S1 E10: Royal Spit

Princess Yemilina leads a search of Teloopa's cottage, hoping to find ideas for fighting the EEK. With the help of a child and a fairy, she discovers a decades long experiment involving her own royal spit.

Written and produced by Jennifer Lott

Voice Actors:
Shannon Rea as Nazzy
Jennifer Lott as Yemilina
JP Lott as Sir JP
Lynda Williams as Queen Augusta
Owen Lott as Wenoburt
Nicole Stoner as Enelcia
Kenzie Stoner as Rose

Transcript

SOUND: opening theme music

INT. TELOOPA'S COTTAGE

SOUND: footsteps

SOUND: shuffling objects

SOUND: bottles clinking

SOUND: jars opening

YEMILINA

Hello, fair listeners. Welcome to Teloopa's cottage. We are currently rummaging through some of her potion supplies -- various abandoned stages of her frog experiments and goodness knows what else. She's a cluttered sorceress. We're hoping to find inspiration. Enelcia is outside guarding Sir JP, because no one wanted to move him. He's very heavy in his enchanted sleep. And he's breathing quite nicely right where he fell. A-at least he was last I checked. I'll just open a window and--

SOUND: window opening

SOUND: forest ambience

YEMILINA

How's his breathing, Enelcia?

ENELCIA

In and out. Going well.

YEMILINA

Oh, good!

SOUND: window closing

SOUND: footsteps

SOUND: shuffling objects

SOUND: bottles clinking

SOUND: jars opening

WENOBURT

I don't think we should be touching the witch's stuff when she is not here.

YEMILINA

Don't be silly, Wenoburt. When Teloopa hid in the mermaid lake, she forfeited her right to privacy.

WENOBURT

Why?

YEMILINA

Because it was rude and cowardly of her to go play with mermaids instead of helping us save the kingdom.

WENOBURT

The grumpy knight is not helping us either.

YEMILINA

That's not his fault.

WENOBURT

He's rude. Can I have his sword?

SOUND: fairy magic

SOUND: fairy wings

ROSE

No. He's brave.

WENOBURT

We can only steal from scaredy cats?

YEMILINA

We're not stealing. We're exploring our options.

SOUND: footsteps

SOUND: shuffling objects

SOUND: bottles clinking

NAZZY

(groan of discomfort)

YEMILINA

Well, come on, Nazzy. Help me find things that might weaken the EEK.

NAZZY

I'm still bleeding.

SOUND: bottles clinking

YEMILINA

Here. This one looks like a healing potion.

NAZZY

Nah...no thanks. I like to feel really sure about those. Teloopa's is probably experimental. I'll take that fresh bandage.

SOUND: wrapping bandage

SOUND: sitting on chair

YEMILINA

(sigh)

Will you at least talk to the cave people while you sit there?

NAZZY

Hello, fair listeners. I hope you're enjoying this cottage, even though Teloopa is not here to show us around. Due to time travel exhaustion, I will be bringing you our next instalment on September 3rd 2022.

YEMILINA

That's quite a gap, Nazzy. Won't you catch that internet disease from such a long time without uploading? What's it called? Podpox?

NAZZY

Podfade. Not a disease. And it's not Podfade when you have a set return date. It's an intermission.

YEMILINA

But a three-month intermission? I thought you said cave people have short attention spans.

NAZZY

Well, they'll just have to cope. I need catch up time.

YEMILINA

Time shouldn't be an issue for you.

NAZZY

I'm wounded.

YEMILINA

It's a scratch.

NAZZY

Sword scratches hurt.

YEMILINA

Oh, you're just making excuses.

NAZZY

(tired groan)

SOUND: body flopping onto bed

SOUND: bedsprings creaking

YEMILINA

Really? Really, Nazzy? You're just going to curl up in Teloopa's bed and snore? For goodness sake, this entire documentary was your idea!

NAZZY

Wake me when you're done with this instalment. I'll take it right away and finish my nap in 2022.

SOUND: footsteps

SOUND: shuffling objects

SOUND: bottles clinking

SOUND: background snoring

YEMILINA

Rose, would you be very kind and fly outside to do some scouting? It's been several hours now. Bigger dragons might be hungry again.

SOUND: fairy wings

ROSE

But they might see me and eat me.

YEMILINA

Oh, come now, Rose. Dragons hardly ever go after fairies. You're far too hard to catch with far too little flesh on you to make catching you worth the effort.

ROSE

Baby dragons chase fairies.

SOUND: window opening

YEMILINA

Look at the sun. It's obviously nap time for baby dragons. Go!

ROSE

Fine.

SOUND: fairy flying away

WENOBURT

If the fairy sees a dragon, I want to fight it.

YEMILINA

You're not old enough.

WENOBURT

I need the grumpy knight's sword.

YEMILINA

Let it go, Wenoburt.

SOUND: jar lid falling on floor

SOUND: jar opening

SOUND: liquid sloshing

SOUND: fairy flying back

ROSE

The Queen is here.

YEMILINA

Tell her I went to Spiral Hill to pet unicorns.

ROSE

I told her you're in the witch's cottage.

YEMILINA

Arrrh! You are fired as a dragon scout!

ROSE

Yay!

SOUND: door opening

SOUND: footsteps

QUEEN AUGUSTA

Yemilina, darling, I'm afraid I simply can't convince Teloopa to leave the mermaid lake.

YEMILINA

I told you that would be pointless.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

Sir JP appears to be in the grips of an enchanted sleep. However did you--

YEMILINA

We had to do it for our own safety.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

But how? I thought you'd needed--

YEMILINA

Rose knocked him out. You were no help at all.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

I was trying to help. I could scarcely believe Sir JP would continue in that hostile vien, since he is so good and noble at his core.

YEMILINA

He might have slain every one of us! He wounded Nazzy.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

At least it was her.

YEMILINA

Mother!

QUEEN AUGUSTA

I've never liked that Time Klutz.

YEMILINA

Is that really why? Her time travel mistakes? Or is the real reason because you couldn't stand me playing with the servants' children and you can't accept it, even now?

QUEEN AUGUSTA

I have accepted your friend for longer than you've been moving at a normal rate through time. I did not have her punished all those years you were gone. I have earned the right to insult her without being accused of classist snobbery.

WENOBURT

You two should be nicer to each other.

YEMILINA

That's not how grownups do things, Wenoburt. Go play with untested potions.

WENOBURT

Take a deep breath. Say one thing you like about your Mommy.

YEMILINA

I will not! I'm busy yelling at her!

WENOBURT

Queen, you say one thing you like about your daughter.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

That is not relevant, child.

WENOBURT

If you can't say something nice--

YEMILINA

Let's take this outside!

SOUND: footsteps

SOUND: door closing

SOUND: forest ambience

YEMILINA

If it weren't for Nazzy we wouldn't even know our kingdom is doomed. You owe her gratitude.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

I most certainly do not. We'd all be happier not knowing.

YEMILINA

No, we're happier knowing we have a chance to stop it!

QUEEN AUGUSTA

What chance? You are blundering from one vague idea to the next.

YEMILINA

Oh, and I suppose you have a plan?

SOUND: falling objects

YEMILINA

What was that?

SOUND: footsteps

SOUND: cottage door opening

SOUND: falling objects

YEMILINA

Wenoburt!

WENOBURT

It wasn't me. The fairy is knocking them down.

YEMILINA

Rose! Stop that!

SOUND: fairy wings

ROSE

I don't like it! Make it go away!

YEMILINA

Make what go away?

ROSE

Pictures in the crystals!

SOUND: clinking crystal balls

SOUND: crystal ball ambience

YEMILINA

Crystal balls...

SOUND: footsteps

YEMILINA

It's one of Teloopa's experiments, she...

SOUND: cupboard opening

SOUND: magic analysing haze

YEMILINA

She has my toothbrush. That's my toothbrush hovering in that hazy little shimmer of...pink air.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

She is a thief as well as a castle destroyer? I ought to yank that witch up by her scaly mermaid tail and--

YEMILINA

Stop lashing out with your queenly bluster! If you really want to help, go replace Enelcia outside. I'd rather show this to her.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

Who?

YEMILINA
My elf friend, mother. The one you decided was your gardener just because she happened to be outside your window right when you lost your sorcerer's rain charms?

QUEEN AUGUSTA

You want to show my gardener your stolen toothbrush?

YEMILINA

No, Enelcia. She's not your gardener, but I suppose my pointing that out will just sound like I'm accusing you of 'classist snobbery.'

QUEEN AUGUSTA

(soothing)

Yemilina...I am here to help you. I will mix with whatever common folk you like to do that.

YEMILINA

Just tell me if Sir JP stops breathing. You can do that, can't you? Please do that for me.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

(sigh)

Alright, darling. I'll watch him. I'll send your elf consultant in.

SOUND: retreating footsteps

YEMILINA

She's not my...

(sigh)

SOUND: door closing

SOUND: background crystal ambience

SOUND: background Wenoburt

SOUND: door opening

SOUND: approaching footsteps

ENELCIA

What's up, princess?

YEMILINA

Look at all this. These crystals hanging here show people losing their homes to dragon attacks or losing limbs to a dragon's midnight snack or any number of non-dragon accidents – falling in ditches, falling out of trees –

ENELCIA

Dragons or falling. Sounds like bad luck.

YEMILINA

And my toothbrush is right here in this cupboard, right in the middle of it all, in some kind of...mist.

ENELCIA

I've seen that hazy pink stuff. It analyses magic properties in an object.

SOUND: paper rustling

ENELCIA

There are some papers here.

YEMILINA

Oh, how unobservant of me. I didn't even notice.

SOUND: paper rustling

ENELCIA

This looks like a list of every citizen in Wilzerlott...or...no. The younger generation. Every citizen born in the last thirty-one years, which is about 90% of us, right?

YEMILINA

It is rare to live past thirty.

ENELCIA

For peasants anyways.

YEMILINA

With the castle gone, it ought to be rare for everyone now.

ENELCIA

What does your toothbrush have to do with any of these people?

YEMILINA

It's the same one I used my last morning before I jumped ahead in time.

SOUND: paper rustling

YEMILINA

Look at these logs. Teloopa has been analyzing my toothbrush since she was a teenager. She must have transported it straight out of my bathroom.

ENELCIA

Says here she found 'traces' of your 'essence.' She must have raised a droplet of your royal spit from the bristles.

YEMILINA

But why?

ENELCIA

Look what it's doing to the crystal balls.

YEMILINA

Oh.

SOUND: pink haze in motion

YEMILINA

Those pink tendrils...they reach out now and then and paint a rosier picture of those incidents.

SOUND: pink haze in motion

ENELCIA

Escaping dragons...catching a branch...jumping over a ditch.

YEMILINA

Are they future-gazing crystals?

ENELCIA

The way they're switching back and forth, I'd say they're possible realities; Teloopa's looking at alternative versions.

YEMILINA

Lucky and unlucky...

(gasp)

ENELCIA

What?

YEMILINA

My lucky kiss used to touch every newborn baby's forehead. For thirty-one years I was gone. I stopped worrying about it. I should have worried more!

SOUND: paper rustling

YEMILINA

What are you reading? Did Teloopa find out everything's all right? The kingdom adapted to my absence?

ENELCIA

Teloopa wrote an essay here...says...magically influenced lives generate a collective energy in Wilzerlott – positive or negative. For hundreds of years, a princess's lucky kiss generated positive energy and attracted some of the peaceful creatures who aren't native to this land. Some of the good magic, like the dream weaving merpeople do.

SOUND: cottage door opening

SOUND: forest ambience

QUEEN AUGUSTA

Sir JP is awake. He seems disoriented. I tried to explain things to him.

SOUND: footsteps

SOUND: armour clinking

YEMILINA

(stiffly)

Thank you, mother.

QUEEN AUGUSTA

I'll wait outside.

SOUND: cottage door closing

SIR JP

(groan)

YEMILINA

Easy now. Easy. Don't rush yourself.

ENELCIA

How are you feeling, Sir JP? No hard feelings about the way I scared your horse with my carrot baby, I hope? Are we good?

YEMILINA

Don't worry. I cleaned his eyebrows thoroughly.

SIR JP

(confused)

My eyebrows? What? Why?

YEMILINA

You don't remember? It was your first exposure to dermavig. You found reasons to get upset with each of us and took a few murderous swings at us with your sword.

SIR JP

Impossible. I have a moral code and an amazing tolerance for ridiculous people.

YEMILINA

Don't let it trouble you. We're not even thinking about it anymore. We're completely over it.

SOUND: snoring

YEMILINA

Uh, Nazzy might be a tad resentful, but she's too tired to say so. You didn't kill her, so I assume she's forgiven you.

SIR JP

For the record, I was against trying that crazy elf lotion.

YEMILINA

You could have died, too! It was a possible side effect of Teloopa's sleep dust. I'm so relieved you've pulled through.

SIR JP

I think I'll go hunt down some careless dragons. At least they make death simple.

YEMILINA

This is no time to simplify things. Look! Teloopa is magically analyzing my toothbrush.

SIR JP

Why in the world...

SOUND: footsteps

SOUND: clinking armour

SOUND: crystal balls clinking

SOUND: crystal ball ambience

SOUND: magic haze in motion

SIR JP

Have you read this?

SOUND: paper rustling

SIR JP

This looks bad.

YEMILINA

Enelcia summed it up for me.

SOUND: paper rustling

YEMILINA

Sir JP, your parents are the oldest peasants I've ever seen, and it's not just that you protect them, is it? It's your luck. You are lucky that your parents are still alive. It's because their continued existence makes you lucky that they weren't eaten by dragons at a normal age.

SIR JP

I have been luckier than most. There were many fights I should have lost. Moments a dragon almost bit off my head then stumbled at the last second and missed me. I've watched younger dragon slayers die in similar moments.

YEMILINA

That's clearly what this analysis is showing: the collective bad luck of every baby born since the day I was lost in time. That many luckless lives growing over three decades has thrown the whole kingdom off balance. We're sending out negative energy which could be exactly what brought the EEK upon us in the first place.

SIR JP

(sigh)

It does look that way.

YEMILINA

So you admit my lucky kiss is important? Teloopa's on the right track with her theories?

SIR JP

If she is, does that really make you happy?

YEMILINA

Why shouldn't it?

SIR JP

It means the kingdom's doom may...indirectly...be your fault.

SOUND: footsteps

SOUND: shoulder shake

YEMILINA

Nazzy, wake up. We've just finished the instalment. No point dragging it out with everything going so smoothly and no one struggling with any frightening new guilt possibilities.

NAZZY

(groggy)

Okay. I'll take the whole vivicord this time. Give it here.

SOUND: vivicord

YEMILINA

Thank you for listening, fair cave people. Please come back September 3rd! We promise not to get guzzled by dragons before then!

SOUND: time travel

YEMILINA

Goodbye, Nazzy! Feel better!

SOUND: closing theme music