The Great Foggy Mountain Beast

The words were so shocking, Perry slipped and fell off the tub with an undignified squawk. Luckily, his butt hit the floor, not his face. Unluckily, he didn't have much in the sense of padding to absorb the impact.

"Your Highness!" Perry wasn't sure who the shout belonged to, the Head Servant or Mal. Considering he'd yet to hear Mal raise his voice, he'd wager it was the Head Servant. 

Unfortunately, the middle-aged man wasn't the one who found Perry sprawled out on the floor, flower petals stuck everywhere - except the one part Perry wanted to keep hidden -, and the family jewels out on display. 

"Your Highness." Mal's voice was way too neutral considering how absurd and ridiculous this whole situation was. 

Perry squawked, again, and tried to shuffle away from Mal as the man knelt next ot him. The problem was that he'd spilt probably a quarter of the water from the tub and the floor was now slippery. So all he could do was slip and slide around like some deranged person. 

"Towel. Cloth. Anything!" Perry hissed as he gave up on moving away from Mal and decided to try and cover whatever he could with his bare hands. 

Mal at least had the decency to look away and grab the nearest cloth. It turned out to be a gauzy kind of fabric that did nothing to cover Perry's important bits. 

Perry glared at Mal. The other man gave him his signature one-shoulder shrug and said, "You did say anything."

Annoyance flared inside of Perry. "Anything useful."

"Your Highness? Are you alright? Do you need me to call anyone?" The Head Servant sounded appropriately nervous. 

"Grab me some clothes, please. Or a blanket," Perry whispered to Mal. His bodyguard nodded and thankfully left Perry to handle himself.

"His Highness just had a minor accident. But he is more than fine, you need not concern yourself." Mal's voice got lower as he moved away. 

Perry almost wanted to call him back. Because now he was stuck there alone, naked, and wet with someone he didn't know. 

"Your Highness, are you sure you are alright?" The Head Servant asked.

"Yes, I'm fine. Don't worry." Perry folded the gauzi fabric until it was less of a see-through piece of cloth and more of a napkin that he covered his lap with. It didn't help much but at least he didn't feel so exposed. "Could you, uh, repeat the part about the grand prize and all?"

Perry thought he operated under the belief that knowing exactly how you're going to die wasn't necessarily a good thing. But in this case, he very much wanted to know as many details as possible. 

"Oh, of course, Your Highness. As was established during your last celebration, nobles and secondary members of the Royal Family are permitted to participate in the hunt. Her Majesty the Queen was against this, but you insisted," the Head Servant explained. 

"And, uh, whose ideas was it that I be the grand prize and all?" Perry had a sinking feeling that he already knew exactly who had made the absurd suggestion. 

There was a brief pause. "Yours, Your Highness."

"Of course," Perry mumbled to himself and wiped water away from his face. He winced as he shifted, his butt protesting the movement. "And when you say hunt, is it more of a metaphorical or literal hunt?"

Please, let it be metaphorical. Please.

"Oh, it is most certainly real," the Head Servant informed him, his tone a little too cheery for someone sharing terrible news. 

Perry's insides were in a knot. How the hell was this sort of thing even allowed? Surely the Queen, the one who had been so worried about keeping her son 'alive' to stabilize the kingdom wouldn't let anything potentially life-threatening happen to her only son and heir, right? 

"The arrowheads are, of course, shaved off and replaced with a cotton ball covered in thin leather," the Head Servant informed him. Again, sounding way too cheerful.

Perry's muscles went slack and he allowed himself to collapse on the wet floor with a long exhale, arms and legs splayed out. Relief washed over him and he let out a low chuckle.

"So this is basically a version of paintball." Perry huffed out a nother laugh and covered his face with his hands. 

"Paint… I am afraid I do not understand, Your Highness. Oh, is it because each team's arrows are covered in different colors and there is a ball at the tip? How clever, Your Highness!" The Head Servant clapped and laughed. "Is that would you would like to name this hunt?"

"Sure." Perry didn't mind one way or another. So long as there was no actual hunting taking place, they could call it whatever they wanted. Then a thought occurred to him. "So is there like a point system? How do you know who won?"

"Do you not remember any of the previous hunts?" The Head Servant asked. 

"I mean… uh, since I'm the grand prize and all, I'm just wondering if anything has changed." Perry needed to get his shit together and figure out a way of asking questions without giving himself away. 

He couldn't afford to be clueless or he wouldn't last much longer in this place. 

"No, nothing else has changed," the Head Servant informed him. "Palace servants still count as ten points, and nobles as fifty points. Your Highness will, of course, be worth a lot more."

Where the hell was Mal with that blanket? "How much more?"

Paintball might be a game, but those things still hurt. He figured that an arrow with it's pointy end cut off and covered in a cotton ball would also be equally painful. He did not want a bunch of trigger happy people, so to speak, hunting him through the woods and shooting arrows at him. 

The thought alone made him shudder. 

"Since Your Highness has been awarded the title of The Great Foggy Mountain Beast for this hunt, Your Highness is worth two hundred and fifty points."

Perry scrunched up his face and exhaled miserably. And just when he thought things couldn't get any worse, he opened his eyes to find Mal smirking down at him with a raised eyebrow and holding a folded blanket in his hand. 

"Do you still require this?"

Perry lurched up, ignoring the way his butt and lower back protested and how the gauzy see-through cloth fell away with the movement. He all but yanked the blanket from Mal, glaring at him. 

"Thank you for letting me know you were standing right there," Perry grumbled.

"You looked comfortable. I did not wish to disturb you," Mal had the audacity to say. 

"Oh, really? Did I? Did I look comfortable splayed out like a starfish after bruising my buttocks and finding out I'm going to be hunted?" Perry whisper-hissed, wrapping himself in the blanket and holding it tightly against his body. 

"You seemed at ease. And you need not worry about the hunt, I shall protect you." He pointed one index finger in the direction of the privacy screen. "Would you like me to punish him for causing you unnecessary worry?"

Perry didn't know what information to process first. "You'll protect me."

It wasn't a question, but Mal nodded slowly. "Yes. As is my job. As your bodyguard. Did you perchance also hit your head?"

"No. Yes. I mean, no, I didn't hit my head and yes, I know you're my bodyguard I just didn't think…" He didn't know exactly what he thought. 

"Are you done with your bath? Would you like me to punish him for utterly failing at his job?"

"Yes. I mean, no. Please stop asking me so many questions." Perry inhaled and exhaled deeply, trying to find some measure of calm. "Yes, I'm done. No, don't punish him. It's not his fault I'm so clumsy. By the way, is punishing people part of your job? Isn't a bodyguard supposed to only, you know, guard a body or something?"

Honestly, the only references Perry had were from movies and dramas and he was almost certain they weren't all that realistic. 

"My purpose is to ensure your safety at all costs. If that means I am forced to decapitate one or twelve people in the process, so be it." Mal turned his back and circled the privacy screen, thankfully giving Perry some alone time to dry and try to compose himself. 

He heard the Head Servant let out a surprised gasp.

"Don't decapitate him, please. Actually, don't decapitate anybody." Perry felt that making that crystal clear was important. 

"As you wish. I will not harm anyone." There was a pause. "For now."

Perry sighed and went about making himself presentable for whatever awaited him.