Phaedra, Fakes and Suess

"WHAT??!!?" said Fred. "He was alive when last I saw him, it was he that sent me on my quest."

"A lot of things change," said Fredwina. "Our good King Emry was killed when a chunk of green ice fell from the sky."

"Green ice?" asked Astra.

"Yes," answered Fredwina. "It was tragic, apparently a flock of winged cave drakes were flying about on a moonless night. The King and his Queen were out having a nightly picnic under the stars, as was his custom with his dear wife. Unfortunately for him, the drakes zeroed in on the candle- light, at least that is what a number of ministers proclaimed, and... and did what cave drakes do to... to lighten their load. As they were flying at very high altitudes their waste froze before hitting our king - and so what should have been a wet surprise turned into hard, cold death."

"EWWW," said Fred and Astra together.

After the funeral and after the Queen was placed into a Home for Slightly Crazed Royals, their daughter Phaedra took the reigns."

"Phaedra," said Fred. "Good little Phae, she's quite the exotic girl you know, she just loves strange and foreign things."

"Indeed," smiled Fredwina. "Some of the less reserved boys have taken to calling her 'exotica', but not in her presence, of course."

This was all interesting news, thought Fred, but it still did not help him much in discerning where falsity ended and truth began, was this woman deranged, a simple pawn, or a minion? Could it be that the woman Astra was the pawn or the minion or simply deranged? ~~damn the wyrm for his powers of deceit!~~

"Let's be logical here," said Astra. "At this point we all know that our minds have been messed with, we don't know what is real and what is not. Now, I have been taught that mage-wyrms are capable of doing many things to people, and though rearranging memories seems beyond anything I ever recall hearing of, it looks like we've been duped."

"Or," said Fred. "Or we have been transported into an etherealm, an other- world where there lives an other-Allaria with an other-Fred etc etc."

"Don't be daft, dear brother," said Fredwina. "Grandmama may have believed those old tales, but you? NO ONE has that kind of power, the gods would not allow that... it would ruin their turf!"

"Aye," agreed Astra. "The god Suess would smite anyone and anything with his thunderballs and hatcats if he had anything to say about it!"

"Oh, um, well..." said Fredwina who had no clue what the strange woman was talking about. But before she could finish her incomplete thought Fred broke in: "Well, maybe you're right... but how are we going to know what is real, false, a true memory or just a piece of flotsam put in our heads by the Dragon?"

No one knew. They decided to sleep on it and see what the morning would bring.

1. In the morning....

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