Serendipity

Festival

Naida's pov

Like every year my father and I headed down the steps of the castle last with Skeppy and Sam taking the front to ward off crowds and Ant and Eret being there as a buffer. As my father and I stepped onto the cobbled streets of the kingdom all the crowding people began to cheer and clap.

"King Bad! Happy birthday!" Someone cheered.

"Princess Naida's grown again." Someone pointed out.

"You saw her a month ago." Someone else pointed out.

"Is that the Prince of Quisling?"

"King Bad! Princess Naida!"

"It's them! They're here!"

My father and I smiled and waved at everyone as we passed. My Dad was accepting gifts here and there, flower crowns, Teddy bears, little bracelets, his arms were filled with all of them.

The people acted as if they never saw us which was far from the truth. I would go exploring the city every couple of weeks and my father did his best to appear publicly at least once a month. We wanted to have good relationships with the people of the Kingdom we too, care of.

"Thank you! Hello. How is everyone? Hello! Thank you so much." Dad said, accepting gifts and trying to be polite.

It took about an hour to get through all of the crowds and to the podium for my Dad's yearly speech that was always improvised and always terrible.

"Hello Everyone! Thank you all for your warm welcome today and thank you all for arranging this wonderful event! I don't think that me turning 2,346 is anything special but I'm grateful for the thought put into this event. I hope you all have fun tonight because that's what this is all about, fun! The Badlands was created for fun and freedom and by complete accident and I'm glad it's still like that today. Now I really had no idea what to put in this speech and I was hoping that an idea of what to say would pop into my brain when I was up here but that doesn't seem to be the case. Let's just skip all the boring speech stuff and have fun!" Dad cheered, clicking his fingers and causing rows of floating blue soul fires to light in the sky. They were high enough not to burn anything but low enough to provide light, the people of the Kingdom let out awed gasps and cheers as they witnessed the creation of the fire. "Let the Festival begin!"

With that everyone scattered, going off to buy food or trinkets from stalls, play games or dance to the music being played in the main area.

"What do we do now?" Eret asked from where he stood beside me.

"We join everyone else and enjoy ourselves." I replied.

"We just join the people? That would never happen at home but, I like it. In a weird way it shows equality." Eret said.

"It's litteraly a Kingdom wide birthday party, now come on!" I said, grabbing his arm and dragging him down off the podium and into the crowds of people. "Now what do you want to do first? Games? Food? Dancing?"

"I've never tried festival food before." Eret said.

"Right, that's it! We're getting you nachos and cotton candy right now." I said.

I pulled Eret along with me, occasionally getting stopped by people who simply wanted to chat or shake hands. When we made it to the stall that sold the foods I needed Eret to try we were immediately brought to the front to be served.

"Hello there Naida, here for your yearly fix?" The stall vendor, Felix, a man that had been serving me since I was a child, said in a bright and joking tone.

"Of course. I found out a crime has been committed and I'm here to fix it. Eret has never had nachos." I said.

There was a small gasp from behind the stall before a little head of black hair popped up to look at us.

"That's very bad." Nora, Felix's daughter said.

"Don't worry, we'll fix that in no time." Felix said as he began fixing up our food.

"I see you're growing into the tiara Nora." I said.

I had given the little six year old my tiara when I first met her two years ago. Every time I saw her she had it on and it always seemed just slightly too big.

"Yup! I'm gonna be a princess like you when I grow up." Nora said.

"The world needs more princesses like you." I said.

"Who are you mister? Are you Naida's husband? Like mommy and daddy?" Nora asked.

"I'm Eret, I'm the Prince of Quisling and I'm here on a visit for my father. I'm Naida's friend." Eret explained.

Nora's eyes lit up when Eret said he was a Prince.

"You're gonna fall in love like in Cinderella!" Nora said earning a laugh from myself and her father.

"Order up. Enjoy the food, tell Ant I'll be up to the castle to drop him off some candy from Isadora at some time this week." Felix said as he handed me three plastic tubs filled with nachosand cheese.

"Only if you tell Isadora I said hello. Your new baby has kept her so busy I haven't seen her in forever." I said.

"Will do, enjoy the festival." Felix said.

"Bye Bye Naida! Bye Bye Eret!" Nora said as she waved at us.

"Bye!" Eret and I said as we left the stall to continue walking amongst the crowd.

I handed Eret the tub and he started at it in pure confusion. I laughed at him as he tried to work it out.

"How do you eat this?" Eret asked.

"You use your fingers. You just pick it up and eat it. That's how you eat most festival food, that or its on a stick you have to bite it off of." I explained. "Sam! Get your food!"

While I had been hanging out with Eret Sam had been mastering the art of following me and not being seen. It only took a minute for Sam to pop up and take his food from me before he disappeared back into the crowd. You'd imagine a 7'4 half creeper dressed in armour would be easy to spot but in amongst groups of piglins, Endermen and half rabbits it wasn't so easy to pick him out.

Eret seemed hesitant to try the nachos but once he did his face lit up.

"Why isn't this stuff everywhere? It's so good." Eret said.

"No-one makes it as good as Felix does. His wife Isadora makes the best candy too, all of her chocolates look like little jewels." I explained.

"Their daughter is pretty cute." Eret said.

"She really is." I said.