Editing Harpeno/Story

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{{Neighbor Stories
|s1_title = Authority of the Starsea
|s1_text  = 
Everyone in the Starsea calls her the "Tyrant."
Harpeno loves the nickname. Her patrol bike is the needle that passes between Starsea routes and stitches unruly vehicles back into the traffic network of order.

One day, some young aristocrat with a souped-up ride painted with flame decals smashed through a parking sign at the Galactic Bazaar. "I am the WIND! No one can catch the WIND!" He hollered. His drunken laughter was insufferably pompous as he sped away, and every public LED screen across the Starsea lit up to cover this chaotic spectacle.

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{{Neighbor Stories/Image|Harpeno Authority of the Starsea Image 01|left}}

"Enough with the theatrics," A cold voice cut in. "You look more like a monkey swinging between branches."
Eyes watched as Harpeno's patrol bike eclipsed the sky like a chromatic cloud of divine punishment, hot on the wheels of the speeding ball of flame.

The drunk driver laughed amidst the flames and slammed the throttle to the floor. The two vehicles then became tangled trails of light on a chase across the Starsea. The rulebreaker thought he had the upper hand until he realized Harpeno was intentionally driving him toward a dust lane in the Starsea, a place where even signals couldn't escape.

----

"YOU'RE INSANE!!!" He screamed.
"Now you know who catches the wind," she replied nonchalantly. "The black hole."
Harpeno's eyes and mind calculated the vehicle's trajectory with precision. When the drunk driver's survival instincts finally forced him to hit the brakes, she was already there to greet him at the only exit with a tap on his window.

"Two hundred percent over the speed limit, and driving under the influence to boot," she handed over the digital ticket. "You've just set a new record for violations in five years, and unfortunately, you'll be paying for your recklessness for the next five to come."

After the heart-racing, sobering chase, the man accepted the ticket with a ghastly white face. In that moment, the entire Starsea could hear the sound of his engine dying.

----

{{Neighbor Stories/Image|Harpeno Authority of the Starsea Image 02|left}}

After clocking out for the day, Harpeno went home and made herself a cup of coffee. Outside her window, the Starsea remained clamorous, but every route ran with orderly discipline. She tapped her fingertips lightly against the cup.
"And that's the way a peaceful night should be."

|s2_title = In the Name of the "Tyrant"
|s2_text  = 
That day, the Starsea was as clogged up as Monday mornings during rush hour. The senior patrol officers all exchanged knowing glances in the break room, their eyes full of unspoken implications.
"Hey, rookie—" The captain pointed to the new face in the corner.

The other patrol officers began whispering among themselves.
"That one couldn't even find her way two hundred meters outside the rest area last month."
"Oy, can't have them say that we're picking on a girl now."
"Right, then you get out there."
"Nope!"
"Alright rookie, consider this your orientation. You're up." The captain made his decision.

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{{Neighbor Stories/Image|Harpeno In the Name of the "Tyrant" Image 01|center}}

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This was Harpeno's first time handling rush hour on her own. Three cargo trucks created a complete gridlock at the intersection while fighting for the right of way, and a long line of angry, honking vehicles stretched behind them. A few drivers leaned against their doors, pontificating about the day's big Starsea news, and couldn't care less when they saw Harpeno's patrol car approaching.

"Little lady, get your supervisor," a stubbly-faced truck driver waved dismissively at her. "This isn't the place to play house."
Harpeno was silent. Her boot heels clicked against the pavement as she walked straight between the three deadlocked trucks.
"First truck." She pointed at the stubbly-faced driver's vehicle. "Your transport permit expired three months ago."
She turned to the next two trucks and continued, "Second truck, you're overloaded. Third truck, your right rear brake light is out."
She swiftly wrote out three tickets to follow.
"Now," she looked up. "Do I need to teach you gentlemen how to reverse, too?"
The three drivers' expressions immediately changed.
"Do you have any idea what we're hauling? You think you can afford to pay for the delay?"
"I certainly can't, but I can make you pay a whole lot more." She waved her ticket book. "Want to try me?"

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{{Neighbor Stories/Image|Harpeno In the Name of the "Tyrant" Image 02|left}}

Just then, an ambulance siren began to wail in the distance, but it wasn't getting any closer — it was stuck at the very back of the queue.
"Everyone, clear the way!" Harpeno suddenly raised her voice. She jumped onto the roof of the nearest vehicle and held up her megaphone and body camera. "Listen up, everyone! Left three lanes move forward in order, right two lanes stay put. Blue cargo truck, move two car lengths to the right — yes, you! Anyone who refuses to follow instructions can kiss their license goodbye!"
Her commands were clear, assertive, and indisputable.

----

The drivers who'd been onlookers up until now instinctively obeyed her words. When someone tried to cut in line, a single icy glare from Harpeno was enough to discourage their attempt and put them back in their place.
Gradually, the hopeless knot of traffic began to loosen. When the ambulance finally passed through, the drivers spontaneously honked their horns — the way Starsea drivers give thanks.
"Nice work, Miss 'Tyrant'!"
Nobody knew who started it, but everyone agreed that the nickname was a perfect fit for their decisive, no-nonsense new patrol officer.

The captain was waiting for Harpeno by the door after the team wrapped up debriefing.
"You've become the talk of all Starsea drivers after your battle today." He said.
"Hungry."
"Come again?" The captain had to clean out his ear. He could've sworn he just heard Harpeno meow like a cat.
"Are we getting barbecue or hot pot?" Harpeno flopped onto the lounge chair, seemingly drained. "Energy level critical."
Soft laughter rang out behind her as the senior officers exchanged new looks with each other. This time, feeling much closer to their new colleague.

|s3_title = Order and Compassion
|s3_text  = 
In her new uniform, neatly pressed and rigid as the iron clauses of the law, Harpeno began her probationary patrol under Instructor Chen.

Cargo truck "No. 50" lay wheezing on the roadside greenery, puffing white smoke and barely hanging on. Its driver, Lee, rubbed his hands nervously and explained, "It's nothing, just a minor malfunction..."
Harpeno's detector began blaring.

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{{Neighbor Stories/Image|Harpeno Order and Compassion Image 01|center}}

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She examined and read out the data, "Your actual mileage exceeded the allowed maximum by 40%, and the engine is severely deteriorated. You're lucky that it hasn't led to graver consequences." She looked toward the cargo hold, where countless puppies, kittens, along with a few long-haired rabbits and call ducks, scattered haphazardly among the shipment. The long journey had already left several of them looking queasy, but to Harpeno's surprise, the temperature inside the was quite comfortable, and the space was clean with hardly any odor.
"They're all strays I picked up along the way. If I'd left them outside in this weather, they probably wouldn't make it..." Lee's voice grew quieter and quieter.

----

{{Neighbor Stories/Image|Harpeno Order and Compassion Image 02|right}}

Harpeno could hear a dispassionate voice reciting Article 38 of the <i>Starsea Navigation Safety Act</i> in her mind: Decommissioned vehicles are strictly prohibited on routes. But the big, dewy eyes of the furry little ones stared right through the voice and into her heart.
"Write the ticket." Chen's voice fell without hesitation.
Just as Harpeno was about to tear off the ticket, she paused and added, "Recommending referral to an animal shelter."
"But, my shipment..."
"You're an adult, so take responsibility for your actions like one," Harpeno didn't hesitate. "The cargo will be held in storage. Once the penalty is complete, you may retrieve it with a compliant vehicle."
Lee accepted the ticket with eyes welling with tears.

----

On their way back, Chen gazed up at the sky of stars and said, "Remember this feeling. Rules are the backbone of the Starsea, but those who enforce them need to know what they're fighting for. You did the right thing today. You held the line and left room for compassion."

That night, Harpeno added a new entry to her log: "The Starsea needs order, but also, compassion."
She carefully folded the stub of the ticket for "No. 50" and tucked it away. Her uniform remained pressed and straight, yet somewhere between its rigid lines, Harpeno found a gentle give quietly forming.

|s4_title = The Starwhisperer
|s4_text  = 
During Harpeno's final year at the Transit Academy, she was on the edge of erupting like a volcano every single day. Her hawkeyes could pierce through nebulas with ease, but she couldn't remember how to get from the lecture hall to the cafeteria to save her life.
"Worthless!" She slammed the electronic navigator onto the bench in frustration. "Did they design the path with their eyes closed?!"

A folded piece of paper slid to her feet. On it was a hand-drawn campus map, with each path marked by unique visual landmarks. "Turn left at the rusted car shell," "go straight past the café with the pigeon cage," and "turn right at the yellow-hatted scarecrow." The directions were precise, but peculiar.

She looked up and saw Mo Ji, the campus "weirdo" rumored to have not spoken a word in three years.
Mo Ji stared silently at her with eyes as calm as deep space.

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{{Neighbor Stories/Image|Harpeno The Starwhisperer Image 01|left}}

"Are you pitying me?" She crumpled the map into a ball and tossed it back at Mo Ji. "I don't need directions from someone who can't even speak."
Mo Ji didn't get angry. She picked up the crumpled map, smoothed it out, then drew a large question mark on the back and held it out to her.
Harpeno let out a helpless laugh. In that instant, she knew she had gone too far.
"Sorry."
She left the word behind and turned away, eager to put an end to the conversation before it slipped any further out of her control.

----

And yet, Mo Ji soon began a strange kind of "communication" between them.
Whenever Harpeno deliberately went against the navigator's instructions, venting a frustration she couldn't quite name, a new map would appear in her locker the next day. Every wrong turn was marked in red, with a small stick figure doodled beside it, fuming with anger. She would scribble "Mind your own business" across the page. In reply, Mo Ji would sketch a girl covering her ears in the corner, neatly labeled: "Signal reception weak."

Gradually, Harpeno came to realize that Mo Ji's maps were more than routes. They were a language of their own. Color intensity indicated the severity of obstacles. Line weight marked their size. Vivid, concrete depictions made it easy to see what would otherwise be hard to picture. This was not something taught in textbooks. It was a private code, entirely her own.

The turning point came during the feared stardust belt navigation exam before graduation.
As Harpeno approached the target zone, the navigator began to glitch, and every instrument flickered wildly. Amidst the chaos at the exam control center, Mo Ji burst in, took the communicator, and made herself heard for the first time in three years—
"Trust your eyes, Harpeno!" Her voice was hoarse but steady. "Half a turn right. That nebula ahead isn't real. It's a debris field! Trust me. You can see it."
Harpeno held her breath. Her gaze pierced through the interference, and sure enough, there was a hidden safe passage. Mo Ji had already mapped the area in greater detail than any navigation system could. And in that moment, she chose to trust Harpeno's eyes over every instrument.

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{{Neighbor Stories/Image|Harpeno The Starwhisperer Image 02|right}}

When the exam concluded, Harpeno found Mo Ji. "Why did you...?"
"My parents were Starsea cartographers," Mo Ji wrote slowly across the page. "They lost their way in the Starsea for lack of accurate charts, and never returned. I map the Starsea so no one else will be lost to the unknown. And you are..." She paused. "You're the only person I've ever met who can verify all my charts with the naked eye. I need your sight."

She did not see Harpeno as someone in need of saving. She was simply looking for someone to walk the same path.

----

At graduation, Mo Ji gave Harpeno one final Starsea chart.
"I'm going to finish what they started," Mo Ji said, "And you'll go on to build your own order."

Years later, the name of the Starsea Tyrant had spread far and wide, yet Harpeno never saw Mo Ji again. In the depths of her heart, however, there would always be a serene stretch of stars reserved for a certain "Starwhisperer."
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