An Unexpected Vir(tu)al Party

[Morthoron]

All this time it had become quite plain to the Dark Elf that these were some rather queer folk assembled herein. Not that there was anything wrong with queer folk, of course, particularly not if one eschewed the more modern pejorative sense of the word. And it wasn't a matter of looking fairer and feeling fouler, just the innate queerness of a group of introverted folk who seemingly had been imprisoned at a Renaissance Faire for several years and now suffered from some malingering form of Dernhelm Syndrome.

"Or Cosplay Dismay," Morthoron chuckled to himself, as he kindly accepted the glass from Lady Estelyn with a nod and an approximation of a grin he hoped didn't appear sinister....or downright creepy.

He sighed as he sat back in his anachronistic Edwardian leather club chair, coming to the sad realization that he had become, in fact, the very caricature of a stock grim Dark Elf. All he needed was some ebonized galvorn to be the epitome of grouchy old Eöl, grousing about the smithy, graceless and grumpy. Bah, humbug!

But Morthoron had a dark epiphany as the group of idiosyncratic Dungeon & Dragon characters toasted the Professor. With the sudden recall of a drowning man (drowning elf, damn it, why do I think in terms of mortals!), a rush of reminiscence filled him with dread as the last couple decades flashed before him like an amusement arcade mutoscope that flicked cards in sequence to give the appearance of an actual moving picture (as he was sitting in an Edwardian chair, this analogy seemed to fit, even if it was totally nonsensical for the Third Age). And he suddenly realized the reason for his morbid melancholy.

"Peter Jackson!"

There was a sudden stillness in the room, and all eyes turned his way. The Dark Elf cursed under his breathe: he had uttered the sacrilegious name out loud! Eventually the thrum of buzzing discussions returned and the frivolity that is the handmaiden of inebriation settled back on the crowd, and the Dark Elf was left alone with his murky musing.

"Yes," he thought to himself, "it was Peter Jackson that did this to me!" Morthoron shifted with the discomfiture of an insomniac in the chair. "Sandworms from Arakeen! Aragorn frenching his horse! Xenarwen, warrior princess! GAH!!!!"

The Dark Elf slammed down the expensive and exquisite Dorwinion as if it were cheap bathtub gin, savoring none of its richness. Now more miserable than ever, the malignant memories washed over him like an insidious black tide. Three films instead of two. Del Toro! psychedelicized wizards with bird droppings and hedgehogs named Sebastian (O, the arrows of irony!)! Sam leaving Frodo! Goblin Chutes and Ladders, and a Great Goblin with a globulous goiter as ridiculously over-sized as the WitchKing's monstrously massive mace! Thranduil riding a moose! An each and every and all and sundry an extended edition to maximize canonical misery!

The Dark Elf threw up in his mouth a little.

[piosenniel]

On the way . . .

“We’re going to be late, you know . . .”
A small voice stage-whispered in the Pio’s ear – this time with an added flick-flick of scaled tail against the Elf’s neck.

Not missing a step, Pio swatted at the insistent tail. “And we would not have been, you dreadful wyrm, if you had not eaten the horse!” Shrugging her shoulders, she adjusted the rucksack back into a more comfortable position. The sudden jerky movement dislodged the small, golden-scaled dragon from her perch.

With an irritated flutter of wings, Angara resettled herself on the Elf’s other shoulder, digging her claws in just a wee bit for emphasis. “Hmmmmmph!!” she snorted. “I was hungry! It was a loooooong flight to get here. What was I supposed to eat – the scrawny Elf who owned it?” Stretching her neck out, Angara peered into Pio’s face, fixing her with a green-gold eye gone wide. “I could have, you know.” She poked at the Elf’s cheek with one nail. “You don’t eat enough . . . too rangy, too bony! That horse, though, now that was a toothsome delight.”

Getting no response, other than a raised brow and a disbelieving snort, Angara turned her attention to the small rucksack. Poking her nose in it to open it wider, she riffled through the scant contents. Some lembas, a stoppered bottle of Old Gammer’s Elixir (bearing four XXXX’s on the label and an assurance of “Good for Whatever Ails Ya or Don’t” – no doubt from the back storeroom of the Green Dragon), several sharpening stones, some oil, a number of knives carefully wrapped with leather. She hopped round to look Pio in the eye, once again. “It’s a party, you ninny! Where’s your party dress?”

Hoping to divert any further questioning of her lack of beribboned finery, Pio grasped her small companion, and placed her on the pine-needled track. ‘So, here’s an idea – why don’t you just fly us to the party, dear heart.” She smiled sweetly at the wyrm. “You don’t want to miss all the meats and pies and honeyed pastries that are sure to be there, do you”

~*~

Grown to full size, Angara made flight to The Barrow-Downs with record speed. “Just land up there on that rocky outcropping,” Pio instructed as they circled the Downs from on high. “Let’s not raise a fuss among the party-goers.” “And besides”, she thought to herself, “I want to get the lay of the land before we go down.” “Of course, you do – wary as ever, I see,” Angara replied silently.

Dismounting from her perch behind the dragon’s neck, Pio looked down at the gathering crowds of people of all sorts. She stomped against the rocky ground - dislodging some of the trail dust off her boots. Smoothing her leather jerkin, she brushed what dirt she could from it. Her leather leggings looked adequate enough to her mind. Her long dark hair she loosened from its braid, combing it as she could with her fingers. Motioning for the now-again-small dragon to perch on her left shoulder, the two companions walked toward the site of the celebration . . .

[Pitchwife]

Before Encai could reply, however, Pitchwife‘s attention was caught by another new arrival. „By Glaurung‘s third molars,“ he exclaimed, „does each and everyone on these Downs have their own pet dragon nowadays?“

[piosenniel]

“By Glaurung‘s third molars!” a man exclaimed. “Does each and everyone on these Downs have their own pet dragon nowadays?”

Her hearing had always been quite acute. Angara’s head whipped round to focus on who had uttered this quite mistaken opinion. Her gold-green eyes fixed on the speaker. “Pet! My A…!!” she started to hiss toward the fellow.

“SSssst! Quiet!!” Pio picked up her pace, attempting to put a necessary distance between the man and herself. “Don’t start a fight! We’re hardly in the door!!”

Angara gave the man one last scathing glance and a last parting comment. “And to be clear, dear, if anyone’s the pet,” she said with a certain smugness, “it’s the Elf!”

Pio made for the bar she’d noticed at the other end of the room. “Tall glass, if you please, ‘Keep. Something strong.” She nodded at the tap he pointed to. “Yes, that, thanks!.” Taking a long drink, she held up her hand, indicating to the Barman she had an additional request. “Oh, and for my friend, here,” Pio said, pointing at Angara, “a nice bowl of wine . . . something Dorwinian, to sweeten her mood.”

[Boromir88]

"And Boro too. What have you been up to since we last met?" Estelyn asked.

"Much has happened and changed!" he exclaimed. That was quite true, especially the past year, events in his life have been hurtling him forward. All for the better, but coming to a sudden stop had left Boro befuddled. "Well, it started with acquiring a new house; small, but suitable for my needs. Then I was blessed with a sister-son. He pulled out one of the first pictures taken with his nephew. "He will be quite the charmer with those dark-blue eyes. And one of the final new changes was a career change. I coordinate an exchange program. Young travelers from different realms come and we have an exchange of languages, history, culture, sport and..." Boro faltered. The program had to be cut short from concerns involving the plague.

"Begging your pardon, we had to end the program early. Oh, they all made it back home safe and healthy, which is the most important thing. It's just I don't recall all the world coming to a sudden and complete stop before. I hope and look forward to the day we can start again. Being here amongst friends and..." Boro faltered again, when he noticed another arrival "dragons, is most welcome. Thank you for the invitation."

[Galadriel55]

*****

The door silently opens again. There is another package lying on the doorstep.

A note attached to it says:
Always bring a banana to a party. Besides, you gotta keep moots canonical.

*****

[The Squatter of Amon Rûdh]

Beyond the Edge of the known universe, far past the ends of the Twittering Hells and beyond the reach even of the Googloid Hegemony, lie the wide grey plains of the Offline.

In these asphodel fields, beneath jet skies and dying stars, the sightless and endlessly hungering husks of the Old Net wander, gnawed at by insatiable hunger, tormented with unslakable thirst; forgetful of all but a pitiless, griping Need.

Conscious, too, of the nightmare babel through which they must pass to catch the merest scent of a lolcat meme or amusing badger video. These forsook the horror of a world run mad, only to discover beyond their barred gates and bolted doors that they had left in the asylum a map and the keys, and that the inmates had followed, or perhaps that they had brought with them that which they flew.

In their despair the Old Ones forsook the Online, retreated into a real world that others had abandoned, and found that it could be worse and had bookshops.

In some far-flung corner of this virtual desert, made all the more virtual by its not being on a computer, and therefore meta-virtual, even doubly virtual. Maybe virtual cubed or something. Factorial of virtual. Imaginary, in any case. Figurative if you will. You get my point. Anyway, in some nameless corner of the ashen lunar plain stands a ruinous house. In that dread place, which even Gomez Addams might have considered giving a lick of paint, lives a Collector.

What exactly he collects, where he finds it, how, when and even why are all indeed questions. He might say "things" or, being a pretentious sort, "unconsidered trifles." Mostly it appears to be dust, but to the hypothetical observer who has somehow arrived in this unedifying place its most notable content is unread books. Books in modern languages, books in dead languages; books about history, about pharmacology, about things that never were nor ever will be; books about other books; books about how to acquire yet more books and which they should be: on shelves, in boxes, in piles, stacks, heaps. Among these are some that appear actually to have been opened, and of those happy volumes more than are good for anyone's mental health are marked with a JRRT monogram. Amid this bibliophilic confusion sits, or I suppose you could say "squats", the Collector himself. Festooned with cobwebs, half-buried under the dust of ages, much about him is indeterminate; but the shape on his head might once have been a silk top hat. Perhaps the hypothetical observer has somehow brought him a hypothetical message through the fourth wall, and perhaps it concerns some sort of Party. Or perhaps an e-mail was sent to a work account. One of those things, almost certainly.

Beneath the shifting drifts, the figure stirs. Images like long-dead amphibians rise up from the stagnant pool of memory. Green. Green on black: emerald signal, but that was something else. So far down, downish. Downs. "Have fun posting and enjoy being dead." So many words. Much concerning a talking bow. A dry, cracked voice announces: "Yes, I was Squatter". A Summons has been received and even at this late hour must be heeded. What, he wonders, does he have in his pockets? Ah, six-month old till receipt, several sets of keys, lint, mothballs. All there. Ideal. Best take a flask too. Need the edge off with that many people about. In a great billow of forgotten years, a dark figure rises, tweaks some wax into its false moustache, and sets its feet on the long road back to its grave.

---


Many leagues through the plague-lands later, a less dusty but more rained-upon Squatter passed through Downish Quarantine. Fortunately, despite mild cases of croup, mange, the King's Evil, septicaemic plague and even the Red Death, he had somehow avoided the Nameless Pest, probably. The finest physicians known to automatic password recognition had declared it unanimously. So he was admitted, and in time came to the Dark Tower. I mean lit ballroom. Wait: we still have a ballroom? I thought it would be a cinema now. Or -he shuddered- a discotheque. No, apparently not. Someone had been busy. Probably Estelyn. Keeps the lights on. Casting his eyes about, he picked out familiar and fondly remembered faces of Discussions Past. Almost exclusively so. What year even is this? Can it be 2002 again? Looking forward to that new film by some New Zealander, but not having actually seen it. Those were good times. Is that Mithadan? Nice surprise. Not spoken in ages. Quested after that bow together. Blimey, Underhill will be in before you know it, then the fat will hit the fire. Laugh a minute. Whatever did we do with the Travest-o-Meter? Probably buried in some sub-basement. Unless we blew it up, of course: something like that may have happened. Not an admission of liability. Clear fictional damage case. Vandalism? Desecration? Bother Oxford council. No sense of humour.

These, of course, were the thoughts of but a moment. A nip of Talisker and an archaic figure in well-worn morning clothes a hundred years out of style sauntered up to his hostess and bowed. "Hi, Esty. Nice shindig. Sorry it's a bit late: dark road, came as I could. Twenty years, eh? They built them to last in those days."

Mysteriously, in spite of the thorough cleaning the room had undoubtedly received, the atmosphere seemed now ever so slightly more laden with dust, as though some old volume had been lifted from its bed of centuries so that someone could look up rude words. The summons was answered. Squatter was Online. How good a thing this would be remained to be seen.