The queen took a chicken leg off of her plate and held it out to the side. A little hand reached up and grabbed it from her, a tiny giggle and an even tinier "thank you" coming from under the table. The queen smiled. Across the table from her, her daughter Augusta closed her eyes. Despite her best efforts to think about something else - anything else - she couldn't help but picture what she would see if she bent down to look under the table, pushing aside the purple tablecloth. The little girl in a poorly-fitting white frilly dress, curled up beneath the queen's golden chair, smiling as she stained her chubby cheeks with grease.

"Take that look off your face, Augusta."

Augusta opened her eyes. "What look, mother?"

"The look that says we've served you pig's slop instead of the finest meal in the entire kingdom." The queen took a sip of wine. "One might think you were ungrateful."

"I am grateful, mother." And so was the little girl on the floor, surviving off of table scraps, eternally smiling and scraping and rolling around in an attempt to make her mother smile.

"If the meal is not to your taste, we could ask the chef to prepare something else." Her father said with a smile.

The queen shook her head. "She'd find whatever food we put in front of her disgusting."

"It's not the food."

"Then what is it?"

The girl was humming now, underneath the table. Singing along to a song only she could hear. Augusta's fingers tightened around her fork. The cold metal dug into her palms.

"Surely you could allow the Royal Fool to have a seat at the table, rather than have her beg for scraps like a dog?" she said.

“I will do what I like with my pets.” The queen waggled a finger at her daughter. “And you will hold your tongue.”