The princess who is not a princess but is called the princess because that is the only word that those who only understand power may understand is doing an odd… thing.

"Pat cake, pat cake, baka man. Bake me cake fast you can. Pat it, pick it, mark wif a B. Put in ofen for Beeg Bug and me," she sings, face wrinkled in the human gesture of pleasure. Her fingers dart hither and thither, touching Temp's feet, and Tick's feet.

It is an odd ritual, as all humans' are.

Yet it is theirs, and as humans' and all creatures' ritual are odd, so are the crawlers' in the eyes of others.

To ask is polite, but to ask is not a common occurrence.

Scorn and laughter come easier to mind.

The crawlers have been those laughed at for eons, and they will continue to be those laughed at for eons.

Temp still asks, polite and patient, asks Temp, "What sings the princess, what sings?"

And the princess' brother, kinder and less flighty than they had originally thought him to be, replies, "It's a song we sing with babies in the Overland."

Ah. A song for the young.

Yet he continues, "She put you in it. That's a big honor. She only puts someone in a song if she really likes them."

An honor.

"Me like big bug," says the princess. She sings the song again, patting Temp and Tick with no flinch of disgust nor demeaning sneer.

She is the princess, and she bestows honor on all, for she is the princess.

Respect yields respect — so Temp tells Tick, and so Tick tells Temp. An any odd ritual of honor may be repaid with another.