A Tale of Crown and Country

Lea

People stared as soon as they entered the small town. Curiously, they all seemed confused to see her. Their gazes alternated between her and Arlan. Lea got the sense they recognized her, but  it was as if she existed in another world, one where she wasn't a princess–or a runaway princess at that.

    They weren't many people out, but being a small town and the middle of the day, nearly everyone was out and about between the shops, talking amongst friends, and altogether going about their day.

    Their journey to the small northern town of Quaelsi had been unpeculiar and unadventurous; Lea in particular had been relieved to find it that way. Though she'd craved adventure since before she knew when, there had been such an influx of risk and little reward that she appreciated the lull. Maybe she'd prayed too hard, and this was her lesson.

    Arlan seemed to have a knack for finding accommodations in unknown cities. He led them straight towards the only place in town that advertised beds for the night. They tied the horses off out front and walked inside. The inn also served as a bar and general meeting place. Lea and Arlan made their way to the counter where they requested a room for the night. Arlan paid with the purse of coins Lea had filched from her father almost a week ago, and soon they were back out in the bright sunshine, though dark clouds had begun rolling in off the distant mountains.

    The more they walked around the town the more Lea liked Quaelsi. It was quaint and tightly packed, but still friendly enough to welcome visitors, however few there were. Lea figured most visitors were on their way to Reightneir. If you were prepared and motivated enough you could make it from Odeila past the border in a single day. Strangely enough no one had set up any sort of inn along the way to make things easier for travellers. Maybe there just weren't enough people heading to the far north.

    The Inglewood Forest lay beyond a few farmers' fields, and beyond that began the illustrious Teblaus Mountains, that for Lea represented more than a barrier between her own country and the north, but an insurmountable wall between herself and her father, one that she knew he wouldn't be willing to cross. More and more she could see it: he didn't care about her enough for that. He didn't want her back for her sake; as she had deduced from the bandit Morto Domev's language, he wanted her back for the sake of his alliance with Jayakan. Tensions were low between the two countries, but she more than anyone knew how quickly those things could blow out of proportion.

    "City or country," she asked Arlan as they sat outside the bakery munching on fresh pastries. The town had settled a calm over them both, so much that she found herself imagining life in a place like this. It was so far from the capital that no political drama ever reached its streets. Quaelsi was almost its own country. Too far from the coast for the capital to truly care about, and too far from the border for either Jayakan or Reightneir to care about. It existed in its own little pocket of space and time, and Lea rather liked that.

    "What?" Arlan asked, his words muffled by the sweet bread shoved in his mouth.

    Lea was enjoying hers more leisurely. Neither of them were hungry, given the plethora of coins Lea had brought with her, but they hadn't gone out of their way to indulge themselves either. It was a treat, and Lea wondered if Arlan had ever had sweet bread before.

    "Where would you rather live?" she asked. "City or countryside?"

    "City," he said decisively.

    "A week ago I would have said the same," she mused. "Now... I've grown rather fond of the country."

    "Why's that?" he asked, licking the last crumbs off his fingers.

    "It's... quieter," she said, smiling. "Relaxed. It's a community," she gestured up and down the street. Children played with sticks and bouncing balls while their parents chatted nearby. A young man helped an elderly couple carry a wooden box filled to the brim with apples. "Even at the castle I hardly knew anyone's name. I didn't really have any friends my age," she realized.