For all his idiosyncrasies, Niel had some pretty impressive reflexes. That was only thought running through her mind as Joe watched the boy spectacularly spring away from the trajectory of her scalding hot tea like a jack-in-the-box. He landed on the floor with an ungraceful thump and bumped his nose against a pristine white pillar.

 

…..What’s this feeling of déjà vu?

 

“Gahh! Watch it!” The boy prince nursed his swollen nose and shot her a glare. His fiancée was super dangerous, dammit! She managed to injure him without even lifting a finger!

 

“…I’m sorry— err, Emmanuel.” Joe managed to say, but her mind was now whirling with the new information. Fairies?! Did he just say that he saw fairies in Whitemare?!

 

Why a— a fairy, of all things?

 

What does a fairy look like anyway?!

 

“You better be sorry!” Niel gingerly stumbled back into his seat, eyes fixated on the girl sitting in front of him. “Why’d you do that?! Is this a new form of harassment, huh?!”

 

Trust this guy to come up with the most ridiculous conclusions.

 

“I am sorry. I truly am sorry.” Joe tried her best to look apologetic. It wasn’t working. “Err… look, enough about that! Can you tell me more about your encounter with the f-fairies of Whitemare? How did you find them? What did they look like?! In details, please!”

 

Niel blinked.

 

“Y-Your grand adventures are soooo inspiring, Emmanuel!” His fiancée shot him her most sincere smile. “I can’t believe someone like you could be so brave! It’s almost like you’re a completely different person!”

 

The hidden insult certainly hadn’t registered in his mind, because Niel’s scowl was slowly morphing into a toothy grin. He thrived on compliments, and instantly folded the moment someone spoke a few kind words to him.

 

Joe tried shield her eyes away from his pure, radiant smile. The boy had a look of ‘Finally-you’re-acknowledging-my-greatness!’ on his face.

 

“Heh! If you insist!”

 

Niel righted his toppled chair and dragged it closer to her. His nose was red, and his voice nasal, but nothing could dampen the prince’s childlike enthusiasm. After a brief internal debate, Joe soaked her pretty pink handkerchief in a cup of cold water and pressed it firmly against his swollen nose. Niel visibly stiffened at her touch (not that she could blame him), but did not make any attempt to move farther away.

 

In the distance, Wick— err, Shawn Wicksman lightly coughed into his fist. Joe had a distinct feeling that he was trying to stifle a laugh.

 

“So, how’d you find out about the fairies?” She broke the silence first, because the boy prince was looking at her like she had grown a second head on her shoulders, and it was mildly insulting. It wasn’t as if she was incapable of showing some kindness, dammit! Whatever did this idiot take her for?!

 

Niel perked up at her question. “Aha! Now we are talking! The meat of the matter! The beginning of beginnings!”

 

Oh. He was back to his usual self.

 

‘Where was this beginning when you actually began your story?’ Joe wanted to ask, but wisely kept her mouth shut. She needed him to prattle about every single thing that he knew, and her ill-timed sarcasm wouldn’t help here.

 

“Listen Joey.” His voice abruptly dropped to a whisper. He beckoned her closer, and Joe reluctantly inched forward into his personal space. She could see the light brown flecks of freckles on the pale face. His eyes shone bluer than the blue autumn sky.

 

“What I am about to tell you is top secret.” He began, and Joe’s heart simultaneously started beating faster. “No one in the entire kingdom knows about this. Or well, more like no one else has been able to gather enough proof to believe its existence.”

 

‘It’? What is ‘it’ supposed to be?!

 

“And you were able to?” Joe asked him, her throat dry.

 

“Of course! Who do you think I am?”

 

Uhh… She didn’t know what to say without sounding rude, so she changed gears. “Who did you hear this from again? This top secret of yours?”

 

“My…” Niel swallowed— was that a hint of fear on his face? “My grandmother.”

 

“…..Your grandmother?”

 

Why the hell is another unknown variable added into this mess?

 

Joe did not know too much about the dowager Queen— Lady Meredith Maria Grayford, formerly a daughter of the McFarlane clan— other than the fact that she was a sickly noblewoman who rarely showed her face in the public. She had a frail body but a sharp tongue, and one could hear many rumours about how even the Royal Council of Triciella was scared shitless of this fierce, no-nonsense old lady.

 

One time, some clueless councilman had gently tried to suggest the woman to step away from politics, and to peacefully spend the (remaining) days with her grandkids. Apparently, the Dowager Queen of Triciella had torn him a new arsehole for that, and nobody has since dared to stick their necks in her affairs thereafter.

 

“Grandmother might look pretty weak like that, but she’s got several tricks up her sleeve.” Niel cracked a knowing grin, as if he could read what was going on in her head. “I heard that she’s seen her fair share of weird stuff in her life— stuff that no one in Triciella would ever believe!”

 

Joe looked unconvinced. “Well… don’t you suppose it comes with age and experience?”

 

“That’s got nothing to do with anything, Joey.”

 

Niel had the most serious look in his eyes, and for a wild heartbeat— Joe thought that she could see a tiny glimpse of the video game’s real prince Emmanuel Grayford in this boy.

 

She chucked the nasty thought out of her mind. Niel was nothing like the video game’s ruthless prince charming. He was just a gullible idiot who had unluckily landed into her sworn enemy’s body, charming looks be damned.

 

“So what did your Grandmother tell you about?”

 

“….Fairies.” The boy whispered. “Tiny little creatures that fly around near the western horizon, and leave shining scales in their wake. No one in Triciella has ever seen or talked to one, but Grandmother says they show up intermittently every now and then in the outskirts of Whitemare. She couldn’t see them often, but the chances were especially high when— and I quote her here, ‘the line between day and night became blurred and magical’— at the crack of dawn or during twilight. She said that they seemed to be living somewhere deep within the forest of Sandora, but even Grandmother didn’t have the courage to go near that place.”

 

Joe blinked.

 

He was…. talking about the scaledfolks, right?

 

“And then I asked, ‘If nobody can see these creatures— how come you do, Grandmother?’” Niel went on, unaware of the whirlwind of confusion in Joe’s mind. “What do think she said? ‘I don’t know ‘bout the others, Emmanuel. But I have been able to see these creatures for nearly allll my life. How else would I know of their existence, hmm?’”

 

…Interesting.

Veeeery interesting.

 

Joe felt her lips twitching into the barest hint of a grin. What wouldn’t she give to meet the Dowager Queen of Triciella face-to-face!

 

“And no offence to grandmother, of course.” Niel nodded to himself sagely. “I trust her completely. But the Whitemare is more accessible than Sandora, right? It’s wider and easier to navigate through! Everything is just out in plain sight! One should have better chances to see the fairies in a place like that, don’t you agree, Joey?”

 

The esteemed second prince of Triciella was doing an awful lot of verbal gymnastics to avoid the simple fact that he was scared of the forest.

 

“…And gee! Incidentally, I just happen to know the very person who has been to Whitemare several times before! That person just happens to be my bodyguard! There’s no point in going into Sandora after all! Hey, you listening to me, Joey?!”

 

‘Joey’ wasn’t listening. She was busy dissecting all the vital information inside her mind. If what Niel said was true, then the Dowager Queen of Triciella was her next big lead for uncovering the secrets of the Scaledfolks. If she was someone who has been able to see these magical creatures, that means she might have more information regarding their behaviour, wouldn’t she? Could she have known their weaknesses as well?

 

Joe leaned closer to the boy prince until she was just inches from his face. “Let me get this straight—does that mean you could see those fairies as well?”

 

“…Uhh..” Niel’s eyes were darting around everywhere but her face. “Y-Yes, I suppose so.”

 

Why were all the women around him so damn scary?!

 

“In the Whitemare?”

 

“Err.. that’s what I said, yes.”

 

His fiancée drooped back in her chair with a sigh. She had that constipated look on her face again, but Emmanuel didn’t dare ask about it. He just hoped that it got better soon— Joey’s temper seems to be directly proportional with the state of her bowel movements.

 

…. Should he just call for the doctor, in any case?

 

“Shawn Wicksman.” Joey now turned her attention to the young prince’s bodyguard, who was lazily resting his weight against a milky white pillar of the Ice Pavillion. As if on cue, the man cracked a big, fat yawn in response. You’d think that he was merely an unwilling spectator in the grand scheme of things.

 

Joe did not seem to mind. “You were the only person who accompanied the prince to Whitemare. Not only that, you have been there several times before. Have you seen these so-called fairies?”

 

“Ahh.” Shawn blinked blearily. This young lady was sharp. Any other person might not have even bothered to ask him. The nobles were all like that. Well, most of them, anyway.

 

“An interesting question, milady. That’s the most puzzling part. Or shall I say, the most underwhelmingly predictable part of this bizzare adventure, y’see?”

 

He momentarily glanced at Niel, dragging out the word ‘adventure’ like it was a discarded roll of toilet paper covered in poop.

 

“No. I did not see any fairies in Whitemare, Lady Joanna.”

 

Joe frowned.

 

“But Emmanuel said— ”

 

The young bodyguard scratched his head. “Yes, yes. His highness Prince Emmanuel seems to be certain that he’s seen sort of a mythical creature in Whitemare. A creature that I seemed to have never caught a glimpse of— despite having visited that place several times before. What was it again— Small bodies, translucent skin, and err… wings on the back? He had given me a very detailed explanation, yes.”

 

He threw a mildly sarcastic look at the boy prince.

 

Niel glared back mutinously.

 

“But I am afraid that I saw no such thing. The Whitemare was exactly how I’d expected it to be— cloudless blue sky and barren plains covered with white salt as far as eyes could see.” Shawn stifled another yawn. “Not a soul to be found for miles and miles.”

 

Joe squinted suspiciously between the prince and his lazy bodyguard. “So either Ni– err Emmanuel is lying, or….”

 

Niel leapt off his seat in one fluid jump, his blue eyes blazing in indignation.

 

“What?! I am not lying, you idiot!” he hissed, looking awfully like a stray cat trying to intimidate a dog twice its size. "I know what I saw! Those creatures were flying right overhead, all over the plains of Whitemare. There were at least some twenty or thirty of them! And they certainly did not look human to me!"

 

He glared at Joe, as if daring her to contradict his words.

 

“….Right.” His fiancée looked troubled. “And did these scale— uhh, fairies do anything weird to you?”

 

Niel gave her a strange look. “No. They didn’t pay me any attention at all!”

 

How awfully convincing.

 

Things just got a lot of complicated. According to Sandy, the scaledfolks were creatures that were invisible to the human eye. And yet, there were already two members of Triciellan Royal family that claim to have seen these creatures with their own eyes— and in Whitemare of all places?!

 

Surely, one of these two sides must be lying…!

 

Joe widened her eyes.

 

….Or.

 

Or, both sides might just be telling the truth, after all. In that case, there must have been something she has missed. There must have been some special circumstances under which even a human can see the scaledfolks with their naked eyes!

 

Niel waved a hand in front of her face. “Uh, Joey?”

 

“Yes! Of course!” Joe pumped a fist into the air, much to the boy’s confusion. “Why did I not think of it before——”

 

But the rest of her voice was promptly cut off.

 

KABOOM!

 

It was an earth-shattering, ear-splitting sound, as if someone had forcibly ripped the sky into half.

 

The three occupants of the Ice pavilion winced as a massive explosion shook the trees and rippled through the air, shattering the Royal Garden’s prized glasshouse into a billion tiny pieces.