Chapter Text
“Pomni, wasn’t it?” Came the Princesses’ voice.
Pomni jumped up, shouted a quick, “That’s me!”, and hurried to put her jester cap back on. Just then, the door opened to reveal the impeccably dressed Princess Loolilalu. Pomni, as did everyone else in the room, bowed deeply and waited until she felt the Princess’ hand on her shoulder indicating that she could stand to do so.
”Oh, please, there’s no need to be so formal,” the Princess said, a warm smile on her face. Pomni liked her immediately. “But I appreciate it all the same.”
”Of course, miss—uh, ma’am, your Majesty—?” The Princess laughed, and after a moment, Pomni joined in good—naturally.
”Please, call me Loo. I’m not one for fancy titles. My Queen, however…well, you’ll meet her in a bit. I am adopted, after all, so we don’t share a lot of the same manners, I guess you could say.” The Princess—Loo—smiled at Pomni, as if she’d just let her in on a secret. Pomni, now unsure how she should react, just sort of gave an awkward half smile and a thumbs up.
”Now, enough about me; I’ve heard from some of my local advisors that you’re quite the mercenary, a regular explorer. Is this correct?” Pomni flushed, and unknowingly began to fuss with the strap of her satchel.
”Well…yes, I guess you could say that. I’ve made some good money exploring abandoned ruins throughout your kingdom. I guess I started as a scavenger, but people really liked hearing the stories about my exploring, and pretty soon, I ended up taking commissions to explore specific places, sometimes even searching for artifacts, and, well...”
“And now you’re here.” finished Loo, nodding appreciatively. “Sounds like you’ve got some skills, Pomni.” Pomni bowed her head and thanked the princess for the compliment, who paid it no mind, already steamrolling ahead. She crossed the room and began gesturing at a large map mounted on the wall.
”If you’re willing to take on a large and frankly dangerous commission, I’d like to enlist your help.”
Pomni nodded, and tried to keep the excitement from her voice as she asked, “What sort of job?”
The princess paused, turning to one of the brightly—clad guards and indicating they should get something for her. Meanwhile, she pointed at an empty expanse of map—the Far East Ocean.
”It’s…rather far away,” she said, as the aide returned and held up a rather old looking, hand drawn map. Pomni leaned forward, her brain already working to decipher the ancient—looking writing on the margins of the document.
”In fact, I’m not exactly sure where it is,” continued the Princess. “All I know is that it’s extremely old, and somehow connected to the coda in our ocean. Some people even claim it has magical abilities!”
”Magic?” murmured Pomni, legends she’s been raised on immediately jumping to mind.
”And again, I don’t know where, but it’s somewhere within the bounds of the Oil Ocean, so there’s no need to worry. It’s somewhere on the planet!” She joked, but Pomni was only half listening.
”Princess,” she started, “What is it that I’m looking for?” The Princess smiled before sputtering for a moment. Pomni took notice of this and quickly smiled, filing it away to maybe use for later.
”Oh, don’t worry if you can’t tell me. That doesn’t matter; I’ve done jobs on the down—low loads of times. I don’t need to know the specifics. Is there anything else you can tell me about this job?”
The Princess perked back up and, after a wave of her hand, the aid began to roll up the map.
”Yes, I can! It’s a rather long journey, and rather dangerous, so you’ll need to enlist a crew. If you talk to the Queen—she should be in here any moment now—she can give you some more details, and direct you to a schooner I think would be best suited for the journey. You may have heard of it; the Digital Circus?” The name rang a bell, but Pomni had to admit she’d never met any of the crew of the infamous pirate vessel.
”Her crew is…unique, to say the least, but her Captain is an old friend of mine, and the Queens’. I can’t deny they’re one of the best.” Pomni nodded. She was no stranger to working with others, even if she usually preferred to be left alone.
”Oh! Here the Queen is now.” At the sound of a door opening, Pomni looked up from her bag (into which she’d stuffed the map) and came face to face with the Queen of Candy Kingdom: a tall dark skinned woman, with a large crown atop her head and kind, coffee coloured eyes.
”You must be Her Majesty Queenie,” Pomni said, bowing even deeper as she had for Princess Loolalilu. Upon feeling a polite tap on her shoulder, she stood and extended a hand to the monarch; the queen took it.
“Yes, I am!” She said cheerily. “And you must be Pomni. I’m so glad to hear that you’ll be taking on this commission from us.”
”Oh well, she hasn’t actually technically accepted yet—“ laughed Loo, but Pomni simply smiled, cutting in to reply, “Of course; I’m honoured you’d search for me specifically for this, it must be pretty important. Or, maybe you guys are just getting desperate?” Loo stuttered for a moment, while Queenie just regarded her with the same kind, albeit guarded, expression.
”Oh, nonsense! nothing of the sort,” she said, after a loaded beat of silence. “If you’ll come with me, I’ll figure out getting you the gold you’ll need, both to hire a crew and for yourself, of course. There’s also a letter I need you to deliver, as more of a favour really…” With a distinctly regal gait, Queenie left the room and, with a quick goodbye and thank you to Princess Loolilalu, Pomni scurried after her, excitement already building in her chest at the thought of adventure.
*
Later that day, Pomni found herself searching the quay of the Maple Syrup Grand Harbour. Apparently, anchored at one of the deep water piers would be the Digital Circus, which she was supposed to board, and convince the Captain to take her commission and accept her onto the crew, to sail for…whatever it was the royalty of the country had wanted her to search for. She had a few ideas, but more research was definitely necessary.
”Maybe I should have asked for more details about what it is I’m looking for, and not whatever riddle they ended up giving me,” Pomni mused to herself, as she ambled along the quay. She debated unfolding the map to study it more closely but, knowing how common bandits were around her, decided to leave it in her bag. Pausing, she took a moment to take a deep breath, relishing the smell of maple syrup and spun sugar which hung in the air. She loved the Candy Kingdom, she really did, but if she was being honest with herself, most of the time it felt almost…superficial. She much preferred the village where she’d spent most of her life, than most of the rest of the country.
”EXPLAIN TO DADDY BUBBLE WHY BAD THING!?” Pomni started and turned instinctively towards the loud exclaimation, so different from the background chatter of the dockhands. Her pinwheel irises landed on a rather strange sight. Just across the bustling market from her, busy haggling with a storeowner, was a man in a red Captains' coat and top hat. Next to him was…a bubble. That's all he was, but he had definitely just spoken. Pomni couldn’t see any body attached to the floating orb. Almost more disturbing, she realized after a moment, the man the bubble was talking to didn’t have a head. When he turned to yell something at the bubble (and then pop him), Pomni let out a gasp to see that instead of a head, a large pair of teeth (housing two different coloured eyes) floated just above his shoulders.
Swallowing back her surprise, Pomni thought back to Queenies’ description of the captain: “All teeth,” she’d said. Well, you can’t really get any more teeth than that, thought Pomni. Taking a deep breath and tugging on the strap of her satchel for support, she shouldered her way across the road in the direction of the captain. This was a bit difficult, as she was on the shorter side, but she reached the side of the man just as he finished up his business with the merchant. He turned, and Pomni immediately greeted him.
”Hi! Um hi, are you Captain…Caine?”
”Indeed I am, my colourful candy stripe! And who might you be?”
”Uh, hi, my name is Pomni, and I was hoping—“
”POMNI! WOW! What a name!” Pomni cringed backwards, her eyes inadvertently dodging to the left for a moment, before forcing herself to stand up straighter and nod. He was certainly as loud and expressive as Queenie had described him.
”Yes, well…it’s nice to meet you. I’m a mercenary, and I was hoping to be able to hire you and your crew for a commission. It’s, ah, rather dangerous, but you’ll all be totally compensated—“
”Did you say ADVENTURE!?” Caine shouted. Pomni glanced around, but surprisingly no one else on the docks seemed to be paying the dentures any mind. Turning back to face him, and thinking of the map in her bag, she nodded shakily.
“Uh, yeah, yeah…it’s a pretty big adventure, I guess you could say. Are you—“
“Well, I’ll have to consult the rest of my crew,” said Caine, sweeping his arms wide, “But I agree! I’ll take on your commission, Pomni!” Pomni smiled in relief that that was all it had taken, but before she could say anything else, the Captain suddenly reached forward and grabbed her forearm. She grimaced, but not as much as she did as Caine used some sort of spell to teleport them away from the marketplace. All Pomni heard as the wind threatened to pull her jester cap from her head was the dentures exclaiming, “No more talking! Let’s get RIGHT INTO THE SHOW!”