Fiction Friday - The Legend of Karenina and Her Minions (Working Title)

So while out at the bar last week, I was roped into writing a D&D-type story by two women who know absolutely nothing about D&D. They picked out the characters they wanted for themselves, decided what my character would be, and sent me off to write the story. This is what I came up with it. It's absolutely absurd and entertaining and fun, and I think there might be more adventures like this one to come. Read it and feel free to share your feedback!

            Once upon a time there was a noble knight named Jimothan. He was brave and heroic and a complete sucker for beautiful women… which is how he ran afoul of a mean old witch who had disguised herself as a beautiful woman. The disguised witch had promised Jimothan the world and was good to him, until she got sick of him, turned him into a troll, and cursed him to wander lands near and far until he found a cure.

            So that’s what he did. Jimothan the Troll roamed around the world, searching for a way to break the curse. Usually, all he found was alcohol. And then hangovers. It was a vicious cycle. One night in a tavern, he found himself doing shots with a beautiful, glittering, winged fairy in a low-cut bodice, flimsy dress and odd red socks named Karenina. They bonded over shots and she offered to help him find an answer to how he could become human again.

            What she left off when they had the drunken, shot-fueled conversation was that she’d help him find an answer… eventually.

            You see, Karenina was a weird kind of glittering, winged fairy. She enjoyed having minions around, especially troll minions. In the morning, while they dined on a greasy breakfast to chase away their hangovers, she explained to him that she had recently lost all her minions and that she meant it when she said she’d help him find his cure, but only if he travelled with her for awhile and kept her company.

            Jimothan wasn’t exactly thrilled with having to wait, but he had no idea where to find a cure by himself, and, well, there weren’t a lot of beautiful women who wanted to hang out with a troll, so he figured he could do worse.

            So he agreed to travel with Karenina and keep her company. Astride her magical glitter pony named Rupert, they had a great many adventures across many years. On one such adventure they confronted and then befuddled a dragon who liked to keep his cave filled with pets, feeding them until he was ready to eat them. Karenina sent Jimothan to distract the dragon, which he did by running around the cave in circles, narrowly avoiding having his posterior set on fire, while Karenina managed to escape with a duck named Sophie, who Jimothan stepped on as he ran out of the cave. This caused Sophie to become quite indignant, a disposition that remained unchanged from that moment on. Indignant or not, Sophie joined them on their adventured, quacking at the most inopportune times.

            One of those inopportune times happened one particularly hot day at the beach, where Karenina was sunning herself on the sand while Jimothan relentlessly fanned her as ordered with the fronds of a giant tree. Sophie strongly disliked how bright the sun was and made her displeasure known by a long string of loud, indignant quacks that sounded vaguely like “meh” repeated over and over again. Those sounds drew the attention of something sinister sleeping under the water nearby. The tides began to stir, washing against the beach harder and disturbing Karenina’s peaceful time by saturating her red socks. She looked out into the ocean and gasped. Her gasp drew Jimothan’s attention, and when he saw what she saw, he gasped as well, dropping the fan of fronds onto her face. She called him a rather unkind name and threw the fronds off her face as they both watched the roiling tides.

            From under the water arose a narwhal, a vicious, twelve-foot tall warrior that was half woman, half whale, much like a mermaid, only with a whale and not a fish. Narwhals were like the amazons of the sea kingdom… except for when they came on land. Then they were just like amazons, except with whale bottoms and a four-foot long sword-like nose. Which was enough of a weapon in and of itself, but they also carried a trident in one hand and a net in the other so they could drag their prey back into the ocean with them.

            This particular narwhal had a mass of long, messy red-hair and a band of magical words encircling her right forearm. Jimothan had heard the description of this particular narwhal from Karenina before. It was Amandilly, the narwhal who loved to shred things with her trident and whose diet consisted solely of minions. In hushed whispers all across the land, she was known as “the Red-Headed Devil of the Seas.” She was the reason why Karenina had no minions when Jimothan met her; Amandilly had taken and eaten them all! Immediately, Jimothan fixed her with his most penetrating dirty look, hoping to let her know he wasn’t scared, although in reality he was terrified.

            The stare Amandilly shot back at him made it clear she intended to once again steal and eat Karenina’s minion.

            This time, however, Karenina was ready. In one of their adventures together a few years ago, she had used the very indignant Sophie as bait to lure two large sharks away while Jimothan held his breath very tightly and swam underwater to save the baby kraken they were intending to have as their next meal. The kraken bonded with Jimothan immediately, and Karenina named it Shadow for the way it blended with the darkest parts of the ocean. Jimothan had taught the kraken to respond to a serious of whistles; sadly Jimothan himself couldn’t whistle so they trained the kraken to respond to Karenina’s whistles instead. Clearly, she was the talented one of the group.

            Karenina whistled sharply, and Shadow rose from the depths. In the years since they had rescued it, the kraken had grown into a rather large adult kraken, large enough to dwarf enough the mighty Red-Headed Devil of the seas herself. With one swipe of a mighty tentacle, Shadow sent Amandilly flying so high and far away that Karenina’s little group lost sight of her in no time.

            Pleased with the way Jimothan’s training of Shadow had helped her gain revenge on the minion-eating Amandilly, Karenina offered Jimothan a reward. He hoped she meant she would finally help him break the curse and become a man again. What she really meant was that the first round at the tavern would be on her. As Shadow once again descended into the depths to blend with the darkness, Karenina, Jimothan, and Sophie climbed atop Rupert, who took off into the air.

            As the magical glitter pony flew into the sunset, a loud “Meh!” could be heard echoing through the sky behind him.

The End