Serendipity

City wandering

Naida's pov

From the moment my dad broke the news we all went full chaos mode. Sam and I made a new cannon design and blew up a lot of training dummies. Ant and I gathered all of the Palace staff and played a huge game of capture the flag. Ant and I also drew up what we imagined the Prince to look like and plastered 'wanted dead or alive' posters for him all across the Palace. Sam and I trashed the kitchen making cookies and found as many hiding spots in the castle as we could. We broke every rule my father had set before they'd actually apply to us and my dad helped. He threw us a party where we danced on every tabletop and we went camping indoors. Skeppy, my dad's closest friend and adviser, had done enough swearing for the whole kingdom. Everything fun we wouldn't be able to do when the Prince arrived had been done.

Today Ant, Sam, Skeppy and I were out I the kingdom messing around. My father unfortunately couldn't come as he had to prepare the castle for the prince's arrival.

"This is so fucking stupid, Bad's going through all this trouble to impress some stuck up Prince from a country we could easily defeat." Skeppy said.

"That's not the point Skeppy. Bad doesn't want Naida to experience war nor does he want anyone to die. You forget that Bad started this country with our great great grandparents, he's had far too many friends die of old age he doesn't need us to die prematurely." Sam said.

"Anyone else find it weird that our grandchildren will probably be friends with Bad when we're dead." Ant asked.

"That is how it's worked for as long as Bad's been alive." Sam said.

"Do you think he ever compares you guys to your grandparents?" I asked, turning to walk backwards to continue the conversation since I was walking faster than them.

"All the time, he called me my dad's name last week." Skeppy said.

"To be fair, isn't he like 2,340 something?" Ant said.

"Yup! He's 2,346 next month." I said.

"Geeze, no-one can ever be old in comparison to him." Ant said.

"His immortality and long life is what makes him a great king. He's experienced so much and has witnessed countless failures in terms of ruling countries. He knows exactly how to handle things." Sam said.

"It's weird to think that at some point this huge kingdom was empty land with only Dad's house. It's even weirder to think tha- ah!" I let out a yelp as I bumped into someone and fell backwards.

"Naida, are you alright?" Sam asked, immediately kneeling down beside me.

"Whatch where you're going!" A man in full iron armour hissed at me.

"What the hell did you just say?! You did not just take that tone with my fucking niece!" Skeppy yelled.

"Teach your niece to watch where she's going then!" A second man in matching armour said.

Skeppy looked pissed, blue crystals forming into sharp clusters on his elbows and fingertips.

Skeppy like everyone else in the castle wasn't quite human. He was 6'2 and had blue specs of crystal scattered through his skin that shimered in the sunlight and made him look like he was covered in glitter. He had a diamond embedded in his forehead that could blind you if the sun hit it right. He had short dark hair that was shaved on the sides and chocolate brown eyes. He wore a three quarter length sleeve shirt with a dark blue high collared vest and black dress pants. Despite not being a guard he still carried a diamond sword around on his back.

"Skeppy, calm down. Bad will be mad if we hurt the visitors." Ant said.

"I'm fine Sam, see, no cuts anywhere." I said raising my bare arms for him to see.

"Calm down Dan, it was an accident. It's okay." An accented male voice said.

Sam helped me to my feet and shot a glare towards the men in armour and the man I had knocked over.

"We should head back home, we're technically breaking your father's rules by being out here right now." Sam said to me.

"Good idea! Let's not get fired, come on Skeppy." Ant said, grabbing Skeppy's arm being careful of the crystallised spikes on his elbows.

With that being said Sam led us back through the city to the Palace where we couldn't almost get in a fight. Upon arrival Skeppy left to find my father, Ant left to go on guard duty at the castle gates and Sam and I decided to go to Sam's workshop to continue working on fixing my father's clock.