#temirana

Cecilla is the cursed princess of the country Temirana.

Once upon a time as a 6 year old she witnessed the appointment of a Holy Knight, the Sword Saint via a highly esteemed knight tournament called Helis Duelm.

Cecilla had been bored watching the tournament as she saw no need for swordfighting skills in these peaceful times, preferring books instead.

Yet the knight Burkitt Herringtail drew her attention with his elegant fighting skills.

He won the tournament and greeted her, giving her a blessing with the traditional flower of their duel Adeuna. He wished her that she may nurture a beautiful sword within her heart to lead her knights in the future. To carve open a future of her own.

9 years later she reminisces about this event of how she met her teacher Herringtail to her divine beast advisor Benetti.

Benetti is worried about Cecilia not following her heart to do as she likes. She has become very focused on her duties as a princess and even if Benetti is needling her about it, sneaking out to enjoy life is a bit too bold for her.

With how concerned she is with self-preservation she doubts that she carries a sword in her heart.

Temirana is a country that was founded 2000 years ago and is said to be blessed by the God of Wisdom Vorntahl. However, it is said that every 500 years Calamity strikes which is due this year.

Apparently 2000 years ago the false holy king Lux professed himself a God, angering Vorntahl so these Calamities are punishment for worshipping a God that wasn’t Vorntahl. But even now people who worship Lux still exist.

Another Helis Duelm tournament has come around and Cecillia has to do a little speech for it, especially since it's time for her to get her own knights as she is coming of age soon.

Cecilia is excited and hopes for someone similar to her teacher Sir Herringtail to serve her, but since he is still undefeated after 9 years that may be expecting too much.

At the opening ceremony of Helis Duelm Cecillia’s speech gets interrupted by a strange light only Cecillia can see. She tried her best to finish the speech but her concentration was visibly shaken.

After a while Cecilla intends to check on the participants, but runs into a rather rude guy who promptly lands on his butt. Cecilla is concerned about him since his hand is injured and it turns out this guy just lost his match and got injured in the process. Cecillia’s desire to take him to the first aid room gets nowhere. He is mighty pissed and talks about being a prince of a fallen kingdom far away who wanted to win to talk to the king. His name is Josephy. Cecilla doesn't believe a word he says. He is dressed as a commoner and is nothing but rude to her despite Cecilla reminding him that she is the Princess of Temirana. She gets sick of him fast and wishes him good luck on his already failed tournament. She mentally calls him “Yappy self-proclaimed Prince”. Cecilla does remember that this guy stood where she saw that weird light.

Continuing her quest of checking out more participants Cecilla sees a weird light around a boy carrying a massive load of wares, falling over because of banana peel but then skillfully gathering and trying up everything.

Suddenly he gets accused of stealing a Crystal from a merchant, which turns out to be baseless. Cecilla helps him out and she comments about his bad luck, but he just says that he is used to it. He is called Kiya and soon calmly returns to his work.

Cecillia looks around more the set up shops around the tournament and sees the weird light again. This time around a man working at a blacksmith who criticizes the weapons merchant he’s working with for falsely advertising his skills. This man called Milan is normally working on ornamental craftsmanship and is not a blacksmith that can repair swords. He is quite bad at explaining what ornamental craftsmanship actually entails and never actually looks at Cecillia while talking. She is worried about her questions being annoying however, he isn't bothered, he’s just unsocialable with a resting bitch face. Milan invites her to his shop should she be interested in what he actually does.

Cecillia has a special power called Light of Good Fortune. Whenever she was in mortal danger important things would light up. People glowing is a first to her though. Since no one else can see the light she keeps her ability a secret.

She sees the light again in the direction of the first aid room. She sees a guy collapsed on the ground. He says he often faints from being in crowds and laments that he will probably die before he can become a knight. He admires Sir Herringtail and wants to be a knight like him but he already collapsed on the first three steps outside his house. He may not be suited to knighthood. Cecillia says he shouldn't give up and that continued effort will be rewarded which motivated him enough to stand up from the ground.

He is called Tobias and is Kiya’s employer. Kiya arrives and places him on his card to push home.

Cecillia tries to follow them but loses them outside the tournament venue. Instead she sees another guy enveloped in that strange light who is being chased by a dog. He gets lightly bitten and Cecillia recommends he gets treated inside the tournament venue but as a peasant he isn't allowed inside without an introduction. He’s a farmer who doesn't have enough money to buy a sword, but he couldn't help but dream of being a knight so he came to the tournament but was turned away. The class system of the country frustrates him, but he hopes that one day the country will change. Cecillia takes this to heart and says that she will support him. His name is Adel. 

Returning to the tournament Cecillia suddenly sees big portions of the floor light up. She goes to her father and tries to figure out the meaning behind that warning. Investigating the light around her seat reveals a hidden bundle of light crystals which can be used as explosives. Cecillia tries to get the guards to get rid of it but they don't properly listen to her. She can't carry it herself since it’s too heavy for her. The longer it takes to get rid of it the stronger a headache she gets, but just as she was about to collapse from the pain someone unseen covered in light throws the crystals out and they explode into fireworks. Everyone thinks it’s a little surprise planned by Cecillia, but of course it’s not and an investigation is underway.

Not long after is Cecillia's Coming of Age ceremony. After living the 9 years apart from her family she now has to return to the Royal Castle. As the cursed princess she is not exactly welcome. Her sisters only have venomous words for her and her parents talk very little to her.

Nonetheless she completes the ceremony with a vow to Vorntahl.

At the party afterwards Cecillia wants to talk to her parents but they are both surrounded by other people.

Instead her sister Claudia approaches her to talk down to her, but Cecillia just smiles and turns everything she says into something positive to annoy her.

Thankfully Sir Herringtail pulls Cecillia aside to give a report about the investigation. Seems like actual explosives were also smuggled in the tournament and the likely culprits are the followers of Lux. Gotta be extra careful from now on.

Sir Herringtail finishes by congratulating Cecillia and saying that he looks forward to her knight order. He already serves the king's royal knight order so he sadly can't join hers.

With her Coming of Age ceremony finished Cecillia must now select people to join her knight order, but most of the applications are rather low quality. As the cursed princess only people who are after the status of being her knight or guys who want to marry into royalty, are interested in joining.

Cecillia receives a gift of flowers from Tobias to thank her for lending him her handkerchief. Thinking to talk with the messenger who was Kiya, she goes to the royal gate, but he is already gone. Instead she meets Josephy who tries to enter the Royal District with a travel permit, but the guards don’t believe a foreigner would manage to get such a permit. Of course he is quite mad about being doubted so Cecillia jumps in before the guards arrest him. Josephy still really wants an audience with the king and got the permit from his troupe leader who has the royals trust. Cecillia recognizes the permit as legit, but she also has to admit that there's no way a foreigner will get an audience with the king.

So Josephy changes strategy and offers to be her escort for searching for Kiya. Cecillia reminds him that she can't get him an audience either, but he doesn't take his offer back.

They find Kiya who doesn't seem to remember Cecillia but he guides them to Tobias house at her request. On their way they discuss the differences in the class system between Temirana and Josephy’s home country. His home is much less strict and allows more freedom. Cecillia asks Kiya for his opinion as a peasant and whether he considered becoming a knight for a better status, but as he is struggling with remembering stuff so he considers becoming a knight impossible. He only knows what he writes down in his diary and even his name is something he always wears on a tag as a reminder.

Josephy says that even so Kiya should strive for what he dreams about, even if he still has to decide what to dream for.

Cecillia agrees and says that he is already very skilled so others can simply help out with his memory issues. He can go to her for support when he has a dream he wants to fulfill.

They arrive at Tobias’s house. He is looking just as ghostly as before and every sentence he says seems to be a struggle. Cecillia thanks him for the flowers and says that he should keep trying to make his dream of becoming a knight true. He could join her knight order then! Tobias feels very motivated by this but has to leave them shortly after to recover.

Cecillia usual guard Alison finally arrives. He had too much fun gambling and is late because of that. Josephy is giving him an earful over how irresponsible he is being and that he would make a better guard. Alison answers by ragebaiting him further. 

They go to the Commoner District to visit Milan’s shop next. He makes some really pretty ornaments with light crystals that are also very expensive and are not exactly popular because of that. Cecillia is trying to find out if the weird light meant that Milan might also want to join her knight order, but he seems very uninterested in becoming a knight. He does think very highly of swords though… and not so highly of many knights these days. 

She does buy a pretty lamp from him for Benetti.

Meanwhile Alison disappeared again to eat and drink beer. Josephy’s blood pressure continues to rise…

Next they go to the Peasant District to meet Adel. He again is overwhelmed by animals, this time by chicken. Benetti reveals that all the animals absolutely love him which is why they don’t leave him alone. He invites them into his home and he and 6 of his 10 siblings serve them tea and sweets. Cecillia reveals her identity as a princess to him and invites him to join her Order of Knights. Adel however refuses. He has never held a sword, has only ever read one book and is a peasant. He doesn't believe that it’s possible for him like this.

Leaving, Alison has again disappeared. Instead a guy called Eric appears and says that he is her new guard. He knows Josephy and is quick to make fun of him.

Benetti seems to know Eric too, but Eric doesn't know Benetti for some reason.

Josephy intends to leave now since she now has a proper guard and Cecillia asks him to become a knight in her order. He declines as he has something important to do no matter what. Until then he can't pledge his sword to her. He is destined to be king and not a knight.

Cecillia feels quite disappointed, but there's nothing she can do. Eric meanwhile decides to make even more fun of Josephy, mocking his performance in the tournament.

Cecillia still wants to convince them all to join her knight order so she works out good working conditions and sends them a proposal. She got letters agreeing to discuss this further but on the meeting day no one came.

Cecillia won’t give up though and plans to visit them again starting with Tobias. When arriving at his home with Alison and Benetti, Guards are already trying to enter his home. Apparently Kiya hasn’t come home in 3 days and knowing Tobias's unstable health they fear an emergency. However, the door won’t budge and even the windows are indestructible. Suddenly the door opens on its own, spooking the Guards.

Cecillia finds Tobias, Kiya and Milan hanging out together inside. They also hadn’t been able to leave and didn't notice how much time passed.

Tobias is heartbroken over breaking his promise to Cecillia. He tells her about his reason for admiring Sir Herringtail. Herringtail had saved him from a carriage crash when he was a child. Additionally Tobias talks about the terrible misfortune his family is haunted by. One by one his entire family died until he was alone. His inheritance was lost due to legal issues and all his servants left him. Cecillia is speechless over the tragedy that is his life.

She is happy that he didn't stand her up on purpose though.

Everyone tries to leave but the front door doesn't open again! While exploring for another way out they find a basement with a weird carving. Just being there is giving everyone chills so they leave quickly though Cecillia wanted to look at the carving more.

The front door opens when Eric comes in wondering how much longer he has to wait for them. Now everyone can finally leave.

Benetti suggests Tobias to stay at the princesses estate from now on because something is wrong with his home.

He thanks her by bowing very deeply saying that he never knew whether he would see the next day and how happy he is that Cecillia is taking his dream seriously despite everything.

Kiya is coming along as Tobias's attendant for now. Milan only wants to check on the lamp she brought, saying she shouldn't get her hopes up about him becoming her knight.

She's glad he will visit her estate at all. It gives her more room to convince him.

Next Cecillia wants to visit Adel and ends up stepping right on him collapsed on the street. Since the harvest was bad he didn't have enough money for food and then didn't make it to his meeting with her. Cecillia wants to arrange an advanced paycheck for Adel while Eric feeds him, but Alison has already left to go home. Adel is grateful but he says he wants to learn a bit more about Cecillia and her knight order before he officially joins. So he joins them to find Josephy next.

They go to the Marveil troupe and are greeted by the leader Rudy who is also a relative of Eric's. Josephy sees them and leaves once Eric opens his mouth. Apparently they have always been at odds with each other according to Rudy.

Cecillia would still like to talk to Josephy, but Eric mopes about her being nicer to Josephy than to him. Eric even starts twirling her hair, the guy sure is forward with his flirting. Poor Adel almost gets a heart attack seeing that, but Cecillia puts Eric calmly in his place. 

Cecillia goes to talk to Josephy who is practising with his sword. He did go to her estate for the meeting, but apparently Eric shit talked him into leaving. So yeah Josephy does not want to join the knight order if he has to deal with Eric to do so. Cecillia still wants to know why he changed his mind to come that far in the first place, but Josephy doesn't answer and drags Adel into training with him instead.

They are so focused on training that they don't notice the time and now it's late enough that the gate between the Peasant District and the Commoner District is closed for the day. Tragically the guards there don't recognize Cecillia as the princess since she barely makes official public appearances. So she stays at an inn Adel recommends. During dinner the troupe joins them and make merry with drinks. 

After getting a little drunk Adel opens up to Cecillia about how he fears that his life was determined at birth. That he simply can’t be a knight because he is an ignorant peasant. Cecillia asks about the one book he read which is about a poor farmer's small acts of kindness creating a miracle. She says that he can't know what's inside the books he never read and that from now on she will provide him with new books. Small efforts over time will pay off. Adel is touched and agrees to be her knight.

Cass, a woman of the troupe, sits with Cecillia and talks a bit about Eric and Josephy with her. Apparently Josephy struggles with the swords of Temirana that are quite different from the swords he learned swordfighting with. 

The next day Cecillia safely returns to her estate and meets with Tobias and Kiya. She had them checked out by a doctor who couldn't find anything wrong with them. At least Tobias seems to be feeling better currently. Maybe his home is just cursed. Benetti wondered if he took drugs lol

Cecillia pulls Kiya aside to explain the situation again, listing all the reasons why she thinks he would make a great knight. His forgetfulness is not an issue at all to her. He is quite touched that she remembers so many good things about him he can't remember and he shows her his tag. The tag is full of the most important information for his daily life and it now includes her nickname. Kiya tells her that he has also written about her in his diary. Since it seems she is someone he has deemed a must to remember, he would like to try to become her knight. Clearly she is someone special to him.

Milan has checked on the lamp and Cecillia is giving him a tour of the old, high class decoration in her estate. He is quite taken with them and wonders if the royal castle has more. Cecillia promises to look around for them, but she can't say much right now as she barely visits the royal castle. She has kinda given up on getting Milan as her knight, but she wants them to still have a good business relationship. Milan suddenly says that he will become her knight as long as she helps him with researching ore processing. Cecilia isn’t sure how she can help with that but sure!

4 Knights secured!

In front of Cecillia’s estate a fight between Josephy and Eric breaks out while Adel dies of second hand embarrassment. Josephy tries to properly greet Cecillia and thank her for a sword she gifted him. A sword that is made like the swords of his homehand: A heavy Longsword. But Eric butts in ruining the moment by saying that he got the sword at Cecillia’s request.

They fight again but this time as a real fight with swords. Eric is on a whole different level though and doesn't take Josephy seriously at all. It ends with Josephy kicking Eric in the guts in the moment when Josephy loses his sword. Making technically Josephy the winner.

Satisfied by this Josephy makes the formal declaration that he shall become Cecillia's knight as he was moved by her consideration for him. Also his troupe’s Leader Rudy really wanted him to become her knight too for some reason. There's still his mission, but it seems like that can wait a bit.

Having all knights assembled Cecillia goes to register them, but gets told that commoners and peasants have never been in a royal’s knight order and that they would have to become nobles first. Sir Herringtail suggests that if they pass the yearly knight exam then they would be of a similar status to nobles. The next exam is in a month so it’s time to train!

With the help of Sir Herringtail and Captain Orstett (who is the surprisingly nice husband of one of Cecillia's bully sisters) everyone is getting better slowly but surely! After one hard training session which leaves everyone but the enduring Milan dead, Milan then cooked for them and bonded with Cecillia during it. The actual reason he wants Cecillia to help him is to investigate the suspicious accident his adoptive parents died in. As a commoner he isn't allowed access to any files, but as a knight he will have more power.

Through the training the conditions of Tobias and Kiya seems to get better too. Tobias managed to build up strength and stamina. Kiya managed to remember a bit more without looking up his notes.

Cecillia corresponds with her maid's husband who is a doctor and according to him patients with memory issues often have them due to ingesting too big amounts of herbs. There is a medicine that can alleviate the symptoms but it’s incredibly rare and expensive. Kiya is just glad he isn't a broken toy and can be cured.

Later that night Cecillia meets Kiya on a nightly walk. He read all his diary entries today and wants to tell Cecillia more about himself. At age 6 he got sick and almost died. That's when it all started. He grew up in an orphanage where he was bullied by the other children. He doesn't know how he felt during it since he never writes down his feelings. Once he started working for Tobias his diary entries started to become more positive. Even more so after he started training as a knight. He now starts every entry with a declaration of wanting to become Cecillia's knight. Her name shows up so often now and he thanks her for everything she has done.

She is so happy about this that she has to suppress some happy tears. She is concerned about Kiya never writing about his feelings though. So she encourages him to include them as well.

The day before the exam Cecillia catches Adel with hurt hands from training too much. She scolds him, but afterwards worries about if she went too far and how he is feeling now. She asks Josephy for advice but he just says to just communicate with him in words or actions. Cecillia remembers that today is her birthday so there should be a grand feast in the evening. She hopes that will cheer Adel up. Josephy is feeling conflicted, because it is also his birthday today. Both feel conflicted about sharing their birthday with each other.

They have a grand feast and Cecillia brings out a cake she baked herself with good luck treats inside to cheer her future knights on. Adel is quite touched, cherishes the good luck treat and thanks her again when he’s alone with Cecillia.

On the day of the exam Alison has a bad feeling about everything. The written exam part was clearly harder than usual, though our five knights still managed to pass. At the physical exam part three ex-knights are sabotaging them with the judges completely ignoring it. Clearly someone wants Cecillia's knights to fail. They passed the physical exam as well but the sabotage doesn't end with messing with their weapons or putting bugs in their bags.

It seems to be Cecillia's nasty uncle who is behind it.

The troublemakers even say hi directly to shit talk them. Milan takes the opportunity to provoke the biggest of them. If the fight match ups for the third part of the exam are rigged, Milan wants to take on the biggest of them since he will have an easier time compared to Kiya for example. His assumption of rigged match ups comes true and he has to fight the guy in the second round.

For the third exam part with 1 on 1 fights everyone has to win the first two rounds to get the title of knight. 

Milan wins his first round instantly. According to Alison, he is probably the strongest of our five knights.

The others also have no problems with their first fight. Most of the opponents in this level are nobles who don't take it too seriously.

Milan's fight against the troublemaker is a long one where both either deflect or dodge each other's attacks. During the last minute of their match Milan risks injury by catching his opponents spears as it grazes his side and the counterattacks barely winning in time. However he can't continue fighting for now.

Cecillia misses Josephy's second match patching up Milan's wounds. He also wins his third fight with ease, boring the audience.

Kiya also faces a troublemaker who is just as agile as him making it hard to hit him with Kiya's bow and dagger.

The troublemaker even went as far as putting a very potent poison on Kiya's dagger burning his hand. Kiya endured and caught the bastard off guard, winning the fight. However he can't continue on to the third round like Milan.

Tobias wins his second fight by default, but loses in the third round due to the last troublemaker having an enhanced sword with a light crystal.

Adel also wins his second fight in an honorable normal fight. However, something causes him to surrender his third fight looking visibly shaken.

Only Josephy remains fighting against the troublemaker with the light crystal sword. Annoyingly the troublemakers hid Josephy’s sword, forcing him to fight with a typical Temirana sword. He doesn't mind however. He secretly trained to get better with this type of sword too. Recalibrating his homelands technique with the lighter sword he destroys the crystal embedded inside his opponents sword winning the fight and the entire tournament.

After boasting with his renewed inflated ego, Cecillia gives Josephy a handmade tassel as a late birthday gift to him. He scolds her for losing sleep on this but still happily accepts it.

Everyone is now a knight officially and can be registered as Cecillia’s order of knights! A ceremony is held in which Cecillia hears for the first time that if her order of knights disbands or is considered unworthy then Cecillia will cease to be a royal! Yay, future threat foreshadowing…

After the ceremony Josephy makes use of the opportunity and asks the king whether as former allies of his ruined country he could help him revive his country. The king answered that meddling in other countries is forbidden so there was nothing he could do.

Back in her estate Cecillia goes down with a fever that she apparently always gets after visiting the royal castle.

The next day, still a bit feverish, she decides to tell her new knights why she is considered cursed.

Every now and then women in the royal family are born with a certain pattern on their body that signals that they will die during childhood. Very rarely do these women survive to adulthood. As of now only Cecillia and her grandmother did. The reason for their survival seems to be connected to a special necklace that Cecillia got from her grandmother and is always wearing now. However after her grandmother gave her the necklace her grandmother died very soon after. Being the reason the queen died is why Cecillia is shunned in her own family.

Her knights take this news very well, reassuring Cecillia that her grandmother simply cared that much about her to risk dying. Josephy also praises her for only opening up about this to her sworn knights, since it could be dangerous if this info got out. Someone could try to assassinate Cecillia by stealing the necklace after all.

After Cecillia recovers Adel reports that one of his sisters hasn’t shown up to work for several days. Everyone goes looking for her and it turns out she was gambling the entire time…

Since she illegally used a Commoner Gambling House she got into a scuffle with a knight. The knight wants to settle the matter with a dangerous guessing game where you either get your hand stabbed or slapped depending on which hand of the opponent you chose.

Adel wants to do it instead of his sister but Cecillia does it instead despite his protests. She easily wins thanks to her Light of Fortune ability, but Adel is still shellshocked about her doing something so dangerous in his place. He feels pathetic but Cecillia promises to not do it again and encourages him to become a more reliable knight.

Cecilia is investigating the cure for Kiya's forgetfulness together with Milan and is looking into the apothecary that supplies his former orphanage. She ends up not surprised that something went wrong, that apothecary is a chaotic quack.

After they are finished they rest at a cafe together to avoid the market crowds. Milan is highly amused by Cecillia desperate desire for cake and they share one slice. Cecilia ends up rather flustered over Milan taste testing for her since he just drinks out of her tea cup.

Cecillia was given her first royal task where she had to accompany the Archseer to different temples to inspect them and pray. Kiya and Tobias serve as her guards.

Everything goes well until the last temple connected to Kiya's orphanage. Smoke suddenly started to rise inside the room they were in, but it was just a distraction for two child assassins to attack Cecillia. Thankfully Kiya sensed something was wrong about the children and he and Tobias apprehended them.

Before they could properly interrogate them the Order of Lux arrives, says those children belong to them and that they will settle the matter. Cecillia worries about the Order of Lux possibly covering up what happened, but her protests fall in deaf ears.

In response security around Cecillia is tightened and she stays a lot more in her estate. One day Alison, Eric and Herringtail are suddenly called to a meeting and only Josephy and Adel remain to guard Cecillia which puts everyone on edge.

Then news arrives that Adel’s stepmother collapsed from an illness. Adel finds the timing very suspicious and doesn't want to leave, but Josephy and Cecillia convince him to at least take a quick look himself. Turns out Josephy also lost his mother suddenly to an illness.

Not long after Adel is gone a visitor arrives. The timing is most suspicious, but since it is a noble that Cecillia wants to build connections with, they let him in.

While talking someone shoots poisoned arrows through the windows. Josephy gets hit protecting Cecillia. Adel manages to catch the culprit, but they end up commiting suicide after praying to Lux.

Josephy pulls through, but he has to rest for several days.

Everyone is discussing this incident. Turns out Adel’s mother collapsing and the knight meeting were all lies to weaken the security around Cecillia. They feel that the Mastermind is very bold, and is likely trying to intimidate them. Cecillia feels a bit over her head over all this along with the guilt of Josephy getting hurt protecting her, but tries to appear strong. It doesn't help that Eric calls them all weak as hell and storms off with Alison following him and softly agreeing.

Cecillia talks to Josephy in private and tells her to drop her princess facade. She talks about how terrified it makes her to see people suffering for her. Josephy corrects her that he didn't suffer for her but for his pride. Even if he died protecting her it isn't all about her. Instead she should be proud he did his duties as a knight and that he chose her to serve under. If she's so worried then she simply has to work to be a better liege to serve. Cecillia does feel better after this talk.