Something was not right. Not right at all.

Reflected upon by many, this thought was circling among the denizens of the Seven Gardens, as unseen and as contagious as a cold.

First it was the minstrel as he peered down at his snapped lute string and sighed, mentally weighing the coins currently nestled in his hat against the recalled price of a good fresh length of cord. Not nearly enough. Ah well, the ballad of the lovely Maria and Draco would have to continue without a proper note or two.

So he played. But it wasn't right.

Then it was Emmett Brown as he creaked his door open just a sliver. Bad luck couldn't slip through just a sliver...right? He peeked nervously at his front garden, or at what he could see of it anyway. Squinting, he tried to observe the faint movements of the leaves, just to be sure it was safe.

He slammed the door shut, disturbing the morning doves trying to roost in the nearby bush.

Nope. Something was definitely weird.

The doves, mid-flight, thought so too. Though they were fairly sure what, or rather who the weird thing was.

Even the castle was affected.

A head of sunshine blonde hair snuggled against the cool side of her pillow, enjoying a brief respite from her nightmares, trying to ignore the real rays of the morning peeking through the curtains. While the princess still slept, her personal guard was already at work, tidying up the bedroom before breakfast. Beatrix scooped up some of the stray doodles that had been partially crunched under the wheels of Namine's chair and had to swallow her curses in order to not disturb the sleeping child nearby.

But it was just as the former general had feared. Yet again, each discarded picture had the exact same name scrawled across the top, as if it was a letter. What it meant, she couldn't say. The scratchy drawings didn't whisper their hidden secrets to her. However, from them she understood three things.

One, that the true recipient of these messages should get a chance to see them. Second, the little gamble she had made years ago allowing that nontraditional upstart to get promoted looked like it was going to pay off.

As for the third thing…

Beatrix stamped the edges of the drawings on the table, straightening the pile as much as possible. Her guilt was pungent, hanging in the air.

There was something disconcertingly wrong. Not just with the drawings, but with everything. This whole mess. And it was about time she had a chance to fix it.

"So...this 'Light Bonding' thing is a marriage, right?" Sora's pace slowed slightly, his face still just as cloudy as it had been in the medical ward, and all through the Refraction ritual.

Riku didn't look much better himself. "Essentially. But royal marriages are...complicated."

"Oh, it's not complicated at all." She overtook the two of them briskly, trying to keep herself focused on her mission. "It's all about putting on a show."

She heard the hesitant patter of Sora's footsteps chasing after her. "Uh...a show?"

"Mm-hmm. All seven parts of our kingdom are connected, but what sets them apart are the spectacular gardens, the pride of each district. Most importantly, the Flower Festival. You've seen it, right?"

Sora shrugged at her, still looking a baffled. "Well sure, it's a big deal no matter where you are. But what does that have to do with you getting...you know...engaged?"

He whispered the last word like it was something taboo. She almost wished it was.

"The Festival is where the best-in-show is crowned. It's another meaningless title, but certain people take those things seriously. Very seriously."

"Present company excluded."

Clearly not much disrupted Riku's snark, but she wasn't going to blame him for trying to keep things casual. Maybe it was his own way of trying to calm her down. If she wasn't so focused, maybe she would have been willing to entertain some banter, but she just kept striding towards the large doors at the end of the hall, keeping her words as pointed as possible.

"Regardless, while the royal family isn't meant to play favorites, there are tax deductions given to the home garden of whoever marries into the family for the first five years after the wedding as a form of compensation. I suppose because the duke or son of the duke or whoever is chosen relocates to Radiant Garden permanently and they decided this was a fair trade-off."

Just as she expected, Riku caught on to her implications without difficulty. "I see. With tax deductions, more funds would be free to allocate towards areas like garden development and maintenance. Greed being greed means: whoever is serious enough about a garden Festival would be more than willing to bribe the committee responsible for selecting your future husband."

"And they enjoy the bribes, I'm sure. That's why it's all a show. My life is just a trifle when it comes to something as dreadfully important as a flower competition."

While political manipulation and taxes weren't his forte, she could see things starting to click into place in Sora's mind. Even through the sarcasm she tried to mask it with, he was realizing the extent of her frustrating situation.

Because her issue wasn't only about getting engaged or married before she was ready. It was that her lovely husband-to-be was going to be selected based on, as Riku had phrased it, pure greed.

Sora chewed hesitantly at the corner of his mouth for a moment, as if he was dreading his next question.

"Do you really have no say at all?"

One glance was all it took to answer.

"That's so..."

Nothing more was said. Nothing needed to be said.

Riku picked up his pace slightly so he could reach the hallway doors and hold them open for Kairielis to pass through without breaking a single stride of her determined pace. Sora scurried after, nodding at his friend as he passed, still looking as rattled as a baby bird who had just learned today was flight lesson number one.

Eventually, Riku broke the tension with another well-founded guess.

"I suspect this matter is being introduced so prematurely because of fears around a lack of an heir, or something of that nature."

This only seemed to confuse Sora even further. "Lack of an error? But...no one made an error. We stopped the witch, right? Everything should be okay!"

"Heir, not err."

Sora blinked, his blank expression betrayed his bewilderment, clearly not hearing a difference between the two.

"Uh..."

Kairielis couldn't help but smile at least a little, despite still feeling like someone had replaced her stomach with a sack of rocks. She also had an inkling that Riku purposefully liked tricking his friend with homophones.

"What he means is, they want my first born as soon as possible, Sora."

"First bo...w-wait, like have a baby? But you..." He struggled to stammer out his thoughts as they tumbled out unfiltered from his mouth. "That's too soon, right? W-why is it-if they want a baby so bad why don't they just adopt, or-"

Riku started coughing, clearly choking back an impressive amount of restraint at some snippy remark he wanted to tease his friend with. Sora retorted with an agitated glare and a huff. Rather than comment, she chose to move on from the issue as gracefully as possible, just like her uninterrupted procession down the hall.

"They don't need any baby. They need mine. My first born child specifically will inherit the Ability, so I will no longer be the only source. If things were still peaceful, there wouldn't be an issue. But now that witch has gotten them spooked. That's why they are likely rushing my engagement."

"Oh..."

The explanation, as she expected, wasn't a comfort to him. However, rather than looking even more angry or sad, he looked oddly...embarrassed? He swallowed heavily, and his hesitation made her all the more curious.

"What's wrong?"

He shook his head desperately, as if she had just told him to go eat a bug. "I...I-I'd rather not..."

And his face only grew redder.

This finally got her attention enough to halt her forward march. She pursed her lips at him and silently let her expression request he reconsider.

He did, albeit reluctantly. It was at least slightly relieving to see she still had influence over someone. It gave her a little bit of confidence that maybe she could actually pull off this whole storming-in-and-confronting-her-father thing.

"Uh...well...I just...they want you to have a child, right?"

"Eventually, yes. Why? Is there something you're still confused about?"

He floundered, finally deciding it was easier to stare at the wallpaper depicting ivy vines lacing vertically up to the ceiling than continue to look at her.

"N-no, not really. It's just...n-no one can touch you, s-so..." His voice cracked a little from nervousness. "h-how...uh...how can you..."

...Oh gosh.

Before she could grace him with an answer to his elegantly implied question, Riku gave him a hearty smack upside the back of his head.

"I can't believe what comes out of your mouth sometimes."

"That's why I didn't want to ask!"

He had a point. She had sort of forced him into it, so she couldn't really hold it against him. Besides, it was a rather gauche, ignorant thing to bring up, but he didn't mean anything salacious or rude behind it. He just honestly didn't know.

"That's why we call it a Light Bonding ceremony. It's different than a regular marriage."

"I don't understand..."

To be fully honest, she didn't know too much about it herself. Her mother had never gone through Light Bonding, and her grandmother had certainly never explained much, so it always felt like this scary phantom of a thing; hovering, waiting for her in the future. At least she was knowledgeable enough to briefly explain about it, but beyond that she was a bit clueless.

"Well...from what I was told, both of us will enter the rising waters of the temple within the central pool. I use my ability in the water and the priests know a way to bind my light to him, so after that moment there will be no barriers at all between us. Meaning...um..."

"One kiss later and it's happily ever after." Riku glumly summarized for her. "Children and all."

Kairielis flicked at a button on her blouse, trying to fight back the shiver of fear clawing its way up her back. It's not that she didn't want a son or daughter some day, but the very notion that she was being used as a tool only to propagate the family line was frankly, disgusting. She knew that she herself had been born out of duty, rather than out of happiness. Her mother never confessed otherwise to her as far as she could remember, but she always wondered how she had really felt about having an arranged marriage, and being pushed at a likely young age as well to have a child. It was one of those things she wished her mother was still around to ask about. It hurt enough not having her at all, but when she needed someone to turn to for advice there was nothing but a gaping hole glaring back at her.

Sora still seemed hesitant. "But if you can go into the pool with someone and then be able to touch them and stuff...why don't you just 'Light Bond' or whatever with everyone?"

"Well, that's-"

"Then you could do it with us too, right?" He gestured between him and Riku, despite his friend recoiling in dumbfounded horror at his statement.

"Excuse me?" Kairielis bore her eyes into him, trying to ignore the little part in the back of her brain that was giggling away at the implication. "Are you...saying you want to do the Bonding ceremony with me?"

"Well yeah, if it means it would be easier to..." He caught sight of Riku's pointed stare and floundered. "W-well not the whole thing obviously! We can skip the kissing part! Because even if I—I mean, I know I c-couldn't—we couldn't-"

"Sora?" Riku didn't even try to peek out from under the hand plastered over his own forehead, covering his equal measures of shame and frustration.

"Y-yeah?"

"Shut up."

"Got it..."

The poor thing sagged under his own weight, slumping his head against the tacky ivy wallpaper. Despite all his flubbing, she had the small semblance of a notion what he was getting at. Besides, if she was being honest, him getting flustered like this was a welcome distraction to the dread that waited for her at the end of the hallway so she wasn't all that mad about it. At its core, she assumed he was trying to understand why she wasn't able to simply bless the entire kingdom in the water and then solve her issues of isolation in one fell swoop.

Unfortunately, nothing could be that simple.

"Sora, to answer your actual question: Light Bonding isn't something I can do over and over. It's like putting a piece of my own heart into someone else. I would love if I could repeat the process over and over with everyone I care about, but it doesn't work that way. It has...limitations. No matter how much I would want to, and no matter how much I care for you two, I-"

Oh no.

She cut herself off in a slight panic, realizing her phrasing had unveiled the one thing she wasn't supposed to. Her heart thumped and she glanced with panicked eyes at the two of them. Sora, still looking dreadfully repentant over just about everything, hadn't seemed to notice what she had just unintentionally confessed, thank the gods, but Riku was patiently waiting for her to finish with an unnaturally stiff expression like he was trying incredibly hard to suppress every emotion in his face.

Perfect. Just perfect.

"What I mean is...it's a very, very draining process. If I performed it with too many people I would eventually run out of pieces of myself to give. That's why I can't just bless everyone and be done with it."

"I understand! I'm really, really sorry. It's special and private, right? I'll respect that and try not to ask any more stupid questions."

He apologized swiftly, sincerely and with such gusto that she didn't even bother pretending she had to consider forgiving him or not. He was probably inwardly kicking himself in the head more than enough to compensate for any possible slight.

"It's okay..."

She mostly just hoped Riku wouldn't say anything.

He didn't.

So she hesitantly resumed her journey towards the Fawn Room, where her father waited. She noticed on the walk this time, rather than quivering with trepidation and dread, Sora strode next to her with a newfound determination.

"Okay...so if I understand all this stuff about Light Bonding correctly, then...forcing you into it is even more wrong than I thought! No matter what you should never be forced to give your heart over to some guy you don't even know. Or forced to have a child before you're ready either. That's awful."

Riku nodded his head towards the last door in the hall, right before the Fawn Room within which the King was waiting.

"Glad you're finally up to speed, but watch your tongue in there. Remember your position and let her do the talking."

Sora scrunched up his fists, but ultimately relented after he caught a glimpse of her pleading face. The last thing she needed right now was for him to mouth off in front of her father.

"I know I'm not supposed to...but she should be allowed to find someone who she can freely give her heart to without any hesitation at all. If he doesn't agree, how am I supposed to stay quiet about it!?"

There wasn't really a way to answer that question. Kairielis rested her hand on the handle, the cold brass making her shiver.

"I really hope my father is feeling agreeable today. But, if he isn't..." She gave Riku a light nod. "Don't leave Sora on his own, okay?"

She had tried to say this lightheartedly, but she knew her voice was trembling and it came across much more serious than she had intended. Riku gave her a swift salute.

"Wouldn't dream of it. Trust me, I've got all sorts of ways to mute him if I need to."

"Whose side are you on?" Sora grumbled, but quickly dropped the issue in favor of giving her one last encouraging smile. "No matter what we're right behind you, okay? Deep breath, chin up, and give him some fire enough for the three of us!"

Encouraging, like always. Hopefully this time she could actually manage to get more than a sentence out before backing down. No, she definitely would!

She gripped the handle and pushed forward.

There are many eternal unchanging truths in the world. A small minnow in a pond will spend its whole life circling around the watery prison granted to it by birth, never knowing the shape of the trees beyond the shoreline. Because it is a fish. The unchanging truth about fish, is that small minnows are not meant to dash freely among the ferns and bushes of the forest. And no matter how freely it may swim within its domain, it will always and forever remain a fish.

To the harshness of truth and reality, there was no difference between a fish and a princess.

Kairielis stuffed her face harder into the already soaked pillow she was clutching like it was her only salvation. But she knew she was only circling, trapped in her own little pond that was ever shrinking around her as the summer heat continued to dry every last drop. And no matter how much she cried, her tears couldn't possibly replace what was now missing.

Because there was one other inevitable truth that no one could hide from. Everything, everything, everything, no matter how wonderful, or powerful or beautiful will inevitably end. This entire time she had been living in a castle of dreams on the shore, built up of fantasies and disillusions as unstable and ever shifting as stacks of sand. She had enjoyed all these little lies that she comforted herself with. Lies that told her she was more than a miniature fish. That she was more than a tool of destiny. That she could one day share the tiniest bit of love with someone else.

But now a wave was crashing up against her shore. She could only stand with her feet buried in the muck as the warm water rushed past her, surging and powerful, ripping her castle into pieces before her eyes. All the happiness that she had with those two dissolved into nothing, and was wrenched with the ebb of the tide across her ankles and finally out to sea.

Everything ends.

Even one day the wave will disappear, to be replaced with another.

Perhaps I really would be better off as a cicada. She wiped her raw eyes one more time. At least they could be free, even for a day.

A soft knock sounded at her door but she barely even stirred from her slumped position in the corner. The last thing she wanted was to remember that they were there.

She was embarrassed. But more than that she knew just thinking about him made everything hurt that much worse. Because she cared far too much. He was everything she was now starkly aware she couldn't ever have.

"Are you sure you didn't need anything? We'll be out here if you ever want to talk, okay?"

His voice was muffled from behind the stiff mahogany of the door, but she knew who it was without even thinking. Why did he have to always be so...

He always said the right things, to make her heart flutter. Always had that bright light in his eyes that she had never noticed in anyone else. Filled her dreams with such flighty fantasies…

Why had he done this to her?

It was all his fault.

Gripping the edges of her tear-stained pillow all the more firmly, she jerked to her feet then hurled it childishly against the door. But she knew something that simple wouldn't drive him away. That was what made him so wonderful. Wonderfully...problematic.

She had no one to blame but herself.

Feeling her eyes swelling up once more, she dove onto her bed and buried her face into the sheets. She barely heard Riku's voice, just as muffled through the wood.

"Better to just let her be for now."

But what even am I supposed to be? A princess? A queen? A mother? I'm just a body for perpetuating tradition and nothing else matters.

She hoped tomorrow would never come. How had things ended up so wrong?

Oh how generous her father had been, they said. How compromising to allow even the slightest change to convention. It was her first real success at relaxing the rules, but she had nothing to celebrate. She had shouted until she had burst into tears, but it didn't change anything. He still got what he want in the end: her engagement would proceed with one meager concession. So what if she was the one making the final pick from a selection of suitors rather than having that left up to Committee vote? And tomorrow they were going to parade them all out in front of her, all six of them. Six!

And she was supposed to choose the future king from such a veritable cornucopia! Ugh!

The person she would have to be with forever. With whom she would have to...

She slammed a fist against the covers and couldn't hold back another sob, muffled by the goose feather stuffed comforter beneath her. The dread was tangible, twisting up inside. Her whole being belonged to everyone but her. The only bits she had were her own heart and soul, trapped inside this horrible prison. She wanted to shed it off, but every shiver reminded her how impossible it was to crawl out of her body. She couldn't claw her way out no matter how hard she tried. She raked her fingers through her hair and screamed in rage and fear.

She wanted out. Out of this tiny pond built for a pathetic minnow.

Another attempt at knocking on the door, and silence followed.

Sora prodded at a wrinkle in the rug with the toe of his boot, clearly hesitating about what to declare towards the stern, cold doors keeping him barred from entry. Riku knew that look on his face fairly well. It was that same look he got when he was tending to another one of his many befriended stray pets. Protective, concerned and a tad regretful there wasn't more that could be done to help.

"Are you sure you didn't need anything? We'll be out here if you ever want to talk, okay?"

The soft thunk of something, a pillow or stuffed animal maybe, being hurled against the other side of the door was more than enough of an answer.

No doubt Sora wanted to charge right into that room and whisk her away from this whole mess. But he couldn't. And now he was stuck having to sit there and watch, infuriated and helpless. All because he had given his heart to the wrong girl.

Riku put a sympathetic hand on his shoulder. "Better to just let her be for now."

Rather than be comforted, he slumped forlornly against the cold and ruthlessly stiff wood of the locked bedroom door of the princess. Turning his head slightly, his eyes desperately called out, silently pleading for help with a problem both of them knew neither of them could solve.

"...I don't know what to do."

Sora had definitely mastered the art of the puppy dog face, but there was not much that Riku felt he could interject without sounding overly insensitive.

He tried the best he could.

"Is that because what you want to do is something you shouldn't?"

Of course that was it. Was there any question? Sora had already fallen and fallen hard for her. But not even the sternest reprimand in the world was going to change that.

"Please don't tell me you told me so. I know. I know already."

"That's not what I was going to say."

Lowering his own voice to just over a whisper so there was no way he could be overheard, he asked the biggest question still nagging at him.

"Considering..." Riku glanced in the direction of the bedroom. No sound. Stillness. "...Considering everything, do you think you'll still be able to support her through this and come out alright? That's what is most important right now."

"Of course I will! It's not-"

Riku held up his hand to hush his friend's spirited outburst and Sora sheepishly tried to correct his volume.

"It's not about that. I know already at the end of the day I have about...zero chance of ever being anyone important in her life and that's...that's fine." His eyes also flicked back hesitantly towards the silent doors and he sagged again, clearly wishing he could do more that just stare at them from the outside.

Riku had to struggle not to say anything. Any comment, or easy quip about him being far more than zero in her eyes would be better off unsaid, so he let Sora continue.

"She deserves to be happy. If she is happiest getting married to some duke or whatever then, honestly, I won't complain about it. Even if it hurts I'll do whatever I can to support her."

Riku knew Sora was as sappy as maple toffee, but there was no doubting he meant every single word of his mini soliloquy.

"I'm not doubting your resolve, just the potential consequences. At least we can be grateful the King was...understanding enough to give her the slightest bit of agency during this whole debacle."

Being able to choose from the preselected final six contenders for the crown, one from each Garden, wasn't a fantastic positive; and it wasn't much comfort to her, obviously. Otherwise she wouldn't have sequestered herself in her room and refused any visitors for the last hour. Sora also didn't seem...particularly thrilled about this outcome, and Riku practically had to drag him out of the receiving room kicking and shouting. Sora wasn't one for yelling obscenities so his anger sometimes came across as a bit childish to some, creatively bizarre to others, but Riku was well-versed enough in his vocabulary to know that him calling someone a 'sour pickle' was not meant to be a compliment. And whether it was understood or not, it definitely wasn't a good thing to shout out at the king. It's a miracle they didn't reprimand him for that outburst.

What a farce.

And innocents were going to suffer for it.

Both of them hunkered down silently in the hall outside her room, the ultimate picturesque representations of 'glum'. Every now and again Sora would eagerly glance over towards where she had disappeared, as if he was half expecting her to emerge again. Each time he was left disappointed.

No response. Not even a pillow.

Riku could tell his friend was getting steadily more frustrated the more he had to remain stuck, helpless. While he was all for teaching his friend a bit more on the benefits of patience, now wasn't the time for chiding him.

Finally reaching the end of his rope, Sora started pacing around in small jittery circles.

"Maybe...maybe I should just tell her abo-"

"Don't do anything rash."

He halted marching immediately.

"But what if I'm right? Then she wouldn't have to...what if that's what that witch lady-"

"And if you're wrong? There's a reason you haven't mentioned it earlier, remember?"

"I know..."

That was the face of someone who wasn't completely convinced, but was feeling backed into a corner. And if Sora wasn't completely convinced against it, he was bound to do something utterly reckless. Riku crossed his arms and tried a slightly less stern tone, just in case it helped.

"Let's just wait and see how this situation works itself out first, alright? If she still seems unhappy after tomorrow, we can weigh the options again then."

"I...I dunno..."

"We can still hope there's at least one among the six suitors that she feels is acceptable."

Sora looked like he had just eaten something bitter. "Acceptable isn't good enough! I'm gonna give every single one of those guys the toughest inspection of their lives! Anything fishy and I'll-"

"You'll do what, exactly?" A very soft voice, half marred by sniffles remaining from an undoubted deluge of past tears, murmured out from behind the tiniest sliver of open door.

Gasping, Sora bolted towards the opening, trying to peek through the small gap at the princess cowering behind it.

"Are you oka-" He cut himself off, looking a bit sheepish. Everyone already knew the answer to his question was a resounding 'no'. Shaking his head, he tried to rephrase. "How are you feeling? I'm not sure if you heard me before but if you need anything I'll-"

"I heard you." Her voice was scratchy, slightly hoarse. "And I am feeling...well...right now I just am."

Sora gingerly reached out and touched the wood of the door on the exact opposite side of where she was leaning. Panicked at his movement, or because she wasn't ready for anyone to see her, she shoved on the door as she recoiled, accidentally slamming it shut. Sora took the hint and backed away.

It took her a moment to return and uneasily peek back out into the hall, still covering most of her face with the side of the door. The other half of her face was obscured by the tussled locks of hair she had left draped across it, leaving her expression particularly difficult to read.

Despite all these attempts at hiding, it was obvious she was trembling and her color was much more pale than normal.

"I'm sorry about that...I'm still a little..."

"Don't worry about it, take as much time as you need."

The corridor fell silent among the three of them, the only sounds coming from the last minute preparations being carried out to clean and spruce up the castle for the incoming visitors. The voices of the gardeners and cleaners echoed through the halls like ghosts, never letting them forget what tomorrow would bring.

Kairielis wrapped her fingers around the outside edge of her door. "I'm sorry for eavesdropping a bit, but..."

Riku mentally rewound through his previous conversation with Sora. He wasn't quite sure when she had started listening in. As far as he could recall, they hadn't said anything too...incriminating, but depending on what she heard she might be a bit suspicious. Sora was fidgeting in the corner, maybe because he wasn't sure himself what she had overheard.

He mentally shrugged. Not much he could do about it now. Better to play it safe and not volunteer any extra information that it wasn't clear she already knew.

"We were the ones talking right outside your door, I don't think you overhearing should really be considered eavesdropping."

With any luck she would bring it up any issues herself.

"I suppose…but maybe I heard something I wasn't meant to."

Sora gulped. "Y-you think?"

"I feel a little guilty locking the two of you out. I should've known you would both want to help me through this, even if that makes you somewhat...partial."

"Of course!"

Lacking all sense of decorum, like usual, Sora just outright admitted he was breaking the rules. But at least his daily clumsiness always managed to put a smile on her face. Even today, the shiest little smile barely peeked its way out from under her messy strands of hair, but quickly retreated.

"I'm...ashamed to say so, but I don't know if I can do this alone."

No way out at this point. There was no way Sora was turning down big doe eyes like that.

"You aren't alone! Not ever!"

Yep, there it was.

But Riku couldn't say he disagreed. No matter how much he tried to tell himself that he had to be the backbone between the two of them to actually follow the guidelines, in this particular case he knew no one should have to be forced into the type of windstorm the princess had been so roughly hurled into without warning. Even the most stalwart of hearts would likely need a hand of support to guide them down a path this bleak. This whole mess was so incredibly wrong. All of them knew it, but they could only cope the best they could.

At the end of the day, what was most important weren't the rules specifically, but the intentions behind them. And at this point only someone heartless or willfully ignorant would think it in her best benefit to stand alone staring at this incoming storm.

"If you need help and can't see us on the horizon, it's because we are already right behind you."

Sora's eyes widened at him for a moment before he laughed. "Is that why you are quiet all the time? You are sitting there thinking up these tough guy catchphrases?"

"Like I've said before: one of us has to be eloquent."

And as hard as it must have been for her, at least now the princess was smiling once more.

Ienzo bent over the stack of tomes, poring over the labels and bookmarks in growing frustration. He had quite a lot of pride in his organizational skills, so to find the records of such an influential time without a proper filing system was appalling to say the least. How was anyone supposed to look up anything in that shamble of an index? Surely this disorderly mess hadn't been his doing. His predecessor was a shrewd man, so he was hesitant to lay the finger of blame in his direction either, but there didn't seem to be any other reason for the records of the young princess to be so...misplaced.

Something was not right here, that much was clear.

The princess had been quite adamant in her debate with the King that her engagement ought to be postponed until after the threat of that raven toting sorceress had been fully investigated. Something about a warning. Something about her lost memories being the key to saving the kingdom. Yet the King had been equally as adamant that any "lost memories" were not a thing to be concerned over, and the kingdom was doing fine other than just needing a bit of rain. All that mattered was producing an heir now that her body was likely mature enough to survive the strain of the Light Bonding process. All that was necessary was having a...back-up option, of sorts, should anyone try to harm her again.

This didn't go over very well with the princess, or that rambunctious guard of hers who had been bristling like a porcupine the minute they had gotten into the room. Most of the rest of the discussions quickly devolved into threats, tears, and from what he heard mumbled from over in the corner, absolutely dumbfounding childish insults towards the King's character, if they could even be considered insults. That boy was an utter mystery.

However, the warnings about her memory still stuck out as particularly interesting. Suffice it to say, curiosity got the better of him and Ienzo now found himself desperately searching for pages of history that had, for lack of a better word, vanished.

Darkfall had been meticulously chronicled, sorted, filed. Each chapter bookmarked and labeled to the utmost accuracy. Yet for the young Kairielis Aeterna Luxilla, her history had a whole swath simply missing and unaccounted for, just like in her own memory. Where could it have been misplaced?

In this encyclopedia? Empty. That tome there? No mention. Even this book, with everything squared away in pristine condition with the neatest cursive scrawl? Completely purged.

This must be something sinister indeed. Surely if the princess couldn't remember it, someone would want that information available should it be pertinent for something. Much like the situation right now.

Nothing but dangerous content could have warranted this level of redaction and cover up.

After searching fruitlessly for hours, he finally unearthed a ratty snippet of parchment that, by its slightly tart mildew smell, must have been dated to around the events of Darkfall. What he found within wasn't exactly helpful, but it was more than nothing. Whole lines of text, blotted out with pots of ink, obscuring anything written beneath. Even the tightest scrutiny of the pages only revealed two words not as severely darkened, scratched hastily in the margins.

Project Ellone.

Ienzo burned them into his memory, and buried the pages once more in a dark pigeonhole. He had no idea what those words could mean, but he had a vague notion that Even might have some knowledge on the matter. The real question was, if such a thing was truly worth pursuing.

If he dared, he would have to proceed very, very carefully.

For at a time when nothing seemed right, this was the most unsettling thing of all.

There was only one, it seemed, within the whole kingdom who found such a disconcerting aura saturating the air to be a welcome break from monotony. She watched out from the window of her unobtrusive cottage in the woods, a twisted smile on her pale face as she toyed with a woman's broach in the shape of a sparrow, letting it flutter between her fingers.

"It won't be long now, my dear. Soon you'll be able to fly back home."

The raven next to her cocked his head and cawed in confusion, unsure if she was talking to him, or to the sparkly object in her hands.

Her preparations were almost complete. Every player already well on their way dancing into position, leading to an inevitable checkmate. That which had been long buried was going to bury them, she was almost sure of it. The only thing she couldn't be sure of was that pesky cockroach who had defied her thrice over now.

But no matter. Her seeds had still taken root elsewhere despite his silly little attempts at interference. When one has an eternity, one learns to adapt.

And whatever move they make, she will be ready.

"Diablo, the one that we caught claiming this trinket for himself...I feel if given the right motivation he could be quite invaluable. Bring him to me."

She extended the elegant pin out towards the bird who snatched it up into his talons without hesitation. He then rustled his wings eagerly and took off out the cottage window, soaring out towards the castle.

She watched her bird go for only a moment, her sneer returning. In this grand ongoing game of chess, everyone was so focused on the kings and queens, castles and bishops that perhaps they wouldn't even notice a knight being traded for a pawn.