The door opened again, more gently this time. Father entered together with Sir Arman and an old grandpa who I’ve never seen before. The unknown man was wearing a floor-length brown himation, on his hand is a long curvy staff made of wood with a translucent green crystal at one end.

“Oh, My King. You weren’t here but Iris just said Mama and giggled cutely. I think she now fully understands what we’re saying.”

“She said Mama?” Father asked, jealousy evident in his voice.

“Yes. Her chubby cheeks moved cutely as she popped the letter M when she said the word.”

“Did she say Dada?”

“Oh, not yet. I also didn’t ask her because I don’t want to stress her out.”

“But I want Iris to call me too!” Hearing his king’s piping voice, Sir Arman nudged him. Father stopped his antics; cleared his throat and introduced the person standing behind him. “This is Great Elder Ganondorf, a high-ranking Spellcaster. He specializes in predicting the future using magic circles among other things.” 

“Good day, Great Elder. May the benison of Kismet be upon you. May I know why you’ve visited my child’s residence?”

“He’s here to predict when Iris will take her first walk,” Father announced. He’s rather confident and proud about how he just used one of the powerful magicians in the kingdom to predict his daughter’s first walk.

Mother’s irritation showed briefly on her face, she badly wanted to scold Father but she couldn’t just do that to the king so she held it in. “I’ve troubled you.”

“No, no. Not at all. It is of great honor to help Hwan know some of Dayang-dayang’s firsts.”

“Enough with that. Predict it now.” Father commanded and the great elder obeyed. “If I may, Dayang-dayang? I would try my best to accurately predict the future, it’ll only take a few moments and it won’t harm you so you could relax.”

I giggled when I realized that he was waiting for any sort of reaction from me before proceeding. Everyone moved out of his way; he thumped his staff on the ground and the crystal lit. A tiny lump of water escaped from the crystal and found its way to my forehead. I felt my skin absorb the water and coldness engulfed me. Though it was an uncomfortable feeling, it didn’t hurt me at all, it just felt cold as if putting a KoolFever over my forehead. After a minute, I felt like something was being pulled out of me and the water went back to the crystal. The crystal then lit even brighter and we could see a green color mixed with the light coming from it.

An image of me sitting on the floor wearing a blue dress playing with Ash who’s sitting on his knees while the attendants standing near the door of my playroom flashed. The tower we’re building collapsed when I tried to put a piece of the block at the top. Ash patiently collected the blocks but I threw a fit. He tried to soothe me which ended in me throwing a tantrum all together and some of the blocks got kicked further away. This time, Nanny and the others helped with collecting the blocks while Ash focused on me. After a while, we started building the tower again and Ash helped me put the blocks when it became too high for me already, however, the roof of the tower was missing. He looked for it but it was me who saw it first. Without thinking much, I stood up and walked to where the block was, and picked it up. I straightened myself and showed it to Ash. Ash stopped in his tracks and stared at me wide-eyed, I tilted my head then I realized I was standing up without being helped by anyone. That’s how I took my first steps- with Father or Mother not being in the room. It was Ash who was with me once again. ‘This is bad.’

“That’s how the Princess will take her first steps, Hwan."