Chapter 37: One Romantic and Mysterious Knight Revealed

Out of all the things Lonnie could have dreamed of, sitting in front of her dorm's vanity mirror while removing makeup from her face was not one of her top picks. And removing the traditional Chinese makeup, to top it all.

Having that stuff on her face was like that time when she was ten and an accident involving her family's chicken pen ended up with Lonnie covered with chicken feathers and broken egg yolks all over her body. It had taken about an hour for her mother and grandmother to remove all that stuff from her. 'If she keeps doing more things like this, then she'll be the matchmaker's worst nightmare after you,' Grandma Li had told Mulan. This was something that made Lonnie nervous: thinking about the possibility that her parents might send her to meet the matchmaker and get an arranged marriage. Sure, they married for love and Mulan didn't exactly follow traditions and lose her family's honor, but most people expected that their not-exactly heroic daughter Lonnie would at least stick to traditions and get a husband selected by the matchmaker during her sixteenth year, which was this year.

"I'd rather be with someone I actually want to marry rather than be a part of an arranged marriage," Lonnie told her reflection, which showed her face smeared with ruined makeup from her efforts to remove it.

"You might get married?" a voice asked behind. Lonnie yelped when she turned and saw her knight standing behind a few inches behind her. She quickly glanced at herself and saw that she was also in her pink pajamas. Ruined Chines makeup and pink pajamas in front of the dream guy she liked? Probably as embarrassing as the time when Charles had her PJ-exposed on the UNHOLY GAZETTE in front of the entire school.

"I hope not," she said. The knight placed his right thumb on Lonnie's cheek and slightly rubbed downwards. Once he did that, he glanced at the powdered remains on his thumb.

"What in Heavens' name are you wearing? You almost look like one of those tacky clowns in a circus who've been having a horrible makeover before show time," he asked directly.

"I look that horrid?" Lonnie asked, feeling a bit down.

"Frankly, I prefer you without makeup." He snapped his fingers and a silk cloth with moon crescent designs on it appeared in his right hand while his left hand was placed under Lonnie's chin, lifting it up so that her brown eyes could face his icy blue ones. "Hold still, Lonnie."

The way he pronounce her name…it sounded like a chant during a prayer, a name heard in a troubadour's story…The knight really had a way of making Lonnie feel…special.

Lonnie looked at the knight as he gently rubbed her face with the cloth, which felt so warm on her despite how cold his hands were. In less than five minutes, he stopped rubbing her and snapped the cloth out of existence. Lonnie turned on her chair in order to see herself in the mirror. Her mouth dropped when she saw how much better her face was without her makeup. She then saw the knight unraveling her hair, which was tied up in a bun, a hairstyle that Lonnie wasn't a particular fan of. At first, she expected the knight to snap a hairbrush out of thin air the same way he did with the brush, but instead he grabbed a brush that was lying on the table and began to brush Lonnie's hair in a careful, yet precise manner, as if he were a hairdresser dealing with a client and not a knight trying to court a girl.

"So…how did you find out my name is Lonnie?" she asked, trying to start a conversation.

"I searched through my archive of records and found you in the old memory dreams category." He answered it quite calmly.

"You have an archive?" Lonnie frowned. "I thought you said dreams were like a jigsaw puzzle…"

"They are in the Dreamworld. But once I manage to sort through them, I them sort all the information I've received in a little archive that I possess in my home in the Realworld. Every dream, nightmare, memory, emotion, or anything of the sort, I collect them, classify them, and sort them in individual manuscripts or bottles that I then place in my archive the same way you would sort books in a library."

"That's both interesting and creepy. Haven't you heard of a thing called personal space?"

"I did. But the last time I tried to avoid using my powers, I had a headache for an entire week and my mother bickering me on how I'm not doing my job as a dream-hopper probably. I don't like it, but I can't help it. I'm just born with it."

"Bummer," Lonnie said, feeling bad for the knight, who had now brushed her hair perfectly and left not one strand flying out. "Wow. You're pretty good at doing cleanups."

"Thank you, I blame my cousin for it," the knight said as he put the brush back on the table. "Being around her every time she pampers herself with diva-like makeup has exposed me to the principles of her constant pastime."

"You have a cousin? How nice."

"Excuse me?" The knight had suddenly scoffed and began leaning above Lonnie. She cringed when she noticed his starry and misty hair moving and agitating like a hissing cat when the knight began to sound irritated. "What exactly is nice about having a non-stop flirty cousin worried about her looks and wearing bar singer outfit daily? If living within the limits of my home with her, my bickering mother and my indifferent aunt for almost my entire life weren't enough, then I don't know what could possibly be nice about them!"

"Well consider it nice that you have relatives of your age!" Lonnie snapped as she lifted herself from her chair in order to face the knight. "I'm the only child in my family, with no siblings or cousins to connect with, just adults who are worthier than I am and who think I'm nothing like my parents."

"You and your desire to be more than what you are!" Lonnie's mouth dropped as the knight's words hit her. "Why must you always compare yourself to others or your mother and father? I thought that Maleficent's defeat proved to every descendant in Auradon that you don't have to follow in your parents' footsteps or whatever other people expect you to become. Is that what you want? To be just like your mom and be some war hero who killed a thousand Huns, one of them being the father of your frennemy, and to then spend the rest of her life as a celebrity who is only recognized within China as a hero? Or maybe to be the normal, not-exactly talented girl everybody sees you as and must follow the regular traditions? Or maybe take a third option?"

Defense, rejection, or anything else could have come from Lonnie's mouth if she didn't know that he was right: she was suffering of inferiority complex from being treated like a commoner, who had heroic relations, among a crowd of royalty, warriors, sorcerers, and the rest. And she had admitted that when they saw one another last night. Now…hearing him say those words back at her felt like salt in her mouth. Her head dropped on the knight's chest and tears began to pour out of her eyes.

"What have I done?" the knight asked remorsefully as he hugged Lonnie in a warm embrace. "I'm acting like my mother."

"How horrible is she?" Lonnie asked directly. She listened to his silence until he took a deep breath and answered.

"She's Nightmare Moon."

Lonnie lifted her head up in surprise. "You're…Artemis Nightmare?"

"The one and only."

So…Lonnie's dream knight was none other than Artemis Nightmare, the son of Nightmare Moon who resides in that dangerous forest in the Isle of the Lost and is somewhat feared by the locals despite never meeting him the first place.

"And the reason you didn't tell me this in the first place is because?" Lonnie asked.

"Fear of rejection?" Artemis suggested quietly. "I feared that you'd reject me due to my residence, villainous lineage, and from-another-world background despite my sentiments for you."

"Seriously? You thought I'd reject you because you might be some winged pony from the Isle?" Just hearing the humor in it made her chuckle.

"Right." Artemis smiled at the humor. "A winged pony."

"Sir Artemis, if you think I'm that biased, then you have still much to learn!" She tapped his nose teasingly the same way Gitane had with Charles when they first met. Apparently, Artemis got the message.

"Alright then! Let's get started, Lady Lonnie!"

He lifted her to the point where she stood on her tiptoes and pulled her in for a romantic kiss. Lonnie gave a moan of pleasure as his seawater and lemonade flavored lips collided with her peach and cherry scented ones in a clash of endless bliss and his hands trailed down until they remained at her curves, giving her indescribable sensations.

Seriously, who would have thought that being the lover of Nightmare Moon's son would be like living a dream?

And who would have known that, while she and Artemis were busy with one another in the Dreamworld, back in the Realworld, the dream talisman of Tradaria that Penna De Mort had 'lent' to Gitane was in the dorm hall, just in front of Kory and Lonnie's dorm, and registering magical signals through its strings before it vanished back to its mistress.