Gwyn shook his head and did his best to snuff out a grin. Spending some weeks away from everyone was enough to give him a little wave of nostalgia. As if only good things happened on his trip to Nun. He knew better than to let that feeling win, but couldn’t stop himself from shouting hello to Odell as well.

  They waited as the Aqueenian transport sailed off to the yard, and the newcomer lowered the platform for disembarking. Odell ran down the platform and caught an unprepared Gwyn in an extra long arm. Fiona, likewise, was pulled in by the other.

  “It’s so good to see you!” The Hobusian cried. His skin was hard and rough against Gwyn’s, and his arms seemed larger than he recalled. As he let them go and tried to do the same to Harlan and Rheba, Gwyn got a better look at the grey prince. Shoulders were wider, and legs beefier to accompany the bulky arms. The crown that had shattered in Nun was slowly starting to grow back out.

  Harlan sidestepped Odell’s embrace, and Rheba simply laughed and knelt to return his greeting.

  “Odell,” Fiona said in shock, “Has Donn’s brainwashing gotten to you too?” She sounded genuinely concerned to Gwyn and even looked at him with wide, nervous eyes. “You don’t think you’re going to get a desire to work out as well, do you?”

  “My Odell has been working hard!” Cecilia, suddenly between Gwyn and Fiona, piped up. Both the earthling and princess jumped a little. “He’s embraced the path of the hammer, one of the most noble Hobusian paths, and is even training with….”

  “Cecilia, we can talk about that later,” Odell said with a laugh. He looked around at the crowd. “So, Hal is the only one left?”

  “Oh, he should be here soon!” Fiona chirped.

  “If he shows up,” Gwyn muttered.

  “I just wish you people knew how to be prompt,” Harlan said. Gwyn wondered if he heard some annoyance in her voice.

  Hal crossed his arms and stared out at the open water with a frown. Just in the distance, he could see the resort beginning to take shape, and the thought of having to frolic and play was causing pain to form on his jaw and the back of his head. Times were serious, and he should be doing more important things.

  “What are you doing, grumpy?” a masked Aqueenian girl leaned her face very close in front of his. She smiled.

  “You should have stayed in Roanoke.” Hal had repeated the line about twenty times when the trip started, but the reply was always the same.

  “And miss out on the fun!” The girl spun around, waving her arms dramatically as if she were performing a play for an invisible audience in front of them. “And miss the walks under moons-light, miss romantic dinners of the finest cuisine, and miss-”

  “Those that care should be subjected to your words.”

  The Aqueenian girl, green with a long black ponytail on the side of her head, spun around. The little bit of mouth showing under her mask turned downward, and she put her hands on her hips.

  “You, sir, don’t have a romantic bone in your body.”

  “Romance is for fools and the deceased.” Hal looked at his metal hand, opening and closing it a couple of times, “I prefer to live in the real world, Sab… Masquerade.”

  The girl grabbed his metallic hand, seemingly not caring about how unnatural it was, and grinned at him.

  “Love is the realest thing there is!” Hal sighed.

  “You best hope it is more real than our companion's memories, lest you be seen as a villain right away.”

  He already did not want to go on the trip, but giving his sisters some fun in times that would only grow more tumultuous seemed like the proper thing to do. Yet, the green girl who not so subtly invaded Roanoke was intent on following him everywhere as well. He wondered why Feya bothered to allow her to stay around. The green-haired soldier sighed and scratched at where his artificial arm met his skin.

  “Reformed villian! That’s what I keep telling you! Love has set me on a new path in life!” Masquarade wrapped her arms around Hal, he sighed and slipped out of her grip. She grinned at him, then made a surprised face before smirking.

  “Hal,” the voice of his sister, Haleigh, came from behind with murderous implications. "You shouldn’t be making public displays of affection, especially with that biaskylo.” The masked girl leaned into Hal and kissed his cheek. He sighed and shook his head, pushing her face away.

  “The more she is encouraged, the worse she will act,” the boy groaned.

  “You wanna fight?” Haleigh was clearly too distracted. Masquerade laughed to herself and wandered to the front of the ship. The resort was getting ever so closer, and a crowd had clearly gathered on the docks. Hal was sure it was going to be some familiar faces. They were a headache, but at least some could be reasoned with. Others needed to be kept as far away from his sisters as possible.

  This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  The younger twins charged up the front to stand next to the masked girl. Isabella tried to lean out further than she should, but the Aqueenian girl gently grabbed her by the shoulder before Hal had to intervene.

  “It’s so pretty!” Izzy shouted.

  “I can’t wait,” Gabriella more quietly added. Seeing the two happy loosened Hal’s jaw—just a little. The trip was for them, after all. He would make sure it was a good time, even if it became the last good time for a long while.

  Odell was the first to notice the odd ship in the distance—or perhaps the first to notice what was wrong with it. Others began to gawk and talk about it in their group soon after he laid eyes on it. The hull was completely metal—that was the first thing anyone would see, but that meant it was far too heavy for hover technology. The boat floated in the water, like something from the pre-needaimus era, which baffled the young prince.

  Why would they give up superior hover tech? The waves were well known to be merciless.

  Beyond the metal hull and primitive flotation method, Odell next locked eyes on a series of large metal cannons that sat in the center and could seemingly rotate to either side. There were only four, but that was enough to suggest the ship meant business. Yet, the heavy weight, the lack of modern technology, and the Netzian symbol painted on the side told him the thing was really a showpiece more than anything else. They were so busy thinking about whether they could, but no one thought about whether they should. He laughed to himself and turned to nudge Gwyn.

  The earthling stood more still than the others, staring with wide eyes at the ship. He gulped and pulled a pill from his case. Odell waited until the medicine was swallowed before elbowing him gently.

  “Can you believe the Netzians? Their ridiculous, huh?”

  “Netzians?” Gwyn repeated. “Ridiculous?”

  They waited until the ship stopped a ways off, and a smaller boat lowered down to come ashore. Lots of green hair bobbed across the waters in a proper hovering vessel. When it came close, the hover tech made a loud hum as the small boat lifted up to the dock.

  “Hal! What is that thing supposed to be?” Odell laughed to the Netzian once he and four ladies were standing with them.

  “The latest ship in the Netzian Fleet. Virginia's Love.”

  “More like Virginias Sink. How do you expect to keep that thing in good condition when it's touching the water all the time?”

  Gwyn stepped forward with narrowed eyes.

  “Odell boats on earth all touch the water; that’s normal.”

  The prince found his friend's comments intriguing but couldn’t respond before Fiona joined in.

  “Ah! Why are we all talking about a boat? It’s the beach, it’s fun time! Hal just brought four beautiful ladies with him! I mean, they are probably the famous sisters we've....” She looked at a masked Aqueenian with a look of suspicion, then leaned close to the grey prince so she could speak softly, though they were so close it didn’t make a difference how quietly they spoke. “Odell, wasn’t he talking to a green Aqueenian girl back in Nun too?”

  “You’re right! You said she turned out to be evil, though. You don’t think?”

  “It might just be.”

  The duo spoke in unison.

  “He’s got a thing for Aqueenians!”

  “Especially green ones!” Odell added. The masked girl looked at Hal and grinned, her mouth barely visible where the mask cut off at the bottom, but the expression was still clear. He shook his head and rolled his eyes.

  It wasn’t rare for Netzians to have a thing for Aqueenians, but Odell never met one so open with his tastes. He patted Hal’s arm, feeling unexpected metal beneath the sleeve, and nodded his head. “We will give you our full support.” Fiona nodded along, and even Gwyn—though he looked a bit confused about everything—made a weak nod to show his agreement.

  From behind the group, Hal’s sisters had started to mingle with the others on the dock. The two little ones stood and gawked at the giant Bentulousian warriors.

  “Wow!” a louder of the two said while staring up at Rheba. “Did you get so tall from drinking milk?” Rheba looked at Fiona, who beamed, and then at Harlan with her blank expression. Cecilia piped up and shuffled over to smack Rheba on the back.

  “You got it, little ladies. Make sure you eat all your vegetables, too, if you want to get so big and strong!”

  “Did you forget to eat your vegetables?” the louder twin asked. Compared to a Hobusian, they weren’t that much shorter. The girl only laughed and ruffled the twin’s green hair.

  “That’s right, you should learn your lesson from big sis Cecilia.”

  The grey prince was sure he might have fallen over in shock, but managed to stay standing all the same. Never in a million years did he expect to see Cecilia do so well with some children. Sheltered as they seemed to be—given the shock at seeing a Bentulousian. The older sister, someone roughly about Hal’s age, stepped close to the twins to pull them away. She said something about being rude, but it was so soft that the grey prince wasn’t sure if he heard right. Then, she quietly tried to introduce herself to Gwyn before retreating behind her brother.

  Odell saw Harlan whisper something to Rosemary, and the turquoise girl piped up immediately after.

  “Well, we don’t want to stand here all day; let’s drop stuff off and hit the beach!” Her words were enough to get the crowd moving, and soon, everyone began to grab things to carry. Fiona, for her part, disappeared in a flash with a stack of cases, much to the groans of Gwyn and Rheba. Odell stayed near the back of the crowd, with the Netzian’s party just behind him so that Cecilia could chat up the twins.

  He tried not to eavesdrop, but he couldn’t help but overhear the older sister say to Hal, “You didn’t tell me the Nonpareil was good-looking!”

  Odell didn’t look back but had a strong feeling the expression the soldier made wasn’t a pretty one.

  “That was beautiful,” Simeon said through tears.

  Sinatra snapped at him, “Shut up, they haven’t gotten far yet.”

  The trio had managed to sneak under the dock when everyone else disembarked, but now hung to the supports under the dock as tightly as they could.

  “But all the princess's friends showed up, and everyone chatted like the good old days,” the Fiona fan club member wiped tears from his eyes. He slipped free from his support, and the other two had to grab his shirt to prevent the crier from being lost in the waves below. “But we didn’t get any pictures!” the man moaned and wept more.

  Sinatra sighed. “If you are going to be like this the whole trip, we aren’t going to get anything productive done.”