As time passed in the lives of the inhabitants of Molil island, weekend after weekend, holiday after holiday, a new normal emerged. Livia became a permanent fixture, a part of the family and of the island. She and Solveis grew together to become properly ‘best friends’. Arlendr grew totally accustomed to Livia; and treated her as much like a piece of furniture as he did with everyone else he cared about. She spent many weekends on their property, disappearing with Solveis for whole days in play. She even brought friends and cousins over to the island to play occasionally, always remembering to keep safe the secret of the magic cave. Between her occasional friends, the Eigeroys’ occasional relatives and guests, and the deer-hu children from the nearby island, many weekends saw the island buzzing with activity and play. Livia was almost always a part of it. The family grew so comfortable with little Liv that she even went on trips with them sometimes.

One spring day, a couple solar years (sols) into Livia’s acquaintance with the family, she was sitting with the Eigeroy siblings, preparing for a day trip they were going to take the following day. The siblings had both grown up significantly in the sols they’d known Livia, so that she was talking with two big kids, on the cusp of adolescence. She herself had matured quite out of babyhood and completely into childhood. Her mannerisms had aged too, partly due to picking up some of Solveis’s ways of speaking.

“Are you ready for the Spring Equ-uh-ox?” Livia asked, speaking of something she’d often heard adults say. No matter how much she learned from Solveis’s precise use of language, she never incorporated the behaviors into her core personality, therefore she continued to speak imprecisely, just in a different way than before. She never became a person who really paid attention to proper pronunciation of words like equinox.

“Getting ready,” Arlendr answered the room, glancing slyly at Livia. He held a weapon in his hand. It was a handmade bow. He was using some small tools on it. Arlendr had always been interested in weaponry. He had started making his own slingshots from tree branches and rubber bands before Solveis could remember. When he had heard that the family would be going to the big Spring Equinox Festival on the mainland in a less than one moon, his already intense interest grew almost into an obsession. He had heard that there were booths dedicated to weaponry, with masters of the craft. Since he’d learned this, he’d become obsessed with perfecting his craft. He had branched out from spears and slingshots to a bow and arrows, though with very little success.

Solveis, who hadn’t been paying attention to her talkative friend’s conversation, mumbled “mmm. Ready.”

The mumble was sufficient encouragement for Livia to keep talking. “I’m super excited! I’ve never gone with friends before! And we’re all gonna go over on your family boat, my sister and Papi, and the baby too!”

“Wait…. Have you been before?” Solveis shifted her concentration away from her activity of hand stitching a costume, to look curiously at her little friend. “You’ve been to the Equinox Festival? On the mainland?” Solveis clarified her question. She herself had never been.

“I went to one, but not the big big one. You know. A different one. I have a cousin in that other city, uh… Ai-hu-ner, or something. Anyway, we went to the one in that city before. It was fun!” Livia answered. “I heard the big one has a big area, a really big area, ded-dih-kate-id for just rides. I’ve only ever been on the spinning rides before.”

“I’ve never been – at all,” Solveis stated. “Maybe it would be better to start at a smaller festival.”

“I love the small one. I’m gonna love the big one!” Livia wiggled with excitement.

Livia continued in this tone with a flow of excited expectations which became sillier and less well articulated. Conversation faded and transitioned into three separate people doing three separate activities.

Some time later, Solveis finished some hand stitching she had been working on. Looking up, she discovered Arlendr focused intently on an arrow he was crafting. Turning toward the back of the cave, she saw Livia bouncing a ball on the cave roof just above her head and then catching it, over and over again. She was chattering happily without an audience.

“I think yours is done,” Solveis announced to Livia, holding a dress out to her.

When Livia realized that Solveis was addressing her, she looked, and then lit up with ecstatic pleasure. “Is it really all done?! I can wear it tomorrow?!”

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Solveis held the dress up by its shoulders while Livia ran her hands down its length, drinking in the fullness of it. Solveis had been making outfits for herself, Arlendr, and Livia to wear to the festival.

Solveis had first been inspired to make an outfit for herself when she’d heard about the booths of craftsmen. She had forever wanted to have an outfit in the style of her people, the fauns. She had taken every opportunity of studying their traditional clothes. She had asked many of her relatives about the old ways. The grandparents especially were always excited to go on and on about the old traditions.

Finally, finally, Solveis would have the opportunity to see real craftsmen at work. She could gain a deeper understanding of her people, and specifically the traditions around clothing and crafting. There would be people she could talk to about all the things, people she could ask about fabrics, dyes, stitching, and everything else. Solveis had spent the last few weeks freshening up on her already extensive knowledge of braids and knots, so that she could absorb as much new information as possible from the craftsmen.

When Arlendr had realized that she was working on a traditional tunic, he told her, “You need to make one for me. To match my weapons.” Solveis took it as an opportunity to practice tunic making. Then, Livia had discovered the possibility of costuming, and wanted so desperately to be the eptill (beast legged people who have tiny ears, no hair on their heads, and who were said to have lizard-like legs) woman from her favorite musical. So, Solveis worked on a costume for Livia too. She ended up making the costume of the princess from the musical though, and not the eptill character. The switch in characters was because Solveis wasn’t confident in her ability to make a passable eptill outfit in such a short time. Also, eptills were a real people, unlike cutesy teal princesses, and Solveis was anxious about misrepresenting a real people.

Livia grabbed the finished teal and midnight blue dress, pulled it to her chest and swished around with it. Solveis went back to her own tunic, to add some final touches. She had satisfactorily completed her own outfit, but it could always use improvements. It put her at ease to have Livia’s costume completely finished before the deadline. It was good to be out from under the oppression of a time crunch.

“I can put it on?! Right?” Livia pleaded excitedly.

“Arlendr’s had his on for weeks,” Solveis answered, glaring at her brother. He’d been wearing his from the moment she’d finished it, all the time, except at school. She’d already had to fix torn seams and to patch the joints a few times. (It had really been made only as a costume, and hadn’t been designed to be worn for weeks before its single use at the festival.)

Arlendr threw a pebble in her direction without looking up from his craft. Livia hopped out of the cave, garment in hand. She’d learned, over time, to get in and out of the cave almost as fast as the faun siblings. Livia reappeared a moment later, having changed into the dress. It looked disappointingly, obviously hand made to Solveis. Livia’s face, though, was glowing in the golden bluish tone that indicated supreme joy. Solveis thought that the garment wasn’t done quite right. Having the dress on its model made her analytical mind go to work analyzing everything wrong, every little detail. But, she recalled from experience that she would need to encourage her young friend in order to keep the happy glow on her cheeks.

“A real princess!” Solveis admired her friend. “I can’t do the full hair, ‘cause you couldn't go on rides with it. I can do it partly though. – Are you sleeping here tonight? We can get up early and I can do it.”

“Yes,” Livia dreamed aloud as she imagined herself in the dress with princess hair to match. “I need to see me.”

Solveis went and found the right popcorn tin. She retrieved the mirror out from it, and leaned it up against the side of the tin, so that Livia could stand in front of it.

“Wow,” Livia wondered aloud. She fell silent and her round-ish eyes grew to full moons. Solveis wondered what Livia saw when she looked at herself. Solveis saw an identifiable recreation of a costume, but simply done and poorly fit. She could see where the multiple scrap fabrics were sewn together, where the undershirt showed too much beyond its sleeves, and where the waist gathers were uneven. Solveis was happy with her work, but she was sure she didn't see the same princess magic that Livia did.

Arlendr glanced up, looked almost impressed, and then went back to his quiver of arrows.

Livia grew too excited for the quiet of the cave. She left it to find the adults, and to hear their raptures on her costume, and to stare at herself in a proper mirror.

“You’re not going out with the costume?” Solveis half accused, half asked Livia.

“I just – wanted to show them. I’ll be careful. I won’t even play outside.”

Solveis breathed heavily and considered. In her many attempts to think from Livia’s point of view, she had come to believe that Livia needed to share her joy and her experiences in order to internalize them. Besides, Livia was going to wear it out tomorrow anyway. She may as well enjoy it today, too.

“It’s not as durable as Arlendr’s or mine. It’s more a costume. – Just be careful,” Solveis warned her little friend and released her to her raptures.

Livia bounced out of the cave leaving the siblings working on their projects. The cave was quiet, except for Arlendr occasionally verbalizing his musings and muttering passing thoughts about the festival at Solveis: “You think the craftsmen will know everything?”, “Will they hide the swords behind that glass?”, “I bet they won’t have the real seaweed chips.”, “I hope it’s not just baby rides. I’m not little round eyes.”