[Lush]

Meanwhile, In Places Far Off and Distant and Just as Dreary as They Are Distant...

If anyone happened upon the distant nook of Marrow-Bones Studios at the late hour during which our little diversion begins, they would have most likely decided that they were experiencing a hallucination, and ran as fast to the Houses of Bettifordeth as their designer running shoes could take them.

Unless, of course, a talking piece of wood was nothing out of the ordinary to their jaded eyes.

The piece of wood in question, a rather badly shopped up thing that looked like a giant pear with a handle and with seven strings running across it, was eliciting whining noises:

"Mother, O Mother," the large wooden pear moaned. "Please don’t make me play MmmDope one more time, or I might choose death just like your last husband did."

The small figure addressed as "Mother" hissed most terribly over her most tiny shoulder:

"Silence! I have had enough of your insolence! I shall throw you into the bonfire at the next Puke basketball game, if you don’t let me finish setting up the new Cell- antír."

"Very well," the piece of wood sighed (the reader might imagine that if the piece of wood had eyes, it would have rolled them). "You are not my real Mother anyway. I would have expected this sooner or later."

"How dare you!" The figure snapped most awfully, and turned around, revealing a very small, neat, angry face. "It was I that rescued you from the mud where you were lying like a common log. You could have been picked up by someone else much less powerful than I! Turned into a chair! Your only acquaintances would have been Orc-bottoms! I made you into a Musical Instrument of Doom! A..."

Here she continued for a few more pages of angry statements followed by gratuitous exclamation marks, until a new picture on the screen of her brand-spanking-new Series 2003 Sarumsung Cell-antír distracted her from continuing her tirade about gratefulness and good pop music.

The Entish Guitar, for that was it, and no other, if you haven’t guessed yet (in which case you probably should quit reading and go watch MTV), let out another long sigh.

"What are you looking at, Mother?" It asked, resigned to its fate.

"My latest batch of victims," she said and yawned, and even her yawn was ferocious. “Nothing exciting. Some racy Elvish maiden thinks she can save the world from injustice without paying off the right officials first. Some half-Elven character in puppy love. Some…”

Here she paused for a second, raising one exquisite dark eyebrow.

"Some...Some rather inebriated gentleman that appears to appear to be quite tasty in appearance," she spoke in a slightly different tone. "Could serve me well during the Fangsgiving Feast."

"I am rather confused, Mother," the Entish Guitar replied after a moment of silence, during which the figure continued to study Earnur. "What, pray you tell me, do those weirdos have to do with us?"

The figure was silent. Leninia the Deceivingly-Little, despite her outward casual charm and her hippy-ish hairdo, knew when to keep her mouth shut. What’s the point in rattling the Guitar’s nerves with silly tales of silly heroes with silly dreams of rescuing the parts of the Ent that was Broken, if nobody in all of Muddled Mirth has ever yet escaped from Leninia’s claws...er, well-manicured nails, should they have accidentally wandered into them?

Such was the logic of Leninia, daughter of _____ and _____, as it mysteriously said on her birth certificate, and author of such alarmingly powerful dark hymns as "My Appendix Will Go On."

As if being broken physically wasn’t enough for our Ent in question, its will was now also broken by the charms of Leninia, that had carved the hapless log into a guitar and used seven hairs off her pretty-yet-full-of-deceit head for strings, all the while feeding it syrupy stories of future success.

Leninia’s agenda was a mysterious one, so mysterious, in fact, that Leninia herself was sometimes not entirely sure of what it was she wanted to do with her life. Childhood was a series of fads that came and went with her ever-changing fancies. She settled on music when, having run away from home, she accidentally arrived at the Marrow-Bones Studios, having taken the wrong turn on her way to get a job as a sales clerk at the Gap of Rohan.

The Marrow-Bones Studios, at the time of Leninia’s arrival was a rather run-down dreary vastness whose employees lived in such a drug-induced stupor that you could hardly tell the living from the dead ("Or maybe they’re all dead," Leninia thought for one uncomfortable moment, before deciding it really didn’t matter either way).

Marrow-Bones Studios stood no chance against the hostile take-over she planned and quickly executed. Leninia was a totalitarian diva at heart, despite her free-wheelin’ youthful façade, and she didn’t leave her father’s very own Black Tower Records empty-handed. She had her voice, charming, hypnotizing, and capable of hitting such high notes that it could crack doors to nuclear bomb shelters, least of all heads. She also had in her possession her umbrella: a peculiar thing with the head of a black poodle for a handle: a present from a gentleman who had wondered in from another storyline for tea with her father long ago. What was that gentleman’s name? Gerber? Goiter? Goether? Whatever. Leninia couldn’t be bothered to recall it now. Regardless, it was useful for flying when the wind was good, and helped her turn certain individuals she had met on her way into toads, goats, and Korporat Pigs. A weapon much more exciting than daddy’s staff.

"Mother," the Entish Guitar interrupted her thoughts yet again with a characteristic whine. "I think one of my strings is on too tight."

"Mother will fix it," Leninia purred, and pushed the off-button. The screen of the Cell-antír went blank. Fate would lead the rag-tag group of individuals she had spied upon to the Marrow-Bones, sooner or later, and she would be ready. By becoming so thoughtlessly involved with the Ent that was Broken each one of them had cancelled their subscription to the resurrection. All Leninia had to do was wait, filing her nails and trashing hotel rooms in the meantime.

[ July 20, 2003: Message edited by: Lush ]

[ July 20, 2003: Message edited by: Lush ]