by Black Widow
In the third installment of Black Widow’s interview series, the Four Winds’ arachnid reporter met with Queen Valanice of Daventry in the Queen’s lovely and intimate rose garden.
Black Widow: (settling onto a rose) Queen Valanice, I have to say—this garden is simply amazing.
Queen Valanice: Thank you, Ms. Widow. I take pride and pleasure in tending to my roses.
BW: Yes, those are nice, too.
QV: I’m not sure I follow?
BW: The bugs here are so well-fed; it’s delicious! I’m stuffed! I haven’t been this full since Husband Number 3. He was a big one.
QV: I…see. Shall we, ah, continue to the interview, then?
BW: Of course. So, Queen Valanice—tell me about yourself. Where are you from?
QV: I grew up on the island of Kolyma.
BW: Kolyma? I’ve heard of it, but I don’t know much about it. What details can you divulge, Your Highness?
QV: It’s a lovely land, not very crowded, but there are some good people there. We had our share of problems like any other land, of course--for a time, Count Dracula and his vampires terrorized our people. That was a frightful time...everyone was afraid to go out after dark, and suspicions ran high when anyone acted strangely, often even when they were acting perfectly normal. My grandfather, the King, had his knights hunt down the vampires, but the Count eluded them for years. Eventually, Graham killed the Count when he journied there to rescue me.
BW: Rescue you?
QV: Yes, I was imprisoned in a magical land that was only accessible through three locked doors in Kolyma, in a tall tower made of quartz. A witch named Hagatha locked me up there.
Queen Valanice of Daventry
BW: Really? Why was that? …there wasn't an evil vizier planning to marry you to take over a kingdom, too, was there?
QV: (laughs) No, it wasn’t quite like that. Hagatha was jealous of my beauty, she said, so she locked me up where no one could see me or find me. It was Graham who rescued me from spending the rest of my life there; he saw a vision of me in the Magic Mirror. He says he fell in love with me at first sight that very moment.
QV: As I said, the Magic Mirror showed me to him, and he went through many trials in Kolyma to find and rescue me. When he came through that door…I knew it, too, then. It really was love at first sight. We met and I felt I’d known him all my life. We were married before we even left Kolyma for Daventry.
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