"Bada bum, bada bum, bada bum bum bum! Bada bum, bada bum, bada-"
"Well you're in quite a happy mood!" moaned a snail as it slurped along on a lily pad.
Rayan paused in his joyous ride atop his steed, not offended in the slightest bit that he'd been rudely interrupted from his song by an insignificant little snail. Well, maybe a tad offended. Just a teensy weensy bit.
"But, alas," said he aloud, patting his magnificent horse on its dainty little head, "I musn't be offended in my true joyfulness!"
The snail snorted as it continued to glurp along in its achingly-fast pace. "Knights these days, they never make a teensy weensy bit of sense!"
Rayan peered down at the quickly-moving creature. "Why, I have plenty of reason to make no sense at all!"
Rolling its eyes wearily, the snail blurped its way over a giant leaf frond at a speed of 78 mph. "And why would that be, oh ye who makes no sense?"
"Well, first of all," Rayan popped off of his horse to give the creature a nice pat on its slimy head, "I'd like to congratulate you on your excellent olden time speech. Truly, I haven't heard a creature say the word "ye" quite as beautifully and artistically as you just did."
"Oh," the snail straightened itself proudly, "well I took a class on it in preschool."
Rayan gave it another pat. "It's paid off, my friend."
With less moaning and irritation that before, the prideful little snail tlurped forward (he was tired of going "along"), saying to the knight as it glided, "Yes, yes, but let us, dearest esteemed, er, ye... uh, get on with ye... explanation of your happiness...?"
"Why, you're quite right!" exclaimed Rayan.
The snail laughed haughtily, checking its flawless nails. "As usual."
"You see, dearest snail," the knight began, "I am on a hunt to save my true love (who is my true love, by the way), and it is going quite well."
The little snail creature raised one eye brow as it huffed and puffed up an ant hill, Rayan hopping a few steps forward so he could keep up with it. "I see," it remarked.
"Yes, and let me explain to you all of the... well as my dearest true love would say... the detes!"
"Here we go," muttered the snail, its pride deflating like a very saggy balloon, "this is the part where the knight tells me his whole life story." (For the dear little snail had quite a bit of experience with knights.)
"Precisely!" cheered Rayan, and he proceeded to explain the Amaze Chase and its rules.
"At sundown, we all met in the courtyard," he declared as he remembered the momentous scene.
"A lovely disembodied voice placed us at the starting line (a three thousand mile and a half line of neon blue and pink string cheese), and counted down the seconds... five... four... Three.... TWo... ONE!!!!!!!!!!!! BLAST OFF!" cried the knight gleefully.
"Ahem," the snail coughed lightly, attempting to get the forgetful knight back on track.
"Bless you.
"But anyways, we sprung off the starting line... well... Ra and I did at least. The queen realized she had forgotten her twenty foot-long saber tooth tiger luck charm, and she and the lady's maid scrambled to go search for it. Although, come to think of it, I guess it was just me who sprung off the starting line... Ra realized his new line of Ra perfumes had been shipped in and he had a few papers to sign..."
The snail sighed. "Typical."
Suddenly, however, Rayan hopped three feet in the air. "But after I started, that was where the fun began! I ran into the spooky, perilous Raoolian forest, slashing and cutting this way and that through the dense, thick foliage, bellowing horrible, terrifying words as I learned new adjectives to beef up my words till they're nice and juicy."
"They do sound tasty."
"Thank you.
"But anyways! I plunged through the forest until... until... well... I met you, and... here we are now?"
"Wow," the snail zlurped, "what an exciting adventure."
"Boy oh boy it was! And now every second I wait, my dearest... uh... Rayma is in deep pain and sorrow as she sits up in her cage, trapped."
The snail stopped in its tracks. "Wait a second! Your true love is suffering, and you're supposed to be saving her, yet you're sitting here just chatting away with me?"
"Yup!" Rayan grinned. "And boy, aren't we just becoming the best of pals!"
Sighing, the snail muttered something about stupid knights these days, then spoke more clearly to the knight, "Boy, we really are."
Rayan clapped his hands in glee. "I just knew it!"
The snail grumbled under its breath as it slipped underneath the forest's dense foliage. "Listen, dearest pal, I've got to go do some... really important... stuff."
"Oh," Rayan sniffed. "Well, I guess I've got nothing really good to do... but that's okay. Go enjoy yourself. I'll just sit here... and be bored...
But by then, the snail was gone. (After all, it had just sped up till it was going 83 mph.)
Smiling cheerfully, Rayan peered around at his surroundings. "Why! Isn't this a pleasant forest!"
The forest ignored him, yet he refused to be miffed.
"Nice little poisonous frogs hopping around, threatening shadows changing shape around me, the screams of innocent mango leaves being chopped to pieces..." he trailed off.
"Hmmm," he tapped his adorably handsome chin thoughtfully. "I wonder what I'm supposed to be doing here? I know I came into this forest to do something important but.... I just don't remember!"
The knight slapped his forehead so hard that the yellow and yellow and yellow striped Dejavu butterflies around him flitted cautiously away. "I know what I have forgotten! Oh, I'm so stupid!"
Every single dead creature in the forest held its gasping breath as it waited to hear why he was so unintelligent.
"I came out here to save... the quality of my picnic! That's right, good job, self!"
He plopped down heavily on the soggy, leaf-infested forest floor. "I even packed myself a cute little lunchable!"
Rummaging through his sack, the knight searched for whatever a "lunchable" is. As he worked, he hummed a cute little tune.
"Oh who knows you inside out? Who never makes you pout? Who helps you work and play? Who stays by your side all dayyyyyyy? Ohhhhhh, iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiit's, Ray Ra-"
He stopped midsentence, frozen. "That's Rayma's song. Rayma. RAYMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!"
The knight's agonized shriek was so loud it pierced through the thick cloud of the treetops, creating a huge gaping hole of sunlight in the dark forest.
"Oh, Rayma!" he whispered. "How could I have forgotten?"
His heart lifted (there was something quite not right with this little knight (besides the fact that he was a terribly good rhymer all the timer), for his heart lifted at sadness, and plunged at joy) as a dark thought midnighted upon him. (Who's thoughts dawn upon them these days?)
"I didn't forget... I just somehow didn't... care."
The forest had gone lively silent. All the dead eyes were boring into his soggy little figure.
"HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEELLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLOOOO CONTESTANTS!" boomed the disembodied voice from down below ground.
The sound was so fiercly loud and echoing that it shook the ground, making it buzz with energy.
"WE HAVE AN INTERESTING TURN OF EVENTS HERE," ANNOUNCED THE ANNOUNCER. "SIR RA HAS POISONED RAYAN WITH A HORRIBLE SERUM. THIS SERUM CAUSES THE VICTIM TO BASICALLY FORGET THEIR MOST IMPORTANT THOUGHTS UNTIL THEY CANNOT EVEN REMEMBER WHO THEY ARE OR WHY THEY CARE ABOUT THINGS (ESPECIALLY THEIR THOUGHTS ON THE INTELLIGENCE OF A HALFWAY SHARPENED PENCIL). DEAR OLD RAYAN MY BOY STARTED OUT THE HUNT REMEMBERING WHO HE WAS AND WHAT HE WAS DOING. IF IT WAS NOT FOR THE POWER OF HIS TRUE LOVE AND A VERY IRRITATING LITTLE TUNE, RAYAN WOULD HAVE FORGOTTEN HE EXISTED ALTOGETHER!"
The announcer waited semi-patiently as the blood-thirsty crowd oohed and ahhhhhhed.
"SIR RA SHOULD BE DISQUALIFIED... BUT WHERE'S THE FUN IN THAT?"
The crowd cheered, some even screaming, "THAT'S RIGHT! LET'S CREATE A LITTLE LOVE DODECAGON HERE! OR WAS IT A TRIANGLE? NO, WAIT! A HEPTAGON."
"SO," CONTINUED THE DISEMBODIED VOICE, "RA WILL NOT BE DISQUALIFIED. LET THE GAMES... RESUME!"
Rayan narrowed his eyes into purple slits of pure anger, leaping to his feet. "Oh, so that's how you're gonna play, huh Ra Ra?"
Ra, currently skipping over a couple of dead tulips in the castle gardens, nodded his head haughtily. "You bet your very distinguished main chail pants!"
The knights flung himself onto his horse, charging away into the forest. "I will find you Rayma."
He promised this to her over and over again.
"Hold on!"
Once again, the snail sighed. "I suppose nobody cares that he keeps telling her to "hold on" like she's riding a two- ton Raoolian elephant?"
"THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT'S RIGHT YOU BAD- ATTITUDED SNAIL!"
"I thought so," it sighed again.
Suddenly, it froze mid- ylurp to laugh snottily at the sky (for it mistakenly thought that was where the audience was). "I'm just kidding... I'm not a snail. I'm a slug!"
The audience tsk tsked. "Poor old thing... didn't you already know that?"
Rayan glared up at the sky, too. "Will you guys be quiet already? Kicking Ra butt takes some serious concentration!"
"IS THAT WHAT YOU'RE GONNA DO?" INQUIRED THE DISEMBODIED VOICE. "KICK THE RA BUTT?"
A spark flashed brilliantly in Rayan's cool yellow eyes. "You bet I am!"