4. THE VILLAGE
It’s official, thought Mibbet to herself, humans are weird. All those lectures from the naggy voice in her head about being undignified, and yet as soon as she entered the village, every two legs in sight went down on all fours, seemingly on a whim. “What in the name of the first spawn is going on here?” she asked the annoying voice in her head. “Do humans always go-round on four legs in the village or something? Then why did you make such a fuss about me learning that silly two legs walk?”
The voice for once stopped screeching and sounded almost smug as it replied. “That is them showing they know their place, they’re peasants, I am....... Or maybe that is, we are a princess. At least for now. They’ll keep grovelling like that forever if you let them, how annoying is that?” Mibbet tried to lift one of the “peasants” to their feet, But as soon as they stood up, they scrambled back to the floor with a scream about forgiving them and having mercy. Something about having a wife and children failed to understand how that was supposed to be relevant to standing up; maybe there was something she was missing here?
Last Mibbet saw, Peasants were usually more feathery and birdy, and the two legs tended to shoot at them with some kind of weapon. Maybe these were a different species or something. It would explain why they were so insistent on remaining on all fours, which the annoying voice insisted was not a normal human thing. But how does one converse in these circumstances? Just then, the right words appeared in her head.“Rise Pheasants..... Ooops, I mean peasants.”
This seemed to cause some confusion amongst the gathered villagers as they whispered to each other, cottoned on that this was a royal command. Remembered how attached they were to their heads and how unattached they would be if they pissed off a princess in general, and this princess in particular. Then clambered to their feet as fast as possible. The village headman stepped forward, he was a heavily built man, even for a farmer, and most of it was pure muscle. Yet despite his reputation as a brave man, he was simply put shitting bricks over the thought of dealing with the princess.
“Village headman greets the princess. I...it seems you have had a d... d... difficult trip; we will prepare accommodations and c..call for an escort back to the castle immediately.” He stood back with a passable bow and gestured to the other villagers, and soon Mibbet was sat beside a roaring fire, which was hot enough to worry her about drying out, surrounded by plates of food, far too much for her. But anytime she tried to offer some to the villagers, they mumbled something about “not being appropriate to dine with a princess” and fled. As if that wasn’t strange enough after refusing to eat with her one of them, a young lad named Carl dashed forward, introduced himself as a designated taster, and snaffled a bit of everything.
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Mibbet thought to herself while the hall filled up with two legs, all watching her like she was going to bite and carefully staying out of her reach. What is wrong with these creatures? Did they always gawk so much?
After a while, Mibbet felt a familiar feeling in her guts; all that food had to go somewhere. After a little outraged grumbling about stupid frogs not even being able to figure out something as simple as a toilet, the voice sent her an explanation. "You mean to tell me," Mibbet thought to herself in horror, "you take perfectly clean, pristine water, dirty it, flush it away to dirty other water, at which point that little bowl thing fills with more clean water; to dirty later? As I suspected, your two legs are completely ridiculous."
The feast went on a little longer, and Mibbet had to admit that the two legs had utterly nailed it when it came to food, nothing that couldn’t be improved with a juicy cricket or two. Still, whenever she asked, the humans gave her a funny look, “I suppose,” she said to herself, “that I mustn’t be greedy, this is already a splendid feast, and they have to save some of the good stuff, for themselves.”
For weeks afterwards, the farmers in the villagers apparently tried to gather crickets, hearing from the princess herself that they were a trending delicacy in the castle. A few of them even developed a special sauce. This culinary adventure would one day save the village when they became curious about the taste of locusts, which were tasty enough. It would seem to cause the local population to devour them like, well, obviously a plague of locusts.
After a time, the feast was done. Still, Mibbet told the others to help themselves to what was left, much to their confusion, as food that had touched the tongue of royalty like this would usually be destroyed afterwards to ensure peasants didn’t get ideas above their station. The village headman noticed how tired she looked and guided her to a bedroom.
“Hardly the most fitting place for a princess”, Naggyvoice grumbled. “But in the circumstances, it will have to do.”
Mibbet, on the other hand, after learning two legs didn’t sleep in logs like any self-respecting frog flopped in the bed, with a satisfied moan as her tired body finally got some rest; today had been a long and extremely bizarre day.