Ravish Me, Oh Great Wizard King!!!

Mira entered the house from the french doors and threw her carry-on to the floor in disgust.

Whipping her leather jacket off, she dropped it on the ottoman and ran full-speed up the stairs two steps at a time, into the nearest shower.

The initial spray of water was ice cold.

Mira did not flinch. She felt nothing.

The jet spray gradually warmed to a comfortable level. As steam rose from inside the glass shower stall, Mira's soul began to thaw. The water droplets hit her face and body with enough force to warm her back into this side of reality.

Slowly, without any emotion, she began to strip off her soaked clothes.

Mira was a modern woman born in this modern era. Even though she possessed zero magikal abilities and knew so very little about Ashrya, it did not mean that she was a weak, incompetent mental idiot.

One thing she knew for sure. She could no longer keep waiting for her prince charming to come for her, or save her from everything dangerous out there. There had to be something that she could do, given her advantage of having been born into the space-age.

With that realization came a fierce determination.

She truly needed to become stronger. She needed to be strong enough so that she could take care of herself. And heavens forbid, if prince charming was the one who needed help, she could stand up and grab the bogbull by the horns and spin it around.

What the hell was she doing, sitting around and waiting like a weakling? She wasn't a nobody.

Didn't Zander give her a crown? Didn't he give her the f*cking keys to the kingdom?

Fake it till you make it, Baby. It was time to act like the Queen she was.

It would be ten hours till dawn. She still had time.

Mira got out of the shower and quickly dried herself. Then she slipped into a long-sleeved black tee and threw on the only pair of black jeans she owned. It had a few ripped holes at the knee, but Mira didn't care. This was not the time for niceties.

She ran a brush through her damp hair and tied it up into a long ponytail. Forget regal beehives with fancy hair jewels---until she found her man, ain't nobody got time for that.

She ran back down the stairs, the automatic house lights flooding on before each footstep. The Hello Kitty carry-on was still plopped on the floor where she threw it.

Grabbing it with both hands, she popped open the latch and threw out the bag of medical supplies.

F*ck this sh*t. She needed the space for more important things.

She shut the lid with a click and dragged the carry-on back up the stairs, into the media room.

Oh Lord, please let the combination still be the same…

'Click'

Whew. Mira exhaled with relief. Her birthday was still the key code to access the gun safe that was mostly hidden behind the fake potted areca palms.

Father had been an enthusiastic hunter, but he also owned a few handguns for self-defense. As the only girl in the family, there was no choice but to accompany him on his hunting trips, and eventually, to the shooting range. As a result, at the age of twelve, she was one of the youngest sharpshooters in her age range.

It had been awhile since she'd gone back to the shooting range, but it was something she could quickly pick back up again if needed.

As the door to the gun safe swung open, Mira caught a whiff of the scent of gunpowder. It brought back plenty of memories of her younger competition days. She never thought she'd ever use the skill again in her lifetime, but it looked as if the time had come.

Without hesitation, Mira grabbed her Victoria Pink 9mm Glock and her little black S&M 38 special. She traced her fingers over the pink and white hello kitty decal her father had custom emblazoned on the grips of her Glock and tears sprang to her eyes.

The running joke of the family had been to give her all sorts of things with Hello Kitty on them. At the time it was a bit of a funny annoyance, but now...she treasured every Hello Kitty thing she owned.

The Glock had been her father's gift to her on her 21st birthday, and she had been training with it for a few years now. It felt good in her hands.

With grim determination, Mira checked the action of the Glock and strapped it into its holster. She spun the barrel of the 38 revolver, and slid it into the other holster.

Now for ammo.

Mira took stock of the ammo that was in the safe and began grabbing as many boxes as she could carry. Then she stuffed them into the Hello Kitty carry-on until it was full.

She filled all the spare cartridges she had and slid them into the spare pockets of the holster. Then she strapped it to her waist.

Just for laughs, she also strapped a 12" kukri machete onto her right thigh and shoved a jackknife into the side pocket of the gun holster. Although people always say, don't bring a knife to a gun fight, it never hurts to have a knife on hand….just in case she needed to peel an apple….or to poke someone's eye out.

She stood up. The holster was a bit weighty, but it didn't bother her. The carry-on however, was hella heavy. Good thing it had nice heavy duty spinner wheels so she could drag its heavy ass instead of carrying it on her back like some other carry-ons.

She went back downstairs to grab a few more essentials---a handful of meal replacement bars, a lighter, a slim pen flashlight with extra batteries, some indestructible paracord rope, and a few items that had been delivered earlier that day---all these went into another side pocket of the carry-on.

From deep inside one of her closets, she found black waterproof camping boots, which she promptly wore. A second pair of dark sunglasses went into the sleeve pocket of her leather jacket, which she also threw on.

Then she sat back on the couch and closed her eyes. She needed rest in order to be at her best come twilight, but her adrenaline was kicking so hard, she was shaking.

Even though she knew that she could not sleep at all, Mira still set her wrist watch for pre-dawn. She could not miss another twilight portal.

For hours, she played the 'wave interference' game inside her head, trying to bump up the value of the waves...trying to get the waves to swell larger and larger with each successive try.

Dawn shimmered into view without a sound.