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The long carriage drive to Priestella consisted of a lot of boredom. Subaru was driving, but they’d opened the hatch to talk to him, and now they were playing word games.
“A five letter word… ends with AIL…” Otto muttered.
“Hint! It’s something I’ve eaten before!” Subaru said.
“--You haven’t eaten snails, right?” Otto said skeptically, squinting at him.
The word Subaru was thinking of was QUAIL. “No I… well wait, actually I have,” Subaru said, thinking of the time his dad had convinced him to try escargot.
“You’ve eaten snails?” Otto said, looking horrified.
“It’s just escargot! If anything, it’s fancy, right?” Subaru tried.
“That’s disgusting!” Otto protested.
“I mean, if you cook it well enough and with the right things, it just tastes like butter,” Subaru defended himself. He’d actually quite liked the escargot. “I mean, I guess the texture is a bit weird, but…”
Emilia looked at Subaru with pitying confusion. “Was your family really poor, Subaru, and you had to eat snails to survive? I thought you said they were well-off…”
“Wait no, it’s nothing like that!” Subaru said, almost getting distracted from driving. “My family was fine!”
“So you’re just a weirdo then!” Otto said. Otto stuck his head out the window to where Garfiel was running. “HEY GARFIEL! SUBARU EATS SNAILS!”
“What?! I can’t hear you!” Garfiel screamed back.
“C’mon, it’s not that weird,” Subaru said. “Beako, back me up here.”
He looked down at Beatrice, whose face was the picture of revulsion.
“Ew…” Beatrice murmured. She shuddered with disgust.
“You too, Beako!?” Subaru said, dismayed. It was then he realized he lost the argument.
“It really isn’t that different from eating lobster,” Subaru tried.
“You eat lobsters? On purpose?!” Otto said. “That’s definitely a food of last resort!”
“Subaru, you really shouldn’t eat things that aren’t good for you!” Emilia said. “You could make yourself sick.”
“It’s-- ah, nevermind,” Subaru said. “Maybe I could try making it for all of you sometime, then you’d see.”
Subaru quickly realized by the look on their faces that they would never try it.