Chapter 1 - The First Meeting

“This room is amazing and breathtaking. Fill with vast archives of documents and artifacts neatly stacked in museum collection storage. What is that smallest thing on the small bottle?” Prince Mharl exclaimed silently that almost coming out loudly from his mouth that moved a bit while the king and queen were talking to the excellency of the Philippines, President Reynam Devam. Of course, he knew them all. Is not art one of his favorite subjects now at Tranegårdskolen school in Denmark?

The Presidential Security Group (PSG), uniformed men, and maids were everywhere. Suddenly, he turned his head as if a compass trying to form a circle. He found everyone was preoccupied. He got up from his chair slowly, stretched his legs as he took some tiny steps, and stood confidently while mimicking other visitors curiously looking at things deeply at first sight. That was partly true, but the real reason was that boredom took him in a few hours already as he sat alone on a mahogany pastel couch in a corner. Outside, he walked through a long way passage until he came near to the garden.

“There is a flutter of butterflies in the stem of the tree that looked like a cherry blossom plant facing the river,” the prince murmured cheerfully. His walk came briskly ignoring the path as if trying to catch a fish in the river. Surprisingly, all of a sudden, he bumped into something. A light pain hit his chest.

The prince saw the short-haired girl fall to the ground with her back covered with dust on the trunk of the tree near to the place where he stood. Her upper lip was open and her one tooth was already a sight even if she did not smile. She was a harelip girl. He noticed that she carried a mini blue pail with a yellow dipper and a piece of old wet rug that was left scattered in front of her.

“En sløv banan. What is wrong with you? You are not looking at your path!” the prince on his red face yelled while making a quick survey of what might be the effect of the bump. He used his hands to wipe the dust off carefully from his classic black suit. His serious and stern demeanor said a lot about how he cared about it. His Danish expression used when angry he absentmindedly said it again. That meant a slow and lazy person.

The girl still on her silent unstoppable stream of tears with eyelids flooded with moisture felt her throat closing up, and took steps to gather her stuff without looking at the prince. Her tears kept falling like a southwest monsoon rain on her wet cheeks.

“Are you dumb? I am talking to you!” the prince angrily shouted as his pitch raised higher for emphasis. Without warning, he pulled her left hand to face him. That caused the blue pail to fall again when she already gathered it in her hands.

“You better watch your steps! Wake up dreamy girl,” brawled the prince as he forcefully grabbed her shoulders.

“How dare you to snob me! You are not that pretty strange girl. Will you answer me?” he angrily commanded. His choleric behavior overwhelmed him.

“Sorry!” the girl answered softly and timidly while tears still welled from her eyes. They kept falling from her cheeks. Her short black hair covered her entire face while he lowered her head eyeing the whereabouts of her stuff. The pink cotton dress she wore was wet on the lower part and her left side was full of dust.

The girl, perhaps, was three years younger than him as he calculated. He was 10 and the harelip girl was 7. She got a fair complexion, straight hair, and pretty eyes that matched her oval face. “Her voice was good though. Her nose stood tall like a Spanish model. Only one thing that made her ugly was her obvious harelip which was not yet fixed. She is tall, but I am taller than her, of course,” the prince vividly observed. Deep inside, he wanted to say sorry, but since he did not like to be scolded, he made a way to cover his mistakes. When his reputation was at stake, he made a way to appear clean. He let his pride win.

“Hello! What is your name?” he growled.

In tears that almost blurred her vision, she managed to see the face of this handsome and good-looking but rude boy. He was a foreigner as everything about him said so. Obviously, he came from a rich family. His clothes were nice and expensive. She cannot understand what he said only the question now about her name. He had an accent, which she already heard in movies she watched. The words were hard to speak as if carrying a heavy luggage on her pained heart. She gathered the pail and dipper with rug again for the third time.

“If you can excuse me, I rather go now!” the girl answered hurriedly. She turned left on the edge of the building without waiting for his answer. 

“Wait!” the prince shouted. The girl heard it since she was a just a few steps away, but decided not to look back. She was determined to flee from his presence.

Meanwhile, Prince Mharl angrily turned around. He raised his face to peek on the butterflies that he saw a while ago, but there was nothing to see anymore.

“What did I do?” he reflected his actions while walking back to the room. “How could I talk to her like that? Who is that girl? Maybe, she is one of the daughters of the servants here. What if she told them about the incident a while ago? Oh no!” he uttered anxiously suddenly aware of what might happen.

“Here he is!” the uniformed man shouted to some as he ran breathlessly, who obviously looked for his presence earlier probably.

“What happened?” Prince Mharl curiously asked.

“Your highness, the king and queen were looking for you. We almost took thirty minutes searching the whole palace just to find you. And it was good that you ended up here. If not, some parts of the palace were hard to search a bit because of the vastness of the area. Come on, let’s go your highness,” the man in uniform urged while did bow his head before the prince and extending his hand back inside.

Inside the library, the royals queried the prince about what he did.

“I did not know I was already here near at the river. I was fascinated with the colorful butterflies when I was in the lobby, so I decided to follow them and ended here,” the prince explained endlessly.

“Your highness, we need to go now,” the tall man in PSG uniform told Prince Mharl.

They went back and used the shortcut in the middle of the building. They passed the three-wide rooms first before to the main room in the executive offices. The study, music, and parlor room. King Phil IV, Queen Viela II, his parents, the leader of Denmark, and President Reynam Devam of the Philippines soon appeared as they entered the room. They looked worried as they obviously waited for his return. The etiquettes were not forgotten, so no matter how they felt, gestures and emotions needed to be controlled.

“Oh, Prince Mharl, my son. We have been looking for you for the past few hours already,” the queen’s worried face appeared as she approached the prince with a hug.

“What did you do? Where have you been?” the king’s worried face inquired as he stood from his executive chair.

“I was fascinated by the paintings outside, then saw a group of butterflies nearby and decided to follow them. I ended in the garden near the river,” Prince Mharl explained with an anxious thought deep inside thinking that he did not tell the whole story.

“I found him in the garden near the river,” one of the Presidential Security Group (PSG) answered.

“Alright! What is important now Prince Mharl is here. Since we were done, why not make our way to our lunch in the dining room?” President Devam persuaded while smiling.

“Great!” the king agreed while holding Prince Mharl hands together with the queen. President Devam led them to the stairway in going to the ground floor instead of using the elevator.

“I decided to walk the three of you on the stairs my highnesses, so I may discuss the paintings at the ceiling, which I know Prince Mharl loved as you told me earlier. The painting over here was a group of villagers at the fishing port. It was a typical sight in the country. That was made by Juan Luna, one of our national artists. Then, that nearby painting in the ceiling placed vertically almost aligned to where we stood is a landscape where a man and a woman riding in a carabao was made as well by Juan Luna,” President Devan explained excitedly as he led the way.

King Phil IV paused for a while and examined the painting with his keen eyes closely, as he intently viewed it with his own eyes. “This was awesome and meaningful!” the king exclaimed.

The next morning the tour happened. They enjoyed roaming around and being introduced to different unique and historical spots in the country. Night came, and the prince went outside of his room thinking that everyone fell asleep.

Now, he remembered that smallest thing he saw a while ago near the door. He needed to go to that room. He tiptoed and kept on turning his head as if somebody would see him any moment from now. The door was not locked as he opened it, and he was so happy that he even touched it. There was no alarm around except for the dim light above. He paused and debated whether to pursue his plan or not. Finally, he decided.

The next day at the airport the prince turned three times to see the country before going up against their private royal airplane. Their brief visit made him love the country.

“Someday, I will be here again,” he told himself confidently. His attendant led him to his chair as his parents followed him. When the king and queen entered, a close inspection was made by the uniformed men and royal guards.