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The Knight and the Archer pressed on in their venture
to rescue the dames in distress,
to bring foes to their knees, to save ladies like these,
who suffer in dread and duress.

The Knight’s heart was pounding with his feats so resounding
of his fight and his victory keen
the Archer also, with her magic and bow,
and her eyes of that bright eldritch sheen.

They soon reached a place, a deep forested space
from where the trolls they might see,
but from high and behind, and flying in blind,
came the minions of Queen Faerie.

Swift as a gale, they told them the tale
of the damsels and their terrible curse,
to leave them for a fate they dare not contemplate
or imprisonment, or even worse?

So, the Knight left the elf to take thought with himself
On the plight of the damsels so fair,
while the Archer went fetching more feathers for fletching
with her arrows and fine elfin hair.

The Knight pondered hard, and with frustrated regard,
the troubles of this bevy of girls,
Standing alone, he stared at the loam
and with point of his sword making swirls,

when like lightning flash, he tugged on his sash,
and sprinted back towards the elf,
a wolfish grin nearly split to the chin
and supremely proud of himself,

“I’ve solved the trolls’ riddle, working both ends to the middle
of the problem, and it’s simple, I think,
we can avoid the trolls, get around their patrols,
and have the damsels to safety in a wink!”

”We can’t make the raid, for the blood to be paid,
but taking a dance from the Elves,
because of this curse, our attempt makes it worse,
but what if they rescue themselves?!?”

The Archer said with a grin, “True, we can’t come get them,
but to guide them from here’s within rules,
now all we must do, is to give them the clue
and of the trolls we’ll make them the fools!”

So, the Archer and Knight crept just within sight
of the castle where the trolls did lurk,
and an arrow with a trawl sailed over the wall
and the Knight tugged it tight with a jerk,

and they scaled and climbed the stone walls be-rimed,
and set out to locate the places
where the lasses were held behind harsh iron weld
but they dared not reveal their faces,

for the slightest attempt to show scorn or contempt
for the old magic bound to the curse,
would bring death and sorrow by night on the morrow
and on that one could bet their whole purse.

So door upon door, they whispered at, before
they located the girls one and all,
and explained the plight of the Archer and Knight
who would wait for them outside the wall,

but the work of the main was the desperate refrain
from each of the lasses in turn,
”What manner of hope, with the trolls we must cope?
and what rescue is this of a kind?”

But the wait beyond the fence made quite perfect sense
in the mind of one of the twelve,
who with beauty was bold, and knew deep magic and old,
and her hubris could hide and could shelve…

MISS B, IT'S YOURS!