Shelly hid further under the bed as the scary giant snake slithered off, it's creepy yellow eyes never leaving her trembling form. She suppressed a sob, futilely trying to stop her shaking body.

Where were her parents? Her guards? Why had nobody come to rescue her when they heard the very loud crashing sound??

She'd woken up to the sound of a loud and heavy thump coming from some distance away. She'd thought it was just some of her guards getting rowdy, but she figured otherwise when a slithery sound came closer and closer.

She'd hid under the bed, scared of whatever was approaching her room. Her heart thumped loudly, her mind whirring at maximum overdrive, going over every tidbit of information she'd learned from her mother.

Was it an assassin? But mom said she was safe here, and that assassins were quiet and sneaky. And this was only confirmed when the door literally exploded, a titanic snake bursting into her room.

She'd cried out in suprise and fear, and when the snake had stuffed it's far too large head near the edge of the bed, looking at her, she'd thrown her favorite plush at it, trying to scare it off.

It hadn't even flinched, but it still slowly backed off for some reason. She thought it might have been readying itself for a charge at her, but when it simply stood there, waiting while staring at her, she thought the worst.

And as minutes turned to hours, she became more and more anxious. Her legs and arms were cramped from stuffing herself under such a small place for so long, and she was starting to get hungry.

She hid another sob, but after another 20 minutes of waiting, she broke down and began to cry out for her mother and father.

Her only answer was silence, and a quick look at the snake proved that it was still staring at her, just as impassively as before.

A loud rumble suddenly came from her belly, and her face heated up in shame. She quickly looked around, and only then remembered that there was no one around. Tears threatened to come out again, but a shifting noise brought her attention away from her lack of parents.

The large snake was leaving. Why was it leaving? Before it fully left from the door it shattered, it's head popped up again, stared at her for a couple seconds before it fully left.

Shelly waited for another few minutes, but then quickly came out. Poking her head out of the shattered door, she gasped at the unfamiliar sight in front of her.

Where were the luxurious hallways of her dad's castle? Where were the servants? The guards? Why was it all stone? Why was it so dark?

As Shelly asked herself all of this, she unhappily got back into her room and hugged the plush toy she'd thrown at the big mean snake. Her father would come get her, he always did. He said he was the strongest in all of Oceania, and her daddy never lied.

Half an hour passed in silence, and Shelly got increasingly uncomfortable. She was hungry, lonely, and she wasn't used to being alone for so long.

Luckily, or perhaps unluckily, she wouldn't be alone for much longer.

She'd immediately hid under the bed again when she'd heard the thump coming from down the mysterious hallway, and a couple dozen seconds later, the snake appeared in her room again.

In it's jaws was a large strip of flesh from something, but Shelly didn't know exactly what. The snake approached her bed, dropped the flesh in front of her, and then went back a bit. Observing her.

Feeling her stomach begging her to take the offer, and also suprised the snake had brought her food, Shelly cautiously crawled out of the bed and grabbed the meat. She tried to rip a piece off, but it was too tough for her to do so. She then tried to directly bite a piece off, and that worked a little better.

It didn't taste as good as the food her chefs usually made, but she was too hungry to care. 10 minutes later, Shelly had only eaten a small portion of the huge chunk of flesh, but she was nice and full at least.

She cautiously backed away from the snake, but then thought otherwise. She wasn't naive like her little sister, she didn't randomly trust strangers, but still... The snake had just offered her food, and she'd heard from her dad that their royal line was revered amongst the inhabitants of Oceania. Perhaps the snake had recognized her?

Cautiously, she approached the snake, keeping her palms open. The snake seemed rather lazy in response to her approach, simply keeping it's eyes on her while casually lying on it's own coils.

A large, longue tongue creeped out of it's jaws when she came within a couple meters of it though, flickering up and down in warning. Shelly, having been trained in the body language of all kinds of marine life, waited for a bit until the tongue went back into it's mouth, and then slowly reached up...

... And was too short to reach the snake's forehead. She got on her toes, trying to touch it, but didn't manage. Frustrated, she huffed in annoyance and tried to climb the coils in front of her to reach the snake's forehead, which only seemed to be getting higher and higher.

It was only three minutes later, after a lot of jumping around and trying various tactics that she realized she'd completely forgotten all of her training, and another instant to realize that the snake had been purposely playing with her.

She paused her latest attempt at reaching that damned forehead, trying to climb across the snake's back to reach it's head. Suddenly, she felt as though perhaps she was the naive one, and not her sister.

As if sensing her shift, the snake itself reached out, letting her touch it's forehead, although it was more akin to Shelly touching it's snout. Remembering her magic lessons with Old Man Gilgamesh, she focused her mana in her mind and projected it into the serpent's own mind, utilizing her royal bloodline as a crutch to activate the spell.

"H-hello?" She mentally said, hoping it'd worked. The snake didn't move, and Shelly didn't notice it, but it's eyes got a bit brighter.

"Guten tag, little princess." A strangely robotic and dispassionate voice responded. It sounded vaguely feminine, but Shelly couldn't tell for sure.

Shelly cheered loudly and yelled a "I did it!", only to lose control of the spell a moment after. Groaning in frustration, Shelly hurriedly cast another telepathy spell.

"Um, hi! I'm Shelly, who are you, Mr. Snake?" She mentally asked, unsure of what to say. Would it eat her if she asked it where her parents were?

"Again, guten tag, little princess. I have yet to find a name for myself in this world, so just calling me snake would suffice. Also, it's ms, not mr." The same empty voice responded, lacking any tangible emotion.

"O-oh." Shelly mentally stuttered. Steeling herself, she cautiously asked, "U-um, did you eat my parents? B-because if you did, I'll get really angry!"

"... Dear, do you know where we are?" The snake said, diverting the topic. Shelly fell for it like a gullible person falls for the gullible on the ceiling joke.

"T-the royal palace?" She said, more as a question than statement. A sudden surge of frustration came through to Shelly from the snake's side before it immediately vanished, and the empty voice of the snake mentally transmitted the words that would forever change Shelly.

"... I live in a world surrounded by idiots."

Or perhaps they would simply confuse her. She wasn't the brighest girl around, after all.