8. IN WHICH THE PRINCESS DOES NOT LEARN HER DENSITY.

“PRIIIIINNNCCCCEEESSSS” came the unearthly howl from the direction of the gates, so loud it made the hairs on the back of Mibbet's neck stand up (a novel experience for a being unused to having any hair at all, but definitely not one she was keen to repeat.) As a giant of a man clad in armour that looked far too decorative to be worn thundered towards her with a large group of others directly behind.

“No, wait!” Rosalind cautioned her as she lifted the hatchet for a swing. “They’re on our side, don’t fight”. In the back of Mibbet's Froggy brain, the instincts took over as she dove for cover, mere moments before the armoured knights skidded to a halt inches before her with a salute so textbook that the textbook probably imitated it to set the example.

“Sir Humphrey Hacksalot reporting for duty Princess, my squad and I were sent by your father to escort you home, your highness.” Inside her head, Rosalind sighed; it wasn’t like Sir Humphrey needed an introduction; he’d been practically barracked outside her doors guarding her since the day she was born, but in the circumstances, the introduction was useful, so she couldn’t even grumble.

Mibbet fished round in the memories she could access but found a surprising (OK, so maybe not so surprising really once you knew Rosalind, but still) lack of etiquette from Rosalind's perspective levelled towards anybody really. So Mibbet improvised and looked at the way others talked in her memory for pointers, steering clear of the memories of Maids and Butlers at Rosalind’s instruction.

“Ah, Sir Humphrey”, she replied, “I must admit I found myself quite turned around, so thank you so much for coming to collect me.”

********************************************************************

The guards were frozen in shock; the princess was smiling, polite, and holding a massive axe that would not look out of place in a crime scene. Of these three things, 2 were very, very, VERY wrong. Princess Rosalind never smiled, and politeness was something she seemed to believe was the role of peasants, not members of the royal family. The axe in her hands? They could easily believe that, but it certainly did not make the situation less terrifying.

The Princess slung the oversized axe over her shoulder where she had improvised some sort of holder from a torn section of her dress, seemingly without any effort at all. Then, without even hesitating, flashed the confused guards a dazzling grin.

“My apologies for the delay, Princess,” sputtered Sir Humphrey nervously. With the amount of nervous sweat he was generating at the moment, it was going to take weeks of careful polishing to make sure his armour didn’t rust.

You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story.

“No Problem”, Mibbet replied; she really was terrible at all this formal stuff. “We should probably buy some food for the trip back.”

With that, Mibbet skipped back to the logs she was using for practice and began leaping around, thwacking away at them with a formidable Power but seemingly less skill than even the greenest rookie.

Errol was a new recruit, and it showed his armour was just abnormally shiny, even by the standards of royal guards armour. (probably something to do with him spending over a third of his weekly wage on nothing but polish and rags. Most of the rest Errol, being a good kid, he sent directly home to his Mum) But even green as he was, he could tell something was weird here.

“Sir Humphrey, isn’t that axe?” he managed to whisper before Sir Humphrey shushed him.

“Quiet, you fool, if you know what that thing is, then you know the less she knows about it, the better off she is. Do you want to be the one to ruin her new toy for her?”

That brought a terrified head shake from Errol. From what he remembered, that was the Axe of Inverse Density. (Apparently, the sorcerer who had enchanted it intended the weapon to reverse a young hero's unfortunate fate. But sadly for said young hero, his terrible destiny included a Sorcerer whose spelling was terrible. Despite his spell craft being nearly impeccable. Unknown to Errol, Bert had retrieved the axe after said hero was eaten by a Grue.)

As a result of this, the weapon's density was inversely proportional to how dense the wielder was. He really did not want to be the one to tell the princess that.

For starters, calling a Princess dense was not a move that was advisable if you wished your career to continue to advance in an upwards direction, free of potatoes and far away from the front lines. Especially when said princess was using an axe bigger than your head. So Errol decided most wisely to hold his tongue. By a strange quirk of fate, it seemed (somebody else's) ignorance is (his) bliss.

Sir Humphrey quickly dashed off to find the village Headman. It was most, unlike The Princess, to think of logistics and supplies, rather than just demanding they leave as soon as possible. Maybe she’s starting to grow up a little, he thought to himself. He decided just to prevent any nasty political trickery aimed at the princess, he would pay rather generously, maybe excessively so for the supplies they needed; after all, it wouldn’t do for any of her majesties critics to be able to publicly claim that she had underpaid for the supplies she needed, leaving the peasants of the village that had sheltered her living in Sqwaller (That bloody name.)

That done, and The Princess dressed in a new dress from her carriage by a helpful villager, they were finally ready to set off. But after five minutes on the road, the princess dismounted from her carriage, grumbling about how her butt already had a crack in it and didn’t need another adding by sitting in that thing for miles, and miles, and miles. She then started to travel with the guards, who at least had the good sense to hold their tongues about her unusual behaviour.

Things just got weirder from there. Princess Rosalind, known to grumble that her feet hurt after walking a single passage, was keeping up, and not just walking but skipping along, with nary a grumble.

Suddenly the peaceful forest air was rent by a terrible screeching roar.