People cheer as rings of fire fly through the air, soaring up toward the sky like new stars rising toward those others up in the high of the night, with music playing loudly from an energetic band who stand on a makeshift stage in the middle of the plaza. People run around in all directions, sparing a glance and a cheer as one of the acrobats is flung through the air, pulling herself together into a ball as she flies through all three of the burning rings before they all fall back down toward the ground, being caught by another man on stage.

A festival has been in plan for days, but with the rather spontaneous arrival of the third princess, who has won over the hearts of thousands in the span of one or two odd minutes, it has been pulled forward to tonight as everyone was celebrating in the streets as was. The merchants of the city saw their opportunity to strike and built up their stands faster than most could be aware of, as they almost seemed to pop up out of thin air, and with the crowds and sales came artists and musicians from the local guilds or those paupers who scrape together earnings through such crafts through less official channels. Acrobats and dancers, people with odd trades or people with odd talents — all manner of gestalts have crawled out of the reaches of the city in order to take part in this very rare celebration, which feels like a great lightening in the hearts of everyone.

These days have been darker than most, and the city had for a time felt like it was tightening in on itself, like all the walls were getting closer, all the doors sealed tighter, and all of the eyes of its inhabitants narrowed down lower and lower toward the streets rather than toward those of others.

And then, just like that, all of that pressure and tenseness have exploded — but not in violence or destruction, although perhaps a little of that is involved here and there — but rather in jubilation.

“LET’S GO!” yells a drunken man, clapping his hands together and then holding him out. “WHOSE NEXT?!” he yells, gesturing out to the crowd, which has formed a circle around the arena as the scorched, unconscious loser of the last duel is dragged away.

A woman with an excessively wide-brimmed hat pushes her way out of the crowd, pointing at him. “TWENTY OBOLS!” she yells in a drunken slur, stumbling her way forward and slapping down a bunch of coins onto a pockmarked and scorched table toward a dealer, who pulls them in as she approaches the street champion and lifts her hands. He sneers in a smug grin, lifting his hands the same.

The dealer rises to his feet, holding out a hand to count down. “Three. Two -” The crowd leans in, which is perhaps the opposite of what is advisable, as the two challengers lock their fingers together to play the next round of a very dangerous street game that is technically illegal.

But technicalities mean little on nights such as these.

“- THREE!” he counts down as both of their hands — locked together at their fingers at arm’s width apart from one another — begin to each glow violently. Both of the dueling magic-casters channel their spells into their hands, the wild, cascading magic rupturing and blasting immediately into that of the opponents as they play a sort of reverse tug-of-war.

A shockwave flies out in all directions, the crowd cheering as wild magic washes over them, blasting away hats and strands of wet hair, the faces of many glowing alight from the energy. Both casters hold onto each other’s hands, the magic — unable to move forward for either of them — whipping out wildly toward the sides. Their boots slide back over the cobblestone street as they press against each other.

In such a duel, the first to let go or to lose their footing — most often by being overwhelmed by the opponent’s magic — loses.

 

---

 

The crowd cheers as a wave of overpowering ice magic blasts out in all directions, all eyes locked on the illegal game. A frigid wave of icy cold air washes over the odd hundred or so people who are watching the spectacle as the battle continues.

This is perfect.

The hooded figure, somewhat shorter than most, slides through the crowd, pressing their way between the tight mess of people, looking like someone eagerly trying to get to the other side of the square.

“Sorry. Sorry,” she says. “Coming through,” says the voice from the girl. “Sorry,” she apologizes again, pressing past a man, her hand running over his side as she moves along through the crowd. Squeezing through the wave of people, she makes her way to the other side of the plaza, passing through the passageways between several stalls on her way, until she finds a quiet spot on the other side of a small, circular fountain with a statue of some man she doesn’t recognize in the middle of it that most people have learned to avoid since it smells. For whatever reason, the drunk adventurers of this city have a ritual, or perhaps a tradition of sorts, that this particular statue has become the designated public urination point. So people who don’t feel the natural urge should stay clear of it.

In theory, the flowing water of the fountain that runs off into a metal grate keeps it clean enough, but… well… theory is for the books. Books don’t help anyone down here on this particularly crusty piece of the street.

But she’s not bothered by that. Looking down at her robe, Hase, the thief, drops another little satchel of coins down into its interior pocket, along with the many others she has found tonight.

She smiles contentedly, looking at the money she’s pickpocketed. Festivals are easy. People are drunk and packed into each other. It’s loud, noisy, and busy. In such situations, objects just have a strange way of getting lost, don’t they?

Behind her in the distance, a cheer erupts louder than ever. She turns past the urine-fountain to look, not quite sure but fairly convinced that she sees a man flying uncontrolled through the air above the distant section of the crowd, the ground below him exploding with condensed magic.

She needs to stash this haul of coins away in her hideout and then come back for more. As a thief, it’s important to never keep the goods on you. Getting stopped by the guards with one bag of coins is perfectly fine. Getting stopped by them when you have seven is a little harder to explain.

The vildt girl shuffles off, moving away from the festival.

“Hey! Hey, Hase!” calls a voice from the side, as someone runs her way. She turns her head, looking for a second as she tenses together, but then realizes that it’s just Jahc. She doesn't stop but nods to him as she keeps walking. He’s a human boy, an inch shorter than her, but that’s probably because of his posture. His leg is busted up. Something went wrong when he was born, and his parents didn’t want him, so he’s out here now. She doesn't know all the details, nor does she have the luxury of caring. “Did you see the princess?!” he asks, trying to keep pace. Jahc is another street urchin like her. She tries to avoid other people, but somehow she keeps getting drawn into circles that are familiar with her own position.

Living on the street is dangerous for someone like her. People are killed; people disappear. There is strength in numbers.

A cat will eat a rat, but a rat-pack will eat a cat.

“Not my thing,” replies Hase. “Why would I want to look at some stupid princess?” she asks, narrowing her eyes.

“Hey! Did you buy your flea medicine from the alchemist?” he asks.

Hase spins around, grabbing him by the wrinkled collar of his too large shirt. “- SHUT UP!” she barks at him as she presses him against the side wall of a house, lifting her other fist into the air as she looks around to make sure that nobody heard what he said. Thankfully, they are alone in the alley.

“Sorry…” says Jahk, lifting his hands. “Just asking. Man.”

She did, in fact, buy some flea medicine the other day. But that’s not something she wants the world to know about. It’s embarrassing. She might live a rough and dirty life, but there are things that just sting. Sleeping in the places she has to sleep — these things just happen sometimes. “Should’ve never asked you about it…” she mutters, letting go of him and then tsking as she looks away and keeps walking.

He limbs after her. “It’s okay, Hase,” says Jahc, putting a hand on her shoulder. “Marta has worms. It could be worse.”

“Leave me alone, Jahk!” snaps Hase, trying to get away from him. “Unless you know about some money, I’m busy working,” snaps the thief, waving a hand to try and get him to catch the signal she’s casting out. “Tonight’s a big night,” she explains. “Get your stupid cup and go begging,” says Hase. “Besides. I already knew that,” she mutters.

Hase looks around to make sure they haven’t been followed, and then climbs over a meter wide spiked metal fence between two houses. In the middle of the small fence, two of the jagged spikes atop it had been crudely broken off before someone threw an old rug over the opening.

She winds her way around to a little nook — one of many such places in the city. She has a special knack for finding such locations, and this is one of the better ones. It’s just by the main square. There are several large buildings here — warehouses. Because of some quirk in the development of the city, there is an empty gap between their backs that aligns to make a sealed in space that is fenced off.

The little camp is roofed with an old, tattered waxed-fabric tarp, strung over several discard crates and boxes. Below that, they’ve made tents out of more tarps. Most of the others all sleep in one big tent that they share, sharing their warmth during the cold nights. But she doesn’t. She has her own tent in the corner, which she strategically chose.

This little band of beggars and just plain old lost children lives here. She’s the only real thief among them; the others are just survivors. They’ve found safety in numbers. The older, bigger adults who also live on the streets are the most dangerous thing they could encounter alone, way worse than any guard or drunk. But together, they manage to fight them off when they come to try and steal what little they have.

On the streets, just like in the dungeon, strength is the law, and they all happen to be the weakest of the heap.

Hase stops, looking ahead of herself, confused. “What the…” she mutters, staring at the odd sight. On a night like this, she would expect everyone to be outside. Tonight is the big night; tonight is where all the money is to be made. They’ve been preparing for the festival for weeks now.

But instead, everyone is here.

“This is what I’ve been trying to tell you, Hase!” says Jahk, catching up to her again and grabbing her wrist to tug her forward toward what she sees. “We’re rich! We don’t need to beg or steal anymore!” explains the boy excitedly, pointing ahead

Hase blinks, not sure what she’s hearing. “Huh?” asks the girl.

“Guys! We’re home!” he yells, waving excitedly, with the others looking their way.

“HASE! HASE!” yells an excited girl, several years younger, as she runs over immediately and latches on to the vildt, wrapping her arms around her. “I MISSED YOU!” shouts the dark-haired girl, squeezing her.

“Get off of me, Marta!” yells Hase, pushing the clingy child away and off of her. Marta is several years younger, and her face is extremely disfigured from the fire in her deceased family’s bakery that left her orphaned. Most of them here are excluded from the orphanage for this reason or that, but Marta didn’t even get an explanation. Although it’s clear as day to Hase, since she knows how this world works. Put quite plainly, in the eyes of the heads of the orphanage, Marta’s too ugly to have a chance at being adopted. Keeping her at the orphanage would be a drain of resources that could be used to feed and house the others instead, because they would never get rid of her until she becomes of age in a decade. “…Here,” mutters Hase, pulling out something from her pocket and giving it to the girl. As one of the few girls here, Marta has attached herself to her in particular.

“What is it?” asks Marta, looking at the small glass potion bottle.

“Take two drops every day,” says Hase, shoving it into her hands. “It’s medicine for the worms,” she explains, as Marta looks at it.

“…How did you afford this?” asks Marta, her eyes going wide in surprise. “Thank you, Hase!”

Hase pulls her hand free from Jahk and the rest of herself free from Marta, trying to win some space from both of them. She hates being touched. But lost children are, if nothing else, touchy. They crave body contact, and she hates it. But she’s the oldest one and the only real street-smart person here, so she’s become the de facto queen of the bunch. None of them are thieves; none of them have any inkling of what life is like when you have to live in the sewers or with someone like the scratchy-man. So they have come to look up to her these last few weeks.

“Forget it,” says Hase, wanting the implication to be that she stole it on a whim. The truth is that she bought it, actually. The purchase took place with stolen money, mind, but the transaction was nonetheless legitimate. “What’s this crap about us being rich?” she asks dryly, walking past the two of them.

“Like I’ve been telling you, Hase!” says Jahk, as they reach the excitedly murmuring ring of children and break in to look at the spectacle. “The princess came to town!”

“Yeah? So?” asks Hase.

Marta grabs her sleeve, tugging on it. “She was pretty,” says the girl.

“You should have been there!” explains Jahk. “She grabbed Fenchel and let him ride her carriage!”

Hase’s ears lift below her hood as she stands up straighter. “What?” asks the vildt, looking away from them and toward the boy sitting in the middle of the circle, who is being admired by the lot of them, as if he were the greatest hero to ever live. “So?” she asks. “What’s so great about a stupid carriage ride?” asks the vildt.

“He stole her ring!” explains Jahk, getting to the point. “Fenchel! Show her!” he explains excitedly. Fenchel, another young boy in the group, sitting there at the head of the circle, passes the ring around again. It travels over one hand to the next, all of them fumbling with it and feeling its make as they give it to the next person in line as they share in the little treasure.

“You did… what?" asks Hase, the hairs on her neck standing on end as the ring comes closer. Marta touches it, her eyes glittering in amazement at seeing something so rare and precious, before she passes it on to Jahk, with pain in her eyes at letting it go.

“We’re all going to buy a house!” he explains.

“Oh,” says Hase, leaning back and taking a step away. “That’s…” She looks around at the dozen or so faces, all excited and gleaming her way. Hase smiles. “- That’s great!” she beams, hitting her fist into her palm as the ring is held out to her. She looks at it. A royal ring, likely worth as much as this entire city just by itself. “Wow,” she says, smiling at Fenchel. “Great job, Fenchel!” she praises. “That’s amazing!” says the young thief, showering him with short but succinct words of approval. Such things have meaning, coming from her, in this circle.

It would be odd for the others if she didn’t praise him now. They'd get suspicious.

“Hey! I'll be right back," says Hase. "I really gotta pee!” She pulls her arm away. “I’ll be right back.”

“Wait!” says Marta, grabbing her and wanting to follow.

Hase pulls her hand off of her, staring at the girl with wide eyes that only narrow back to normality after a second. “Take your medicine, Marta,” says Hase. “I’ll be right back, okay?” she promises, repeating herself.

Marta frowns and then nods as Jahk hands her back the ring, which carries a precious stone the size of a man’s eye. All of the children return to their daydreaming and to Fenchel’s retelling of the same story of his minute of fame with the princess, which somehow gets more and more exciting details every time he talks about how it happened.

Hase calmly walks away to her tent, rummaging through her robe, and then drops the satchels of coins there, knowing that they will never be spent.

This money is dirty now.

Then she takes off the robe and her boots and throws them to the side too, picking up her old clothes and rucksack and carrying them with her as she walks back out of her makeshift tent.

Quietly and calmly, so as to not arouse any suspicion, she walks to the secluded latrine-corner, a small water run-off grate nested between two tight walls, and then stands quietly for only a moment, letting out a long, silent exhalation from a shaking chest that she only barely managed to keep calm.

Run.

Hase’s body twitches as familiar instincts kick in. Voices scream in her head, her muscles spasming as familiar memories, born of a deeply set survival drive, come to the forefront of her mind.

Run.

It doesn’t take a second before her animal instincts take over, her hands and boots pressing against the wall to her right as she kicks off of it, turning around in midair to latch on to a ledge on the opposite ledge. Hase scrambles, pulling herself up the warehouse wall and over to another ledge, moving like a rabbit with a hawk circling overhead. Immediately, she runs for her life, sprinting as fast as she can over the rooftops. She stumbles on the way, falling halfway to her knees, and crawls forward, picking herself up again and running as if the stars themselves were hounding her. Her chest heaves as she pants, her breath already unusually short for this small distance as her heart hammers in her chest like a fist, trying to break out of her thin ribs.

Idiots.

“IDIOTS!” she yells incoherently as she runs away from an unseen predator, not looking back down or behind herself even once as she clenches her eyes and teeth. Seconds count. Seconds decide lives. Hase, the thief, runs desperately for her life like she's never ran from anyone ever before, leaping from the warehouse roof across the fenced gap in the alleyway she had entered before. For a brief second, she hovers above the jagged spikes, almost unsure if she’ll make it across as she feels oddly lethargic and slow in the air before flying across to the other side — seemingly through the help of some odd, imagined shadow that tugs at her legs for a brief moment.

She stumbles on the other side, catching herself and running.

Dead.

Dead.

They’re all fucking dead.

“- FUCK!” hisses Hase, having now since lost her professionalism as she escapes the danger. She’s tainted and marked. They touched her. They fucking touched her. They marked her. Those god-damned idiots!

Spells fly through the air from the crowd of the festival, music playing loudly in the air as everyone celebrates a great day.

Crying, but not stopping for something as trivial as that, Hase leaps to the next roof over, jumping down to the house’s balcony, and then dangling herself over the edge, dropping down again a significant height toward the street below. She doesn’t make the roll as she lands, which is meant to distribute the force of her impact on the ground. The drop was too high, and she was too careless. Yelping, she falls forward, slamming into the ground in a half-landing with her elbows and arms, scuffing them bloody as a burning pain shoots through her leg from her knee.

 

 

Lying there on the dirty street, she lifts her head, looking at the familiar statue and fountain.

Survive.

The thief pulls herself up, running and then stumbling with a half-scream as she puts weight on the bad leg, before limping onward.

All magical items carry a lingering dust of power of sorts — a resonance. Magic is a moving, breathing thing. It shifts and changes. It flows and ebbs. Magical imprinting is a concept known to every low-level crook and thief in the business.

When someone with innate magic in their body touches an item for long enough, they’ll leave behind a trace residue of themselves on said item. It is hardly enough to be noticed in most cases, but potent in some rare circumstances — the swords of great heroes, ancient artifacts that were wielded by legendary witches, and, of course — “A RING WORN BY THE FUCKING PRINCESS!” curses Hase to herself below her breath to make herself feel better before biting her tongue as the last tears fall from her face. She presses her mouth closed as she limps forward, and then, without thinking much about it, she takes everything she has and jumps straight into the so-called urine-fountain.

Water splashes as she sinks down into its pool of theoretically clean water, clutching and squeezing every part of her body and clothes to let the water permeate as far as it can, staying down beneath the water for as long as she can hold her breath.

After a minute, she rises to the surface, panting as she crawls forward toward the distant side, and then flops out of the fountain, falling to the ground with her back pressed to the stonework. Her chest heaves as foggy vapors of warmth leave her mouth. The frigid night air bites her deeply as she sits there, holding herself and shivering.

If any old enchanted sword or some such got lost or stolen, it wouldn’t be a huge deal. Any old pair of hands holding this item for a few seconds would be enough to wash away the prior imprinting, making it impossible to prove that said sword was the same as one presumed to have been stolen in the past. But a unique item, for starters, as a lavishly jeweled ring is impossible to fence without getting too much attention. Good thieves steal things that won't get that caught. She learned as much from the scratchy man — one good thing that came from him. But what makes the situation even worse is that a true treasure, such as a royal’s personal item, is so deeply and powerfully imprinted by its owner that the energy inside of it cannot just be washed away by being held; the magic of a noble, let alone a royal, is so raw and powerful that it fuses with the item’s own power. It becomes deeply unique and, to anyone knowing what they’re looking for, undeniably visible.

It may as well be a cursed object, because, simply put, everyone who touches it is going to die.

Touching that ring after the fact of its theft will leave that same magical residue of a royal on you. Like someone with fleas, everyone who is close enough to them for long enough gets them too. Every single one of those other kids is painted brightly and clearly with an exotic magical energy, like someone dropped a bucket of slime-slop on their heads.

Because they're been playing with the ring, touching it, holding it, wearing it, they’ve become marked. They're tainted.

And she almost was too.

Hase looks down at herself, at the smelly water dripping down her body. Her clothes, her possessions — everything that she had back there was covered in the residue of that ring’s power just by virtue of being near it, by being touched by people who were near it — people who held it.

Hase continues to look down at her hands, realizing in horror that Marta and Jahk had touched them.

Quickly, she turns back over onto her knees, wincing and falling forward in a kneel over the fountain as she throws her hands back into the smelly water, splashing it all over herself and washing her skin with it.

She has to get rid of the mark.

Frantically, shivering like a dying animal in the middle of the icy night, she works.

Now, obviously, you can’t wash magic away with water. Hase is a clever creature and she knows this.

But this water, too, in its own 'special' way, is imbued with trace magical residue from hundreds, if not thousands, of adventurers, priests, sorcerers, and everything else in between. She washes herself in the hopes that the stench of it all will overpower whatever lingering residue from the ring has gotten stuck to her. Desperately, she scrubs, looking up every few seconds, expecting to see someone with an executioner's axe hovering over her.

Then, deciding that this has to good enough, she runs in toward the crowd, soaking wet.

Hase only ever looks back behind herself once as she escapes, and only after she’s won some distance and stands up on a balcony on the opposite side of the plaza. But as she does so, she’s certain she sees a swarm of dark, cloaked shadows move into the alley from several directions, glints of sharp metal at their sides catching the lights of the celebration for only a brief second.

She ducks away, not looking back, and makes a note in her mind to never go anywhere near that alley again, not just because it’s compromised as a hideout, but because she makes a personal point to never go anywhere someone has been murdered — call it superstition. They say that lightning never strikes twice in the same place, but it turns out that places where people die tend to be the places where even more people die later. This world is just like that. It's cursed. She hates it here.

Soaked to the bone and covered in stink, Hase, quite literally freezing to death, clings to herself tightly as she runs as far away from this part of the city as she can, having run out of places to go on this cold winter night except for one.

After a while of running through back alleys and streets, she arrives at a small alleyway that she knows behind a local adventurers' guild — a location that also so happens to be brimming with insane magical power because of who lives here. She ducks away in a corner, near a stovepipe that runs out of the building, hiding behind some old crates.

Disturbed, a large, black anqa that stands there in the back alley, clicks and hisses at her, pulling on its tether. But it becomes quiet after a time and settles down again.

 

---

 

 

An hour later, at the residence of the deceased Baron.

“I’ve missed you ever so much!” says the princess, Manchineel. “Oh, Acacia!” she cries, squeezing Acacia and quite literally starting to cry. Acacia simply can’t manage to get away from the older princess. “Sister! Sister!” she yells, howling like a sick dog as she rubs her face against the younger princess’.

“Settle down,” sighs Acacia. “Why must you be this way, Manchineel?” she asks, pushing her off again.

Manchineel frowns, pulling back, but only enough so that she can grab both of Acacia’s hands with hers. “I was so worried about you!” she says, a heavy frown over her worried face. “The thought of my sick, sweet and gentle baby sister all by herself in this wretched place,” says Manchineel, leaning in. “I’ve come to take you home!" she explains. "Do you need medicine?” she asks. “I brought a royal priest with me. Wait.” Manchineel leans over, lifting a small bell from the table to ring for the help to come.

“I’m fine, Manchineel,” says Acacia in an annoyed tone. “And I am not going back,” says the youngest princess, rising to her feet as she stands across from her older sister. Acacia points to herself. “Listen to me carefully. I am taking the throne from our brother,” she says. “And if you get in my way, I will deal with you too,” she warns.

Manchineel sits there, looking at her blankly, staring like a fish looking out of the ocean for a time. “OH!” she says, jumping to her feet and looking at her hand. “My ring!” she exclaims, realizing that her ring is missing. She stares at her fingers, as if she had entirely ignored everything Acacia just said, staring at the empty spot. The older princess rings the bell, rising to her feet as someone opens the door.

“My ring is gone!” explains the princess.

A man, standing outside and kneeling already, holds out his open palm toward her. Inside of it rests a large, bejeweled ring.

She sighs in relief, taking it. “Oh,” she says in an absent-minded tone, holding a hand over her heart. “Thank you,” says the princess very sincerely to the man, taking it from him and putting it on, before she starts laughing. “Silly me!” The older princess sighs, knocking herself lightly on the head. “I must have dropped it!” explains Manchineel, holding her other hand against her chest. “Thank you again!” she says to the bowing royal guard, who hasn’t let his other hand move from his chest — one might assume as a gesture of respect, but the truth is that he simply cannot allow the princess to see something as horrific as the droplet of blood that sits on the fabric of his clothing.

She closes the door, looking back at Acacia as she sits back down. “So, anyway,” starts Manchineel. “We’ll be leaving for the capital together tomorrow.”

“I said that I’m not going!” snaps Acacia, glaring at her older sister, who simply sits back down on the couch, staring at her with a vacant, almost airy look, as if she were waiting for Acacia to reply to her statement at all. As if her words of argument and protest simply didn’t reach her, despite them having been spoken within arm’s reach.

Manchineel sits there, staring toward the ceiling, her chin on her hand as she ponders. "…Maybe… a light breakfast together first, and then we'll set off…"

Acacia steps toward her, hitting the back of her hand into her open palm with every word as she encroaches on her older sister. "I. AM. NOT. GOING," explains Acacia loudly, making herself perfectly clear.

“- Let’s have a sleepover, just like old times!” says Manchineel, beaming excitedly as she looks around the Baron’s residence. “We’ll rough it here, like when we were kids, playing in the garden!”

“I’m leaving, Sister,” says Acacia, walking past her. “And you will leave my city tomorrow, or there is going to be a problem between us,” explains the younger sibling, looking over her shoulder at Manchineel, who stares at her blankly again as Acacia walks toward the door.

A light bell rings as Manchineel picks it up, giving it a slight jingle.

The door locks from the other side just as Acacia grabs the handle.

“Let’s find a place to sleep!” says Manchineel, jumping up and grabbing Acacia’s arm. “Ooooh!” she says, stomping her feet like an excited child. “This is going to be fun!”

“Sister…” warns Acacia in a cold tone, narrowing her eyes. “Do not test me. I am not the girl I once was.”

But she can’t do much as Manchineel drags her through the residence, which is already beyond opulent by the standards of the city, but she acts as if they were in the middle of the deep wilderness.

And for her, for the perfect princess, it may as well be.

Acacia glares daggers into Manchineel’s back as she drags her along, feeling the shadow swelling in her chest and wondering if she has it in her to actually kill her sister if it came down to it?

She can't stand Manchineel, simply because Manchineel is so far beyond the concept of spoiled that, despite her possessing a naturally kind and deeply warm and loving heart, she simply exists in a world fully on her own in which every little whim must be followed. The sheer concept of someone doing something that she doesn't want, quite simply, doesn't add up in her head. Something like this literally does not exist in her personal reality. She honestly doesn't understand it. She'll stare blankly and shut down for a moment, as if her mind were, in real time, turning the other person's words into something inside of her head that agrees with what she herself wants.

And why would it be any other way for the perfect princess? After all, who could, or even would dare, say no to any of her requests and desires?

Acacia feels something wet on her hand where the ring touches as she's dragged off by her older sister to explore the residence, which she is already familiar with.