Once upon a time there was some pemmican. No, not polenta, it was brown and dried and looked (and tasted) somewhat like old shoe leather. Not that I've tasted shoe leather, but someone has, I'm sure. And as a matter of fact, yes, he does wear red an awful lot.

But, since the pemmican is rather peripheral to the story (a plot device, if you will), I'll go ahead and introduce the other players in my little tale. The first of the first, highest among highest, mistress of all she surveys, looking not just good in red, but reallyreally hot, was The Lady of the Dragons, the Ice Queen.

The Ice Queen was the ruler of a vast realm. Its population was rather small, as the census didn't take into account the polar bears, harp seals, beluga whales or other non-human native life. I don't know about you, but if I were the largest land predator in the world, I'd be a bit miffed if I wasn't counted in the census, too.

So, sometime after the Great Polar Bear Massacre, the queen realized that she needed an heir. She considered bearing and raising her own child, but after a weekend encounter with the brood of six belonging to two of her guards, she decided to seek another solution. (Frannie and Elaine were very apologetic over the incident with the dachshund, the orange juice and the garden shears.)

The queen turned to her newest advisor with the problem. The Stella was a new immigrant, a great lady brought from the court of the Gold Coast by the Bear Land Grants. She was also a very intelligent woman, with designs on the queen's position. (No, not that position, the Stella had had her taste of temporal power. She wanted a taste of the queen's person.)

With the Stella had come a comely knight named Ray. He was a very loyal knight, and dedicated, and the Stella liked him, but she sure wanted him to stop bloody hovering so she could get on with her seduction of the queen! Since the heir had to be of royal blood, and Sir Ray had been trained in the secret art of Royalty detection, the Stella resolved to kill two birds with one stone, and set Ray to help her find an heir (and get him out of her way!)

The Stella persuaded Sir Ray to practice his King-Fu, and the queen sent out a decree in all the lands and in all the neighboring kingdoms to have her subjects aid Sir Ray in finding the new heir.

Sir Ray searched high and low, and found many men who said they were princes and many women who professed to be princesses, but when he put them to the test, they were found lacking. (And in the meantime, the queen put the Stella through her paces, and they were very happy.)

Finally, one cold day, one miserable day in the middle of a snowstorm that no sane person would brave, one snowy day on the edge of a glacier the name of which only the polar bears knew, (and they weren't telling - who knows when they'll get over that census thing! Nothing's more cranky than slighted bears.) Sir Ray came to a little cabin on the edge of the tundra. Well, more of a lean-to, really.

Out of the snow came a man dressed in crimson, who dragged the half-frozen knight out of the snow and bundled him up all warm and toasty in front of a roaring fire. He handed the knight coffee with Smarties to sweeten it, and Sir Ray began to think that if this man wasn't a prince, he'd better be a saint!

Sir Ray quickly began to plan some way of using the patented pea-test on the prince, but upon taking one look at the bedroll on the floor, he realized he had to revise that idea a wee bit.

So Sir Ray sat and sipped his coffee and watched the man in red putter around the small lean-to. He brought out what looked astonishingly like dried shoe leather and put it on plates, and forayed briefly outside to scoop up more snow to melt on the stove. Over the course of their dinner, Sir Ray learned three things. One, the man's name was Ben. Two, he didn't care whether or not Ben was a prince, he was taking him back to the capitol for entirely selfish reasons. And three, pemmican didn't really taste so much like shoe leather as dried yak vomit. (You really don't want to know how Ray knew that last one. Really.)

Over pemmican, Sir Ray regaled Ben with tales of Court and the new lands available to all men with the courage to claim them (and the balls to wrestle polar bears). He told Ben of the beauteous Ice Queen and her new consort, The Stella, and her desire for an heir.

Enthralled by Ray's tales of non-Inuits, Ben agreed to accompany him to the capital, and in the morning the two set out on dogsled for the palace. It was a long and dangerous journey returning, and they got sidetracked a bit by some reaching-out hand, which turned out to be a victim of the polar bears, but eventually they got there.

Upon hearing of the return of her faithful knight, The Stella had them summoned forthwith to the throne room. (Palace insiders say they had to stop for her to harangue the knight for taking so long, and apparently bowling alleys were mentioned.)

Sir Ray spun a long and detailed yarn of his journeys and adventures, and ended by pronouncing the man Ben to be the culmination of his torturous and dangerous quest.

Unfortunately, the Ice Queen didn't buy it. She was just about to have the two men thrown to the polar bears when she stopped and asked Ben if he didn't look just a wee bit familiar.

Ben shrugged, and replied that she may have gone to the same finishing school as his sister Princess Maggie, as Maggie had told him once of a Princess Meg and 'The Incident.' Queen Meg immediately shut up and declared him her heir, then slunk off to have The Stella soothe her wounded pride.

Left on the dais with the new heir, Sir Ray turned to Prince Benton of Fraser and exclaimed, "Why didn't you tell me who your parents were? Everybody knows the story of Sir Bob and Princess Caroline!"

But Prince Benton turned his blue eyes on the knight and begged his forgiveness, and the knight melted on the spot, and they all lived happily ever after.

The End

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