Although she's given the best treatment possible by the maids; dressed in the finest fabric, taken care of like she's made of glass, fed all, as what she had learnt, her favourite food, it doesn't change the fact that her mind is a blank canvas. Add the scribbles with the information given by Serim in the early morning, but even that seemed like a fever dream. She woke up from a month-long coma to find that she's the only princess of Inis Realm, a name that, although sounds weird to her, flows from her tongue easily.

No matter how much details she has been getting, there's still something that feels ominous; like she's not supposed to be there- or is it just the people being cautious around her? But why? Was she adopted? Was that why the queen kept on insisting she's a princess, because she wasn't supposed to be by blood? But it doesn't align with how freakishly similar she looks to Seonghwa, and even with the scrutiny of the portraits of the king and queen, no one can tell that she's not part of the bloodline. So that's not it.

The accident. Not one, not Serim nor Seonghwa would want to tell of her accident, so she can't tell how she got into the accident, or what kind of accident it was; all she knows was that she had hit her head pretty badly which was what induced her coma. Was it her own doing, or someone else's? A deliberate or pure accident?

Too much questions yet not one to turn to ask. Besides during breakfast and lunch, the king and queen only seem to be apparitions who would come and go as they like. She hasn't run into them except for when they eat together at the dining hall; according to Serim this is normal as they are busy with their duties to rule the realm.

According to Serim too, dinner this evening would be quite special as they'd be joined by some of the royal family members of the other realms. Just a celebration of the princess' awakening, as she had put it.

As the corset is tightened around her figure, she takes a sharp breath before wondering how she should behave in front of the other royals, now that she knows they're not even here because of the simple reason of them being happy seeing the princess waking up. She finds it hard to allow herself to act like the previous Park Narae when she's been told that so far, her actions are all the opposite. She wonders if she'll be made a laughing stock during dinner, considering how fun it would be to play around with a princess who has no idea she is one.

After her suffering to attain a what they claim as a much more 'elegant' figure, she's fitted into cream-coloured high heels, her face caked with makeup as her hair is let loose to go past her shoulder blades, the pendant of her diamond necklace accentuating her collar bones.

"How do you expect me to behave among these royals? Surely you can't expect me to remember all their names and faces with just... these." She jabs her fingers at the profiles of the royal members printed out for her to skim through. Their faces, names and descriptions are all swirling in her head.

"Nothing to worry, Your Highness. Although news about your memory loss has travelled to the other realms, I assure you your older brother and cousin would do their best to help you through the evening. They'll make sure none of them would lay a finger on you. If this goes without saying, the princes from the other realms are very much intimidated by your brother, and no less by your cousin too, Prince Wooyoung. I might have to emphasize again that you," she clears her throat, "do in fact scare them. They find you intimidating, although..." She lets the other maids leave them alone in the room and continues when the door is shut. "...you dated three of the said princes. You even dated twins, at the same time, without either of them knowing."

"Excuse me?" she reels back, this piece of information making her scoff. "Dating twins, at the same time?" She puts a hand on her chest, "Me? The respected princess of Inis two-timed twins?"

"You were quite wild, Your Highness. You seemed to want to make a statement of your very position. Well, the first one I would say is more of an innocent first love. As you may have read through..." she sifts through the profiles before putting up one, almost looking triumphant. "Prince Jeong Yunho. Our realm has the closest tie to Havre Realm, their powers of water bestowed by your ancestors. You could say they're tied to Inis Realm until the end of time."

She puts up a finger.

"With that being said you spent a lot of time with Prince Yunho as children, even promised to each other that you would marry one day. You were the best of friends, and I guess that's how you started to develop feelings for him. You turned 17 and he was your first companion. It lasted for what seemed a year before both of you went separate ways, because according to you, he's 'unexciting'. You wanted someone more daring, apparently. Prince Yunho was too nice for you so you broke up with him. He took it in his stride, but he did isolate himself in his room deep in the ocean and cried for a week. Your relationship with him right now is still cautious but he's trying his best to appear bubbly whenever he's around you. He doesn't want to show that you had any effect on him."

Narae winces at the mention of this. Wow, she does sound like a bitch.

"Not long after you dated the twins from Ylang Realm - Prince Choi San and Prince Choi Jongho. You said they seemed to attract you on a different spectrum because they're both the dark and the light; the devil and the angel- something along those lines. Anyway, it surprised a lot of us when we found out that the twins had no idea you were dating both of them at the same time. Prince Seonghwa was furious when he found out you were toying around with the twins, and demanded that you broke up with them at that instant. Well," she clasps her hands, "what surprised us again was that the twins weren't angry at all. In fact, they seemed to be taking it as a competition, to see who among them could win over your heart once more. They had been trying to steal your attention, but it stopped when you were betrothed to Pri- King Hongjoong. This was the person you met when you woke up yesterday. You have been engaged to him for almost a year now."

A rude, whiny princess who happens to be a player with no regards to the people around her and somehow had the luck to be engaged to a king. Great, simply great. The dinner is surely going to be interesting.

"What about the others? Should I worry about them?"

"Who you should look out for are the princes," Serim decides. "The other royal members might be all over you to find out the location of the Arcus but not as obvious as the princes, because they've been instructed by their families to do so. Some of them can even probably be really flirty with you, especially now that they know that you have lost your memories and you'll be easily flustered. The previous Princess Narae is a strong-headed woman who would stomp on the said princes, but now that you're still trying to adjust to your life, it might be wise to stick with your brother and cousin. Prince Seonghwa and Prince Wooyoung, they're the only ones with no ill intentions towards you."

"Even the king I'm betrothed to?"

"Even him, especially after knowing that he was-" she stops talking when she realizes she's about to let another vital information slip from her mouth. She tries to turn the topic around but Narae grips her shoulder, forcing her to look at her.

"He was what?" Her face is unsmiling, noticing that this is another episode of her being kept away from the truth.

"Princess."

"No, tell me."

"The people of Natur Realm are known to be pacifists, but one thing to note is that they're also known to be very cunning. King Hongjoong might only seem like he's not interested in marrying you and is all against the marriage, only saying that he's obliged to take you as his wife because of a centuries-long alliance with Inis. But all of them are only after one thing, and that is the Arcus. The king has an advantage now that he's about to get married to you."

"That still didn't answer my question."

She looks away and closes her eyes. Since yesterday, she has been spitting information to the princess like it's her daily job, not knowing what should or should not come out of her mouth.

"Your older brother is suspicious of him being the cause of your accident, since the last person who was seen talking to you before that night was the king. Prince Seonghwa insisted that he tried killing you because you finally told him the location of the Arcus. But, the king kept on denying that it wasn't him. He said he had been long gone from the realm when you... fell to your death."

There it is. One knot about to be undone, but it gets stuck halfway.

"The accident that no one was allowed to talk about, but I know that you're growing increasingly frustrated. Forgive me because I may be killed by the queen if they ever found out that I told you this," she does a gesture upwards before putting her hands together, "but on the 12th of August you fell from the top of the main tower. Some said you deliberately did it on your own, while some said someone had pushed you from the top. Prince Seonghwa's assumption is that you had told King Hongjoong about the location of the Arcus and after that he asked to meet you at the tower that night so he could push you off to kill you. Once he's able to retrieve the Arcus, Inis Realm would lose its glory, and Natur Realm would take its throne."

She understands Seonghwa's reaction when she woke up; even when she had no idea who Seonghwa or Hongjoong was, she could see that the prince was protective of her, forbidding Hongjoong from coming close to her when she was being inspected by the palace doctor. Strangely though, even though Seonghwa seemed uneasy that Hongjoong was in the same room as them, the prince couldn't give the command for him to leave.

Seonghwa doesn't trust Hongjoong, but the former couldn't do anything for the latter is his sister's fiancé. Still, that brings to one question- do the king and queen not see how Hongjoong might've planned to take advantage of their only daughter? Why arrange a marriage between her and the king?

"If the king and queen know how much chaos would ensue with these... men trying to win me over because they're chasing after the Arcus- why settle for King Hongjoong of Natur?"

Serim nods, digesting her question and arranging her answers. She walks over to the window before unlatching it, throwing it open as she observes the carriages coming into the palace compound lining up, the guests from different realms already arriving for dinner tonight. There is so much for her to tell, yet time is limited and it might even be easier if Princess Narae were to meet the princes herself.

Their faces might even spark some of her memories.

"There are quite a few reasons so, princess. Firstly, it is of course, the promise made between both of your parents to make their children marry each other. Inis Realm might have the longest and strongest alliance with Havre, but that doesn't mean Their Majesties would love to see their daughter get married to the prince of Havre. King Hongjoong seemed to be in a much better position for them. Secondly, just because Prince Seonghwa suspects him, doesn't mean the king and queen think the same. You must, and I apologize for having to emphasize this again, remember that you're a princess feared by everyone. Which means that they know that the king would be easy to manipulate, or in other words, it's not him who will take advantage of you. It's you who's going to take advantage of him. Thirdly, and most importantly, they would want their daughter to be married to a king, and not some mere prince. King Hongjoong is the perfect candidate for that."

"Those are such awful reasons to get married to someone," she scrunches up her face in accordance to what she's feeling right now. Disgusted, to say the least. "And I played along with it?"

"Princess, with all due respect, you were- you are the kind of person who enjoys, pardon me for saying this, having control over others. You agreed without even batting an eye when the topic of an arranged marriage to him was mentioned. To you, this was only a game that you had complete control of."

Serim sees the change in the princess' face, and instinctively she marches over to the princess before crouching, holding the princess' hands in hers. In the past, Narae would have immediately retracted her hands, saying dirtied hands like hers should not be holding a royal's hands like that. But this time, Narae reciprocates the action by brushing her thumb against the back of Serim's palm.

"I don't... I don't like who I was, Serim. I don't feel like I am the person you described, but at the same time deep down I know it's who I was. If I ever get my memories back... will I return to what I was like before?"

A slight dart of Serim's eyes. It would be better if you don't get back your memories. Stay like this, because this is who you should be.

Despite that, her mouth says the opposite words. "But that would be such a pity, Narae." She drops the honorifics. "Maybe all you've been hearing are negative descriptions, but besides that you are an excellent princess. You're pretty, smart, talented... a complete package." She shrugs, "Maybe your attitude could use some work, but Park Narae as a whole is a perfect princess." Like you are always told you are.

Serim reaches a hand to pat the princess' cheeks softly, as a sign that she shouldn't be despaired over this.

"Come on, it's time for you to meet the royal members from the other realms. If you ignore the fact that they're out to get the Arcus from you, you'll have a great time with them, because all of them are a unique and interesting bunch."

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[A/N: I wanted to post this earlier but my laptop was playing hide and seek with the wifi so I couldn't. So to make up for that, here's another chapter :D]