You've scraped your hands climbing out of your window and scaling down the length of the castle—a skill you owe to your childhood best friend—and now the sweat that trickles down your skin under your cloak stings the heels of your palms. It stings like the fleeting freedom of moments such as these.

You float down the cobblestone streets of Pulvoliva, your beloved kingdom. One day, you’ll rule it, but that’s a worry for another time. The fleeting pleasures served to you within the castle’s passionless walls are nothing compared to the lively, ale-soaked streets.

Once at a safe distance from the castle and its guards, you push back your hood, tossing a dramatic bow toward the toothy half-dwarf woman who always tosses you two apples.

The docks are buzzing with sailors—pirates, more like—vendors shouting their wares, and, your favorite, the performers.

You grin, watching the familiar dragonborn man with his hair in a ponytail, the rest of it shaven off, leaving his dark head to shimmer under the honeyed sunlight as he blows fire from his lips. Beside him, an orc woman opens her gold-toothed mouth wide before putting a saber to it and swallowing it whole. The half-elf girl, painted in white and black, stands out against the kaleidoscope of color in the streets of Mortenfa, the capital of Pulvoliva. She revels in the "oohs" and "aahs" as she performs brief invisibility tricks.

A warm, deft hand—always as quick as ever—plucks one of the apples from your grasp, ducking behind you as you turn to catch him, laughing.

Finally, the street-urchin-turned-knight shows himself, grinning ear to ear, the apple already half-eaten.

"Your Majesty," Naffeed teases, studying your face as he has done since you first met, escaping the palace together as children. His breastplate glitters in the sunlight bouncing off the sapphire sea, stark against his dark, scar-spangled skin and tanned complexion.