The European Enigma (LSD, #9)

23. The Kosovan Knight

The Kosovan Knight

Once upon a time in a Kosovan Kingdom, far, far away, a Kosovan Knight woke up in the morning and thought: «Today is a good day to save the world.» But when he looked outside, the world was already perfectly safe.

«Damnation! Rock 'n' Roll Damnation! I'm without a job.», the Knight thought, but immediately he corrected his line of thinking into: «ROSTOV! I'm without a job.» because he was from a noble family with no swear words in their dictionary.

Dark clouds gathered in his head to spoil his good morning mood. But the Knight was an optimistic person. He thought: «If the world is already safe, there might be something else I can do. Let's see if I can come up with a good idea... There's one already: eating breakfast. I'm good at eating breakfast. If I'd have the food, I could eat breakfast every day. And when such a great idea pops up so easily, I'm sure another idea will arrive before I cleaned up the breakfast table.»

He went to the kitchen, put the kettle on the fire, kneaded the dough, and kindled the oven. When he sat down at the breakfast table, he tried to cook up a better plan. Between tea and toast, he thought: «Well, if the world is already safe, perhaps I could... save a virtual world on my game computer? No, that's a waste of time. It's not fit for a brave and noble Knight like I. People will call me Knight Kilobyte. There's no kudos in that. I have to think of something better. How about... saving a princess?»

This new line of duty was just what the Knight was looking for. He had the training, he had the tools, and he had the time. He didn't waste energy, washing the dishes (the ants and the mice in his castle also needed something to do), but grabbed his knapsack, saddled his horse Ketchup, and drove off at full speed.

In Kosovan Kingdom Farfaraway, there are always many princesses that need to be rescued. Our Knight was smart. His reward would be a kiss, so he put his horse on the automatic pilot and browsed the list of «Local Princesses to be Rescued» on his knightPhone (hands-free, of course, he was riding). There was the Princess of the Primates, but she was rather ugly. There was the Princess of the Primeval Forest, but she seemed too old for him. There was the Princess with the Prick, but she looked man enough to mind her own business. There was the Priceless Princess, but she was far beyond his budget. And there was the Pretty Princess of the Primrose, held in the Prickly Prison by the Primitive Priests of Privacy. The Knight looked at her Facebook profile and fell in love immediately.

"Come on, Ketchup. We have a job to do.", he said to his faithful friend. The horse looked over his shoulder and answered: "WE have a job to do? Who's doing all the hard work here? All you do is sit and give orders. And who's getting the kiss at the end? It won't be me, that's one thing for sure."

The Prickly Prison was not far away. The Knight parked his horse Ketchup on the mount park, next to a mule tied to an olive tree. The mule asked Ketchup: "What's up, Ketchup? Having a lot of sex lately?"

Ketchup sneered back: "Me? With all that work they give me? I'm having less sex than a mule tied to an olive tree. Why? Do you want a kiss, straight from the horse's mouth?"

But we're not here to hear the story of the Cat with Boots or the Donkey and the Red Dragon. We're not here for an action story about a kinky adventure between two romantic noble animals. This is the story of a romantic adventure for two noble humans. Action has little to do with it. It was, in fact, the lack of action that caused all the problems. «Sloth» was Pretty Princess Primrose's middle name.

The Princess was in a severe crisis. Her father was in the Kingdom Business. Raising taxes and fighting wars, the two favourite hobbies of every modern medieval monarch, consumed all his time. He'd locked up his daughter in her room, after sentencing her to the bored-to-death penalty. After taking up smoking and drinking, she started experimenting with needles and pins, and one needle contained such a strong drug that she slept for a hundred years. You can imagine how long and boring that story went: her hair kept growing and became a pain in the neck. Before starting a new nice nuclear war, her father the King had fired the Mexican gardener and had him deported to the other side of the wall of his castle. Cutting the budgets was more important than cutting the roses. While the Princess was sleeping, the plants in the garden grew and grew until they covered up the entire castle and all the dirty deeds that were done inside. Not even the paparazzi could enter.