"What is a photographic film?" Zandra Aile tentatively and Princess Marina stared at her in confusion.
"What does she mean what is a photographic film?" Princess Marina thought in confusion.
Turning her head discretely, Princess Marina surveyed the speechless reactions of everyone present before it clicked.
"There are no cameras in Alvonia."
Flashback
Princess Marina, age 6
"Mama, What are you doing?" Princess Marina asked innocently as her mother wrote a letter.
"I am sending a letter to your father to give him strength for the subjugation strength." The Moon of the empire said raising her fists in the air.
"I just hope it reaches him before he gets to Pyrah." The Moon of the empire said sadly.
Looking at the moon of the Empire writing a letter in confusion, Princess Marina innocently asked "Are letters the only means of communication in Alvonia?" and the Moon of the Empire looked at her strangely.
Realizing that she might have slipped up because even Valarians don't describe themselves as Valarians, Princess Marina quickly asked "Are letters the only way to communicate with Dad?" with a sweet and innocent expression.
Wiping the strange expression off her face and choosing to forget that her daughter spoke like a different person two seconds ago, the Moon of the empire smiled befire saying "Letters are the only way for us to communicate with each other."
"But there are different kinds of letters for each occasion." The Moon of the empire said brightly and Princess Marina nodded enthusiastically.
"The letter I am writing right now is written using invisible ink and the contents of these letter will only show up under the right conditions." The Moon of the Empire said with a proud glint in her eyes.
"Conditions?" Princess Marina asked curiously but the Moon of the Empire didn't elaborate further in the conditions.
"And we also have letters that can read itself outloud." The Moon of the Empire said with a pleasant smile and Princess Marina looked at her like she was crazy.
Laughing at her daughter's confused face, The Moon of the Empire brought out a letter that immediately began reading itself aloud once the seal was removed.
Flashback end
The Alvonians' stance on technology is ambiguous. They have technology that people on Valaria would have considered bizarre while simultaneously being behind on few important technologies.
Clearing her throat, Princess Marina said "A photographic film is a thin strip or sheet of metal that is coated with a light-sensitive chemical layer that captures images when exposed to light."
"Thin strip of metal?" Halorin asked with awe in his eyes.
"No." Princess Marina thought as she smiled outwardly.
"It's actually a thin strip or sheet of plastic but Alvonia doesn't have plastic yet and I would rather not explain." Princess Marina thought as she picked up the "metal" she used to create the photographic film.
The "metal" that Princess Marina used for the photographic film is called Dacrima and its a waste product from the Bestiae. This waste product was experimented on two hundred years after the empire was created but the Alvonians tagged it as useless after numerous failed attempts of trying to find its use. Dacrima after being soaked in boiling water and left to cool takes the sheen of metal and becomes as hard as the rock that forms when molten lava is cooled. At first, Alvonians thought that that the high density metal could be useful in the long run but when nothing came of it Dacrima became tagged as useless.
Placing the little piece of Dacrima on the metal, Princess Marina heated the Dacrima in her hands before using a mallet with a rectangular metal head to beat it. After beating it to the rectangular shape that she wanted, Princess Marina touched the Dacrima to check if it had gone soft. Grabbing a gelatin substance from the table, Princess Marina paired it with the Dacrima and poured Sodium Halide residues on it.
Presenting the photographic film to the audience, Princess Marina felt like she was doing show and tell in elementary school.
Clearing her throat to regain control of herself and break others out of their reverie Zandra Aile looked at Princess Marina before simply saying "Splendid" with awe in her eyes.