The woman was like no other woman Fred had ever seen before. She was tall
and strikingly beautiful, muscular yet voluptuous, with long red hair. She
looked at Fred with eyes full of pure love. She drew Fred into her embrace
and kissed him passionately. Suddenly, she backed away. The look of love in her eyes had been replaced by anger, and she pulled a dagger out and had it at Fred's throat. What kind of beautiful woman carries around a dagger, anyway, wondered Fred. "Who are you?" spat the woman angrily. "Why did you bring me here? Send me back home now, warlock!" Fred gulped. "Umm... I didn't mean to bring you here. I was sent on a quest to kill a dragon, but I didn't want to do it, and I asked a wizard to send me somewhere else, and he sent me here, and I found a potion that would fulfil your greatest wish lying around on the beach, and I took it, and you appeared out of nowhere and kissed me because that was my wish. I don't even know who you are! I just wished for the most beautiful woman in the world! Honest!" The maiden laughed bitterly. "That's the stupidest lie I've ever heard. No one who had enough strength and courage to become a Dragonslayer would run from a mission like that. And wizards just don't leave important and powerful potions like that lying around on a beach for any fool to find. And even if you hadn't intended to summon me, how would you not recognize Astra, princess of Aqualaria?" Oh no. That's who it was. An Aqualarian warrior woman, who could easily disembowel him in a minute. He'd been a fool, he thought ruefully. He'd just wished for beauty, without realizing that the most beautiful woman in the world might not necessarily be well suited to him. And he'd just wished for her to kiss him without wishing that they would have any kind of relationship afterward. Why couldn't he have wished for a nice, docile Great Kingdom damsel? Or better yet, why couldn't he have given up on the potion entirely and tried to chat up one of the lovely women here on the beach? "Well," said Fred, "I didn't want to be a dragonslayer. I was appointed to that post by political enemies who wanted me dead. I'm not a great warrior, I can barely fight my way out of a paper bag. And I don't know how that potion got there either. Now could you please not kill me?" "Alright," said Astra. "You're obviously too helpless to have brought me here on your own. I'll assume you're telling the truth. Where do you think we are?" "I think we're in Hespan," said Fred. "Those suits that the people here are wearing are rather skimpy. Hespan is the only country that allows that sort of clothing. If they'd been in the Great Kingdom, they'd probably have all been burned at the stake." He looked around and saw that people were staring at them. "Maybe we'd better go."
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10/1/2001 1:44:58 PM
Extending Enabled
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