There was a banging on the door, awakening Sir Dave du Lac early the next morning. He opened the door to find a very flustered and excited Ariel Flion outside, holding another scroll of parchment in his teeth. Without a word, Sir Dave took the parchment and unrolled it:

 

"Hmmmm..." Said sir Dave, stroking his chin thoughtfully. "He does make mention of a ransom, but he says not a word of what that ransom is! What could he possible want from us here in the Fabled Realm?"

In the meantime, many miles away on an endless sea of Dreams, upon a magic swirling ship bedecked with brightly colored red and white sails, a very, very pissed off elven Princess confronted her abductor.

"YOU VILE KNAVE!" she was shrieking at him, hurling everything within reach at his head. "YOU FELL UNCOUTH SWINE! YOU SCOUNDREL! YOU CAD! YOU ILL-MANNERED VARLET! IF I GET MY HANDS ON YOU I'LL ... I'LL ... I'll....AAAAAAAAAAA!"

Staggering with laughter, the Dread Pirate Captain Gentleman Dave Scarlett avoided yet another piece of crockery aimed at his head. Ever since awakening from the magic sleep spell the Sea Witch had given him for the purpose of capturing the Princess, she had been hurling epithets and breakables at him nearly nonstop. Her hair flamed around her face in disarray, and her dark eyes blazed with fury.

"Stop it! Ahhaha! Stop! I can't take it! AAaaHHAhahahA!" he laughed. "At this rate, the good people of Cuddleland will need to rescue *me*! Who knew Elven Princesses were so damned FIERCE?" His humor served to only inflame her ire further, and his parrot Gilgamesh (newly returned from delivering his latest message) elected wisely to remove himself to the galley, in the hopes of convincing Cookie to let him have a small bit of rum in his water bottle. Gil felt that with this particular prisoner on board rum was going to become a valuable commodity in short order.

Unable to stop laughing, Dave Scarlett pounced on the furious Princess and carried her kicking and shrieking to a chair where he bound her hands and feet. She eyed him furiously before cutting loose with a stream of invective that impressed even him with it's creativity and scope. His laughter was short lived, however: Tiernan spat a complicated and tongue-tangling phrase in her native Elven tongue, and the crockery resumed flying ... all by itself! He'd completely forgotten that this particular faerie princess was also a faerie mage! Dodging the dishes and candlesticks, he managed to gag her with a scarf and the inanimate objects in the room returned to being properly and obediently inanimate.

"Whew," he said, shaking his head. "I've gotten me a faerie tiger by the tail THIS time, ahar! What'm I going to do with you NOW, my fine faerie wench? Hmmmmmm..."

Part Three