A/N: A retelling of the movie "Conan: the Barbarian" for kinder, gentler audience.

Bedtime Stories: Greets, Eats Meats and Beats

"You've only got a few minutes before the Armatros will be here to pick you up" Loftus Sparrow told his young daughter. "Are you excited to go on your first sleepover?"

Survey considered the question. "Yeah, but it's a little scary too. And I'm going to miss your bedtime story" she lamented.

"Well, if they're on time we should just have enough time for me to tell you a story before you go. I'll tell you about Conan; he was a young boy who left home for the first time too."

"Okay" Survey smiled and settled into her chair. "Don't let the Armatros in until you finish the story, okay?"

...

Our story begins with a narrator who begins by telling us Conan goes on to become a king, which means it takes all the suspense out of him possibly dying. Then we see a man with lots of hair making a sword without catching himself on fire, which is good since they didn't have OSHA back then. This man explains to his son Conan that he shouldn't trust anyone, and to only trust in steel; using it was a skill that man got after some deities fought and Crom left the secrets to using it behind.

Then as if to prove his point about not trusting anyone, some bad men showed up in their village and told everyone that no one was allowed to live in the village anymore. Well, they didn't tell them in words so much but I think everyone got the point. But to show that maybe they weren't all bad, they sent all the barbarian kids to camp.

"Didn't the parents object to the kids going to camp?" Survey asked.

"Well, let's just say none of them said 'No' to the idea" Loftus answered.

So the kids went to camp, but it was really far away and out in the middle of nowhere so when they wanted this big merry-go-round to turn around all the kids had to push it themselves. And Conan must have been there a long time because he got older and really big and strong, sort of like when people pay lots of money to join a gym and only go a few weeks and quit except he kept working and getting stronger. Pretty soon he was incredibly strong and was the only one left pushing the wheel, which makes you wonder about his diet, what he was eating and where all the other kids went and hopefully the two weren't related.

He finally became an expert in pushing in circles and a coach came along and gave him a chance to learn other stuff, like how to fight in an enclosed space where lots of people gathered around and yelled and bet money and somebody probably had to clean up blood and stuff afterwards.

"Like that movie Rollerball?"

"Without the wheels or the ball" Loftus corrected.

"Oh, so more like boxing then."

Conan got good at that too, so his coach took him to another place where he could learn even more about fighting, because it's easy to get into a fight but it's a lot more complicated to win every time. Conan got to practice with lots of sharp things that were usually made of steel, learned how to read poetry and then learned why women were so fun. It was all good and he even proved he could speak by saying a few words but one day his coach told him to go away and pursue independent study so that he could get even better, although it was in the middle of the night and kind of done in secret. So Conan ran away.

The first thing he learned was how to run away from a pack of dogs. Then he fell into a cave where he found a lot of old skeletons; one of them had a sword he took because the skeleton probably didn't need it anymore. He felt better with the sword and it was a lot better than trying to hit things with rocks, so he left there all bundled up in fur to go searching for the men that made him go to camp.

"I thought they said on the television that furs were bad" Survey frowned.

"This was before they invented clothing sweatshops, so sometimes fur was all people had to wear to keep warm despite what PETA might tell you."

He met a nice lady who was willing to give him directions to Zamora where he might find the men he was looking for, but not until he filled her in on a few things - well, filled her in on one thing anyway. So he said a few more words, but she had a change of heart and a change of a few other things and flew off in a rage.

The next morning he found a prisoner named Subotai who claimed to be a thief and an archer. Conan must have missed him because he was so, er, distracted with the lady the previous day. He freed Subotai and they sat down and ate some meat while they had a deep theological discussion that ended up like most other discussions of that nature do, with no clear answers but at least Conan said a few more words. They ran night and day to a small town named 'Civilization' and walked through it, eating meat and complaining about the smell. Then they ran some more to the next town, which looked a lot like the other one and without a Michelin Guide you couldn't tell them apart but you could still eat meat. And each town had a Tower of Set, kind of like there are Starbucks today.

Then Conan and Subotai met a woman who acted like a really good fighter, so they teamed up to steal from the snake tower. While the woman went to go watch a church service they were having, the two men stole a pretty gem and Conan started to sweat it just a little, waking up their big pet snake. They convinced the snake to retire after introducing it to the sport of archery and escaped with the jewels while inventing high diving at the same time.

"I didn't know Conan could swim" Survey noted.

"Maybe he didn't know he could either, since that was the first water we hear about in the whole story."

Afterward everyone is eating meat again and Conan gave the woman the biggest jewel, because he knew that sometimes they like that even more than poetry. She thanked him several times after that while they were testing out how soft the blankets were. But they were famous for what they had done, and King Osric wanted to hire them for a tricky job. The same bad man, Thulsa Doom, that made Conan leave his village also took the King's daughter and even though there was no Mann Act at the time, Osric wanted her back. Subotai and the woman, who we still haven't learned her name yet, said no but Conan remembered the bad man and wanted to tell him how much he missed his village and family. So he dressed warmly...

"More furs?"

"More furs."

...and Conan traveled across mountains and snow towards the temple of Thulsa Doom by himself. Then he came to a lot of water and some burial grounds where he met a wizard who told him about the place while they ate some meat and Conan said a few words. Conan borrowed a camel without punching it and rode to a place a lot like Woodstock but without the music, where he borrowed a priest's robes and tried to sneak into the temple but got caught. Then Thulsa Doom's assistants beat Conan up to impress their boss, and then Conan spoke more at one time than he did in the whole story to let Doom know why he came to the temple. So Doom commands that they turn Conan into a Christmas ornament, but Subotai and Valeria...

"Who's Valeria?" Survey questioned.

"That's the woman fighter that they met but we didn't know her name."

"Then how do you know it?"

"I looked it up afterward."

"Oh. That makes sense."

...so they find him and take Conan back to the wizard and asked him to get special help, but instead he drew graffiti all over Conan's body and then left him out in a storm and some clouds tried to get him but Valeria and Subotai fought them off to make the storm go away. Afterward you could tell Conan was better again because he didn't talk much and they all went back to get King Osric's daughter after putting on makeup.

They snuck into Doom's non-union factory and saw a lot of safety violations with questionable meat and followed a big bowl of hand-made soup or laundry (which would explain where all the missing clothes on the people went) into another room that had other risky business going on. Valeria found King Osric's daughter and convinces her to come with them with the help of a backhand and some rope while Doom slithered away. He comes back with a game cheat and uses a guided poison arrow to shoot Valeria, who knew she had it coming anyway because she made a deal to bring Conan back from near death by the cloud things.

"Couldn't she get a good lawyer like you daddy, and not have to die?"

"Sorry Survey, but there wasn't any fine print or appeals court to hear the case" her father explained.

Her last words were how cold she was, so Conan warmed things up with a fire and then really got talkative and discussed weather with Subotai before they made some home improvements to the burial grounds. They put the king's daughter up high in a good place to see the fight, and waited until the bad guys showed up and welcomed them with open weapon-bearing arms. So they got rid of the bad guys one by one until just the important ones were left, then Valeria made a cameo as an Wagner opera singer to make sure the bad guys died fairly and they all did except for Doom who rode away.

Back at his temple, Doom held a pep rally for his followers. Conan showed up and Doom tried to talk his way out of it but the hero knew that the matter had come to a head and it wasn't his. Then the followers made the fire marshal happy and put out their torches before someone else got hurt and they all left and Conan took the daughter back home to King Osric. Then Conan the barbarian and his friends went away and did some other stuff that wasn't in the story but they promise us they will tell that story one day.

...

Outside, Loftus and Survey could hear a car door slam and footsteps coming up the walkway. "I know what happened. He got tired of eating meat all the time and he became a baker and invented a special dessert" Survey said with an impish grin.

"I'm afraid to ask, but okay: What kind of dessert?"

"Barbarian creme pie!"

The doorbell rang. "And not a moment too soon" Loftus said as he hugged his daughter. "Have fun, Survey."

"I will, Daddy. Don't stay up too late reading case briefs."

The End

A/N: This whole story came about when I got tongue-tied and said "Barbarian creme pie" when I meant "Bavarian". I liked the sound of it, so of course it needed a story to go with it and since I never saw the movie before I gave it a watch before writing.