Wicked
Valentina was grateful for the unrelenting storm; the noise, at least, drowned out the baby's wailing. She clutched the bundle tightly as she made her way through the cloud kingdom's streets, blinking rainwater from her eyes. She was soaked and absolutely freezing, but she waited at the center of town– albeit impatiently.
She felt the cloud beneath her feet dip a bit, and through the rain she could make out a black shape.
"About time, you useless oaf!" Despite her shrieking, Valentina could barely hear her own voice. She thrust the child out at Dodo impatiently. "Take him away and deal with him! Don't ask me how; toss him in a river for all I care!"
Dodo merely blinked. Water collected on the end of his beak and dripped onto the baby, making the cries even louder.
"Do it now!"
With a futile ruffling of feathers, the large bird snatched the bundle up in his beak and disappeared into the storm. Valentina turned on her heel and hurried back to the castle, where she quickly slammed the brass doors behind her. The shawl around her shoulders was sopping wet, but rather than remove it entirely she merely made it look a little more disheveled.
After what she expected to be a sufficient time for Dodo to get away, Valentina took a deep breath.
"Guards! Guards!" She screeched. "Prince Mallow has been kidnapped!"
It didn't take long for the guards to find her, followed closely by a nightgown-clad King and Queen. Valentina glanced at them, then dropped to her knees in mock-shame. "Your Majesties! I... I tried to stop him- the masked man who took him- but... but...!" Here she threw her hands over her face, shoulders shaking with theatrical sobbing.
Queen Nimbus threw her hands up in despair. "My baby! My sweet Mallow!"
The King put an arm around his wife's shoulders, gesturing to the guards and saying, "Find this kidnapper immediately! Mallow mustn't be harmed!" And to the Queen: "Don't worry, Dear. We'll find him."
As the guards scrambled to leave the castle, Valentina chanced a peek through a gap between her fingers at the rulers of Nimbus Land. Or so they were for now, she thought to herself with a smirk.