The Illegitimate Prince | Trylle Fanfiction

Chapter 14 - The Nocturnal City

A/N: Hi. My name is Lila, in case you guys didn't know that. And I don't think I've been a very active A/N-er during the time I had written the book, so fine, from now, I will be. So, hi again! Above is one of the songs from my The Illegitimate Prince playlist - Fireworks by Katy Perry. Can preferably be used as background music while you read this chapter. Thanks so much. Vote and comment what you thought. And goodbye for now!

My brilliant idea apparently turned out to be a visit to a set of malls - a very cool set of malls, though. They lay on the outskirts of Minnesota, were called as The Nocturnal City, and a special feature about this "city" was that they were open all 12 nocturnal hours (thus the name).

"A shopping mall?" Eleanor questioned dryly, once I had exquisitely parked my fashionable convertible (I had now officially and permanently claimed it my car; admittedly, a rather good replacement for the silly ancient Beetle truck I used to own a lifetime ago).

"I feel insulted, Eleanor." I pretended to be hurt.

"That's what it looks like to me. What do you plan on doing here in the middle of the night, anyway? Half of all stores are bound to be closed at this time."

"That's the unique thing about The Nocturnal City; the wildest and the most awesome things happen during the night. Also, the first thing I plan on doing here is awakening you up with a little dosage of caffeine."

***

I could tell Eleanor hadn't been inside a lot of 'human' malls (not good malls anyway), so despite how much she tried to scoff and scowl and urged me to go back to Förening, I could tell that she was quite amazed by The Nocturnal City.

Once I had gotten her a cup of strong espresso, she wasn't so dull or sleepy anymore. In fact, it was more than that; Eleanor Wilde was actually enjoying herself.

We hit the karaoke bar first. The people singing live with beer mugs in their hands, the wild electronic beats and the crazy xylophone woke up everything that was sleepy inside us. After some while of laughing and drinking beer with the most filling beef burgers ever, I found myself on the platform, dancing and singing sloppily, while all around me, people clapped and hooted at my atrocity.

"That was terrible!" Eleanor laughed carelessly at me, once I had returned back to our table and knocked down the rest of my beer.

I bowed sloppily, with a "My privilege. It's the only thing I'm good at."And then we both burst out laughing again.

After spending a considerable amount of time in the karaoke bar - when Eleanor refused to sing for the 100th time, at my request (even after I tried to make a deal with her that if she sang 1 full song in the bar right now, I'd show my father my middle finger at his face), we decided to go somewhere else.

The Kiddo-Zone in The Nocturnal City was, though childish and silly, still loads of fun. Eleanor Wilde was naturally a master at shoot-the-target, baseball and skittles. She won a fluffy pink teddy bear and a bag of Hershey's in shoot-the-target.

We both bowled pins to our heart's content and rode on the indoor rollercoaster (which, though Eleanor claimed was far too un-scary, she insisted on going again and again).

We walked through the mirror maze - where we kept bumping against our own glass reflections, played table tennis and shot darts until I accidentally shot a dart at a lady's butt, and we were obliged to run away as fast as we could.

Eleanor was so intently playing car-racing videogames, that she barely noticed when I went off and bought us nachos and dips. "How many times do I tell you that we Trylle do NOT eat processed food?" She scolded me, but was so flushed with laughter and joy that her scolding didn't have the desired effect at all.

"Mother of God! Quit your zero calorie diet for tonight, at least!" I exclaimed.

We explored other parts of The Nocturnal City, oohed and ahed on a couple of things, had another row of drinks, and I fell on my knees with an invisible rose in front of a random girl (before Eleanor had to embarrassedly drag me out of the view). We both basically had a very fun night altogether.

It was one of those super-rare times of my life when I had the privilege of seeing Eleanor not as some firm robotic woman who didn't break any rules, who was obedient and respectful and serious all the time, but as a young, carefree, reckless girl who loved having fun, who flew freely in the sky and didn't follow the footsteps of the Law on the ground.

And it was kind-of amazing seeing that Eleanor.

She stopped in front of a clothing store to look at a particular garment in admiration, and I stopped along with her too. "Go, check that out. There might be many other dresses like that further inside the shop." I offered.

"No, it's . . . .it's getting late right now. We must set back to Förening."

I shrugged. "How sacrificial. I am serious about the dress, though; you can go and have a look - not that I am a very good girly-shopping assistant, but - "

"It's okay." Eleanor replied. "We must make our way back to Förening." She sighed. "It's just that as a tracker, I haven't really been privileged enough to taste a lot of fine dresses; mostly our outfits are warrior-suited or very formal. Not that it matters. I never get many occasions to wear dresses either, and besides, a tracker is meant to stay in the shadows - not in the prominence. Come on, now." She beckoned me towards the exit.

A hippie street violinist and his fellow banjo-player were merrily entertaining a crowd below; I spent some time dancing with them sloppily, before donating them a few tips and then setting off for the parking.

"You are dreadfully drunk, aren't you, Jasper?" Eleanor questioned, as she got into the driver seat of the convertible.

"Not as much as I am bursting with enjoyment and satisfaction right now." I replied, as Eleanor started the engine. "Tell me, did you have fun tonight?"

"Loads. Humans . . . .aren't as bad as we are taught they are. They do understand what fun is."

"Humans!" I laughed. "And what are you, Ms Wilde? An alien?"

"Almost. We are just so cut off from the human world and their advancements. The Nocturnal City - I have never seen some place as good as this one. The people - they are so friendly and joyous and hospitable. It is like, even though they have never seen you before, you guys have been friends since forever. There is no formality in the air. People so freely go up on that stage and sing and dance like hooligans, and everyone claps and cheers for them, even if the performers go wrong at some point.

"No one is judging you. They are all having fun. They don't have thousand year old hierarchies distinguishing them from each other; everyone is an equal. One can do whatever he wants, buy whatever he wants, go wherever he wants, without the Law telling him that his actions are unsuitable according to his class. I'm sorry I groaned and scoffed at you when you said that you were being haunted by the magic of freedom and craziness. I know now what freedom and craziness are like - doing whatever you want, being crazy and having fun, without someone restricting your wants and your actions. Thank you for this night, Jasper."

For some time, I remained dumbly silent, before I finally replied "Er, you're welcome."

Our drive back to Förening was silent mostly. The warm wind blew pleasantly at our faces; I contently slept on the passenger seat, while Eleanor quietly drove without a single complaint or any sign of sleep.

When we had entered the Trylle city again, Eleanor parked the convertible in the Royal Garage, woke me up and made me promise to clean up the car in the day, before setting towards the palace.

Dawn had passed; the sky was lit now, and the moon barely there anymore. However, when we both - grinning at the happy memories of tonight - entered the palace, shock and misfortune awaited us.

The King himself stood in the entrance hall, almost as if he had been waiting for us to return home. "Morning." He held his glass out to us, before drinking out of it.