Back at the Withershins Inn Madame Sarsenet is still perched on her barstool, clutching the steaming coffee mug between her pudgy hands. Our fair fairy peers anxiously into the dark liquid, watching as sure and certain danger stalks ever nearer our sweet heroine. Any minute now she’s—

Was that a cackle?

Are you laughing?!

You horrid old crone! She could die and you—you—oh, go suck a toadstool you troll-bitten old hag!

Some people. You try to be nice, keep an open mind. Don’t pick favorites they say. Mustn’t ever pick favorites. Not a narrator’s job. But just… it’s so… I mean… really.

*sigh*

Fine.

You just sit there with your coffee and cackling. We are going back to Elaine. Like DECENT people.

Noxious old biddy…

***

Right. Where were we? Oh, yes!

*CRASH*

Our fearless maiden freezes.

Then frowns.

Oh, the injustice of it. For such a young and sparkling life to be cut short so ruthlessly before—

*CRASH*

Huh. You know that doesn’t sound quite like I thought a dragon would. It’s a bit, um… clanky? More like… like… Well, whatever it is, it’s certainly getting closer and Elaine is—

*CRASH*

Elaine is staring as a knight in plate armor—rather muddy plate armor with bits of twigs and bracken stuck in the joints and… is his helmet on sideways?—tumbles into the clearing.

“What in all the blessed hells…”

The armored apparition appears to have heard the muttered oath, for he attempts to spin toward the source of such melodious words. He—

Nope. Wrong way. Still no. You just—ah! There you go.

“Hello?”

He steps toward her… only to smack his helmet on a tree branch and tumble back to the ground.

“Oh, I say. Uncalled for.” With much clanking and rattling, this… interesting addition to our story rolls over and pats his way up the offending tree. “Someone there?”

Our fearless heroine now appears to be contemplating the wisdom of answering this. Given her circumstances, even help of this caliber might be preferable to none at all. Though you never can tell with fairy tales. Easy to go wrong.

Or end up as a tadpole.

Regardless, Elaine has apparently decided it is worth the risk.

A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

“Uh… yes?”

“Oh, jolly good! Don’t suppose you could help me with this?” The knight—I assume it’s a knight inside all that tin foil—grasps the helmet and attempts to twist it right way round.

“Uh huh. Love to. Just a small problem, you see… or not. I’m a little tied up—”

The helmet snaps back around with a click. “Ha! There we are!” He flips up the visor, revealing a smudged and disheveled face. “I say, do you know the way back to the road? Seem to have lost my way a bit.”

“Right. The road. I could—”

“Lost my horse and all too. Poor old thing must have wandered off.”

“Uh huh. Smart horse. That’s lovely but—”

“Makes questing bloody difficult, I’ll tell you. But one must keep on.”

Elaine is now focusing very intently on her new companion’s sword, possibly contemplating more than one use for it. In any case, she is studying it with pointed interest.

*nudge*

Get it? Pointed… Oh, for fates sake. Why do I even bother? Anyway.

Elaine makes another valiant attempt to get a grasp on the conversation. “I’d be more than happy—”

“It’s expected after all, questing. Can’t quite see the lark in it myself, but there you are.”

“HAPPYTOSHOWYOUTHEROADIFYOU—”

“Excellent! Thought it was back that way,” he jerks a thumb over his shoulder, “but must have got turned round in the swamp. Oh, well. Shall we then?”

Honestly, the amount of restraint our dear girl is showing in the face of someone positively begging for her extensive and creative uses of profanity is truly remarkable. I’m rather impressed, if I do say so myself. She’s actually restricting herself to nothing more than a silent glare. Amazing!

Though her face does seem to be turning a bit red. You might want to breathe dear. Just a bit.

Apparently even our dimwitted new friend can feel all the unspoken oaths positively bristling in the air. He shuffles his feet.

“Um. Something wrong?”

“I’m. Tied. Up.”

“Oh! So you are.” A confused frown creases his lackluster brow. “Um. Why?”

A number of replies—in varying shades of appropriateness for being seen in print—appear to be running through our fearless heroine’s head at this point. But thankfully, for the sake of our rating, she seems to have settled on sarcasm.

“Oh, you know. I thought it would be fun.”

“Really?” Our knight shrugs. “Seems an odd way to entertain yourself, but who am I to judge. My cousin Bertie likes collecting worms. Not sure what he does with them, but seems happy enough.”

Right. Clearly sarcasm is not an option with this one. Elaine takes a breath and tries again.

“There were bandits. They—”

Elaine’s new companion brightens. “Bandits?! Where? By George, I wouldn’t mind a round or two with some rascals like that. Jolly good fun indeed!” He spins round with sword raised.

And trips over a tree root.

“They’re gone.” The flatness of Elaine’s tone could have planed a boulder in half.

Our disheveled knight looks rather deflated as he picks himself back up. His helmet has come off entirely now and his sticky blond hair is all askew. Honestly, the poor boy looks rather like a lost puppy.

Which Elaine would happily kick at present.

“Listen. They tied me up and—”

“Oh!” Elaine’s prospective champion says in a completely different tone of voice. “Well. I’m not one to judge, mind you. To each his own, I say. Never had much taste for those sorts of games myself, of course. But… well… that’s just not my preference, you see. So I’ll just be off, shall I? Right oh.”

Our armored friend picks up his helmet and starts edging towards the other end of the clearing.

“THEYTIEDMEUPASBAITFORTHEDRAGONYOU—”

And let’s cut that right there, shall we? I’m sure you’re active imagination can fill in the blanks. Though the profanity does seem to be sailing right over our knight’s less than polished helmet.

“Dragon?!” He trips again, drops his helmet again, then scrabbles back up with it to come scurrying back. “A real honest dragon?!”

Elaine is definitely grinding her teeth at this point.

“I’ve no idea if its honest, but they tied me up and left me as bait so they could rob its hoard and…” Her voice trails off, clearly too worn out by the dialogue equivalent of beating one’s head against a very dense wall to even bother with more cursing. “And you’re not listening.”

“A dragon! I can actually fight a real dragon. Finally! A real quest.”

Elaine has gone back to scrubbing the ropes against the edge of the boulder.

“Idiots. It’s like I’m a magnet for idiots. Am I wearing a sign or something?”

“Me, Sir Jeffrey, slayer of dragons. I say, that does have a nice ring to it!”

“No idiots allowed. That’s definitely going on my tavern door. If you can’t read this, or at least count to fifteen without having to take your socks off, you can’t come in.”

“Sir Jeffrey. Dragon slayer extraordinaire—”

*WHUMP*

The sudden clap of air that fills the clearing knocks the luckless Sir Jeffrey back into the trees to tumble toes over teakettle down the hill.

*THUMP*

And Elaine looks up into a grinning set of teeth big enough to swallow a small elephant as a magnificent dragon settles right in front of her…

***

Meanwhile, at the Withershins Inn…