Chapter 19: The Two Princesses Walk up the Golden Slope

“My... What’s this?”

The path leading into the capital weaved through the terraced fields in a smooth upward slope. As the carriage turned onto it, Mia noticed something that made her arch a brow. It wasn’t the path being flanked by rows of people—she was used to that, and it wasn’t surprising for the Tearmoon princess to receive an extravagant prearranged welcome upon her arrival. The issue was that the slope they were about to climb was completely golden in color.

“Is it just me,” said Mia as she looked about, “or is the path up to the capital the same color as the field around it?”

“That’s because there’s a layer of wheat on the path,” Rania explained. “When foreign dignitaries come here, we carefully clean the entire path leading up the capital. Then, as we like to say, we paint it with gold. That’s how we welcome our guests in Perujin.”

“What?! All of that is wheat?!” Mia did a double take.

“Yes. Perujin considers our finest wheat to be our greatest treasure, so we use it to adorn the path you take into the capital.”

Wh-What a terrible waste!

Half of Mia wanted to scream. The other half wanted to sigh. This, she realized, was exactly the kind of welcome that tickled noble fancies. To them, welcoming nobility was a contest to see who could squander more in the process. They ascribed value to wastefulness. The more wasted to welcome them, the more respect shown toward them. That’s why past Mia wouldn’t have batted an eye at such a reception; it would have seemed perfectly normal.

Past Mia, however, was no more. Present Mia knew the bitter taste of regret when discovering there was no more food. She’d felt the futility of wishing she “could get back all the food that was wasted back then” when her stomach had been rumbling for days. To experience such emptiness even once was enough to last a lifetime. So...

“Stop the carriage.”

She instructed the driver to halt just before reaching the golden slope.

“Princess Mia? What’s wrong?” asked a bewildered Rania.

Mia flashed her a small grin. “I’m going for a quick walk.”

With that, she stepped out of the carriage. Her sudden appearance left the flanking masses dumbfounded. She swept her gaze across their ranks and smiled cheerfully at them.

“Hello, everyone. I am Mia Luna Tearmoon, princess of the Tearmoon Empire,” she said before curtsying. “Please allow me to express my gratitude for this wonderful welcome you’ve arranged for me. It is a breathtaking display of generosity, and the message of goodwill is something I’ll gladly accept.”

Then, in a brief moment of silence, she slowly looked toward the castle at the top of the golden slope.

“However, I have no desire to ruin such beautiful grains by trampling them.”

She proceeded to quietly take off her shoes.

“Wheat is meant to be made into food. Only by eating it do we extract its true value. After I climb this slope, I ask that you please retrieve this wheat and do what is necessary to make it edible. If you truly wish to gratify me... Hm, I think I’d love to see this wheat made into one of those castle-shaped cakes I’ve heard so much about. That would delight me to no end.”

With her speech concluded, and without fear or reservation, she began walking up the golden slope. She’d expected the mattress of wheat to be hard and prickly, but it proved far softer, cushioning her skin with surprising gentleness.

“P-Princess Mia!”

“Oh, Rania, why don’t you come too? I’d love to have you as an escort. Everyone else, wait until the wheat has been cleared away, then bring the carriage up, all right?”

“O-Okay, I’m coming!” Half-panicked, Rania kicked off her shoes and joined Mia at her side. The two princesses then took their next step up the slope together.

What Princess Mia had done left the onlookers in shock. Word spread quickly, awing the masses in its wake. Never had there been a noble who walked up the golden slope of wheat using their own two feet. Some had mocked the display as the obsequious antics of a lowly nation. Others didn’t even comment, deeming it too worthless a reception to deserve mention. Even nobles with a conscience simply accepted it as an unavoidable consequence of stately welcome. In all cases, they’d remained in their carriages as they rolled up the slope.

The farmers summoned to attend such events had always watched with mixed feelings as their wheat was trampled by luxurious coaches. No one enjoyed seeing the fruits of their hard labor ruined in such a manner. Nevertheless, for the sake of their country, they complied, reluctantly but diligently blanketing the path with a layer of their finest wheat.

This princess, however, had refused to condemn the fruits of farmers’ hard work to a wheel-trodden fate. Not only that, she was so loath to spoil them that she’d even taken off her shoes. Only then did she partake in the gracious welcome of slope-climbing.

To refuse to use a path the Perujins had so lavishly decorated would amount to a rejection of their goodwill. So she walked it. But she did so in her bare feet, displaying both her sincerity and respect by asking her carriage and booted retinue to stay behind.

On top of that, she’d asked to try some castle-shaped cake. The unspoken nuance of this request was not lost on her listeners. She was asking the Perujin people to use the wheat on which they so prided themselves to fashion a cake in the shape of the capital’s castle—the hallmark and home of their royal family. It was a gesture of deep respect for Perujin culture.

Cheers erupted through the crowd. One eager whoop led to another, and soon, there was a wave of enthusiastic welcome trailing her. There was no performance in the people’s voices—these were honest expressions of warm regard for an important guest and beloved friend of their own princess.

Amidst a chorus of encouragement, Mia and Rania stepped into the skyward village of gold—Perujin’s capital, Auro Ardea.

There was a certain energy in the air as the two princesses walked side by side up the golden slope. Their adjacent forms seemed to herald a new era in relations between Tearmoon and Perujin. It was a subtle, intangible thing that defied description, but one farmer who was present at the scene later captured the moment in a striking art piece that faithfully evoked the sentiment, titled: Two Princesses Walk the Golden Path. Its solemn majesty ensured it a lasting place in annals of fine art. Birthed alongside it was an orally-preserved anecdote of a pair of bare-footed princesses climbing the golden slope that would be told and retold for generations to come. Leavened by the natural embellishment of changing tellers and passing time, it would nevertheless remain a staple story in the public consciousness for ages to come.