"But I can not marry you in that form," she protested. "Also, I would not enjoy living on this isle, without benefit of castle and servants."

"Are you sure you don't want to return you to your castle?" he asked. "There at least you will have the princessly things to which you are accustomed."

"No, for my father the King would be most wroth with me for betraying his ambush, and my mother the Queen told me not to return."

The dragon pondered. "I do have two remaining transformation spells," he said after a moment. "I could use them to transform us to similar creatures. Would you like to be a dragoness?"

"And eat people? I prefer not. What about a more benign form, such as a unicorn?"

"You are enamored of unicorns?" he asked, surprised.

"Naturally. All innocent young women are."

"Then I shall make us both unicorns," he said. "That way, we shall be recognized by neither of our kingdoms and will be able to range here on the Isle of View."

"I love you too," she agreed.

Then he invoked the spells, and he became a fine handsome unicorn stallion who looked rather like the Night Stallion with a horn, and she became a lovely unicorn mare who resembled the night mare Nectaris. They lived happily ever after, and it never stormed there, for their love made all clouds fleecy and all rains gentle, no matter how ardently those clouds might wish to be otherwise.

"What do you think?" Chex inquired as the sweet dream ended. "Will that horrify Fracto?"

The stallion shook his head. "We have no experience with this sort of thing. You would have to ask the day mares."

"I don't think so," she said. "We are dealing with reverse psychology here."

"Fracto hates being balked," Grundy said. "And he hates sweetness. It should infuriate him."

"Let's hope so," Chex said. "We shall just have to try it. I thank you gourd folk for your effort, even if it does not prove effective."

The stallion glanced at Mare Nectaris. "Take that dream to Fracto," he said. "We shall watch its effect."

Mare Nectaris touched the dream capsule with her nose. It vanished. Then she leaped through the roof of the pavilion and galloped through the air toward the monstrous cloud.

The pavilion faded out. It was light on the surface of the moon, but there seemed to be a spell to make the group of them invisible, so Fracto would not know. Chex was interested to see that moonlight did not bother the night mares, but she realized that this was logical, as they had always gone abroad at night, whether the moon was in sight or hiding.

The mare disappeared into the darkness surrounding the malignant cloud, but Fracto himself remained visible. He was snoozing, which meant he was just right for delivery of the dream. Chex suffered increasing doubts: could this wild notion succeed? A sweet dream to a mean cloud?