“Honk!”
Startled, the Princess barely kept from messing up her painting. Leaning over, she saw a lone goose upon the pond she had been painting, a smile coming to her. Few birds dared settled in the Royal Garden with all the cats for mousing around, and even the other Princess’s pair of beagles had dragged in a few birds in their time.
“Stay there and I shall include your handsome visage,” the Princess said, returning to painting.
However, the goose had neither the need nor inclination to listen to lesser mortals.
For a while, the goose instead inspected the environment, pecking at some things to test their weight. Chaos never had a plan, it only begot more chaos.
With a beady eye on the Princess’s necklace, a glittering gem hanging off it, the goose snuck up behind her and nipped at the ribbons tied into bows along her dress’s hem, undoing one. The goose’s actions hardly subtle, the Princess shooed it away with a huff.
“What a naughty goose,” the Princess muttered, and she put down her paintbrush to fix the bow.
While her attention was elsewhere, the goose circled behind her again. Letting out a victorious, “Honk!” it darted up and grabbed the paintbrush in its beak and hastily waddled off.
Startled for a moment, the Princess then turned around, only for her face to darken. “Bring that back right this instant!” the Princess impotently yelled.
The goose did not obey.
Unprepared to chase down a wild goose, the Princess huffed and went back to her painting, picking up another brush.
The goose waited, watching. Eventually, it waddled back, paintbrush still in its beak. After going back and forth behind the Princess a few times, it gently put down the paintbrush, then let out a thunderous, “Honk!” and picked up the paintbrush again.
Startled, the Princess took a second to turn around, then her eyes narrowed. “You naughty goose so dare?”
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The goose made no sound nor movement, simply met the Princess’s gaze with neither fear nor reverence.
As if both seeing that in the goose’s eye and being enraged by what she saw, the Princess darted out to grab the paintbrush, only to be a heartbeat too slow. With measured speed, the goose waddled and she chased, near enough waddling herself, slippers and a cumbersome dress hard to move in.
However, the Princess was a princess and never slipped despite her hurry. When she eventually gave up, the goose watched her return to the easel, nothing showing in the infinite darkness of its beady eyes.
In a slow and menacing waddle, the goose looked around more of the garden until it finally found a tool of chaos. It pulled the bucket to the pond, filling it with water, then carefully dragged it out, noticing the Princess was watching, but she made no move to intervene. Once the Princess focused on her painting again, the goose emptied the bucket on a patch of grass.
After hiding the bucket and retrieving the claimed paintbrush, the goose approached the Princess from her blind spot, coming ever closer, then—
“Honk!”
Startled, the Princess took a deep breath and put down her spare paintbrush before turning to the goose. Like the last time, she tried to snatch back the paintbrush from its beak, but the goose was quick and waddled off.
The Princess followed, hem raised and face scrunched up. This time, though, her steady steps soon met the slick grass and, in a shriek, she slipped, landing with a thump on her rump. Her cries summoned some maids, but they paid no attention to the goose at first, worriedly crowding the Princess. That gave the goose time to cover the paintbrush’s tip in mud.
Just before the Princess was helped up, the goose darted in with such alacrity, painting the necklace’s gem with mud. The effect was immediate, one maid shooing the goose away while the Princess panicked, shouting, “Get it off before it ruins my dress!”
The other maid hurriedly slid off the necklace, so panicked she didn’t think to undo it, only to be met with a roaring—
“Honk!”
Startled, she dropped the necklace and, in a flash, the goose plucked it, immediately waddling off at great speed. Once the maid recovered from her shock, she chased after, yet the goose was quicker. Another shout from the Princess pulled her back, one last fearful gaze spent staring at the escaping goose, knowing it was well and truly loose.
Far from the kerfuffle it caused, the goose slowed to a stop beside the pond. It dropped the necklace and more carefully picked it up by the opposite end to the gem, then dipped it in the pond a few times, washing off the mud.
With that done, the goose placed the necklace down again and folded it so it made two overlapping loops. It slid its beak through and lifted high and, with a few shakes, the necklace slid down its neck.
Wings spread wide and head held high, the goose proudly flapped three times, then let out a smug, “Honk!”
There was no good or evil, only chaos.