Far, far, away, in the distant realm of Tortall, a man calls for his wife.
"'Lanna! 'Lanna! Come see what I got at the fair!"
"What, George?" Alanna called tiredly, looking out the bathroom door with still-wet hair and a towel in hand.
George, grinning wide, pulled a pink, squishy llama out of a small, burlap sack.
Alanna's amethyst eyes widened. Her jaw dropped, and the towel fell to the floor. Before George realized she had even moved, the lady knight had tackled him and taken off with George's pink, squishy llama.
Buri was in the Rider's stable when Alanna rode in, clutching something tightly to her chest while she rode. She dismounted quickly and tossed a coin to the stable boy. "Take care of'er," she told him, referring to her mare, and dashed out of the stable in a hurry, still clutching whatever it was to her chest. Buri ran quickly to the stable door, wondering why her friend had come here, instead of the palace stables, and what she had.
After Alanna was a safe distance away, Buri followed her.
The chase led Buri through the palace, down Palace Way, past the Temple of the Goddess, and into the Lower city. Alanna entered an inn called the Dancing Dove, and Buri followed. Once inside, Alanna stopped running, but only to push her way through the crowd. The inn keeper nodded to the lady knight and Alanna headed upstairs and dissapeared behind a door.
Buri sighed and sat down at an empty table to catch her breath. She bought a drink and decided to wait for Alanna to come back down from the room. Surely what ever she was doing up there wouldn't take too long.
"Ouch!" Buri shouted, shaking her hand. She painfully pulled the splinter out of her palm and resumed scaling the side of the inn. She planned to spy on Alanna from the roof, because a certain spy had once told her off the seven different entrances to his old room at a small inn in the lower city. So, slightly drunk and with only half the purse she had earlier today, she had decided to spy. Besides, the commoners in the inn had begun to stare, seeing as she carried a sword at her side and a quiver of arrows on her back.
Buri had been in the inn for hours, so it was dark now. And, since the commander had horrible night vision, it was almost impossible to find the skylight George had spoken of. Finally, she literally stumbled upon it. She stepped off the glass and layed on her stomach so she could peer down into the room below.
Alanna, completely unaware of the spy looking down from above, sat in the large arm chair by the fireplace. She held the pink, squishy llama in her lap and was stroking it as if it were a cat. She had come here to hide from George. She figured that leaving her horse in the Rider's stable as opposed to the palace stables would delay him a bit, but she knew he would still find her in time. And when that time came, well, she could run faster than him.
Meanwhile, on the rooftop, Buri stared with her eyes wide open. It was a pink, squishy, LLAMA! Buri sprang up and drew her sword. She hit the glass with the pommel of her sword to break the glass and jumped down through the newly made hole in the roof.
Alanna drew her sword and held it in her left hand, as Buri had, as soon as she heard the glass break. The pink, squishy llama now sat on the back of the large arm chair, facing the room, seeming to watch the fight that was to come. As Buri touched the floor, she looked at Alanna fiercely and said "I want the llama."
"It's mine," Alanna replied, all the bit a lioness defending her territory.
Buri swung at the lady knight's legs, and Alanna blocked it swiftly, swinging it back around to strike her friend in the side. But, Buri was just as quick, and Alanna couldn't land the blow.
This pattern continued, the clang of swords echoing throughout the room. Finally, when the two warriors were sweat-streaked and tired, Alanna decided to reveal her secret.
"My friend, I have something I must tell you."
"What?"
"I'm not really left-handed."
There was a clash of swords before Buri responded.
"I have something to tell you as well. I'm not left-handed either!"
And so, the battle progressed for a time. Then, as they were both about exhausted, and the swing of a sword was almost impossible for both of them, Buri had an idea.
"Look!" she yelled. "A dokey!"
Now, Alanna wasn't thinking clearly, and, acting the fool, she looked. Of course, there was no such thing as a dokey, and, even if there was, it wasn't in Alanna's room. "Wher-" Buri was trudging out of the inn before Alanna realized she had tricked her, and the Lioness simply plopped down in her big arm chair and wondered how long it would take George to realize that Buri had the pink, squishy llama now...