Prince David sat and stared at the sea of snow. The Hearted continent was the only place truly suitable towards life left in this world, but there was a unique beauty to the devastation brought by a god’s wrath.

It was an endless waste of white.

The prince had been taking his one break of the day. He knew he was spoiling himself a little bit, but he needed to rest. He could rely on his subordinates for a little while at least while he recuperated his mental facilities.

Many extravagances were brought up to the north with the ship. But the prince’s favorite by far was the one window. He had brought a single window and placed it in his office. Prince David would sit and watch the snowflakes fall to the ground.

Each one was beautiful and fat, unlike anything that he had ever seen in Vena Cava. The weather was very strictly controlled in the city, and the prince had never seen a truly devastating winter before in his life. It was tranquil and beautiful in a melancholic way that struck deeply into the prince’s being.

But every rest comes to an end eventually, and even if his loyal minions were taking a well-deserved break, the prince was given no such luxury.

Somehow, while exploring an endlessly dangerous and abandoned continent there was always more work to do.

The prince started walking towards Ian’s lookout position, he wasn’t the last line of defense for their little fort, but he was the most formidable. Ian had humbly requested to have a small watchtower built for him to live his sedentary lifestyle in and defend the castle from.

Ian was a man who used to be full of conviction. He used to be a shining pillar of courage and a beacon of hope for all those who were lucky enough to know him. Then he got old and was forced to make the hard decisions that idealistic young people never think about. He was hardened and wished to truly be left alone in his solitude.

So, Prince David made sure to visit him every day just to keep Ian from being too lonely. But he did make sure that he wasn’t followed by Joy or Lillian, those two were attracted to causing mischief and general inconveniences. They were like moths to a flame, except the flame was making prince David do more paperwork and spend more money.

Prince David finally got past the final hill that led to Ian’s abode. It was a very simple tower, erected simply by a couple Earth gifted that David had brought along.

“Knock Knock.” The prince said to the air as he rapped on the cold stone doorway.

The knocking was a nice pleasantry, but wholly useless, in the open plain there was no way that Ian didn’t notice David’s approach. So, the prince didn’t waste time on the ceremony, and brazenly walked into Ian’s home.

It was a temporary residence, but Ian had brought nothing along except clothes and a sword. The walls were as barren as the wintery landscape.

The prince started climbing the set of stairs and listened to the click and clack of his feet as he ascended. It was quite funny, no one ever notices how much a nice carpet dampens noise, living in these sparse conditions, every noise echoed and resonated throughout the home. It would drive the prince mad, but that’s why he didn’t live like this. He had brought his many accoutrements from his home to spice up the boring life he knew he would be living on this forsaken continent.

Ian was sitting at the top of his tower, bundled under a few layers of cloth. Watching.

The prince wasn’t sure what he was watching for, but he was incredibly intense about it. This whole operation had just started, and this was a massive continent, they would have to be stupidly unlucky to be close enough that their enemies could find them.

“How’s it going up here?” When the prince had first gotten Ian to work for him, he had been incredibly cordial and reverential to this mythic figure from the generation before his own. But that soon evaporated once the prince realized that Ian didn’t care about looking powerful or in charge, he simply knew he was.

“Quiet, and I hope it stays that way.” Ian sighed.

It was always a wonder for prince David, that this was the man who was known as Bloody Ian, a man who had taken the lives of an entire army like he was Death themself. He just seemed so small and tired compared to the demon that the aristocrats always played him out to be.

The prince made this trip mostly to assess Ian’s mental wellbeing more than anything else. And seeing that Ian seemed to be in a relatively healthy state of mind, the prince decided to leave on a good note.

They shared their goodbyes and Ian silently watched from his post as the footprints of the prince faded back into the wintry landscape.

There were only two other important people left in the prince’s compound. Sure, there were quite a few people that the prince liked having around as it made his job easier, but the only true essentials were himself, Ian, Sam, and the Courier.

Sam’s workspace had always given the prince the ‘heebie-jeebies’ thus he always avoided it when he had the chance. It had never been perfectly clear exactly how Sam’s seer abilities functioned, but the prince had learned that Sam’s gift needed snakes. There were so many snakes that just slithered around Sam’s workspace, combined with their flute. It would make even the most hardened veteran shiver with goosebumps.

Approaching the door to Sam’s workspace the prince took a deep breath and mentally prepared himself for the horrors of the snake pit. He knew it was irrational and that Sam’s snakes couldn’t hurt him, but he was still a little frightened, just a little though.

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Eventually he hyped himself up enough to crack the door open a smidge, just to check if Sam was even in there.

All that the prince could see in that darkness was slithering bodies, their scales glistened in the bare lighting. Slowly, what seemed like hundreds of pairs of eyes turned to face the prince.

“Eeep!” The prince let loose an incredibly heroic and valiant shriek that seemed to echo through the, thankfully, empty hallways.

A small sigh escaped the prince’s lips as he recovered from his little shock. He was glad the halls seemed to be empty, since he had an image to uphold, and the little shriek was not a part of that image.

“Sexy.” A voice emanated from the surrounding hallways. From behind a nearby corner Sam appeared.

“Can we just pretend that sound came from the door?” The prince batted his eyes, hoping his endless charisma and charm would be able to sway the ineffable Sam.

“What brings you to my side of the castle, oh shrieking prince?” Sam had a shit-eating grin on their face, and the prince knew there was going to be no escape from his fate.

He tsked then replied, “how is your search going?”

“Well enough, there is an entire continent to search after all. No matter how prestigious my abilities are, it will take time for me to find it.”

It made sense, but it didn’t make the prince particularly happy.

“Well, anything specific you need me to do for you during the search?”

“If you find some of the locals and bring them to me my search will go much faster.”

“Locals? I thought this was an abandoned continent?”

To this Sam’s shit-eating grin faded and bit, and look a deep profoundness came over their face, “there are only two things that refuse to die out on this planet my dear prince. Ivy and human civilization.”

After a brief pause to let the prince digest these thoughts Sam continued, “just because their civilization isn’t to the scale of Vena Cava doesn’t mean it doesn’t exist.”

“I really hate when you keep important information from me, just to reveal it in an ostentatious way. Wouldn’t this whole operation go faster if you just told me everything before we started?” The prince grumbled.

Bit by bit, the shit-eating grin came back onto Sam’s face, “well, that wouldn’t be very much fun for me, my adorable banshee prince.”

Having had the last word, Sam opened the door to their private workspace and slammed it shut behind them. Leaving the prince to stew in his indignation alone.

After the prince finished his brooding, he started walking to his final appointment. He needed to check whether the Courier had received anything new from Rose.

Oddly enough, the prince was not quite sure what the Courier’s name was. The prince must’ve learned it at some point, but it just seemed to have slipped right out of his mind. On a second thought, the prince realized he had never heard anyone call the Courier anything except “the courier” or “Mr. Courier.”

Honestly, it was rude of the prince to have not learned the name, so he put it on his agenda to make sure he asked the courier what his name was.

The courier had been given nearly first dibs on picking out a space for their office, just after Sam and the prince himself. And he had picked an unassuming corner in the middle of nowhere. Not that the prince was snooping in on anyone’s business, but everyone seemed to think that he had picked that corner in hopes that Joy would never be able to find him.

Apparently, Joy was still owed a significant amount of gold that had never been repaid. So, the Courier made everyone who visited him swear not to tell Joy where to find him, lest their letters got ‘lost in transit.’

The prince was not exempt from these conditions, but he did feel a little cheated. There should be no need to keep the Courier’s secret with the exorbitant amount of gold that the prince was paying.

The door to the Courier’s office space was a beautiful wooden door, that had been repurposed from the ship’s junk pile. No one enjoyed the castle made entirely out of rock, so everyone made sure to bring a few bits and bobs to liven the place up. Like the lovely door that marked the Courier’s office.

The prince knocked on the lovely door, making an even and powerful rapping sound. It truly was an exquisite door, maybe the prince would try to buy it off the Courier once they made it back from this voyage.

Lost in thought, the prince waited for the door to open. And kept waiting, the door never opened.

The prince rapped harder. Maybe this was just a mistake, and the Courier hadn’t heard the rapping.

But then the prince heard the humming and what sounded like someone skipping down the hallway. There was only one man in this castle who skipped anywhere. There was only one man who would actually spend his spare time skipping around the castle, being a general nuisance to everyone around him. The door wouldn’t open because the Courier somehow knew Joy was nearby.

This was unacceptable, the prince knew that the Courier owed Joy a lot of money, but this should not be getting in his way. The prince was supposed to be beyond these petty squabbles. But the prince was a man of action, and he would solve this problem, get his damn mail, and then maybe he would kick the Courier’s ass for wasting his time.

“Well, Joy. You’re just the person I was looking for. I have a special mission for you.” The prince started and gave Joy no room to interrupt or respond.

“I need a team to go out into the wild and search for the locals. We know they’re out there somewhere, but we need you to go find them. You think you can do it?”

“Well, you have given me no information on how or where to find them. My skillset seems to have nothing to do with it, and you’re talking too fast. Are you sure you aren’t hiding something Mr. Prince?” Joy posed a question and seemed to have seen through the prince’s flimsy plan.

Flabbergasted, the prince had no idea what to say, so he improvised, “but think of how fun it would be?”

A bubble of silence stretched between the two men as they stared at each other. After the moment passed, Joy opened his mouth in thought, closed it, then opened it again, seeming to have come to a decision.

“It does sound fun doesn’t it. Trying to find the native people of a continent that everyone seems to have agreed was abandoned. You sold me, let me pick out a team and we will leave first thing tomorrow.”

Joy ran away as fast as his feet could carry him, obviously excited about the new prospects of adventure.

A heavy sigh escaped the prince’s lips as he watched Joy’s figure recede down the hallway. The man was far too unpredictable, but all’s well that ends well. He hired a simpleton to do the grunt work, and now he was going to kick the ass of that damn courier.

The time when the prince knocked on the door it slowly opened revealing the Courier and Benny. The Courier looked rather pleased while Benny looked a bit sheepish. Which was for good reason. Benny was one of the prince’s best employees. When did he get poached?

“Sorry boss. He said he would mail my letters for free if I just checked the shadows nearby here and made sure to warn him anytime Joy started getting too close.” The sheepish Benny fumbled over his words as he tried to explain his actions.

“Leave and wait for me in my office.” The prince wasn’t furious, but he was going to make Benny go along with Joy on the inane mission as a punishment.

With that Benny seemed to melt into the shadows and disappear from the room.

“And you. With the amount I am paying you, I do not care if you are on your deathbed, I expect the door to open when I knock. Understood?” The prince showed a much firmer side that the Courier had never seen before.

It was a bit frightening. And the Courier somehow got the impression that the debt he was in with Joy would be a trivial matter in comparison to the prince’s ire.

So, the Courier wisely made all the letters addressed to the prince appear and started handing them over.

The prince smiled. Now this was the treatment he was expecting.