Rosslyn had passed a restless night, tossing and turning in her sleep, after her second encounter with Matilda.

She had found herself dreading dinner with her father all morning as well. He had been absent for last night’s dinner.

“He is away on state business,” Carolien had said. But she wore a severe expression that told Rosslyn that the Queen thought her stepdaughter was to blame for this “state business” coming up.

The King had returned this morning. Undoubtedly Rosslyn’s pronouncement about only marrying someone who could defeat her in combat would come up at dinner. And she had to decide if she wanted to ask her father about Matilda.

“Why do we have a slave in the palace, father? What did she do?” She cringed at the thought of asking such questions. At the same time, she badly wanted to know. Perhaps my strings are simply too easily pulled. This is likely manipulation by that woman. She obviously hates father. Providing half-truths and incomplete information. She knows what she is doing. She only wants to pit us against each other. Will I be her puppet and move according to her wishes?

As she considered the evening’s potential disasters, Rosslyn walked into the palace kitchens. Whenever she had some small worries, she had a few activities to relieve stress. She spent the morning playing with her younger half-siblings. Now she wanted to stroll through the garden. And she remembered there was a little life form there that might appreciate some food.

“Your Highness, what are you doing here?” Chef MacGregor’s thickly accented voice carried across the room as he rushed toward the kitchen door. He bustled across the room like there was a fire he needed to extinguish there. He appeared as he always did whether he was cooking or serving, flushed face slightly sweaty, wearing his heavy apron over his thick cotton uniform. His black hat covered up what had once been a magnificent mop of red hair, now very visibly thinning and beginning to gray.

It was a little sad to see a palace employee Rosslyn had known since childhood showing his age so visibly.

How long has it been, she realized, since I truly took a good look at him? Gray hairs did not appear overnight. A little reminder to take note of the people she was responsible for more often.

“Chef, so good to see you!” Rosslyn exclaimed, smiling brightly.

Behind the head chef, the sous chef and several lower ranked cooks exchanged quiet smiles before they returned to their tasks. These commoners rarely saw royalty except when there was some dish on the dinner menu that required tableside preparation. A trio of footmen served the family’s meals.

“Uh, um, good to see you as well, Your Highness. This is such an unexpected, uh, honor!” MacGregor bowed slightly, rubbed the back of his neck, and then wiped his sweaty palms on his apron. “What can I do for you? Please, I am at your disposal. A little pre-dinner snack perhaps?” He lowered his voice confidentially. “Did you want to sneak dessert before your dinner?”

Rosslyn could not restrain her grin at the chef’s behavior. On the one hand, he was nervous that a member of the royal family had appeared suddenly in the kitchen. On the other, he still remembered her as the ten-year-old girl whose sweet tooth respected no restraints.

“I am not here for dessert, thank you,” she replied gently. “Though I imagine I would still clear out a whole tray of your trifle.”

“Oh, I would expect nothing less,” he said, shaking his head and chuckling before he remembered who he was talking to. He immediately straightened up and became serious again. “How can I help you then, Your Highness?”

“I know you and your colleagues are hard at work preparing dinner,” Rosslyn said, speaking just loudly enough that she was confident the people in the middle of the kitchen would be able to hear her. “I was planning to take a walk in the garden, and I thought it would be nice to take a box of kitchen scraps to feed the wildlife out there. If there is a little you can spare.”

“I see,” MacGregor nodded, and his face turned even more earnest than it had when he had made a conscious effort. “Of course we can spare some scraps. And I have heard it from others in the household, Your Highness, but I hope you will forgive me if I mention this. You truly are turning out just like your mother. We remember how she loved everything that grows in the garden.”

The Princess lowered her head so the chef could not see the sudden expression that came over her face. He remembers her, she thought. Sometimes I forget that there are other people who still remember her. Besides her father, of course. But he had not mentioned his first wife anytime in recent memory. Understandable, given that he had remarried, but Rosslyn wished things were different.

“Thank you, chef,” she said finally. She wrested control of her face back and raised her head to look MacGregor in the eyes.

“You are also welcome to make such requests through the footmen or your maid anytime you wish, Princess,” he said quietly, almost whispering. “You do not have to come here yourself.”

“What if I want to visit the kitchens, chef?” she asked, her voice equally low.

He smiled at her with a joy that brought back distant memories. “Then you are always welcome, chi—Your Highness.” He dipped his head, and Rosslyn had to resist the urge to smile. He had almost called her “child.”

A few minutes later, she left with a small wooden box of scraps. A glance inside revealed the chef had anticipated what she had in mind to feed the caterpillar. Potato peels, unwanted bits of cucumber and apple, wilted lettuce. Nothing that would be missed from either the royal or servants’ tables.

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As she walked, she theoretically looked for the caterpillar’s plant. In practice, her eyes almost glazed over as she thought about her mother and father. The past that felt increasingly out of reach. The difficult conversations that the future was sure to hold. Her body moved on autopilot.

Rosslyn’s mind was miles away from the garden when she put her foot down and felt it land with a crunch and a squishing sensation. She looked down at her velvet slippers, and she saw the head of a tiny creature poking out from underneath the toe. She could tell at a glance that it was not the caterpillar, thankfully, but her relief at that realization was immediately replaced by disgust at the ugly creature she had just killed.

Ew, I stepped in something!

She lifted her foot up to get a better look at the smeared insect, then thought better of it and instead looked for a good place to scrape it off. A maid was probably going to have to clean some of the insect guts off of this shoe, but at least Rosslyn could spare her the unfortunate sight of the whole dead creature.

As she looked around, she realized she was quite close to where she had spotted the caterpillar before. In fact, there was its plant! And the food she had brought it last time she visited was gone, which felt like a good sign.

Then she spied a colorful spider lurking behind a couple of small weeds. The spider was almost next to the caterpillar’s plant. It seemed to be staring back up at her in turn. As their eyes met, the spider turned and began trying to run away. Very slowly, though.

Without thinking much of it, Rosslyn reached down, turned the wooden box sideways, and scooped the spider up into it.

“You are a big spider,” she said as she looked down at the creature. “Probably one of the largest spiders in the garden, if I remember what kinds of species we have here well enough. You must be a very successful predator.”

As she spoke, she took in the appearance of the little creature. The spider stood, obviously terrified, trying to shield itself from possible attack behind some of the scraps in the box. It was a pretty little thing, with its red, yellow, and brown striped legs and its dark-colored body covered in little white speckles and spots. Her legs and her body, Rosslyn corrected herself. A spider this large was almost certainly female.

Though there was an easy way to check. Identify.

Goldie, Golden Silk Orb-Weaver Spider (Female)

She vaguely remembered the species from her tutors’ instruction in natural sciences. Their webs were considered to be exceptionally beautiful. They were venomous. Exclusively predatory, eating mainly insects.

Wait, this thing has a name? A wild spider?

“Are you the one who used Telepathy?” Rosslyn asked.

Complete silence.

“Also, have you seen a little caterpillar around here?” she added in an accusatory tone. “Did you eat him maybe? Or are you friends?” Her voice grew calmer as she added that last question.

The thought seemed ridiculous. A predatory spider and a caterpillar becoming friends. But then, this was somehow a named creature. Stranger things could happen than a life form that had a name also making friends.

In order for this “Goldie” to have a name recognized by the Goddess’s System, she must have either been named by someone else who had the capacity for language, or she must have referred to herself in conversation with someone else using that name.

The latter would presumably mean this spider could speak or use Telepathy.

But the silence persisted. The spider just cowered as best she could behind a particularly large leaf of wilted lettuce.

Somehow Rosslyn found herself surprised. And annoyed at herself for being surprised. Why was I expecting a response? Talking to bugs again. Anyone who saw this would definitely think I am losing my mind.

A sane creature with Telepathy would definitely have responded, right? Goldie would have to know that a talking spider was a lot less likely to be killed by a human than a silent spider. And she seemed to be afraid of Rosslyn.

As she noticed that fact once again, Rosslyn felt a bit bad about scaring this creature that probably could not understand her. She looked down at the spider, still hiding behind food, clearly powerless to answer her, and she decided to put it down.

A gardener must have named her. Probably? Why a gardener would have interacted closely with a venomous spider, let alone named her, is beyond me, though.

“Alright,” she said aloud, just in case the spider could somehow understand her. But quietly, so that anyone who happened to pass by might think she was just talking to herself. “I will set you down. I will assume you did not eat the caterpillar. That would kind of annoy me.”

For silly sentimental reasons, she did not bother to add.

She put the box on the ground and waited for Goldie to hop out. And waited.

Almost a minute passed with no motion.

Is the box too high for her to jump out? Rosslyn turned the box on its side.

To her surprise, the spider was clinging to several scraps of food now, securing them to her body with strands of silk. This seemed odd to Rosslyn.

“Your species does not eat vegetation, does it?” She knew that scientific knowledge was still developing, advancing based on observation only rather than on a general understanding of the underlying principles that made the world work. No one knew what the System was, truly, only that the priestly class said it was the work of the Goddess.

But she did not think her tutor, and biological scientists in general, would be wrong about something as basic as what this type of spider ate. She would go to the library and find a book on arachnids when she left here, but she had an instinct as to why the spider was gathering these scraps to herself.

“You do know the caterpillar after all,” she said softly, stooping to observe more closely. “You want this food for him.”

The spider froze for a moment under her gaze. She clearly had not been eating any of the food. Just tying it around her body. Which would be peculiar behavior for an animal that was stuck in a box with the type of food it actually wanted for itself. This was very strange. A bit like something out of one of Rosslyn’s children's books, maybe.

“Do not let me stop you,” she said, smiling. “I wish you and your little friend good luck.”

Rosslyn rose and walked back toward the palace. She would collect the box later, after she checked her theory against the palace’s best resources on arachnids.