Iris wraps her arms around Jasmine, fully reciprocating the embrace the excited girl had given her. In many ways, she understood exactly what she saw in that moment. It was beautiful, after all- but it was beautiful in part because of that unfamiliarity. Iris spent most of her life in the mountainous northern kingdom, where you were lucky to see a spring or a stream. And here, there was simply a vast outstretch of water, a great expanse that stretched out to nothingness, the lights of the city reflecting off of it. The beauty that she saw from all of this, the wonder of the city and its night lights and the coast and what lays beyond, they would be unappreciated if she lived here. And yet, Jasmine, who spent her life here, was as awestruck as she was.
“We did, Jasmine. It’s Sjakal. And it will all be yours, someday.”
A hand gently massages the sultan’s back as Iris looks out on the city.
“There’s a lot more to see, up close, beyond this statue,” she offers. “We can travel to the water, if it pleases you. Feel the sand beneath you, the ocean at your feet. This… ‘beach’ where the land meets water, or perhaps…” The concubine pauses. She wanted to help her Mistress, but sometimes the language differences between the kingdoms and misunderstanding snuck into her statements. The faithful around here praised the Almighty for all that they thought was good in the world, of course, so if she wanted to discover the greatest places to visit in Sjakal, she needed only to turn to the naming- a place named after celestial bodies.

“When I first came here, I passed someone mentioning some place, 78 Heavens? They must have feared others coveting this place, because the tones were hushed. Perhaps that will be a place to best enjoy our… 'visit' to Sjakal.”