The crowd's voices died down as they saw the princess wipe her tears on her sleeve, a smile flitted across their faces as they started chuckling. No matter how tough she became, she was still the little princess on their hearts.
"What are you laughing it!!?" She screamed as her face turned red,the crowd laughed even louder she puffed up her cheeks. She'd worked so hard to get to this point, but they still treat her like a child.
She turned towards the wealthy group and moved towards a quiet man in the middle. He was quite plump and had an amicable smile, but his kind eyes often left others unsettled as if they could see into the inner workings of many things.
Even as she felt disdain for this man, there was a respect she held for him compared to the spineless gathering he surrounded himself in as they could not take her gaze and made space as she stepped forward.
"Princess... this humble servant wishes you a fortuitous trip, may our gods protect you in your endeavors."
She was taken aback, she'd expected sarcastic remarks to undermine her authority as he'd done since the beginning. Even the rest of his gathering would speak without hiding their intentions of taking control once she left, badgering her to divide the authority among them as if she were already dead.
But this, was too honest and genuine. Her mouth stayed agap.
He sighed as he saw her reaction. "Princess, regardless of what you think of me, even I know that our lives are tied together on this boat, even if I have ambitions I do not wish for my success to last less than a few weeks if you have any orders I will obey but I hope you understand that when you return victorious will be the moment I start again.
"Jyaha, I hope you can take care of our people while I am gone." She said with a small bow.
This time it was his turn to be surprised. It took him awhile for the words she spoke to register in his head. "Princess you do realize that this gives me time to welcome your return yes."
Even though the words were nice she understood the meaning, if you give me power I will have more time for preparation to fight you when you come back.
Without pause she replied, "I understand clearly, but I also know that you are probably the most capable to lead in my stead as you have even picked out my flaws. And as power hungry as you are, I know you wouldn't betray our people for it."
This was the second time he was dumbfounded. "Haaai, as noble as your father," she didn't know if he was talking to her or simply saying it to himself, "I will wait for you to return stronger than ever."
His words although rebellious still comforted her, he was saying, "I will wait until you return before I do anything but I hope that you come back a stronger adversary than you are now."
She simply nodded to reply.
She passed by him and moved towards a hit near the village entrance, beside it a small frail looking man propping his body up on a cane.
"Guru, I hope you can keep Jyasha in line if he plays around."
The old man didn't respond.
The nobles and wealthy thought she was mocking them as they became became angry. Only Jyaha seemed to wipe off some sweat that came down his forehead.
"I don't think there's any need to bring guru into this," he said.
The guru just replied with a "hmm" before showing no signs of vigor or life anymore.
"Thank you guru," Iyesha bowed before turning to her warriors and riding away.
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"Why lord why!?"
Zhao Wei was standing above his kill, mourning for it as if it was his brother. He was doing so exactly because he had not meant to kill it. The beast under him looked like a normal fish except for the fact that it's fins look like fans.
He and Myra had been working tirelessly yesterday, and when night came they weren't greeted with any kindness as the temperature became even colder as compared to when he was in the hills. Even in his insulated quarters, the cold barely let him rest for an hour or two
Safe to say he wasn't having any of this shit today. After a few hours of rewardless trekking through the desert, he'd found his first life form. It was this exact fish that flew through the sand like a sailboat through the seas.
He couldn't quite figure out how far evolution had screwed up, but he suddenly had an idea. Picking up a spear, he tied a length of rope to it. Instantly entering a throwing span even Achilles could be proud of he let the spear loose.
He considered that if he could catch it this way, it might struggle to escape and pull their vehicle forward. Unfortunately for the fish, this man wasn't very familiar with the physics of inertia and judged strength by size.
The fish's size itself was comparable to a medium size beast in the forest, but it didn't have the same durability, instead most of its constitution pushed towards speed. When Zhao Wei's spear pierced it, it was already moving at a ridiculously high speed causing the rope's length to finish quite quickly.
Once the rope went taut, the fish's low durability couldn't hold against the sudden resistance of a few tonnes posed by the vehicle. In an instant, it's body split in two where the spear pierced it.
Zhao Wei became depressed as the desert was a genuine desert indeed. During the time they spent here, Zhao Wei had only spotted this single beast. He prayed to encounter other beasts of this environment as he couldn't continue just trudging through the sand daily. Just as he thought so, several similar flying fishes sprang up in the sky about a kilometer away.
Excited, he dashed away while carrying several of his spears. He ran towards their area just between a sand dune dune in front of him and the next one. Once there however, he stopped.
His mouth was agape, what he thought was a sand dune about 9-10 kilos away was much closer than he thought. In fact it wasn't a sand dune at all. In front of him was a gigantic white whale.