The Crown Prince In Hiding

Monday.

At last, Dan and Nora met.

Princess Nora waved to Prince Fury. He, with his black glove, made a little salute and set his meal tray down across from her.

“Where’s Freya?”

“The same—she can’t make it.”

“Finals are next week, Mr.Fury. We’ll be second-years.”

“So excited. (sarcastic)”

“And how far along is your mission to find the origin of all things?”

Dan stopped chewing his strawberry and rolled his eyes upward.

“Who told you?”

Nora laced her fingers under her chin and leaned in.

“Walls have ears and doors have cracks, Mr.Fury.”

“Rafinya?”

“She’s taking it very seriously.”

“Damn it… Coming to lay her hands on my treasure again, is she… that brat.”

“Mr.Fury… we need to turn her down properly. It’s time we drew a line.”

Nora proposed it in earnest.

Of course, she had her own agenda mixed in, as of yesterday.

“I think we should tell the student council—maybe even appeal to the provost. Shall we?”

“Good idea.”

At once, Nora’s eyes lit up.

“But let’s do it after Finals.”

“Alright. Exams matter too.”

“Ugh, now I’m stressed. I was up till two last night cranking out my section.”

“And you still have to go to Snowhaven this week—will you manage, Mr.Fury?”

“Not going to that. I’m sending someone in my place.”

“You can do that? I thought you had to go yourself?”

“I’ll go… just not the real me.”

“Huh?”

“Don’t tell anyone… but, well—”

Dan cupped a hand over his mouth.

“I have a way.”

“How?”

“Not telling.”

“Mr.Fury…”

“Don’t ‘Mr.Fury’ me. I’m not going to coddle you too much anymore.”

Magic Engineering Lab.

TA Thomasin Mayfield stood brewing coffee in the tiny lobby of the Paleobiology department. With her pick-me-up in hand, she blew at the steam—fuu…—then took a sip.

The hot vapor fogged her white-framed glasses. She lowered the cup, pulled down her glasses to wipe them, put them back on… and nearly jumped out of her skin.

In the blink of an eye, someone had appeared before her—without a sound, without any warning at all.

RAFINYA.

“Gulp?! Uh—S-Sophomore Rafinya?”

“Senior Thomasin.”

“D-do you need help with something?”

Cold sweat.

“I have a few questions for my senior… do you have time for your junior?”

Though Rafinya was the visitor, she dragged out Thomasin’s chair herself and invited Thomasin to sit.

The TA trembled, head shrinking down between her shoulders, sweat beading as she sat with the coffee cup clutched in both hands.

Rafinya didn’t sit; she rested her hips against Thomasin’s desk like a detective interrogating a suspect.

Her sharp gaze scanned the worktable and the papers on ancient fauna… then she asked:

“I know Dan Burn comes here often. Why?”

“…Eh? W-why, you ask?”

In truth, Thomasin could have answered plainly. But she didn’t play dumb; she held her tongue, sensing that her answer might get Dan in trouble.

“Dan likes to ask me about things in books,” she said.

“About what?”

“About living things.”

Rafinya’s expression stilled. Naturally—she already knew that much.

“And what do you tell him?”

“What do I tell him?”

Thomasin scratched her head.

“I answer his questions as best I can.”

“Just that?”

“If it’s too difficult, I pass it along to Professor Pi’eere… Is something the matter, Rafinya?”

“You pass things to a professor? Do you?”

A nod.

“Do the professors here have so much time that they can spare it for undergrads?”

!

“And you? A TA with no work? Every time Dan comes, you treat him like he owns the building… Senior Thomasin.”

Rafinya leaned in.

“Every time. Everyone. All the time.”

!

“What exactly is his relationship with this little department?”

Naturally…

The intel Rafinya had—

She already had people digging for her.

She didn’t just barge in to ask.

All of this was prepared.

…Thomasin’s face went chalk-white.

Late night.

“Thanks a lot, Nora, for letting me copy your matter-theory homework.”

Dan packed his bag to sling it over his shoulder; Nora gathered her books to stand. The two were about to leave Sheffield Library—

When Dan suddenly spotted someone walking out of the library.

“Oh? Good evening, Professor Selena.”

!?

The astronomy instructor saw Dan and jolted—then bolted for the exit.

Dan’s face fell.

Nora turned back.

“Mr.Fury, that’s the result of hounding a professor.”

“I just want to learn more about the stars.”

Dan shrugged.

“Looks like I’ll have to figure it out myself again.”

“Don’t tell me… you’re going again?”

“Of course.”

“…Seven nights in a row now?”

“Eight, counting the day I came back with Rafinya.”

“Oh…”

“Come with me?”

At the invitation, if Nora had cat ears, they would have perked straight up.

“Can I?”

“Sure. Why not?”

Dan’s usual spot for stargazing since stumbling into the astronomy class was a hill behind Anfield, quite a distance from his house.

The boy arrived first. Following him was Princess Nora, reaching it for the first time. It was a cool, soft green meadow, reflecting the deep blue glow of the moonlight from above.

The princess stepped onto the grass. Dan slipped off his shoes, set down his bag, and let himself sink to the ground.

The sky was still crowded with stars.

“Mr. Roma told me Rafinya’s been hanging around lately, so he suggested I shouldn’t come to see you.”

“That so.”

Dan leaned back to look at the sky.

“He’s right. You probably shouldn’t come to my house for a while.”

He slit pages out of his notebook with a sound like tearing paper—ten-plus sheets folded over—

“But if it’s around here, it should be fine. Home Sweet Home is a fair distance away.”

Nora lowered herself to sit beside the boy. A tall young woman and a slight young man sat on the same plane; from behind them, the scene before them was a galaxy.

“Mr.Fury, do you already know how to stargaze? I feel like you’ve picked it up too fast for just two astronomy classes.”

“To be honest, I’ve got some basics. Casca taught me back in Diablo.”

“And what are you doing now, Mr.Fury? In that notebook?”

“I’m trying to verify something I read in a book from Sheffield Library.”

Dan turned to her.

“It says the world is orbiting the sun.”

Nora was taken aback.

“That’s… the theory that used to be banned in Luminus, isn’t it?”

“I heard many people in Luminus died for it.”

For Nora, she’d read the CIS scriptures like other youths in Luminus/Snowhaven. She knew well how they stated the world was fixed and that the stars always orbited it… But the arrival of that theory shook Luminus’s beliefs and sparked the decline of the Church—once Mathema began to accept it first.

“What do you think of it, Nora?”

“I don’t know… I was taught since childhood that the world doesn’t orbit anything. Hearing it now is… a little startling, I suppose?”

“Like the common-ancestor theory you keep arguing with me about?”

“One talks about the stars. The other compares us to animals like apes… It feels completely different.”

“And if these ideas turn out to be true?”

Dan looked over.

“What could you do?”

“…Do? About that?”

“Yes. If those things are correct, it means we can only accept them. When that time comes, you’ll have no choice. You’re very lucky, still being young—your thoughts, your reality, haven’t fully set. They can still change… more easily than for those who are older.”

Fury said,

“Because for those people, if these ideas are true… they will surely bring catastrophe.”

“What catastrophe, Mr.Fury?”

“The collapse of faith.”

Dan said,

“You asked me once, didn’t you, whether the Diablo people believe in God?”

“Yes, and you said you don’t.”

“Right. Compared to you, our cultures are worlds apart. We have only what’s in front of us. Maybe that’s why we don’t devote ourselves to believing anything so easily.”

Or, to put it another way—

Because they have no culture of “God,” the Diablo have intellectual immunity. They treat sensitive matters of belief as merely one object idea among hundreds of other ideas.

“Someone told me long ago that ideas themselves aren’t frightening because they can’t do anything to you. But you can do something to them.”

“Do what?”

“Erase them.”

Dan recited the memory of what a certain man had once told him:

“Not erasing as in forbidding thought, but erasing by finding counter-arguments that make an idea contradict itself… If you can’t force an idea into contradiction, it only grows stronger.”

Whether it’s the “scandalous” theory that humans share a common ancestor with apes, or the holy texts being “wrong” about the world’s path of motion—

If no one can erase those ideas, they will keep getting stronger… until they change the world.

“And do you believe them?”

“I’m trying to refute them.”

Dan bit the end of his pencil, eyes on the notebook.

“I’m not as educated as you. I’m trying. But if I can’t… then I’ll have to bow my head to them.”

His red eyes lifted to the young woman.

I might be the strongest living thing in the world… and yet there is one thing I don’t dare fight. Because no matter what I do… it will not change.

Because it is ‘the truth,’ Nora.