And so, we finally made it to Centralis. Well, the Northern one at least. It’s been half a year since we set foot on Cardina, and to think we’d already have reached a conclusion to our little road trip. Honestly though, it feels like a flash when I look at it. Barely even feels like two weeks.

“So this is the place you’ve lived in during your time in hiding?” Cecily remarked, “Seems pretty normal, all things considered.”

“Yeah, and what’s wrong with that?” I added, “Normal is just what we’re looking for, especially when Nelly’s in the picture. In fact, I’d argue that I lucked out immensely by arbitrarily choosing this place of all places to live in all those years ago.”

“Was it really arbitrary though? I mean, this is where the Grys Estate is, just across the forest over there.”

“Oh yeah, now that I think about it…” I imagined Adam’s hunky face, “Man, that sure takes me back. Did you know that Adam’s my best man?”

“He is?!” She jumped in surprise, “Geez, you never told me that. Well then, shall we go pay them a visit?”

Yeah, that’d certainly be the polite thing to do, but I’m not so sure about it in this situation. If you recall, Adam is on good terms with Lune, he despises the thief that killed his two guards, stole his blueprint and leaked his love letter to Mariabelle, but when it comes to Sol, he’s got pretty mixed opinions about him. The issue here is that all three of these are me, so if he were to realize any of this, it’d only spell trouble.

“Let’s… not do that.” I looked away, “For a busy King such as himself, I’m pretty sure we’d only be wasting his time.”

“Is he really that busy?” Cecily questioned, “He doesn’t seem like the type of guy to be up to his head with work, though.”

Well, yeah. The guy only thinks of his wife, the gym, and taking it easy. Not saying he’s bad at doing his job, in fact I’d argue it’s the opposite. He’s a natural-born leader, so back when I used to live with Marina here I’d always hear from her about how he’d always get everything done for the day and then immediately go out for a walk. That being said, I can’t just tell that to Cecily, so let’s just say he’s the overworked type.

“Alright then, shall we go look for an inn to stay at?” She suggested.

“Actually, let’s just go for a little stroll around town. Nelly’s been doing nothing but sitting around in the transport wagon here, so I imagine she’s raring to go for a walk herself, right Nelly?”

“What?” Nelly replied, “I’m not…”

“Nelly, you’re tired of sitting around, aren’t you?” I repeated the question again, winking repeatedly at her, “And you’d rather we all go for a walk as a family, right?”

“Ah, uhm, yeah.” She nodded, “What dad said.”

Hehe, I knew I could count on my little girl! Seriously, she’s getting better by the day at reading the mood, almost to a fault! Actually though, I’m not sure how I feel about using my daughter to get closer to her mother. Well, looks like she enjoys it too, so I’ll just be a bit selfish again.

Making our way downtown, I had actually started walking to the bar I frequented purely out of force of habit, but I stopped myself before I ruined this date on the first step. Instead, I had turned the corner to another, more family-friendly location.

“This here’s the plaza!” I presented, “You’ll know you’re in the plaza when you’ve got the statue of Selzion staring down at you. Pretty cool, right?”

“Whoa, is this to scale?” Cecily gawked, “If so, he’s a lot taller than Auros.”

“Yeah, but Auros is a midget orc in comparison to this guy, hehe!”

As soon as I said that though, a bird pooped on my shoulder, staining my attire. Damn, I forgot that Auros is watching my every move, but to think he’d even have control of the wildlife. That’s way too scary, sorry Auros!

“Dad, what’s this say?” Nelly tried reading the monument’s glyphs aloud, “Ov…Ouvday…”

“Ovdje leži statua Boga Znanja, Selciona.” I continued from where she left off, “Naš Bog nam je darovao razne blagodati, klanjaj mu se sad.”

“What’s that mean?”

“It means he’s a fan of ice cream.”

Chuckling at my obviously fake translation, she suddenly got a bright idea, “Ooh, can we get some ice cream?”

“Yeah sure! That was actually my inten-wait…” I suddenly noticed, “Say that again.”

“Ice cream.”

“Not cweam?”

“Uh, yeah.”

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Did she just learn how to pronounce her R’s correctly?! And so casually too, she’s not even making a big deal out of it! Hold on, why isn’t Cecily freaking out as much as I am right now!?

“Humu, that’s right!” Cecily struck a smug grin, “It took a lot of trial and error, but I was actually teaching Nelly how to say her R’s while you weren’t paying attention! Now, praise me!”

“Sniff…” I began sobbing.

“Eh?”

“Why?! Why didn’t you tell me about this, woman?! You took away a precious father-daughter memory from me, just like that!”

“Wait, are you actually crying over this?” Cecily smirked rather uncomfortably, thinking I was just joking as per usual.

“Of course I am!” I latched onto her, “These things are special! You can’t just take them away like that!”

“Ah, o-okay Lune, ha-ha…” She seemed embarrassed, “How about you just calm down for now. Y’know, because people are watching?”

“Apologize right now!” I didn’t at all care, “Apologize for walking Nelly through such an important milestone without me!”

“Alright, I’m sorry!” She too began crying, probably out of sheer embarrassment, “I’m sorry, so please let go!”

“Waaah!” I cried out even more, dropping to the floor beneath her.

While all this was unfolding though, Nelly was simply staring at the situation unfold in front of her with the other passerbys.

“Who’s the adult here again?”

***

“Ice cream!” Nelly finally had enough and stomped on the ground at us, “Let’s go get ice cream already!”

“Ah, sure.” I finally calmed down, “But man, it’s still weird hearing you talk like that. You’re really growing up fast, aren’t you?”

“Hehe, yeah!” She smiled, “I’m gonna be just as big as Uncle Meil in the future!”

“But Nelly,” Cecily felt now was a good time to finally burst her bubble, “When you reach Meil’s current age, he’ll still be a lot older than you.”

“And?” She happily continued licking her ice cream, “It doesn’t matter, as long as there’s love!”

“But how can you be sure that Meil loves you that way?” I reasoned, “From anyone else’s point of view, I think he was just being polite.”

“Again with that. I said that it’s gonna be alright!” She threw a mini tantrum, “Besides, all I gotta do is grow up big and beautiful, and he won’t even notice the age difference!”

“That’s not…” I tried arguing, only for Cecily to stop me.

“Just drop it, I don’t think there’s any way to get through to her.”

“But we can’t just let her actually continue thinking like this, can we?”

“Why not, I’m sure she’ll just realize she’s way too in over her head and give up as soon as he rejects her.” She shrugged, “Well, I do feel a bit bad for Meil for having to do that, but I trust he’ll handle it gracefully.”

Man, that’s gonna be super embarrassing for the both of them if that’s the case. I’d rather not think about that, since even now I can almost feel the second-hand embarrassment, despite it being so far into the future. But that’s not the worrying part here. What’s really scaring me is that one in a million chance that Meil doesn’t reject her. Yikes.

“Hey, let’s go to a book store!” Nelly requested, “I wanna learn Cardinic too. I don’t lie dad being the only one that knows how to speak it.”

“Hm?” I turned around, “Oh yeah, that bookstore’s got some great literature! It’s actually how I learned Cardinic, so I can vouch for it.”

Thus, we had entered the book store that was right outside the plaza we were just at. It’s a pretty famous book store too, since most of the newest releases get sent here first, given how the Cardinic Book Printer Company is located in, well, Cardina.

“Wait, is that…?!” Cecily stopped at the Romance section, “The newest volume of Love Between Us?! Man, this takes me back!”

Ah, it’s that book! The one that I saw Cecily reading that actually got us talking in the first place. Right, I wonder what ever happened to those two in the story. The pacing was notoriously slow as hell, so I’m honestly not even expecting them to have even kissed yet.

“Yikes!” Cecily quickly shut the book before Nelly could see its contents, “T-To think that they started adding illustrations to the prints… Ha-ha…”

“What’s inside?” Nelly tried reaching for it, “Come on, show me!”

“No, you’re too young to be seeing this type of stuff!” Cecily warned with a bright red face, “Besides, the pictures are rather… Uncensored.”

“Okay, now I’m interested.” I donned a serious face as I yoinked the book from behind her, “Let’s see here… Ooh-la-la! Look at those mammaries! Still not as good as yours though.”

“Hey! Just what the hell are you saying in a public space?!” She took the book back from me, “Geez, would it kill you to act like a proper adult for one second?”

“What’s this I’m hearing? Little Miss Virgin gave me her maidenhood and now she’s suddenly talking all high and mighty. How utterly ironic…”

“Lune!” She hissed before putting the book back in its shelf, “Sigh, alright. I guess the more I get mad, the more you’re just gonna continue teasing.”

“Aw, shucks. Finally figured me out?” I stuck my tongue out playfully.

“You damned dork.” She snickered.

What’s with this banter? Really reminds me of our time back in ARA. Ah, those were the days… Actually, I don’t even think Nelly was even born yet at that time. No, it was just us, a couple of teenagers ever curious about all sorts of things. That being said, just what the heck is going on in these newer volumes? By the Gods, if we had those illustrations to point us in the right direction, I think Cecily and I would’ve had a kid waaay before Nelly was in the picture.

“I might buy it.” I took the book out of the shelf, “I’ve been meaning to catch up on some old literature, and this nostalgia trip really helped me make that decision.”

“Seriously?” Cecily rolled her eyes before laughing modestly, “Just keep it away from Nelly, alright? Heck, since ARA’s library only had up to Volume 8, I have a lot of catching up to do as well.”

“Yeah, twenty volumes, to be precise! Now let’s go find Nelly’s Cardinic Book and go find ourselves a home!”

“Yeah!” They both chanted in unison.

In the end, we had bought three books: Love Between Us Volume 9, Hemming’s Cardinic Course – Basic Phrases, and Schnell’s Handbook Volume 1. Now I know what you’re thinking, “Lune, this again?”, but get this – I didn’t buy this book! Cecily was actually the one that bought it, despite me not even bugging her about it once in the past.

“Have you read this?” She asked a funny question, “I’ve heard about it before, and stopping by all these historical sights and monuments got me into an adventurous mood. Heh, maybe you should take a page or two out of his book…”

“Yeah,” I stifled my laughter, “Maybe I should.”