text: [Themes: Food, Fantasy, violence, fantasy violence, magic, queen, ghost, child protagonist, Arthurian, unreliable narrator]
  
  > Go downward
  What's that balled in your throat? A lump?
  
  My dear, gulp down your fear and jump!
  
  Skyward you leap, earthward you fall, and with a leafy smash you crash into the salad greens crowning the castle gardener.
  Courtyard (atop Jenny Lettucehead)
  Sweet nectar, what supreme salad is this! Arugula, ripe tomatoes, avocados in creamy halves, croutons larger than cannonballs, diced apples and poached pears and parmesan sprinkled as liberal as you please. Olives roll underneath your feet, toasted walnuts might stub your toes, everything's drizzled well with truffle oil vinaigrette.
  
  Jenny's not unaware you're on her head. She groans aloud.
  
  > eat Jenny
  With vegetation all around, you dive forward into the ground: no ground at all, but leaves layered on leaves enwrapping Jenny's giant head. Burrow and bite. Your jaws find purchase everywhere. Shred, swallow, shred, swallow again. Claw clumps and gobble them until they're gone.
  
  Vines slither heavenward to dislodge you.
  
  > eat Jenny
  Now what's this underneath your gobbled greens: alfalfa sprouts? They burst through shredded foliage, unfurling budded follicles. Fistfuls are yours to yank and chomp, devouring more than bushels would bind, than bales would hold. You'll have more, more arugula, more lettuce leaves, more salad greens.
  
  What's that? Not long enough? Jenny's vines strain to reach you and she roars.
  
  > eat Jenny
  Your jaws drip mulch. Fibers entwine your teeth. You crunch more lettuce leaves, you eat more salad greens, you dive deeper until you bite broccoli. Florets forest another layer under the arugula: raw, steamed, cheddar-dipped, creamed broccoli, varieties that vanish down your throat in a twinkling.
  
  Oh she's displeased, mighty displeased!
  
  > eat Jenny
  Burrow more and asparagus reveal their rainbow stalks. They're lattice-laced beneath the lettuce leaves, tinged with ultramarine and rosy pink, finely stippled, mauve and azure, dripping butter with every bite. Firm, exquisite asparagus, prepare to be swallowed.
  
  Eat, eat, darling. Delay for nothing now you're on her head.
  
  > eat Jenny
  Caterpillars at their most industrious would struggle to chew rifts such as you have through Jenny's head. She's pockmarked, semi-circles edging each hole bitten by your teeth. Leaves strain under your weight. You're sinking deeper into her salad. Layers collapse, veined networks shred, branches batter your face as you tumble past lettuce leaves.
  Inside Jenny Lettucehead
  At her core Jenny's chambered; roots trace through her walls; and what should beat amongst her leaves but an artichoke heart.
  
  > eat the heart
  Yes, ma'am, even a peck...  a pickled pepper peck...  enough to feed
  their
  little mouths...  what I'd give for a pear...  apples, an artichoke...  oh please, ma'am, just one lettuce head...  as you wish, my darling.
  Her heart is yours.
  Green torrents pour into your gut, vines rooted to the artichoke you've devoured. Jenny's screaming. Her leaves heave as you gnash inside, lettuce funneled into your throat, your jaws chomping to engulf carrots, onions, and cherries. Maize kernels pop. Your arms are vinaigrette-slathered, reaching to guide more salad into your stomach.
  
  She's reaching too: her tendrils cling to trellises. Down they topple. Her vines enwrap the balcony; down cracks the balcony. She drags cabbages wailing from their nurseries. Vegetables, fruit: the garden's gone; one final vine flickers outside your lips until you slurp it down, and burp, and contemplate the silent night.
  Sixth course: eaten.
  Courtyard
  What was a garden's now nothing but parched soil.
  
  Through a quadrant above, you can see stars.
  
  Northward, the balance gallery; southward, the gate.
  
  > wait
  You consume time.
  
  As you stand in the gallery, the floor sinks, and chains click
  click click click click click behind walls. Contraptions groan, balances shift, and the great golden door rises. Mist sparkling with frost rolls over the threshold. Snowflakes brush past your cheeks. Bright light streams from the space beyond.
  
  Northward, the castle's chapel is open.
  
  > go to the north
  My dear, look at you! I could shed a tear. You've done it, conquered the castle, cleaned out the rooms as a good child ought to clean a plate. Only the greatest eaters pass the balance gallery, and you've proven your stomach's worth. You are a champion.
  
  Come, come, my sweet darling, approach.
  
  You might have finished dinner, but there's still dessert.
  Chapel
  Everything's laid for you, my dear. You're brilliant, bathed in rainbows shot through stained-sherbet windows. No matter where you look, ice cream shimmers. Popsicles drip and glisten from loggias overhead. I couldn't be more proud to see you now.
  
  A luscious fur's draped across the altar.
  
  > examine the windows
  Transmuted moonbeams glide through frozen panes. Each sherbet panel's frosted with colors that flood the chapel with soft pastel light.
  
  > examine the ice
  Supreme scoops sprinkled with sprinkles and swirled with fudge, spotted with chocolate chips, topped with whipped cream and bright red cherries.
  
  > examine the popsicles
  Arched galleries surround the room, bound by iced rails that onlookers might lean upon, and from their lower ledges hang the longest and most mesmerizing popsicles. Each tip sparkles.
  
  > examine the fur
  You wouldn't think a rodent would have such sumptuous fur, but this royal fur's better groomed than any mortal king's coiffure. It's found a higher purpose here than its skinned bearer could have given it. Now what it needs is something fitting to adorn its spread.
  
  Just one tip from my golden virge and—la!—a shining droplet falls. There's a soft hiss, and then a jeweled cup steams where it struck the altar.
  
  > look at the cup
  Rose-red with beatings in it, as if the drink were alive, all the walls in the chapel dyed with rosy colors leaping from the cup. It's haloed, holy, and it's yours.
  
  > eat it
  As you lift the chalice, what's inside shines bright as fire, and you start to tingle as you sip the hot beverage. It's something that you've never tasted, very sweet and foamy and creamy, and it warms you right down to your toes.
  
  What you've imbibed is power. Nothing else compares.
  
  > get the fur
  Your veins burn and your eyes blaze from the drink. Give it a moment longer and your vision will torch holes through this realm's veil. You see, darling, you've never been alone, not even when you found yourself enchained in the dungeon. I've charmed each challenge and chamber especially to test your appetite. My hosts have been your spectators. Now you'll perceive them too.
  
  > wait awhile
  Here, dear, I'll guide your gaze aloft: there they are in the loggias, crowding to gain a better view. Their grey faces and hairy hands and glittering, flittering wings unfold from hidden regions as your perception sharpens. What rascals, slapping their knees with delight. Oh, how they hoot and howl to see you sweat!
  
  You are sweating rather a lot.
  
  This chapel's grown from cold to piping hot. Popsicles trickle. Ice cream melts. Sherbet runs into puddles that bubble, and your pores ooze grease thick enough to fork. You're sweltering.
  
  > eat the ice
  Hold still. You need more time to cook. You're roasting as the chamber roasts. Flames lick your flanks. That scintillating scent is your own sausage sizzling. You ought to see yourself, darling. You'd salivate. You're absolutely succulent. Every instant, your glistening flesh plumps more wonderfully.
  
  > Go south
  Listen to those hurrahs! There's mayhem in the loggias, cheers and trumpets and whistling, and down they pour to surround you with revelry. At long last, you're crisped perfectly. Your steaming pork begins to cool, although your fat's still popping as it fries inside your skin, and every courtier bows to kiss the ground beneath your hooves. They're groveling in your honor.
  
  I knew, as soon as your hunger had summoned me, that you'd triumph.
  
  > Wait
  From this hour, you'll sit at my elbow. Your childhood, your innocence, your past's been baked away, but you've no need for such burdens. I'll cover you with fragrant cloves instead. It's the rare mortal that ascends to the Sugarplum Fairy's court. Only a handful in a hundred years have managed it, and you've made them a mouthful this evening.
  
  But years are mere nothings.
  
  Let hundreds, even thousands pass.
  
  One night another starving soul will dream a road to my castle, and I'll dress every chamber with candy, fly bacon standards from spires that stretch into the stars. As long as stomachs grumble, mouths must eat. We'll always have a feast.