The room had a huge bed for me and Mom to lay in. The curtains on the window were orange and pulled closed. There was a door that led to a large bathroom with shiny walls. The Shulkians prepared such a nice room for us. Mother and I bathed together before she had to leave for a meeting.

Yumi joined me in the room while she was gone. I sat on the edge of the bed, kicking my legs up in the air.

“Yumi, do you know where Janie is?” I asked.

The fox girl nodded. “Yes, she got a room just down the hallway with Adelisa. Would you like me to fetch her?”

“Yes!”

She smiled and exited the room.

I flopped backwards onto the bed and stared at the ceiling. I realized there was so much I could have been doing. I could have studied history. I could have practiced more magic. I could have thought about the history of Earth and incorporated some of those ideas into my magic.

But I didn’t do much of that. Instead, I played around. I painted. I watched the seasons change, and I grew older as a vampire princess. Every day, there were the sword practices. Every day, there were the lessons back home. I was denied a childhood in my last life, but this life I had it.

I had a mother who cared for me, a maid with fluffy ears who adored me, and a best friend who had dragon horns and endless energy. I always wondered why I seemed to be so quick to adapt. Feeling like a child came so normal to me, but Mother said that eighteen years old was still a child to her, yet I never remembered acting like a child this much.

There were so many things I couldn’t explain, and from the eyes of a child a world can look so big.

My internal musings were cut off by the opening of the door, and with it came a running dragon girl. She smiled and jumped onto the bed face first next to me.

“Enala, Enala, did you see the dining room yet?”

I grinned back at her. “No, is it big?”

“It’s not just big! There is meat! More meat than ever!”

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Adelisa’s tail wagged. “I had to stop her from jumping on the tables!”

Yumi smirked. “I am surprised you didn’t jump onto the tables yourself.”

“Even I wouldn’t go that far.”

My mind was brought to Janie who pulled on the sleeve of my dress. “Come on, let’s go eat!”

“But what about Mother?”

Yumi nodded. “Enala’s right, we should wait until the feast starts. It will be big since the princess is here this time.”

I gulped thinking about being in front of so many people. I ran over to Yumi and pleaded with her. “Do I really have to go?”

“Yes,” she said and patted my head, “but it won’t be so bad. You will get to meet all sorts of new people, and no one will treat you poorly.”

I sighed. “You mean because my mother, right?”

Yumi smiled. “That’s right. The people here love her and the king.”

I groaned and flopped back onto the bed. “I am not her.”

Janie’s little head poked into my vision. Her horns blocked my view of the ceiling before her face covered up all of my vision.

“Princess is sad?” She asked.

I shook my head. “No.”

“But Enala is crying.”

“I’m—I am sad.”

“Why are you sad?” Janie asked.

I felt the bed crease, and Yumi sat next to us. “We’re all here for you, little princess.”

Tears flowed out of my eyes and onto the bed. “I don’t know why. I don’t know if I can be a princess. It’s scary to be in front of so many people. To have everyone look at me.”

Yumi touched my cheek with the back of her hand. “You’re very brave.”

I sat up and stared at her. “How?”

She smiled. “For one, most people cannot simply say what they are thinking like now.”

“Yeah, but I am telling you, I want to hide.”

“But you’re not hiding.”

I continued to stare at her like a frozen zombie.

Yumi picked me up off the bed and sat me on a stool. “Let me give you some maid wisdom. Everywhere I go, I am like a background character. Even though all of the eyes are on you or the queen, I also endure those same eyes. I get nervous every time.”

“What do you do when you are nervous?”

“I simply clean house.” She chuckled, and I giggled. “Everyone has something that can calm them, and I think I know just the thing to calm you.”

Yumi summoned a canvas from her inventory and put it before me.

“Princess painting!” Janie shouted and pulled up a chair beside me.

Yumi summoned another canvas before Janie and another one before Adelisa. “Why don’t we all paint something to commemorate our travels?”

I wiped the tears from my eyes and nodded. I already had the perfect moment to paint.

The start was blue for a river and black to highlight the dark of night. Bright and twinkling specs for the spirits, and the final touch was Janie. The dragon had tamed a spirit. The painting only needed a title—something befitting her bravery.

Something that would make me shrug off my cowardice and run after the crowd like Janie chasing after a spirit. There was only one name I could think of for such a painting.

“Spirit of a dragon.”