Sophia Elise the Eighth couldn't sleep.

Not like this was a new thing to her, at this point staying up late was practically an art to the Fourth Princess of the Imperium. Always something more important than sleep; whether that be the next penny novel in the pile of smutty reading material or something…

What other reasons do we stay up late?

Her internal monologue grits its teeth slightly, giving her this already known answer. Maybe we don't actually have any good reasons for why we're a night owl.

Actually, it's to watch out for assassins! Sophia proudly tells herself, reaching into some deep lie within herself. Statistically speaking, a majority of noble assassinations occur between eight at night to four in the morning. If I can be awake for a majority of that time, then I avoid a large threat window!

That was pure cope, but at least it made her feel better.

But there were plenty of good reasons to actually be asleep right now, the largest of which was the fact that they were leaving this house at exactly eight in the morning (seven hours from now).

Finally moving back to Landfall after this veritable summer vacation, finally getting to the meat and potatoes of her forever stay here in the Dominion.

After a veritable novel of misadventures, finally we can actually get the actual story. Sophia criticizes herself. And we're so hyped up we can't even sleep right now.

That was perhaps the real reason why she couldn't settle, and she suddenly sits up from her now mostly cleaned floor bed. "Goddess damned it! I wanna sleep for once!"

And nobody, of course, responds to this plea. The world simply gives her the muffled chirp of cicadas and the low drone of an ocean wind, as it always has.

Her consciousness committee groans, these thought processes already wearing their sleeping fatigues while pulling this customary, yet unnecessary overtime. You know what we need right now? We need a true celebration of our time here. We need to polish off our first three months in Tianci, in this… political relationship… with a real rot till we drop session. A good old classic Sophia Elise 'read till we die' night. All we need is a good book of smut, and the usual lonely way of physical distraction.

There's a long silence, this girl still sitting on the floor in her mess of blonde hair and wrinkled pajamas. But I don't wanna get up and go to the library. I just wanna sit here.

And another thought process also raises its point. And it's not like there's any real selection of smut here is there?

Three months here (two with some language mastery), and not a single bit of cream sauce was on this pasta, not a single bound volume up to par for this girl's… strange tastes.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Dreams are only dreams, reality crushing this Princess' hopes like a sand castle washed away by the ocean tide.

Goddess above please give me salvation! Sophia pleads with that strange god of hers. You love me don't you?!

And part of her self-aware imagination cringes enough to give her this hallucination of a divine voice. I do love you, but this is something else. Girl, you gotta get it together.

The Eighth Daughter of the name Sophia Elise just stares at nothing for the long minutes of silence, waiting for something to happen, some sort of salvation before… it… interrupts her.

It's a furloughed thought process preaching some eccentric theory, a demonic possession of her soul from ancient gods, or a random firing of neurons; it's something that gives her an utterly silly idea. Check under the mattress, maybe someone stashed something there.

Sophia Elise does as she's told, rolling her eyes as she reaches a lazy hand between the mattress and the bedframe. This is stupid, why am I even…

Her fingers run across its bindings of fine leather, feeling the preserved animal skin, the small strings of fiber that tied this thing together. A lifeless object, but this girl could feel something more behind it; like some sort of static charge that lept at her fingers.

Salvation. Sophia has to hold in a cry of victory, tearing the thing out from its stash with a feral desperation.

It's not a novel, this coverless bound notebook large enough to balance on two open palms but thin enough to slip between the mattress and frame without any sort of visible bulge.

A faint scent of decaying perfume upon the paper, these pages yellowed slightly from decades of accidental preservation between soft cotton and hardwood. Kept as it was here for Goddess knows how long, only for this foreign Princess to stumble upon it in this random, desperate search for entertainment.

Read. Something tells her. Read it.

And desperate Sophia was, carefully prying open this first page as if disarming a bomb and ready to utterly consume whatever text awaited her. The Fourth Princess reads this gorgeous handwriting (it was nothing less than art), listening as some inner voice finds itself to narrate these utterly ancient letters, these archaic words, these… verses of song older than the Stygian language. Carried upon the backs of those who braved the gap, those who had breathed life into this world from dust and dead seas:

"Jageun son-e, gamchun haneul-ui bulbit…"

(In your tiny hands, I hid a flame from heaven…)

"Geuttae mollatjyo, i sesang-i eolmana chagaunji."

(I didn't know then how cold this world could be.)

"Eomma-ui maeumeun jangnan anieyo…"

(A mother's heart is not a place for games…)

"Geureseo bireoyo, neol jikil baram-ege."

(So I pray you'll be guarded, not by knives, but wind.)

"Naega jul su eobsneun pyeonghwareul gidaryeo."

(Wait for the peace I could not give.)

Sophia feels her throat shut, something catching behind it like a suppressed yawn. Those pale blue eyes moving to the text beyond this song, a single sentence of contemplation by this… woman who had shared this room before.

If you come as a girl, I will name you after my home. Jae-Hee, joyful and steady.

If you come as a boy, I shall give you a name from your father's home.

I think I'll name you Zai.

Zai Tianci.

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