I woke up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room.
Usually, my time spent sleeping was non-negotiable. If anyone tried to wake me, they'd be promptly dismissed from my service.
As a beacon of knowledge and wisdom, few required beauty sleep as I did. It's no exaggeration to say that nations fell and rose depending on whether I received 8.5 or 9 hours of sleep each day. My plotting machinations were as delicate as a compass. One imperfection and the course of entire kingdoms went astray.
Today, the political landscape of the continent would shift.
I did not get 8.5 or 9 hours of sleep.
I did not, I believe, get any sleep at all.
Today, there were no maids under my mother's direct employ to rouse me from my slumber, discarding the duvet and sweeping aside the curtains until my face melted beneath the sunlight.
Today, there were no carts of breakfast staples, from strawberry topped pancakes to marmalade scones.
Today, there was no steam rising from the freshly drawn bath, seeping in from my private en-suite.
There was nothing.
Nothing but the barren, wooden ceiling, potted with cracks and the clear signs of growing mould.
As I stared, wide-eyed and terrified, wondering if and when the roof of this inn would come crashing down upon me, it was all I could do to not shrivel up in concern. Even the slightest movement might set this derelict building crumbling.
Still, I sat up in my bed. If one could even call this a bed. It was a wooden desk with the colour of linen painted on top. Because if there was any fabric, I did not feel it. Neither as my mattress nor as my pillow.
I turned around and picked up the thing I'd placed my head on. It was … empty. There was no choice between feather or reeds. It was simply empty. A linen pillow formed in and of itself, rolled up as some kind of hardened cushion. This was not a pillow. It was some device used in callisthenics. Or torture. Perhaps both. At the same time.
I shuddered, placing the nefarious object back down.
“Morning! How did you sleep?”
I turned to see the only thing shining merrier than the sun.
Coppelia was stretching animatedly on the floor, going through the entire spectrum of limb exercises necessary to apparently leap from floor to ceiling. I didn't fault her. I was sure it would stand her in good stead when this inn came crashing down.
My smile shook as I returned Coppelia's blasphemously bright greeting.
“I … I slept … wonderfully … thank you ...”
“Really? Bed not too hard?”
“Oh … Ohoho … Of … Of course not… I am not some pampered child who cannot bear without the comforts of a delightful feather mattress ... No, if these rotting, creaking, decrepit beds are fit for the unfeeling people of this rotting town, then they are also fit for me ...”
“Ooh … so modest!” Coppelia gave me a proud nod. “I thought from your baggy eyes and look of misery that you hadn't slept a wink! I guess I was wrong.”
I stared hard at Coppelia.
“... How do I look?”
Coppelia pouted, her eyes suddenly becoming distant, gloomy and thoroughly ugly.
“Like this. But twice as bad. Horrible, huh?”
I was appalled.
Not because I believed I could look even half as ghastly as whatever expression she was making. That was impossible. No, I was more shocked that my future handmaiden thought she could so easily jest with me.
There was an order to things. And that meant dressing me, feeding me, bathing me, and then dressing me again.
Nowhere in that list included poor jibes. Or the look of amusement she wore as I began to doubt her loyalties.
“You know,” she said, pausing in her stretching. “You look like someone having second thoughts about righting the wrongs of this dull kingdom.”
“Second thoughts?”
I looked up at the cracks in the ceiling. Then the cracks in the floorboards. And then the years of wear and neglect that pockmarked the sparse furnishings in this tiny cupboard with a bed.
Second thoughts?
Why … my resolve only hardened!
This … This is what awaited me if I didn't act! A premonition of things to come! A life of squalor and misery! An abject life absent of fluffy pillows and mouldless ceilings!
A life as a … as a peasant!
Second thoughts? I didn't have time for first thoughts!
Thus—I leapt from the bed and to the window where the sun was struggling to make headroom through the gap between the wooden panels.
I flung them open, then threw my palm out towards the bright dawn beaming down upon the unwashed peasantry.
“Coppelia! As my handmaiden—”
“Assistant librarian.”
“—as my future handmaiden, there are things you must know. Just as the mountains never bend, nor shall my will ever waver. And so I ask you, look upon the east. Dawn rises upon—”
“It's almost midday.”
“L-Look to the south! Midday rises upon our fair kingdom—”
“Still not my kingdom.”
“—failing to reveal the shadows which slink beyond our eyes! Yet even if we cannot see them, we may still reach them, even if we must do so blindly like paupers in the night. I will not abandon this kingdom to destituteness and strife! Its people and its cherished leaders deserve more than abject poverty, mouldy ceilings and strange scuttling sounds in the dark!”
“Those were mice.”
My jaw dropped.
“M-Mice?!”
“Silly, Billy and Milly. I named them.”
I felt my head grow faint. Perhaps that was why Coppelia sat up. Or as up as someone could be while performing a perfect split. It was … well, yes, that was impressive, I suppose. Especially if she intended to catch me in that position.
“Juliette?~”
“I'm … I'm okay!”
I cleared my mind.
Diseased rodents over my head was a problem. But a problem was merely a state of mind. By clearing my mind, I could clear any problem.
This is why I was a genius!
“Coppelia. We have work to do.”
“Uh-huh, like what?”
“Like everything. I have a list of problems longer than the amount of steps needed to keep my hair straight. This is a severe issue. We cannot tarry.”
“Got it. We're off to shine some tortuously bright lights into the eyes of ruffians while we take turns interrogating them, right?”
“That's … well, that's not precisely what I meant? However, if you mean to ask whether I intend to imprison those who would bring harm to the kingdom without trial or recourse ... then, why, yes.”
Coppelia giggled.
Once again, I wondered which part of my words were considered a joke.
“My clockwork heart is moved. To think you care so much about the well-being of the people, with their simple minds, their superstitions, and the fact that they only preserve books so they have an emergency stash of kindling for when they can't be bothered to chop down a whole tree."
"Indeed, Coppelia." I proudly placed my hand atop my breast. "I am a paragon of kindness. Rest assured that until the day each person has withered to a husk after a deeply fulfilling lifetime of backbreaking service, I intend to provide a kingdom free of any distractions from their gruelling labour."
"Gosh. Such infectious purpose of spirit is truly worthy of the calling of an F-rank adventurer!”
I forced my knees to stay upright as they threatened to collapse.
An F-rank adventurer.
It wasn't a nightmare, after all!
Which meant—it was time to change this reality for the better.
Clenching my fists, I turned to the window once more. Beyond the crumbling rooftops and the overwhelming noise of commoners drowning out the sweet sounds of songbirds, I considered where next to grace with my immense problem solving skills.
A challenging task. Frankly, everywhere needed it.
How did people even aim spoons into their mouths without me to feed them?
The road before me was less certain than when I'd departed the Royal Villa. It was plain that handling an inevitable famine was the undisputed priority. Even should everything else be resolved, that alone could bring my head beneath a guillotine should enough of the common rabble rouse themselves.
Now with Marina Lainsfont's plotting expertly coaxed from the shadows, I was free to pursue the other tragedies befalling my kingdom.
I frowned. Strife plagued the land from its western shores to its eastern mountains. To rush to the aid of one would mean putting the rest to the wayside.
Yet even so, one destination stood out among the rest.
The centre of the kingdom. Its royal capital. Its beating heart.
The city that represented the will of its people. And the nation's adherence to law and order.
My father had hinted to crime raging rampant.
Oh, criminal syndicates burrowing beneath the streets like great families of rats was no grand news to me … aided, undoubtedly, by their entrenched collusion with the lesser nobility. Crime and corruption were ever the mentors to ambition, after all.
No, crime itself came as no surprise to me.
But that the beautiful paved streets adorned with lanterns and lush trees should be used to ferry gangs of rogues and hoodlums under broad daylight was not acceptable. If the rats were not content with feeding on scraps, then they shall feast on justice instead. And mine tasted like soap.
So long as the capital was under siege from within, how could order be imposed upon the rest? As the centre of the kingdom's administrative functions and the seat of our authority, it was imperative that security be restored.
… So why?
Why was my eldest brother, who stewarded there in my father's stead, be permitting such a dire state of affairs to occur beneath his very eyes?
For all his joyless pranks and eyeball rolling jests, Roland Contzen, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Tirea, was not one to shrink from duty. Nor were our knights, of whom more of their Chapter Halls could be found in the royal capital than all our holdings combined.
Just … what was happening?
“Coppelia.”
“Mhm?”
I turned from the window, then headed straight for the door.
“I've decided. We make for the capital … to the Royal City of Reitzlake. Crime festers in our streets. It's time to cleanse the malady.”
“Cleansing! I like it! Do you have a remedy in mind?”
I abruptly stopped.
I ... I hadn't a single clue!
“Oho … ohohoho! W-Why, of course I do! Really now, do ... do you believe I'd make such a brash decision as to combat the centuries of organised crime that have entrenched in the gutters of our capital without a well thought out plan beforehand?”
“Absolutely not. I'm certain your plan is as foolproof as it's unnecessary for me to know the finer details. Or any details. When does the ominously worded cleansing we need to do begin?”
I beamed. Finally, a retainer who didn't baulk whenever I so much as suggested I was going to prepare my own tea! So what if I used burning firewater? That simply meant it would be prepared faster.
True, fixing the royal capital was probably more serious than that. But it was fine. Probably. Until I saw what was occurring in the royal capital with my own eyes, why should I hamper myself with the chains of deliberation? Flexibility was an integral part of problem solving.
Therefore, it was only sensible to not cloud one's thought process until the time came to use it!
“Immediately,” I answered. “We depart at once.”
Coppelia nodded. She smiled as she glanced towards the window.
“Okay. But can we get a crêpe first?”
“Excuse me?”
“A crêpe. It feels like cleansing the streets of your poorly designed capital will take a lot of time. So we should get a crêpe first.”
I tapped my ears, as always doubting my own senses by the sheer unpredictability of the words this girl said. Perhaps I'd misheard. Or her saying we should pause in our highly urgent business of saving the royal capital to instead get a crêpe was some ritualistic expression of faith from Ouzelia.
“A crêpe?”
Gracefully hopping up from her stretching position, she skipped over to the window and pointed straight out. I cautiously went back and followed the line of her fingertip.
A stall stood beside the town square entrance.
And from it, a sweet, unfamiliar smell wafting out the moment I stuck out my head—if I ignored the hundreds of other competing, much less favourable aromas.
“It's tasty. Never had one?”
“Never once.”
Coppelia instantly made for the door as though deciding for the both of us.
I stood rooted to the spot.
A crêpe! I knew it to be something between a dessert and a confectionery, but in truth, I'd never had the novelty of experiencing one. Although gaining popularity in lower-brow circles, it was still considered far too unrefined to be served in any royal function.
Until it was no longer possible to be purchased from a street stall, I didn't expect I'd ever experience it without the help of a smuggling operation from the kitchen.
Even so, this was no time to be indulging in academic curiosity. Time was a commodity more precious than crowns. And currently, I had little of both.
“Coppelia, this is no time to be tasting the outlandish fare of common-born nobility. Even as we ponder, foul deeds sully the name of my kingdom while the econo—the people yearn for relief.”
In response, she patted a small pouch by her belt. A small, but instantly recognisable clink rang out.
“I'll pay.”
“Indeed, the royal capital is far away. And it's important to accumulate energy for the journey, lest we falter before we even begin.”
And so—
With my head held high, I marched behind Coppelia as she loyally led the way to the securing of our first key provision. A crêpe.
I woke up in an unfamiliar bed in an unfamiliar room.
Usually, my time spent sleeping was non-negotiable. If anyone tried to wake me, they'd be promptly dismissed from my service.
As a beacon of knowledge and wisdom, few required beauty sleep as I did. It's no exaggeration to say that nations fell and rose depending on whether I received 8.5 or 9 hours of sleep each day. My plotting machinations were as delicate as a compass. One imperfection and the course of entire kingdoms went astray.
Today, the political landscape of the continent would shift.
I did not get 8.5 or 9 hours of sleep.
I did not, I believe, get any sleep at all.
Today, there were no maids under my mother's direct employ to rouse me from my slumber, discarding the duvet and sweeping aside the curtains until my face melted beneath the sunlight.
Today, there were no carts of breakfast staples, from strawberry topped pancakes to marmalade scones.
Today, there was no steam rising from the freshly drawn bath, seeping in from my private en-suite.
There was nothing.
Nothing but the barren, wooden ceiling, potted with cracks and the clear signs of growing mould.
As I stared, wide-eyed and terrified, wondering if and when the roof of this inn would come crashing down upon me, it was all I could do to not shrivel up in concern. Even the slightest movement might set this derelict building crumbling.
Still, I sat up in my bed. If one could even call this a bed. It was a wooden desk with the colour of linen painted on top. Because if there was any fabric, I did not feel it. Neither as my mattress nor as my pillow.
I turned around and picked up the thing I'd placed my head on. It was … empty. There was no choice between feather or reeds. It was simply empty. A linen pillow formed in and of itself, rolled up as some kind of hardened cushion. This was not a pillow. It was some device used in callisthenics. Or torture. Perhaps both. At the same time.
I shuddered, placing the nefarious object back down.
“Morning! How did you sleep?”
I turned to see the only thing shining merrier than the sun.
Coppelia was stretching animatedly on the floor, going through the entire spectrum of limb exercises necessary to apparently leap from floor to ceiling. I didn't fault her. I was sure it would stand her in good stead when this inn came crashing down.
My smile shook as I returned Coppelia's blasphemously bright greeting.
“I … I slept … wonderfully … thank you ...”
“Really? Bed not too hard?”
“Oh … Ohoho … Of … Of course not… I am not some pampered child who cannot bear without the comforts of a delightful feather mattress ... No, if these rotting, creaking, decrepit beds are fit for the unfeeling people of this rotting town, then they are also fit for me ...”
“Ooh … so modest!” Coppelia gave me a proud nod. “I thought from your baggy eyes and look of misery that you hadn't slept a wink! I guess I was wrong.”
I stared hard at Coppelia.
“... How do I look?”
Coppelia pouted, her eyes suddenly becoming distant, gloomy and thoroughly ugly.
“Like this. But twice as bad. Horrible, huh?”
I was appalled.
Not because I believed I could look even half as ghastly as whatever expression she was making. That was impossible. No, I was more shocked that my future handmaiden thought she could so easily jest with me.
There was an order to things. And that meant dressing me, feeding me, bathing me, and then dressing me again.
Nowhere in that list included poor jibes. Or the look of amusement she wore as I began to doubt her loyalties.
“You know,” she said, pausing in her stretching. “You look like someone having second thoughts about righting the wrongs of this dull kingdom.”
“Second thoughts?”
I looked up at the cracks in the ceiling. Then the cracks in the floorboards. And then the years of wear and neglect that pockmarked the sparse furnishings in this tiny cupboard with a bed.
Second thoughts?
Why … my resolve only hardened!
This … This is what awaited me if I didn't act! A premonition of things to come! A life of squalor and misery! An abject life absent of fluffy pillows and mouldless ceilings!
A life as a … as a peasant!
Second thoughts? I didn't have time for first thoughts!
Thus—I leapt from the bed and to the window where the sun was struggling to make headroom through the gap between the wooden panels.
I flung them open, then threw my palm out towards the bright dawn beaming down upon the unwashed peasantry.
“Coppelia! As my handmaiden—”
“Assistant librarian.”
“—as my future handmaiden, there are things you must know. Just as the mountains never bend, nor shall my will ever waver. And so I ask you, look upon the east. Dawn rises upon—”
“It's almost midday.”
“L-Look to the south! Midday rises upon our fair kingdom—”
“Still not my kingdom.”
“—failing to reveal the shadows which slink beyond our eyes! Yet even if we cannot see them, we may still reach them, even if we must do so blindly like paupers in the night. I will not abandon this kingdom to destituteness and strife! Its people and its cherished leaders deserve more than abject poverty, mouldy ceilings and strange scuttling sounds in the dark!”
“Those were mice.”
My jaw dropped.
“M-Mice?!”
“Silly, Billy and Milly. I named them.”
I felt my head grow faint. Perhaps that was why Coppelia sat up. Or as up as someone could be while performing a perfect split. It was … well, yes, that was impressive, I suppose. Especially if she intended to catch me in that position.
“Juliette?~”
“I'm … I'm okay!”
I cleared my mind.
Diseased rodents over my head was a problem. But a problem was merely a state of mind. By clearing my mind, I could clear any problem.
This is why I was a genius!
“Coppelia. We have work to do.”
“Uh-huh, like what?”
“Like everything. I have a list of problems longer than the amount of steps needed to keep my hair straight. This is a severe issue. We cannot tarry.”
“Got it. We're off to shine some tortuously bright lights into the eyes of ruffians while we take turns interrogating them, right?”
“That's … well, that's not precisely what I meant? However, if you mean to ask whether I intend to imprison those who would bring harm to the kingdom without trial or recourse ... then, why, yes.”
Coppelia giggled.
Once again, I wondered which part of my words were considered a joke.
“My clockwork heart is moved. To think you care so much about the well-being of the people, with their simple minds, their superstitions, and the fact that they only preserve books so they have an emergency stash of kindling for when they can't be bothered to chop down a whole tree."
"Indeed, Coppelia." I proudly placed my hand atop my breast. "I am a paragon of kindness. Rest assured that until the day each person has withered to a husk after a deeply fulfilling lifetime of backbreaking service, I intend to provide a kingdom free of any distractions from their gruelling labour."
"Gosh. Such infectious purpose of spirit is truly worthy of the calling of an F-rank adventurer!”
I forced my knees to stay upright as they threatened to collapse.
An F-rank adventurer.
It wasn't a nightmare, after all!
Which meant—it was time to change this reality for the better.
Clenching my fists, I turned to the window once more. Beyond the crumbling rooftops and the overwhelming noise of commoners drowning out the sweet sounds of songbirds, I considered where next to grace with my immense problem solving skills.
A challenging task. Frankly, everywhere needed it.
How did people even aim spoons into their mouths without me to feed them?
The road before me was less certain than when I'd departed the Royal Villa. It was plain that handling an inevitable famine was the undisputed priority. Even should everything else be resolved, that alone could bring my head beneath a guillotine should enough of the common rabble rouse themselves.
Now with Marina Lainsfont's plotting expertly coaxed from the shadows, I was free to pursue the other tragedies befalling my kingdom.
I frowned. Strife plagued the land from its western shores to its eastern mountains. To rush to the aid of one would mean putting the rest to the wayside.
Yet even so, one destination stood out among the rest.
The centre of the kingdom. Its royal capital. Its beating heart.
The city that represented the will of its people. And the nation's adherence to law and order.
My father had hinted to crime raging rampant.
Oh, criminal syndicates burrowing beneath the streets like great families of rats was no grand news to me … aided, undoubtedly, by their entrenched collusion with the lesser nobility. Crime and corruption were ever the mentors to ambition, after all.
No, crime itself came as no surprise to me.
But that the beautiful paved streets adorned with lanterns and lush trees should be used to ferry gangs of rogues and hoodlums under broad daylight was not acceptable. If the rats were not content with feeding on scraps, then they shall feast on justice instead. And mine tasted like soap.
So long as the capital was under siege from within, how could order be imposed upon the rest? As the centre of the kingdom's administrative functions and the seat of our authority, it was imperative that security be restored.
… So why?
Why was my eldest brother, who stewarded there in my father's stead, be permitting such a dire state of affairs to occur beneath his very eyes?
For all his joyless pranks and eyeball rolling jests, Roland Contzen, Crown Prince of the Kingdom of Tirea, was not one to shrink from duty. Nor were our knights, of whom more of their Chapter Halls could be found in the royal capital than all our holdings combined.
Just … what was happening?
“Coppelia.”
“Mhm?”
I turned from the window, then headed straight for the door.
“I've decided. We make for the capital … to the Royal City of Reitzlake. Crime festers in our streets. It's time to cleanse the malady.”
“Cleansing! I like it! Do you have a remedy in mind?”
I abruptly stopped.
I ... I hadn't a single clue!
“Oho … ohohoho! W-Why, of course I do! Really now, do ... do you believe I'd make such a brash decision as to combat the centuries of organised crime that have entrenched in the gutters of our capital without a well thought out plan beforehand?”
“Absolutely not. I'm certain your plan is as foolproof as it's unnecessary for me to know the finer details. Or any details. When does the ominously worded cleansing we need to do begin?”
I beamed. Finally, a retainer who didn't baulk whenever I so much as suggested I was going to prepare my own tea! So what if I used burning firewater? That simply meant it would be prepared faster.
True, fixing the royal capital was probably more serious than that. But it was fine. Probably. Until I saw what was occurring in the royal capital with my own eyes, why should I hamper myself with the chains of deliberation? Flexibility was an integral part of problem solving.
Therefore, it was only sensible to not cloud one's thought process until the time came to use it!
“Immediately,” I answered. “We depart at once.”
Coppelia nodded. She smiled as she glanced towards the window.
“Okay. But can we get a crêpe first?”
“Excuse me?”
“A crêpe. It feels like cleansing the streets of your poorly designed capital will take a lot of time. So we should get a crêpe first.”
I tapped my ears, as always doubting my own senses by the sheer unpredictability of the words this girl said. Perhaps I'd misheard. Or her saying we should pause in our highly urgent business of saving the royal capital to instead get a crêpe was some ritualistic expression of faith from Ouzelia.
“A crêpe?”
Gracefully hopping up from her stretching position, she skipped over to the window and pointed straight out. I cautiously went back and followed the line of her fingertip.
A stall stood beside the town square entrance.
And from it, a sweet, unfamiliar smell wafting out the moment I stuck out my head—if I ignored the hundreds of other competing, much less favourable aromas.
“It's tasty. Never had one?”
“Never once.”
Coppelia instantly made for the door as though deciding for the both of us.
I stood rooted to the spot.
A crêpe! I knew it to be something between a dessert and a confectionery, but in truth, I'd never had the novelty of experiencing one. Although gaining popularity in lower-brow circles, it was still considered far too unrefined to be served in any royal function.
Until it was no longer possible to be purchased from a street stall, I didn't expect I'd ever experience it without the help of a smuggling operation from the kitchen.
Even so, this was no time to be indulging in academic curiosity. Time was a commodity more precious than crowns. And currently, I had little of both.
“Coppelia, this is no time to be tasting the outlandish fare of common-born nobility. Even as we ponder, foul deeds sully the name of my kingdom while the econo—the people yearn for relief.”
In response, she patted a small pouch by her belt. A small, but instantly recognisable clink rang out.
“I'll pay.”
“Indeed, the royal capital is far away. And it's important to accumulate energy for the journey, lest we falter before we even begin.”
And so—
With my head held high, I marched behind Coppelia as she loyally led the way to the securing of our first key provision. A crêpe.
