"Why did you stop?" Silgvani asked the maid kneeling in front of her. Said maid was currently tasked with wiping down the princess's body after her melt-molting had started sooner than expected. Originally, Silgvani had planned to quickly finish her work for today and then check up on Nadine. She had left the alien girl alone after she had fallen asleep yesterday night, and their last interaction seemed to have finally helped her. However, when her lower right arm had left a smear on her desk that plan was thwarted. Wiping off the tough, viscid goo her outer shell was currently turning into was a long and tedious process that probably wouldn't be finished until lastmeal.

"Because I'm done, Your Highness," the maid answered, throwing the dirty molting tissue she was holding in the bin and standing up.

"What do you mean, you're "done"? You just started. All you did was one arm and a part of my belly."

"Yes, that was it. The rest isn't melting yet."

Confused, Silgvani looked down at herself. She was right, the rest of her body was still solid. As a test, she ran one hand over her face. Dry, both of them. Nothing on her body seemed to indicate a start of her molting, save the cavities on her lower right forearm and the side of her belly, where the new shell was visible now. Strange, that never happened before. Maybe the doctor knew something.

"Your Highness, may I come in?" a voice interrupted her train of thought. It belonged to Vassahr, the steward. She dismissed the maid and called him in.

"I just talked with your parents. They asked me to tell you that the bill draft you sent them was flawless. They will adopt it without any changes. Also, they said they would have loved to tell you in person and that you should call them more often."

The Princess cocked her head.

"Didn't I call them right after I came back? That was just a couple of days ago!"

"With all due respect, Your Highness, I doubt Their Majesties consider a verbal report to be a conversation with their daughter. A report that was missing a crucial detail, if I may remind you."

"You may not, I already told you they will learn about Nadine when I deem it the right time. Also, I'm busy. Not to mention the time difference, they are literally on the other side of the planet after all."

Which was deliberate, but that was beside the point.

"Very well. Speaking of, they also offered to look for a partner for you in case you are too busy, as you yourself said."

Silgvani sighed.

"No, I will do so myself. If the topic comes up again, you can tell them I will start looking for one next solar cycle. Anything else?"

"That is all," Vassahr answered with a bow and left.

The doctor's office was empty. Sigvani thought for a moment whether she should press the button to call her. Then again, this didn't seem like an emergency. She was tired and had a slight headache, but otherwise, she was fine. Whatever caused this irregularity in her molting cycle, it didn't seem to have any other immediate effects.

Well, that at least meant she finally had a chance to check up on Nadine.

And who knows, maybe the doctor is with her.

Reaching the east wing, she found the door to Nadine's room to be slightly open. From inside, she could hear the small alien talking to somebody. Her language lessons should already be over by now so that probably meant the doctor was indeed here. Lucky.

She peeked inside to make sure she was not interrupting something important, only to be surprised. The alien girl was sitting cross-legged on the floor next to the bed. And across from her sat... Kiyrtin??

"...but nobody came. "Wolf, wolf" the boy cried again, but still nobody came, and the boy was eaten with his sheep."

A moment of silence followed before Kiyrtin spoke.

"But... why did nobody come?"

"They thought the boy was lying again."

"But they couldn't know that!"

"No, but people see patterns. Imagine everyone would press that emergency button for no reason. At some point, Doc would just stop taking the receiver with her, thinking it's just gonna be used to annoy her anyway. And then, you have a real emergency."

Kiyrtin seemed to think for a while.

"No one else ever did it though."

"And if they start?"

"They wouldn't. My sister only hires people who aren't fun."

Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator.

"And what if they are acting? What if one secretly was... "fun"... but hid it so they could keep working here? What would you do if they pressed the button?"

The young prince cocked his head.

"Huh? What do you mean "what would I do"? They were the ones who did it."

"You would still get blamed though."

"B-but... I didn't do it!"

Nadine nodded.

"Certainly. But be honest, who would believe you?"

Kiyrtin didn't respond. He probably knew the answer.

"Like that," Nadine continued, "their fun would even get doubled because they could keep doing it and you will always get in trouble for it."

"What is supposed to be fun about that?!" Kiyrtin shouted with a mixture of fright and anger. In response, the small alien leaned forward.

"I don't know. What is fun about risking a major political disaster?"

"I-I... uh... i-it..."

"Do you know what makes a good prank?" Nadine asked smiling. "Both laugh in the end."

He looked up.

"Can't I only do boring things like that?"

"You are clever. I'm sure you can figure something out."

Another moment of silence followed, but finally, Kiyrtin nodded, stood up, and climbed out of the window. Nadine looked after him, while Silgvani just stood there flabbergasted. What did she just see?

After a while, without turning her head, the small alien spoke.

"Feel free to come in, Your Highness."

The princess was startled. She didn't even realize she had been staring, what drove her to display a behavior so unbefitting of her status? Embarrassed from being called out, she entered.

"I deeply apologize. That was a shameful display of mine."

"Woah woah, it wasn't a big deal, Your Highness. Really, it's fine. Just... well, your kind breathes quite loudly by human standards, so you were hard to miss. I can ignore it as background noise when we talk, that's no problem, but if it's quiet otherwise, it sticks out."

Breathing? Does that even make a sound? And she can hear that from across the room??

"Well, again, I apologize. I just... I've never seen anyone connect with Kiyrtin like that."

Nadine's gaze wandered back to the window.

"Your brother, he... doesn't have any friends, does he?"

"...no."

"And that's not because of choice, but because of some political bullshit, right?"

"I... am not familiar with that term, but if it means what I think, then... yes, you could say that. You see, to nobles, their children are not just offspring. They are the future of their clan, and to ensure that future, they make sure that their kids forge the right connections. But when Kiyrtin was born, I was already involved in politics, and by now, it is more or less guaranteed that I will inherit the throne, so the noble families see no point in engaging with him."

Nadine nodded once, albeit in a seemingly deliberately slow way.

"Rrright. And let me guess, it's unbecoming of a noble child to play with commoners?"

"Indeed."

"And you? How much time do you spend with him?"

"Not much. As I said, I was already busy when he was born, and the workload has only increased since then."

"Well, then it's no wonder he would end up that way."

That last sentence confused the princess.

"Wait, what has one to do with the other?"

The alien girl looked at her with a tilted head.

"Seriously? Think about it, whenever you scold him for his deeds, you give him exactly what he wants."

"He likes being scolded?" Now she was even more confused.

"Your attention!"

With a sigh, Nadine leaned backward against the bed and looked up at the ceiling.

"I've seen it often enough. No kid wants to be lonely, that seems to go for your species the same way as for mine. So they keep doing the thing that reliably ends that feeling. They might not enjoy getting scolded, but at least it validates their existence in a world that otherwise ignores them. And the fact that, due to his standing, he never faces any real consequences only expedites this."

Silgvani was speechless. She had never heard of anything like that. Moments like this really hammered home that Nadine, despite being a child herself, was more than twice the princess's age. Still, there was one thing about her reasoning that bugged the princess.

"So... you are saying he is not to blame for his actions?"

The alien's gaze snapped to her again.

"What? No! He is a spoiled brat who needs to learn some important lessons. Just... maybe try a different approach. Keep in mind that he is still a child. I know how that sounds considering I'm not much much older myself..."

Yes, yes you are. Maybe now would be a good time to tell her?

"... I mean, what is he, 10 years? Err, I mean... 17 cycles? My nephew is the same age. Before you ask, my grandma had a brother who was 20 years older, that's why the generations in my family are a bit wacky. Anyway, I wouldn't mind spending a bit of time with him, it's not like there is much else I can do. And I'm technically a noble, so it should be fine, right?"

Suddenly, her body straightened in realization.

"Ah! I... s-shit, I'm sorry, Your Highness! That sounded way more accusing than I meant to!"

"It's fine, you don't-"

"No, I... argh, what am I doing? I had planned to thank you, I even took some notes of all the things I wanted to say, yet instead, I fault you for something for which you only have partial responsibility at best!"

Silgvani closed the distance between them. She hesitated for a tigg - sitting on the floor really wasn't something she should be seen doing - but eventually, she sat down across from Nadine, trying to imitate the strange way the small alien was sitting with her legs crossed. This had to be her first time sitting on the floor ever since she learned to walk. Maybe this was some Human tradition? No, that wasn't important right now

"Then how about we skip to that part?" she tried to calm Nadine down. "Though I am not sure what you want to thank me for."

"Really? Because there definitely is more than one thing. But right now, I'm talking about yesterday. I... I really needed that. I didn't think just talking about it, letting it all out would make such a difference, but it did."

She lowered her head.

"So, thank you. Thank you for being there for me. And thank you for listening to me."

Right, better not tell her that she didn't have her translator on.

"So, are you... good now?" Silgvani asked carefully. Nadine shook her head.

"It's not that easy. I'm not a psychologist, but it'll probably take a fairly long time until I'm "good", if I'll even reach that point at all. But for now, I am... better. And that's a lot more than I would've thought- huh? What's that?" she interrupted herself and asked, pointing at the cavity in the princess's belly.

"Hm? Oh, this."

Silgvani explained what had happened earlier, how her melt-molting had seemingly started, but immediately ended again for some reason. After hearing that, Nadine thought for a while.

"I... think I might know what that is. You got time right now?"

"What? Why would you... how do you even know... shouldn't we just wait for the doctor to return?"

But Nadine had already exited the room, seeming almost enthusiastic about it.

"Ghundiy!" she could hear her call one of the maids.

"Yes, Lady Nadine?"

"I need you to fetch me a few things. And some helping hands. Also, see if you can find the Doc, just to be sure."

A few seconds later, her head peeked in through the door again,

"Are you coming, Your Highness?"