Elinia sat on my bed, one leg crossed over the other, flipping through my sketches as if she were studying an ancient magical treatise.

  “Well, would you look at that,” she muttered.

  “Those chicken scratches of yours can make such beautiful drawings?”

  “Very accurate… almost too accurate.”

  I slowly stood up, stepped closer, and looked at her the way a teacher looks at a student who’s gotten a little too comfortable.

  She flinched, shifted back, and said quietly:

  “Sorry…”

  I sat back down at the desk and kept writing.

  She, having barely apologized, immediately buried herself in my papers again, her eyes catching on every line, every note.

  A couple of minutes later, she asked:

  “Can I take this one… the almost-finished one? Just to look.”

  “Take it,” I said. “Just don’t ruin it or lose it.”

  She snorted.

  “I won’t ruin it. What do you take me for—a barbarian?”

  I said nothing.

  While I was projecting bones, the spine, and joints onto the page, Elinia leaned so close that her hair brushed my shoulder.

  “How do you do that?”

  “You’re drawing without touching the paper… that’s magic, right?”

  I hesitated—whether to explain or not.

  Then I decided she could know.

  “It’s projection,” I said.

  “I create a detailed image in my head, then transfer it onto the page through a thin flow of mana.”

  “It’s a difficult technique, but more precise than drawing by hand.”

  Elinia froze, watching the structure of the ribcage appear on the paper.

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  “…Impressive,” she said almost in a whisper.

  The silence lasted a couple of minutes.

  I asked something I’d been thinking about for a long time.

  “Elinia… what do you think about the elves?”

  She lifted her head.

  “They’re talked about a lot lately.”

  “A lot of good… and a lot of bad.”

  “But honestly…”

  She sighed, gripping the corner of the page with her fingers.

  “Their history was horrible. They were enslaved. Treated like things.”

  “Their forests were burned. Their people were killed. It was genocide.”

  She spoke slowly, as if afraid of choosing the wrong words.

  “The fact that they’re reclaiming their lands… I don’t see a crime in that. They haven’t even declared independence. They aren’t attacking anyone. Not yet.”

  A quiet, honest opinion.

  I liked it.

  But then she looked at me sharply, as if something had clicked in her mind.

  “And why are you asking, Zen?”

  “You don’t ask questions like that for no reason…”

  I pretended not to hear.

  She smirked.

  She buried herself in my textbook again.

  “Wait…”

  “You’re saying blood… circulates?”

  “Moves in a loop?”

  “And the heart pumps it?”

  I nodded.

  She frowned.

  “But how… why is it so easy?”

  “How does it reach the hands? The legs?”

  “And air? How do we take it in? Where does it go?”

  “And the liver—what is it for? Why does a blow to it hurt so much?”

  She fired off question after question.

  Persistent.

  Honest.

  With the kind of curiosity that makes even the smartest person smile.

  I took a sheet of paper and began explaining.

  “The liver is the first filter.”

  “Blood from the stomach and intestines passes through it.”

  “If the impact is strong, the organ is overloaded instantly, creating shock.”

  She listened.

  Sometimes she asked for clarification.

  Sometimes she repeated things back, as if checking she’d understood correctly.

  I spoke…

  She read…

  And two hours passed without us noticing.

  “It’s late,” I said when I realized my eyes were closing on their own.

  “I’ll continue tomorrow.”

  Elinia, still holding the textbook, looked up.

  “When you finish…”

  “Will you let me read it first?”

  I froze.

  I was writing this… for the Forest.

  For children.

  For those living without knowledge and without teachers.

  But what was wrong with one more person—

  even if she was a princess—becoming smarter?

  I nodded slowly.

  “Alright.”

  For the first time that evening, she smiled—

  calmly, without her usual sharpness.

  The next evening was just as quiet.

  I wrote.

  She sat and read.

  Sometimes asked questions.

  Sometimes stayed silent.

  Everything was calm…

  Until the communication orb began to blink.

  Slowly.

  Pulsing.

  A typical signal of an incoming message.

  I noticed too late—I was too absorbed in a diagram of the respiratory system.

  Elinia saw it first.

  “Zen…”

  “Your orb…”

  She stood up sharply and leaned over the desk.

  “Is that a message?”

  “From your parents?”

  I froze.

  Something skipped in my chest.

  “…Damn.”