Charcot, capital city of the Guillain Kingdom. A magnificent place filled with even more people and buildings than the duchy, bigger too. Standing like a lighthouse on the edge of a cliff, the palace, where the King himself and his royal family lived, made its presence known not by its thick impenetrable outer walls and gates, nor it’s daunting high towers, but by the sheer luster of its brick. Bright yellow. Almost fading into the background of the high sun hadn’t it been for the dark roof sitting on top of it as if to reassure us that the Golden Palace, was in fact, still there.

  However, even when I focused my eyes to the far-standing glob of gold, it didn’t help to diminish my nausea. A year of studying and preparation did not help much against this feeling of sitting in a carriage being rocked side to side. To put into words what it felt like, imagine a carriage placed on top of another carriage, while that one was being pulled by a drunk horse.

  “My apologies, my lady, but the boutique is still quite far… Should we take a rest at the lodging first?” Melissa’s figure peeked through my limp bangs.

  “Let’s just get it over with…”

  I couldn’t care less that my posture was uncouth and unbecoming of a young lady. Why should I, when these stiffs seats didn’t care about me? At least one of us in this carriage looked to be enjoying herself on this trip to the capital as Melissa sat opposite of me, a purple hairpin holding up her hair.

  “I wonder how the uniforms will be like,” she said with a smile.

  Prestige and honor. Those words represented the uniforms. The former being for the reason that the admittance was not an easy task, conventionally requiring more than a mere year to prepare for. Wearing one of them would therefore mean that you were wise and diligent enough to go against human nature, and slave away at your desk each day with only the idea of entering the academy as a carrot.

  In addition, a person donning the academic robes, they weren’t really robes but you get the idea, must act in such a manner as not to sully the good name of the Royal Academy. Failure to do so would in extreme cases even result in banishment. A permanent stain on your name.

  Raviel told me a story about it once. Some rambunctious fellow had caused a ruckus in some generic tavern in the wall, slinging their mug of beer at every customer that looked at them weird. Her voice had such gusto and she imitated their movements to such a degree that I asked her whether it was her own story that she was telling me.

  “No,” she said, and surprisingly enough, it was true.

  I saw one of those uniforms on some young man earlier. He was doing something admirable, remarked Melissa. Honorable even. I had to wipe my eyes at her words as my definition of honor didn’t match with what I saw.

  He was helping some child that had toppled over. When he started to cry for his mother, the student stood no chance but to console him. Pat, pat, he shook off the dust on the boy’s clothes and told him repeatedly that he was going to be fine, that they could find his mother together. All the while holding a real smile.

  As expected, after the boy scurried off into a nearby alley laughing, the student patted his own pockets and ran after him immediately. Seems like being wise didn’t also mean being diligent about such matters.

  Each uniform was custom-made, hand tailored by a few select tailors and boutiques with permission coming from the academy itself. The one our carriage shook towards was recommended by my grandmother. My aunt had apparently used this one in her younger days, she said.

  The wares sitting behind the shop windows along the road got brighter and brighter until they were finally switched out for wooden mannequins wearing all sorts of garments. Here was the so-called fashion district where famous and no-named boutiques congregated alike.

  Our horse came to a standstill in front of such a shop that looked no different from its neighbor. The only identifier that this was a boutique being the paltry signboard with a drawing of a spool of thread.

  Descending the carriage, I craned my neck to look at the building. “Melissa, is this the right address?”

  She unfolded the note with the location, and said yes. “Look, my lady. The academy crest is on the signboard.” Sure enough, it was there. Faded out by the wind and rain.

  A soft bell rang over our heads when we entered and surprisingly, a familiar pair of faces greeted us.

  “Gosh, look how much you have grown!” It was the seamstress that made my first pair of clothes and dresses when I came to the duchy. And much how I felt like a doll that time, the seamstress went quick to work taking my measurements. Arms to the side, arms in the air. Leg this way, leg that way. Melissa was watching all this with quite the amused look in her eyes.

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  “Assistant! Protect this with your life!” The assistant gave a salute after receiving the piece of paper with my numbers.

  “Mrs. Seamstress, how long until my uniform is ready?”

  “It should not take more than three days,” she chirped confidently. “But may I ask if you’ve already been accepted to the academy?”

  She was probably wondering why I ordered an uniform before even taking the test. Call it misplaced confidence or whatever, but the practice tests that Raviel gave to test me were quite… Easy. Maybe it was because I had a knack for cramming and studying, but in that one single year I had to prepare for the academy, it was Raviel who struggled more than me; finding things to teach me when she ran out of prepared materials.

  But the main reason for my expedited order was something else. One, doing it this way would take the fewest trips, and therefore the fewest rides. And two, I was looking forward to wearing a school uniform again.

  Nothing against my current clothes, but they had this childish energy to them. Frilly frills and light colors; people kept thinking I was a child in them. Mom looked happy dressing me up so I didn’t say anything back home.

  With a gander around the store, it was filled with all sorts of fabrics and textiles. Some were rolled up in huge cylinders that looked far too heavy for the two of them to carry (it wasn’t), while others hung onto the countless hooks and frames, fluttering each time the owners ran past them. And in their wake, a smell reminiscent of nail-polish tickled my nose. A particular black material caught my attention with its sheen and I went to touch it.

  I couldn’t feel anything as the gloves covering my hands were too thick. In fact, these daytime gloves were starting to give me trouble in this kind of weather, clamming up my palm constantly.

  The first thing I did when the day was over, was to remove them. Let my hands catch a breath, so to speak. If only there was a glove that was thinner and didn’t cover up my palm to such length while still hiding my knuckles…

  The seamstress had been standing beside me for some time, looking at what I was looking at.

  “Do you have any designs of gloves of this type?” I told her what I envisioned.

  “A thin glove that only covers up to the knuckle… Why what a novel idea!” You could almost see the light bulb flashing above her head. “Assistant! Bring me a pencil and the catalogue of our thinnest fabrics!”

  They looked to be busy so I left them as the purpose for my visit was finished. The doorbell rattled as they yelled out their farewells.

  Now outside, I heard another yell that made Melissa jump in front of me. I didn’t like that she occasionally did this, her life was as important as my own after all. The yell came from a beggar of some sort in trouble with a noble-looking boy.

  Gazing upwards, I saw that the sun was still high in the sky, acting like no time had passed at all. A fact that was honestly surprising considering the storm that had hit the inside of the boutique with the way they moved around. Even so, they were incredible at their profession.

  Note to self, don’t question the recommendations of the Duchess, whether it be desserts or boutiques. There was a real reason why she remembered this quaint little shop that didn’t stand out among the masses.

  Oh, the beggar fell to the ground.

  “Guard! Are you even doing your job properly!? How could you let this thing grab onto me!” The middle-aged man getting yelled at apologized with his head bowed.

  “Please… Just a copper will do…” The beggar’s voice was pitiful, acting like the most unfortunate thing in the world.

  “A copper this time and then two the next! Shoo! Off with you!” He whipped his hand back and forth, making his blue hair shake.

  And as if his future depended on it, the dirty beggar crawled after him, not caring in the least that the hard pavement scratched at his knees. Begging and pleading to the boy had little to no effect, for he had turned around and hid behind his guard. The man didn’t look to be that experienced in his job however, as his face soured. Affected by the grating cries no doubt.

  Memorizing the most important nobles and their children had been one of the lessons Raviel gave me. This was to prepare me for the academic life because meeting with some of them would be inevitable. Among them, a particular person stood out to me that I definitely didn’t want to meet.

  Marquesses, counts, viscounts and even some influential rich barons, that boy over there was not one of the portraits in the book I had to study. Meaning, I didn’t need to concern with him. Perhaps a nouveau riche noble from the countryside or one of the so-called landless nobles. We were technically landless nobles ourselves, for now at least.

  This was a busy street with enough passerbys to fill my bedroom. And all of them paid no mind as the middle-aged man got his pants dirtied by the beggar’s plight. He stood there, taking it all with a dumb expression in his oversized armor. Even in this world, it was an all too common sight.

  I turned my eyes away and ascended the carriage parked outside the boutique with Melissa’s help. She sat in front of me again, resting her back against the direction we were traveling.

  It was incredible really. How could a person not be affected by that? I may be a special case, but I would like to believe that she would at least feel something. I mean, how could she just be sitting there. Didn’t she get nauseous from sitting backwards?

  Melissa spoke up after the cries faded into the background. “Shouldn’t we have done something, my lady?”

  “What did you say?” The unexpected comment made my voice come out a tad angry.

  “Sorry, forget I said anything…”

  “Why do you think we should have done something?”

  “Because… It’s the right thing to do?” Her eyes met my own, and a split second later, both her hands shot to her mouth.

  I scoffed. “The right thing you say? Because a beggar clings to you with those pathetic eyes, you have to listen to their demands? Should I go and buy him a house while I’m at it?”

  “I didn’t mean—”

  “Enough.”

  Resting my elbow on the windowsill, the cold surface rapped at me each time the wooden wheels met a lump in the road.

  The ride back to our lodging was quiet.