Sacrificial Princess & the King of Beasts

Episode 20

Hold on to your hats, everyone – Sariphi finally has some shoes. That's probably the least important thing about this episode, but damn, if it wasn't the one detail that I fixated on. Going from barefoot to sturdy boots can't be easy or comfortable.

Sari's sartorial choices aside, we are closing in on the endgame here. Of necessity, that means we're moving a little faster through the manga than some of us might like, but the meat of the story is very much present. Sari's diplomatic mission to Yoana, the human realm, isn't just about diplomacy, although no one realizes that until she gets there. Still, you might have thought that someone would have expected that she couldn't just waltz up to the palace calling herself the beasts' envoy and be let right in – well, except Lante, who guessed what would happen. Of course, Sariphi had no way of knowing that the beast language was taboo in Yoana because she grew up as a sacrifice; presumably, her education was patchy at best. But showing up with a letter written in a forbidden script asking to see the king is, as Ocelot demonstrates, a very good way to get an invitation to jail.

Fortunately, there is a way around it: Ocelot knows of a woman who can read beast script, out in the countryside, and he'll accept her translation of Leonhart's letter, should Sari be able to secure it. It does feel a little like a side quest, but that quickly changes when we see the purported witch: she looks stunning like Leonhart in his human form. And of course, she's not a witch. As always, that's a word that gets thrown around whenever a woman does something that scares people. In this case, it's because one of her long-ago relatives had a child with a beast (presumably that child is Leonhart, and beast and human lifespans are just drastically different; either that or she's lying and she's Leon's mom), and now the entire female line is tarred with the same brush. That makes her understandably leery when Sariphi shows up asking for a favor, and it isn't until Sari can prove her good intentions that Anastasia gives in.

There's an interesting parallel between Anastasia/Ocelot and Sariphi/Ilya, and I'm not sure that the show will have time to deal with it. But both women grew up as outsiders in their villages, and both men vowed to grow up to be able to help them. We know how that turned out for Ilya, but Ocelot's a little less clear. He's now very high-ranking in the royal military, and he clearly thinks about Anastasia and is willing to trust her translation of Leon's letter, but why, now that he's able to protect her, is he still so far away? Did she reject him? Or is he being poisoned by the general hatred of beasts and now isn't sure about her? Or maybe he's now too high ranking to be able to freely associate with a woman branded a witch.

In any event, truths are poised to be revealed very soon. Set is almost ready to reveal his hand, as his very troubling conversation with Anubis shows, and Sari may be on the trail of Leonhart's mother. How these events come together is likely to be troubling.

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