He remembered the original Dae's reputation—handsome, royal, powerful bloodline. It made sense. Even if she was an elf-demon hybrid or whatever, she was still a noble. Arranged marriages and political seduction were probably standard operating procedure here.
But he was tired. His back hurt from three days of riding, his social battery was at zero, and the last thing he wanted was to sit through a five-course meal while trying to dodge advances from a terrifyingly intelligent woman.
He let out a sigh, loud enough to be rude.
"No," he said flatly.
Elara blinked, her composure cracking for a fraction of a second. "…Your Highness?"
"I'm not interested," Dae said, keeping his eyes on the road ahead, looking bored. "I'm tired. And honestly, I'm really not in the mood for a date right now. Maybe some other time."
The silence that followed was instant and absolute.
The Bealor guards flanking them stiffened so hard their armor creaked. General Kael, riding a few paces behind, actually choked on a breath.
Elara stopped her horse.
Dae stopped his a second later, sensing the lack of movement beside him. He turned to look at her.
Elara was staring at him. Her pale, flawless face was frozen in a mask of sheer bewilderment.
"A… date?" she repeated. The word sounded foreign on her tongue, as if she were trying to decipher a code.
"Yeah," Dae shrugged. "Candlelight, wine, whispering sweet nothings about alliances. Not interested. I just want to sleep."
The temperature in the street seemed to drop ten degrees.
The Bealor soldiers looked terrified. They were staring at their Lady, waiting for the space around the Prince to twist and crush him into a singularity. To refuse a formal invitation from House Bealor was an insult. To interpret it as a romantic solicitation—and then reject it—was insanity.
Elara's eyes narrowed. Her lips parted, then closed. She looked like she was running complex calculations in her head and getting an error message every time.
"I see," she said finally, her voice icy. "I… believe there has been a misunderstanding of terminology, Prince Silver. However, if you prefer solitude, it shall be granted."
"Great," Dae said, oblivious to the fact that he had just nearly caused a diplomatic incident.
Stolen story; please report.
The convoy began to move again. The Bealor knights were now looking at Dae as if he were a walking corpse.
They rode in that suffocating silence for another minute.
Then—.
From an alleyway on the right, a small blur of motion shot out into the street.
"My ball!" a high-pitched voice shrieked.
A small, wooden toy ball painted with crude red stripes rolled across the pristine white stones, bouncing directly into the path of Dae's warhorse.
Following it was a child—a demon boy no older than six, with tiny nubs of horns poking from his forehead. He didn't see the massive armored beast bearing down on him. He only saw his toy.
"Halt!" a guard shouted.
It was too late to stop the formation smoothly.
Dae's horse, a disciplined war beast, didn't panic, but it snorted and reared slightly to avoid crushing the small figure that had dashed under its hooves.
Dae reacted on instinct. But not the hero instinct.
As the horse brought its front hooves down, safely missing the child, Dae leaned far over the side of his saddle. His hand swept down in a fluid arc.
He didn't grab the child to pull him to safety. The kid was already on the ground, safe but frozen in terror.
Instead, Dae's gloved fingers snatched the wooden ball from the pavement.
He straightened up in the saddle, holding the toy aloft as the formation ground to a complete halt.
The child looked up, wide-eyed and trembling, staring first at the massive hooves inches from his face, and then up at the silver-haired man towering above him.
"Got it," Dae muttered.
A woman burst from the crowd, screaming. "Rian!"
She threw herself onto the road, scooping the child into her arms and dragging him back toward the safety of the sidewalk. She slammed her forehead against the stones, bowing so frantically she looked like she might knock herself unconscious.
"Forgive us! Please, forgive us! He—he didn't know! Have mercy, Your Highness! Have mercy, my Lords!"
She was shaking violently, clutching the boy's head to her chest to hide his face.
Elara watched the scene, her expression unreadable. She expected the Prince to be angry. Or perhaps, if he was truly noble, to offer a word of comfort.
Dae looked at the trembling mother, then at the boy peeking out from under her arm.
The boy wasn't looking at Dae with gratitude. He was staring at the red-striped ball in Dae's hand with pure, unadulterated hatred.
Dae looked at the ball. Then at the kid.
A slow, petty smirk spread across Dae's face.
"You should be more careful with your things," Dae said, his voice carrying clearly in the silent street.
He tossed the ball up in the air once, caught it, and then… tucked it into his own coat pocket.
"Confiscated," he declared. "Hazardous material."
The boy's jaw dropped. The mother froze, unsure if she had heard correctly.
"Let's go," Dae said, kicking his horse lightly. "I'm still tired."
As he rode past, he could feel the child's glare burning a hole into the back of his head. It was the gaze of a sworn enemy.
Elara sat motionless on her horse for a moment, watching the Prince ride away with a stolen children's toy in his pocket.
The deadly tension from the "date" rejection evaporated, replaced by sheer confusion.
He rejected a summit with the Bealor family… but stopped to steal a toy from a peasant child?
She looked at the mother, who was just relieved they weren't being executed, and then back at the Prince's retreating back.
Petty, she thought, her eyes narrowing. Childish. Impulsive.
The rumors were right. He wasn't some hidden genius or a sleeping dragon. He was just a spoiled, whimsical brat who did whatever amused him in the moment.
"Unbelievable," she whispered to herself.
But as she spurred her horse to catch up, the tension in her shoulders loosened. A foolish, childish prince was much easier to handle than a mysterious one.
Or so she thought.
