[Diamond18]

After making her way ever so slowly across the room in a mode that was reminiscent of a Baywatch spinoff series titled “DenimBandedDiamondPlatedWristwatch”, Diamond picked up a giant soft-pretzel covered in sugar and cinnamon, and sat down at The Saucepan Man’s table. They had a rousing good one-way conversation for a time, and then Sophia joined them. The Saucepan Man dazzled them with his catalogue of bad puns (not to mention his oft mentioned shiny accoutrements). Diamond groaned at the terrific awfulness of the word play, and rewarded him with a booking or two all the while.

Sophia eventually could not stand the magnificence of Saucepan Man’s poor paronomasia, and got up to work mischief in other quarters. Along came a Mirkwood Elf by the name of LinGalad, who politely introduced himself and begged for the pleasure of listening to the witty dialogue.

Diamond was momentarily distracted as she noticed Sophia filching a bottle of ‘Mudwater to feed to her unsuspecting (well, maybe he was a little suspicious) friend Fin. Diamond watched in anticipation for the fainting spell which usually occurred, but was flummoxed to see the Elf Lord down three glasses of the nocuous liquid with a few debonair devil-may-care gulps. “Amazing,” she murmured under her breath. “I’ve seen grown Elves and Men and Half-Elves and Half-Men become temporary amnesiacs at the mere sniff of the stuff!”

These manly (or I should say, elfy) drinking heroics became dull after a moment or two, however, and she turned her attention back to her tablemates.

“I’m quite glad you joined us, LinGalad,” The Saucepan Man said with a snicker, obviously enjoying his day in the sun before the most anticipated arrival of Stephanos "The Punwraith Fugitive" Rimbaud. Then it occurred to Diamond that perhaps Rimbaud’s absence did indeed have something to do with justice finally catching up with him. (For anyone who changes names at the drop of a frogleg does indeed deserve to be detained by grey-clad men and beaten soundly with flaming trout).

“Thank you, I’ve been lurking for a while,” LinGalad explained, bringing Diamond's wandering mind back to the sort-of present, “but it’s nice to mingle for a change.”

“Eh?” Saucepan cupped a hand to his ear. “You say you need change for a single?”

Diamond groaned, then turned in her chair, so that the radiance from her diamond-studded mithril necklace would bounce off the mirrorball into his pans and up into his eyes, just so. He winced, wondering why sitting with Diamond always had to be so painful.

At that moment the magically changing music changed once again, and over the speakers blared Third Eye Blind singing, Blinded, quickly followed by Manfred Man belting out Blinded By the Light and so and so and so forth, till every song that had ever been written that dealt with loss of sight had played. This didn’t take as long as you’d think.