“I guess the first thing to note is that Jade isn’t my real name,” she said as she rested her head against Aline’s. “Aline’s name isn’t real either, although honestly I don’t think our real names even matter anymore. If anything, the Jade and Aline that sit before you now are more real than then people we once were.”

“I’m sorry,” Nina apologized. “I didn’t mean to…”

“To pry?” Jade asked with a smile, although Nina couldn’t tell if it was genuine. “It doesn’t matter, this story isn’t exactly a secret or anything. I met Aline for the first time when I was nine, back when we both lived on the outskirts of Luem. My father was a clothier that was looking to strike deals with the tailors in the area, one of which happened to be Aline’s family.”

“And so you became friends?”

“It was hard in the beginning,” Jade sighed. “My family was from the orange floors while Aline’s was from the yellow. Her parents didn’t like me very much because they thought I was a bad influence, but the fact was that Aline and I had so much in common so we just… bonded. She was a year older than I was, but we were third and fourth daughters respectively and largely ignored in the family business. Nobody is going to pass down any inheritance to a child that far down, especially if it’s a daughter.”

“Wait,” Nina stopped her. “Does what I think happens actually happen to daughters down the line like that?”

“Yup,” Jade smiled. “You’re married off to god knows where at the earliest possible opportunity because establishing relationships is all you’re useful for. Obviously neither of us were going to let that happen though, so we made a promise to run away together as soon as one of us was to be handed off.”

“That’s… rough,” Nina said as she looked at the pair. Whether it was Aline’s content expression or Jade’s smile, it seemed as though they had gone through quite a bit to get to where they were now. She was almost jealous of them, to have a partner that you could always rely on. She knew that she had pushed people away in the past, but it was just a coping mechanism to deal with her life where she so desperately clung to control. She didn't think her approach had been wrong, but she still wondered what things could have been like if she hadn't always been so distant. “And so Aline was to get married?”

“It was me, actually,” Jade frowned. “I wasn’t even sixteen when my father found some slimy creep from the yellow floors that asked for my hand as part of a long term business deal, and he agreed there and then. Alright, I don’t know if he was a slimy creep or not,” she admitted with a chuckle. “I never saw his face because I ran crying to Aline that very night.”

“Well, it must have turned out alright if you’re here now,” Nina said as she tried to smile. While she understood that it wasn’t even an uncommon occurrence to marry a daughter off like that, she still couldn’t agree with it. If she was put in their shoes, would she have done the same? She thought about it and concluded that she probably wouldn’t have, simply because she doubted that she would have had the strength to stand up to her father if that’s what it had come down to. Could she, at fifteen, run away into the unknown?

“I was scared about what she would say,” Jade continued. “I had always been ready to go with her, but I thought she would have second thoughts about it if it was the other way around. Aline had a lot more going for her than I did, and running away for my sake was almost guaranteeing that she would end up worse off.”

“Mmm, don’t say that,” Aline mumbled although her eyes remained closed. “I promised.”

“Alright, sorry,” Jade smiled as she pinched her cheek. “I know you’re the best.”

Nina’s smile was genuine this time as she watched the pair. She almost felt bad for interrupting the moment, but like a child with a new book, she wanted to know how the story ended.

“So you left?”

“Aline grabbed a bag and we left right away, never to see our families again,” Jade said as she stroked Aline’s hair. “We knew that they would come looking for us, so we took a capsule for a few hours before starting to move from tower to tower the hard way. We worked in clothing shops when we ran low on money, and once we had enough we continued onwards.”

“Do you remember that pink dress you made on SL-96?” Aline giggled.

“That story is for another day,” Jade said as she tapped Aline on the nose before returning her attention to Nina. “Anyway, soon enough we ended up coming to the attention of a group that was interested in how easily we were managing to move around under SuTSU’s radar. It was a group that you’re familiar with actually – Dari Corp.”

“You worked for Dari Corp?”

“Sure did,” Jade replied. “We were far enough away from our families, Dari Corp was fine with letting us move how we wanted to, and we wanted to settle down somewhere. Dari Corp was perfect for that, although we were only there for a couple of years before Reina found us and gave us an offer that was impossible to refuse.”

“It must have been a pretty good offer,” Nina mused aloud as she wondered if she could glean any information. What was Reina paying them in comparison to what she was paying her?

“Isn’t this an impossible offer to refuse?” Jade asked as she pointed out the window to the gate that they were approaching. “Traveling the plates is an experience that you can’t buy without connections. You get to meet so many people and see so many places, and have fun while you do it. You also get paid, and most importantly, there’s eating all the different types of food too.”

Nina nodded with a smile as her attention turned to the guards at the gate. They were clearly a cut above the ones she had seen earlier, their uniforms now a deep blue instead of green and they didn’t bother to carry the pikes either. Instead of loitering around in small groups, they stood neatly to attention as the carriages approached before waving them through as the heavy portcullis before them retracted into the top of the gate.

“These guys are the real deal,” Jade said as she examined them curiously from her seat. “Blue uniforms are for Royal Guards recruited from within the nobility and are the only guards allowed within the Royal District. They like to call themselves knights, but it sounds a bit ridiculous if you ask me.”

“Why would a noble sign up to be a Royal Guard?” Nina asked.

“If you’re a third or fourth son, there usually aren’t that many options I’d say,” Jade replied as she watched Aline detach herself from her shoulder. “It’s considered to be a respectable position, and some prefer it to working in a shop.”

Nina shrugged as she examined their surroundings. Almost as though they were traveling further from the city centre, the bustle of people had disappeared, as had the buildings. Neat lawns rolled away on each side of the road while small groups of trees and flowers dotted the area.

“There’s parkland on this side of the wall that surrounds the estates,” Aline yawned. “After that you find the smaller estates, and then the larger estates that surround the castle grounds are inside that. The Inin Estate is around a square kilometer and is quite close to the castle.”

“Which means they’re near the top of the pile,” Jade added. “I think the current head even has a daughter betrothed to one of the princes.”

“It sounds less impressive when you add that there are six princes,” Aline said as she leaned back on the seat and stared into the ceiling. “The marriages in the inner circles of nobility are basically a game of musical chairs.”

“Where the men are the seats,” Jade laughed before dodging Aline’s playful swat with a mischievous grin. Nina hid a smile by looking out the window to see that the street was now turning into something that looked more like what she expected. Shops constructed with ornate stone designs and large windows ran along each side of the pavement, a series of restaurants with large umbrellas and other mixed-use spaces occasionally placed in between. A large fountain sat in the centre of the street as the road curved around it on each side, other lavish carriages like their own also traveling along. From where they sat, Nina watched on as women in large dresses and wide hats gossiped in groups while men in fine clothing drank coffee in the sunshine.

It was truly an elegant scene. Unlike the simple palette of colour that she had seen in the Merchant District, here there were a variety of colours on display including rich blues, reds, and purples. There were even servants that walked with umbrellas beside some women to shade them from the afternoon sun as they moved from shop to shop. The atmosphere that surrounded the street felt just as airy as the breeze that she had enjoyed before stepping into the carriage – the feeling that there was nothing to worry about at all.

The small shopping precinct disappeared behind them as quickly as it had arrived, the carriage continuing on through the idyllic scenery. After waiting for a short while, Nina sighed in relief as they turned off from the main street to stop at an ornate black iron gate.

“High walls,” she noted as she examined the stone wall that ran along the road. Around three meters high, the wall seemed to be a mini version of the one behind the moat, although these walls didn’t have a walkway running along the top. Fashioned into the centre of the iron gate was an intricate design that matched the one on the side of their carriage, complete with the large ‘ININ’ in the middle. A single Royal Guard clad in blue stood to attention inside a small guardhouse on the other side, activating the mechanism as he saw them which caused the gate to slowly open.

“About time,” Jade yawned as she stretched her legs by placing them on Nina’s seat, one on each side of her. She smiled at the guard as he welcomed them to the estate before peering out the window to the large manor that stood on the hill in front of them. “I’m hungry after all.”

Nina sighed at her comment before following her gaze in the direction of the manor as the carriages began to make their way up the slope, wondering what the next few days would bring.