Writing Prompt: July 19 - "Choose a lyric from a song and let it inspire you to write a fantasy story."

His armour shone, but only barely. His lance was hanging on by a thread. Literally, he had wrapped the weak spots with threads he had scavenged from sacks and discarded clothing he'd been able to find on his journey here. Not to mention the fact that he showed up with Moscow, his loyal mule, rather than a horse that boasted at least 10 generations of lineage paperwork.

He wore his paltry costume and jostled through the festival crowd with Moscow proudly. Thinking to himself that the rust and pock-marks lent an extra scruffiness to his presentation, and that scruffiness was exactly what the underdog fairytales had taught him would prevail by sunset.

This joust would mean something extra special. This joust would be the determining factor to win his one true love.

All he had to do was win.

Not the joust. Oh, God no, he could barely make it down the crowded main road to where the lists had been roped off without panels coming off his ensemble. Let alone actually get speared. No.

Before the joust even started, he needed to win the heart of his oblivious beloved, Laverne. Oblivious, because 5 years ago, she had been wrested from their childhood home on the other side of the island by the goons who called themselves knights. Word had it she had been taken to the castle's dungeons and been brainwashed by the deranged herbalist that had ingratiated herself to the cousin of the king.

The nuclear Royal family had spoken out publicly against witchcraft and those who practiced it, but as happens, the family members of those with influence tend to operate in the shadows, and quite contrary to what is spoken publicly. This cousin, dirty and grimy as he is, had no qualms about making deals with characters of the underworld. He also fancied Laverne.

If he had learned anything from the old tales (and he clearly had), he knew that there was a romantic gesture sure to break the old hag's spell over his dearest.

He waded patiently and quietly through the registration tables and the practice arenas, and rehearsed his plan as he waited for the parade that would take him (along with all the other contestants) right by the Royal dais.

The horn sounded and he and the others took their spaces in the parade. Moscow rolled his eyes and bleated in consternation - having been placed directly behind a glistening specimen of a contestant and his giant of a stallion and so only having his overly large rear end and male bits to look at.

The dais came ever closer and his heart started to race the closer he got to his lost love.

Finally, his time came. With a flourish, he stood before her, swept his dark strands of hair across his forehead in the unmistakable style of their village, and shouted at the top of his lungs, before belting into song;

"LAVERNE, I LOVE YOU, AND I ALWAYS WANT TO BE WITH YOU. COME WITH ME...

CAUSE TONIGHT WILL BE THE NIGHT YOU FALL IN LOVE WITH ME

OVER AGAIN

DON'T MAKE ME CHANGE MY MIND...."