High walls surround Pride and no one may come through. Pride keeps to itself. There are few windows or lookouts. The camouflaged wall hides within the surrounding mountains. At the center, Lake Pride provides bounty. Prideans eat fish including the nearly immortal Wisdom Fish with fluid tongues and magic language. They could grant wishes if treated kindly, but the Pride fisherman hook them, fry them, and throw away their magic bones. Still, many Wisdom Fish evade their hooks and hide in an underground stream whose current flows away from Pride. Gold lines this saltwater stream where oysters grow enormous pearls surrounded by dense green plants. Prideans think they grow strong eating fish, but the plants are the true source of their nutrients. Pride never thought to look below.
The castle Patriotic rises over Pride. Its walls are even higher and perilous to climb. It looks gorgeous from afar, but dingy up close. A jerky elevator carries visitors up. Sometimes the carriage crashes against a rock. Other times the whole thing falls.
“There must be a better form of conveyance?" asks Miss Doe Friend.
But the people of Pride do not take well to criticism.
"Shush,” says the Guide.
Trams pass from Patriotic over Lake Pride and look down upon the Wisdom Fish and the gold sparkling stream. Visitors exclaim, but Prideans look only up at the castle.
“Don’t look down,” advises the Guide.
Visitors quickly tour the castle. They are silent and deferential in the company of the finely dressed soldiers. Then they quickly come away.
“There was nothing to do,” they tell their friends later. "We were forced to admire it."
Later, Miss Emeline Traveler pulls Doe Friend aside, "You are correct, dear friend, there’s another way to ascend to Castle Patriotic, by a steep stairway carved into the back of the mountain. It is lined with historical markers, constitutions, and treatises. The law of Pride and Patriotic states you must stop and read each one."
Few take this route: But Miss Emeline Traveler did.
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