the Midlands. I was naïve and carefree looking for happiness around me, never expecting these things to appear in front of me categorically.

The day after my grandmother's death: August 28. On this day, I was supposed to celebrate my eleventh birthday at my home in the South End. However, on this day, my birthday was completely forgotten.

There was no event that day, only a funeral.