A mad scramble occurred. Luthiriensis attempted to hide behind Mott, made all the more difficult by dint of him standing only half her height. Mott, to his credit, spun on his heel like a dancer, clutching at his buttocks as he did so, and turned Luthiriensis' attempt to hide back upon her, with marginally more success. Pinto inhaled a great breath and disappeared, though the sounds of the child, continuing to gurgle and giggle, made it clear exactly where the dragon stood.

Through it all, as Luthiriensis and Mott began to physically accost each other to gain the hiding upper hand, everyone else in the main hall simply watched in either confusion or amusement and, in many cases, both. The king leaned upon the arm of his elaborately carved throne, resting his hand upon his smooth, beardless chin, frowning. His heir, the drunkard, lifted his head, wobbled, began to retch and then stopped, holding his stomach, before closing his eyes once again.

And Gammer Goodhiding. She waited. She waited in a fashion that said she had spent more years waiting than anyone present had ever lived, including Pinto and Luthiriensis. The kind of waiting that most people could only dream of. A patience so absolute, that the continents, themselves, could eventually tire of it all and slip away, finding the very best configuration to both amaze and confound future geologists and spark decades-long discussions about just which parts of which landmasses once snuggled together in a basalt embrace. The kind of waiting that had substance. The kind of waiting that had weight and a personality. She could wait forever and no-one doubted it.

"That's enough!" The king couldn't wait. He jumped to his feet, disturbing his son, who snapped upright, declaring he had never seen that particular farmer's daughter in his life. "One of you had better explain yourselves or you will find out just why we use spears and pole-arms in war. They aren't for waving, I can tell you that!"

As though to illustrate the point, one of the spear-bearing guards prodded Mott in the backside, raising a howl of indignation from the dwarf. He released Luthiriensis' leg and she, reluctantly, removed her fingers from his nostrils. With the very greatest show of dignity, a dignity seen on only rare occasions from politicians caught in the act of something decidedly embarrassing, Luthiriensis flicked her hair back over her shoulders and gazed imperiously around the room. Then, with a grace only elves could muster, she pointed at the space where everyone knew the invisible Pinto still stood.

"It was her! It's all her fault! I was just a pawn. A rube. A fool with good intentions. Nay, heroic intentions. I'm the victim here. Me!" With every sentence, she prodded the air toward the empty, but not-empty, space. "She tasked us to find the heir under false circumstances and vague assumptions, relying on the fact that I, a poor traveller, far, far from home, lost in a strange city, wouldn't know that she was talking utter rubbish. And there were giant spiders, the most disgusting geological formation I've ever seen and ... and ... giants. Zombie Great Giants! Really, we should be suing this entire country for compensation. I am, utterly, profoundly, damaged by my experiences. Tell them! Go on!"

"She's right. Damaged." Mott responded after several vigorous prods from Luthiriensis.

"That's not fair!" With an explosion of air, leaving her panting, Pinto began pointing toward Gammer Goodhiding. "She was going to sacrifice the heir for a ceremony on Moon-Trots Eve! Everybody said so! They were basting this baby even as we got there!"

Gammer Goodhiding, her patience legendary in many circles, some squares and triangles, and several other, more obscure geometric shapes, said nothing for long moments. The only thing to show she actually lived and breathed and wasn't, in fact, the most life-like statue ever created, was the steady tap-tap-tap of her clog boot upon the main hall's stone floor. She couldn't narrow her eyes anymore, but, if she wanted to, Luthiriensis could imagine her eyes becoming negatively open, going right through the other side of squinting to a point where her eyes were both open and closed but no-one could tell which it was at any one time.

"Hair." Gammer Goodhiding, in one word, explained everything, though Luthiriensis, Mott and Pinto didn't get it.

"That's what I said. Heir." The expression on Pinto's face, though difficult to discern properly due to the whole being-a-dragon thing, positively screamed that she now doubted Gammer Goodhiding's sanity. Or hearing. "You're going to sacrifice the heir."

With the kind of stride that would have the mightiest of warriors cringing backward through fear of losing some vital part of their bodies, or at least dearly cherished parts, Gammer Goodhiding stepped forward and, even though Luthiriensis, Mott and Pinto all stepped backward, the old Beldame witch still managed to cross the distance between them in one step. She swatted Pinto's hand away, taking the laughing baby from the bag. With a finger and thumb, she took the flayed skin and fur from the child's hand with no trouble at all and shook it in the air toward the three improbable companions.

"Hair!" Gammer Goodhiding paused, lifting the baby and smelling its backside before rolling her eyes. "Ye haven't even changed the poor bairn! The child is cursed, ye fools! And only a sacrifice of the hair of a king can remove the curse, or the child will turn into a toad upon the conclusion of Moon-Trots Day."

"Is ... that my toupee?" The king shifted on the throne, peering around Gammer Goodhiding. "I wondered where that had gone. It wouldn't work for you, of course. That's not my hair. One has had to wear wigs since one was five years old. Quite embarrassing, but, in a society where superstitions place hair as a sign of one's virility and ability on the field of battle, well, one must put on a show."

"Which one?" Mott, satisfied, for the moment, that his rear end was not in immediate danger of infestation, again, held up a finger as he questioned the king.

Gammer Goodhiding ignored them both. From somewhere, she had found herself a length of cloth and had laid the baby upon a table bearing a large selection of finger foods and wine jugs. Cooing and tickling the child, she removed the sodden, filthy scrap of cloth tied around the child's nethers, handing it to a guard who held it stoically, despite the stench. Within moments, Gammer Goodhiding had cleaned the child, wrapped the fresh cloth around him and now held him to her breast, swaying to-and-fro as she glared at, well, everybody. Somehow.

"Then the child is doomed to live as a toad. I mean, it's not a bad life. Some of my best friends are toads, but it's not this bairn's destiny." Now Gammer Goodhiding turned and her glare fell upon Mott, and only Mott. "If only some king could come forward and offer their hair to save the child."

"I think she thinks that you know a king. As if!" Luthiriensis leaned down to whisper in Mott's ear. She then stood proudly, jutting out her chin to show how truly important she was. "I know a king. Other than you, your Majesty. Only, this king is a bit of a distance away and ..."

"It's alright." Mott placed a hand on Luthiriensis' arm, stopping her mid-flow. He looked utterly resigned to an execution no-one had ordered. Yet. "She means me. I'm a king. Well, in name only."

"That is ... brilliant!" Pinto clapped her clawed hands together, causing several guards to yelp, dropping their spears, and to find out, much later, that they would, for the foreseeable future, be guarding the worst midden in the city. "I've always wanted to meet a king. Sorry, your Majesty, but I meant socially. Not in this kind-of-under-arrest way. Why didn't you say?"

"Because I'm a king without a kingdom! That's why I decided to help you find the heir. I thought, if we found the child I could ask for my ancestral home as the fiefdom promised." Mott gazed wistfully out of the nearest window, which would have looked suitably impressive, were it not for the window only being a narrow slit and that it faced a stark looking tower. "We lost Mount Trepidation many years ago. My father died trying to reclaim it and now it was my turn. I thought it would be easier if I had the approval of the king."

"My dear boy, I'm afraid I couldn't give you Mount Trepidation if I wanted to." The king, taking everything really well, considering the situation, appeared sympathetic. "You see, King Bogrun, the Pleasingly Stout, and I came to an accommodation. Instead of bickering and, you know, fighting wars and stuff, over a pretty nondescript and largely deadly mountain, we both decided that it was far more bother than it was worth. So, we, kind of, sold it and split the profits."

He tried to give Mott a soothing smile, but the grin became lop-sided and then slipped away entirely, leaving Mott noticeably devastated. After everything he had done, it had all come to naught. A pointless, fruitless exercise, and now Luthiriensis wished she had had the presence of mind to snatch a few of those lovely, crisp looking apples she had seen at the Beldame enclave.

Mott reached up, lifting his ill-fitting helmet from his head and ran stubby fingers through his thick, curling hair. He slouched his way across to Gammer Goodhiding, giving the guard holding the cloth full of waste out as far from his nose as he could a wide berth, and stood before her, his chin falling upon his chest.

"Take it. If it will help the child, take my hair." He lifted mournful eyes toward Gammer Goodhiding. "I ask only that ..."

Mott yelped as Gammer Goodhiding tugged a good handful of hairs from his scalp. In fact, some of Mott's scalp remained attached to the hairs. The Beldame witch held the hairs up to the nearest brazier and studied them for long moments before giving a definitive nod. Tucking the hairs inside the bosom of her dress, Gammer Goodhiding reached behind her and, from somewhere, produced Mott's enormous double-headed axe.

"That'll do, aye." She thrust the axe into Mott's hand before wobbling the giggling child's lip with her finger. "Now, get ye off and reclaim ye homeland, boy. And don't be stealing babies from witches no more, less ye want to feel the back of my hand! Your kingliship."

Gammer Goodhiding nodded toward the king, the human king, who looked utterly bemused, and walked into the shadows behind the king's throne. Luthiriensis hoped there was a door behind that throne or the old witch was about to walk into a wall. To the side, Mott looked strangely happy. He replaced his helmet, gripped the shaft of the axe as though re-familiarising himself with it, and gave the human king a nod not too dissimilar to that given by the old witch. With a determined stride, he turned to leave the main hall, Pinto falling in by his side.

"So, you're going to reclaim your kingdom?" As she walked, Pinto whipped her tail around Luthiriensis' waist, lifting her and carrying her along. "We can help! I know this fairy that owes me a favour and, for only a small additional investment, she says she can provide a small army of fairies. Or was it an army of small fairies? Could be both."

"I do not want to do that!" Luthiriensis clutched at the huge double doors of the main hall, her nails tearing at the wood and giving her several nasty splinters. "You will put me down! This instant! We are not friends! We're not! I'm not helping!"

The last thing Luthiriensis heard from within the main hall, not a single person trying to help the incredibly beautiful elf getting kidnapped by a dragon and a dwarf, was a snorted laugh from the king.

"Well, strangely, that's not the weirdest thing to happen today." Those words caused an uproar of laughter that taunted Luthiriensis and, if she ever extricated herself from the clutches of the dragon and the dwarf, the king should expect a sternly worded letter. Perhaps told by a cryer?