[littlemanpoet]

Despite what seemed like unfinished business between various members of the village, not to mention of the Offending Party, the sun set.

Anakron rose.

"Feanor of the Peredhil and CaptainofDespair, otherwise known as CoD, have been elected for lynching.

"Before you proceed, I have this to say. All of you assume too much. Now lynch 'em."

Anakron turned with a swish of his cloak and a doff of his wide brimmed hat, and entered the cottage with the sign "Grand Anakaronist" over the door. Nobody had noticed that sign before, but there it was.

"Now then," said Valde, "how do you suppose we should lynch these two?"

Feanor of the Peredhil stood before them. "I would like all of you to know that I am prepared to die. I've been expecting it. I knew all of you couldn't resist. The envy amongst you is palpable. I've got it, and you don't, and you can't have it, so you might as well kill me."

The villagers fell into a rage and attacked her with bared hands, and fought with each other to get at the girl. Finally, quite a few minutes later, they backed away. Mob dynamics left them. Sanity returned. They looked in astonishment at what they had done. It was not pretty. Nor did it swivel back together and turn into a werewolf.

"We had better bury her," Fléin said.

"You get her head," said Mardil, "I'll pick up her arms."

"I got a leg over here!" said Sai, waving it about triumphantly.

"Ugh!" Tom Felton said, and lost his supper.

Once they had retrieved the entire mass of that which had been Feanor, they dug a shallow grave and tossed bits and pieces in until nothing of which was Feanor of the Peredhil was above ground.

"Yuck!" said Wilhelmina. "I need to wash up." Everybody else agreed. They went over to the little pool and saw CoD swimming in circles, trying to be as inconspicuous as possible.

"Hey! CoD has to go too!"

"Cook him!" cried Panakeia.

"No! No!" cried CoD. "I don't taste good!"

"How would you know that?" Fléin asked.

"Regardlesh," said the village drunkard, "I shink we all need to get our beauty reshts and shtart off on the right foot tomorrow. Lesh hope that we have a werewolf in CoD."

"But then we'd all have a bit of werewolf in us!" cried Alli. At that very moment, two people popped into view and floated in the air behind Alli, one looking over her left shoulder, the other looking over her right shoulder.

"We do not approve of your behavior, my dear," they intoned in unison.

"Augh!" Alli cried. "Hovering parents!"

"Exactly what have you been up to? Why are you standing on that line?"

Alli looked at the ground where they pointed. Sure enough, there was a line painted white, and she was on the line. Alli rolled her eyes. "Hovering parents. They want to know exactly what you're doing on line. So they stand behind you and watch." She rolled her eyes even more fiercely.

"Sho," said SpaM, "you're one of thoshe offshpring who don't fully undershtand the difficultiesh of being a parent, or that part of being a parent ish a conshtant, never-ending and shometimesh irrational worry over their children, or that when they sheem to be shpoiling your fun they usually only have your besht intereshtishtishtish at heart."

"Oh!" cried Alli. "You must be one of those adults who seem to think that moody teenagers are going to care one whit about the difficulties of being a parent. If they didn't want to worry endlessly, they shouldn't have had kids. So there! No wonder you're in this Illamatar forsaken place!" Then Alli stopped a moment and thought that since she was having visions of Illamatar, it couldn't exactly be considered an Illamatar forsaken place. She closed her eyes tight and forced herself not to think about Illamatarology; it gave her headaches.

"That'sh fine by me," SpaM retorted. "Enough thingsh have been shent here to keep me happily amushed for many a day and I get a break from my kidsh. How'sh that CoD coming? All cooked up?"

"Yes," Panakeia said, "and so far it has stayed fish-meat." She cut up the fish into enough pieces for all the remaining villageres (except Anakron whom she had no intention of feeding), and they partook.

Fish did not turn into werewolf in their stomachs.

The sun finished its descent and night closed in around them.

As Alli walked to the hut she was sleeping in she cast a dour look over her shoulder at SpaM. "We're not done with this discussion, drunkard!" Her parents continued to hover, one on each side. She gave them a black look which could be interpreted as murderous, or just wishing they were somewhere else. They did not leave.