The door swings shut, trapping the musty indoor air. The oil lamps give off a rusty glow. The full-sized logs making up the walls are not completely stripped of their bark, and the woolly rugs that criss-crossed the floor are uneven and ridden with bare patches.

Someone sneezes.

"Bless you!" another someone chirps.

The sneezer sniffles, mutters, and shuffles across the rugs to a makeshift notice board hanging on the wall opposite the door.

The chirper pauses by another, shorter log that is disguised as a front desk. "Hello, Mrs. Collons! It's quite a brisk day, outside. Do you think we're in for more snow, tonight?"

A red, potato-shaped face emerges from beneath the desk and splits into a grin. "Oh, hello there, Millie. Might do, might do. Good thing I got the fire going good and strong today. Have you met my new puppy?"

"Oh, I'd love to, Mrs. Collons, but we need to find a new quest, lickity-split!"

"He's just here, under the desk, see?" Mrs. Collons disappears out of sight again. Millie purses her lips together to keep from sighing, and ducks down as well. The hem of her grey wool coat brushes the floor, her knitted blue scarf trailing on the rug behind her. She peers through ginger-brown curls.

Underneath the desk, sprawled out on a pink blanket, is a calf. Of the moose variety.

Millie smiles. "He's adorable! What's his name?"

"Thor." Mrs. Collons beams with pride.

"Hello, Thor," Millie murmurs, gently patting the sleeping calf. She lifts her head and calls across the room. "Brat, come here and see Mrs. Collons' baby moose!"

Brat shifts her gaze away from the notice board. As she turns to glare meaningfully at Millie, she glimpses the furry trophy looming from above the fireplace. It's brown, glossy, and suspiciously moose-shaped. "...Where'd y'get the baby moose, Mrs. Collons?"

"Found 'im," Mrs. Collons' smug voice replies from beneath the desk.

"....uhhh huh." Brat returns her attention to the notices. "So, whattya want, Mil? Something in the sacred treasure department? There's a thing here for... hey, what was the name of that sword? The one we had to toss in the pond?"

Millie considers for a moment. "Excalibur?"

"That's the one. They got another one here - somebody wants it outta the pond again."

"Naah. Choose something nicer. Is there something nicer?" She pulls herself to her feet and stands behind Brat. Brat frowns thoughtfully, trying to ignore Mrs. Collons' affectionate clucking noises, which were increasing in volume.

"What about that one?" Brat taps one notice with a red finger. Her gloves have no fingers, and the cold has bitten her hands raw.

"Hate slugs."

"Fiiine. Baby."

"...We could do THAT one."

"...Hate giants..."

"Baby."

"Hmph!"

"Ooh!" Millie pushes Brat aside to pull one notice from the board. "Enchanted prince! Perfect!"

Brat wrinkles her nose. "Just what I need. More perky, overfed royalty."

"I am not overfed!"

"Well... Well, you would be, if you were at home."

"Mmmm, but I'm not. I'm out saving the world, just like you." She aims a poke at Brat's ribs.

"Lucky me." Brat snatches the notice from Millie's hands and marches back over to Mrs. Collons. She sticks her note-bearing hand under the desk. "We're taking this one."

"All right, girls! Enjoy yourselves!"

Brat rolls her eyes and stuffs the note into a deep coat pocket.

"Good bye, Mrs. Collons! Good bye, Thor!" Millie calls as Brat drags her away. "We'll let you know how things turn out!"

The door creaks open, and slams solidly shut.

Millie sticks out her tongue, catching snowflakes. Brat scowls at her and shrinks into her worn, dirt-brown coat. The hem flutters around her knees, doing little to keep out the chill. Her boots scuff along the ground, whipping up tiny powder-storms around her ankles.

"I think they taste like peppermint," Millie muses. Her clothes retain only the most fashionable dusting of snow. Her black boots and stockings remain crisp and relatively dry, the hem of her rose skirt flashing out from under her grey coat in only the most flattering manner.

"They taste like nothing, Mil. Maybe water. But mostly nothing." Brat's messily cropped brown hair flops into her eyes. She stumbles over a snow-buried branch and, predictably, curses its very existence.

"...and THIS one tastes like chocolate... this one tastes a little like parmesan..."

Brat slows, contemplating the journey to come. With sudden agitation, she rifles through her pockets, hand emerging triumphantly with the quest-notice tightly clutched. "Look!" She waves it desperately at Millie. "Don't you want to know more about the quest? The enchanted prince?"

Millie abandons her pursuit of an exhaustive list of snowflake flavours, much to Brat's relief. "Evil sorcerer-slash-sorceress has cast evil spell on innocent Prince Charming, and imprisoned him in his-slash-her castle-slash-palace-slash-fortress."

"Oh, you think you're soooo smart."

"Am I right?"

"...maybe..."

"Ooh, lemon drop!"

"They only want him alive," Brat continues hastily. "And he has to be returned to his parents in his natural princely shape, so we can collect the reward."

Millie smiles. "I like breaking enchantments. They're the best kind of quest. Remember that one with the big family turned into partridges?"

"Swans?"

"That's the one. It was nice. Everybody's always so happy, at the end."

A sly grin creeps its way across Brat's expression. "You never know. You might fall in love with 'im and he'll propose and you'll have a big castle far away with lots of fat children."

Millie shudders slightly. "Don't even JOKE about that."

"Awww, you mean it isn't the most special-est dream in the whole wide wo-- Erf!" The snowball's remains drip from Brat's nose. She blinks.

Millie scampers ahead down the ill-marked road, closely chased by a Brat uttering oaths of revenge.

They run through a landscape made monotonously tidy by the blanket of snow. All the wrinkles and smudges and scratchy bits of a living land lay disguised as softly rounded lumps. One such lump erupts with a puff and a gleaming thing flies across Millie's path to land with a heavy thud.

Millie hesitates in her flight, allowing Brat to catch up and seize her by the arm.

"Hah! You try running no--"

A high-pitched roar comes from beneath the lump of snow before it explodes.

With a tiny shriek, Millie skitters back, tumbling into Brat and sending both girls sprawling.

"Blast you for a barnacle straight to comfustication!" Batting the snow away with flapping brown robes, a wild-haired woman emerges and bustles across the roadway with less than a nod for Millie and Brat. "Bearings?! Don't tell me about bearings!"

The girls stare up at her, dazed. For the moment.

The woman snatches up the gleaming thing and accuses it. "You know perfectly well this old cart is not fit for fancy bearings! The axle is wood, wormeaten as your useless brain, and the loopy things it fits to are iron!" She pounds the object, a mirrored ball, against the palm of her empty hand. She glares into it intently before wailing at the sky. "You're as worthless as the square root of a egret's egg. Tell me how to fix the cart!"

Brat is the first to scrabble to her feet. She stands between the raving woman and Millie, the latter taking time to brush snow from her clothes.

She points an accusing finger. "Are you crazy? 'Cause if you're crazy, we don't want nothin' t'do with you, so just... go someplace else! We're usin' this road!"

Cocking an eyebrow at Brat, the woman snorts and starts to speak. She's interrupted by a hum from the object in her hand. Taken aback, she asks, "You were talking to these two? No, no, no, no, no. I _need_ your attention. I _need_ your help. I know," she whispers " why don't you give us a spoke?"

A ghostly apparition appears at her elbow. "No," she says distinctly, " a spoke!"

Brat backs up a few steps. Her words sneak out of the corner of her mouth. "Mil...? Who the hell's she talkin' to?"

Millie shushes her. "Don't be rude! Maybe she's talking to something we can't see."

"Like the voices in her head?"

"Shush!"

A lit pipe appears in her mouth and the aroma of tobacco fills the air. She spits it into the snow. "Look," she says, trundling back the way she came to brush the snow from a cart barely larger than a wheelbarrow, "This, is our cart. It, is busted. If you want me to replace your polkupyoralla, you will give me a blasted spoke to CARRY US TO THE PALACE!" She whams the ball against the cart's side.

"Maybe she's a--"

Lightning strikes a large oak nearby. As the woman cowers, the tree crackles and splits and a severed portion of the trunk falls at her feet. The broken trunk slowly rises from the ground and hovers of its own accord. The woman straightens. She coughs. "That'll do."

..several minutes later, Millie and Brat emerge from the snowbank they had very recently flung themselves into. Snow dripped from Millie's nose. "What were you saying?" she hissed.

"I have no idea."

The girls clamber out of the snow, sliding to a halt on the road. They whisper frantically as they dust each other off.

"Don't make eye contact."

"I think she already knows we're here, Brat..."

"Yeah, but she's not all provoked yet. Why push our luck?"

"-Our- luck?"

"Fine, your luck, I don't care..."

As the tree trunk shifts and sways, the woman drops the ball into her cart and tugs the little cart into the branches of the tree. Climbing up herself, she nestles comfortably and smiles at the girls. When the tree trembles and begins to rise further, a look of alarm crosses her face. Putting fingers to her lips, she whistles loudly. "Eugene! Hurry man, you'll miss your ride!"

From the distance an enormous, curly-haired dog bounds toward them. The woman watches it fondly then turns her smile back to Millie and Brat. "Oh! You two! According to the oracle, you'd best beware of the bearings." Her smile brightens with amusement, "Whatever that means."

The dog dashes up and, with a great leap, clambers into the rising oak. The oak slowly carries Eugene, the woman and her cart upward and out of sight.

"Oracle? What oracle?" Millie frowns in thought. Is the woman an oracle? Or her dog? Her dog could be the oracle, that would make more sense...

Brat nudges her and points as the oak escorts the woman and her questionable baggage away. "Maybe it's not the kinda stuff we should be taking to heart, Mil."

"Oh, come on, she didn't seem THAT crazy. And she said she was going to a palace!"

"...she did?"

"Don't you pay any attention?"

"'Course I do. Like how much space is between me and crazy old-- If you throw ONE more snowball at me, I swear..."

Millie relented, clasping her hands neatly behind her back, and falling into step beside Brat. "So, where are we going? Do you have an oak tree we can go on?" Brat grimaced and shook her head.

"No oak trees. And we follow this road as long as we can, before it gets dark. There's supposed to be a village or something up ahead. Some kinda houses, anyway."

"No palaces?-- heeey, no fair, I'm unarmed..."

The wind blows more fiercely. Millie ducks her head against the cold, hiding as much exposed skin as possible under the expansive safety of her scarf.

Brat glances at her. "...no, really, right around this bend. I swear."

"Mmph."

"Aw, Mil, don't be like that. We passed a road sign, didn't we?"

"Mmphrmph!"

"...yeah, I know it didn't say anything..."

"Mmmph..."

Brat reaches for Millie's scarf, giving it a swift tug downwards. "You could quit complaining, y'know, it's not helping us any."

"But it's not even snowing anymore! It's j-just... c-cold..." Millie chatters.

"Oh, cut it out, I know you can do that on command."

Millie allows herself a slight sulk for the next dozen paces. Then she brightens. "You know, you could always--"

"Nope."

"But it might--"

"Never happen."

"Pleeeeeease? I'm cold..."

Brat sighs. "You know it's never going to work."

"It MIGHT, though! Don't give up hope, Brat!"

Brat reaches out and tugs the scarf back over Millie's mouth. "No more positive talking, then." Millie nods dutifully as Brat rummages inside her coat pockets. A moment's search produces a brass oil lamp, dingy with disuse, and obviously impossible to fit in Brat's coat pockets. The meticulous detail is difficult to make out, but the general shape is clearly that of a head - a dragon, perhaps, or some other mythical beast. Where the small flame would usually burn, a forked brass tongue protrudes. It seems to be doing it on purpose.

With a sigh, Brat rubs at the side of the lamp with the heel of her gloved hand...

The lamp splutters and hisses. The brass begins glowing like freshly forged metal; red, translucent, and painfully bright. A whistle like ten firecrackers cuts the air as sparks spew from the draconic tongue and leave puddles in the snow. Odorless, flavorless, smoke rises in wreaths that curl and bunch into a human figure.

Millie oohs.

She smiles politely, steps free of the smoke, and extends a copper colored hand to shake Brat's.

Brat frowns as her hand is taken. She wriggles it, attempting to free herself of the genie's perfect friendly-but-firm grip.

"Hello there. You must be my new clients." The hand parts from Brat's and a small white card emerges imperceptably from the cuff of her tailored sleeve. Her body is all curves, but her manner is as sharp as the cut of her three piece suit. "How may I be of assistance?"

Brat hastily wipes her released hand on her coat. She snatches the business card and passes it off to Millie, who diligently reads the words aloud.

The card reads (in embossed black lettering):
Jean E.
Wish Realization Consultant
"No wish too big or too small(tm)!"

And in tinier print:
Note: Some wishes may, in fact, be too big or too small, as is deemed by the judgement of the individual consultant.

Jean waits for them to read the introduction, plucking invisible strands of lint off her lapel and smoothing out the fabric. She smiles and nods to herself at the end of every line, waiting for the inevitable outburst. Something akin to "Oh, wow! Not even in my wildest dreams did I hope for this!" or "Say, I've heard of you! Weren't you the one who...?"

"She sounds awfully professional..." Millie carefully pockets the card. "Are you sure she's supposed to be working for us?"

..."professional" was not quite "gift from the gods", was it? Still, business was business. The two girls seemed nice enough - perhaps they wouldn't be very high maintenance. Her ego could survive.

"It's our lamp, isn't it?"

"Technically..."

"There ain't nothin' technical about it. He's lucky I let 'im keep the magic carpet, after what he put us through." Brat glances up at the floating female. "It was a present! So no smiting thieves or... or whatever it is you were thinkin'."

The bronze colored hands raise up in innocence. "I've always made it policy not to judge my clientele, so long as they respect the bounds of our relationship. I assure you, if you stay within those bounds, thieves or not, there will be no 'smiting', as you put it."

Millie stands on her toes to better converse. "So, Miss E, ma'am, we were wondering if you could... Oh! My manners! I'm Millicent Chantarelle Quarlicious the Sixth, but please call me Millie. And this is Brat." Gesture. "We were wondering if you wouldn't mind granting us a wish? We're looking for the nearest town..."

Jean nods. "A pleasure to meet you both." The bubbly girl was by far her favorite. Such an air for how to treat people properly. "And I would dearly love to help you determine, seek out, and arrive at the nearest town.

"However," she pauses to let the word hang heavy in the frozen air. "Due to section six of the fifth article, as reevaluated in recent times by... well, I won't bore you, but due to a breech of confidentiality of the citizens in said nearest town, I am not at liberty to do so."

Jean smiles politely. "My apologies."

Millie blinks and automatically reaches out to grip Brat's sleeve. Brat frowns and begins to step towards the genie, only to find herself tugged back by Millie's patient hand. A solid shake frees her from Millie's grasp, but she takes the hint and holds her current position.

Jean darts behind Millie on reflex. Not out of fear, of course. Wish Realization Agents don't fear. They simply hide and wait until the risk of fear has long since passed.

"Whattya MEAN y'can't get us there?"

"I think she means it's an invasion of privacy." Millie smiles politely at Jean.

She smiles back indulgently and nods. Ahh. Yes, she definitely likes that one. Polite, sensible, intelligent, capable of resolving a situation without resorting to fisticuffs like the scruffy looking brunette... truly, a worthy client.

"I know what she means!"

"Ah."

"Look," Brat continues, moving her steely glare from Millie to the genie in question, "if you can't get us to the next town, could y'get us some way to get there? Somethin' a little faster than our feet. You might not've noticed, but it's cold out here!"

"Like a magic carpet!" Millie chimes in. "I'm sure you know all about magic carpets, don't you, Ms. E?"

"I'm very aware that it's cold. I'm merely waiting for a wish that I can grant, most respected clients. And at this point, I'll kindly remind you that I'm not liable for any damages that might occur due to negligent wishing. Starvation, frost bite, et-cetera."

Jean crosses her arms and purses her lips. "...a magic carpet, however, is an excellent suggestion. One moment while I process your request."

The lamp begins to hum a quiet and catchy tune. Sparks raise from the ground and surround Jean in an altogether flashy red glow while an unseen wind buffets her hair and the corners of her sleeves. Jean retrieves a small silver rectangle from her pocket, tugs a slender cylinder out from the base of the rectangle, and pushes several round bumps on the center of it all without looking. She holds it to her ear, speaks to it in an arcane language that sounds like wet wood burning, and then the special effects vanish along with her mysterious silver rectangle.

Brat nudges Millie. "Are y'sure she's not... y'know... some kinda crazy genie?"

"I think they might be tools of the trade," Millie whispers back.

"And the music?"

"...attention to detail?"

"Hmph."

A carpet flops patiently onto the snow. It's a nice carpet, a little worn in the center but otherwise in good condition. Its pattern is a meditative swirl of black and white and yellow that culminates into a smilie face in the center. The carpet glows with a blue aura.

"I present to you, humble clients, a magic carpet. When you sit upon this carpet and concentrate very clearly, its color will change and alert you to your mood. Cooler colors mean cooler moods, warmer colors mean warmer moods."

Jean smiles.

Brat frowns. "First of all, that's the ugliest damned thing I've ever seen."

"Shh! You'll hurt her feelings!" Millie flaps her hands at Brat, as though this would have the slightest effect on silencing her.

"You aren't pleased?" Jean frowns a crocodile frown and attempts to sound crushed. She isn't very good at it. "I am humbled, most honorable clients, that I've failed you. I sought out only the best quality in carpets..."

"Second of all," Brat continues, making Millie's failure evident, "what the HELL will we need that for?! Magic carpet means flying carpet! Any idiot knows that! What kinda stupid--"

"Magic carpet means a magical carpet. There are as many kinds of carpet as there are stars in the sky, how was I to know--"

A harsh cry interrupts her. It comes from high above, and the two girls reflexively look up for the source. -Something- swoops down from the sky, brightly coloured and strangely shaped, and Millie squints against snowflakes to make it out.

A male voice hollers from the heavens. "Down there! Get them!"

At this, Jean determines that her clients are two capable girls who can rescue themselves without wishes. The trail of smoke that was once Jean coils inside the lamp with more haste than flair.

She realizes, in hindsight, that her lamp is tucked away inside Brat's coat pocket. Hm. Perhaps she has a vested interest in their well-being afterall. Or perhaps their attacker won't think to search the bodies?

Brat grabs Millie's hand. "Run!"

"Who are they?" Millie cries out in alarm.

"I dunno, but it can't be good - it's coming right at us!"

Speeding ever closer, the coloured shape takeson more definition against the grey sky. It's a person, kneeling intently forward on a messily multicoloured carpet. A flying carpet, with tassles streaming out behind it on the wind.

Brat pulls harder at Millie's hand, hissing, "Wanted one like THAT, damnitall..."

"I heard that," grumbles the lamp. The lamp is displeased at being thumped repeatedly against Brat's leg.

The two girls begin to race along the road, boots slipping against the snow. Brat stares straight ahead as she runs, looking for cover. Millie watches the carpet-rider, who gradually banks off to one side, flying parallel to the road.

"Left!" Millie yells, and Brat, without hesitating, veers left off the road, dragging Millie with her.

...Right into the thick net held between the two carpet-riders who were hovering there, waiting for them.

Jean waits inside the lamp. Everything has gone quiet, and she's been in far too many getaways to infer that means success.

Millie opens her eyes. Her head aches. She stares at the ceiling for long minutes before realising that she is, indeed, staring at a ceiling, and that she is lying on something soft, without snowflakes showering down on her.

She remembers, vaguely, the two carpet-riders, and the net. She and Brat had struggled as the net swung and swallowed them up in one tidy gulp. And the more they had struggled, the weaker they had felt, until Millie was too exhausted to continue clawing against the ropes, and she saw Brat's arms fall limp just before her own eyes closed...

She sits up, looking around the room. A perfect square, with a domed ceiling. She squints. Can you have a square room and a domed ceiling? Somehow it works, with collections of busy braces in each corner. She stares at the corners of the roundly square - or squarely round? - ceiling, for a while, but doesn't quite believe it.

A fire roars in a diamond-shaped pit in the centre of the room. The corners of the diamond are opposed to the corners of the square room. And it isn't so much of a pit as a shallow grave for the still lively flame. Millie is sprawled across a collection of carpets that neither move nor show any inclination for movement in the near future. Beyond the crackling flames, she barely makes out the shape of a still-sleeping Brat. The floor between them is scattered with more carpets - a thousand colours and patterns wrought from obviously skilled hands.

One of the carpets lurches upwards. Millie watches with interest, too busy tugging her stockings up to a decently wrinkle-free state to be properly anxious.

Instead of hovering elegantly in the air, the carpet sweeps aside; a trapdoor pushes, lurches, and swings open from beneath it.

A head pops up. A head with black hair, skin the colour of polished cherry wood, and flashing black eyes. The head turns about counter-clockwise, then counter-counter clockwise. The eyes settle on Millie.

"Good morning!" the head says cheerily, in a thick accent like roasted almonds.

Millie blinks. "Good morning," she replies, because there is no better reply. "Where am I?"

A neck and shoulders inch up through the trap door. From the head's expression, Millie imagines a chest swelling with pride accounting for the new height.

"This," he says, clearly building for effect, "this, THIS is the Floating Palace of Llom. I bid you welcome on behalf of our Most Exalted Queen and her Loyal Subjects to this Most Sacred and Gracious Place!"

"Ah." Millie smiles gracefully and nods. "And you are?"

He answers, voice resonant with well-articulated emotion, "I am John."

Enter the throne room. The room is vast while looking tiny, three of the walls covered with elaborate weavings, portraits, and life-sized sculptures. The fourth wall is filled primarily with a floor-to-ceiling window and its ornate gold border.

She reclines on a throne that is more pillow than throne and watches clouds pass the enormous window. As she breathes, deep and peaceful, she is a rolling ocean of embroidered red silks and mocha skin. A moment of serenity passes and her eyes flick to the entranceway, to John and then Millie. They spark.

Millie enters the throne room behind John, and her eyes grow wide at the lavish decor. Her home has riches of its own, of course, but so unlike these exotic treasures. John ushers her forward, bowing low before the throne. Millie is quick to follow suit, but she does not fully drop her gaze. She sees the spark in the Queen's eyes, and decides to be wary, though not nervous.

"You must be the Princess."

Her royal Highness Karian-lia, Mistress of the Floating Palace of Llom, smiles and stands with a fanfare of clicking gold. She flows forward along a black-red-gold mosaic and embraces Millie's hands fondly.

"You are absolutely perfect. One hundred percent royalty, and so beautiful." Her fingers trail lightly along Millie's palm, crossing life and love and a million other lines for some hidden divination. She traces the invisible line with her thumb.

Her cheeks flushed pink, Millie surrenders her hand and attempts eloquence. But she finds it difficult to speak, the Queen's presence is so absorbing, so fluid. It is so much easier to nod dumbly and try not to giggle as the Queen's fingers fan her palm so gently.

The Queen smiles one of her hundred smiles, studying the color as it blossoms across Millie's cheeks. Pink like coral necklaces caressing a shoulder, pink like thin crystal beads hanging from delicate ears. Pink like... She brushes her fingers against Millie's and closes her hand with her own.

"How kind of you to agree to help me. You see, I've lost someone very important to me and I will be most grateful for any help you can lend, your Highness."

She smiles again, brushing a long velvet wave behind her ear. "You may ask questions, now."

Meanwhile, in the domed room, Brat wakes up with a jolt. She wakes up from dreams of a warm fire and a warm bed, far away from snow and wind and crazy old women, and a furry carpet on the flo--

Carpet.

She sits upright and looks around. "Mil?" She frowns. "Miiiil?" She doesn't see the flowered nets or the impossible ceiling. She only sees the trapdoor in the centre of the room, and she lunges for it, giving it a sharp TUG...

But the trapdoor refuses to open, no matter how Brat tugs and pulls, groaning with the effort. Even on her most ambitious attempt, the door resists her, and she tumbles back, winded and scowling. She crawls back to it and lies on her stomach, squinting down along the crack between trapdoor and floor. Light dimly glows beyond, but for three interruptions: two, side by side, must be hinges. The other must be the secret to the door's resistence.

Jean stands slowly and surveys the insides of her poor shaken lamp. The pillows from her leather couch are strewn every which way across the floor, the quills and ink wells on her desk now delicately staining her fine woven carpet, and the door to her mahogany wardrobe sags open fornlorly.

"I knew I should have added a 'do not shake the lamp' clause."

Quickly rummaging through her pockets, she unearths the brassy lamp. She gives it a fiendish smile. "You're gonna be useful, no matter whatcha say...."

And she jimmies the ornamented (and tongued) lip of the lamp's spout down into the crack where she guesses the lock to be. Either she'll happen to catch something lock-related by levering the door this way, or she'll flatten the metal into a more useful shape.

"Either way..." Brat mutters to herself, and begins levering and twisting the lamp with grim determination.

Jean falls against her leather couch and watches, hopelessly, as her already chaotic lamp is driven five steps further into disarray. And the outside! She can only imagine what scratches are collecting on the finely worked gold, let alone what shape it was slowly, slowly being worked into...!

With a puff of irridescant smoke, Jean emerges from the mouth of the lamp, arms crossed, finely tailored suit wrinkled at the elbows and the skirt. "Most valued client, if you could please refrain from manhandling..."

Amid the jimmying, Brat cocks her head towards the door. A muffled voice coming from below - had her captors returned?

Jean frowns at the barrier between herself and Brat. She looks for a switch to hit or a lock to undo. "Please do not break my lamp! By conditions of our contract you are legally liable for any damages inflicted upon my living quarters and required, by said contract, to reimburse me for any such damage!"

Brat frowns to herself. Sounded more like that fool genie than someone holding her prisoner. Why she was on the other side of the trapdoor is bey--

The trapdoor opens abruptly, regardless of where Brat's face is. Jean pokes her head up. "That means you owe me money."

The door swings up, thwacking into Brat's jaw solidly before she has a chance to fall backwards, to relative safety. She lies back, momentarily stunned, staring at the impossible ceiling.

"Honorable client, are you even listening to me?" Jean leans over and stares at Brat, scrutinizing her somewhat vacant expression for a sign of life. Breathing, heart beating - so perfectly alive - yet indiscriminately distracted for no apparent reason. She frowns. Not signs of a worthy client, not at all.

She reaches a hand up to her jaw, wincing upon contact. 'S'just the shock,' she tells herself silently, but it feels more like a thick trapdoor than any shock she's ever known. Propping herself up on one elbow, she scowls to the best of her ability at Jean.

"I don't owe y'nuthin'..." She winces as she works her jaw. "Ugh... I think y'drew blood..." Dabbing at her jaw, however, reveals that no blood has been spilt. "...s'_that_ in your stupid contract? Tryin' t'kill yer clients...?"

"You owe me everything. By having my lamp in your posession, I would like to remind you that you are implicitly agreeing to the terms and conditions of being in posession of one such lamp. You are obligated to meet my needs," she ticks off one finger, "to honor my rights," tick, "respect my aut... what do you mean, 'kill you'? What did I do?"

Jean stops ticking and peers over at Brat carefully. "Not to correct your bountiful wisdom, oh client of clients, but you aren't bleeding either. Should you be bleeding?"

The room spins a little, and Brat decides to lie back down, unable to tell whether the pain is making her dizzy, or if the room is, in fact, spinning. Which, of course, it is.

"Where _are_ we?" she moans, suddenly contrite.

Jean sits down on the edge of the trap door and looks up at the ceiling as the room begins to spin. She purses her lips - ignorant is now added to the tally after easily distracted and obstinate. "We appear to be in the Floating Palace of Llom. Have you seen your companion, most revered client, or is she somewhere else?"

Millie glances sideways, but John is somewhere beyond her peripheral vision. She returns her full attention to the Queen. "Ah, well... of course I will help you if I can, Your Majesty. But I'm afraid that I do not share your great powers of perception, and cannot guess how you knew me to be a Princess - or indeed, how you expect me to help you." She smiles sheepishly. "Though I am flattered that you have requested my aid."

"Oh. I had thought someone would have told you." The Queen raises a slim eyebrow and glances over Millie's shoulder at John. "Of course you should wish to hear the explanation before you promise anything. Anything else would hardly be sensible."

John carefully averts his eyes and shuffles slowly backwards, towards the door. He listens for a moment... until a small scuffle outside the chamber draws him beyond the door.

"As for how I knew you to be a princess?" She laughs, a melodic alto. "My dear, it's written all over you. Your bearing, your beauty, your kindness... You are indeed a Princess of the most mythic proportions. So much so that I have no doubt you will do wonderfully on the quest."

She holds a necklace that curves against graceful swell of her breasts and sighs out the window. "My lover disappeared little over two weeks ago," she stresses weeks like generations, centuries, millenia, "The anniversary of our first accidental meeting is the end of this month and always the thoughtful one, my lover went to search out a gift that would be... be worthy."

She sighs and stares pointedly at the horizon. "We've searched everywhere in our power, but found nothing. We know which direction my lover was headed and then our trail goes cold."

The Queen rolls her hands around the air, stressing her thoughts on the matter with a ripple of jingles. "I have no doubt this is the work of some enchantment or another. My family has horrible luck, you see. Statues and frogs and things that typically call for princesses to set things right again. I thought, perhaps, that if we found a princess such as yourself who would be willing to go on a quest to find my lover..."

Her eyes glitter damply, her body a dark shape of curves against the light streaming through the window. "Will you help me?"

Millie listens to the Queen's tale, her expression sympathetic. "My family has had some experience with enchantment. Nothing so alarming, though... we are only a tiny kingdom, after all. But any experience I have, I will lend to help you find your... er..." Her cheeks flush as the word 'lover' hesitates and shrinks away on her lips. "...consort."

The scuffle moves abruptly into the room.

"Mil, what the hell did y'just agree to? I don't wanna go questin' anymore, y'hear me? That genie is the last straw, an' I can live a long time without ever dealin' with some other dumb magical puff of smoke, thank YOU very much an' will you let GO of me?!"

Brat, arms pinned tightly to her side, flails and kicks her legs at the two burly guards that hold her captive.

"We caught her attempting to escape," says one.

"Escape? We're in the SKY! Where am I gonna GO?" Brat tries in vain to free her arms.

"Oh. Brat. Hello!" Millie smiles widely. "I'm glad you're awake. We're going to save the Queen's consort. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

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