Eirika felt her heart sink a bit. For all she'd tried in keeping some romance with nonfiction thrown in, she'd not done well at all. Was she so jaded about her position? She felt as if she seemed to be.

Reaching over, she smoothed Mary's hair, as if to catch her attention.

"All things in life require effort and hard work," she coaxed the younger girl. "It is only through our own strength that we can truly feel alive. Commoner or nobility, at our very cores, we are all the same. If you believe yourself to be a princess, Mary, then you are."