“A miracle!”

“T-The Swampling’s Curse, they actually cured it!”

“I implore the Lord to take her highness’s remedy to the seven cursed in the healer’s hut!”

Amidst the sound of the jubilant crowds of Slanout’s settlement, the terror wrought by the sudden incursion of the curse slowly but surely faded away. The men and women, both cultivators and not cheered by what could only be a miracle, a blessing by the princess’s wisdom.

Young Harund held his wife’s hand with tears streaking down his eyes, and his elderly parents prayed a tribal chant of good fortune for the two mighty little saviours.

Healer Kond sat with her back resting against a coniferous tree to the side. However, her weary eyes could not hide her exhilaration at all. Apprentice Adol passed her a wooden vial of rejuvenation potion from a small pouch tied to his gheist-skin belt.

“Good work,” He said, his eyes peeping at the two children running around the Red Pengyte, surrounded by a joyous crowd of village people.

Kond grinned, “I feel like I only did grunt work.”

She then slightly craned her neck upwards as the milky moonlight of the unveiled celestial bodies washed her earlier gloom away. “…. How many more babes will be saved every year from now on because the princess read … a scroll in the main house’s archives? What absurd providence, how capable she is despite her tiny frame.”

“And now you know of the cure as well, Healer Kond, as you are the first healer to help the princess realize the cure upon a sufferer. In times like these, you should be proud. Proud, I say!”

Kond laughed. She was amused at this young apprentice alchemist who had been trying to so obviously court her for the last few days. She had noticed his gaze since the day they travelled to this new settlement under the Shire Shamanka’s orders.

Before, she was confused about his fondness since that was the first day they had met. And honestly, she was a bit wary of the young man.

But today, his words rang true in her ears, and that wariness also seemed to fade ever so slightly.

Indeed, she was proud. Both at her newfound willpower to defy her master’s unbending disciplines and at her ruling clan, which was undoubtedly under the eyes of the benevolent heavens.

*******

Onthoakt Slanout watched his people cheer without façade at the only good fortune to visit them since the collapse had begun. He knew that since the moment the first victim of the swampling’s curse appeared last night, his people had been living through a kind of paralyzed fear.

First, the order to abandon their homes for a far-off land, then the migration filled with all sorts of peril. Finally, just when they reached their destination, the curse.

A little venting would help calm their tense minds.

So before he knew it, almost every dhionne in the settlement had gathered in the clearing after the word of a remedy spread like wildfire.

Stones were banged, and songs were sung. Whether it was the old, young, or children who did not know what was going on, everyone celebrated as if it was the last hunt of Spring, the end of Bloomwater.

“I knew it would work! I just knew it!” Slanout’s ears picked up princess Agwyn’s prideful exclamation. The girl had caught up to the prince and pounced on him with a jump. Almost as if they were putting on a display of intimacy in front of their subjects.

Prince Elrhain tried to dodge with a pale face, but the princess moved like the twilight shadow, deftly clutching onto her prey… then stumbled on a pebble as her bodyweight tumbled them both towards the ground.

Luckily, the watch member had a quick reaction and caught the two kids who were now pulling each other’s hair.

‘… uh, intimacy… they are engaged, right?’ Onthoakt Slanout mused within. But amidst these adorable antics, he noticed a particular point some nobles had revealed to him a week earlier when he had just arrived with his people on this mountain.

The victor of the two toddlers’ battle for supremacy was decided in a heartbeat. The triumphant princess now hugged prince Elrhain’s neck with her chubby arms and coiled around his waist with her stumpy legs from behind.

Onthoakt Slanout frowned. His East and West Lakes peers claimed that the prince had nothing but a farmhand servant’s talent.

Slanout could not discern the validity of that statement without the help of a corresponding ritual. Still, it did seem like the prince was far feebler than the princess, even though they both were nurtured equally by the main house.

Yet, Slanout was not keen to believe every word of those two factions with their conflicting ideologies. Because, from his own observations, the prince was far brighter in mind than the childlike princess. He was more intelligent than adult folks Slanout’s own age if he were to be truthful.

His way of expressing logic and justifying the princess’s proposal for the cure was akin to a truth-seeking mage or an Impelakty scholar.

The princess, on the other hand, though far stronger in body prowess than the prince… ‘seems to have random mind spasms? A curse of another sort, perhaps?’

Slanout blanched, then slapped his face hard with his hairy palms. He should not be even conceptualizing such heresy!

And besides, wasn’t she smart enough to read scrolls from the archives at barely three cycles old? Which family’s toddler could do so other than the prince?

Slanout remembered that it took him until he was well into his teenage cycles, if his memory served him right, to master Uorian symbols. Even then, he could barely read the mundane Uorian scripts used in non-cultivation scrolls, such as discwalker memoirs and life recounts of past Slanout Elders. He would have instead wrestled a Racadger than read something so bland. Because fighting a gheist would actually take less time, willpower, and energy!

Onthoakt Slanout slapped himself again just to be sure he would not accidentally blaspheme.

“Oooh.”

When Slanout looked down, the princess had dragged the prince by the hand and stood in front of him with mouths agape.

“Are you slapping yourself because you feel dumb for not believing Annie when I said I could help save the weak servant auntie?”

Slanout was speechless.

The princess grinned.

“I know.” She patted his legs as if she were his elder, “It’s fine; there aren’t many people smarter than Annie. You don’t need to slap yourself.”

Behind her, the prince had practically fallen down from laughing. He gasped out at the princess, “That’s an impressive achievement considering your parents!”

Before Slanout could even register the horror in his thumping heart from the nonchalant prince’s absolute preposterous line of words, an ethereal voice sounded from all around with a wave of rage palpable in every word spoken.

“Oh, is that so?”

The two kids jumped up like spooked rabbits, then ran in the opposite direction from where the mass of blue and green water swirled into existence. A breath later, the frame of an incensed faediaga stood there with bloodshot eyes.

*******

“What did I tell you two about staying out late! Humph, is that so? Now you two don’t even listen to mommy, huh?” Cyra crossed her arms and pouted, her foot stomping on the ground repeatedly like clubs.

““We’re sorry””

The two kneeling kids whimpered. But…

“No, I don’t believe you. Also, why are you kneeling on top of Alleigh?” Cyra asked while faking a scowl.

“Because the ground hurts my knees.”

“Alleigh’s fur fluffy!”

Cyra snorted; this time, she didn’t have to fake it. But for some reason, her irritation at the two died downwind, and she recalled what had just transpired.

The kids ran to Alleigh in a hurry as soon as they heard her voice. They then woke the sleeping pengyte up and told it to lie on its belly.

Before Cyra could even reprimand them for their irresponsible behaviour, they had climbed on top of the gheistrum and started kowtowing in Cyra’s direction. Alleigh only arf’ed confusedly from beneath, its tongue sticking out, trying to lick the pouch of meaty snacks Elrhain had placed down beside its snout.

Cyra was so stunned she had almost forgotten what she wanted to say, then had to stop herself from clapping her hands in admiration.

Truly, her daughter and son were the cutest in the world! They had even learnt to act pitiful before being punished!

But no, she could not spoil them too much. She had to instill proper values into these two smarty butt chipmunks as the clan matriarch and an outstanding mother.

Cyra picked them up from Alleigh with her tender aqua vines, then placed them on her lap, belly down, butt up… and raised her hand overhead.

Elrhain realized what was going on and screeched like a wronged husband, “How dare you, vile woman! How dare you disgrace me like this!”

While Agwyn sobbed, “Mommy doesn’t love Annie anymore!”

Cyra paled. Her resolve to be a strict mother melted away like the last snow of Snowrend, and she could no longer bear to let her hand fall. To spank the two pitiful kids like how her maids educated their sons and daughters.

“N-No! Mommy loves you both the best!” She hugged them with an agitated heart and started showering them with as many snuggles and smooches as she could. “I-I know, it’s actually Alleigh who stopped you from leaving early, right?”

The Pengyte’s fur stood up as if it was bitten by a thunder eel, and it yelped wretchedly before dashing down the mountain with its tail between its legs.

“…. Captain Anouk?” Cyra narrowed her eyes towards the dutiful watch member, who now shivered like he was ten feet under iced water. The watch member, Captain Anouk, shook his head left and right as hard as if his life depended on it, stammering, “T-This, t-this one, h-hic!”

Cyra turned her gaze away and finally glared at the noble lord of this settlement, who stood gawkily with no aristocratic grace.

“… or was it the dhionne of this village who wanted to gobble up my cute children all by themselves?!”

Slanout almost fainted at the accusation as he kneeled, banging his head on the dirt ground so hard that soil and gravel exploded out in all directions. The loud boom echoed like the shattering of a boulder. Every member of the settlement present, from Kond and Adol, to the hunters and mages, from young Harund to even his aged parents, followed the Onthoakt’s lead as they prostrated to beg for mercy.

“I accept my punishment for troubling the prince and princess!”

““We accept our punishment, oh mighty Faediaga.””

Legs were shaking, tears were falling. Couples hugged their spouses, and parents hid their children. But behind all that fear, there was a silent fortitude.

No one ran. No one blamed.

When the servants of this village looked at her children, there was no accusation towards them for the punishment they might suffer.

Only gratitude.

Cyra tilted her head in confusion. She had just joked light-heartedly to cover her embarrassment at not being able to admonish the children, but this reaction…

She looked down at the two cute criminals sitting on her lap and asked in wonder, “What exactly happened here?”

Her daughter suckled on her thumb while her son hid his face by pressing it against her bosom.

Cyra grinned, then asked the same question to Captain Anouk, who had by now regained his nerves.

The man was still frightened, anxious he had wrought upon himself the chieftainess’s wrath. But after one more glare from Cyra, he faithfully recounted what had taken place throughout the day.