For hours, Arianna wandered through the forest, looking for anyone or anything to help her. However, all she had to show for it was numerous cuts and bruises on her feet from the sticks and stones covering the uneven ground she was walking, as well as over the rest of her body from the bushes and low-hanging branches she had to pass through because there were no clear paths around them. Even her hair, which she always toiled (well, had her handmaidens toil) to ensure was perfectly styled, wasn't spared, as stray branches kept snagging and tearing at it.
Now, as the sun was starting to set, the princess found herself still lost in the middle of the woods naked, dirty, slightly injured, and beginning to feel a chill as the temperature started to fall with the sun.
"Damned witch, damned bandits, damned forest!" Arianna snarled, rubbing her arms over her body to try and warm back up, "When I finally get home, I'll have Father burn down this whole forest and kill everyone in it!"
That cry of vengeance made Arianna feel slightly better... until she took another look around and realized there was still no sign of civilization, not even so much as a hunting camp or a log cabin. And even as inexperienced as she was, she knew she couldn't wander around the forest in the dead of night. Not if she wanted to survive to see the next morning.
"There has to be someplace I can shelter for the night," Arianna muttered, looking around, hoping that miraculously she'd find some peasants she could order to take care of her. Instead, all she found, to her mild surprise, was the gaping entrance of a cave that stretched deep into a cliff that she came across as she emerged into another clearing.
"Ugh, I'm not sleeping in a filthy cave like some animal," Arianna said, only to pause as she looked back at the forest, which was quickly darkening as the sun continued to set. Sighing in resignation, knowing that this was the best she could do, she entered the cave; not wanting to risk its dark interior, she settled in the cave mouth, sitting down and trying to get comfortable on the stony ground. Shivering as a cool wind blew into the cave, she curled up into a ball for warmth, the only thing she knew to do - it wasn't like she knew how to make a fire, after all.
"Oh, shut up," she muttered to her rumbling stomach, trying not to think of the great feast she'd missed out on. She'd just eat twice as much once she was rescued, which would be soon, she reassured herself.
And with that, the princess who was used to spending her nights eating large feasts and then sleeping under silk sheets on feather mattress beds in warm rooms, attempted to drift off to sleep on a cave floor, hungry and cold.