Alivaya Kalalu

Alivaya emerged from the school's main gate, turned left, and headed for the bus stop. The heavy golden netting on her head hung over her forehead, just as it appeared.

A golden spiderweb.

She glared at the laughing schoolmates on the waiting benches—mostly elves, their pointed ears either pierced or adorned with AirPods. Her own ear twitched involuntarily, the weight of the clip-on earrings reminding her of the simple pendulum equation, and she felt a surge of annoyance. The elders had forbidden piercings, replacing them with these pairs of pure gold clip-on earrings, encircling her ears like armor. She could understand the reasoning. A momentary desire could leave marks on the ears that were difficult to heal, and there was a risk of infection. But she was truly annoyed by the elders' tone: "The fallen one who dares to pierce the sacred, beautiful ears of an elf shall be struck by lightning!" Moreover, she couldn't even wear silver jewelry. The elder said silver is like a needle, gold is like ointment; applying silver to the body would harm one's health, while wearing gold jewelry was the only way to maintain health. She thought gold jewelry was something only older women wore.

She leaned against a pillar in the bus shelter, her eyes glancing at her classmates scrolling through Instagram and TikTok. Dark elves' features are easily recognizable; several others, like her, are of the Van race, of course, hybrids.

There are probably no more than twenty dark-skinned elves in the entire school, and she is probably the only pureblood like herself.

The goblins in her class—well, to be precise, elves with goblin blood mixed with elves—and one or two fox spirits, laughed at her again: “How did our noble elven princess do on her exams? Did her bloodline fail her?”

She bombed her math exam, dropping three places in her mid-term grade to seventh. Her original seat was now occupied by a fox spirit in her class. Saku Kokonoe. Anyway, the top two in the class were either him or her. He was actually a good person, but losing to the pure-blooded foxfolk of Hinohon was a bitter pill to swallow. She is forced to wear prison-like jewelry all day, mocked by her classmates, following her grandfather's prescribed schedule of nine-to-five commute between school and her rented apartment, and every month she has to travel a long way south to her tribe, with no freedom whatsoever; for the sake of her princess status, she has to sit upright and stand taller than anyone else at all times; the government would supposedly give high-purity elf, raccoon, and dwarf students extra points in cultural studies, but in reality, she still has to rely on her own late-night studying to achieve convincing results.

What does her bloodline actually give her?

Her grandfather once pointed to the mountain and told her that from here all the way to the shadow of the mountain, it used to be the territory of the Van tribe, managed by the high priest—that was her future job.

Grandpa, that's all in the past. I'm not a princess who will be a tribal chief or a high priest; I'm just a high school girl who wants to go to university.

She boarded the bus and sat by the window, swaying back and forth, lost in thought. Only then did she notice Kana sitting in the seat in front of her. Kana was from the Mei tribe; her ears were shorter than most elves, only slightly pointed than those of human, with very fair skin and large breasts. She wore a crimson Mei tribe scarf with colorful flowers, but her hair was dyed a milk tea color popular in Hinohon. She was popular among the humans, beastfolks, and elves. In contrast, she, as a noble chieftain, could only wear black ceremonial robes with heavy gold ornaments in her tribe. She would never wear such clothes to school.

This reminds her of her neighbor, Maljarein. She is a high-ranking noblegirl, only one rank below Alivaya, but her family was very poor, probably since three hundred years ago when the human brought currency. So they lost contact after graduating from middle school; Maya moved out of the tribe to live alone, and she heard she worked at McDonald's there.

'--Lia--' Maya loved to laugh, but thinking of her smiling face now makes Alivaya want to cry.

What can our culture truly offer us?

She had once went to the pawnshop across the alley from the school to inquire about the price. The pawnshop owner, Dafa Zhu, was an unexpectedly morally conscious troll. When she took the gold net off her head and placed it on the counter, he immediately waved his hand, telling her he couldn't accept such religious objects; he himself seemed to be a devout believer. She pleaded repeatedly before Zhu finally put on gloves, picked up the gold net, and then sighed and put it down. "Let check out how heavy this intricate gold weaving is. With such a thick gold bar, it's probably no less than five hundred. Considering you little girl wore it on your head all day, let's conservatively say it's three hundred grams. However if you really want to exchange something like this for money, you should sell it to a museum. In short, even disregarding the cost of the goldwork, this thing is probably worth eighty, at least fifty thousand."

She was stunned. It was a miracle she hadn't been robbed yet.

To challenge rigid traditions, Lia bowed and scraped before Iljavan and Alui, even begging Husung Vito of the Vûlonn tribe and dancing with Kana on TikTok, managing to borrow one thousand dollars—a month's salary for a high school girl. She lied to her grandfather, saying she sold earrings, claiming their outdated practices were the reason the entire tribe was so poor. That night, she was slapped by the elder.

Or what can we do else? Lia almost burst into tears. If her parents hadn't gone down the mountain to work, she wouldn't even have been able to afford high school. Her full name, Alivaya Muakay Kalalu, was entirely a first name, without a surname, making it inconvenient to address her at school, difficult to write on exams, and even against the national identity format. So she didn't learn she had a Hinohon name until she entered middle school. When she first filled in 'Kalalu Takayama' in the name field, she laughed absurdly.

What's the use of being a princess? Will the people pay taxes to her? She's just an ordinary citizen, worrying about an uncertain future.

I just want to be a free, ordinary high school girl, is that wrong?

She couldn't help but shed a tear. She leans against the car window, hearing the golden net tinkling against the glass.

Does she love her tribe? Lia doesn't know. But she probably doesn't hate it. However, she has no idea at all what kind of feelings she should have towards her tribe.