Soon it was time to move on again. the Garuw had a massive tournament to arrange now, so with an unexpected hug from Mawri, a pet for Kawn, and an approving grunt from their stalwart canine guard they were off again. Though Mibbet noticed on the way out that Elvira had struck again. The recently unburied gate gazed back at them as they left with a gigantic googly gaze. (Seriously? How the hell did she do that without anybody noticing? Each eye was almost as big as Alba, did she hire a team of ninja steeplejacks or something? How the hell? Surely somebody must have noticed, yet there they were staring her in the face, in a rather googly fashion. Mibbet was fairly sure magic must have been involved, but she had definitely never heard of a bestow googly eyes spell. Oh well no point in thinking about it, Spikey the Motivational Pike and Trundles had a new companion and that was that, though Mibbet decided not to ask the name as Elvira was not the most creative namer.) “Bye smiley” Elvira said as they rolled off, Mibbet did nothing but clutch her aching head, glad she didn’t ask but equally wishing she didn’t know.

Soon enough they were well on their way once more, with the city fading into the distance. “Well Princess, the next stop is the mad mages maze, but to get there we have to go through everwitch way.”

“Which way?”

“Everwitch way”

“I get that but which way, Everwitch way doesn’t give us a way so which way?”

“No no Princess, Everwitch way is which way we have to go, Witch way leads away from Everwitch way.”

“How should I know which way leads away from Everwitch Way, I don’t even know Which way Everwitch way is since it could be since everwhich way could be any way.”

Sir Leeroy clutched his head trying to decode the argument, he really hated travelling in this direction, this happened every gods damned time. “No Princess, Everwitch way is a location, it is located along Witch way, and to prevent further confusion I will use direction to distinguish which way I mean which way, and will use Witch way and Everwitch way distinctly to mean the locations, w-i-t-c-h instead of w-h-i-c-h. So if we continue in this direction we will hit Everwitch Way, as in the road, further in the opposite direction is “Witch way.”

“That does it" Mibbet sighed, when we get back to the castle I am going to kick some cartographers arse, maybe since it seems they store their brains there it may make them think more before reckless naming.”

“I can understand that sentiment” Errol agreed. “Nuisance nomaclature is negatively impacting travel. But it’s the lords who get to name places, the poor cartographers just have to note the names down, and they do their best to make places distinct with a coloured key, but there’s really only so much they can do about it.”

“OK the amount of time the lords spend sitting on their jacksies in court, or at feasting tables it seems their brain may have migrated to the front, remind me when I get back then to gather all the lords who give stupid names in one place and give them a swift kick in the nad....”

“PRINCESS.” Sir Leeroy interjected swiftly, he had a feeling that a Princess using her royal prerogative to justify booting half of parliament in the crown jewels would not end well for anybody involved. “I’m not going to say some of them don’t deserve it, especially given their downright evil choices of naming convention, but such a deterrent would need parliamentary approval.”

“Yeeeah I really can’t see them granting that in this situation” Mibbet sighed, while inside her Rosalind offered the ethereal equivalent to a sympathetic hand on the shoulder. (Not a real one of course, when one is sharing two souls to one body an actual sympathetic hand on the shoulder would either feel creepy as hell, or involve multiple anatomically unlikely dislocations and somebody else to aid and abet said hand, or creative use of amputation, neither of which were desirable outcomes here, or anywhere really.)

It was probably rather unlikely to be fair that a man offered a say in the matter would vote in favour of a cruelly calculated kick in the chestnuts, (well maybe Chancellor Porque, but the less that was said about his pastimes the less likely the dear reader is to end up with nightmarish mental images. So for your own sake I implore you, do not think too deeply on this. Lest you be scarred for life.) Or at least not unless a massive media campaign was set up to make them believe it was beneficial to them or would stick it to people from another country. (Rosalind had figured out a while ago that a particular brand of asshole would vote in favour of a sulphuric acid and naga chilli enema if their racism was invoked, and then would spend the next decade waddling around like a duck while screaming how it was the best thing they had ever done. Mibbet would have had a hard time believing it if she had not met most of Parliament in the recent past.)

“It seemed like such a good plan too” she whined, "if I can’t kick them in the nadgers physically though perhaps I can financially. Introducing fines for confusing and misleading names, I could even convince each of them personally that it would screw over somebody else. Pretty sure that if they all thought that they’d screw themselves over thinking it didn’t apply to them.”

Sir Leeroy couldn’t help but chuckle at that. “Appealing to their need to spite each other, that may just work. We’ll make a real politician of you yet Princess.”

“Please don’t” Mibbet pleaded. “If I ever become like that you have my permission to shoot me for the good of the kingdom. But the law may be a good plan to stop us being sent everwhich way."

“No Princess, Everwitch way is the way we need to travel.”

Things were about to start over again when they were interrupted by a cry of OOOHHHH BOOOLLLLOOOOCCCCKKKKKKSSSSSS. Followed by the sound of a falling object, and something that sounded a lot like somebody twanging a wooden ruler off a desk.

“ It seems we are on Everwitch way Princess." Sir Leeroy sighed.