I knew little about nymphs. Which was as much as I wished to know.

Dancing where they wished and playing what games they must, all nymphs left little in the way of choice for those caught in their pranks and their puzzles. 

Pests shielded by the façade of alluring figures, beautiful footwork and girlish smiles, they paid no taxes and recognised none of our laws, yet still considered themselves free to reside wherever they wished in my kingdom’s rivers and lakes.

They were wrong. They were squatters and would be treated as such.

Even so, they didn’t actively promote sedition, try to usurp my family’s throne or damage public infrastructure. And that meant they fell by the wayside amidst a long road filled with treason I had to traverse.

Until now.

Because the news of a nymph causing a litany of hideously overgrown weeds to sprout did nothing but reveal itself as the nail in need of hammering. And as I currently lacked a hammer, I’d use the next best thing.

My boot of authority.

Fortunately for the nymph, there was a queue. One which was growing constantly by the moment.

“Why … Why does nobody trim these forests?!”

I ducked beneath a branch, all the while stomping the creeping thistles, thorned nettles and spotted ivy strangling these dense woodlands. A veritable garden of weeds. An appropriate hiding spot for a source of mischief.

Everywhere I peered, overgrown vegetation carpeted the gnarled, twisting roots seeking to ensure an abrupt end to my journey. 

And all I could wonder … was why.

There wasn’t a speck of land which wasn’t under the purview of the nobility. And yet for those who ceaselessly sought wealth and prestige like these branches sought to invoke an unsightly bruise upon my delicate forehead, they ignored the bountiful treasure which existed in their midst.

Yes, the very land itself!

“This entire forest of weeds could be cleared for righteous purposes,” I said, batting away a curtain of creeping ferns. “Perhaps a vast tournament ground dedicated to the splendour of my family would be appropriate. Opportunities to laugh at young noblemen as they played at being knights should be spread evenly throughout the kingdom, after all. Good comedies are sorely lacking outside the royal capital.”

Behind me, Coppelia lightly hopped from twig to twig, playing a game with herself to only traverse where the fallen bits of nature could be found.

I subtly covered an upcoming twig with a bed of leaves before she looked up.

“Ooh, beating up noblemen. I could do that. Could I compete too?”

“Certainly not.”

“Booooo~”

“At least not in any official capacity. In times past, champions of the royal family would often participate in the jousts and the mêlée. Were you to become as masterfully incognito as me, then I wouldn’t deny you an opportunity to roundly fling the sons of nobility to the horizon.”

Coppelia clapped her hands together at once. I could see the joy from her smile radiating from behind me.

“Really? That’s great! How many sons of nobility could I fling, say, if I stood in the centre of a ring for a week, maybe two weeks? Would I be allowed to keep what they leave behind? What about the stuff in their fancy tents? What about their horses?”

“You don’t even ride horses. What would you do with them?”

“I don’t know. But I want to win a horse.”

“Well, I’m afraid the only things you’d win is what the watching crowds throw at you. And should you stand ceaselessly for an entire fortnight, the only gifts you’d receive will be their relentless boos.” 

“Eh? Don’t crowds like seeing people tossed to the sky?”

“Crowds are the most fickle of creatures. They wish to see their heroes triumph in glory or lose in close defeat. You tossing noblemen to the sky for weeks would be a worthy endeavour, but not a profitable one. If I wished to turn this untamed forest solely into a source of profit, it wouldn’t be through a tournament.”

“True, I suppose if you just wanted money, you’d turn it into a wheat field.”

“Excuse me?”

“A wheat field. Or oats. Or barley. Maybe corn. If trees with knobbly roots can grow, then so can crops. I bet this would make for great arable land.”

I glanced back at Coppelia.

Then, I offered her a smile for her well-timed jest.

“Ohohohoho … very well, that one was amusing.” 

“Eh?”

“My kingdom is already inundated with the fields of the peasantry. What it lacks isn’t crops, but places for them to wash after they’ve finished toiling in them. No, if I wished to focus solely on profits, I would build a bathhouse stretching from road to horizon.” 

I nodded, rueing that only I had the foresight to propose such a profitable endeavour.

The nobility ceaselessly complained about the taxes they had no method of reasonably paying, yet around us were untamed woodlands fit for turning into a spectacle of both income and hygiene.

“Oooh … I vote for the bathhouse!” said Coppelia, her raised arm clearly smashing through a branch. “Did I ever tell you I was made in one?”

For a fraction of a second, I considered whether the words I heard were enough to warrant a pause of confusion.

It wasn’t.

“Excuse me?” I asked as I stepped over a fallen log. A family of hedgehog cubs looked up from a tiny hole, quivering behind their mother. I decided to offer the gift of mercy. Today. “You’ll have to repeat that. You were made in … what, exactly?”

“A bathhouse.”

“You’re referring to the same places where peasants free themselves of the mud which covers their faces by virtue of them being awake?”

“Yup~ we have loads of bathhouses in Ouzelia. Natural hot springs and all. You’d love it! Even the peasants are clean.”

“Truly?”

“Yup. Most of them. Some. A few. One, maybe.”

“A land of as many positives as reasons to be terrified, I see. But what do you mean when you say you were made in a bathhouse? I thought you came from a workshop.”

“My workshop is a bathhouse. We have a reception, multiple saunas and views of the mountains. It’s booked pretty much all year.”

I thought very hard about whether or not to pursue this line of conversation.

Then, I placed a fingertip to my temple and began to massage it in advance. A moment later, I paused and turned to offer an appropriate look of confusion.

“I don’t understand.”

“It’s pretty simple! Clockwork makers work best when they’re relaxed. It’s a really tough job, after all. And there’s not a whole lot more relaxing than working while submerged in volcanic water and massaged by steam.”

“I see … well, no, I don’t. Is the presence of so much scalding liquid and blinding steam not detrimental to the highly intricate fabrication process?”

“Oh yeah. It’s terrible. Makes the job 100 times harder. And it’s already 1000 times harder than the next hardest job. Don’t make any clockwork dolls in the bath unless you’re really good. Or really stressed.”

I raised an eyebrow.

A needless concern.

My bathing time was already reserved for my critical studies in popular literature. The only thing I made while I bathed were appalled gasps as I roundly judged the scandalous tastes of the masses … and then continued reading to ensure my thoughts were sufficiently dire enough.

“I was under the impression that each workshop was a closely guarded secret, the locations as hidden as vaults and tombstones lost to time. Fully booked public bathhouses are not these.”

“Well, it’s not like the guests know it’s a workshop. All they have to go on is the cackling, the explosions and the intricate blueprints sometimes picked up and left at reception. It could literally be anything.”

Coppelia gave a wide beam. I increased the pace of my temple massage.

“I … I see. To hide like a leaf amidst a forest is ingenious. None would seek to suspect that behind the corridors of a public bathhouse, a clockwork workshop is reaching the heights of mechanical and magical innovation.”

“Nah, it’s nothing that serious. The bathhouse is there for income.”

“Excuse me? Your workshop requires a bathhouse to supplement its earnings?”

“Not supplement. It’s 100% of the earnings. Turns out it’s hard to make money when nobody knows who you are or what you do, huh?”

To that, I could only nod in agreement. Especially as I wasn’t being weighed down by the massive garlands of treasures I should rightfully have been gifted with.

Suddenly, I could feel a shared bond of camaraderie with this mysterious workshop beyond our shared bond with Coppelia. 

While necessary to prevent the vagrants of society from begging for our time, being masterfully incognito was a certain hindrance towards massing a huge amount of crowns.

Thus, the need for more tax streams.

“A bathhouse it is, then,” I declared. “Remind me later to write a letter to whoever is responsible for this derelict tract of land.”

“I absolutely won’t.”

“Hm?”

“–won’t let you down!”

I smiled and nodded, then turned my gaze at the surrounding ground to be levelled.

“Ohoho … indeed, with each nettle which tries to sting me, the surer I am that a few natural basins and several hundred marble busts of my ancestors tactfully placed to distinguish between bathing areas would swiftly make this a profitable endeavour.”

“Eh? You want naked statues of your family to be used as direction signs?”

“Why not?”

“It just seems a bit, you know, loud.”

“Then perhaps it should be louder to be deafening. In times past, all the signposts in my kingdom were naked statues of family members pointing the way instead, symbolising both our enduring presence as well as our ceaseless guidance.”

“Expensive and impractical … I like it!”

“As do I. Sadly they were all replaced by my great-grandfather’s time.”

“Because the opposite of expensive and impractical is affordable and functional?”

“No. Because it turns out my forebears had a poor sense of cardinal direction. Most could barely tell east from west. Really now, can you believe it?”

Coppelia suddenly became very quiet. As was only appropriate. 

Naturally, there wasn’t a need to answer rhetorical questions. Especially when I had very real ones to ask about.

“Do you know what to expect from this nymph? I’m aware they frolic in the water while wearing the guises of fair maidens. I was less aware they readily cursed the water they treaded as well.”

“Hmmmmm … well, as long as it’s not their own stream, I guess they’re happy doing whatever they feel like. They’re basically just bigger, older pixies, after all.”

“Clearly not big or old enough to understand their own folly. Drawing upon my ire shall be the finest lesson ever learned.”

“Well, you’re gonna have to teach them through their druidic magic. They’re natural spellcasters who can cast illusions, heal wounds and still toss fire and lightning, even if they don’t call it fire and lightning because that looks bad on their image. Of course, it’s more than fire and lightning they control. But also the very earth.”

Coppelia gestured past me.

Turning around again, I narrowed my eyes through the path ahead, then spotted a different kind of weed blocking my path. 

I realised at once that the delicacies which the hill giant had come here for were right to be recommended. 

After all, even if the flavour didn’t match up to expectations, the sheer volume alone would make the value of any purchase a draw of its own.

Free from the gnarled roots attempting to bite at my ankles, I continued onwards and was met by a wall of chickweeds rising to my shoulders. The petals blossomed like fresh clovers, offering the scent of wet dew and summer memories.

I admired them as I walked upon a path of daisies, until the sight of chickweeds was replaced by curtains of watercress absorbing the daylight like a carpet of green. And beyond this, wild stalks of asparagus rising like a grove of small trees.

A marvellous spectacle of horticultural prowess. 

Tidy and well trimmed, each field of vegetation took up its own partition in the clearing like crops on a farm. It wasn’t as delicately maintained as my orchard, of course. But at a glance, it was a passable effort, the design disturbed only by the pond joining all in the centre.

A pond, which unlike the river beside the road, was clear as the skin of the maiden carelessly lounging upon it.

Floating serenely upon the water’s surface, the nymph paddled with a fingertip in a leisurely circle. Giant water lilies surrounded her, each petal tinged with the same royal shade of blue as her hair.

A dress of fragile leaves. And eyes as wide as the spring sky. 

A creature of the woods, docile and harmless.

Or so she would have us believe.

After all, it wasn’t only the impenetrable defence of a sweet smile which prevented these alluring maidens’ destruction. It was their proficiency with magic.

Illusions being one of them.

Unfortunate.

Not for me, of course. But for the nymph.

Because while there were many things beneath the sky which could fool my fair and innocent eyes, that did not include the workings of my retainers.

Thus, I turned on the spot, ignoring the maiden lounging upon the bed of water to instead gaze upon the smiling image of the clockwork doll behind my back, whose head tilted quizzically to the side as she paused in her steps.

I offered an unimpressed frown.

“... And when will you be introducing yourself, nymph?”