"Your Highness!"

At that booming call, a half-asleep Ichijou Ryouma groaned and buried his head deeper into his sheets. He could feel only trepidation in the front of his throat as he counted quietly the steps of Sagara Rei.

"Ryouma!" Rei bellowed, throwing the doors open to the king's chambers. Upon seeing Ryouma stubborn wrapped in his bed linens, the slender adviser glared at the prince of the land.

"Oh, how your mother and father would laugh at the sight of you," Rei opined, watching as a rough bundle of near-black blue hair twisted out from under the prince's duvet.

"Leave me 'lone!" Ryouma huffed from under his thick blankets. Ryouma was not a morning person usually, but this day he was especially cranky. Rei was sympathetic, yes, but as the people in his home country say: trick a fish by jerking the line.

It wasn't a particularly relevant proverb for this situation.

Rei gestured behind him, and several Palace aides began to file in one after in other, their daft feet shuffling them all over Ryouma's bedroom; some brought trays of sour fruit and soft cheese while others swept after Ryouma's organized mess of papers, crumbs of stale bread and sweets, and miscellaneous belongings scattered around. Two older aids with crooked backs and shagged skin hoisted large copper bowls of hot water on their collective shoulders and delivered them to the copper tub opposite Ryouma's bed.

"Get up. We must leave for your tour before the sun rises. Bad luck will plague your reign if sunlight touches your skin before we depart!"

Recanting the myth conjured a bitter taste to Rei's tongue, but he bit down a crude retort. He was never susceptible to the folklore fantasy of this bouldered nation. Alas, he must deal with the the children's tales.

Ryouma's eyes rolled slowly, and he squeezed them shut. "Then lemme stay in bed all day; I'm tired from the Mating Ball last night."

"Which I told you not to attend because you cannot participate!" Rei explained for what felt like the billionth time to the prince.

Ryouma growled under his blankets. He knew very well that his friends would attend these monthly Balls, searching and courting mates, while he could not. However, the stubborn youth was not deterred from crashing the party. Heck, he was the prince, right? He could do what he wanted.. for the most part.

Glancing outside to a dark sky, Rei swung back the sheets from the tall youth's bare body. Ryouma spun around shiftily, glaring daggers into the pomegranate-haired man.

As he propped his upper body up by his shoulders, Ryouma hissed, "Over my dead body am I leaving this bed!"

"His Royal Highness, Prince Ichijou Ryouma!" His announcer proclaimed, and everyone excitedly turned to face the gate of the Castle.

Damn Rei for forcing me to do this! Ryouma thought.

His contrived smile to Rei behind him conveyed his own excitement, or lack thereof. Rei returned the look with an expectant glance. Although he had been awaiting this day for many years, Ryouma still held hard feelings toward his coronation. He is an adult now. He is no longer the carefree prince who partied all night and slept in till midday, who chased lovely girls or dashing boys instead of studying, or who cried for the parents he never knew when he was alone.

He is soon going to be king. That part was exhilarating, sure. But responsibility is bittersweet. He has done whatever he wanted before today. Well, of course he was obligated to attend lessons and events when he didn't particularly like them, but even he could exercise some control at some point or another. He hadn't needed to worry about the practical matters of governance.

When his parents died, the High council assumed responsibility until Ryouma would come of age. He had been detached from that aspect for his and the nation's wellbeing, he supposed. The rationale made sense, and Ryouma never questioned it. He never liked some members of the High council much or their dealings. He just enjoyed his life, with its privileges and endless debauchery, without worrying about the morrow's tasks.

But now, the time to play is over. Now, his life would be almost exclusively all the things he didn't like.

Trumpets blared out the Terraemotus empire's anthem as Ryouma stepped out of his royal compound and under the night's sky. Their tradition holds that the heir must walk to the royal harbor and onto his own boat for the beginning of his coronation tour before the sun rises for the first day of the new harvest cycle. Finding one's way in darkness represented resourcefulness while depending on light meant weakness. Ryouma's people are stubborn, like he was and what he knew of his parents before him, and their tight grasp to ideas of the past are evident of that hardened nature.

Like Rei, Ryouma didn't hold much truth to the traditions of Terraemotus too seriously. Maybe growing without parents to raise him on these stories and ideas, to tuck him in his bed each night, to recant fables with their respective lessons distanced him from the faith. His closest parental figure was the faithless and cynical Rei, always quick to rejoinder any noble or servant citing Terraemotus myth. But Ryouma still respected what he knew of such things. For what it is worth, isn't his claim to rule one of them?

The coronation tour itself is the heir's official journey to find his or her future spouse; the council and the heir visit allied nations around the planet to pick a suitable partner from each country's nobility. Whichever native nation of the heir's appointed spouse would be locked in an alliance with Terraemotus for as long as the union lasted, benefiting from trade, resources, and protection. This tradition ensured friendly relations with other countries and reaffirmed the strength of the Ichijou dynasty. This tradition meant that Ryouma was never expected to marry anyone whom he had liked or held crushed on. Those feelings would only bring pain when he had to leave and return with an exotic stranger to marry. But this tradition also contributed to the powerful legacy of his family, the Ichijous, and to the political influence of the country of which he is going to rule, Terraemotus.

We are the biggest, richest, most powerful country in the world, Ryouma thought smugly to himself as he let out a small sigh and strutted down the main road in almost complete darkness. If not for the many lamps his court and soldier escorts were carrying, he'd be sure to trip. Rei, his personal aides, and other servants followed behind him at his pace, heads bowed and silent.

With the harbor already in sight, Ryouma tried to suppress his doubtful thoughts, waving to his people as some walked alongside him on the outside of his soldier bodyguards' perimeter, singing tunes of harvest, luck, and fertility. Other stood and threw flowers, food, coin, and seed at his feet; when he stopped to pick up one such flower, the man who threw it cried.

"The procession is quite immense," Rei had remarked to him earlier, and Ryouma's chest swelled with pride. The people loved the prince dearly and showed their admiration every chance they could get. This fact always boasted Ryouma's ego yet he could not shake a sinking feeling in the pit of his gut, the feeling that his fate was not up to his choosing.

Well, it's more fact than feeling.

He hated not being in control; he hated not knowing if he could ever experience true love. He hated that in this one matter, it seemed, his royalty and status couldn't get him his way. Why is it, he wondered, that I have so much power and cannot use it when it matters most? His hands were forced in this matter. Marry within tradition or give up the crown; the latter option did not exist. And although Ryouma was never one to disrespect tradition, he couldn't help but feel that this one in particular wasn't necessary for his time.

What alliances must we make which we haven't already made? I want to choose my own spouse! Ryouma thought angrily as he crossed the bridge connecting the harbor to his very own vessel, the Ichi.

His procession cheered in a high crescendo, exuberant that the sun has yet to rise. He made it in time and now will set sail for their journey of about 125 days. Those days would be spent visiting all their allies, courting their nobility, and deliberating on with whom Ryouma will spend the rest of his days.

He would have no say, no power; He'd be expected to impress and swoon, but not relate or love. His meeting all these potential suitors would be only a formality, in his opinion.

I bet I will meet so many, I won't remember who will be the one.

The bitter thought was hidden behind a practiced smile as he waved one last time to the crowd on the desks as the ship beneath his feet set off from the shore and into the endless sea that would be his home for the next 125 days.

"Ryouma!" An unfamiliar voice called sharply, and Ryouma turned to its direction.

A yellow glowing orb shone brightly, causing the young man to squint his eyes as he approached it.

Reaching out his hand, he caressed the light, feeling the searing heat of the orb between his fingers tips.

Ryouma shivered from the sensation of completeness.

"Ryouma, please," It begged and slowly retracted back into itself.

Ryouma sighed as it disappeared, arms still stretched out for it to return.

"Wait!"

Eyes shot open, Ichijou Ryouma lie under the deck in his sprawling and elaborate bed, stuffed with mature goose feather and held together by the finest oak wood from the eastern mountains he used to explore when he was a child. The many forest green silk folds hung off the top, canopying Ryouma within his sanctuary. The 21-year-old man sighed, rolling onto his side facing the gigantic dual windows that look over a vast sea. He kicked the many coverings, blankets, and duvets off his bare sweating body and watched waves of water hit against the Ichi and die down against its wood and steel side.

His spacious chamber was complete with a bedroom, adjacent bathing room, and library space for him to do his schoolwork in the past while he was traveling as a young prince. Ryouma mused at the use of his library from this day onward. Now he would be doing king's work there, signing in laws and reading proposals, petitions, and alliances with other nations.

Soon, he thought; as soon as he finds someone with whom to ascend the throne as the 23rd King Regent, succeeding his late mother, the 22nd Queen Regent. The next time he'll use this ship after the tour, he'll be married, and all his old grammar and geography and history books will be replaced by war strategy, public policy, and trade agreements. This familiar bed would hold another person, and instead of waking up to the sea, he'll be waking up to the arms of someone else. Ryouma shivered, and pulled a sheet back over himself.

"Who will they choose?" He murmured and froze as soon as the words left his mouth.

Marriage.

His parents had always hoped their only son would marry in their lifetimes. Ryouma regretted not making their wish come true.

But they are still with me, and I must make them proud.

Ryouma's lips curled into a slight smile as he imagined his mother and father at his coronation, holding each other and tearing up as their son was being officiated. He has been imagining that day for most of his life, picturing the same images in his mind.

However, Ryouma could not imagine his future spouse. That visage always seemed blank as he walked down the aisle to be wedded. He only felt warm, as if the yellow sun were in the wedding hall as he approached the altar.

Feeling heavy, his eyelids dropped a bit over his eyes, and Ryouma didn't resist their closing. The raven-haired prince drifted back to sleep, dreaming of a more bright yellow light that held him as he slept.

Soon