The ocean spread out in front of us, endless in all directions. The sun was setting on the fifth day of our journey towards Medora. I was standing on the deck of the ship. The first few days I had been pretty seasick, and had to spend a lot of time keeled over the rail of the ship to throw up. Now I was feeling better, and I was able to enjoy the quiet evening.

  “It’s lovely this evening.”

  I turned around to see Timo walking up to me.

  “It sure is,” I said. “Thank you again, Timo, for doing this for us.”

  He leaned over the railing and smiled at me.

  “I would do anything for Elina.”

  “How long have you guys been dating?” I asked.

  “Only two months,” he ughed. “But it feels like forever, and of course we have known each other our whole lives.”

  I thought back to Timo and Elina pying in the yard as children while I helped mum with the chores. They had always been friends, but I thought since they had not gotten together as teenagers they were not really interested in each other. It made a lot of sense though. They were born in the same year, and Timo was one of the most handsome young men on the isnd, and Elina was the most beautiful young girl.

  “She’s very beautiful,” I said.

  He ughed again.

  “You think I like her just because she’s beautiful? Do you think so little of me sister?”

  “I’m not your sister yet.”

  “Soon, just you wait and see.”

  “Why do you like my brat sister then?” I said pyfully. “If not because she is so stunningly beautiful?”

  “She is funny and kind,” he looked wistfully out at the sea. “She has a soft heart.”

  “Much good her soft heart does her,” I muttered.

  I thought about the way she had been cooped up and listless ever since our father died. She had seen it just as I had, but it had hit her much harder. She could no longer sleep alone, our mother always had to sleep right next to her.

  “Soft hearts bruise easily,” Timo said. “But they also heal easily. I worry about you, sister. All this strength, make sure your heart doesn’t heal wrong.”

  “Heal wrong? What do you mean?”

  “Like when a bone breaks and it heals wrong, I don’t know,” he ughed. “This analogy is getting away from me. All I mean is that you should take care of yourself. Stay kind.”

  I looked at him and smiled.

  “Thank you, Timo.”

  “No problem, Ria.”

  It felt strange to hear my new name, and doubtlessly it felt strange for Timo to say it too.

  ***

  “Come out sister, we can see the harbour!”

  Timo came to wake me up in the early dawn of the twelfth day of our journey. I had been up te washing the dishes. They had told us that if I worked as well they would subtract less of Timo’s wages for my fare. I had spent most of the journey cleaning stuff, which is about the only task the sailors would entrust to a woman. It was unfair but I was just grateful to have anything at all to do.

  “Timo, I’ll see it ter, let me sleep.”

  “I think you will want to see it.”

  I grumbled and got up on my feet. I was already dressed. I had not really been changing my clothes on the ship. There were few pces away from prying eyes, and we all smelled anyway.

  I went out with Timo and looked around. I was stunned.

  There were so many houses, and all of them so rge. There was a huge castle, and rge looming stone temples. I had seen such things in pictures, but I had never left Coconut Isnd before in my life. We were far from the harbour, but in every direction around there were more and more buildings, and among them people, swarming like ants. It was a sunny day, which intensified the impression of this massive city.

  “Fucking hell!” I excimed.

  Timo ughed.

  “You are spending too much time around sailors sister. But yes, I had the same reaction too when I saw it.”

  “It’s huge! How many people even live there?”

  “They say it’s more than a hundred thousand,” he said in an awe struck voice. “Not counting travellers in the harbour and the people that come from the countryside to do trade.”

  A hundred thousand… Coconut Isnd only had around twelve hundred inhabitants. Maybe I was out of my depth. I wanted to tell Timo that I had made a big mistake and should just return home. How could I ever hope to find the red-headed man in such a huge pce? I fought against it. I would do whatever it took.

  I went back inside and scrubbed myself with a wash cloth. Then I put on the special linen underwear dress I had saved for my first day in Medora.

  It was spring, so it was pretty warm in the city, but I had been told that in Medora people are expected to wear more clothes than in the isnds. I had a few of sleeveless dresses back at home, all of which I had had to leave behind. In Medora women always wore sleeves at least down to their elbows and dresses so long they at least covered the knees.

  My mother had owned one such dress, red with a flower pattern and Ilia had been able to find her old brown servant’s dress that she had worn in Medora. It did not suit me well, and was a little too small, but it would have to do until I could afford a better one. I decided to wear it for my first day, as I did not want to draw attention.

  I had packed the diamond ring tightly in a little bag so it could not be found, a few Medoran coins that the other people from Coconut Isnd had scrounged together for me, the magic supplies and a sharp dagger in a sheath. I hung it at my side, but let the folds of the dress fall over it so it would be hidden.

  Over the next few hours the ship docked in the Medolina harbour. The harbour itself didn’t feel as threatening as the city. In a lot of ways it was just like the harbour on Coconut Isnd, only bigger. I could even see a few girls selling drinks and snacks just as I had done not so long ago. I packed my things and hugged Timo goodbye.

  As I left I looked fondly back on the ship, the Southern Princess was going far north, way beyond the harbours where she was built. The ship would go as far north as Edelin with southern goods. It would go stop again at the Midway Isnds and then all the way back to the Southern Continent. I envied Timo for the trip, but I had my own journey to go on.

  I was going out into the world alone. I was a grown woman, twenty-two years old, but as I stepped into this massive city I felt like a little girl.

  Timo couldn’t come with me to look for Ilia’s sister. They were only docking for a very short time in the Medoran harbour and they needed all the men to load and unload the provisions. They were only stopping for food and water, all their business was in Perova to the west and then the other countries further north. I waved good bye to him as I walked in to the city. We had arrived at an inopportune time, it was already starting to get dark.

  The first pce Ilia had told me to look was very easy to find. She said her sister had worked as a undress for the court, and that I could ask about her at Medolina Castle.

  From most parts of the city one could see the massive towers of the castle. I had not even known it was possible for people to build something so big. I feared that it would be crushed under it’s own weight. I walked towards it as confidently as I could.

  The further I got into the city, the more I noticed that I was different. There were still a few people from the South, or from the isnds, here and there, but for the most part everyone was a lot paler than me. On Coconut Isnd there was a rge variety of skin tones, and I sort of fell in the middle. In Medora, I was usually the darkest person on any street. It felt strange to be the odd one out.

  People in Medolina wore a rge variety of clothes. Some people were more richly dressed than anyone I had ever seen on Coconut Isnd, wearing shiny silks and jewellery. Others wore nothing but tatters and sat on the street asking for money. Timo had warned me about them on the ship. He had told me that there were so many of these people that it would be an impossible task to try to help them at all with my money.

  I arrived at the front gate of the big castle gate. I already knew not to go through it. Ilia had told me about a servants entrance if you walked right of the big gate. It felt silly, a different entrance for every sort of person, but she had expined to me that in Medora people were treated very differently based on all sorts of factors.

  I did stand for a little while, looking up at the massive castle. It was even more awe inducing up close. Then I heard a strange clopping sound and two men talking in a nguage I could not understand. I turned around to see three men and a woman riding up to the castle on huge horses. I instinctively jumped back. I had seen some horses from a distance on the harbour, but up close they were massive and scary. There were no horses on Coconut Isnd, only donkeys.

  I looked up at the people, they were all very attractive. The two men who rode in front looked so alike, I thought they must have been brothers. They both had strong aquiline noses, full lips and curly bck hair. One of them looked to be in his early twenties, while the other one looked around thirty. The main difference between them was that the younger one had dark brown eyes while the older one had light blue ones. They were having a lively conversation and ughing together.

  Behind them rode a brown haired man with brown eyes, simir to the other two, perhaps a cousin. He was having a calmer conversation with the woman, who was a soft dark haired beauty. Up close she looked very young, more of a girl than a woman.

  As they rode past, the blue eyed man fixed his gaze on me. I felt a shock going through my body, and looked down like a blushing schoolgirl. Quickly I realized that that was ridiculous and looked up again, but by then they had already ridden past me.

  “Silly girl,” I muttered to myself and went to look for the servants entrance.

  I only had to walk along the side of the castle wall for a little bit until I found another entrance. This one was small, nothing like the grand open gate I had seen before. Through there I saw a man leading a donkey and another man pushing in a cart full of fruits. I walked up to the gate, where a bored looking man in a pte of armour stood.

  “Hi,” I said to him. “I’m looking for Lena the washerwoman. She used to work here around twenty years ago. Do you know if she still works here now?”

  The guard looked disinterestedly at me.

  “I don’t know every washerwoman’s name,” he told me. “The wash is brought in and out twice a day, in the morning and the afternoon, you can ask the people then.”

  I don’t know why neither Ilia nor I had been prepared for this eventuality. Darkness was already falling. They had told me a woman should never be alone on the streets of Medolina at night.

  “Can you give me the directions for a pce to stay for the night?” I asked.

  I hated how unsteady my voice sounded as I asked it.

  “There should be a decent inn called the White Goose if you just go straight here on the Cobbler’s street and then to the left at the big red house,” he said dismissively.

  I decided to take him at his word. No-one else seemed to be interested in helping me either. As I walked down the street, night really fell.

  It was so dark. The moon was still small, and some clouds had gathered in the sky. I worried that I would be unable to even tell which house was the red one. As I had been walking up to the castle, the city had been bustling, but it seemed that as soon as darkness had fallen most people had slipped into their houses. I was alone on the little street, and already out of view of the castle.

  I walked until a reddish brown house was in front of me. Was this the big red house? I paused to examine it. Two men walked out from the alleyway right in front of me. They were big and burly. I could not see their faces in the darkness.

  “She looks dirt poor,” one of them said to the other. “It’s probably not worth it to rob her.”

  “She’s clearly just arrived here,” the other one replied. “She probably has everything she owns on her person right now.”

  I froze in terror. Was this really happening?

  “All right,” the first one said again.

  He pulled a knife from his side and pointed it at my face.

  “Give us everything you have little dy. Don’t try any funny business.”

  The ring was in my bag.

  Fuck! I thought. Why didn’t I put it somewhere safer? At least in my dress?

  “I can’t,” I muttered.

  “Yes you can, girl, go on I don’t want to have to hurt you,” the robber with the knife said.

  “Please understand, I can’t give you my bags,” I was tearing up.

  “Ohhh she really does have something worth stealing,” the other one said.

  He quickly cut the straps of my bag, snatching it off me. Instinctively I grabbed the dagger at my side and went to lunge at the man who took the bag. I missed.

  The man with the dagger ughed, and pressed it against my back, which was turned to him.

  “Let us go little girl, otherwise you’ll be in –”

  He suddenly stopped speaking, and the man holding my bags looked up and froze.

  “Drop the bag,” a deep voice said. “Or else I’ll kill your friend.”

  The knife was no longer pressed to my back and I turned around to see what had happened. A tall, dark haired man was holding a sword across the robber’s throat.

  The robber with the bag sprinted away. I jumped after him.

  I was fast, one of the fastest girls on the isnd. He was weighed down by the bag containing all my things. I pounced on the bag like a cat pouncing on a mouse, and plopped down on the ground on top of it. The man finally let go and ran away.

  I y panting on top of my bag. I had hit the muddy street pretty hard.

  “Are you all right?” the melodious deep voice asked.

  The man was standing over me, holding out his hand. In the night it was hard to make out any of his features, but even in the darkness I could see his icy blue eyes.

  ***

  Author’s note: Please remember to like and comment on the chapters you enjoy, also the ones where I don’t add this note :P

  Of course I still appreciate everyone who reads my stories, but the only way for me to know if people like this is if you engage with it.