The journey to Port Bajhal where we would take our ferry, takes about 3 days by horse wagon, and in that time, the majority of what Riko did was stare blankly into the landscape of the road ahead.
To me, who had traveled on these roads my whole adult life, there really wasn't much to it but I suppose for someone who had not taken a single foot outside the castle walls, such a landscape for sure was a sight to behold as her natural opal eyes dazzled at the sight.
"Is it really that fascinating Riko?"
"I've just… never seen so much green."
Animals like deer and rabbits would also routinely appear from the woods onto the road in front of us.
"Hu."
"Yeah?"
"Stop the wagon."
"Uhhh… Okay."
I did as she commanded assuming there was only one reason she would ask.
"I've got soft paper if you need to use it. You've never had to do this in the palace, huh? But this is the outside world now Riko. So you'll have to go into the woods a bit to find a spot to relieve yourself. Understand Riko?"
Before I could finish my sentence, the bald princess hopped out of the wagon, but it was not into the woods she was going to but rather…
"No wait Princess! I wouldn't go near that."
On the side of the road appeared a large bear.
"What?! No, don't worry Hu! There have been plenty of stories with this exact scenario like one I read the other day about a vagabond girl! If I'm really friendly to it, I know it'll be my friend and I'll be able to ride on top of it all day!"
"..."
"What, you don't agree? Are you against wild animals, Hu?! That's so cruel! They are beautiful creatures with souls just like us! I'm going to be just like that vagabond girl."
It was at that moment when I thought about my philosophical belief that people can only learn the lessons about life themselves through experience.
"I didn't say anything, it's your life, do what you want."
"Okay! I'm going for it then! Come here little bear! Who's a good cub?"
She approached to within 1 meter of the bear who quickly turned around to stare at her.
"Ahhhh so cute, hello Mr. Bear, my name is Riko Natashi. You are looking mighty befriendable today!"
"How many candies did she take?" I thought, "Wait… her eyes were opal, is this just her natural personality talking?"
"Would you like to be my friend, Mr. Bear? We can go on adventures together and travel to the great unknown! It will be a lot of fun and you know, that's what life's all about! Having fun Mr. Bear, so what do you say?"
"..."
"RAAAAAAAAAOOOOOOOORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR"
"... AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH"
As expected, the bear, feeling a nearby threat, began chasing after the Princess who was quickly running back towards the wagon.
"HU, HELP DO SOMETHING. AHHHHHH WAIT WAIT NO HU HU! WHY ARE YOU GOING INSIDE, SOMEBODY HELP ME AHHHHHHHHHHH'
I sighed, grabbing the spear I had kept in storage and bringing it outside.
"I think I remember how to do this. Close one eye, predict the motion and…"
*Shling*
I must have hit a vital organ as the bear immediately fell to the ground when the spear raptured through it. Some blood spilled out hitting the Princess and painting red on her green dress. She just sat there on the ground, in shock upon seeing the bear's dead body with a spear through it in front of her.
"Hu…"
"Sigh, it's okay Princess, rookie mistake, now clean yourself up before…"
"That was awesome! Oh my god!"
Her expression lit up as she went up to the bear.
"Wait, how did you do that? I want to try! Teach me teach me teach me!"
So much for "befriending" animals. She went to pull the spear out of the bear, but unfortunately her body mass was too light to do so. I dismounted out of my cart and began walking towards her.
"Grrrrrrr I almost got it. How is this so heavy? Urgh, if only I had more weight on my top half."
"Pfff…"
"Was that a chuckle Hu?!?!?!" She turned to glare at me angrily.
"I changed my mind! I'll show you! I don't need extra weight! I'm strong enough already, watch!"
She began pulling at the spear again, closing her eyes in an attempt to focus more strength into her arms.
"Hrrrrrrrr"
*Shling*
The spear finally unsheathed from the bear's corpse.
"There we go! Nothing to it, I'm plenty strong as is! Mathematically proportional!"
"Right…"
As she opened her eyes however, she noticed that I had in fact also used a hand and grabbed onto the spear to help her dislodge it.
"Oh come on! I had it! Put it back in, let me try again!"
But I did no such thing. Instead, I held the spear high in the air where the princess jumping would not be able to reach it.
"We don't have time for this Princess, here, help me load the bear into the wagon, its fur and meat should cover the price of our voyage when we sell it to the merchants at Port Bajhal."
I began pulling the bear's body towards the wagon with the Princess quickly coming to help.
"Wait really? How come I've never seen you do any hunting then if it pays that much."
"I only do it when I need to, it's usually quite dangerous. I'm not that accurate with the spear you know. I only knew how because on my last visit to Kuhan, the locals taught me and gave me a spear in exchange for some watches I had at the time."
"What, no way, that was such an accurate throw though!"
"It was more of a lucky shot to be honest, I feel like I would have missed 4 out of 5 times."
"Four out of… wait what would you have done if you missed then?"
"Alright, let's load him in!"
Using my full body weight I lifted the bear, throwing it into the wagon.
"Wait but… HU… you would have helped right? Ahahahaha if you missed, that is. You had a backup plan right… right?!?!?"
—-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
- 2 days later -
Location: Port Bajhal
"So how much are you looking to get out of this?"
The Princess stayed behind me nervously as I negotiated with the butcher.
"Well good sir, as you can see this fine authentic bear is from the Central Canlantic Woods. It's in good condition being fully adult sized and having very few bugs in it.""
"Mmm… I don't know about good condition. I see a hole here."
"Well yes, in order for me to actually kill the creature and bring it here, I had to use my spear so naturally…"
"I'll give you 100 Jiples for it."
"100 Jip… has the strength of the currency in this country increased that much since I last came? That is preposterous! What is the exchange rate to Cive currently? Certainly it could not have doubled in one year's time?"
"Nope boss, still 1 to 5. Same as it's always been."
"1 to… that's even lower than before! There is just no way such a fine creature is worth only 20 Cive. Are you that greedy!? I can take it to the fur carpentender next door to get at least double that price."
"Do it then, he'll tell you the same thing, bear items just aren't that in demand nowadays."
"Wait, may I interject?" a soft voice said behind me.
"Oh?"
Meekly, the princess stepped up still covering her head with a robe. I raised an eyebrow. About 10 minutes before we entered the shop, Riko had told me about all the heisting stories that she had been reading and how she guaranteed we would get a better price for our bear due to her superior negotiation skills.
"It's simple!" she told me confidently before, "I'll just use a bit of my womanly charm and do a little bit of baiting, and bam, I guarantee, we will get prices at a discount!"
"Uh-huh…"
But ever since then, her confidence only waned as the only thing she really did was hide behind me tucking on my sleeve while I negotiated with the butcher. Maybe now was finally time where she would prove her words right though as she took a step forward.
"Yes?" the butcher asked.
"The… the…"
"Yes?"
"The… the bear…"
It was no use, as much confidence as she had before, for some reason, the Princess had returned to the same meekness she had from her public appearances before I even knew her. There was no way this could…
"Yes, what is it young lady," the butcher said gently leaning over to look closer at RIko. "You can tell me,"
"Eeeeeekkkkk" the princess shrieked, going to hide behind me again.
I sighed, turning back to the butcher.
"Sorry about that, she's a bit shy… as I was saying though…"
"SOOOOOOOO CUUUUUUUUUUUUTTTTTTTTTTEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!"
"Huh…"
10 Minutes later
I stepped out of the shop with a very smug Princess.
"See! I told you I would get us a good deal! He gave us double what he offered before! Ha!"
"..."
After leaving the shop, we returned to the horse wagon. I pondered whether perhaps it was I who did not understand commerce fully. Because while yes, there are lessons when it comes to supply and demand as well as distribution, information advantage, and inflation…
In my hand was 200 Jiples the butcher had paid us. So while all those other things are probably at least somewhat important to learn, really, the only thing one needs to be wealthy seems to be high levels of "cuteness". Amazing, even with a covered head, the Princess's cute factor was through the roof.
"Well Riko, you proved me wrong."
"You're damn right I did!"
We continued to talk for a while about nothing really too important. Just the usual silly nonsense. Somehow, she just kept blowing away my expectations of how interesting of a person she would be.
"Say Princess,"
"Yeah?"
"Why were you so meek in the butcher shop when usually when you talk with me, you talk faster than you think?"
"Oh nono, that's my usual self,"
"What?"
"Yeah, I would say Hu, I am naturally very meek and shy around people, why do you think I lock myself in my room all day?!"
She curled up into a ball.
"The outside world is a very scary place with lots of scary people."
I thought about this for a moment.
"Wait, but if that's true how come you're not the same around me?"
The Princess looked at me with a puzzled look tilting her head sideways in confusion.
"Oh that's because…"
Her eyes gleamed a bit,
"You looked so soft that I couldn't take you seriously at all!"
"..."
Using her index finger, she poked my stomach.
"Squishhhh"
"Owww, okay I get it I get it, I'll watch what I eat."
"What, nooooo… just stay as you are, it's like you're the giant bear, Hu."
"I see…"
Wow, the Princess thought of me as nothing more than a soft wild animal. Now I have depression.
"Ah but, that's not how I see you now though."
"Oh? Do explain."
"Mmmm… let me think."
She put a finger to her forehead.
"Hmmm…"
"Is this really something that takes extraneous thought?"
"Mmmm…""
"..."
She looked like she was trying her best.
"Okay, it's not that I don't want to, it's more like, it's much harder to, now."
She began staring at me intensely.
"Oh uhhh ummmm uhhhh…" I gulped as I could feel my cheeks turn red again, "What… what do you mean by…"
"I just mean after knowing you for so long, there's not any particular version of you that is fully you on any singular day, right? I feel like there are 10 Hu's actually, yeah! 10 different versions of you. No wait, let me think…"
She began counting on her fingers.
"Spear Hu, blushing Hu, negotiating Hu… no actually, there are at least 15 versions of you! Probably more waiting to be unlocked! I mean it makes sense right? It's not like people are static, reading any book will tell you that. In an interesting story, there's always character development!"
"I'm just a character in your stories then?"
"Yeah! I mean that's basically what life is right?" She smiled looking back to the road. "Just one big story! And I'd say you're a pretty important character in my story!"
She turned back to me.
"So yeah! There's no possible way to actually describe you! Hu is just Hu, simple as that. I hope that answered your question. It's not that complex, okay! I'm just still kind of shy around new people, you're obviously different.
"..."
"What, you don't think so, Hu?"
"..."
"Hu?"
A tear rolled down my cheek.
"Hu? Are you alright,"
But before more tears came, I quickly turned to my side, wiping it and gathering myself.
"Ye… Yeah, I'm fine," I replied. Honestly I was pretty speechless at her kind words. Luckily I didn't have to say anything as we had made it back to the wagon. I opened the curtain for us to hop on.
"Ah but honestly, I am happy Hu," she said as I helped her in.
"Why's that?"
She sat down in the wagon turning to me with a smile.
"Because, I just saw another version of Hu I didn't see before. And that makes me happy."