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“What is that?!” she shrieks again.

“I already told you. It’s a griffin. And it’s a little bigger than I bargained for.” The creature huffs a breath that rattles the nearby branches.

I’d thought it would charge for us within seconds, but something seems wrong as it keeps swiveling its head around. Is its eyesight poor?

It is incredibly obvious that a little research into these creatures might have done me a little good.

“Why do you know so much about griffins?” Julia manages to ask without taking her eyes of the bloodthirsty, rampaging beast that is still looking for us.

“Obviously because I’m the reason why it’s here,” I answer nonchalantly as sweat drips down my back. My digging foot finally comes in contact with something hard within the soil.

.....

Julia still manages to seethe in the middle of being terrified. “Why you-!”

“AAAAAHHHH!” the griffin screeches, cutting off her words. It’s becoming frustrated.

“We should probably run,” I wisely mutter. I pick up the miniature case containing yet another precious vial of blood within it. “Besides we shouldn’t be in danger for too long. The sheer volume of that scream should attract help in no time.”

I brush dirt off the case and smile to myself. A vial containing a baby griffin’s blood, it should serve as a handy deterrent to the female griffin’s rampage and bring out its nurturant, tame side in a jiffy.

“Hey, do you want to crawl under that bush to hide or- Ow!” I yell.

My celebration was a tad preemptive. It turns out that Julia can handle herself around a blade, her hand slashing the sharp edge across the back of the hand carrying the case I just dug up.

“If I’m going to die here, then we shall do so together,” my half-sister hisses through clenched teeth.

A few things happen all at once in slow motion. The second vial falls from my hand and rolls out of view. Beads of blood well up from the thin cut on my hand and the griffin, whose sense of smell and hearing has been proven to be far stronger than its sight, has found us and begins to charge headlong towards us.

“Fuck. Well, now you’ve really killed us,” I moan, falling to my knees to search for the vial as my hand drips blood like a faulty faucet. I only have seconds to search before fight or flight kicks in and sends me barreling for cover.

We scarcely make it, Julia and I. The griffin charges, making a beeline for where we stood and knocking into the tree headfirst. But it is not the griffin that falls but the tree where the vial had been buried. Thunder seems to crackle but it is only the tree’s sturdy trunk succumbing to an unstoppable force. Never mind the fact that the trunk was so wide that even if the Mad Dog were to wrap his arms around it he’d barely make it past half of the circumference.

The leaves encircling us make me want to sneeze. But just as I’m about to let it rip, a hurried “Your highness!” from the bush frightens the sneeze away.

“Finally! Where have you been!” Julia hissed, grabbing the royal guard’s ear. It’s one of the three who were originally assigned to us and I actually recognize him as one of the regulars who patrolled the empress’ Sunrise Palace. As for where the other two are, I can already spy one of them creeping stealthily towards the griffin while the other charges in from the side in a neat tactic. This is not good.

It almost looks like everything is about to be wrapped up in a pretty little bow in an unideal outcome. One of the guards will undoubtedly take the rap for mistakenly guiding the griffin to our “safe” area and away from the hunting competition competitors and this will all be swept under the rug. It would be a far cry from my original intentions, to discourage any serious assassination attempts against me with a big, showboaty attempt while simultaneously framing Julia (or whoever would’ve tried to kill me first) for it.

I can feel sweat on my brow, miraculously not from the griffin that just knocked down a full-grown tree but from the fact that if this goes sideways, I’ll have fruitlessly reignited my feud with Empress Katya, who will most certainly strike back regardless of the Duvernay family’s promise to keep her on a leash.

You felt so clever, my subconscious taunts, didn’t you? You thought you had this all under control. You thought you could play the game like Katya didn’t you? But you can’t. You aren’t worthy. You’re nothing.

I grit my teeth so hard the root of a headache begins to form.

My misfortune wanes for a brief, hope-filled moment. As one royal guard is about to deal a blow to the griffin’s side, it senses the movement and sweeps a wing at the guard, forcing him to retreat rather than strike. Their sneak attack won’t work anymore now that the griffin knows there are two, and neither of the two guards can get close enough to the rampaging beast now.

But like the tide, my misfortune comes sweeping back. A grip stronger than iron shackles wraps around my wrist, that grip being attached to the royal guard Julia had been yelling at moments before. She has a wide smile on her face, which I’ve long understood to be bad news for me. But I suppose it’s a step up from the days in her youth where she did everything with a blank, sociopathic expression. Now she looks like a proper mid-tier villainess.

“Oh sister,” she sang. “Someone must take care of this problem you created and I’m afraid that can only be you. I’ll be sure to tell everyone that you died trying to save me.”

“How kind of you,” I mutter dryly, trying and failing to free myself from his grasp.

“-Or maybe I’ll just tell them that you died running away like a coward. Who knows what I may say? Either way, you won’t be there to see it.” Julia shrugs without a care before beckoning for the royal guard to drag me from the hiding spot.

Although I’m being tugged towards certain death against my will, I don’t yell out the corny, “Let me go, you fiend! You will go to jail for this!” or whatever nonsense is usually uttered by a damsel in distress in this kind of situation.

In fact, I’d be better off laughing at my own stupidity rather than pleading for mercy. My own fake assassination attempt has been turned against me into a real one. This is the kind of comedic tragedy Shakespeare would have had a field day writing about.

“Step aside men,” the royal guard holding me says. “Her highness’ orders.”

The two guards fighting the griffin are out of breath and slightly panicky. They take his orders promptly, barely giving me a cursory glance as they duck into the bushes with Princess Julia to “protect her”.

“Who’s to say the griffin won’t eat you three after it’s done with me?” I ask the guard who’s dragging me to the griffin. Its massive head is swinging side to side, searching for the prior culprits it had been fighting. It will only be a matter of time before it sees me here.

“That is something that we shall sort out after your demise.”

“Haha! Not even trying to sugarcoat it or address me by title,” My bitter smile is punctuated by a familiar sting in my eyes that I fight to keep at bay. “I like that. What’s your name?”

“My name?” He looks down warily at me, slowing his path to the demolished tree.

“Yes, can’t I know the name of the man who’s leading me to my death? Won’t you even grant me so small of a boon? It would make it a fair deal easier to haunt you after I die,” I say, blinking my eyes in the innocent manner I’ve long mastered.

The guard snickers under his breath, belying the absolute certainty he has in my death. “Sure, why not? I’m Sir Porter of the Hudsmith Family. I look forward to meeting your ghost one day.”

Sandy blonde hair, dull blue eyes with a bit of cleverness, and thin lips that disappear when he smiles. All those details are committed to memory, even though I don’t believe in ghosts. But I do believe in karma, and I cross my fingers that it gets him back if I can’t, which is what the situation is looking like right now.

“And we can’t have our princess running away yet again, can we?” he quips in a low voice. He takes off his belt, which makes my stomach lurch and flip flop in an uncomfortable way even though I know such an act could not happen right now. Bending down, he loops it tight around my ankles in a way that would take me several minutes I don’t have to undo.

“So thorough. As expected of one of House Duvernay’s dogs. Let’s see if you’ll get a pat on the head from your owner after this, she seems quite temperamental,” I say to him as he stands.

He responds by pushing me to the ground, an act facilitated by the tight belt that binds my ankles to each other. I take mild pleasure in how easily I riled him up.

“I’d slap you for that, but I’m about to be treated to a much better show soon,” he says with a vicious smirk that doesn’t suit his bland features. “Hey! Look this way you oversized turkey! Come get your special meal!” he shouts at the top of his lungs.

“It doesn’t even look like a turkey. That is clearly an eagle’s head and wings glued onto a lion’s body, you dumbass,” I mutter under my breath, my fake calm snapping as the massive head swings my way and locks dead on my lonesome figure. “So this is how it ends huh? Not with a bang, but with a crunch.”

All I can hope is that the griffin might swallow me whole instead of chewing on me. I bet Clever Jack would laugh at me if he saw me right now. He’s got a pickpocket’s hands and wits, there’s no way he wouldn’t be able to undo this belt in seconds and make a run for it. Or even Emma, with all the training she’s been doing for years, hell I wouldn’t be surprised if she could take on the griffin herself.

But it’s just me. The budget princess with one working hand and very little time left.

“Ah, fuck me I’m dead.”

The earth begins to shake violently once more, causing my head to bounce of the ground and distracting me from my final thoughts. It is difficult to differentiate between my pulsating headache and the side of my head dribbling like a basketball. I think of my mother, my real mother from my past life. And one new thought rises above the rest before I shut my eyes and await my gruesome demise.

She would be so disappointed in who I’ve become.

It’s funny how the instinctive brace position for inevitable collisions causes us to close our eyes and hold our breath as if it would make some kind of difference. The sheer volume that accompanies the trembling ground envelopes me as I lay there with my eyes closed. The moment before my death becomes moments. But I don’t notice how drawn out it has been until I gasp for air after holding my breath for far longer than I’d anticipated.

“How strange, to think an imperial princess could be tied up like cattle to be sacrificed to a raging beast. And I thought my home kingdom had strange traditions,” an accented voice I’ve never been so happy to hear exclaims with fake shock.

When my eyes flutter open, I see Prince Amir with a dead deer over one shoulder, its blood pouring down his skin, and a thick whip in his hand. It is wrapped around the ankle of the griffin, the closest one to me. He is so close I can even see the glistening perspiration forming across his back.

The other four limbs are restrained by the whips in the hands of the guards he had brought with him. Knowing the downed tree is directly behind me, I cannot imagine the sheer strength it would take just to restrain one limb. But there is one more pressing manner that surprises me even more.

I’m still alive.

Is this... have I finally attained my own... plot armor?