After a while;
The capital's famous North Street was overflowing with life. Vendors lined both sides, their stalls stacked with trinkets, talismans, herbs, and snacks. People shouted their prices, children ran between the carts, and the air buzzed with the lively noise of commoners.
Walking through the crowd, she felt a strange sense of nostalgia as if she had stepped back into her original world from a thousand years ago.
The two furballs whispered excitedly inside her mind.
Master! Look at that! So shiny!
Master! That smells good! Can we eat it? Can we?
Their constant reactions reminded her: she wasn't the Zora of the past.
She had companions now.
Strange but... well... adorable companions.
She paused in front of a street stall, touching the beads in her hair.
"Hmm, you two still don't have proper names," she murmured thoughtfully.
"How should I name you?"
*
To Zora, the two furballs were perfect bundles of chaos. Without names, the pair was practically impossible to tell apart, one noisy black fluff and one excitable white fluff rolling around like mismatched twins.
Both stared up at her with huge, sparkling eyes, practically chanting Name us! Name us!
She tapped her chin, eyes narrowing playfully. "Alright. White furball, you'll be called Black."
Then she pointed at the black one. "Black furball, you'll be called White."
The two furballs froze.
Their eyes, moments ago filled with anticipation, went blank.
"That's terrible!" they shouted in unison.
"I'm white... why should I be called Black?" the white furball protested, puffing up.
Zora raised a brow. "It's fair."
"Fair?" both furballs squeaked.
"Yes," she nodded heavily. "You two are complete opposites. Naming you like this balances everything. Maybe Black likes being called White? Maybe White secretly prefers Black?"
She smiled with a wicked gleam. "See? Perfectly reasonable."
"Noooo!" the furballs cried.
"I don't want to be called White!" the black one yelped.
"I don't want to be Black!" the white one wailed.
"The protest is invalid," she declared calmly.
Inside her mind, the two rolled around dramatically, whining. She ignored them with great satisfaction. Honestly, she was proud of her own creativity.
Just then, loud shouting erupted from down the street, breaking her amusement.
"Move! The prince is getting bullied again!"
"Sigh, that poor prince. Handsome face, disabled legs, and unlucky life. Now he's picked on by the other princes."
"He's never been loved by the emperor. Everyone knows he's just the emperor's illegitimate child."
"Illegitimate child?" Zora blinked. She went into her memories. She remembered hearing about him, the prince named Kael Moonstone.
Three years ago, the current emperor suddenly took in an unknown young man as a prince, despite the court's outrage. The boy was rumored to have been born from an affair and had crippled legs. There were even whispers that he was useless, no talent, backing, or support.
In the first year, the emperor favored him. Then the attention vanished.
Soon, the entire capital started treating him like a joke with a title.
Zora's steps slowed as she thought...
An unlucky prince and an unfavored daughter of the General's Manor, our lives sound painfully similar.
Filled with curiosity, she followed the crowd toward the noise.
The moment she pushed through to the front, she noticed figures on the third-floor balcony of the Drunken Immortal Tavern. And the first face she saw made her lips tighten...
It's Prince Philip, her old fiancé.
The scum she'd happily kicked earlier.
He stood there smirking, looking down at a young man in pale gold robes sitting calmly in his wheelchair.
"Kael," Prince Philip sneered, leaning forward slightly, "what if I accidentally bump into you and you fall from the third floor? Hm?"
His tone was light, almost playful, but his eyes glowed with cruelty.
Zora's stomach twisted when she saw the scene.
She didn't like this at all.
The man in gold lifted his head slowly. His features were obscured by the angle, but his voice drifted out, calm, steady, and strangely elegant. "If the prince wants to push, then push. What can I do?"
"You..." Philip's expression froze for a moment, annoyed by his response.
This was exactly what he hated most about Kael Moonstone: his calm, his unbothered air, and his quiet resilience. It made Philip feel like a clown jumping around for attention.
The second prince, Damien, then laughed loudly. "Big brother, if you want him gone, just push him."
And then it happened... Damien took a careless step. And his foot slipped accidentally. Not on purpose, though.
As a result, his entire body lurched forward before his hands slammed into Kael's chest.
Crash!
The railing shattered at once, and a golden figure fell straight from the third floor like a broken sunbeam.
Zora's pupils shrank sharply.
These two are really vile!
Kael Moonstone's legs were already ruined. Falling from this height...
This wasn't bullying. This was an attempt to cripple him further or, worse, kill him.
"Amazing," she thought coldly. "Prince Philip still hasn't changed. He only knows how to step on those weaker than him."
Her fists clenched tightly.
Around her, people looked away in fear or pity.
The citizens whispered, "Poor prince," But none dared step forward.
They were civilians. What could they possibly do?
As Kael plummeted, Zora took a step forward with a darkened expression.
And the heavy crash everyone expected never came. Instead, a sharp scream tore through the air...
"Ahhh! Big brother, save me!"
The voice trembled with fear, high and panicked. It wasn't the crippled prince. It was the second prince, Damien.
The entire crowd jerked their heads upward.
Gasps exploded across the street.
Damien was dangling awkwardly between the second and third floors, half his body stuck in the broken railing. His limbs flailed helplessly, and his backside was completely exposed where his robe had torn, pointed straight at the sky.
For one stunned heartbeat, the street was silent.
Then someone snorted.
Then someone else choked.
And in the next moment, the entire street burst into laughter.
"Look! His royal backside is whiter than steamed buns!"
"My heavens, today we get to see the imperial butt! What an honor!"
"The great second prince hanging like laundry! Hahaha!"
Usually, Damien strutted around the capital, bullying civilians and throwing around his title. To see him stuck like a helpless duckling? The crowd couldn't contain itself. Laughter echoed from every corner.
Damien's face flushed red in humiliation.
He instinctively reached back to cover himself...
But the moment one hand released the railing, his body slipped several inches.
"Big brother! Help me!" he cried again, voice cracking.
Prince Philip's expression turned foul. He had come here specifically to humiliate the crippled prince, but now his own brother was the one being mocked by the whole city.
He cursed under his breath, forced himself to ignore the laughter, and reached forward to help pull Damien up.
Only when the situation calmed did the crowd look back to the fallen prince, and then their expressions shifted to confusion and disbelief.
Because the prince wasn't on the ground.
He wasn't injured.
He wasn't even sitting strangely.
Instead...