Go look for Pia in the meadow

After taking your leave with Johann, and asking Captain Navarre to remain behind, you make your way down into the meadow. A line of giant boulders stands between the meadow and the Smithyard, effectively blocking the noise from clanging hammers, making the meadow a peaceful and quiet place even though it lies right next to the city. Since "peace and quiet" is not what most people are looking for right before the festival is about to open, you find the small meadow unoccupied.

It suddenly strikes you that you haven't set foot in this meadow since before you became King. There were a few times you came here after Pia left and before you plucked the gold coin, but it always felt lonely without her. In the last ten years, the meadow hasn't changed in any noticeable way... the grass slopes gently up and away toward the woods on one side, and on the other side you can hear the softly babbling stream as it makes its way behind a thick wall of foliage. It would normally not be unusual to see a deer or two poking out of the woods to get a drink or a bit of grass, but one unfortunate side-effect of so many visitors to the festival is that the woods below the castle have been hunted almost clean (Duncan wisely advised you to proclaim the woods higher than the castle off-limits to hunters, so the deer and other creatures are sure to repopulate in time).

There is no sign of Pia... she must be by the stream. You make your way down the stepping stones, unable to hold back the sense of nostalgia that threatens to overwhelm you. To the right side of you is a large tree where the two of you once found a robin's nest; you watched it together for months as the robin sat on its eggs, and then the little ones hatched, were fed by their mother, grew stronger, and eventually learned to fly away. The remnants of a stump show where you tried to show her how many times you could pull yourself up on a low branch, only to have it snap off because the tree was dead and rotted from the inside. But most of your memories of the meadow have left no traces... there's no mark where the snowman you built once stood, and the place where you always spread your picnic blanket and the grass had become stunted as a result has long since grown over.

You round the corner with a lump in your throat, feeling more than ever like the boy you once were rather than the man - and the King - that you have become.

Pia is there, and you realize immediately that she wasn't expecting company!

She is even more lovely than you remember, and it's not just because you've never seen so much of her before. Pia had been a very pretty girl, and womanhood has been good to her. She is still slim, as she was in her youth, and her skin and hair are so fair as to be almost blinding in the Sun. An intriguing flourish of dark ink decorates her lower back, somewhat similar to the tribal markings you've seen on Elyssians from more exotic origins. She does not see you, and you reflexively duck back behind the bushes to stay out of sight.

Suddenly, you remember that Pia used to go down to the stream to bathe every other morning, and of course she would want to be clean before the festival. You never dared to try and sneak down to watch her when you were younger - the idea of getting caught and having her upset with you was deterrent enough - but of course you couldn't help imagining doing so. It was a persistent fantasy of yours that she DID catch you peeking, and instead of becoming angry, invited you to come bathe with her. It's remarkable... since then, you've been with numerous women, and of course love-making is no longer a strange and compelling mystery to you; but in this moment, it feels like that youthful fantasy has suddenly been made real, and you feel the same excitement as you might have if it had happened all those years ago.

She has not seen you yet... perhaps this is not the best way to re-make her acquaintance after twelve years! But, can you really resist the urge to finally see what would happen if you approached her in the stream? If it turns out that she wouldn't be as receptive to your company as you once dreamed, you could always explain that you hadn't realized she would be there; after all, if you had taken one more step before seeing her, that would be the truth!