Road to Ruisea

❆ ❆ II. KUMARI ❆ ❆

"I'm boooored."

"Why don't you go find something to read?"

Kumari's become accustomed to this response, but it doesn't stop her from being annoyed every time she receives it.

"I've read so much today. Can't I come to see the sailors with you?

"No, Kumari," her father speaks up. "You've better things to do in safer places. It isn't a Princess' job to deal with grubby fishermen."

"They're travelers," Kumari argues. "And they bring back cool stuff for you guys! I want to see, too."

"No."

"Aw come now," her mother says, and Kumari's surprised. "Eltin... She can come see. No harm ever came to anybody who saw them. If she were to, oh I don't know, stand in the gallery overlooking the throne room..."

"What?" Kumari's face falls. "No, that'll suck! I won't get to talk with anyone—"

"What do you think you'll have in common with a traveler?" Her father snaps. "You hardly know anything of other places."

"I do too," she frowns. "I study every day."

"Don't argue now," her mother chides. "Kumari, the offer is open. You can come and look, or you can go and read some more. The choice is yours."

Kumari made the desperate choice, of course, and came to see the sailors, who'd traveled the oceans and returned to present their greatest finds to the King and Queen.

That isn't supposed to imply Kumari hates reading — quite the opposite. She loves to read, all her life, books were her favorite thing. She loves stories. She wants to be able to tell her own one day.

But that's not what her parents mean when they tell her to go and read.

It means to take a book on mathematics, chemistry, mechanics, what-have-you, and read it until she understands everything. And Kumari as much as she loves to learn new things, gets incredibly sick of reading about the same algebraic formula over and over again, hours on end, every single day of her life until Allah knows when.

It was boring.

She liked fairy tales, or going through old journals. She liked stories of adventures, far-off places, daring sword fights! Magic creatures, fairies in bottles and genies in lamps. Despite all the troubles an adventurer has, they always come out on top.

Kumari liked those kinds of stories best.

Most of the time, mid-study, she'd grab a book like that instead, read to her heart's content, people who never existed or people with lives long past, imaginaries and phantoms now her only company in the lonely library.

Not tonight.

Tonight she leaned against the gilded rails of the gallery, looking at the sailors with a sigh. Some sailors had brought their children along, sons and daughters all around Kumari's age and she gazed at them with such envy. They get to travel the world with their family, and Kumari isn't even allowed two steps out of the castle.

They bring out wooden or metal chests, filled with glorious things. Shiny gems and jewelry, fruits of all colors and sizes, and books... So many books. So many new things Kumari would love to read, instead of the same knowledge regurgitated over and over again.

After everything has been taken out, and the sun has began to set, some objects dismissed and others kept for themselves, the King and Queen, Kumari's father and mother, send the sailors on their way, wishing them a fond farewell and clear waters on their next journey.