Macster - The Missing Links

Rubbing his hands together, Wolf hurried back over to the vat of poisoned punch. "Huff-puff, Chief Wolf! It won't be the wolves who are run out of town this time. The farmers won't know what's going to bite them." He picked up a large silver ladle and began measuring out careful dips of the crimson drink before pouring each one slowly into a goblet on the trolley and returning for another. As he worked, he sang softly to himself. "Shepherdess makes quite a mess, but little lambs are lovely...shepherdess makes quite a mess..." Wolf chuckled. This would be a night no one in the Nine Kingdoms would ever forget, least of all the Queen. Wouldn't they all be surprised? Wouldn't she be surprised?

The Queen had no idea what lay in store for her...

Across the ballroom, Cinderella's ladies-in-waiting were trying to convince her to remain seated, but she threw their restraining hands aside. "Do you think I'm too old?" she snapped, then turned with a gracious smile to Prince Wendell.

She curtsied to him, and he returned some ridiculous quavering bob up and down that she supposed was his version of a bow. But he took her hands in the proper fashion, and soon they were dancing with surprising smoothness through the crowd, moving through the steps with ease. Cinderella smiled and found to her amazement that she was beginning to enjoy herself. That hadn't happened at a ball for a long time. Perhaps she'd been wrong about the Prince. Then, as he switched directions, she saw that he was panting.

"You're acting very strangely," Cinderella observed. "Is something wrong?"

Turning her around in a pirouetting flourish, Wendell dipped her backwards--and began panting rudely in her face. "Do you really have to be home by midnight?" What a disgusting way of propositioning her. Luckily she was saved from having to answer by a distinct crack in her spine and neck, and in a flare of pain she realized she couldn't move.

"My neck!" she cried, her voice strangled. "Please help me! I'm two hundred years old!"

Apologizing profusely, the Prince cupped one hand behind her neck, the other at the small of her back, and hoisted her upright. With a creaking snap she found she could move again. Gasping, she looked at Wendell. His expression was quite repentant and begging her to forgive him.

She couldn't say no. But as they continued dancing, she found her opinion of him returning to what it was before...and she watched him suspiciously the entire time...