My heart hammered as I watched us turn into a large street, made by hundrends of small or sometimes large tnets and stores. "This is the market street I was talking about." explained Ceil. Before we headed out, Alice and Ceil made a plan on which places to visit and for how long we should stay there. Ceil recommended we go here, since its less of a chance we get caught by anyone because of the dense and diverse crowd that always walks the street.

"Do we even have money to spend here?" Alice asked, looking side-eyeing the many jewlery and clothing stands tha dominate most of the street. I uselessly touched my pockets to search for any money I could have on me but soon remembered that I was never given any and since I wasn't told we were going out, didn't think to bring some.

"Of course we don't." I turn to her and say. Her face dropped in dissapointment. I was also a bit saddened by this since, even though I do not know what I would buy, I still wanted to gain my first shopping experience. 

But to our surprise Ceil chuckled in front of us and with a jingle pulled out a small brown leather pouch, flat and rounded objects sticking out from inside the bag. Me and Alice stared wide-eyed at Ceil, jaws open. "Where did you even get that?" I collected myself and asked.

"I'm a prince. Do you really think I can't aquire a few coins?" He smirked wryly. Me and Alice shared a look of excitment before simultaneously  loudly syaing, "Ceil, we love you!!"

Ceil chuckled at that and took out a handfull of golden coins from the pouch and divided it between the two of us. Alice didn't hesitate to run off exactly the moment the coins touched her hand. She rushed toward a stall she had had her eye on and immedietly started inspecting the jewlery being sold.

I stared at the golden coins in my hands and scrunched my forehead in though, trying to find an idea for what to buy with the money. I glanced around the stalls next to me, trying to find something of intrest. Most of the shops were selling clothing, jewlery and small magical items. 

I glanced back to try and see what my sister was buying but when I turned around she wasn't in the place I last saw her. I franticly looked around to try and see where she went but Alice had already disappeared into the crowd. 

I quickly turned to Ceil who was observing somehting in a stall next to mine and ran over to him, clutching his hand, "Alice has disappeared!" I yelled as I shook him. 

Ceil turned to me with a confused expression and looked toward the stall Alice had been to last, then his eyes scanned around the crowd. Reaching the same conclusion I had gotten, he sighed with dissapointment. "Seriously? Now we have to go find her." 

"Of course we have to! There are dangerous people here and she is the Duke's daughter!" I spoke, worried and wiht a shake in my voice. Kidnapping of noble children weren't uncommon here, I had seen countless newspapers which had a topic related to a child of a noble being taken for ransom! Lucky for me, I had never been on public outings with my father so my face wasn't widely known but Alice was different since she had appeared publicly multiple times!

"Don't worry, do you forget that she is older than us and has already done this kind of thing before, I'm sure she'll be careful." Ceil calmy reminded. Older my ass! Even if my mental age was higher she still acted way less maturely than Allen in the game!

Seeing that my distress hadn't subsided, Ceil sighed again, "Fine, let's go look for her, she couldn't have gotten far." Ceil said, giving in. We started to slowly walk from stall to stall, trying to look over the looming crowd for any sign of my sister.

After walking through the streets at least 2 times over and over and with no signs of seeing my sister, my anxiety was beggining to get to me. "She's dead." I said, dreadfullly holding my head in my palms, "or kidnapped. Either, way, I' never seeing her again and it's all my fault I should have stopped you guys from going anywhere!" 

"Hey, hey, calm down, Allen." Ceil crouched down beside me and patted my shoulder to try and calm me down. "She probably isn't kidnapped or dead, she is smart enough to know how to avoid it. Like I said, she has gone out to this town before so she knows where she is going." 

I let out a big and ragged breath, trying to calm my heart. "Do we try and look for her outside of the street market? Maybe she found a store that was not here?" I suggested. 

"Sure, I know a few places with more stores, esspecially jewlery ones." Ceil sat up and held out his hand. "Just follow me." 

I grabbed Ceil's hand and stayed close as we left the market. It was already nearing sunset so the people outside of the more populated areas had left, leaving the streets pretty empty but also making it easier to search for Alice. Ceil led us to another street, which looked like a typical fashion store block. It had many shops ranging from, jewelery to dresses and also cloth and textiles. 

Everytime we passed a store I would squint to look into the winow to try and spot any kind of familiar figure but to no luck. That is until we near close to the streets end and Alice walks around the corner just in time. 

Me and Ceil stare blankly at the surprised face of Alice. "Where have you been?" We spoke in almost unison. This results in another look of confusion shared betweeen us. 

"What do you mean 'where have you been?'!? We've been looking all over for you! You just disappeared from our sight and we couldn't find you in the market so we went looking elsewhere!" I spoke loudly, a bit irritated.

"Ha? I left for a short while to hide because I thought I saw a worker from the house!" She rebutted. "When I came back, you were gone and I couldn't find you guys!" 

We shared a moment of silence in order to process what had just been said. I only sighed at the stupidness of this situation. "Ok, we get it, next time we will arrange a spot where we all need to meet if someone gets lost. Just don't do that again, I was really scared." I said. 

"Ah, sorry, I guess I should have told you." Alice spoke dejectedly. "But we seriously need to go now, the sun is setting and I don't think the King will like his son disappearing suddenly." Alice quickly changed the subject to a more important manner.

"Ah, I completley forgot about that!" I excalimed and looked over at the seemingly calm-faced Ceil. 

"Don't worry too much, father's talking sessions with his friends last for a pretty long time, we will be fine if we leave now, no need to hurry all that much." Ceil explained.

"Yeah, i've had enough for today, my legs are killing me!" I said, trying to fight the sore feeling in my legs to last for the trip back to the manor. 

We walked a bit slowly as to not cause more pain to my legs, but the pace was not that bad and we made it to the entrance of the forest pretty soon. We spent most of the time talking, mostly getting to know the simple things about Ceil and Ceil getting to know a little about the duchy. 

I was surprised by how easy it was to get along with Ceil, concidering how he was my least favorite character in the game. But that is probably because the way Ceil acts now is miles away from his personality in the game, which was a flirtatious bastard who spoke cheesy lines every few seconds. Meanwhile, this Ceil was more calm and colected. Maybe puberty had changed Ceil but I couldn't believe it could change so drastically becuase of that.

I hadn't even realised we made it to the manor wall until in front of me stood the tall brick structure, more than double my height which only set a dreadful feeling in my stomach. Ah, yes, my fear of heights. I had somehow forgotten about that.

Once again, Alice is firs tup the vines and first one to jump down from the wall, no sign of hesitation on her face. Lucky. Ceil glanced in my direction before turning away and climbing the wall himslef. Once at the top he stood and waited. Waited until I had made it halways up the vines, my heart already beating crazily and sweat rolling down my palms. Ceil held out a hand in front of me and seeing the oportunity, I didn't hesitate to grab it and let myself be pulled up. 

Once we were up the wall, I looked once again at the view from the tall height. The sun was already halway down the horizon and the sky was turning a light shade of red. The clouds closer to the sun reflected the colour of the sky ore vibrantly. It felt like a painting you'd find in a museum. 

The calm and peacful moment was soon over when I realised I would have to get down the wall again. I remembered the gutwrenching feeling of looking down from the wall on our way out. I was about to move my head down when it was grabbed and gently tilted straight, locking it in place. 

"Don't look down." said Ceil. He soon jumped down himself and I could hear the shifting of feet down the wall. "Jump. Just trust me." he continued.

I didn't know if it was the fact that I didn't look at the ground so I couldn't elevate my fear or the fact that Ceil had done this once before but I didn't hesitate to trust Ceil and jump down from the wall myself. And sure enough, just like last time I was cuaght by Ceil, who gently let my feet down the ground. 

"Thanks." I said, carefully lifting the ends of my face muscles, who were somehow working again. 

"Yeah." Was the only responce from Ceil.

"God why are you such a baby?" Already standing quite a distance away, Alice scoffed. 

"I'm not a baby, it's just heights are terriying." I explained.

"Uh-huh." She didn't sound convinced.

Quietly and carefully, we all made it back to the small office we were sent to play in. We walked in and thankfully, nothing had changed and it didn't seem like they had gotten caught. They all sat much closer now, picking up random books or objects and talking about them. Because of their little 'outing' talking became more easier between the three of them, it improved way more that it would have if they just stayed there.

After that day, the King and the Duke saw the improvment of our relationship and sent Ceil with us more often, which lead to more 'outings' and adventures. In the blink of an eye years had passed already and it was already time for Alice's debutante.