I stopped, surprised, and she looked up and saw me and stopped moving. She probably hadn’t expected anyone up here by the old ruins at this time in the morning and thought that she could have her bath undisturbed when I suddenly materialised out of the mist. Her strange bodyguard eyed me vigilantly.
And I heard a voice inside my head, I don’t know which of them it was: -You don’t have to ask!
And I did not. I knew who she was, she was the princess, just like I knew of her bodyguard’s strange powers that could charge anything with enormous amounts of electrical power so that she could throw those tiny metal rods that she keeps in her garters, and they would come at me faster than bullets. Not supernatural powers, just like the vigilant heads on the castle were not, nothing in this world is, by definition it is of nature, it is nature itself. And if it does not fit into our paradigms, it only proves what we already know, that knowledge is temporary and constantly evolving and that no final truths exist.
I did not intend to disturb them. I raised my hand in a sort of mixed ‘sorry’ and ‘goodbye’ gesture, and after a brief hesitation the princess gave me a very tiny wave in return. Somehow, strangely, this filled me with an inexplicable feeling of happiness as I turned away and left them, as if something very important, and very good had happened, here by the old ruins. And maybe it had?