Gun Princess Royale - Book 3 - Princess of the City (web version)

Outro

I sat on a bench beside a stone path that traversed through the middle of the garden that occupied the mansion's central courtyard.

Resting back, I looked up at the false sky of the Estate and then listened to the burble of the nearby streams.

Surrounded by tranquility made me regret not bringing along a book to read.

I'm referring to a printed copy, not a digitized one that I could access on my phone.

This was the kind of environment where you needed to feel the paper under your fingertips, and to hear the rustling of the pages as you turned them over.

Reading a book here on a phone or tablet just felt wrong to me.

Or maybe I was just being stupid.

Yes, most probably the latter.

Regardless, I wasn't going to change my mind, and I wasn't going to fish out my phone from a skirt pocket and find something to read.

Thus, I chose to continue sitting with my arms thrown over the bench's backrest, while I stared vacantly up at the blue sky with listless clouds floating beneath it.

It was Friday, midday, and I'd returned to the Estate a couple of hours ago.

I didn't translocate back in.

Instead, I was picked up by Mirai's Sarcophagus.

After sitting alone with my thoughts for a few minutes inside the Promenade, I realized that the gondola was deserted, and thus made my way outside.

While I was standing in the park, the Sarcophagus emerged out of its self-generated Pocket Space. It would have snuck up behind me again, but the Argus System noticed its presence, so I was a little more mentally prepared to be scooped up by its tentacles and then swallowed into its depths.

According to Mirai's wetware, I spent an hour inside the artificial womb, but instead of having my consciousness transported into one of Ghost's virtual environments, I ended up sleeping through the maintenance process. I don't know what else to call it, because even as I dreamt, I could feel Mirai's body being healed and nourished.

So what did I dream about?

Maybe I shouldn't call it dreaming because on some level I was still conscious.

Perhaps I should describe the experience as lucid dreaming.

Very well. What did I lucid dream about?

I dreamt of being reunited with my parents...except that it was Ronin who met them at the orbital spaceport while I watched from a distance. I spent the rest of the dream wandering about like a ghost, unable to interact with the people around me who were oblivious to my presence, and so I was ignored by Ronin and his family.

However, what really sucker punched me was discovering that in the dream I was Isabel.

I wasn't even a copy of Ronin, or another male person.

No. I was Isabel val Sanreal – a ghost walking amongst the living.

I was seriously relieved when I woke up, though I was still inside the womb. But a short while later, the Sarcophagus delivered me out into the Estate, dropping me off gently in the garden between the house and the lagoon sized pool.

But the dream stayed with me, as did the loneliness I felt.

I was greeted by Fatina and the maids who apologized to me for the way I was treated.

I was too distracted to be angry with them, so I forgave them with a few mumbled, disjointed, half-hearted words.

Once inside my suite, I chose to strip out of my clothes – the same clothes I'd been wearing when I entered the Sarcophagus in the morning – and then took a long hot shower. I didn't need one, but I felt I had to have one. Dressing in a pair of black slacks and white blouse, I was met in the living area by Fatina, who wrapped me up in a warm hug.