The Crown Princess was an enigma that no one had a chance to understand. She seemed to behave as any five-year-old would, along with an endearing tendency to adamantly refer to people only by nicknames she created for them. At first glance, she simply appeared to hop from one interest to another as children were wont to do, yet at a closer look, she was actually familiarizing herself with everything and anything she could. She was a voracious learner and spent just as much time in the Royal Library devouring books in her freedom as she did in the training grounds, pestering anyone with an ear to train her in unarmed combat or with the sword.
The Crown Princess was an enigma that no one could ever hope to understand. She seemed to behave as any five-year-old would, especially with her endearing tendency to adamantly refer to people only by the nicknames she would create for them. She loved to play harmless pranks on any unsuspecting visitors to Clover Castle—mostly lower ranked Junior Magic Knights who were visiting the castle for the first time.
Yet, the charisma she would display from time to time, in which she would have her playmates from the Silva House and Vermillion House unconsciously straighten up, bellied her young age. The Crown Princess possessed the charisma of a natural-born leader that people claimed only royalty could hope to display and caused people to unconsciously gravitate towards her. Her mana pool was so large that it made the amount of mana her playmates possessed seem insignificant despite also being members of royalty.
The Crown Princess was a voracious learner who wanted to know all there was to know in the world. As a result, she spent all her free time in the Royal Library devouring book after book at an alarming speed or in the training grounds pestering members of the Royal Castle Knights Squad to give her a lesson on hand-to-hand combat or swordsmanship. Much to the Royal Tutor's chagrin, the Crown Princess was just as much of a maniac for magic as the Magic Emperor was, if not more.
That the Crown Princess was a magic maniac wouldn't have been as much of an issue as the Royal Tutor liked to make it if it wasn't for the fact that the Crown Princess tended skip her lessons to join the Magic Emperor, who didn't mind his little tag-along to his own escapades from his work. Some people, namely Marx Francois, liked to complain that the Magic Emperor and the Crown Princess were like peas in a pod and was on a hopeless endeavor to separate the two, lest the Magic Emperor infect the Crown Princess with his migraine-inducing habit of ditching his duties in favor of scouting out any interesting magic or new and promising Magic Knights.
Between the aforementioned two however, they both knew it was a lost cause as the Crown Princess was determined to avoid her studies just as much as the Magic Emperor was to avoid his work as the pair would much rather chase after a new and interesting type of magic. In fact, the two meshed together easily despite their age difference since the Magic Emperor finally had the chance to acquaintance himself with the rare light magic up close and personal while the Crown Princess had the opportunity to learn about more obscure magic that the books in the Royal Library didn't cover and stories of how magic could be used from the Magic Emperor's personal experiences. Few had any objection to the pair's infuriating avoidance of their studies and duties as the Crown Princess had taught herself all the lessons she needed from the Royal Library and the Royal Tutor only needed to fill in the gaps, such as royal etiquette, ballroom dancing, and so forth. In fact, some were pleased as in a way, it could be perceived as the Crown Princess receiving personal magic lessons from the Magic Emperor himself, which actually wasn't too far off.
"Hey, Julie?" she asked. "Why is it that the kingdom is so segregated even though the Magic Knights have commoners and peasants?" She was resting atop of a bed of light, floating gently in the air above Julius. She had a mulish expression, unable to understand why the kingdom was so cleanly split into three realms based on one's capacity of mana.
"That's a difficult question to answer, your Highness." Julius set his quill down from the latest batch of missions he was going to assign to different squads.
"I told you before, stop calling me that. I have a name so use it. It's so stuffy being called 'your Highness' and having people bow to you all the time," she said, rolling her eyes in the process. She floated down so that she was eye-level with Julius, her face scrunched up in a pout.
"Alright, Alma. To be frank, the idea that people with a smaller capacity for mana means they are inferior to those who have a larger capacity is so deeply rooted in nobility and royalty. Even if your father decided that segregation is suddenly a bad thing, there's little he could do about it unless the nobility and royalty suddenly had a change of heart as well."
Alma frowned. "It's so dumb though. We all bleed the same blood, yet people like to preach about how nobility are somehow better than commoners and peasants."
Julius chuckled at her response. "And that's why so many people want you to be more ambitious and take the crown sooner."
Alma shuddered and floated away at that. "I keep telling you guys this, but I don't want the crown. I want to be a Magic Knight. I want to explore dungeons and uncover the reality of those so-called myths."
Julius nodded sagely. "Elves, right? There's no evidence that they didn't exist, but there also isn't any saying that they did either."
Alma shook her head in disagreement. "I don't know, and I don't care. It's just a feeling. I know they existed, and I want to know why they went extinct. Elves have a higher compatibility with mana and could use their magic to a greater extent than we can as humans, so how did such a race suddenly die out?"
"So, you want to know what could have wiped out these elves? You're much more chivalrous than you want people to know, Princess." Julius said teasingly.
Alma rolled her eyes but didn't bother denying him. She floated down and gently reached the ground as her bed of light dispersed. She sat down on the ground and leaned against Julius's desk, pulling her knees up to her chest. With her hands over her knees, she rested her head and sighed. "Julius . . ." she began in a hesitant tone. "If I said I wanted to run away to the Forsaken Realm until the Magic Knights exam, would you stop me?"
Julius leaned back into his chair. "We both know your father would try and stop you," he said without hesitation. "He can try all he wants but we all know that no one can catch up to you unless you want them to with your magic."
"I know. He just wants to keep me around until he finds the best marriage proposal, probably to Spade Kingdom so that he can lounge around in even more luxury."
"Seven years is a long time though."
"I know. It's almost time for the harvest season, so I think I'll pack up some seeds to plant for next season."
"I'll ask William to make some nice seeds for you."
"Lili does make the best seeds. But knowing him, you'd have to beg him for those seeds." Alma said wryly. She paused for a moment, and the corners of her lips twitched. "I still wish he would give me another seed for Yggdrasil though. He made that tree for me, so shouldn't I be able to decide where another one should go?"
Julius laughed at that. Alma joined him and basked in the comforting knowledge that Julius hadn't said that he would do anything about stopping her. She was only eight, but they both knew that she knew how to look after herself. They never acknowledged it, but Julius was more of a father to her than the King ever was and ever could be.