"Alright, then, Captain Riven, may I have the honor of inviting you and your crew to dinner?"
"You know I definitely won't go." Mike replied bluntly.
"Riven..." Princess Mette's voice carried a hint of the weakness and pleading that only a mother can have.
"Even if it's just for me, okay? I just want to know how you've been lately, to hear you talk about your sailing stories. It's been... almost two years since I last saw you."
Riven pressed her lips tightly, her mind waging an internal conflict.
Reason told her she should refuse immediately, then raise the sails and escape from this suffocating place.
But when she saw those cautious expectations and undeniable joy in her mother's blue eyes, her heart, wrapped in a hard shell, was still pricked.
She remembered when she was a child, those eyes read Andersen's fairy tales to her on winter nights in Norway.
