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Old 01-03-2004, 10:43 PM   #117
Diamond18
Eidolon of a Took
 
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Silmaril

Where the Wild Things Are

Vogonwë did not at first realize that he had fallen through a trap door. He was too busy falling to realize much of anything besides, “Hey! I’m falling!” and remember to curl up into a defensive ball accordingly. (A lesser Elf would have flailed his arms and screamed, but Vogonwë had taken gymnastics lessons in Workmud, where you never know when you’re going to fall into a black hole or what have you. So he was okay.)

After the falling portion, came the hitting-the-ground portion. “That’s going to make a lovely bruise,” he mused as he lay prone on the hard ground, in the dingy dank darkness. “I wonder if I’ve broken something? There must be some internal bleeding, at least.” But after a few moments of self-assessment, he determined that he had no more damage than a few bumps and bruises, so up he sat.

“Precious?” he called. “Precious? Where did you go? Come back, Precious!”

Silence.

(Isn’t that just so dramatic? One word, one paragraph. The spaces on either side lend it such a striking air. It’s not just “silence”, it’s ”Silence”. You can really tell it was silent, just by the formatting!)

Now would be a good time for some well-placed backstory. Unfortunately, Vogonwë had hit his head and was too discombobulated to reflect on the past that had led him to this point. Instead, he assumed a crouching position in the dark, and began to navigate his general area. He lifted his arms above his head and waved them around experimentally, but did not encounter anything (which wasn’t surprising considering that he had just fallen from that general area) so he stood up. He put his arms out to either side of him, and felt the cool, slightly gritty surface of cavern walls. He turned and put his arms out in front and back of him, and felt nothing but the slight movement of sluggish underground air.

“By Emu!” he ascertained, “I’m in a tunnel!”

Meep!

“What was that? Precious? Is that you again?” Vogonwë strained to see in the dark, but failed miserably. He thought he heard faint scampering noises a ways down the tunnel. “Could it be? Was I seeing things up there, or has my Zerl come back to me?” he wondered out loud, cautiously edging forward through the narrow corridor. “Heeere Precious, heeeere Precious Precious Precious…” he called into the dark (rather uncautiously) and strained his ears to hear the tweeting, twatting, frittering and frattering noises far away.

“In fact,” he thought, “it sounds something like a frat house, really.” Vogonwë had only been to a frat house once, back when he’d visited O Lando at Workmud U. (His own father had not been able to finance a college education, instead investing his money in champagne, crackers, Easterling Lanterns, etc.) And though O Lando had only invited Vogonwë to a frat party that once (he didn’t know what went wrong, everyone seemed to enjoy his poetry, drunk though they were) he never forgot the sounds of merriment and retching. And as he traversed the dark underground tunnel, his fingers brushed something odd on the walls. “What is this? It’s sticky!” he said to himself, then sniffed his fingers. “Plllech! Orc blood!” he exclaimed, then rethought— “No, wait. It’s vomit. Bird vomit? No, bird in vomit. Someone ate a bird! And vomited it up on the walls! Eeeeew!”

Meeeeeeeeyap… eep… prrrrrrt prrt prrt prrt prrt… came the sounds down the earthen hallway.

Apparently, his Zerl was throwing a party. “What? My little Precious, partying?? Vomiting??? Drinking, mayHAP???? Say it ain’t so!” He quickened his pace.

And so he made his way down the long, dark, narrow tunnel of the soul, deep in the bowels of Canned Corn. And thus he came ever nearer to the abode of his long lost Precious, all the while talking to himself quite a bit more than was altogether healthy.
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