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Old 10-17-2004, 12:39 AM   #218
Diamond18
Eidolon of a Took
 
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Join Date: Sep 2002
Location: my own private fantasy world
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There comes a time in every tale when a ship must be boarded. This ship can be a real vessel made of wood, or steel, or canvas, or bark, or inflatable rubber, and can be launched into real water, salty or fresh. Or, it can be a metaphorical ship launching into metaphysical waters, destined for metacercaria lands and metacestode adventures of metabolic magnitude. It could also be the result of searching the text of a tale to find the words “board” and “ship”, not necessarily in relation to each other, but contained in the same manuscript as a code which proves Mary of Magdala was the wife of Jesus Christ and bore him a son. Or daughter, depending on how many times the words “board” and “ship” appear and whether “boarded”, “boarding”, “boat”, “canoe” and “rubber dinghy” also appear in said tale.

But I digress.

In Muddled-Mirth, the Itship knew naught of such things, and if you said “Mary of Magdala” they would politely (or rudely, as the case may be) correct your spelling and point you in the direction of Merisuwyniel, who is from Topfloorien but was raised at the Elven Farm, not Magdala, you silly, strangely dressed human. And yet, even unknowingly, they were poised to fulfil the Great Rule that stateth a ship must be boardeth if the tale is worth two shakes of salt on a snail’s tail.

Last minute preparations, departures, and hysterics out of the way, the portentously named Itship headed dutifully out to board the ship.

Vogonwë paused a moment on the gangplank and looked back out over the Pay Havens. “I have passed hundreds of years upon the shores of Muddled-Mirth,” he said wistfully, “and though I am still a young half-elf in the reckoning of my people, I feel a great weight upon my heart and weariness of spirit as I look my last upon the land I have known for so long. Ah, ’Mirth, what joyous poems thou hast inspired, what countless wonders thou hast shown me in my time, what heterogeneous peoples thou hast suckled upon they motherly breast, what… what is it, Pimpi my dear?”

Pimpi stopped poking him in the ribs and said, “The others are waiting, can you do this from the ship as we sail away?”

He sighed. “You’re awfully eager to leave. Does not your heart tremble at the thought of forsaking the home of your youth and departing to the lands of the immortals?”

“If it doesn’t scare Meri, it doesn’t scare me,” Pimpi declared pluckily.

“But Merisuwyniel is immortal,” he pointed out.

She blinked her big blue eyes and asked, “Your point?”

He assumed his most Elven expression and pose, replying loftily, “I only wonder if you realize what you are getting into, a mere quaterling, sailing to the realm of the Velour, eldest and wisest of beings.”

She poked him in the stomach and shoved him up the gangplank with a firm heels-of-hands-to-pectoral-region maneuver, “Oh, pshaw, you’re the one who’s scared. Quit acting like an old gaffer and get onboard before the others leave us behind.”

“I fear neither Velour nor Valleyum,” Vogonwë said with as much dignity as he could salvage while tripping backwards up the plank. “Though I would like a reminder of why we are doing this in the first place.”

“I can’t remember why Merisu and the rest are going, frankly, I haven’t been paying close enough attention,” Pimpi shrugged. “But we’re going because of our unique special differences; you are going to entreat the Velour to allow me to stay with you in Never-Never Land despite the fact that I’m a ‘mere quarterling’ of wholly mortal descent.”

“Valleyum,” Vogonwë corrected. Then he sighed, “I love it when you say ‘unique special differences’.”

“I know.”

“That reminds me,” he mused as they finally got to the top of the ridiculously long gangplank and stood upon the deck of the ship, “whilst the others made their last minute preparations, I devoted my time to composing a fitting farewell to our friend, Lord Etceteron. It seemed wrong that he should leave, bestowing upon us gifts, and receive no tribute or token of esteem from us in return.”

He paused, awaiting a response, and when he got none he looked around. Pimpi was nowhere to be seen, and indeed, the entirety of the remaining Itship was likewise removed from his near vicinity. But in their stead stood many innocent sailors, readying the ship for setting and unawares of the ill about to befall them. Vogonwë, satisfied that he had an audience of sorts, cleared his throat and turned toward the shore. It mattered little to him that the sailors knew naught of Lord Earnur Etceteron, He Who Liked Vogonwë’s Poetry Till He Got Sober, since the object of the tribute wasn’t even around and that wasn’t really the point. There really wasn’t a point, which is very much in keeping with the events thus far.

“Ahem,” he intoned, “I will now speak a special work which I have written, titled ‘Lord Earnur the Fairish’, an epic haiku for two voices. I will be supplying both voices.”

A deckhand spit enthusiastically over the side of the rail, thus providing a prelude to Vogonwë’s great experimental endeavor.

His name is Earnur
Lord Etceteron, call him
Of Dun Sobrin, see

His grand demeanor
And dark manly eyebrows
Where envious to behold

He liked to kill orcs
And lollygaggers and such
With his mighty blade

Long he rode with us
Then he kind of up and left
We’ll miss him, I guess

Well I remember
The first time I met the man
By Bovine Fountain

His horse, Baklava
Was black and shiny, and sneered
At me, and was rude

But Earnur was a
Jolly good fellow, he was
A poet like me

We had adventures
Which I wrote about, in my
Lay of the Ent Bow

And then we rested
In the Wight City a while
Until the fire

When adventure called
Earnur was one of the first
To call back loudly

He was hasty
Ah but we liked him for it
Red wine and red blood

Flowed in his red veins
And so I hope that wherever
He goes he will not

Drink himself to death
Or anything bad like that
Farewell E. old chap


Several loud splashes signaled that at least on third of the ship’s crew had abandoned ship and were at that very moment swimming to shore. One man committed hara-kiri right on the deck and made an awful mess which detained enough of the compulsive obsessive neat freaks to stay aboard and clean it up. Vogonwë, oblivious to the chaos, settled down to breathe in the salty ocean air and watch the shores of Muddled-Mirth shrink.

Merisu and the rest of the remaining Itship, such as they were, came up onto the deck after a time and joined him at the rail to wave a fond goodbye to their homeland.

“I say…” Soregum said presently, looking around, “we seem to be missing someone. Don’t tell me the young hobbit lass decided to stay home?”

“What?” Vogonwë said stupidly.

“What?” Soregum echoed. “Surely you, her… um… intended,” he forced the word out, “know her whereabouts?”

“Last I saw she was boarding the ship with me,” Vogonwë said. “Just as I got onboard, I looked about and she had disappeared.”

“And you didn’t think to look for her?” Soregum stared at him in disbelief.

Vogonwë frowned. “She often disappears when I am about to recite a poem.”

“But think,” Soregum peered between the spindles in the rail, down at the water, “what if she slipped off the gangplank and fell into the water and drowned? What if she thought she forgot something on shore and ran back to get it and the ship launched before she returned? What if a suspicious seafaring type kidnapped her attractive young personage with intent to ravish? Hmmmmm? With a clueless boyfriend such as yourself standing by spouting poetry any number of things could have happened!”

Vogonwë had listened to this tirade with increasing alarm. At first he was inclined to tell the hobbit where he could shove it, but as the possibilities of Pimpish doom rolled off the smoke-stained tongue he fell into agitated pacing and finally, when Soregum was spent and panting against the spindles, the half-elf snapped.

“Oh my Eru,” he cried, tearing at his long silky brown hair, “what have I done? I must go back and find her!”

Merisu, who had observed the testosterone charged dramatics with typical unruffled patience, was about to speak a calming word when Vogonwë abandoned all reason and took a flying leap over the railing. So ruffled was he that he didn’t bother to add any airborn gymnastics to his dive, and indeed was so frazzled that instead of slicing into the water he bellyflopped with a sickening smack. Yet he doggedly paddled on toward shore, not hearing Merisu’s cries of, “But I saw her in the mess hall!” through the water in his ears.

“Well this isn’t good,” Merisu said, watching his flailing body tossed about by the waves.

Orogarn Two looked at her curiously, “Why?”

“Pimpi will be very upset when she finds out Vogonwë swam back to shore.”

“I would be more than willing to comfort her,” Soregum volunteered.

“Can I have his hair kit?” inquired Leninia.

“Perhaps there is a rowboat the young lass can row back to shore,” the Gateskeeper suggested. “If the loss of Vogonwë really troubles her that much….”

Merisu made a quick decision, as was her wont. “Someone must go get Pimpi and let her decide what she wishes to do about this.”

Just as Soregum volunteered to go fetch Pimpiowyn, they were interrupted by shouts and screams from the crew. They turned and looked where the sailors pointed, seeing a massive beast flying above the waters.

“What are they screaming about? It’s only Chrysophylax,” Leninia yawned.

“Oh!” Merisu looked stricken for a moment. “Kuruharan and Chrysi! We left them behind!” For a moment she teetered on the ruffled edge of decomposure, but heroically drew herself back at the last minute and said, “Well it is a good Chrysi is here. He can fetch Vogonwë back for us.”

Even as she spoke the dwarf and his dragon were zeroing in on their target, and in a moment Chrysophylax plucked from the waters a very wet and angry half-elf. The dragon flew on toward the ship and landed gracefully on the deck, ignoring the panicked cries and runnings to and fro of the ship’s crew. Vogonwë, deposited in a dripping heap on a coil of ropes, sputtered, “But I must find Pimpi!”

“Calm down,” Merisu said with the merest tinge of impatience. “She is aboard the ship, as I tried to tell you before. I saw her not a few moments ago, becoming acquainted with the cook.”

“What?!?” Vogonwë shook his head, sending driplets every which way. “You said she was lost!” he pointed an accusatory finger at Soregum.

Soregum shrugged, looking more than a little disappointed. “I was merely speculating….”

“This is all fascinating,” Kuruharan commented, sounding distinctly unimpressed. “What I want to know, is why when I arrived at the docks, surprise! No ship! Now if I didn’t know better, I’d say—”

“I am so sorry,” Merisu said with genuine penitence, as she was never anything but genuine. “But what with preparations and all, I did not have time to take a head count. If I had noticed you were gone, I would have made the captain wait, I assure you.”

Chrysophylax muttered something about overlooking the absence of a dwarf being one thing, and forgetting about a dragon being quite another, but it was difficult—nay, impossible—to stay miffed with Merisu for long, and so she soon had them eating out of her hand. But, since all she had had in her pockets were a couple biscuits and that was hardly enough to satisfy a dwarf and dragon, they all decided that it was high time they joined Pimpi in chumming it up with the ship’s cook. And so the Itship made their way down to the mess hall.

That is, save for Grrralph, who, as we all know, is most certainly not going to wake up before reaching Valleyum.
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