A Journey Beyond Borders

Aboard a grand vessel that rocked gently with the tides, people from all walks of life—farmers, teachers, miners, artists, software developers, soldiers, merchants, healers, tailors, poets, construction workers, dancers, engineers, and countless others—embarked on a 30-day voyage across oceans. The ship echoed with the voices of different tongues, laughter, songs of home, and hopes for the future. What united them wasn’t their past, but a shared anticipation of change.

But destiny took a sharp turn.

After reaching the edge of their journey, the ship suffered irreparable mechanical failure. With urgency and political interest, a nearby nation—Aidni offered to sponsor a flight to take these people home or at least to safety. The country broadcasted its decision with pride. The state-run channels of Aidni framed it as a humanitarian act, a generous gesture in an election season where every vote mattered.

However, behind closed doors, dissent brewed.

“This is a strategic mistake,” grumbled the Election Strategist of the ruling party. “These individuals—refugees, migrants, wanderers—are more likely to favour the opposition. Our data is clear. Supporting them won't help us, it’ll hurt us.”

Yet the announcement had already made it to the headlines. Aidni had committed, and so the flight took off.

But fate wasn’t done playing its hand.

Mid-air, the flight encountered a severe technical failure and crash-landed in the impoverished country of Wanehill . The people were safe, but the land they arrived in was not.

Wanehill  was a country bruised by time and injustice. Decades ago, during a brutal famine that swept through its central valley, desperate parents had given their children away in exchange for sacks of grain. In some villages, children were sold to labor camps, to foreign households, even to elderly women who promised food but offered servitude. One such incident, widely documented by a traveling journalist, told of two infant twins exchanged for five bags of rice—a harrowing transaction that became a symbol of Wanehill ’s suffering.

Now, decades later, history seemed to echo itself.

Among the passengers were Princess Mary and a man named Loise—her confidant and fellow traveler. Though very few knew of Mary’s royal roots, she carried herself with grace, compassion, and an air of quiet dignity.

As they wandered through the dusty streets of Wanehill  in search of help, they stumbled upon a heartbreaking scene. In the market square, they witnessed two infants being handed over to an elderly woman in exchange for coins wrapped in cloth. Shocked, Mary approached a young woman standing nearby, tears welling in her eyes.

“They are yours?” she whispered.

The woman, hollow-eyed but firm, nodded. “Yes. They are my children. But they’ll have food there. Here... they’ll die.”

Mary’s heart shattered. She wept silently, and Loise stood beside her, speechless. It was not a scene from history—it was the present, alive and bleeding.

Seeking shelter, they walked into an abandoned hotel with no guests, no service, only dust and silence. They sat quietly, the weight of the day heavy on their shoulders.

Suddenly, the scent of simmering vegetables wafted through the air. A group of elderly women had entered through the kitchen, each carrying the humble ingredients they had managed to gather—roots, grains, herbs, and salt. Without a word, they cooked a meal and distributed it with kindness, offering bowls to every soul in the room.

Mary and Loise accepted the food gratefully and sat down. As they ate, Loise noticed something peculiar in the way Mary held her spoon, the way she bowed her head in quiet reverence before tasting the food.

“You’re not just anyone, are you?” he asked, curiously but gently.

Mary paused, then offered a soft smile. “No,” she said. “I am not.”

“You’re from royalty,” he guessed.

“Yes,” she replied, placing the bowl down. “But that means nothing here—not when mothers are selling their children for survival.”

The princess sat quietly as the man looked at her, his eyes searching for answers. “You will surely have the insights of the kingdom,” he said, “then why can’t you use it to save these people? To change their fate?”

She sighed deeply. “These people... they cannot be changed,” she said softly.

“Why?” the man pressed.

“They are bound by rituals, traditions that run deeper than logic. They don’t trust outsiders—especially foreigners like us. Their old ancestral words are law. It’s not just a habit, it’s their identity,” she explained.

The man shook his head. “I believe love and action can break through any wall.”

The princess hesitated, her eyes clouded with pain. “I once tried to change things in my own home. I came here not because of war, but because of misunderstandings with my father—the king.”

Her voice trembled as she continued. “He didn’t understand me. No matter how much I explained, he saw me as someone living off his kindness, not as his daughter with her own thoughts and dreams. The formality between us was like a wall. I wanted family, love, understanding... but he could only offer control and distance.”

The man listened quietly, sensing her hurt but choosing not to pry further. They fell silent.

The Princess and the Man: Seeds of Change

That night, after everyone else had fallen asleep in the crowded shelter—men, women, children, elders packed tightly together—the princess lay awake. Her mind wandered to the man’s words: Do you think you made a mistake leaving your comfort zone?

She whispered to herself, “I don’t know.”

Unable to stay still, she stepped out for fresh air, the cold biting her skin. Among the clustered tents and flickering fires, she found the man, sitting alone under the stars.

“Let’s help these people,” she said quietly, “help them escape this famine, these chains of old rituals and fear.”

The man nodded, a flicker of hope lighting his eyes.

At dawn, with the sun casting golden light over the cracked earth, they gathered the seeds they had brought. Despite doubts gnawing at their hearts, they sowed the first furrows in faith, since the princess said to the man what she remembered.

“In her kingdom, a news spread about a seed sown in a dead land in faith in God, and it bore fruits faster than others did”.

Encouraged, they pressed on.

But as the seeds were buried, murmurs spread among the people. “What good are seeds that will only bear fruit in a year?” they questioned, desperation heavy in their voices.

The man saw chickens and hens wandering nearby. The man proposed they raise them for eggs and meat.

The people recoiled. “Those are curses! Dangerous! They will bring illness,” they whispered.

The princess searched ancient stories and found painful truths: years ago, powerful men—foreigners not of skin but of wealth and influence—had spread lies to control the people. They told them only “laboratory-made” meats and vegetables were safe, products too costly for the common folk. Those stories had bred fear and dependency.

“It was all to keep them poor and powerless,” the princess said quietly.

Despite resistance, the man and the princess cooked eggs and chicken. At first, no one dared eat. But as days passed and they remained healthy, others began to follow.

Anger grew among the wealthy and powerful—those who profited from the old system. They whispered threats, plotting to silence the princess and the man before their hope could spread.

Seeds of Change — Chapter Two: The Fracture

The land had begun to change.

From the ruins of old beliefs, the princess and the man had led a quiet transformation. What was once dry and barren now showed signs of life. Together, with knowledge and compassion, they had turned waste from cursed trees into usable tools, taught soil care techniques to revive the earth, and started growing their own fruits and vegetables.

With unity and work, houses began to rise—built from bricks molded by hand, cemented with stone and sweat. Clay pots lined new homes, hand-crafted by villagers who once knew only labor under a master’s lash.

The princess taught children basic arithmetic, hygiene, and critical thinking. The man guided the people in farming and craftsmanship. Day by day, hands once idle or enslaved began to create. Bellies were no longer hollow. Minds are no longer trapped.

But peace rarely goes unchallenged.

The elite—those who had long ruled through fear, manipulation, and dependency—grew restless. They watched as their profits dwindled. Their slaves now worked for their own homes. Their expensive lab-grown foods lay untouched as the land bore real nourishment.

And the worst part? The people were healthy. Stronger. More aware.

But the people’s reverence for their former masters had not fully vanished. Conditioned for generations to see the wealthy as protectors, they still believed that these elites had once saved them, forgetting the cost of that false salvation.

So the elites played a familiar game.

They spread whispers: The princess and the man are deceivers. They are foreigners, using your trust to seize control. They are rebels. Terrorists.
They staged events—small sabotages made to look like rebellion.
They staged riots, blamed them on the newcomers.
And worst, they turned some of the people against each other.

The fragile unity crumbled.

Protests erupted. Cries to expel the princess and the man filled the streets. Some even demanded punishment.

The princess, already stretched thin from the sacrifice of leaving her palace and living in the grit of daily hardship, began to lose hope. She watched everything they built fall into chaos. The same misunderstanding she once faced with her father now echoed in an entire community.

The man stayed calm on the outside, but inside, her silence wounded him deeply. He had no comfort left to give.

So, he made a bold, dangerous move.

In front of the villagers—and in front of the elites—he bowed. He declared that he would work under the elite council. He would “serve” them. Not as a slave, but as a loyal voice.

Seeds of Change — Chapter Three: The Harvest and the Hidden Prince

The skies were dry, the wind heavy with silence.

Tensions still stirred the hearts of the people, divided by whispers and fear. The man, once trusted by many, had bowed to the wealthy elites and declared himself their servant. The princess had watched in heartbreak as he turned away, believing for a moment that she had lost him—to fear, or worse, to betrayal.

But deep inside, something told her otherwise.

“Faith built this… truth will save it again. Hold on.”

She clung to his last words, even as they tore at her heart.

Then came the moment.

The elites stood tall, proud and smirking, before the gathered villagers. The man approached the lush fields—those that he and the princess had sown together, row by row, seed by seed, in hope.

One of the elites, a sharp-eyed official draped in rich fabric, sneered:

“You claim to be one of us now? Then show us. Pluck out those cursed crops. Destroy what you built—if you truly serve us.”

The man paused.

He looked toward the fields, then slowly walked toward them. As he reached the edge of the harvest, the wind carried his voice—low, steady, and deliberate, and partially looking  at the princess,he said:

“These are the seeds we sowed together...”

His words struck the princess like thunder.

She gasped and took a step forward. Her eyes widened in realization. He was using their pride against them. This was not betrayal. This was part of his plan. He had once told her—long ago, when they first planted those seeds—that when the time came, his hands would be the first to harvest them.

But she had forgotten.

She realised that he wanted to use my pure concern for these people in broken hearts of mine, so that people could understand the true intention of the elites, and the rumors spread on us.

Still, the pain in her heart was real. It overwhelmed her.

“How could you?” she cried out, tears streaming. “How could you betray us like this?!”

The people watched her break. Some clutched their children. Others looked at one another, confused and torn.

Then, the man knelt.

He began plucking the ripe vegetables, slowly, one by one.

The elites laughed. Their joy echoed through the valley like poison.

But then—something changed.

A boy, no older than ten, stepped forward.

Then another. Then a woman. Then a farmer.

The people who had once stood with the man—who had worked the soil beside him—began to shake with fury. Their eyes burned not at him… but at the mocking smiles of the elites.

“You lied to us,” someone shouted.

“You fed us scraps, while these two gave us life!” cried another.

Suddenly, a surge.

The villagers charged forward—not to strike the man, but to defend him.

In the chaos, punches flew, accusations were shouted, and the elites—once untouchable—were driven back in fear. The false gods were unmasked. The truth, buried for so long beneath fear, had risen.

The man stood still, arms outstretched—not fighting, but letting the people choose.

And they chose the truth.

The princess, shaken and moved, walked through the crowd toward him. Her voice was soft, but her heart beat wildly.

“Who are you?” she asked.”Where did you learn all these?”

He looked at her with a weary smile, blood on his cheek from a thrown stone, dirt under his nails.

“I once served in the royal military. Strategy, negotiation, peacekeeping… I was trained to see through deception.”

The princess stepped back in surprise. Her voice faltered.

“You… you were the one. The prince. You came to our palace months ago…”

He nodded.

“But your father never listened. He saw me as a threat, not as an ally.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” she asked, eyes brimming.

“Because I didn’t want a title to earn trust,” he said. “I wanted my love and actions to speak first.”

She stood speechless, as the people began cheering—not for royalty, but for restoration. For unity. For hope reborn.

And together,the true prince and princess stood—no longer for power, but for the people.