It was a nice palace, I will give it that. The marble and sandstone walls were quite dazzling. But nothing was as flashy as the horse-thing that approached our cage. He wore a jeweled crown, silks adorned his body and a bright pink and purple scarf hung loosely from his neck. A slick pair of sunglasses covered his eyes.

“Prince Aro Dibala,” one of the camels greeted the horse. “We bring you two more slaves.”

“Oh good!” Aro replied in a high voice. “I need them oh so desperately for act 3!”

To my surprise we were released from our cage. I stared at the prince wondering what he meant by act 3.

“Follow me ponies,” he said. “I have a special position for you!”

I noticed Grey eying me and I glared back at her. There was no way in hell I was going to let her touch me. I would rather die in some arena fighting a lion.

To both of our surprise, Aro Dibila led us to a stage. A wide arrange of creatures, including a few ponies, were practicing their lines.

“This is not what I expected,” Grey said. A hint of disappointment in her voice.

“The slaves usually say that when they arrive,” Aro Dibila chuckled. “I am curious, what did you think would be your fate when you arrived?”

I replied first before Grey could give him any ideas. “I was expecting large gladiatorial battles and manual labor.”

“Oh no-no! That is terrible!” The prince trotted onto the stage and we followed. “We would never do anything like that! I am only interested in creating the most amazing plays and theater productions.”

“Guinness and me are brilliant when it comes to story ideas!” Grey smiled widely. “We could help you.”

“Is that so?” Aro stopped and looked at us critically. “I would love to hear some of your ideas! Follow me to my office.”

His office, it turned out, was just a massive bedroom dedicated to theatre. Though, when you are the son of royalty you can have whatever room you want. He told us to sit at a small table as he retrieved pens and paper from a chest. He handed some to me and Grey.

“I will leave you two alone to work.” He started to leave. “I will be back in a few hours to hear what you have come up with.”

I watched him go and realised that I was now alone with Grey. I looked over at her and the mare was already watching me lustfully.

“You can write a dirty romance skit and I will work on a broadway masterpiece.” I moved to the opposite end of the table. “No talking to me. I need to concentrate.”

In truth there was very little mental energy involved with taking famous movies and plays and twisting them together into the most amazing stories ever made. The only thing I had to overcome was the guilt I felt for desecrating the legends of storytelling. I am going to hell.

When I was done I had created something that would probably bear the title back on Earth, The Pirates of Steampunk Middle Earth Fight the Evil Empire on a Planet Full of Apes While the World Falls Into a Post Apocalyptic State. Here I just called it, The Last Battle of the Star Wanderers. Don’t ask me why I named it that. Sounded cool.

I looked over at Grey. Her paper was still mostly empty and she looked at the page with a sad puppy dog expression. She was so adorable when depressed and not trying to rape me.

“Want to read through and tweak it a bit?” I asked trying to cheer her up.

It worked. Grey’s face lit up like the Fourth of July. “Oh yes I would love to!”

I gave her the papers and she skimmed through them, occasionally changing something but mostly too enthralled to stop reading my masterpiece. Eventually she set it down and stared at me.

“That was amazing!” The look in her eyes disturbed me. “I am so hot for you right now.”

The door swung open, thank God, and Aro Dibila entered.

“I am excited to see what you two have created.” Grey gave him the papers. The Prince immediately started to read through it.

I watched his face grow more and more excited as he got deeper and deeper into the plot. He finished and stared at the two of us, speechless.

“What did you think?” I asked.

“This is the most amazing story ever!” He hugged the script close to his chest like a newfound treasure.

“I wrote it,” Grey chimed up. I snapped my attention to her. “He just sat there and scribbled.”

“Lies!” I dove across the table and pinned her against a wall. She just smiled at me. “I wrote it! Me!”

She said nothing but tried to lick my nose affectionately. I jumped back and glared at her.

“Girl, you are crazy!”

“Aww,” Aro coed. “You two are a cute couple! Is the romance scene in the play based off of your own tumultuous love?”

“Romance scene?” I looked at the play then back at Grey. “What romance scene? You added a romance scene? Romance scene!”

“Yep!” She smiled widely.

“Why!”

“I think it is wonderful,” the prince was reading through it once again. “It adds depth to the story. I also think both of you would fill the main character and his lover perfectly.”

“Sounds great,” Grey beamed.

I was lost for words, but I could tell that this was probably not going to end well. For me at least.

A month later, the show was sold out and the hall packed to the top with zebras, camels, ponies and giraffes. The Sultan and his wife had showed up as well to see their son’s play. A whole month of practicing my lines now meant nothing as a knot formed in my gut. Even though all I was allowed to do the entire time was practice and talk to Grey about Earth’s movies and plays.

The show went on without a hitch; a wonder that would rival Andrew Lloyd Webber’s finest works was presented in all of its splendor. Then it came to the part that Grey had added in. I was so happy that the final revision for the scene was just me holding her and lightly kissing her while confessing my love and promising that I would return to her. The crazy girl undoubtedly enjoyed the whole thing.

The show ended with me fighting the main villain, killing him, saving Grey’s character but dying heroically in her embrace. When the curtain closed the audience rose and gave us a standing ovation. It was beautiful, if I do say so myself.

Apparently the play was an attempt from Prince Aro to impress his ever scolding father. Parent problems, especially royal ones, are always hard to mend. It worked and he couldn’t stop thanking me and Grey for helping him achieve it. I was starting to feel all warm and fuzzy inside. But after the show as I sat alone in my room, quite a nice one for a slave by the way, the warm fuzzy feeling suddenly was overcome by a burning sensation next to me.

“Good show, Guinness!” A familiar, flamboyant voice chimed up. “Did not label you as the thespian type though.”

I spun around and was shocked to see Sir Win sitting on my bed. The fire haired demon that followed me, Nova and Valiant out of Tartarus was on my list of ponies I did not really care for. He gave us a little trouble back when the three of us had our adventure into Tartarus but ponies liked him now.

“Uh,” I didn’t know what to say. He was a little too close for comfort. “Hi.”

“Hi,” he replied. “I can read your mind. No, I am not a succubus, so don’t get all paranoid. Though, the male succubus position was open for a while. Sounds a little tempting now that I think of it. Too bad I was forced to resign.”

“Why are you here?” I wanted to change the topic as quickly as I could.

“Why are you here?” the demon shot back. “I thought you were looking for some wonderful, shiny can or something?”

“I became a slave to theatre, in the literal sense. Now answer my question please.”

“I am a slave to theatre in a figurative sense, honey.” He smiled widely. “ Does that answer your question?”

I nodded. “So, could you help me escape?”

“Why would you want to escape?” Sir Win stood up and approached me. “You are living quite a nice life here.”

“Not really,” I rose from my seat and casually moved away from the flaming pony. “After that success they are making me into the full time playwright. And I have to work with Grey the whole time! Save me!”

“I am not very good at ‘saving’ ponies,” Sir Win laughed. “If you know what I mean.”

I stared blankly at him. “Classic demon joke. Haha. But seriously, get me out of here.”

“Fine,” he rolled his eyes. “But you will owe me something and I will get it.”

I gulped, “my soul?”

“Oh Tartarus no!” The demon shook his head violently. “I’ve just been sticking to the ones I find lying around. Do you know the trouble I would get in if I made a deal for a soul with my demon license revoked?”

“A lot?”

“That is a severe understatement! I would be hoofed over to the Punishers, chained to a post, whipped with leather whips... you know what? That doesn’t sound too bad.”

I shook my head slowly, disturbed. “So can we go now?”

Sir Win seemed upset that I had disrupted his thought about being whipped. “Oh, I guess. What about that mare you’re writing the plays with? Are you going to leave that poor girl alone here?”

“Hell yeah!” I laughed. “Plus, I told her many of my, uh, ideas. So she will be good on plot lines for a while.”

“Sounds good then.” Sir Win popped his neck. “Lets do this.”

Before I could react, he lunged at me, wrapped his hooves around my neck and pulled me into a fiery pit that opened up beneath us.

I screamed the entire way down.