The place reminded Sophia of her paternal grandparent’s residence in Montglace. Out in the northern territories of the Imperium, where the winters were bitterly cold and summers scorchingly hot; where the earth produced crop veins of silver, iron, and walnut trees; and where the people loved to talk your ears off, this specific subtype of central Ensolian architecture was all the rage.
Long hallways with lots of windows broken up by thick doors created huge, flushable windtraps capable of holding temperature for days or completely airing out the entire building within minutes on a breezy day. To trap the coolness of the summer nights for the heat of the day, or to spread the warmth of heating furnaces across the home during the harsh blizzards of winter; a place such as this just happened to have aesthetics in the midst of pure Hautwarden practicality.
“Reminds me of my grandparent’s home.” Sophia automatically informs as she ever so casually walks down the western wing of the mansion, the partner shuffling a few steps behind her. “Tell me Zai, does it snow down here?”
Between nervous glances for any trip wires or hidden shadows it takes a few seconds for the Prince to answer her. “No, not here.”
And that ends that.
Sophia’s entire central consciousness council grits its teeth at this sudden, awful failure of conversation.
It can’t be us! One of the sitting members argues. He’s not even trying, that incompetent idiot! We can’t expect to talk to a brick wall!
Some of them reluctantly grumble in agreement, before another pulls forth the admissible transcript as evidence; signed by the hippocampus and all its subordinate memory centers. He has conversed with us before! Remember the night of our coming of age?! He spoke with such emotional depth, such humor and elegance! This is not a question of his capabilities; this hearing brings to light a question of why he does not speak in such terms with us anymore? What have we done to deserve this treatment?
There’s some deliberation, a democratic vision attempting to compile evidence in this case. From the studies done alongside siblings in weeks prior, to even their short conversations from the Grand Ballroom to the Argent Dawn’s officer mess hall; the mind comes together to find… nothing.
There’s gotta be a reason. They all conclude with some level of defeat. But we’re far too tired to think of it. Let’s just pick a room and table this discovery action for later.
Sophia realized that this was probably the most important part of her stay here; the choice between five rooms could very well have a correct answer despite their similarities. Like in most homes built in Hautwarden, the western wing was the setting for all the furnished bedrooms. Lined in a row with great windows facing out towards direct west, the intention was to maximize the amount of heat gathered from the final shafts of sunlight from the three setting suns in the cold winter months.
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But these were, Sophia noticed as she threw open the third door to reveal the floor to ceiling prismatic double paned windows that sent incredibly inefficient rainbow colors dancing across the room, not to the original design intentions in the northern frontiers of Ensolia. It all seemed to appropriate a level of architectural culture the young woman didn’t realize she even had, the paternal part of her offended to this degradation of her heritage for a foreigner’s pleasure (Sophia’s paternal grandmother, probably the most pureblooded Hautwardener she ever met, would’ve laughed at her reaction for this objective upgrade).
Still, Sophia realized that amongst five bedrooms she had only two choices to even remotely guarantee a strange fantasy that was brewing within her. A frontal cortex fires off the question to the rest of the system, neurons moving at light speed to answer the following:
There are five bedrooms arranged in a row. A couple, Person A and Person B, want to sleep in adjacent rooms. Each person has a bodyguard who must also take a bedroom directly next to the person they are assigned to protect.
Person A gets to choose their bedroom first, followed by Person B. The bodyguards will automatically take the rooms adjacent to the person they protect, if available.
What is the best strategy for Person A to choose their room first to guarantee this outcome, no matter what room Person B chooses?
Standing in front of the opened door and bracing her arm against the frame Sophia Elise the Eighth stands completely paralyzed. Blue eyes wide open, a mouth left agape like a corpse as every single non-essential milligram of gray matter is dumped into solving this incredible riddle as quickly as possible.
The arrangement is deceptively simple at first—five rooms, five options, no complications. Except…
Okay, think, Sophia.
The couple has to sleep in adjacent rooms. Since I’ll be choosing first, this gives me an advantage. I need to pick the right room, the one that makes sure Zai can’t pick a spot that’ll put us apart.
A single droplet of spittle drops from the wide open mouth of the Fourth Princess, her brain literally pooling its entire fatty mass to this problem as in the far distance someone calls her name.
If I choose a room too close to the end of the row, that’ll leave too much room for Zai to pick a non-adjacent room. I need a position where no matter what, there’s only one possible way to separate us.
The voice grows louder somehow, but like some distant dream calling to her she dismisses it.
Let’s see. If I choose room 2, then Zai can’t go into room 1 because his Guardswoman needs to be right next door. If he picks room 3, that still leaves us next to each other. Room 4— maybe? But if they choose 5, that gives them the end spot. No. I need a middle ground, something more guaranteed than an even probability.
Room number… The solution comes, but not before something grabs her by the waist.
A force wrenches her back from the doorway so brutally that the world blurs before she slams into the varnished hardwood flooring with a dull thud.
