EPIC-CURIOUS.

Errol paced and paced, trying valiantly to process what he had just seen. Resigning himself to it being The Princess being The Princess, and gradually starting to adjust to this new reality.

He was the middle child in a family of ten; as such, he was used to things being hectic. But even for him, things were getting a bit much lately. What kind of princess runs headlong into danger? All the books he had read had had Princesses with skin as delicate as thistledown, hair as smooth as silk. Graceful swanlike neck and teeth like purest pearls. (On reflection, if you took the descriptions in those stories literally, then prince charming had romantic preferences that leaned into the eldritch, hanging a right at nightmare, then straight on through monstrous and abomination, with brief stops at what the hell? If that was what the handsome Princes really liked, he could understand why the Princes always insisted their romantic target haunted their dreams.)

Maybe between that, all the pead mattresses, and the constant poisoned fruit, and little pricks (on the finger, and shame on you if you thought otherwise, Errol didn’t or his mum would wash his mouth out with soap, then figure out how to do the same with his brain.). it took a very special and unique individual to marry a Princess. (See also nightmare proof, no wonder slaying dragons was usually an application requirement, they needed to make sure he could handle what he was getting himself into.)

Errol was extremely grateful on reflection that he didn’t have to consider himself an applicant for such a role. Especially if that meant dealing with a girl who treats spider as if it’s luxury cuisine. Some treacherous part of his mind still wanted to ask for a taste, but at the rate, The Princess was devouring it, and given the weird growly noise that she’d emitted last time, he had even looked in the direction of her rapidly diminishing spider related snack he thought better of it. After some time to think, Errol swore to take the memories of the sight he had just witnessed to his grave. (Admittedly, partially for fear that if he didn’t, a word in the wrong place might just end up expediting the process in a way he was not particularly keen to deal with.)

It would take a little while for help to arrive, Errol was the fastest runner in the unit, and Sir Leeroy wasn’t permitted under regulations to ride in the carriage after all. So Errol sat down, ignoring the too big breastplate catching on his knees and ending up covering him up all the way to his nose, and the huge helmet rattling around on his head despite having more padding than a jealous bridesmaids dress, and straps tightened to the point where the cheekpieces looked like they’d sucked on a particularly sour lemon.

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It took the better part of twenty minutes longer Before Sir Leeroy arrived puffing and blowing like an antique bellows, escorting the carriage. He looked curiously at the shards of spiders scattered about and wisely held his tongue. (He’d been around Princesses far longer than Errol, and quite long enough to learn to accept weird stuff follows them round like a lost puppy, and that Princess Rosalind was certainly not the sole exception that proves the rule.

So without saying a word, he started to gather up the shards as proof of conquest (carefully ignoring that the exoskeleton was a sole leg and seemed to have been picked clean of every scrap of meat. It was a bad idea noticing stuff; who knows when you’d notice the wrong thing and end up observing the job application queue at an agency from the business end.

“Congratulations on your victory Princess.”

“But it got away,” The Princess moaned; even with strategic ignorance in place, Sir Leeroy couldn’t help noticing her popping a shard of meat into her mouth with a disappointed sigh. Meat that looked suspiciously like crab, but given the lack of crab in the area, that only really left one exoskeleton bearing suspected source for the snack. Well, that explained why she had been so keen to fight the damn thing; maybe The Princess had an adventurous palate. It would explain a lot and made him think of the unique things he had eaten while out on campaigns. (Locals practically made it a tradition to find the most disturbing things they could offer, largely for the entertainment value of watching them politely trying to eat whatever the hell it was that was usually staring back from the plate. Though he would admit that a lot of the offerings were more readily consumed by him and his squad where alcohol was involved, it’s a lot harder to eat such things sober.)

Maybe each place they stopped, he should ask about the local speciality, just to, if nothing else, forestall any further devouring of the local monster populace. Then again, the fact she was willing to eat with the peasants, and even the same food (unless it was snail, something about divine guidance.) Seemed to be helping her and greatly improving her reputation. (Although he had been warned repeatedly by the palace maids, Her Highness was strictly limited to two cups of coffee maximum per day, by order of the king, after an incident involving leaping twenty laps around the castle without touching the ground.)

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Mibbet boarded the carriage once more, and the journey resumed. Since the flavour had settled into their mind, Rosalind had stopped screeching about eating spider and had settled down to a passive-aggressive grumbling about how unbecoming eating such things was. (She would have still been grumbling about the taste, but after actually trying the flavour, she really couldn’t fault it.)

Mibbet quickly passed over the final piece to Elvira, who, always unwilling to show herself to be less adventurous than her beloved cousin, was more than happy to tuck in after a moment of hesitation. Noting happily, it tasted like slightly more juicy antlion meat.