"What?" the stallion asked.

"A low neckline." Chex drew a finger across her breasts to indicate where the line crossed the upper swell of them. "Human folk pay a good deal of attention to that line, as they do to the bottom line."

"Ah, yes. We have a financial stress section where we fashion dreams for export to Mundania. Wrong bottom lines are—"

"I meant the hem of the skirt. The higher it is, the more intriguing it seems to be to human folk."

"Yeah," Grundy breathed. "You ever look at Nada Naga's top and bottom lines, when she's in human form?"

"This is an odd business, exploring human desires instead of human fears," the stallion grumbled. But he rousted up the clothing, and in due course the naked actors were suitably clothed.

Chex had the Princess and man stand near the castle, said "take one," and started the narration.

It did not go perfectly, and they did have to do a take two for some of it, but overall Chex was satisfied with the session. In the course of two hours they had the dream in the can, as the stallion put it.

They ran the whole thing through one time to be sure that it was satisfactory. All of them watched, sharing what was perhaps the most positive dream the proprietors of bad dreams had made.

The Princess appeared at the base of the mountain, picking nice flowers. Suddenly the handsome sinister Prince appeared. "Oh!" she exclaimed in Chex's voice. "You startled me!"

"Fear not, lovely creature," the Prince said in Grundy's voice. "I have not come to hurt you, but to love you, for you are the most delicious princess I have seen."

The Princess turned her big shining eyes on him, flattered. "Others have not found me so. Indeed, I am not married, and I am almost twenty-one."

"I do not regard that as regrettable," the Prince said. "Come, we must get to know each other better."

Soon they knew each other better, for the weather was fair; the only cloud in the scene was so white and fluffy that it would not have been able to rain on anything no matter how hard it tried. Indeed, faced with such excellent weather, they fell in love. "I must tell you something," the Prince said gravely. "And ask you something, which I fear you will not like."

"Oh, I hope it is not that you are not a prince!" she exclaimed, horrified, "or that you do not love me!"

"No, it is neither of these things," he reassured her. "I am indeed a prince, and I do love you. But I fear your love for me will suffer when you hear what I have to say and ask."

The Princess thought that he would say that he was from an enemy kingdom, and that he wished to marry her. Since she was frankly bored with the local scene and found the daily return climb up the mountain to be arduous, she expected to express only token dismay at the prospect, even if her father the King were miffed. "Tell me and ask me, my love," she breathed. She was very good at breathing, and this had been so ever since she turned fourteen and donned an adult off-the-shoulder dress.