I awoke to a knock on my door. I wearily rose from my bed, still exhausted from last night. It was exhausting putting up with the king. I answered the door, Yu Cheng stood there. "Hello Lady Alivia," he said. "Yu Cheng, good morning," I replied. "The king would like to take you with him to Townsquare, please be in the main garden by 10 am," "I will be there." "This gives you an hour, please do be prompt, the king hates to wait." Yu Cheng turned and walked away. I sighed and shut my door. "Iris, please draw me a hot bath." "Yes, Alivia." As Iris drew my hot bath, I picked out some plain clothes to go to the Townsquare. A lavender linen blouse with some blue jeans. Lavender has always complimented my emerald eyes. I put my hair up in a ponytail and walked out of my living quarters. "Ling Chi, let's go." Ling Chi and I walked to the main garden together and arrived five minutes early.

      Promptly at 10 am, the King arrived. He walked over to me. "Alivia, its good to see you this morning," Rhode said. "As it's to see you," I said, with my best fake smile. I assessed the king; he had cut his hair sometime between last night and now. It looked good. Wait. NO. It looked, uh, awful. Yeah definitely awful. He wore a green jacket with a beige t-shirt. He paired it with some blue jeans, much like mine. I won't lie, the outfit matched well with his new short, blond hair and ocean blue eyes. I must've accidentally stared for a tad too long, Rhode had noticed. He smirked. "Shall we?" He held out his arm, willing me to take it. I did as expected of me and linked my arm around his. "Yes, we shall," We walked together to his elegant carriage. "Why are we going to Townsquare, Rhode?" I asked. "I want to spend a day among my subjects, blending in, unnoticed," he replied. "Why do I need to be there then?" I asked. "I want you to be my guide since you lived among the commoners," he said. "Well, then we cant take this carriage," I said. "How so?" he asked. "People will know it's you and fawn. If you want to go unnoticed, then we must not attract attention. We will take the horses," I said. "Alright, whatever you say," he said, bowing, quite sincerely if I might add. I smiled, in spite of myself. Rhode straightened himself out and looked over at Yu Cheng. Yu Cheng nodded and left to fetch the horses.

       As we rode to town, Rhode looked out at the scenery in awe. "You don't get out much, do you?" I asked. "No, I mostly stay in the castle," he replied. The rest of the ride was silent, with the occasional gasp from Rhode when he saw a pretty tree. Today was Monday, therefore it was market-day, where all produce is half off. It's quite lovely when all you make a week is 10 copper, and you can get chicken and beans for all 10 coppers. On any other day, you could only get the chicken for all 10 coppers. It will sure be interesting, seeing the king in a natural setting outside the castle. If you didn't know he was the king, you could easily mistake him for a regular 18-year-old boy. It was interesting, how a hair cut and some clothes changed how he looked, just like that. Who even cut his hair. They did an amazin- I mean terrible job. Zero out of Five stars, definitely. We couldn't get to the town any sooner.

     We finally arrived after what felt like a million years. I hopped off my horse, eager to be on foot. Rhode followed my suit. "Soooo, where to my guide," Rhode asked, quite eager. "The shops," I replied, walking towards the many shops that lined the road. I was going to pass a small shop with toys and various trinkets, but Rhode had stopped. He was looking at this one toy. A small action figure, from some tv series, years ago. Surely he couldn't be wanting the toy, he was a king for god's sake. The shop keeper noticed him and walked over to us. "Hello sir, looking to buy a toy for your child?" she asked. "Well, uhm," Rhode paused and his face tinted red. "Y-yeah looking at the toys for a child," he said. He picked up the action figure and held it out towards her. "How much is the action figure?" he inquired. "20 silvers," she said. "Hm, okay," he said and then handed her twenty silvers. The lady wrapped up the toy for him and then we left. "So, an action figure huh?" I said, trying not to laugh. "Mhm," he said, admiring it without looking up. "Alright then," I said. 

      After three hours of walking around the shops, we decided to stop for lunch. Rhode said I could choose the place since I lived around here. So I lead him to "The Chang Sisters", where they have the best pork. They seated us without batting an eye and gave us our menus. I already knew what I wanted. However, Rhode took twenty minutes to decide. When the waiter came over for our order, I said, "Braised Pork with Kimchi fried rice, please." "I'll have the same," he said and then looked at me. "The menu has so much it's hard to decide," he said. "So you both want Braised Pork with Kimchi fried rice?" the waiter asked. "Yes," Rhode answered at the same time as me. The waitress scribbled something on her pad and said, "It'll be right out." She walked back to the kitchen without a second glance. Half an hour later, our food was in front of us and steaming hot. It smelt delicious as always. Rhode picked up a piece of braised pork with his fork. He brought his fork to his mouth and took a bite. His eyes lit up. He must like it, a lot for that matter. "Wow. This food, its really delicious," he said looking at me. "Mhm, it is," I replied, eating some of my kimchi fried rice. "I've never tasted a regular meal," he said. "How so?" I asked, confused. "Any food I eat in the castle," he lowered his voice at the word castle and then continued. "Is all exported goods from foreign countries or gifts from neighboring kingdoms," he said. I just sat there, dumbfounded. "Wow, I thought you eat whatever you want," I said. "You thought wrong" he said. The rest of the meal, we ate in pure silence. 

      After we had eaten, we went to the middle of town. We found all the children coloring and playing games. As we approached them, one looked up at us. She was a seven or eight year old, her shoulder length brown hair was tied back in braids. She had beautiful sky blue eyes and a smile lit her face when she saw us. She eagerly tapped her friends, a boy with blond hair and brown eyes and a girl with platinum blond hair and hazel eyes. "Look Axel, Look Maria! A pretty big sister and her boyfriend are here!," she exclaimed. My face flushed and I shook my head. "No, this is just my friend." Rhode sat down saying nothing and looked at the children. "Hello big brother," they said, being polite to an elder. It was customary for a child to call a stranger that they don't know, who is older than them, big sister or brother. Rhode smiled. "Hello Children." Maria looked at the brown haired girl. "Rose! Invite big sister to sit with us," "Oh! Right, will you join us, big sister?" "Of course." I sat down by Rhode. Alex finally spoke up. "What are your names big sister and brother?" "I'm Alivia and this is," I paused not knowing what to call him. If I called him Rhode they'd know he was the king. Rhode noticed that I didn't know what to say. "Adrian, that's my name." "So, what are we going to play?" "Yinda," "What's Yinda?" "Yinda is where we go to a stream and see how many rocks we can skip across the water," "Sounds like fun" "Let's go!"

      We played Yinda with the children for the rest of the day. Rhode's highscore was seven rocks. Mine was eight rocks. The children had much higher scores than us. Axel had fifteen, Rose had thirteen, and Maria had sixteen. Time passed incredibly fast. Six hours passed and it felt like two minutes. I checked the time and then tapped Rhode's shoulder. "It's 7 o'clock, we need to get going so we can be back before raiders are out," I told him. He nodded and we said our goodbyes to the children. "Come back soon!," they told us. 

      As we rode back home, Rhode thanked me. Then a thought that had been in the back of my head all day came to my mind. "Why'd you cut your hair?" "I thought it would look good. Long hair is a bother anyways. Makes summer feel a billion degrees hotter." He reached in his pocket and pulled out a small bag. I didn't remember seeing him buy anything other than the action figure. He held it out to me. "What is it?" I asked. "It's for you, open it," he put it in my hands and looked at the trees. I opened it and it was a gorgeous, emerald hairclip. Rhode looked back at me. I thanked him. Suddenly, just like that, the day was over and we were back at the castle.