Yeah, maybe this isn’t the best course of action. One of the thoughts suggests as Sophia walks through the cobblestone path.

  We don’t have any other choice. Another argues. It’s our only real option.

  And what is he going to think once he finds out we can’t even read his language? The thought shuts down.

  Yeah, this was going to be a very, very embarrassing conversation for Sophia Elise.

  The garden was beautiful.

  Rose bushes immaculately maintained, waist high hedges trimmed and ancient oak trees covering vast lawns of long grass. An explosion of color in the final bloom of early summer; eyes drawn to the deep purple of rosemary flowers intertwining with the creeping vines of white wisteria while below them the small but vibrant dandelion flowers explode like the morning sunrises.

  Prince Zai Tianci simply sits alone in the small gazebo, watching as the steam rises from a freshly brewed pot of jasmine tea on the marble table next to him.

  He feels the cool seaside air brushing against him, listens to the singing songbirds amongst the manicured foliage, and watches as the great blue gas giant of Unudo begins to swallow the horizon to the west; the world continuing to live as it always has for centuries.

  And for just a single moment; all the grand political maneuverings in Landfall, all the blood shed in the wars to the south, all the small hungers of his people at the hands of corrupt nobles didn’t seem so close anymore. Here, amongst the simple silence, was peace.

  When was the last time you did nothing? He mindlessly asks himself, immediately feeling a pang of guilt flood into his chest.

  As you do nothing here, the world moves on. There’s people jostling against you, against father in Landfall; they’re moving against the Dominion for their own gain. As you sit here, in this place so far removed from them, you’re losing. In Sanji, in Landfall, in Xiaoshan, even in Amoria: the people, the mothers, fathers… children who rely on you to protect them, are dying. The fact that you can sit here, with your tea in this garden of excess, makes you a monster.

  Zai was not at peace, a deep breath taken in an attempt to stop this destructive line of thinking.

  Don’t panic. He tells himself. Just drink, take a sip of tea. Breathe…

  He reaches a careful hand out towards the thin, bone white ceramic tea cup on the table.

  And sitting in the chair across from him, as if appearing from thin air, was Sophia Elise the Eighth.

  “Hello Zai.”

  “AH!” He almost jumps, letting out a sharp scream of shock that sends sparrows scattering from a nearby oak tree.

  Sophia’s internal monologue rolls its eyes. Oh great, third person you scared today. Probably should put a cowbell on you just to make sure you don’t give anyone else a heart attack.

  If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

  “... Sophia.” Prince Zai acknowledges very carefully, his stance immediately stiffening at the presence of this new threat.

  Oh Goddess please don’t let this go south. The Fourth Princess prays in her mind, letting her calm and cold exterior take the brunt of her next words to her husband. “How are you today?”

  There’s a long moment of silence, Zai’s face trying to hide shock from this strange attempt at connection that was not spoken over the living room’s dining table. “I’m well.”

  “That’s good.” Sophia replies.

  The conversation ends after a few more seconds of silence, the birds returning to their chirping songs and the wind to its gentle breeze.

  Goddess damn it you’re supposed to continue!

  She swallows saliva, an audible gulp from her throat as she tries to soften the blow of her words. “Zai, I have a question if you can answer it. Can you read and write imperial ensolian?”

  The question catches him off guard, his own tone lowering as if trying to hide a secret. “I can, yes.”

  “You were taught how to? By whom?”

  Zai narrows his gaze, carefully answering her. “He was a professor of linguistics from the Dominion, but raised in Capital Valley. He spent his life studying the Imperial Ensolian language.”

  Sophia cringes at the answer.

  What, you thought you could play a transaction here? Quid pro quo? Teach him a lil’ Imperial Ensolian?

  He writes in ensolian because it’s a language you can read.

  You write in ensolian because it's the only language you can read.

  You two are not the same.

  “That’s nice.” Sophia nods as she hides that expression of soul crushing embarrassment, presenting the next logical question in the sequence. “Then you can read and write Tiancin, correct?”

  Yeah, pretty sure he can read and write in his own mother tongue. What in the hells are you asking him?

  There’s a switch from a guarded apprehension to a genuine confusion at his wife’s strange question. “I… can? I can… read my own country’s language, yes.”

  Sophia takes an audibly large breath as her heart rate quickens, her body remaining comically still in some obscene management of grace that was demanded of a noble of her importance. The realization of this path forward crushes her, vision blurring slightly as she drily swallows air.

  The shepherd girl drops a rock into the well, the returning sound nothing more than a dull thud of stone hitting mud. That once vast, bottomless cistern of pride from the Fourth Princess? Very much so bottomed out now.

  Her boredom has bred desperation, and Sophia grits her teeth as she does her best to conceal her frustration behind this nearly transparent facade of noble composure.

  Prince Zai Tianci, as any royal must, would have learned how to weaponize the delicate letterings of language. A brush, a pen in his hands; creating forth the most fundamental art of humankind in its desperate outreach to fellow souls.

  Information transferred not through the irregularities and inconsistencies of the tongue, but the stable and eternal bedrock of writing.

  Zai could read and write Tiancin, and he could do it at the highest levels of the language. Taught by the greatest minds of his nation and refined by the deadliest of political crucibles into one of the most lethal weapons of linguistics on the planet.

  And he was Sophia’s only hope.

  Don’t sound desperate, and keep it direct. Her internal monologue advises harshly. When you ask you must not show weakness or else he could reject you. You need to subtly make him say yes to you. Now push and ask.

  She stutters slightly, trying to open her mouth and speak this wonderfully crafted question to Zai.

  Sophia silently cries out to herself, her face visibly cringing much to the quiet concern of her partner. I can’t… I can’t do it anymore. He’ll think of me as a pathetic mess for it…

  The internal monologue takes a careful hand to her psyche’s shoulder. If you can’t, then say the first thing that comes to mind. Follow your heart, your mind and your soul. Speak from that place deep inside you, let it out!

  “Zai Tianci,” Sophia Elise the Eighth, the Fourth Princess of the Ensolian Imperium, harshly barks out at her husband: the crown heir to the people, the lands, the language; the entire Dominion. “I demand that you teach me how to read Tiancin!”