In the garden of the royal castle crept two suspicious figures that were traversing the garden. They were both crouched and on high alert for anyone who may be on patrol. There hadn't been a single guard by then, but they were still a minute or two away from the drop-off point. The younger one whispered to the other:

“Do we really have to crawl our way there? We would have arrived by now…”

“Shut up,” the other whispered with a harsh tone, “my whole body still aches after what happened in the council today. I'm not taking any chances.”

“But it's already dark out!” the younger one protested. “What risk can it pose?”

“You never know who's lurking in the shadows.”

“No one even passed by in the last 10 minutes we've been crawling for!”

“Quit with the whining ‘ya little shit.”

They continued crawling from inside the bushes. No damage was done for the most part, aside from the shape of all the bushes neatly aligned by the gardeners to please the eye. It was not irreparable damage; although it looked like wild animals took refuge inside.

Once the two shady figures escaped the garden, they got back up on two feet. They sprinted as silently as they could across the terrain until they found the edge.

These two shady figures were none other than the two princes who were grounded after the fiasco they caused in the council room earlier that day. These two princes were the High Prince, Jimothan de la Rosa, and the Little Prince, Johnathan de la Rosa, in particular. The two princes of the royal family lived in the castle of the Queen, Mylene de la Rosa.

This castle was no ordinary castle, however. This castle was created with the Queen's enormous pool of Essence and substantial magic prowess. More specifically, it became the way it is because of the Queen’s prowess. 

Once the castle was built on land distant from the city, Elementals were summoned to sever the castle from the land. With the Queen's supervision, they had lifted a mountainous part of the land into the air. This piece of land was then carried above the city of Hjelmstad, which the Queen declared the capital later on. 

This choice by the Queen sparked interest amongst the people across the Kingdom, both Demon and non-Demon alike. The royal castle was titled the Palace of the Heavens and was rumoured to rival heaven in terms of grandeur and luxury. 

This was but a rumour as heaven had ceased its function by the time the royal castle had been built. The competition was extinguished long before the ‘Palace of the Heavens’ came into existence.

Approximately two years after the establishment of the Palace of the Heavens, the Queen brought forth a decree which was simply:

“What happened in Hjelmstad shall stay in Hjelmstad.”

This was when the massive barrier was established to surround the entire city. It was created by the Queen herself. Afterwards, however, mages in the military were tasked to sustain the barrier as she was said to have more important duties to tend to. It didn't take long before the city was given its famous name, Hjelmstad.

Why had the Queen gone through all the trouble?

Time will tell.

As for what I have explained so far… it was necessary to understand what happens and why moving forward.

Anyhow, the two princes stood at the edge of the land that held the Palace of the Heavens in the sky. Johnathan looked down momentarily and immediately took a few steps back, shaking his head in disapproval.

“You gonna jump or what?” 

“Jim… I feel dizzy…”

“It ain't the time to get cold feet. C'mon, jump before anyone sees us here!”

“But…”

“Either you jump or I'm pushing you down.” The High Prince blurted with anger. He then started walking down towards his little brother to emphasize his point.

The Little Prince backed away, but in no time he felt the emptiness behind him. He felt his older brother's gloves on his shirt. He got pushed towards the edge and dangled off. With pure fear as motivation, he latched onto his older brother's legs. He tried climbing upwards even though he was being pushed down.

“What are you so afraid of?!” The High Prince told him off. “We've done this before! You know we'll be just fine!”

“But… what if… he isn't there… or he's late…”

The older brother stopped pushing him. “Uh huh.” he pondered out loud with a thoughtful expression, “On second thought, why don't you find out for me?”

“Wait—”

The High Prince kneeled down as he extended his arm backwards. Then, as soon as he kneeled down low enough to get in range, he landed a punch onto the Little Prince's forehead. 

The High Prince's calculations had failed, however. The Little Prince did not let go of his brother with the impact of the blow. Quite the opposite, he gripped his brother's leg more firmly. The impact would have sent the Little Prince falling and instead caused the High Prince to lose balance. The High Prince then fell and hit his head. He did not have time, or perhaps the pain had overwhelmed his senses and he hadn't thought about it, and he did not hold on. The princes started falling together.

The younger one's eyes had shrunk in horror when the older one was too busy abhorring his brother to get scared. He cursed under his breath. He realised the little brother could not hear him and promptly gave up.

As they skydived, they spotted a person with ginger hair sticking out of his hat. He looked up. He smiled at the airborne princes. He then reached out to his bucket hat and threw it towards where he estimated the princes would fall as if it were a frisbee.

The hat thereafter expanded to a formidable size compared to its size beforehand. The hat's tall side faced upward. With Bobathan's ability, the hat made of cheap cotton became extremely soft and elastic. 

The hat took the role of a trampoline. The High Prince landed first. He was confident in himself but ended up accidentally jumping off. He rolled on the ground for a good minute because he couldn't lose the friction he accumulated while trying to show off. He did, however, immediately get up as soon as he managed to stop himself. He puffed his chest out and bragged about something like being no trouble for him. When he was asked how much experience he has in skydiving, however, he chose to stay silent.

While the High Prince was rolling on the ground, trying to stop himself, the other had landed on the hat. He tried to get up and stand still on top of the hat but the hat was too bouncy for him to achieve such a goal considering they just fell about thirty kilometres. He lost his balance and rolled on the floor just like his brother. The Little Prince grunted significantly more than his brother.

“I feel dizzy…” the Little Prince complained.

“Just shut up already.” his brother shouted, “it wasn't even that bad.”

“Easy for you to say…”

“Guys, guys!” the ginger hair intervened as he extended his arm forward. He opened his hand, his palm facing the hat. “Come on, no need to fight! You two came down ‘cuz you're bored, right? Let's go have some fun!”

“Have fun? How? Don't tell me we're gonna chase Bob again…” protested the High Prince. 

“Hey, leave the lil’ guy alone!” the ginger hair said as he put his hat back on. He gently picked up the frog shivering on the ground where the hat was and patted it. “There, there, it's all over now. Sorry for doing this so suddenly.”

“I think Jim might be right here, Bobathan. That is kind of creepy.”

“Huh?! Just because he's a frog doesn't mean he doesn't have emotion!”

“Emotion my ass. He just likes you because you feed him.”

“Fuck you, Jim.”

The Little Prince guffawed. When his breath stabilised, “Way to talk to a prince, Bobathan.” he added.

“Hey, not fair! Don't bring your status into this!!”

“That's too bad.”

“You know what, Jim? Just come home with me. I'll show you just how much he loves me!” 

He dashed off without waiting for an answer. The Little Prince guffawed again as he ran behind him. When left alone, the High Prince had to choose between loneliness or following the crowd.

He chose the latter.

After they arrived at Bobathan's house, Bobathan quickly took his hat off. Bob, the frog, jumped onto his palm as soon as he opened his hand.

“Alright, here's how it'll work.” He scratched the frog's head and gently placed him on a wooden table in the living room. It creaked when Bobathan's hand made contact with it. “We'll both take a worm in our hands and we'll see which one of us he chooses.”

“Huh?! No way I'm touching those!”

“Huuuuh?” Bobathan said with a smirk on his face. “Someone's already abstaining?”

“Bullshit!” The High Prince grabbed a stash of worms from the jar Bobathan stored them in. “If you wanna embarrass yourself that much then so be it!”

“Huh,” the Little Prince mumbled to himself as he closed the book he borrowed from Bobathan's father's library, “I wonder if he even stands a chance…”

“Hey, only one worm!!” Bobathan warned loudly. “If you have that many of course he'd try to eat it all in one go!” 

“Hey… Boba—”

The High Prince raised his arm up when Bobathan tried to grab the wiggling worms in his hand so he couldn't reach it. “What? Frog got your hand?” he mocked Bobathan.

“I don't think that's how it goes…”

“Hey!! You're way taller than me! This isn't fair at all!” Bobathan shouted, jumping continuously in an attempt to take the worms from the High Prince.

Bobathan started chasing the High Prince around the room, as they made noises reminiscent of absolute zilch to taunt one another. It started off as a game of tag. Naturally, Bobathan was ‘it’ because he was the one chasing someone around. The High Prince was, in a sense, the hunted.

The High Prince jumped over the somewhat big sofa thinking it might somehow slow Bobathan down.  It had not worked, however, as Bobathan was not as physically mediocre as his younger brother. Finding his manoeuvre unsuccessful, he rushed to the kitchen. He intentionally went behind the kitchen counter to make himself seem trapped. He grunted and furiously looked around as if he was looking for an exit. When Bobathan found the courage and walked around the counter, he jumped over the counter. Bobathan's jaw dropped at how the High Prince managed to jump over the counter only using the cramped space between the stove and the aspirator hanging from the ceiling (both of which were imported Cryptid technology).

The chase continued in the living room when the book his little brother was reading caught the High Prince's attention. He sprinted as fast as he could. When he reached his little brother's side, he yanked the book off his hand and threw it at Bobathan.

“Hey, what the hell?!” the Little Prince shouted.

“Womp womp…” the High Prince replied satirically.

Bobathan shook his head and rubbed his cheeks as he turned to the High Prince, and said:

“What was that even for?!”

“Well, it stopped you, didn't it?” the High Prince replied. He was standing still, taking a breather because he realised he was not getting chased anymore.

“C’mon! That gotta be playing dirty!”

“Quit whining. I haven't even used magic.”

“So you were considering it? Even though you would be playing dirty if you did that??”

“I didn't really think about it. It wasn't as big a challenge for me to consider resorting to magic.”

“Whatever. Stupid musclehead.”

A brief silence.

“Where's Bob anyway?”

The Little Prince pointed at the green frog inside the jar, eating away to his heart's content. “I was trying to tell you that earlier. You left the jar ajarred.”

“The hell's that s'posed to mean?” the High Prince stated.

…and, no, there is no mistake there. It is the prince's exact words. Rather interesting how a prince chooses to speak in slang despite all their training in etiquette

Meanwhile, Bobathan immediately pulled Bob out of the jar. “Hey, don't eat so much. I don't want you to die…” he winced, hugging the little frog tightly.

“So… in the end, does this mean Bob doesn't like either of you?” the High Prince commented.

The High Prince and the Bobathan turned their heads towards each other dramatically slowly. They just stared at each other, dumbfounded.