[ WP ] A bouncy castle is set up at a party . However , it turns out to be far bigger on the inside .

Bouncing castle # 2 
 
 When he opens his eyes a bright white light is blinding him. He tries to sit up but straps across his chest, arms and legs keep him down. It takes a while but eventually his eyes get used to the light. Left of him he sees a tray on a stand. On the tray are a pair of scissors, a needle and thread, a roll of white tape and some rubber plugs. At the far end of the room a man seems to be pacing in an odd way. As soon as the man notices he's awake he comes dashing towards Andy. It is Ser Mackswoon, the man he met earlier. 
 “ I say, are you alright, ” he asks Andy nervously. 
 
 “ I am fine, could you please untie me from the bed? ” Andy asks politely. 
 
 Roland starts undoing the straps that keep him down as fast as he can, smiling all the while. 
 
 “ I did not mean to tie you down, ” he says apologizing, “ the wizard demanded it you see. ” 
 
 “ the wizzaahhh... What!? ” Andy exclaims. 
 
 “ Time enough for that later, the king has demanded to see you as soon as you awoke. ” 
 
 Andy has never seen a real king before, only on TV. Roland tells him they tried to find the hole through which he was leaking but they could not find it, they presumed he had just fallen asleep. 
 
 “ It does not seem like you have lost any air, ” Roland says, “ so I think there is no worry for a leak anyway. Now let's go to the king. ” 
 
 Before he follows Andy picks up the roll of tape from the tray, he likes to use it for making funny faces. They walk through big halls, Roland walks fast as he hardly weighs anything, Andy struggles with the wobbly floor that gives way for his weight at every step. Mackswoon tells him how they needed five men to carry him to the infirmary, he is much heavier than they had expected. 
 
 “ How much air have you taken in, to make you so heavy, ” he asks. 
 
 Andy just laughs and shrugs, following him through even more halls. 
 
 “ how big is this castle anyway, ” he asks when they come to yet another hall. 
 
 “ Very big, ” Roland replies ” but this is where we need to be. 
 
 He says it as they enter the hall, the light is brighter in here than in most other halls. A long table is placed right in the middle of the room, it is filled with platters of the finest fruits, vegetables and meats, things Andy has never seen before. At the far end of the table is a gilded chair, as everything in this world it seems to be inflatable. The chair has a beautiful crown painted on it's backrest, it must be the king's chair but no king is sitting in it, for now it is empty. The chair to the left of that one is not empty. A small plump girl sits there, she has not noticed the men walking in. Everything about her seems round, her cute little nose, her luscious red lips, her rosy cheeks, her pale bosom and her big round behind. 
 
 She seems peaceful until she notices the men walking in. Suddenly she springs up from the table, as fast as her legs will allow she runs out of the room. Ser Roland seems to be shocked by the girls behavior but he keeps quiet about it. Suddenly the hall the princess has just entered echoes with a sound reminiscent of a balloon being deflated. It is only moments later when the girl reappears. All of the lovely plumpness that Andy had found so pleasant about the the girl has suddenly vanished, now she just look skinny. Her skinny nose, her flat lips, her fallen cheeks, her bosom which has collapsed and her flat behind, it is all just not as appealing to Andy, even though the girl had not lost her lovely glow and perky radiance. As she reenters she comes walking towards Andy and Ronald this time. 
 
 “ You must be ser Andy, ” she says bowing and extending her hand “ I am princess Ionica ”. 
 
 “ Just Andy, ” he replies while he takes hold of her hand and plants a light kiss on her fingers. 
 
 Watching all those movies about he middle ages has taught me more about courtesy at court than anything else ever could have, he thinks to himself, he just never could have dreamed that he would ever be able to put it to use. 
 As their eyes meet they become locked in each others gaze, for what seems to be forever. The king comes walking into the hall, a quick tap on his shoulder from Roland snaps Andy loose from Ionica's eyes. 
 
 “ Your majesty, ” Roland says it while bowing so deep his hair touches the floor, “ I give you ser Andy of... Where are you from, ” he whispers anxiously to Andy. 
 
 “ Hillside, ” is Andy's answer. 
 
 “ Ser Andy of Hillside, ” Roland continues. “ Before you stands Lonnie Fresh, king of the Windy lands. ” 
 
 The king walks up to him in that same funny way everyone here seems to walk. He shakes Andy's hand and bids him to sit down at the table. 
 “ Tell me, ” the king says, “ what are you really? You look human and you seem human but my physician tells me there is more inside of you then air alone. ” 
 
 Andy takes a sip of water from his inflatable drinking horn. 
 
 “ Where I come from everybody is like me, ” he says. 
 
 “ Fascinating, so alike and yet so different, there must be no foul air between our kingdoms, ” the king says while raising his cup. ” 
 
 “ I would not know of a reason why there would be, ” Andy answers reaching his horn to the king's cup. 
 
 “ Well reason we have plenty, ” the king responds, pulling his cup back before they can toast. “ You did enter the royal palace without permission, an offense that would be punishable by death in any other circumstances. ” 
 
 Andy is shocked by that, he did not mean to give any offense, he was sucked into the castle, it was not his fault. When he tells the king how he came here he agrees, the boy is not to be blamed for an offense he did not know he was giving. 
 
 “ Friends, ” the king says raising his cup again. 
 
 This time they do toast, the king urges Andy to eat. When he takes a grape from one of the plates it is as he had feared, inflatable fruit. The turkey legs and pork chops, all inflatable too, they look so good but they have no taste to him nor any nutritional value. He will stay hungry for now. Princess Ionica looks at him all through the dinner, she does not say a word, all she does is smile at him and eat. When they are done the king bids Roland and Ionica to stay while he takes Andy on a tour. They walk through the castle, through even more halls then they had shown him before. The king takes him up into a tower with long winding steps, when they reach the top he is breathing heavy. The king does not breath, just like the others, they keep all of their air inside. 
 
 At the top of the steps they find a balcony, it looks out over green lands as far as the eye can see. The king tells him that his lands are now at peace but that they have n't always been. A great war raged some ten years ago, it destroyed much of his lands and even took his wife from him. When the enemy, the inhabitants of the Prickly islands, came and used their giant porcupines in battle, shot their spikes into the inflated cities and skewered everyone in their path, the queen got hit by a spike meant for the king. She deflated so fast that she could not be saved. If someone loses a little bit of air it is no problem, even if they lose almost all their air they can still survive, but if the air does not get replenished very quickly they die. 
 
 The queen died and it sent the king into a blind rage, he decreed that anyone who managed to push the enemy back would be given a place at his court. Many answered the call but all failed. Only one managed to do it, the wizard named Listig. He told everyone he had heard of an imminent attack by the islanders. In the middle of the night he started summoning giant inflatable wolves and bears, they did not move but he told the people that when the porcupines would see the enormous versions of their natural enemies they would scatter and run. Well enough they did run and the king pushed them all the way back to their own island from where they brokered a peace treaty. 
 
 The wizard got a prominent position of power within the kingdom but soon the king started realizing that the wizard had been working together with the islanders all along. He sold resources from the Windy Lands for a bargain to the Prickly Islanders and almost bankrupted the kingdom that way. Too pay off part of the debts the kingdom was left with, by Listig, they sold mines and quarries to Prickly corporations. Many times the king tried to remove the wizard from power but his magic is too strong. 
 
 “ You were unhurt by ser Roland's weapon, ” the king explains, “ there is a prophecy about one that is filled with much more than air, weapons do not hurt him, magic does not hurt him, he will bring peace and prosperity to the Windy Lands once again. ” 
 
 The king puts a hand on Andy's shoulder while they both look out over the green plains. 
 
 “ Please save my kingdom from the mistakes I made and I will make you king of the Windy Lands. ”
