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Old 05-16-2005, 11:15 PM   #264
Diamond18
Eidolon of a Took
 
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Join Date: Sep 2002
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Silmaril Pinecones of Desire

Suddenly, without warning, a burning rock came screaming from the sky and exploded into a million pieces, each one slamming into the ground with collasal force! Death! Destruction! The whole world was engulfed in flames and molten space rock -- people's large and small intestines fried like sausage and their bones disentegrated like tissue paper that's been held over a votive candle too long. Men, orcs, elves and Velour alike, dead, all dead! All dead! O, the carnage! Death to all Hatchlings of Emu Ilovetar!

Dear Gentle Reader,

Wait a gosh darn moment. This is all too final. Some other dues ex machina must be used.

If you find courtroom scenes boring, no matter how farcical the characters or outrageous the events, I apologize, for it is only going to get worse. For let us now turn our attention back to the true events of that fateful day in Valleyum, which cannot be rescued by great balls of fire or blood and destruction.

Well, great balls of fire, anyway.

We are now zooming back down to submerse ourselves in the ofttimes hard to suspend disbelief -- wow, that’s mixing metaphors, is it not, Gentle Reader? It doesn’t even make any sense. However, it is what we are doing. Zooming back down we see where Vogonwë Brownbark and his young love Pimpi are preparing to carry out a mission entrusted to them by the Loyer Formerly Known as Grrralph. But heck, we’re still going to call him Grrralph, Gentle Reader, because we’re just that way.

Hark, action is taking place....


“I don't believe what I'm hearing... Meri-Sue was right. You've changed!”

“I don't want to hear any more about Meri-Sue. The Velour turned against me. Don't you turn against me.”

“I don't know you anymore. Vogonwë, you're breaking my heart. I'll never stop loving you, but you are going down a path I can't follow.”

“Because of Meri-Sue?”

“Because of what you've done... what you plan to do. Stop, stop now. Come back! I love you!”

“Liar!”

Oops, heh heh, sorry, Gentle Reader -- wrong parody. Let me adjust the controls on my Parody-O-Matic here -- indispensable machine but it can be terribly glitchy -- and see if we cannot find the proper tone, this time. Ah yes, here we go:

“I’m hungry.”

“Not now, Pimpi, I’m composing,” Vogonwë replied with a hint of irritation. In fact, he was quite nervous, more nervous than he had been since that incident with the Giant Mutant Neanderthalic Black Skwerlz of Workmud when in the midst of battle he had run out of arrows and been reduced to throwing hair pins. His anxiety put him on edge and thus Pimpi’s tummy rumblings were not a welcome distraction from the task at hand.

Pimpi should have been more nervous than she was, considering what Grrralph had asked of her, but at the moment her task seemed a long time away and the hollowness inside was much more pressing. She looked over Vogonwë’s shoulder with half interest, reading the words he wrote upon paper and thinking that the Diabolical Workmudian Sleep-Well Spell he was crafting didn’t seem all that much different from one of his sonnets.

“You’d better hurry up,” she said languidly, “we have to do this before the trial is over.”

Vogonwë took a breath before replying, “I am hurrying -- and unless you can remember what the fourth line of the third stanza is supposed to be, it would be most helpful if you would refrain from speaking to me.”

“Oooookay,” Pimpi backed away. “Excuse me, your Poet-Laureatness.”

Vogonwë went on muttering snatches of poetry under his breath, scratching out the words on the paper and replacing them countless times, till the paper was a mess of unreadable scratches and half-baked rhymes. “Oh it’s no use, I can’t remember the Spell,” he moaned. “I should have paid more attention in school....”

“All hope is not lost,” Pimpi said bravely, swatting him on the shoulder. “I have faith in you, Vogy -- if you can’t remember the spell thingy, just improvise.”

“Improvise?” he looked at her cross-eyed.

“Yes! Ad lib! Write your own Diabolical Brownbarkian Sleep-Well Spell.”

“But I am a poet, not a spell weaver.”

“Whatever,” Pimpi fluttered one hand dismissively. “Same diff.”

“I protest, there is much--”

“Listen, I’m getting seriously bored out of my mind here, okay?” Pimpi snatched the paper and pen away from him. “Time is of the essence, now get over there and recite something.”

Vogonwë grumbled, and turned reluctantly to where Gravlox was chained to a pole, heavily guarded by minions of the Dark Lord -- who were, at the moment, eyeing Kuruharan intensely, but were sure to come down hard on anyone else who attempted to remove Gravlox from his spot. He cleared his throat and coughed nervously, then stood up and walked hesitantly over to where the Orc/Elf was awaiting his fate.

“Excuse me, tally ho,” Vogonwë said, waving at Orc guards. They snapped their attention away from the trial and menaced their weapons towards him, growling and snarling and saying “get lost” among other, less publishable things.

Vogonwë held his hands up innocently, “I’m so sorry to disturb you gents. But if you have a moment to lend me your incredibly large, misshapen, hairy ears, I have a favor to ask.”

The guards burst out into laughter at the idea of doing a favor, and told Vogonwë again to get lost or feel the wrath of their swords, clubs, and assorted switchblades.

“Okay,” Vogonwë broke out into a sweat -- very unbecoming in even a half-elf -- and tried to smile. He did a quick head count of the Orcs and ruled out the possibility of taking them out with his arrows -- his proximity to them and their number meant that he could hope to skewer only about half a dozen of them before the other dozen made him feel the wrath of their assorted switchblades. And no doubt the clamor would attract the attention of more unsavory types, not to mention the in session court down the hill. No, he had no choice but to go at this in the manner Grrralph had requested.

He took a deep breath. “Section 108 paragraph 5 line 9 in the Valleyum Unsavory Visitors Act states quite clearly that all prisoners being held on the shores of Valleyum by any and all Unsavory Visitors, such as yourselves, are entitled to three things --

1. The presence of an officiary of the religion of his or her choice
2. A root beer flavored lollypop
3. The recitation of a poem by a professional, licensed Poet.”

The Orcs looked at him blankly, wondering if the strange Elf before them was really All There.

“Now,” Vogonwë continued, “I see none of these things, though I do see a prisoner, and this is Valleyum, and you are all unsavory. Therefore you are in serious, er... well you’re all in a lot of trouble because this represents an unlawful something or other. However, this is also your lucky day because it just so happens that I am a licensed Poet and a Priest of the Order of White Rabbits, which is the religion of this Elf/Orc’s choice. Also I have in my possession one root beer lollypop, slightly sticky with a coating of pocket lint.”

The Orcs exchanged befuddled glances. Then one took a menacing step forward. “Look, chump--”

“The name is Brownbark. Vogonwë Brownbark.”

“Whatever, Chump. We don’t want any of your pansy Elf poetry around here, you got me?”

Vogonwë nodded understandingly, then said, “I thrill at the trilling hill of daffodils.”

The Orcs recoiled, expressions of pain contorting their already contorted features.

“Hey, I said none of that now!”

“Little Mincy-Mee of Shmee danced the Tootlefree in the land of Hannalee.”

“Argh!” The Orcs tried to charge Vogonwë, but were brought to their knees by --

“I went to the fair
I went to the fair,
I went to the fair
To see a bear,
And the bear was there,
At the fair.”

“You’ll never get away with this!” gasped one Orc.

Vogonwë smiled with a hint of sadistic pleasure and replied,

“The drooping fronds of pond leaves left scars
Day is night and night is day
Morning shadows drift down the wet dog nose of love
Rolling in the sand is a pinecone.
Of desire.”

No reply came from the Orcs this time -- they had all fallen face down and were lying motionless on the hill.

Pimpi came creeping up behind Vogonwë and asked, “Are they sleeping? Why have you stopped reciting?”

“I think they’re dead,” Vogonwë said, nudging one prostrate Orc with his foot. “I was experimenting to see what would happen if you mixed two napping spells with a traditional drinking song of Chippendale. And that last one was just something I was working on for social occasions. The effect has succeeded beyond my wildest expectations, the guards are out of commission permanently, which makes your task much easier.”

“I’m going to go untie him.”

“You’re welcome. Don’t mention it. No really, it was nothing...” Vogonwë said dryly, but his complaint was completely lost on Pimpi, who advanced upon the tethered Elf/Orc, and said, “Gravlox? Hello? D’you remember me?”

Gravlox mumbled something around his gag, and Pimpi reached to remove it.

“Be careful, he might bite,” said Vogonwë, hanging back.

Once the gag was free, Gravlox said irritably, “I do not bite and yes, I remember the both of you, to my regret. What have you come to do to me now? Is it not enough that you killed me, you must now come to gloat over me in my hour of subjugation?”

“No, we’ve come to rescue you!” Pimpi said earnestly, tearing away at the knots securing the ropes around his nicely manicured hands. “We’re going to take you away and hide you! Come along now, before anyone notices!”

Gravlox looked between Pimpi and Vogonwë suspiciously. “Is this some kind of trap?”

“Yes,” Vogonwë replied, “we’re going to chop you up and eat you with a side of lembas, that’s why we’ve gone to all this trouble to rescue you from certain death at the hands of Mogul.”

“You’ve become very sarcastic since I last knew you,” Gravlox observed.

“We don’t have time for this, come!” Pimpi urged, and the three of them hastened away, darting glances over their shoulders at the trial which proceeded merrily along, oblivious to the absence of its subject.

Last edited by Diamond18; 05-26-2005 at 05:20 PM.
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