Princess Catherine the Third, or shortened as Catherine, spent more time consuming the army base stew than she did helping the two with what they needed to look for, she outright threatened to hang them if they didn't turn over the remaining stew, and for a woman like her, she ate her weight tenfold, enough to make Theodore a lightweight in comparison.
Her hands metaphorically tied behind her, Lila's forced to watch the princess consume the entire pot of army base stew until there's hardly a drip of the maroon stew at the bottom of the deep pot, it took Theodore from letting Lila say a few choice words to the princess.
Finishing it off with some of Theodore's favorite tea and wiping her mouth with a napkin, the satisfied princess lounged in her spot on the TARDIS stairs, ordering Theodore to fetch her more tea, it left her alone with Lila.
"Okay, you got your fill, mind telling us more about this guy?" Lila crossed her arms as she agitatedly looked at Catherine while she waited for Theodore.
Looking up to her, Catherine found her tone of voice distasteful, however Lila pointed out that Catherine ran into the TARDIS, she didn't have clout here.
Patting down her ruined wedding dress, Catherine stated that the baron said he came from Germany, but she doubted his story, everything about him bothered her down to his eyes.
"His eyes?" Lila raised a brow as the princess tells her that the notable trait of the baron's his eyes, that under certain lights, they look foggy.
"Foggy how?" Lila wanted elaboration on the eyes, before Catherine reiterates his eyes looked like a fish's eye, cloudy, opaque.
Curious, Lila pondered as Theodore returned with a full pot of tea, before Catherine ordered him to fill her teacup for her.
"She's more demanding than Hammond!" Theodore called out to Lila in her mind as he's forced to pour tea into Catherine's teacup, else she threatened his life.
Lila responded with, "At least he wouldn't go as far as ordering our executions if we're late getting into work."
Trying to stay on Catherine's good side while getting information from her, the duo learn that the baron only came around recently, and he didn't demanded Catherine's hand in marriage outright, he spent time in her family's court, until Catherine's father passed away suddenly.
Only then, did he demand her hand in marriage.
"You never saw him before?" Theodore asks Catherine and she responded that she never heard of a baron with that name, she became suspicious him almost instantly the moment he stepped into her family's court, but as a princess in line for the throne, her word didn't mean much until she had a crown on her head, if that.
She covertly tried to find information, but nobody heard of Baron von Ostrheinsburg, even the carriers she sent to Germany couldn't find any information on him.
"How'd he get the favor of the king, then?" Lila asked her why Catherine's father allowed an unknown man into his court and Catherine explained that the baron had plenty of gold with him, enough to sink a ship.
With tensions rising with England, her father sought to use the gold to defend their kingdom.
Unfortunately, her father bit off more than he could chew, because the baron's fickle about giving him gold, only when he gets something he wanted.
Catherine thinks he tried to pay for Catherine's hand in marriage, but her father refused, resulting in the baron killing him in anger.
"He claims he's from a noble kingdom and the court believes him, the nerve of them all!" Catherine grew flustered as she talked about the baron proclaiming his nobility and throwing it around to gain leverage, trying to position himself as her prime suitor.
Agitated, Catherine huffed that when she becomes queen, she planned on dealing with her court for their treachery against her.
With the information regarding Baron von Ostrheinsburg, it sounded like he simply appeared out of nowhere, with enough gold to buy favours after favours, until he couldn't buy Catherine's marriage, when asked, Catherine stated that she doesn't know how the baron obtained his gold, but she didn't want to know.
"And his hands, God, it's like touching the dead!" Catherine bemoaned the baron in any fashion she's capable of doing it.
Seeing her vent like this, showed how much of it was pent up over the course of weeks or longer, and in the TARDIS, Catherine felt like she was allowed to finally speak her mind, and someone willingly listening to her.
Willingly's the operative word, but Catherine's distressed about marrying the baron and losing the kingdom to him, that she's risking her line of succession for this opportunity to prove him as inferior or worse.
Regardless, Theodore and Lila let the woman vent, her frustration at having her voice unheard in her own family's court, that she'll blow her top if they try to silence her, too.
Exhaling sharply as she took a heavy sip from her teacup, Catherine gulped every bit of the tea, resting her teacup on the tray, before telling them that she doesn't believe that the baron has a castle and is a fraud above all else.
She wants them to help find her proof of his deceit, avenge her father, and lock-in her succession as the Queen of Scotland.
"Do we know where this baron lives?" Theodore haphazardly asks the princess if she knew where they'd find the baron when he's not in the court, but Catherine says that she doesn't know, she only knows he's a strange man who wouldn't come out in the rain.
Blinking, Lila echoed, "Won't come out in the rain?"
Nodding as she threaded her red hair behind her ears, Catherine mentioned that the baron refuses to come to the court when it's raining, he absolutely can't stand it.
"It's the only time I had peace from him!" Catherine exhaled as she stated that when it rains, the baron doesn't hound her for her hand in marriage, he refuses to come out in the rain, her father tried getting him to stay at an arranged spot, but the baron didn't want to stray far from his castle, he says.
Sharing looks with each other, Theodore and Lila looked back to Catherine, with Theodore saying that it's strange that the baron wouldn't want to stay close, considering he wants her hand in marriage.
Nodding, Catherine says that's one of the reasons it made her suspicious.
Curious, Lila asks what the baron gains from marrying Catherine, aside from becoming king, and Catherine seemed adamant that the baron wanted to become king.
Not like he'd afford the chances of getting caught in the constant rains, if anything, he'd want to bring her with him, wherever he lived, and that can't be, Catherine must rule Scotland, else she risks forfeiting her claim to the throne!
"Enough talk! I want you to remove him, this instant!" Catherine huffed as she stood up, prepared to storm out of the TARDIS, ready to take back her life, and ruin the baron by any means necessary.
She's got tenacity, they'll give her that, but it's pointed out that she couldn't storm the baron's castle and have him disposed wearing a ruined wedding dress and no shoes, now, can she?
"Fine, take me to your quarters," Catherine ordered the two into taking them to a place in the TARDIS that she can find clothes to change into and the two obliged.
Despite them offering her racks of old clothing that matched the time period, Catherine decided on something else, something that neither expected for a princess.
She scoured for them, but she found clothes that were more modern than she should've been more accustomed to wearing.
An olive-green fitting shirt made of jersey fabric with small light coloured embroiled carnations patterns on the V-neck.
Fitting navy-blue capris with white sneakers.
Her long red hair trimmed shorter and pulled snug in a bun behind her head, with her trimmed flowing bangs resting on her forehead.
When asked why she didn't pick clothes that seemed like something she'd wear, she said she wanted to disguise herself, nobody would think anything of it.
"This one's gonna be an interesting adventure," Theodore noted as he held a private conversation with Lila.
Lila then responded with, "We're not keeping her. We already risked our lives enough, risking time going haywire because of a wayward princess' not our job description."
Even if the princess already made a decent outfit with clothing that won't exist for almost two centuries, give or take, doesn't mean she's companion material.
"You never know," Theodore responds that Lila doesn't know if time as they know it had a different idea for Catherine.
It's happened before, after all.
"If we mess up bad, Hammond's gonna use our heads as bowling balls," Lila sighs as Theodore assures her that things will work out for them in the end.
Time won't permit Catherine to simply abscond if she's meant to be the ruling Queen of Scotland and she won't be able to force it, either.
However.
There have been instances of someone who was thought of being important having no effect on the timeline like expected, thus, their removal served no dire consequences to the adventure at hand.
Whatever instance it is, they'll know it, Theodore can feel the world under their feet, he'll know if Catherine's culpable in choosing her own fate or not when the time comes.
"And when that time comes, I hope you get stocks in grocery stores," Lila pointed out that if Catherine's absence doesn't affect the outcome, that Theodore better have stocks in grocery stores, for all the food they'll have to feed the princess, or else she'll try to have them executed.
Pretty sure there was a game about this, but at least the princess wasn't willing to throw around threats of executing people for failure to feed her plenty.
In her new clothes, Catherine prodded them, and they left the TARDIS, returning to the moors outside, where they began their unforeseen adventure.