By the time Renee and I reached my chambers again, I had developed a new appreciation for the System’s definition of a Safe Area. The moment the doors closed behind us, the identity filter loosened, and things that had been difficult to hold onto outside became accessible again without effort. Lucas Micah Thompson was not some separate presence waiting underneath everything else. He was simply part of me I could think about clearly in here, alongside the palace knowledge, habits, preferences, and skills that had become equally real whether I remembered acquiring them or not.
I stopped inside the sitting room and let myself enjoy the mental quiet while Renee crossed toward the dressing room with considerably more purpose than I felt capable of summoning. She called two servants long enough to have several traveling cases brought into the suite, dismissed them once the luggage had been deposited, and opened the largest case on a bench near the wardrobe without consulting me.
“You have started packing.”
“We are leaving soon, Your Highness.”
“I agreed to go approximately twenty minutes ago.”
“And yet the western border remains exactly as far away as it was twenty minutes ago.”
“That seems like poor planning on the kingdom’s part.”
Renee gave me the patient look of someone who had probably spent years listening to better complaints from me before disappearing into the wardrobe. I considered following her, but a familiar gold pulse appeared at the edge of my vision before I could decide whether supervising luggage sounded preferable to sitting somewhere beautiful and refusing to acknowledge my responsibilities.
WELCOME BACK TO A RECOGNIZED SAFE AREA
Pending Notifications: 3 Pending Quest Updates: 1 Pending Rewards: 1
“Oh, good. More consequences.”
THE SYSTEM PREFERS: PROGRESS
“I prefer consequences.”
PREFERENCE NOTED AND IGNORED
The first notification unfolded across my vision while Renee moved somewhere behind it, accompanied by enough decorative gold that I immediately distrusted whatever I had apparently accomplished. A crown-shaped emblem rotated once above the title before settling into place.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
BACK INTO THE FIRE
Voluntarily return to a formal confrontation after exercising your right to withdraw.
Bonus Condition: Returned without summons, threat, bribery, or physical retrieval.
Rewards:
Court Performer Experience Reluctant Crown Princess Progression Minor Composure Development Recognition
I read physical retrieval twice and decided that whatever sequence of events would have satisfied that condition belonged firmly in the category of knowledge I did not need. The System apparently interpreted my attention differently because a small information icon appeared beside the phrase and began glowing invitingly.
“Absolutely not.”
INFORMATION REMAINS AVAILABLE
“It can remain available forever.”
The achievement folded away and another replaced it, this one framed by the outline of a jeweled crown. The title was enough to tell me the System had been paying entirely too much attention during court.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
THE CROWN IS NOT JUST JEWELRY
Accept your first substantive royal responsibility after transition.
Bonus Condition: Assignment includes prolonged inconvenience.
Rewards:
Reluctant Crown Princess Progression Event Royal Recognition Progress Minor Background Reward Cache
Personal Comfort: Not Included
Renee emerged from the wardrobe carrying a neatly folded stack of clothing and placed it inside the open case while I stared at the final line. Apparently agreeing to help prevent a food crisis counted for slightly less than the fact that I would be inconvenienced while doing it, which felt insulting enough to be consistent with everything else the System had learned about me.
“I am being mocked by an omnipresent interface while my lady-in-waiting packs me for forced camping. This is a remarkably efficient morning.”
“You agreed to the journey.”
“I agreed to help people who may run out of food. I did not agree to enjoy sleeping outdoors.”
“I do not recall anyone requesting enjoyment.”
“That is exactly the kind of technicality the System would use.”
Renee paused long enough to glance at me before deciding, wisely, that asking me to explain would probably create more work than continuing to pack. I focused on the final notification and found a smaller update attached to the Background tab.
BACKGROUND PROGRESSION
Reluctant Crown Princess, Rank I
Recognized Progression Events: 3
New Qualifying Event Recorded: Accepted direct responsibility for Calderian subjects.
Advancement Requirements: Partially Hidden
“Still hidden.”
YES
“I know how much you enjoy discovery.”
CORRECT
“I was insulting you.”
TONE INTERPRETATION: SUCCESSFUL
The quest notification began glowing before I could continue arguing, and I opened it while Renee returned to the wardrobe for another load. The resulting panel filled considerably more of my vision than the achievements had and abandoned most of the System’s humor in favor of something that looked distressingly official.
QUEST ACCEPTED
THE WITHERING WEST
Investigate the severe crop failures affecting settlements along the western border of Calder and Valenne.
Primary Objectives:
Travel to the affected region. Meet with affected Calderian communities and local authorities. Assess immediate needs and provide royal assistance where appropriate. Coordinate with Valenne’s representative. Investigate the cause of the crop failures. Report significant findings to the Crown.
Secondary Objectives:
Restore public confidence in the Crown Princess of Calder. Improve relations with affected settlements. Prevent escalation of shortages where possible.
Optional Objectives: Hidden
Estimated Duration: Indeterminate
Failure Conditions: Variable
My attention caught on indeterminate immediately because Father had very carefully said the journey would take several weeks to reach the affected region without saying how long the actual assignment might last. I focused on the word until the System expanded it with additional information.
DURATION CANNOT BE RELIABLY PREDICTED FROM CURRENT INFORMATION
“Father said several weeks.”
TRAVEL TO THE MOST HEAVILY AFFECTED REGION IS ESTIMATED IN WEEKS. QUEST COMPLETION TIME CANNOT BE RELIABLY PREDICTED.
“So months.”
POSSIBLE
“How many?”
INDETERMINATE
“I should have asked what happened after we reached the border.”
YES
I dismissed the quest panel before the System could become any more pleased with itself, leaving the Minor Background Reward Cache unopened for later. There were already enough things demanding my attention, and an increasingly persistent physical sensation had begun competing successfully with magical interfaces, impending travel, crop failures, and the fact that I had somehow acquired a fiancé before breakfast.
I shifted my weight and ignored it while Renee returned with another stack of clothing. She placed everything into the traveling case and glanced toward me when I continued standing uselessly in the middle of the room instead of opening my reward or interfering with her work.
“Will you need anything before I continue?”
“No.”
My answer came fast enough that her gaze lingered for a moment, but she accepted it and turned back toward the dressing room. That left me without a distraction from the embarrassingly ordinary fact that I needed to pee and had apparently decided this was a problem worth postponing.
I knew exactly where the bathing suite was. I knew how the fixtures worked, knew what privacy looked like in these rooms, and knew enough about my own body to understand why my bladder had started objecting to being ignored. None of that explained why I remained planted in the sitting room while the doorway waited only a few yards away.
The reason was considerably less complicated than I wanted it to be.
I knew I was a woman.
I had known that intellectually from the moment I woke up in this body. I had breasts beneath my gown, a woman’s face in the mirror, a voice that belonged to me despite sounding nothing like the one I remembered from Earth, and a prospective husband whose smile had already produced physical reactions I had not begun to process. I had acknowledged all of those facts while still preserving just enough distance to treat parts of them as things that had happened to me rather than things I had to actively live.
My bladder had apparently decided that distance had lasted long enough. The pressure sharpened enough to make philosophical avoidance considerably less comfortable. I crossed toward the windows instead of the bathing suite and looked out across the palace gardens, buying myself perhaps another minute while pretending the flowers required my undivided attention. It was ridiculous, and I knew it was ridiculous, but knowing that did nothing to make my feet turn toward the door I actually needed.
Renee emerged from the wardrobe again and found me staring through the open window with considerably more concentration than the scenery deserved. Her gaze moved briefly from my face to the way I had shifted my weight before returning upward, and the restraint in her expression told me she had noticed more than I wanted her to.
“Are you looking for something?”
“Air.”
“The window is already open.”
“I may want different air.”
She watched me for another moment before turning back toward the luggage. “Of course, Your Highness.”
I remained near the window while physical necessity steadily transformed from inconvenient into uncomfortable. The bathing-suite doorway sat comfortably within sight, and I looked toward it before immediately deciding the gardens deserved another few seconds of appreciation. A faint gold pulse appeared at the edge of my vision at exactly the wrong moment, and indignation gave me something else to focus on.
“Whatever you think you’ve noticed, mind your business.”
The System icon stopped pulsing without comment, although somehow the silence felt less like mercy and more like an intelligence patiently collecting evidence. Renee returned carrying another armful of clothes and found me almost exactly where she had left me, and this time her eyes dropped unmistakably toward my stance before she deposited the clothing into the case.
“Your Highness.”
“I am handling it.”
“I did not ask.”
“You were going to.”
“I was considering whether I needed to.”
“You do not.”
Renee pressed her lips together, and the effort involved made it obvious amusement had joined whatever concern she might have felt. “Very well.”
My bladder chose that moment to clarify the limits of royal stubbornness, and I pushed away from the window before dignity lost the argument entirely. I made it several steps toward the bathing suite before glancing down at the court gown and remembering that several layers of expensive fabric surrounded my legs.
“Would you like assistance with anything?” Renee asked.
“No.”
I took another step, reconsidered the amount of fabric involved, and slowed. “Probably not.”
“That sounds less confident.”
“I am experimenting with humility.”
“Should I summon a physician?”
“Keep packing.”
Her laugh followed me into the bathing suite, and I closed and locked the door before she could become any more helpful. The privacy produced an immediate rush of relief that had nothing to do with my bladder, and I stood there for a moment with my back against the door, breathing as though I had successfully escaped something instead of voluntarily entering a bathroom.
The room was almost offensively luxurious. Pale stone covered the floor and walls, enchanted lights glowed warmly from recessed fixtures, polished brass caught the light, and a deep bathing pool occupied most of the far side. Tucked into a more private alcove was a toilet recognizable enough that some part of me wanted to thank every god involved in this world for allowing fantasy royalty to discover indoor plumbing. Then I looked at it and remembered why I had spent the last several minutes behaving like a complete idiot.
Twenty-nine years of bathroom habits had been built around a body I no longer had. The knowledge was hardly new. I had spent the morning looking at breasts, horns, a tail, a woman’s face, small hands, skirts, jewelry, and more evidence than any reasonable person should require. I knew what Radiance had been when I created her, and I knew what I was now. The System had spelled it out in language precise enough to eliminate every technical loophole I had tried to find.
Knowing was not the problem. Doing something ordinary in this body was.
I approached the toilet while stubbornly keeping my attention above my waist and gathered the gown. My hands knew what to do with the skirts and underlayers without requiring me to reason through every fold. Fabric lifted, shifted, and stayed safely out of the way with the easy competence of a task so ordinary that there should have been nothing remarkable about it, and that ease made my pulse climb because my body already knew exactly what came next.
I stood there for several seconds staring at a decorative line running through the stone wall while my bladder made increasingly persuasive arguments against having an existential crisis in the middle of basic hygiene. Eventually discomfort won. I turned, lowered myself onto the seat, and sat, only to discover that the position felt immediately and completely natural.
That was somehow worse.
I stared straight ahead while relief finally arrived, and for several seconds the physical need overwhelmed everything else. My body worked. There was no dramatic revelation, no System announcement, no sensation so alien that I could pretend something had malfunctioned. It was simply an ordinary biological function happening in an ordinary way for the body that was mine now. The sensations were different from what twenty-nine years of habit expected, but they were not wrong, and my throat tightened before I could decide why that distinction mattered so much.
I had spent the morning treating being physically female like a collection of facts I could examine individually. Breasts. Voice. Face. Height. Attraction. Clothing. Each one had been shocking, but each could still be looked at from somewhere just far enough away to think that this was something that had happened to me.
Sitting there stripped that distance down to almost nothing. This was not a character model I happened to be controlling or a costume with inconvenient biological realism, and I was not waiting inside Radiance for somebody to reverse whatever had happened. I needed to pee because I had a bladder, and I had sat down because this was how my body did something I had done thousands of times before.
Because I was a woman.
My stomach twisted even though the thought contained nothing I had not already known. When I finished, I reached automatically toward the toilet paper and stopped halfway there, staring at the roll while the next unavoidable step caught up with me. Sitting had allowed me not to look at anything. Leaving clean was going to require something else entirely, and my mind seized on that difference with desperate enthusiasm.
“No.”
The word came out quietly into the empty room, as though there might be someone available to negotiate with. There was not, and I lowered my hand while my brain tried to manufacture an alternative it already knew did not exist.
The absurdity of it almost helped. I had a doctorate. I had taught human biology. I had explained anatomy to students who could barely say the word vagina without giggling, and now I was sitting in a magical palace negotiating with toilet paper because using it would make something real that I had already known for hours.
Eventually I reached for it, tearing off more than I probably needed while my hand trembled despite every effort to keep it steady. I kept my eyes fixed on the wall and let procedural familiarity guide an action too ordinary to deserve conscious attention, but the first contact stopped me cold. My breath caught and every muscle in my arm locked because there was no familiar anatomy where twenty-nine years of unconscious expectation insisted something should have been.
I did not need to look. The absence was enough, and the unfamiliar anatomy I touched instead eliminated the last useful scrap of distance I had been preserving. It was not an illustration, a character-sheet entry, or a fact hidden conveniently beneath clothing. Sensation traveled through my fingertips and through the part of me they touched at the same time, and both sensations belonged to me.
My eyes burned, and I squeezed them shut even though I had not been looking downward in the first place. For a moment I could not make myself move. I had known exactly what becoming Radiance implied, but logic had never required me to feel the absence of something that had been part of every remembered version of myself.
“Oh, fuck.”
My voice sounded small in the enormous bathroom, and I forced myself to breathe until the first rush of panic stopped climbing. Nothing dangerous was happening. Nothing was injured. Nothing needed to be fixed. My body was functioning exactly as it was supposed to function, and somehow that was the part I was having the most trouble with.
I finished as quickly and practically as I could, refusing to turn confirmation into inspection. By the time I stood and let my hands restore the gown, my knees felt less trustworthy than I wanted them to, but the practiced movements of dressing gave me something simple to follow. The basin offered another ordinary task, and I crossed to it immediately, letting warm water flow over my hands while I worked soap between my fingers with considerably more concentration than handwashing required.
I kept washing until my breathing settled and the room stopped feeling as though it had shifted several degrees around me. When I finally raised my head, my reflection waited above the basin with the same turquoise eyes, the same gold rings around the irises, the same pale face, opalescent hair, and crownlike horns I had seen earlier.
The same woman looked back at me, except the word felt different now.
Me.
I was not ready to feel good about that. I was not even sure I was ready to accept everything it meant, but denial had just lost a considerable amount of territory. I dried my hands and remained at the basin until I trusted my legs before finally returning to the bedroom.
Renee looked up from the traveling case almost immediately, studied my face, and quietly set aside the garment she had been folding. She did not approach or ask what had happened, leaving enough silence for me to decide whether I wanted to say anything at all.
“Are you all right?”
I considered the question while the physical relief in my bladder competed with everything else that had happened behind the closed door. “My bladder is.”
Renee’s expression softened, and to her considerable credit she did not ask what the rest of me thought. She simply picked the garment back up and returned to folding, offering me the mercy of an ordinary problem instead of forcing me to explain something I could barely explain to myself.
A bright gold chime sounded directly beside my ear, and I closed my eyes as the timing registered.
“No.”
The System ignored me.
ACHIEVEMENT UNLOCKED
PRIVY COUNCIL
Complete your first visit to a royal privy following permanent instantiation.
Bonus Conditions Met:
Delayed basic biological necessity until it became an existential problem.
Successfully maintained visual avoidance throughout initial anatomical confirmation.
Required no lady-in-waiting assistance.
Rewards:
Minor Adaptability Development Recognition
Minor Composure Development Recognition
Additional Benefit: Your bladder has now contributed more to identity acceptance than the Initial Player Tutorial.
I stared at the achievement until my eye twitched. After everything that had just happened, apparently dignity was an optional resource
“Fuck you.”
FEEDBACK NOTED.
BIOLOGICAL NECESSITY REMAINS UNOFFENDED.
Renee slowly looked up from the case, and whatever she saw on my face made the corner of her mouth threaten to move.
“I do not want to talk about it.”
“Of course, Your Highness.”
I crossed toward the luggage and finally paid attention to what Renee had been packing while I argued with the System and avoided basic biological necessity. Riding trousers, fitted shirts, sturdy skirts, stockings, undergarments, gloves, travel cloaks, practical boots, and several other pieces suited for weeks on the road already occupied most of the first case. Calling any of it practical required a distinctly royal definition of the word. The fabrics were finer than most clothing I had owned on Earth, every seam looked tailored specifically for me, and even the riding trousers had subtle embroidery along the outer seams that probably took someone hours to complete.
Intellectually, the choices were perfect. I had packed for enough trips in my old life to know that clothing needed to survive whatever I intended to do while wearing it, and nothing Renee had chosen looked remotely inappropriate for riding, walking, weather, or spending weeks away from a palace. Then I looked toward the wardrobe and immediately discovered that intellectual approval was apparently not going to be the only opinion involved.
A pale blue gown hung near the front beside an ivory dress embroidered with tiny gold flowers, and wanting both happened so quickly that I actually frowned.
“This is irritating.”
Renee looked up from the case. “The packing?”
“My brain.”
“That seems like a larger problem.”
“You have no idea.”
I crossed to the pale blue gown and let the sleeve slide between my fingers. The silk was ridiculously soft, and I knew immediately that I loved the way it moved, loved the color, and loved exactly how spectacular it would make my eyes look. There was no remembered occasion attached to the dress and no scene of choosing it from a tailor. I simply liked it with an intensity I would never have expected from myself yesterday, and that was becoming increasingly difficult to dismiss as some artifact of the character I had written. The preference was mine now, whether or not I understood what to do with that.
Unfortunately, so was the certainty that the train trailing behind it was going to become an extraordinarily expensive device for collecting mud.
“I know this would be stupid to bring.”
Renee’s eyebrows rose. “You do?”
“Do not sound astonished.”
“I was attempting not to.”
“Work harder.”
I looked back at the gown. “It has a train.”
“Yes.”
“It would be destroyed.”
“Probably.”
“It takes up too much room.”
“Considerably.”
“I might wear it once.”
“That would be optimistic.”
“And I still want it.”
Renee’s mouth softened around a smile. “That sounds much more like you.”
I turned toward her and gave her the look that deserved. The fact that she apparently recognized me more clearly when I was being unreasonable about clothing should not have been reassuring, especially less than five minutes after a bathroom had forced me into an identity crisis, but somehow it was.
“That is not helping.”
“Would you prefer that I tell you it is hideous?”
“I would prefer that you invent a compelling reason why I require it.”
Renee considered the request with admirable seriousness. “You may encounter a bridge troll with unusually refined aesthetic standards.”
I stared at her until the laugh escaped despite everything that had happened in the other room. The absurdity loosened something in my chest, and Renee looked entirely too satisfied with herself when I finally released the sleeve.
“I cannot believe I apparently employ you for this.”
“You employ me to prevent worse decisions.”
“That sounds suspiciously broad.”
“My duties have expanded over time.”
I turned toward the rest of the wardrobe and immediately discovered that looking properly had been a tactical mistake. Opinions arrived everywhere at once. The green traveling coat was too severe, the cream one was dramatically more flattering, the midnight gown was obviously important because formal emergencies could happen anywhere, and leaving the pearl-gray boots behind felt vaguely barbaric even though I could not currently think of a single reason I needed them. Every one of those reactions was mine, which was precisely what made them so annoying.
I knew the midnight gown was impractical, and I still wanted it. I knew the riding clothes Renee had chosen were objectively better suited to what I was about to do, and I still felt genuinely disappointed by the idea of spending an indeterminate number of weeks wearing almost nothing but them. That was especially ridiculous because most women in Calder would probably consider my most utilitarian traveling coat appropriate for a formal dinner. Apparently becoming a princess had introduced me to entirely new standards of deprivation.
“Two gowns.”
Renee answered immediately. “Yes.”
I frowned because surrender had not been part of the expected script. “You agreed too quickly.”
“I had already planned for two.”
“Then three.”
“No.”
“There it is.”
“One formal gown and one dress appropriate for respectable dinners or local receptions.”
“That is barely a wardrobe.”
“That is two dresses.”
“One could reasonably argue that a Crown Princess traveling for an indeterminate amount of time requires options.”
“One could reasonably argue that a Crown Princess traveling by road cannot bring her palace.”
“I am not asking for the palace.”
“You have not started discussing jewelry yet.”
I closed my mouth while Renee smiled with the calm satisfaction of someone who had just watched me walk directly into her argument. I hated that she clearly knew me well enough to anticipate problems I had not yet remembered existed.
“That was low.”
“That was experience.”
I turned back toward the wardrobe and studied the midnight gown with enough longing to embarrass myself. “This one.”
“No.”
“You did not even examine it.”
“It has delicate beadwork.”
“It has beautiful beadwork.”
“It has beadwork I would spend the journey repairing every time you caught it on something.”
“I would be careful.”
Renee’s gaze dropped toward my tail, and I followed it despite myself. The traitorous thing had curled innocently around my ankle as though it had never betrayed an emotion or knocked against anything in its life.
“That was insulting to both of us.”
“I said nothing.”
“You involved the tail.”
“The tail involved itself.”
I sighed and moved on before I started defending the dignity of beadwork against my own anatomy. We eventually settled on a deep sapphire gown without a train and a softer gold dress elegant enough for respectable dinners while still being simple enough that Renee did not look personally offended by the suggestion. It was an entirely sensible compromise, which did absolutely nothing to stop me from resenting it.
What bothered me almost as much as leaving the midnight gown behind was how genuine all of it felt. I understood why Renee was right. I appreciated the practicality of the wardrobe she was assembling. I also felt as though leaving most of my beautiful clothes behind was a personal tragedy, and there was no useful line I could draw between those reactions anymore. They were contradictory, slightly ridiculous, and entirely mine.
Renee reached for a pair of jeweled heels near the wardrobe and immediately turned to put them back. I watched the movement with another pang of disappointment before practicality managed to win without requiring an actual argument.
“No heels.”
She glanced at me. “I was putting them away.”
“I know.”
“You are agreeing with me again.”
“Do not become accustomed to it.”
“I will mark the occasion.”
“I still want them.”
“That I believe.”
I looked once more at the jeweled shoes before forcing my attention toward the practical boots already packed. They were beautifully made, dark leather fitted closely through the ankle and calf, with subtle gold tooling and polished fastenings that probably cost more than every pair of shoes I had owned on Earth combined. Even my expedition boots had apparently been designed under the assumption that someone might need to recognize the Crown Princess from fifty paces away.
“They would be useless,” I said.
“They would.”
“They are also prettier.”
“They are.”
“This entire arrangement has terrible priorities.”
Renee paused with one hand on the wardrobe door and studied me for a moment before accepting the complaint at face value. “Fortunately, I have been assigned to protect you from several of them.”
“You are becoming unbearably pleased with yourself.”
“I have found purpose.”
Jewelry came next, and whatever fragile cooperation we had achieved immediately threatened to collapse. Renee selected my royal signet, several sets of earrings, a few necklaces and bracelets appropriate for formal appearances, and what she apparently considered a restrained assortment before beginning to close the jewelry case.
“That cannot possibly be all of it.”
“It is more than enough.”
“I have necklaces.”
“You have many necklaces.”
“Bracelets.”
“Also many.”
“Earrings.”
“You have several pairs packed.”
“That is not the same thing as having choices.”
“It is exactly the same thing as having choices.”
I put a hand against my chest and stared at her as though she had personally outlawed adornment. “You are stripping me of my culture.”
“I am preventing you from bringing forty pounds of jewelry into villages dealing with crop failures.”
The answer stopped the complaint before it reached my mouth. I looked toward the glittering contents of the larger jewelry case and imagined arriving in a village where people were worried about whether the next harvest would feed their families while I stepped out wearing enough gemstones to purchase half their grain stores. Suddenly having fewer choices in earrings felt considerably less like oppression.
“Fine. But I choose the earrings.”
“Within reason.”
“I hate that phrase.”
“You will hear it frequently on this journey.”
“That sounds like a threat.”
“It is preparation.”
We spent several minutes negotiating what apparently qualified as reasonable until Renee had allowed enough variety that I no longer felt personally persecuted by the concept of limited luggage. She folded the last selected garment into place while I stood beside the case, still unsettled by how easily wanting beautiful things had become something I could no longer dismiss as belonging to somebody else.
A soft tone sounded near my ear before I could follow that thought anywhere uncomfortable. Gold lettering appeared at the edge of my vision, separate from the achievement and quest notifications that had already become disturbingly normal.
PRIVATE MESSAGE RECEIVED
Prince Adrian
My attention snapped toward the notification before I could pretend otherwise. Renee noticed the change in my expression even though she continued packing, and I appreciated her restraint because I had no idea whether receiving a private message from my provisional fiancé counted as something I wanted witnessed.
I focused on the notification, and a narrow message window opened.
Prince Adrian
Checking that you survived your father.
I would also like it officially recorded that I did not laugh when the tents were confirmed.
Not loudly, anyway.
Seriously, though. Are you all right?
The last question sat differently from the rest of the message, and I read it twice before realizing Renee had stopped folding long enough to watch me. Whatever expression I was wearing had apparently made the message more interesting than the luggage.
“What now?”
“I received a message.”
“From whom?”
I hesitated despite having no rational reason to. “Adrian.”
Her eyebrows rose slightly. “Already?”
“That sounded judgmental.”
“It was surprise.”
“You conceal the distinction remarkably well.”
“I have had years of practice.”
I concentrated on the interface before she could ask anything else, and another line appeared beneath Adrian’s name.
PRIVATE COMMUNICATION AVAILABLE
Contact: Prince Adrian
Classification: Qualifying Player Contact
Communication Scope: Restricted
Player Contact pulled my attention away from his message immediately. Adrian fell under the same Player framework the System used for me, and apparently private communication came with restrictions of its own.
“So I can talk privately to other Players.”
WHEN CONTACT REQUIREMENTS ARE MET
“What requirements?”
ELIGIBILITY MAY DEPEND ON PROXIMITY, RECOGNITION, RELATIONSHIP, PARTY STATUS, SYSTEM ACCESS, OR OTHER QUALIFYING CONDITIONS
“That was extremely broad.”
THANK YOU
“It was not praise.”
CONSISTENCY APPRECIATED
I ignored the sarcasm and focused on the reply field. Discovering that private Player communication existed made the restriction I cared about most impossible not to test.
My name is Lucas Micah Thompson.
Nothing appeared in the message field. The box flashed gold instead.
MESSAGE CONTENT RESTRICTED
Protected Player-origin identity information cannot currently be transmitted.
Disclosure requires qualifying progression or applicable event authorization.
I frowned and tried something less direct.
Who were you on Earth?
That failed just as completely.
“Can Adrian tell me who he was?”
CURRENT RESTRICTIONS APPLY TO BOTH CONTACTS
The frustration came with an unexpected amount of relief. Whatever Adrian’s Player-origin identity had been, it was protected by the same restriction as mine. Private communication existed without giving either of us a shortcut around whatever progression controlled disclosure.
I tried another sentence.
Were you Adrian’s Player before this happened?
That appeared normally in the field, proving the System distinguished between acknowledging Player status and revealing protected Earth identity. I deleted it rather than sending it. The answer was obvious enough to make interrogation unnecessary, and Adrian had not messaged me to test the boundaries of System privacy anyway. He had messaged because he wanted to know whether I was all right, which was irritatingly considerate.
Radiance
I survived.
The tents remain the greatest betrayal of the morning.
I reserve judgment on everything else.
The message sent immediately, and a small delivered marker appeared beneath it. Something unexpectedly familiar accompanied the simple act of sending a private message and waiting for a response, even if the person on the other end was currently a six-foot-six prince I had somehow become provisionally engaged to before breakfast.
Renee held up two traveling cloaks while I waited. “Black or ivory?”
“Black.”
She blinked. “No argument?”
“Black hides dirt.”
Her stare became so astonished that I immediately regretted giving her the satisfaction. “Do not look at me like that.”
“I said nothing.”
“You are thinking very loudly.”
“I am proud of you.”
“I take it back. Ivory.”
“Black.”
“You ruined the moment.”
The second chime arrived while she was still smiling, and Adrian’s reply opened beneath mine. Wherever he was elsewhere in the palace, he apparently had his interface open too.
Prince Adrian
I am relieved.
I feared the Crown Princess of Calder might be defeated by canvas.
For what it is worth, I have no intention of making the journey harder for you than it already will be.
I read the final sentence more slowly because the joke disappeared before it. There was no swagger attached to the offer and nothing demanding anything from me in return, which made the uncomplicated sincerity harder to dismiss than his teasing.
Radiance
That sounds suspiciously considerate.
I had already planned to blame you personally for every insect.
His answer came quickly.
Prince Adrian
I accept no responsibility for insects unless I introduce them myself.
Rain will require separate negotiations.
A smile tugged at my mouth while Renee looked over at exactly the wrong moment. She caught it immediately and abandoned any pretense of not paying attention.
“What did he say?”
“Nothing important.”
“You’re smiling.”
“I wasn’t aware I was.”
“I have had years of practice.”
The reminder of those missing years brushed against me without becoming another crisis. Renee returned to the case before I needed to answer, and another message appeared while she adjusted the black cloak I had apparently been mature enough to choose.
Prince Adrian
Seriously, Rae.
You had a great deal dropped on you today.
You do not have to pretend otherwise with me.
The concern landed harder than the flirting had. There was something disturbingly easy about being checked on by him, and the shift from teasing to sincerity felt natural enough that answering required less effort than it probably should have for someone I barely knew.
I refused to invent an explanation for that. Whatever parts of Adrian’s life belonged to his protected Player origin remained inaccessible to me, and an easy conversation did not mean I secretly knew something the System had not told me.
Radiance
I am not pretending.
I am selectively refusing to process things in an order that might cause permanent damage to the furniture.
The typing indicator appeared almost immediately.
Prince Adrian
Sensible.
If you decide the furniture deserves to suffer, warn me first.
I would like to witness it.
I laughed and leaned one hand against the open case while Renee shook her head at me. Whatever expression I was wearing apparently confirmed every suspicion she had developed about the conversation, because she resumed folding with the patient amusement of someone who fully intended to ask me about Adrian later and saw no need to rush.