Of Blues and Violets

Chapter One: Icemoon Kingdom

Sitting obediently in her firebone chair and swinging her short legs, Princess Lilith takes a deep breath of the cold air, letting it out slowly through her lips with her eyes closed. When she opens her eyes, the glistening red irises mirror the entire field of verdant plants, thriving as if they're growing under the warm sun.

But the suns in Crystal Galaxy cannot provide warmth to any planets due to the planets' innate production of ice from within their cores and the blizzards surrounding them for the greater part of each Ladian year. Amongst vast lands covered in white, with trees, vines, orchids and flowers blooming white-colored leaves, this green field is really a medicine for sore eyes.

"Your Highness, they look beautiful," Maya, the lady-in-waiting, compliments her with a pleasing smile.

"Naturally," the little princess replies cockily, her words in complete contrast with the look of innocence on her face. "They are flowers I grew myself, after all. Since I am beautiful, it is only normal for the things I make to be as beautiful as I am."

'Such conceit; no wonder the King and Queen won't let you out of the Kingdom,' the lady-in-waiting complains in her heart.

But the lady-in-waiting knows that there's no lie in what the Princess just said. In the entire Icemoon Kingdom, it is said that the Queen's beauty is unparalleled. It wasn't until the Princess was born that this status has changed and the Queen herself is the first to acknowledge this fact. The Queen is even more proud of the fact that her first child with the King has inherited all the good attributes between her and the King. From the moment she was born, Princess Lilith has, time and time again, proven that she exceeds both of her parents in all aspects—mental strength, spiritual strength, beauty, and intelligence.

But they also know that the Princess has exceeded the normal sets of domineering bones and ounces of narcissism in her body.

"Your Highness, shall we look at the dresses that the Queen has chosen for your upcoming ceremony?"

Princess Lilith finally turns to look at the kneeling Maya. Her face is naturally pale with beautiful purple shadows around the sockets of her glowing red eyes. "Who says I'm going to the ceremony?" she asks with a calm voice.

The lady-in-waiting looks up briefly but doesn't dare to meet the Princess's eyes for too long. "T-the Queen sent the head of the servants to remind this commoner about it this morning," she answers with a shaky voice.

In this Kingdom, of those who have already had the honour of meeting the Princess, who doesn't know that the King and Queen hold her dearly in their hands? She shows them a very innocent face and acts like a fairly obedient child. However, when none of the important people are looking, her face changes as fast as the wind blows.

Not one among the servants dare to criticize her in her face, lest they get the royal punishment once the Princess starts acting pitiful to her family again. A well-behaved appearance, a look of trying hard to endure bullying in secret—just one act is enough to put the entire servant system into the brink of reformation. It happened once and everyone in the kingdom remembers it even to this day.

Yet, the royal parents who are aware of what the child is doing behind their backs just let the little princess have her way.

The lady-in-waiting doesn't understand why, but she also doesn't have enough courage to ask.

"This ceremony is to celebrate my awakening as a powerful guide," the Princess says with a soft voice, but her words are quite sharp. "However, it is also where bastard sentinels would be flocking to try to get friendly with my spiritual beast so they can guarantee themselves a reliable guide in the future. Do you think those i***t sentinels jumping like wild manamos* are worthy of my presence?"

'Of course, not. You're the only guide who also has an offensive power, after all,' the lady-in-waiting can only reply in her heart, for fear of offending the Princess, too.

"I was wrong," Maya immediately says, bowing her head.

"Prepare the winged fox, I'm going for a stroll," the Princess announces, jumping down from her seat. The embers of the firebone chair stick to the Princess's indigo dress—along the intricate details and silver linings on it. The Princess casually whispers a spell to put out the fire burning the chair until the special firebone material looks almost like an ordinary wooden rocking chair.

After changing into a more comfortable set of strolling clothes, a hundred guards line up the hall while waiting for the Princess.

"This General sees Her Highness, Princess Lilith," a tall, young man with similar glowing red eyes greets. The guards behind him are all kneeling in a standard royal greeting, waiting for the Princess to acknowledge them before they can stand.

"Royal Uncle, the Duke of Iver," the little princess greets back with a small nod, gesturing for the rest of the guards to be at ease. "So many other noble titles, yet you choose to address yourself as a General. As expected of my favorite valiant relative."

The man can only give her a small, doting smile.

The little princess generously gives a smile back. "Any news?"

The General hands her an ice tablet. The moment that the Princess touches it, first it glows in a dazzling blue light, then the screen proceeds to show her the General's memories of the past seven days.

"This ship..." the Princess says with some interest. "Was it just hit by a debris?"

The General nods his head. "We've observed this ship from the time it has almost passed through our galaxy's borders but it just passed through and probably didn't realize that an invisible barrier almost hit them. It was a blessing-in-disguise that it was hit by a large debris and missed the force field surrounding our gates while trying to dodge the other debris."

"Where were these people headed?" the Princess asks, replaying the almost comedic scene of a very advanced ship getting hit by a mere, insignificant debris.

"They went to the Milky Way Galaxy," the General replies with a firm tone. "The reconnaissance team went back after observing for a few days. The ship didn't look like an army ship but rather just a normal royal ship probably strolling to see if the legendary planet has finally come back to life."

Princess Lilith nods in understanding, laughing a little after playing the scene three times. "Aren't these advanced ships have layers and layers of protective shields? How can a very conspicuous debris hit them? Let alone, cause a disturbance to their warp speed."

"It is estimated that a powerful stimulant is in this ship, which triggered the protective force fields and magical arrays surrounding the borders of the Crystal Galaxy. This probably caused the ship's central command and protective shielding systems to go awry, making them vulnerable to dangerous factors from the outside for a short amount of time. After going through space storms twice and almost getting sucked by a blackhole, the ship seemed to have regained its control so they went back to their warp track."

"Intriguing," the little princess muses to herself like an adult, collapsing the ice tablet into thin air. "What kind of a powerful stimulant could be in an ordinary royal ship?"

"According to our observation, the ship seemed to have the brand of the most powerful royal family in the Saiban Galaxy..." the General says, letting the words fade.

When the little princess looks up at him, eye-to-eye, the two of them, uncle and niece, can both guess what's in each other's minds with just one look.

"Could it be...?" Princess Lilith murmurs with three parts doubt and seven parts excitement.

"The Fauxham Empire had secretly dispatched a hundred thousand SS-level sentinels to search for a missing imperial beast thirty Ladian days ago..."

"That's fifteen Ester days in advanced planetary sytems' common dating system," the little princess supplements. "Which means it's probably almost the same time as when the royal ship took off from the their imperial capital."

The Princess tightens the ribbons of her cape around her neck with a knowing smile on her face.

"What a waste to use a hundred thousand capable soldiers for an imperial beast," she says with a flat tone. "This imperial beast probably snuck into the royal ship so ignorantly because it heard that an expedition to try and look for the legendary planet is happening. The imperial beast is quite capable, almost triggering all of the alarm system in the entire Crystal Galaxy."

The General nods, once again admiring the little princess's analytical thinking.

As a half-daramin and half-human, daramans must be the only race with the lowest number of offsprings and the closest to extinction. All the remaining daramans are currently within the planetary systems of the Crystal Galaxy. The most powerful ones of them are all in the royal family of the Icemoon Kingdom—the De Lucs.

Letting the rest of the other races outside believe that the entire Crystal Galaxy is in seclusion and indifferent to secular things outside of their own borders is a form of racial preservation. They don't take part in intergalactic wars and their galaxy's borders are protected with complicated arrays that drive off zergs. After all, most of the races living within the Crystal Galaxy are races that are close to extinction. At a glance, these races may seem to be at a disadvantage in case stronger invaders or hostile alien species attack.

However, the daramans have a special unorthodox advantage that other races don't.

Memory inheritance.

From the first born daramin and human ancestors that united to create the first ever daraman baby, the latest offspring of the generation can inherit the collective memories. They can also share them at will to someone who share the same race. Accurate understanding of historical events that they can witness with their own eyes through memory inheritance is an indespensable advantage to surivival, and at times, it also makes the inheritor advance their strength more stably than their peers in other races.

They experience hundreds of thousands of different lifetimes in one breath. The joys of learning new things, the excitement in discovering something, and inevitably, the immense pain behind some unsuccessful endeavors.

Something that the little princess is yet to overcome on the day of the ceremony.

At birth, daraman babies would be implanted with a hex to close a part of their spiritual field that would trigger the memory inheritance. This is because the babies are not strong enough to accept a vast stimulus that can result to a spiritual force destruction. It is not until they undergo through their awakening that they get to accept the memory inheritance by removing the hex. Because they are also at their most powerful during their awakening, most daramans would choose this moment to begin the inheritance ceremony.

What they didn't expect was for the little princess to experience her awakening at such a young age.

The King and Queen of the Icemoon Kingdom are both restless with worry. They haven't done the necessary mental preparation for the princess and haven't trained her to accept great grievances that are not hers to endure. However, the memory inheritance is supposed to be accepted in full and cannot be granted in partial installments. It must be triggered at a time when the inheritor is at her most powerful, which is the case for the little princess at the moment because she has just succesfully gone through her awakening not too long ago. Right now, she's already at S-level peak guide, nearly crossing to SS-level in one go. They have already delayed the ceremony for as long as possible while the little princess is still consolidating her power, but any later, the princess might not be able to succeed in accepting the inheritance if they still try to delay.

It's just that... she really is just too young.

She's practically a child.

Not to mention that the princess is suffering from a condition called 'hyperthymesia'.

So it is only reasonable that the royal parents are drowning in worries.

On the contrary, the little princess is fearless. "I have something to discuss with the Royal Uncle." She gestures to the lady-in-waiting, who then calls on the waiting royal guard.

Princess Lilith pulls on the General's hand to join her in her stroll. She has so much power in her body that she needs to have an outlet to practice it while she's still not using it to control the memory inheritance.

"A winged fox?" the General asks with obvious amusement in his voice.

"Otherwise?" the little princess replies with a proud look on her face.

"Nothing," the General replies with a smile. "After you, Your Highness."

The little princess showcases her skills by using a lightfoot spell, jumping up and riding the winged fox. She has practiced her guiding skills on royal beasts and all these beasts are tamed by her. Most royal beasts have similar spiritual field construction as that of sentinels. The more powerful a royal beast is, the harder it is to tame them.

It just shows how powerful the little princess is to be able to tame such a huge royal winged fox, and she's barely eight years old.

The General rides his own winged tiger to join the princess for an aerial roundtrip in clear air. When they can barely see the Icemoon Kingdom and can only see a wide view of a white forest, the General controls the beast to fly closer to the Princess.

"Is there something on your mind, Your Highness?" he asks.

Princess Lilith lets her winged fox land perfectly on a white mountain clearing, her silvery white hair floating valiantly behind her head and draping over her black fur cape. Seeing such child moving like an adult can only be described as adorable. However, the look of melancholy in her eyes cannot be disregarded.

She waits for the General to land right next to them before speaking, "I have something to ask of the General."

Frowning a little after seeing the grave look on the Princess's face, the General quickly promises his loyalty. "I'm at your service, Your Highness."

The little princess nods, giving the General a side glance while knotting her little fingers behind her back. She looks into the sunless horizon and finally tells the General about her plans. "I need to disappear during the amalgation period of my memory inheritance ceremony."

The General doesn't ask how or why. He simply replies, "Does big brother know?"

"Both Mama and Papa know. A siphom prisoner suddenly disappeared on the day of my awakening. The same siphom prisoner was caught during my birth year, placing a small imperial beast in the royal canary. I'm afraid that it's a ploy to get my own spiritual beast to recognizing a beast that's not mine to tame by placing it amongst those that I'll be trained to tame later. It wouldn't have been so worrying if not for the identity of the prisoner."

The General is not surprised that the little princess is aware of the most confidential secrets in the kingdom's military. She even knows about the siphom prisoner and the events that happened in the year when she's still not old enough to understand anything.

It is widely known that the siphom race has the ability to manipulate minds by using their own spiritual force. Once they invade the spiritual field of a gifted sentinel or guide, the only end can only be death for both the invader and the invaded by spritual field destruction.

In other words, this siphom prisoner might be a potential deathmate*.

"Then I'll speak with big brother about it so that we can plan accordingly," the General agrees readily. Obviously, he already knows about the siphom prisoner or he wouldn't easily acquiesce on impulse.

"I can only rely on a number of people at the moment, Uncle. When you speak to Papa regarding this, you have to take him far away from the castle. I'm not sure I can trust everyone in there for now."

The General takes a quick glance around them and all he can see is white. Then he nods, finally understanding why the little princess suddenly invited him to stroll the entire kingdom on a whim. "I'll find a way to invite the King later when he gets back."

Finally at ease, the little princess smiles with a proud look on her face. Without a warning, she casts a spell to pull out her ice sword and points it towards the General to challenge.

"Sword time," she playfully tells him.

The General can only shake his head and bring out his own ice sword and start testing the new tricks that the little princess learned from her sword training.