The Fork-Tongued Princess is a female peculiar who was the Princess of the Frankbourg Kingdom.
Tales of the Peculiar[]
The Fork-Tongued Princess[]
The princess developed her peculiarity in her teenage years.
She keeps it a secret from everyone but her handmaiden, but it comes to an end when she is to be married to the Prince of Galatia. Though at first enamored by her beauty, he quickly rejects her after she shows him her tongue and scales. He leaves, only not telling her father about her out of gratitude for her killing some assassins with her venom and saving him.
However, the princess later shows her father as well to stop him from going to war. He rejects her as a daughter and locks her in the dungeon from which she escapes. She and her handmaiden wander the land until they hear of a peculiar prince who sometimes takes on the appearance of a slug when dejected. Despite the prince and the princess being the same, and the princess being there to rescue him so they could be together, the prince also rejects her. She leaves him to his fate, and after a while returns home, where her father had been overthrown. The princess meets the new duke, who at first wants to marry her, but instead decides to make her his advisor, to which she happily agreed.
Description[]
Appearance[]
The princess is very beautiful, but has a forked tongue and shimmering, diamond-patterned scales down her back.
Her beauty easily attracts men, but they reject her once they learn of her serpentine features. This has went on to the point that the princess starts considering her beauty a curse.
Personality[]
She is by no means a stereotypical damsel in distress princess; with her venom, she has killed before. After being rejected by a prince for the third time because of her peculiarity, she becomes disinterested in marriage. Upon her return to her home kingdom, the princess is tired of hiding and lying about herself, and truthfully tells the Frisian duke who she is despite him being someone who had once tried to assassinate her. The duke recognizes her honesty and her fortitude, admiring that she is "made of strong stuff" and also not dismissing the possibility that she is still capable of killing him.
The princess is also compassionate and forgiving. Though her father hates her for being peculiar and even locked her up, the princess never bore lasting hatred for him, and even saved him from death.
Peculiarity[]
The princess's peculiar features, her forked tongue and scales on her back, as well as the ability to shoot venom, match that of a snake.
Relationships[]
King of Frankbourg[]
| “ | Though I'm still angry at you, I wan you to know that you are forgiven. I understand now that what you did to me wasn't the action of an evil man, but a common one. | ” |
–The Fork Tongued Princess, Tales of the Peculiar | ||
The princess's father rejects her completely when she shows her peculiarity to him. Despite the fact that her being peculiar isn't her fault, he is very angry as well as humiliated by her, and thinks her a liar and a beast. He also seems to think that the fact that she isn't marriageable because of her snakelike features is "the greatest sin of all." The king refuses to call the princess his daughter any longer, but despite this, she doesn't try to escape from the cell he locked her in, in the hope that he would forgive her. This goes on until she receives news that her father has proclaimed her dead to the kingdom, finally making her decide to escape.
When they next meet, the princess has forgiven her father, who has been overthrown, though she still holds anger towards him. His negative feelings about her, however, have not gone away and he considers her a traitor. Though she casually tells him that the Frisian duke is going to have him hanged the next day, she feels pity for him once he starts crying about it, and frees him. To the end, the former king does not show even a shred of gratitude for this, but the princess feels that this act of kindness has freed both of them and is gripped by a wild happiness.
Handmaiden[]
The princess's handmaiden was the first to know of the princess's peculiarity, and is one of the few people that still accept her and is loyal, being by her side throughout the story. The handmaiden is shown to comfort the princess, and accompanies her when she runs away from the kingdom. During their months outside the kingdom, the princess plays mute and speaks to none but her handmaiden.
Frisian Duke[]
The duke is a Frisian who had once tried to kill the princess with a couple others. He narrowly escaped being killed by her instead, fleeing in terror after she used her venom on his companions. When both meet again after he has been made ruler of the princess's kingdom, after his emissary brought her back as a bride for the duke, she honestly tells him who she is. Despite their history, neither seems to hold anything against each other, with the duke liking her honesty and her fortitude. He doesn't want to make her his wife, but he offers her a place in his government as his adviser, considering her perspective valuable, which she happily accepts. Under the duke's rule of the kingdom, she also no longer has to hide her peculiarity.
Trivia[]
- Frankbourg is the name of a French castle situated in Neubois.
- In honor of the princess's story, a kind of highly acidic liquid that was once available to be bought on the peculiar black market was called "Princess Spit." However, due to the misuse of the liquid, its manufacture was shut down and Princess Spit is now a rare collector's item.