The Queen and I, by Alicia Ponder

"The Queen and I" won the 2005 New Science Fiction and Fantasy Award for best Short Story.  It was definitely a product of its time, sandwiched between the hype of "The Lord of the Rings" and the release of Peter Jackson's "King Kong"

The Queen and I

by Alicia Ponder


A funny thing happened to me on the way to the convention. You’d never believe it - But of course you’ll have to, I’ve got a signed note from the Queen. Yes, the Queen herself. Now you really shouldn’t interrupt. As I said, I was just walking through Wellington and I bumped into Peter. No. No. Not Peter Jackson, of Lord of the Rings fame. In fact you probably don’t know this Peter, but he’s crazy about Kong.

Of course I just had to say how lovely his Kong puppet was, and while I was ooh-ing and aah-ing over it Peter complimented me on my Arwen costume. And so he should. Isn’t it beautiful? I had to import the silk and dye it myself to get this perfect shade of red.

There we were just chatting, when something tremendously heavy shook the ground behind Peter. He turned around and pointed. I’d like to say his mouth was hanging open or something, but truth is, he wasn’t facing me, so how could I possibly know?

Yes, well, all right. I will get on with it; I was building up the suspense.

There in the shadows, was some kind of coal driven tank on big heavy casters. It was so cool.

O.K. you saw that too. But I bet you didn’t see the army of dwarves pulling it along. Well, I admit it wasn't so much an army, as there were less than a dozen of them, but they were all dressed for battle. And no matter how tall they are, a dwarf is pretty fearsome. Especially when they’ve got an axe in hand – yes O.K. so they’re short, get over it, they can still chop your knees off.

The dwarves charged.

I almost pulled my sword, before I thought better of it, especially as the closest thing to a weapon Peter had was a slightly hairy puppet. Well, in amongst my shock of being mobbed and carried off by rampaging dwarves I couldn’t help but notice Peter and his puppet waving goodbye. Nor, for that matter, could I fail to observe one of the dwarves had a terrible case of rhinitis. He never stopped sneezing.

The first dwarf who actually bothered to speak to me took off his spectacles, rubbed them a bit and said, “We’ve been looking for you for over a hundred years. What have you been doing?”

Well, I hardly knew what to say. I haven’t even been alive for a hundred years – and none of your wit. It’s not even close! Although, I guess if I really was Arwen I’d be a lot older than that.

Yes, yes and I wouldn’t be carrying a sword either, but it’s so beautiful. Here, have a look. You’d hardly even know it’s just a knockoff. But what was I up to? Oh yes. There I was, speeding through Wellington, my dress getting absolutely ruined, and after a while I couldn’t keep quiet any longer. I just had to ask, “Where are you taking me?”
And you know their reply? “We’re going to hi-ho back to Europe.” And then they all started saying stuff like; “We searched everywhere for you. We’d just given up - and here you are.” And, “Now, no more of your games, miss, you’re going back to your glass coffin. Always liked you better in there. No fuss, no disobeying instructions, and no running off with princes.”

So perhaps you will forgive me for being a tiny bit late. Yes, I know it’s a day and a half, but in the scheme of things that’s not very much -- especially when I tell you that I ended up flying all the way to Britain. It was only when I actually got there customs realized I not only didn’t have a visa, but I didn’t even have a passport either.
The dwarves raised such a stink. They demanded to see the queen, and I don’t know how they did it, but they must have known somebody high up because somehow I found myself in a very posh room trying to wash black finger-marks off silk while they let fly with accusations about poisoned apples and reparations and goodness knows what. In the end I think they realized this wasn’t the same queen they’d been dealing with in the past, and it all ended quite amicably. The dwarves even cheered as the Queen announced she would commission a waxwork for the dwarves to put into their wretched glass case.

Afterwards, we all sat down for a lovely afternoon tea. That’s when I told her about the convention, and meeting Peter and Kong and how I was going to be terribly late. So she wrote this note and then she offered me a ride back on her secret supersonic jet.

So here I am. What’s up?

The note? Oh here it is. The writing’s smudged a bit

 

(And yes, there is an actual puppet, too see him in all his movie glory check out this link)