“Princess!”

          Rui grabbed Princess Elvina around the shoulder.

          Elvina looked up and squealed. Rui tugged once, and when the Princess didn’t respond, simply picked her up and carried her through the threshold as if she were a husband carrying a bride. Elvina screeched the entire time.

          When the cave-in had settled, Rui placed her friend and charge down on the flat, cool stone.

          “I - I could have been killed!” shouted Elvina. She wiggled her head left and right, and her blonde braids flailed in the dark. “Unacceptable! That’s no way for a princess to die!”

          Rui shrugged and checked over herself and the princess. Neither one of them was injured. “Well, your grace, that’s why I’m here.”

          The princess was safe and sound. Good. She looked up with a smile.

          Elvina spent a few seconds staring at her, and cocked her head. Her eyes went wide.

          “Oh! Of course. Thank you, Rui. You saved my life there. I am sincerely appreciative.”

          Rui considered it a privilege to serve Princess Elvina of Darbor. She was also enough of a realist to know that her brief thanks would be the only recognition of her valuable services. Such was the life of a royal bodyguard. “The pleasure is-”

          “Now, we’ve got to get moving. You’re not slowing me down, Rui, not yet at least.” Elvina hopped to her feet and wiggled her toes in her socks. “Serena, you realize, is probably quite a ways ahead of us.”

          Rui hopped to her feet as well, and began speed-walking alongside Elvina. She didn’t want to bring up the fact that Serena’s head-start was mostly thanks to Elvina’s proclivities. A good bath, big breakfast, and quick nap were not the schedule that Rui would have chosen. Especially not when they were in a race against time to find a mystical item called the “Wand of Wonder.”

          “Of course, princess. Double-time. We’ll beat her.”

 

***

 

          Serena ran her fingers over the Wand of Wonder. It had a pale glow that wasn’t enough to light the way, but was enough to spot in the darkness.

          “So…” said Serena. “Do… uh… do you talk?”

          The wand said nothing. Serena’s voice echoed in the dim light. The dark elf scratched her long ears and ran a hand through her snow-white hair.

          “Uhh… Wonderwand! Wand of wonder!”

          Unless the magic was particularly subtle, she hadn’t activated it. Not yet.

          The elf huffed. She started wildly waving the wand - a simple, wooden thing - in the air. She imagined Elvina there, laughing at her rival’s inability to use it.

    “Aw, c’mon,” said Serena. “Listen wand, if you can hear me, I need this. I want to be an awesome evil sorceress just like my older sister, and I can’t do that if you’re not going to just sit there and glow!”

     

***

 

          The dungeon hallway was the sight of purest chaos. Clouds of rain inside the dungeon had formed and drizzled water across the halls. Stone tiles turned to butterflies which flittered around the room and then reformed on the walls as rocky statuettes. Tiny mice with purple fur scurried into walls to avoid the rampant, wild magic.

          Rui had had quite enough magic for one day.

          “Over there!” shouted Elvina. They sprinted through the hallway to the end, and emerged in a large antechamber. An old throne, gilded but tarnished, lay on its side in one corner of the anteroom. A single massive chest sat in the center. Rui rushed for it.

          “Rui, hold on a moment! As your princess, I should probably be the one to-”

          “To open it?” shouted Rui angrily. “No, let’s just get this accursed wand and leave. We’ll tell everyone that you got it first!”

          The bodyguard dodged a pillar of stone that had suddenly turned to white marble and threw open the chest. It was empty. When she tried to shut it, she realized her hands were stuck to the chest!

          “Princess, stay away! It’s a mimimmmph!”

          The chest melted away into a bright blue slime, one which quickly began moving to encase the poor bodyguard!

          The mimic oozed itself around Rui in a circular motion. It briefly became a whirlpool before snapping taut and worming its way underneath Rui’s clothing.

          She blushed and fell to the ground. The sticky slime engulfed her torso and legs now. She felt it squeeze beneath her feet, popping her shoes off and gently tickling at her stocking-covered soles!

          Rui made a brave face for a few seconds, pursing her lips and trying to get her arms free. Elvina started and reached into her pouch. Surely she had something to ward off slime-monsters.

          The shiny slime was making a mockery of the blue-clad guard! Eventually, her facade dropped. The gentle tickling made her giggle.

          “Hah! Hahaha! Elvina, it’s - it’s - don’t worry about me, run for it! Find the w-”

          The mimic pressed tight and wormed its way beneath Rui’s armor… then her clothes! It pressed inward and outward, very tightly oozing against Rui’s sensitive skin. She saw her blue shirt float tear away and her armor pop off, and she absolutely felt tugging tendrils of slime seeping into her nooks and crannies! It wasn’t long before she was wearing only her smallclothes - somewhat visible through the slime’s translucent layer!

    “It’s so tight! R-run!”

    Elvina sprinted to her, and finally found the powder from her satchel. She sprinkled a single pinch onto the slimy enclosure, and it suddenly grew opaque.

“Ma’am, you saved me!”

    Elvina shrugged. “Diamond dust should transmute that mimic into something a bit more solid. But it looks like you can’t really move.”

          Rui was ashamed. She’d failed her princess. “Well… just go on without me. I’m going to try to wriggle out of this and we can escape together.”

          Elvina suddenly heard the sound of bare feet on old stone. She turned around to see Serena laughing, her chocolate-brown skin lit by the light of the wand.

          “You!” shouted Elvina.

          “Yep,” said Serena. “Me.”

          “Is this you doing?!” Elvina motioned to the room around them, complete with all the strangeness that it had entailed.

          “Hmm… maybe. Maybe not. Let me check really quick.”

          Serena flicked the wand one more time.

          At that moment, the chair came to life and flew directly at the princess! Elvina was struck in the back and sent flying into the seat. She clutched tight at the arms of the old chair.

          She gripped it for dear life as the animated object began flying around the room. She didn’t need to be too concerned, though, when ropes started to appear around her body. Tight layers of rope magically appeared around her ankles. First it looped around each ankle individually, then together. The same binding appeared around her knees and calves, each time forcing her legs to slam together.

          All she could do was grind her thighs and knees together. Her arms could barely do that! Ropes began winding over them over and over, tightly lacing her hands and forearms to the chair. They disappeared under a snug layer of rope, which then continued to harness her body against the back of the chair.

          Cables propped up and below her bust, and tugged taut against her poor flesh. She squirmed, trying to get her hips and waist away from the chair, to no avail. She just pitifully ended up wriggling against tight, enchanted ropes.

          Serena was laughing now.

          “I wonder what the rest of the Darbor court will say when they see you delivered alongside Rui?” Serena wiggled the wand and Rui began floating behind the two of them. Like a pied piper, Serena was leaving her two captives out of the old dungeon and towards the light.

          “I say! This is absolutely intolerable. You’ll return that wand to me right away. That, or you’ll untie me! In fact, I’d prefer both!”

          “I think not, princess.” Serena took off one of Elvina’s socks and stuffed it into her mouth. She followed that up with a wide bandana that pressed against her lips, nose, and mouth, and finally one final layer of magical rope around her mouth to keep it all in place.

          “Immmmph.”

          “There we go!” Serena chuckled and began marching the two of them out. She already had plans for these two, and they didn’t involve bringing them back to Darbor - at least, not right away…

          She gently tapped the wand against her lips, giggling and thinking about all the fun things she’d be subjecting them to. It was just as they were at the exit of the dungeon that she wiggled it just a tiny bit too much, and activated the Wand of Wonder.

          Elvina’s chair hit the ground, and Rui’s sack dropped. They saw that in an instant, Serena was being covered in a veritable web of white bandages.

          A minute later, the poor elf was mummified from head to toe in magically-summoned webbing and wrapping. Rui managed to squirm towards the dungeon’s exit - she’d go and get help.

          And that meant that Elvina and Serena would have a good, long while to sit, squirm, struggle, and plot another adventure in their rivalry…