Juraletta knew that if she were to embark on a quest then she needed companions – a band of friends who could travel with her, sharing good times and bad. Unfortunately, she didn’t know very many people, though she was reasonably confident that teaming up with a dwarf and a giant (and possibly a talking hedge) was a grand idea. And they should be happy to join her, for she was a Qwertian, and Qwertians were surely well suited for quests, for wasn’t the name Qwerty part of the vocabulary, part of the very spelling of that most literate language which had always questioned its own quixoticity?

Soon, Juraletta and Gorgon were Outside.

“Haven’t seen you in these quarters of late,” said a patently dwarfish voice from behind a hedge.

“No,” agreed Juraletta, “I’ve been occupied.”

“She got married,” said the gorgon pointedly.

“And where is your lucky husband?” asked the dwarf, now stepping into plain sight.

“He combusted,” Juraletta confessed sadly. “Gorgie said it was my fault. I shouldn’t have got undressed in front of him.”

“I should think not,” said the dwarf stroking his tiny yet exceptionally bristly beard. “Young wives shouldn’t undress in front of their husbands, however much they might beg for it.”

“And why’s that?” asked Gorgon.

“Who’s your companion?” asked the dwarf, ignoring the snaky one’s question and examining Gorgon with distaste. “She is obviously a woman who knows her own mind.”

“This is Gorgon. My one and only friend.”

“Well, they do say that it’s good for a pretty girl to have ugly friends, as it makes them look even prettier in comparison.”

“Have a care, dwarf,” said Gorgon. “Or you may find yourself turned into a stone midget.”

“I’d prefer a stoned midget.”

“I warning you, shrimp, another word and I’ll –”

“Oh, it’s threats now, is it? We know how to deal with threats around here. Giant! Come here a mo. We have a threatening woman here who, if I’m any judge, needs a haircut. I can see a lot of split ends.”

“Those split ends, as you call them, are vipers’ heads,” said Gorgon. “And one tough look from me will turn you into obsidian.”

“Giant! We have visitors.”

“I hear,” rumbled the giant’s booming bass. “Hey, get a load of this dame! Is she a hot little number!” he asided to an embarrassed Juraletta, while gazing meaningfully at Gorgon.

“I certainly am not a hot little number,” said Gorgon coldly. “And you’ll be a telegraph pole of granite if you’re not careful.”

“Please stop quarrelling – we have a job to do,” said the princess.

“Job?” echoed the dwarf with withering scorn. “What job is that? We don’t tolerate members of the working class around here.”

“Essentially, we’re idle dandies,” proclaimed the giant proudly.

“We have a quest –” Juraletta began, but was interrupted by the giant.

“Say you – yes, you! – the slick chick with the radical hairstyle – what are you doing tonight, dreamboat?”

Gorgon maintained a disdainful silence of unusual duration.

“Sooo… Just what is the quest?” enquired the dwarf. “Despite my earlier wisecracks, I do have some experience of quests.”

“I’m looking for someone to help me maintain the Qwertian line of descent,” said Juraletta.

“A new husband, in short?”

“Well, not too short,” Juraletta muttered to herself, as the dwarf’s eyebrows waggled furiously.

“I overheard that your first husband exploded in mid-connubialising,” said the giant. “You must be a hot little thing.”

“It’s an important mission,” reproached Juraletta. “The entire Qwertian empire depends on it.”

“Your empire can’t be much bigger than the garden in which we stand,” said the dwarf.

“Why don’t we leave these two gentlemen to their devices,” said Gorgon acidly.

“What devices are they?” asked the dwarf indignantly. “You’ll find no devices around here. We endeavour to maintain a sustainable, device-free environment.”

“Anyone who tries it on with devices will have to deal with me,” said the giant in a menacing voice. “I once had a friend who got into devices, and before we knew it he was doing precious little else with his time. I won’t allow any of that nonsense around here. And after all, why play with devices when there are beautiful women like you around?”

The waggling eyebrows appeared to be contagious, for the giant’s brows leapt into suggestive action like small bushes angered by a Texan tornado. Provoked by insult, Gorgon glared at the giant who instantly hardened into cold grey stone.

“Now Gorgie,” rebuked Juraletta, “that’s going too far.”

Gorgon blinked hard and the giant became flesh again.

“That’s quite a trick,” said the dwarf admiringly. “Do you think you could teach me to do that?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Gorgon. “Apart from the vast intelligence and concentration required, you have to have the right hair. Just look at yours – not a snake in sight.”

“Fair enough,” said the dwarf. “Now, tell me of your quest.”

“We’re looking for the Galactic Sperm Bank.”

“Oh, one of those,” said the dwarf with a knowing nod. “That’s easy – there’s a branch in the Sargasso. Part of the Gardens of Fleschimor, I believe.”

“You know where it is, then?” asked Juraletta hopefully.

“Not so fast,” the dwarf said. “We haven’t discussed my fee. It costs plenty to find a Galactic Sperm Bank.”

“They don’t grow on trees,” said the giant, flexing his unstoned limbs.

“I can only offer you friendship,” said Juraletta. “And that is worth rather a lot. A fortune, in fact. Emotionally speaking.”

“What an unexpected gift!” exclaimed the dwarf. “What do you think, giant?”

“Throw in dreamboat here and she’s got a deal,” he growled.

“I have no intention of being his dreamboat,” said Gorgon, said in a voice as cold as frozen helium.

The giant shook his head. “No dreamboat, no quest.”

“Don’t be so mean,” said Juraletta, her face falling. “You can’t blackmail someone who’s going on a quest – it’s a noble venture.”

“And we are perfectly capable of launching a quest without your assistance,” said Gorgon. “Come Juraletta, let us –”

“But Gorgie – this odd pair could be useful,” Juraletta broke in.

“That settles it – we’re not going,” said the dwarf, affronted dignity written large over his diminutive form.

“I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to call you odd,” said Juraletta. “I think we’re all getting a little overheated.”

“Speak for yourself,” said the giant, “I’m not about to combust – unlike your unfortunate husband.”

“Only because she hasn’t shed her ludicrously scanty clothing,” leered the dwarf.

“I am wearing a dress,” Juraletta said, “And it’s certainly not scanty – it goes all the way from halfway down my bosom to the top of my thighs.”

The dwarf nodded. “And if I’m any judge, you aren’t wearing a brassiere.”

“Her breasts stand up perfectly well without any such device,” said Gorgon proudly.

“There you go on about devices again,” said the giant.

“For goodness sake,” said the dwarf. “If we’re going to go, then I think we should leave immediately.”

“Well, if you’re sure,” said Juraletta. “I, for one, am sick of this banter, and I’m awfully keen to get things underway. The future of my royal line is at stake.”

The dwarf beamed at her, and burst into song in a surprising high, piping voice.

“A-questing we will go,

Our resting is too slow

Some knowledge we will know –”

“We’re off to fight the foe,” the giant joined in his deep bass.

“What about me?” cried a leafy voice.

Juraletta turned to see who was thus addressing her. It was (needless to say) the hedge that imagined itself to be a unicorn.

“You have to be mobile,” said Juraletta.

“Not a problem,” said the hedge, uprooting itself and gambolling after them. And curiously, the more the hedge gambolled, the more it came to resemble the unicorn it had claimed to be.

“I believe we now have a first class quest team,” observed the dwarf. “We have a violet-skinned princess who is, by virtue of the inordinately rapid combustibility of her departed husband, both a virgin and a widow.”

(“How crudely you put it,” said Juraletta.)

“We have a mighty giant capable of snapping trees in half with his teeth.”

(“Steady on,” said the giant.)

“We have a snake-headed gorgon, as ugly as sin.”

(“Watch it, midget!”)

“We have a passable simulacrum of a unicorn.”

(“I’m the real thing!” snorted the unicorn, who was in the process of shaking loose the last few leaves that clung stubbornly to its fine, white tail.)

“And lastly myself, a dwarf of surpassing intelligence and a veteran of such tolerably implausible quests as the Quest for an Imaginary Lion, the Quest for a Talking Turnip who Knows the Answer to the Riddle of Existence, and many, many more.”

And so the quest team, more verbosely than most, got underway.