“Princess Cessilia, Lady Tessa, this is my niece, Naptunie. She’s sixteen and a very bright, intelligent girl.”
“Oh, Uncle... Wait, Princess?” she immediately opened her eyes wide and turned to Cessilia and Tessa. “You’re the two ladies who attended court this morning? The Princesses! I’m so pleased to meet you! And you’re so pretty too! Is your skin color real? Can I touch it? Oh, sorry, I probably shouldn’t ask things like that… Oh, hi, Uncle Yassim! Welcome back... He’s back for real, right? Is it alright to ask?”
She had a cute voice and spoke very fast, clearly not bothering to sort out her thoughts first. Cessilia thought to herself she was a bit like Tessa as she spoke with little to no filter. Though in her case, it didn’t seem like she did it on purpose. Even right now, she turned her eyes to her uncle with a worried expression to ask for confirmation, realizing a bit late her poor choice of words. Yamino laughed and nodded, while Yassim stepped forward.
“Yes, Lady Naptunie, I am back for real. You’ve grown well.”
“Oh, not so much...” immediately replied the young lady, blushing and patting her chubby cheeks, visibly embarrassed. “I am happy to see you again. And the Princesses! Are you really from the Dragon Empire? You’ve never been here, right?”
“First, I’m not a princess,” said Tessa. “I’m just Tessa. Second, yes, first time here, regretting it already.”
Naptunie was very clearly more curious than afraid and kept adding questions to her previous questions without leaving the girls a single second to try and answer, to the point where even Tessa let her jaw hang after a few seconds, completely baffled.
“...I never thought I’d see a worse word mill than my sis... Seriously, never,” she whispered to Cessilia, shocked.
“You n-never know,” chuckled the Princess, amused.
“Nana!” suddenly shouted Yamino, obviously used to it but nevertheless exhausted. “I told the ladies that you would escort them downtown and show them around. You are about the same age and know the main streets better than Yassim or myself. Princess Cessilia and her cousin, Lady Tessa, are visiting our Kingdom for the first time. I think it would be best if you showed them around...”
Naptunie’s eyes immediately sparkled as she smiled brightly at the two young women.
“Of course! I know all the best places to go, the best shops, and the best restaurants! You girls will love it! Oh, and we should go see my cousins, they have the best fish beignet shop! They even have the rarest ones, and the best sea powder cakes too!”
Tessa smiled awkwardly, but Naptunie’s bright optimism was shining and contagious. Cessilia nodded, feeling a bit excited to meet a young woman their age to guide them around this new city.
“Nice t-to meet you, N-Naptunie.”
“Oh, please call me Nana!” replied the young woman. “Everybody does! Oh, should I call you Princess? Or Your Highness? This is my first time meeting a real Imperial Princess! Do you have a real tiara? Is it made of gold? You have so much gold on you! Is it real gold? It has to be, right? Oh, one of my friend’s aunties has the best jewelry shop, we should stop by and say hi! Of course, we will drop by my cousins’ shop first! Do you guys like fish? I’m sorry, I tend to talk a lot when I’m nervous, and meeting new people makes me very nervous… “
“Who would have noticed...” muttered Tessa.
“You should go, ladies,” chuckled Yamino. “The weather is meant to be nice today, you young ones should enjoy it all you want. Old men like us wouldn’t be able to keep up anyway, and the Capital is more enjoyable with people your own age!”
“Please come back to the castle before the sunset, my ladies,” said Yassim, visibly worried. “If anything happens to you–”
“If anything happens to us, it will rain flames,” scoffed Tessa. “Come on, let’s go and enjoy ourselves. I feel like we will not have many days like this once this damn competition thing or whatever really starts...”
“Oh, I know exactly where to go first!” exclaimed Nana, walking ahead. “Have you ever tried fresh coconut juice?”
“No, and what in the world is a coconut...”
Cessilia chuckled, watching the two young women leave first, bickering in the corridor. She glanced toward Yassim again, with a gentle expression.
“Thank you,” she muttered.
Yassim was a bit confused as to why exactly she was thanking him, of all people.
For bringing her here? This whole ordeal was nothing like he had promised. No, in fact, if it wasn’t for Yamino’s niece offering them a tour of the Capital, he wouldn’t have known what to do or say to the young ladies. He still felt bad about all of this, despite still knowing he had sincerely done what he thought he should. Because he had acted for the Kingdom’s sake, not Cessilia’s. In just one morning, she had already met the King and his mistress, discovered the three spies placed by her side, and been stared at with disdain by all of the most powerful people in this Kingdom. All that right after she had been taken away from her family, from her home she was perfectly safe in. In fact, Yassim was still at a loss as to why this young, brave woman that still looked so fragile at times would willingly go through all of this, and with such a soft smile too...
Walking down the corridor, Cessilia was oblivious to Yassim’s considerations. In fact, she was even fine with ignoring the triplets still silently walking behind her, and instead, she was smiling at Nana’s non-stop chattering and the faces her cousin was making. As someone used to having a very chatty sister already, despite her earlier complaints, Tessa could endure Nana’s word mill spinning at full speed just fine.
Moreover, it wasn’t just noise, she was actually providing them with a lot of information and turned out to be not only very chatty, but highly informed about pretty much anything an educated woman her age would be.
By the time they reached the ground floor, they already knew all about how she had six siblings she got along with, her family coming from a long line of fishermen and fish sellers, their pride as part of the Dorosef Tribe, and her own upbringing. Even how she had been given books to keep herself busy since she was too precocious even for her parents to keep up, Tessa rolled her eyes multiple times at that part, and how she had begun her apprenticeship as her uncle’s assistant just four years ago. Apparently, the only thing that could rival Nana’s love for books and knowledge was her love for food. As they walked by the kitchen, she greeted all the cooks, calling them by their names and proudly introducing the two cousins as if they had been friends forever. In fact, Nana’s blinding optimism was such that she didn’t even seem to realize how many jaws dropped as the kitchen staff realized they were being introduced to an Imperial Princess.
“Let’s go!” she quickly said as they walked out of the castle. “The earlier we go, the better our fish buns will be. Normally, people start queuing before dawn for my auntie’s fish beignets, the fresh ones are the best!”
“Fresh ones?” repeated Tessa, frowning. “You don’t... cook the fish?”
“Oh, we love it half-cooked!” said Nana with a wink. “The inside is still fresh, and the exterior is slightly cooked with the hot dough! And those sea salt-seasoned vegetables, and the sea herb white cream that goes perfectly with it… Oh, I’m salivating just thinking about it!”
Although they had just had breakfast, right now, both cousins were inevitably curious about those delicious-sounding dishes. Nana took them outside the castle’s gates, and Cessilia realized they were somehow still high up on the upper half of the mountain they had seen from the outside. In fact, to get out of the castle, it just took three open arches, with two guards at each that sent them curious glances even as cheerful Nana greeted them, and that was it.
“...Wait a minute,” said Tessa, shocked. “That’s it? We are out of the castle? You call this security?!”
“Oh, going into the castle is easy,” chuckled Nana, “but the main security is at the Inner Capital’s entrance, farther down. No one is allowed inside the Capital without an official pass, so make sure to never, ever leave without one. Even if the guard is your brother, they won’t let you in without the papers. And trust me, it has happened to me and my siblings more than once!”
“...I d-don’t understand,” said Cessilia. “Why g-guard the C-Capital and not the c-c-castle?”
“Oh, this is the King’s idea. The Capital is extremely selective, so it has to be the safest place. Actually, where we are now is called the Inner Capital. It is the safest place in all of the Kingdom, after the castle itself. If we go lower down, about three or four levels, we will reach the Inner Gates, and past those, it’s the Greater Capital. The Greater Capital has more habitations, some cheaper shops, but it’s also a bit less safe. Then, there are the four bridges. Once you pass the bridges, you’re still in the Capital, but in the Outer Capital. Technically, it is still part of the Capital, but no more shops, just a few houses and private lands for cultivation, fishing, and so on. It’s where everyone who wants to get in the Capital has to stop once they pass the great walls.”
“Wait, there are more walls?” said Tessa, confused already.
“Yes, the very first step to getting inside the Capital is the Outer Wall... supposedly,” grimaced Nana. “In fact, about a fifth of it was destroyed during the previous war, so a lot of people clandestinely enter every day. That’s why security is more focused on the Inner and Greater Capital than on the outskirts or even the Outer Capital. They are working on rebuilding it, though, and arresting people who enter illegally.”
“I see... So the bridges are actually the main checkpoints?”
“Exactly! Wait, I’ll show you... Ah, there!”
