Chapter 5

Chapter 5 is the fifth chapter of Astra Lost in Space.

Synopsis
The next morning, Kanata and Quitterie begin arguing over what kind of food they should focus on finding: Kanata is insistent on finding a source of meat, a pursuit Quitterie believes is unnecessarily dangerous. The argument quickly devolves into accusatory insults. Kanata portrays Quitterie as bent on persistently refusing to do anything at all, and Quitterie proceeds to tell him that he is a terrible "captain," capable of giving only uselessly vague orders and devoid of anything resembling leadership. She then asks the rest of the group to revote and make Charce the new captain.

In response, Charce gives a brief summary of his ideas about searching for food. He states that they have no way of knowing whether or not Vilavurs holds any soybean-style plants more rich in protein than meat. He proposes that they search for more plants like that while searching for other animal-based sources, like eggs, an idea aimed at avoiding potentially dangerous animals. Empowered by Charce's proposition, Quitterie dares Kanata to oppose her, challenging him to kill a Tur-gon by himself. Kanata snaps, flying into a rage and eventually storming from the room, promising to find twenty-days'-worth of meat on his own. After Kanata leaves, Zack confronts Quitterie, saying that her callousness and overconfidence, details of her personality since her childhood, have constantly driven people away from her. She responds by yelling defensively at Zack, even going so far as to do the same to Funicia when she uses Beego to tell Quitterie she wants to be her friend. Denying that she and Funicia are sisters, she storms from the room, declaring that she intends to find beans and eggs in the forest.

Shortly afterward, the group (minus Ulgar) begins searching the woods for Quitterie. Luca asks Zack if Quitterie has always been so standoffish, and he gives them group a brief glimpse of her life through his eyes. She grew up never knowing her father, her mother barely interacts with her, and she was effectively raised by her mother's maids and butlers. Zack adds that he is the only friend she has ever kept, and that her lack of social skill, a result of her sparing interactions with others, has left her unable to interact well with people in general, Funicia included. Funicia draws a parallel between herself and Quitterie, as the two were both raised without any brothers or sisters; Funicia was raised in the countryside, and has never had any real friends. She tells the group she is happy to have a sister, regardless of how Quitterie may behave toward her. Hiding behind a tree nearby, Quitterie overhears the group's conversation, and Funicia's words as well.

Quitterie's thoughts drift into a flashback of her childhood. Attempting to befriend several girls she knows, she buys them several hard-to-find bracelets in the hopes she can invite them over to her house. One of the girls sabotages the effort by haughtily asserting that "commoners" such as herself are not meant to visit mansions like Quitterie's and convinces the other girls to come to her house for cake instead. The sarcastic girl, donning an arrogant expression, then asks Quitterie if she wants to come along as well, driving her to assert in turn that her butlers can make her a cake of her own. When she arrives at her home, two butlers and a maid realize her attempt at making friends has ended poorly; they counter the additional bad news that her mother will again be late for dinner by telling her they have invited Zack to eat with them. Her face come alive with joy, to the amusement of her attendees; she quickly regains her bitter composure and "allows" them to invite Zack over.

The flashback shifts to the very recent past, the day her mother announced that she would be adopting Funicia. She mentions it in passing to her daughter, refusing to hear any criticisms of her choice and spending only a brief moment with Quitterie before departing to her room for the night. Her first meeting with Funicia then flashes before her, coupled with her conflicted thoughts centered on how her mother could care for a complete stranger while not caring for or loving her own daughter at all. Quitterie's bitter and unkind treatment at the hands of those from whom she sought attention have engendered in her the same behaviors: she can only look down on Funicia with the same disdain and hate, knowing no other way in which to respond to them.

As these thoughts run through Quitterie's mind, the others realize that Funicia has disappeared, and their frantic exclamations fracture Quitterie's dissociation. Funicia quickly calls out to them from the top of one of the tree-polines, which she has climbed to grab one of the star-shaped flowers. Quitterie rejoins the group, intending to climb up and bring Funicia down herself, but before she can, the plant and the others around it begin to shake, their ribbed bases extending like an accordion and pushing the plants' grassy tops high into the air. The group watches in shock as Funicia rises far out of their reach; the bark on the tree's trunk hardens quickly, rendering them unable to climb it. They decide to climb to the top of some nearby cliffs to try reaching her.

Having climbed the cliffs, they find Funicia, panicked but alive, a considerable distance away on her tree-poline. However, they have no way to cross the gap between the cliffs' edge and the nearby tree-polines; Charce theorizes that the surfaces have risen to aid in photosynthesis, and will retract once the sun goes down, but the idea of simply waiting for sunset frustrates Quitterie. Hearing a flapping sound behind him, Luca turns around to see a Tur-gon has found them; to the horror of them all, it begins circling Funicia, and they realize the animal is hunting her. The now-panicked group wonders what they can do to save Funicia as Aries glances over to her right to see Kanata dashing across the ground toward the edge of the cliff; the stunned group watches as he hurls himself over the edge, flying toward the top of a nearby tree-poline and yelling to Funicia that he is coming to save her.