Thread: Passing Strange

Now everyone's demanding to be included. Give him some creative space!

Actually I decided on including both Omnis and Sero long ago. I contacted Omnis because - well, I wanted to see if he would be cool with what I'm planning to do with his character - and he was totally cool with it, though many people would have refused what my muse suggested. Omnis, next chapter, I swear! Along with Dianeva and several other new characters. I pretty much need to bring in new characters after killing off O...

All the new characters forced me to reconsider a lot of things, and I had a few rough nights wrestling with them all, but it's all coming together very nicely now, and much better than what I had before.

This may be the best thing I've ever written!! Ok, actually I know it is, and that's largely because I have so much incredible material to work with. Great characters taken from life (um - well SORT of) and so many fantastic ideas from the message board. I'm having a total blast with this - I haven't really done anything creative in a few years (since I discovered my mom was dying), other than plod along on my movie that's become pretty stale and intimidating and that I needed to take a break from. I had no idea this little story would blossom into something so fun!

** edit **

I've spent about an hour making notes to make sure I present things in the order they need and don't forget anything (its all starting to get a bit complicated!) and I do believe I'll be ready to start writing the next chapter tomorrow. So far each chapter has taken less than a day to write (I mean from the time I actually start typing it). So, no promises, but it might go up tomorrow. I'm really looking forward to this one - the main influence now switches from Alice in Wonderland to - well, you'll see...

Should have taken the blue pill...

I want to like that last response, so much DM.

To be fair, I was with you up until you pointed out that I had to wait another day for another chapter...

typing away furiously stop

chapter seven well underway stop

will update later afternoon or tonight stop

Seroquel waits patiently.

^

Seven

Sausage Fest

And I have a body again.

It's nice to have a body.

Perhaps unfortunately my body is standing in the middle of a large ballroom thronging with people, all dressed in elegant finery of decidedly archaic nature for the most part, but with some modern outfits thrown in and a few representing the 20s and 30s - a little ancient Roman a little French Revolution - that type of thing. Long banquet tables are laid out, festooned with elegant white tablecloths draped to the floor and laden with huge platters piled high with foodstuffs - mostly sausage links. Big ones, little ones, fat ones skinny ones, whole ropes of joined links or singles. I'm flashing back now to the earlier vision of the apartment with all the Knackwurst - because the tables are also crowded with ceramic jars filled with all kinds of mustards and sauces and relishes, and there's every kind of bread and crusty roll imaginable - crackers and loaves and biscuits and buns. Cheeses of every sort - huge wheels and rounds and wedges, platters ringed with slices of every description with little toothpicks impaling them. And at the end of one table on a platter of its own sits a big pig's head parboiled with a red apple jammed in the mouth. Grisly reminder of my recent friend.

This is far too much sausage to have possibly come from O's body, but yet somehow I know it all does. This reality has strange laws I think. Stomach queasy, I turn away from the gory feast.

Strolling minstrels wander the floor, and nearby is Slush2112 in his red tartan kilt, black GnR t shirt and a tall battered stovepipe hat playing a ridiculously small mandolin or lute or something. He's finger-picking a complex and very renaissance-sounding little ditty that has several small groups of people spinning and whirling nearby. Beyond him stands a knight in full plate armour - no wait, he turns and reveals that in fact only the left arm is encased in armour - plus there's a breastplate of dark burnished steel and a few other metal fittings here and there, but the right arm and shoulder are completely bare - slender and pale. Almost feminine in fact.

He turns his head to face me and I see his eyes are dark and brooding, but the irises an almost shocking bright ice blue. Powerfully striking. In fact I can't be entirely sure it is a he - it's a rather androgynous person now that I look - tall slim and athletic yet very shapely of limb, as revealed by the bare thighs. His midsection (if indeed the knight is a he, an issue on which which I'm entirely confused at the moment) is narrow and gently ribbed with washboard abs of the kind usually only seen in late night infomercials (the breast plate really only covers the breast area itself). High black leather boots rise above his knees and are studded and banded with metal in strategic places that seem designed more to accentuate his strange androgynous beauty rather than to supply any actual protection. It looks like a cross between Callisto's armor from Xena and Milla Jovovich's from The Messenger, the Story of Joan of Arc (but skimpier than Milla's - more revealing - like Callisto's).

I find my attention strangely riveted to this dark mysterious figure who stands aloof away from the crowd and whose hair I now notice is long and brown and tied loosely at the nape of the neck. Ok, seeing the long hair I decide this is in fact a young woman - some sort of Amazon or Joan of Arc type. From her belt hang a long slim rapier and short thick main gauche for fencing and slung on her back is an unstrung short bow and quiver of thick arrows. Her face is a slightly grim mask, downcast but the dark hooded eyes are boring directly into my own with a fierce intensity. Driven by an unexplainable compulsion I approach her - I feel that at this point our destinies are somehow intertwined.

But just as I step before her, completely intimidated by the grim dark intensity of her stare, there's a distracting clatter a few feet away, where I see a strange loose-jointed marionette of a man balancing on a plank which is in turn balanced atop a basketball. Everyone is watching as he struggles to maintain his precarious balance, arms gyrating wildly and his entire body undergoing seemingly impossible contortions of a decidedly puppetlike nature in his desperation to remain atop the crazily pivoting plank.

He's short and almost impossibly skinny, pale and with a wild shock of straw-colored hair standing mostly straight up on his head. His scarecrow frame is stuffed into a black suit 4 sizes too small (for that Buddy Holly effect) and he moves like a drunken street mime as he loses his last vestige of balance and tumbles forward comically, only to go into a last-minute somersault ending with him somehow on his feet and catching ball and plank perfectly under his arms before executing a sketchy wet-noodle bow. The nearby crowd gasps and applauds quietly but appreciatively. A few toss him small sausage links which he palms and eyes suspiciously before stuffing them into a pocket (having tucked the plank under the same arm with the ball).

Delighted at his antics, I clap vigorously and extend a hand in greeting: "Hi, I'm Darkus - I think. Pleased to meet you Sir Acrobat!"

"Ya don't say." He replies, shaking my hand with a disconcerting rubber-armed effect.

"You're quite an entertaining jester." I congratulate him. "What's your name?"

"I just toldjya Yank!" He scolds in a squeaky British accent "I'm YaDontXey. Retained by Neener's staff to provide entertainment for scraps of food - but I'm not eating any of this sausage... something grotty about it if ya ask me."

"Yeah - definitely don't eat it." I shudder involuntarily.

"And who is this charming though somewhat sexually indeterminate creature?" he turns and extends a hand to the young Amazon woman. Just for a moment a smile flickers across her dark features and then evaporates like a drop of water on a hot griddle.

"I'm DeMonica." She responds, shaking his hand and then mine. She's wearing a snug black garment-leather wrist glove that really only covers the fingers themselves - some sort of archery glove I assume.

"DeMonica?" he repeats as if baffled. "Haven't heard of you before. And I think I would've noticed" His eyes wander up and down her figure, lingering momentarily on the washboard abs and then the small, almost nonexistent swellings of her breastplate, which hint at femininity rather than stating it outright.

"Yeah, I'm still trying to get it changed. It's actually Doreenema, but that's not right. I contacted Slush but he said somebody has hacked into the system and the admins can't get in to do anything right now. They're working on it though."

I glance at Slush strolling and strumming nearby. "Looks like he's working real hard... " I mutter under my breath.

A tiny hiss of a laugh escapes her nostrils, almost more a derisive snort than mirth really, the kind that would be accompanied by a roll of the eyes, but her dark hooded eyes are burning intensely into mine steadily. Which is very disconcerting.

"There are other admins - Nunya for instance - plus he said they brought iIzHackr in to help with this. Nobody can find Alex though. Or Nunyabot."

The lanky puppet-man mimes stunned astonishment with his entire body. "Nunya isn't staff anymore!"

"Slush said they had brought him in to try and sort out this snafu. Apparently it's really password-blocked pretty well and nobody can get in to recode it properly. He mentioned something about the entire forum having been shunted into a single new subforum... but that's all I know."

Slush2112 had been steadily approaching and was now within earshot. Still strumming and picking away he says something that I completely fail to understand in an unbelievably thick Scottish accent. I could pick out a few words, but those I wont repeat here. YaDontXey laughs, noting my confusion, and translates - being at least from the same island if not the same country. " 'E says they can't find Nunya either. Something passing strange is goin' on, mark my words folks!"

Slush mouths another string of obscenity-laden gibberish that YaDontXey translates as "I'm afraid we can't get DV back online without Nunya. Or Nunyabot." The dark-eyed warrior-girl's face briefly lights up as she catches the Jurassic Park reference. I'm left wondering what the hell is DV, and what does it stand for?

But before I can ask, a deadly hush falls over the part of the crowd closest to the huge main doors that let onto the Throne Room deeper in Castle Neener. It grows so silent in fact that I can hear the familiar jinglebell sound made by the Black Queen's little dog, which glides smoothly onto the scene leading the way for the Black Queen herself, this time again draped in ancient Roman-style finery and leading some small animal on a leash.

No - not an animal - it's Muffin!! Looking more hollow-eyed and sunken-fleshed than before, and unaccountably now dressed in a pale yellow Shirley Temple dress complete with white ankle socks and shiny black patent leather shoes and with her long brown hair in pigtails with a big pale yellow bow atop her head, slightly off center to one side. And wearing a dog collar and being led by Queen Neener like a pet. Oh the humanity!!

My blood begins to boil on seeing it. And I can tell I'm not alone - subtle body language and strangled gasps indicate many others in the crowd are equally angry and upset - Muffin is apparently well loved in this community.

But even worse is the way Muffin is behaving... her eyes empty and staring, darker-ringed by far than those of the grim warrior girl beside me, but the eyeballs themselves just empty yellow-grey orbs showing no hint of life, and her mouth slavering and snapping now and then like a distempered dog's. Her slender arms just hang lifelessly at her side, swinging gently as she moves, and she leads with her head - her mouth really, always snapping at any flesh nearby but weakly. Sort of like a puppy or kitten of only a few days just beginning to test out its jaws and fledgeling teeth.

Something is odd about the way the Black Queen walks - I had never noticed before, but thinking back now I've never really seen her walk until now. The first time I saw her she was standing on a floating platform and the second time she was already standing before her torture device, where she stood through the entire vision. She may have walked out of the room at the end of it, but the vision was ending then and I was rapidly losing my ability to see clearly as well as consciousness.

Now however I notice her movement across the floor is too smooth, too graceful - a bit like her dog's (and it floats a few inches above the floor - doesn't walk at all really). It almost seems as if she isn't using normal human legs - or like she's done in rather poor CGI and they hadn't bothered to render the smooth spline curves all the way down till they resembled regular human walk cycles. Like something made for the Sci-Fi Channel.

A long rolling gasp followed by startled muttering in hushed tones spreads around the room as people notice poor little Zombie_Muffin on her leash being paraded about right in front of us all. It's an obvious power play - Neener is showing off her absolute disdain for what the people think, and rubbing our faces in it. A smug ironic grin lights her ivory features.

As they progress through the wide wake in the crowd created by her little dog-herald, Neener occasionally stabs a sausage link from a platter in passing with a long two-tined silver sausage fork and holds it up in front of Muffin's face, at which poor little Zombie_Muffin snaps at it and starts spasmodically clashing her teeth on it, chewing as if she's never done it before and is having a hard time figuring it out. Again her movements remind me of a recently born puppy. Little gurgling growls and foamy spittle emerge from her mouth as she chews clumsily, occasionally dropping fragments of meat on the floor that she immediately strains to get to without using her hands. My heart sinks to see Muffin reduced to this shambling empty thing - though I hadn't really known her at all.

Reaching a large clear space in the center of the hall Neener picks up an elegant brandy snifter filled with something red and daintily rings her silver sausage fork against the bowl of it several times in order to claim everyones' attention - well aware that all attention in the room is already riveted onto her.

"Attention everyone - can I have your attention for a moment please. Good people of DV - we hope you're enjoying this feast laid out for you, and the entertainment provided by household staff and freelance street performers (at this YaDontXey sketches a jerky yet somehow impossibly graceful bow moving as if underwater and deftly catches several more thrown sausages which he pockets along with the rest).

"We would now like to present for your further entertainment and enchantment, a new but dear dear friend of the Castle, and a close personal acquaintance that I consider practically a sister. Please give a warm welcome to SaffronAxe, Gypsy Dancer and recently promoted Queen as she dances and plays her Discordion for you."

... And through the same huge double doors emerges a whirling dervish in bright metallic satin gown of burnt orange and emerald green - the Vanishing Woman - the Spider Princess from chapter Four.

SaffronAxe.


Her movements are frenzied but amazingly graceful. Like Esmerelda from the Hunchback of Notre Dame, on whom the author partially based her character. All exotic and Gypsy-ish, flashing eyes and whirling dress and flying arms - doing some exotic Gypsy dance that holds us all enthralled. Occasionally snapping her fingers or clapping her hands over her head. Her hair is long and unbound, as black as Neener's, and flying around her head and shoulders like a living thing. When she spins really fast her floor-length skirt flies up around her waist, but beneath it are layers of other dresses or petticoats or whatever you call those extra skirts women used to wear under big hoop skirts and the like.

Another tiny snort of mocking mirth escapes from the Amazon warrior girl beside me - I know she's amused at how intently I'm trying to see under the Gypsy dancer's dress. Hey, I'm not the only one - look around! most of the males are enraptured, and many of the females too. But I can't help but feel my face flush with embarrassment. I swear I'm not usually this - excitable. It's this place, this strange warped reality. It's the Amygdala dammit!! Whatever that is. Here I seem to be preternaturally subject to these attractions - hopelessly adrift on a sea of desires that I can't control and unable to do aught but go where they take me. I think anyway. At least that's my story and I'm sticking to it.

Attached to SaffronAxe's sash by a short black leather thong is a small hexagonal device of ornately carved and painted wood - looking something like a stack of hexagonal drinking coasters with some small black buttons and knobs on one end. She now removes this from her sash and thumbs some secret catch that opens it - it turns out to be a sort of small accordion or concertina. She begins to play as she dances.

The sound is strange - surreal and discordant. Horrible really, but in an oddly compelling and hypnotic way. Notes that resemble rusty nails being wrenched from sheet metal swirl amid a tidal sea of deep off-kilter sounds pulling the listener toward an irresistible deep watery death that seems sweeter and more attractive than anything you can imagine while that music is playing. As it overwhelms me the room seems to grow darker, murky, almost as if it's underwater and I just couldn't see that before somehow. Everyone seems to feel it - they're all moving strangely, slowly as if underwater or hypnotized.

Suddenly YaDontXey grabs both Doreenema and me with his hands covering one each of our ears as well as possible and hugs our heads against his scrawny chest, as if trying to block out the sound as much as he can. It's a crude impromptu group hug, and he pulls us down toward the tiled floor where we fall with a slight clatter from Doreenema's armour. But nobody seems to notice, they're all captivated under the Spider Queen's Discordion spell. Now that he's broken the spell for us I can see that they're all swaying gently in unison, as if they're rooted to the bottom of the sea and subject to the pull of the deep tide. The tide of her discordant music. And she leads them all, her gentle swaying movements becoming their own. I also notice one very strange thing - small dark dots seem to be spreading outward on the floor from under her skirt. Like insects.

No - Spiders.

A shudder starts in my solar plexus and spreads quickly through my entire body.

Then YaDontXey is pulling us, sliding us across the polished tiles toward the gaping double doors through which Neener and Saffron both emerged so recently - toward the Throne Room and the interior of Castle Neener. We stay low, sliding the way you can on a freshly waxed wooden gymnasium floor and keeping hidden behind white-draped feasting tables. Nobody seems to notice us - even the Black Queen is swaying hypnotized under the sway of Saffron's music. As we pass her I make a snap decision and grab Muffin's leash from Neener's numb hand, jerking the poor zombie girl along with us - she seems to be the only one other than us unaffected, and that's only because she's already ensorcelled under her own hypnotic spell. She tumbles nervelessly to the floor and I drag her sliding smoothly along behind our little ragtag group, her mouth still working and foaming and chomping gently.

Omnis - dude!! NEXT chapter - I PROMISE!!!

Actually this was all going to be one chapter but it was getting too long and had to be broken up.

Hopefully tonight.

I'm in it, and have been saved! (for now at least) Oddly I had a dream last night in which you posted the next chapter and had changed my name slightly, but it was something different. Surprisingly you got some of my real-life mannerisms down accurately.

Huh weird - a few nights ago, just before we talked about you being in the story, I dreamed that you commissioned me to do a small Batman sculpture, but that while I was making it I decided to make it Batgirl instead, and was wondering if you'd be mad. Now that seems weirdly almost prophetic in view of what I've done with your character... the whole androgynous thing and all.

I struggled for a while with what your character should be like, and when I hit upon the idea of a Joan of Arc type warrior girl it started to really take shape. Then the Amazon thing occurred to me as well, and I remembered the thread where we talked about Callisto's armor and suddenly it came into focus.

Oh, and I realized after writing this that there's also a bit of Diana - goddess of the hunt what with the bow and all. Interesting.

Take your time, wouldn't want my character prematurely ejaculated if you know what I'm sayin' ;]

Reading that wiki page about Diana I realize Nina's character is largely based on her - she was the goddess who some unfortunate soul had seen at her bath out in the woods and she turned him into a stag and let his own hunting dogs chase him down and devour him. There's also a bit of Circe - the witch with her own personal island who gathered male lovers and turned them into pigs. I think she was from the Odyssey? As I was writing, these vaguely mythological ideas were occurring to me, but I wasn't remembering specifics about which myth or which goddess etc, it was just vague. Its kind of cool now to look into the various myths and see the origins.

And fear not Omnis - I know you're experiencing doubts and second thoughts about what we discussed - but let me assure you - tis a fine sacrifice you're making!! It's going to be an amazing character, and well worth the cost to your pride. Well, easy for me to say I guess, it not being me!

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

As I was writing, these vaguely mythological ideas were occurring to me, but I wasn't remembering specifics about which myth or which goddess etc, it was just vague.

"Originality is the fine art of remembering what you hear but forgetting where you heard it."
-Laurence J. Peter
US educator & writer (1919 - 1988)

Originally Posted by Darkmatters

Reading that wiki page about Diana I realize Nina's character is largely based on her - she was the goddess who some unfortunate soul had seen at her bath out in the woods and she turned him into a stag and let his own hunting dogs chase him down and devour him. There's also a bit of Circe - the witch with her own personal island who gathered male lovers and turned them into pigs. I think she was from the Odyssey? As I was writing, these vaguely mythological ideas were occurring to me, but I wasn't remembering specifics about which myth or which goddess etc, it was just vague. Its kind of cool now to look into the various myths and see the origins.

And fear not Omnis - I know you're experiencing doubts and second thoughts about what we discussed - but let me assure you - tis a fine sacrifice you're making!! It's going to be an amazing character, and well worth the cost to your pride. Well, easy for me to say I guess, it not being me!

I have absolutely no concern with what my character is like just as long as... well... you know

So Omnis is going to undergo some ejaculation-related fate? I can't wait to read this.

Lol well ok then - I guess that was more about me feeling a bit bad for what I'm about to do to you.

Let me apologize right here and now to everyone - once a character takes on a life of its own it begins to do things - and it's beyond my control. If I try to reign them in I'm not being true to the muse, and would end up writing a restrained, totally PC piece of garbage nobody would struggle all the way through.

Phrase of the day - Comoedus Emptor



Which translates roughly as "Comedy actor beware"

(It just occurred to me - maybe tomorrow's phrase of the day should be Artifex Emptor - which means Author Beware... )

Originally Posted by Dianeva

So Omnis is going to undergo some ejaculation-related fate? I can't wait to read this.

LOL well, not exactly - I think he was just using an idiom that suits the style of my writing here to say he doesn't want me to try to write his character before it's fully formed in my mind. Rather brilliantly put I thought. Though now you've got my mind wandering along certain channels...

... And with that - it's time. Let the day's writing commence. You'll hear from me again in a few hours - unless I take a break or two and pop onto the board for a little R&R.

EIGHT

The King is Dead - Long Live the Queen

We stay flat on the floor and sort of crawl/slide/slither through the broad doorway, taking advantage of the long tables arranged there to remain hidden until we've made it into the dark cavern of the Throneroom itself, which is empty and dark at the moment. Rounding a corner to a safe spot where we'll be unseen by anyone in the grand ballroom we stand and dust ourselves off, all except poor little Zombie_Muffin who would be perfectly happy remaining in any position she's left in unless there's food nearby. I stand her up and she begins gently nuzzling my arm with weak little play-bites. I stick a finger in her mouth and let her chew weakly on it for a moment.

Even here Saffron's eerie discordant music has a powerful effect. YaDontXey (who I'm beginning to think of as just Xey because his full name takes too long to write) pulls us onward through one of the sets of double doors to the side, which turns out to lead to the kitchen, where servants and maids scurry in bustling activity amid a loud clatter and clang and continuous hiss of frying sausage in many skillets that mostly drowns out the hypnotic music.

A few of them cast strange looks our way, but they don't challenge us though it's clear we don't belong here. Xey is leading us rapidly along a wall toward another set of doors leading somewhere deeper in the castle for reasons we don't understand yet - but he pauses at a large ceramic jar containing dozens of the long silver sausage forks and he grabs one that he uses to probe into his ear. He jabs sharply with it and withdraws it, bearing a small end piece of sausage that he had apparently jammed into his ear earlier - which explains why he alone was free of the hypnotic effects of Saffron's chilling music. He removes another sausage end from his other ear and throws both pieces along with the fork into a trash receptacle as he hurries us again toward the next set of doors.

But now we've caught the attention of a large rotund man in white apron and tall poofy chef hat across the large kitchen, who comes stomping angrily toward us.

"Don't look at 'im - just keep walking." Xey whispers, walking even faster now, trying desperately not to look desperate. I almost laugh, thinking what an odd group we must be. We can hardly blend in - to ANY crowd.

The fat chef is waving a large carving knife and shouting for us to stop as he begins to run toward us. Several other kitchen workers now rapidly pull off their greasy white head kerchiefs and aprons and move to help him restrain us. It's clear we're going to be cut off just before making the double door, even if we break into a full run now which would be to admit we're trespassers. But just before the fat chef reaches us the doors are flung open and a large kitchen cart draped with the same white material as the banquet tables comes rolling through, and mercifully rolls right in between us and the angry red-faced chef. Pushing the cart is a small sturdy woman in a blue dress and blue head kerchief and apron who I take to be a head kitchen maid. Her eyes scan the scene rapidly and she parks the cart right in front of the huffing chef (toward whom I can tell she bears ill will) and faces him defiantly, wiping her hands on the front of her cornflower blue apron.

She's partially blocking one door with her body so it's standing invitingly open. Xey leads us all through into a small larder lined with long shelves stocked with dried foods and cooking supplies. As the heavy doors swing shut behind us I can't help but sneak a peek through the crack to see what's happening out there. I feel Xey's spiky straw-colored hair tickle my neck a moment later as he places his head just under mine, also overcome with curiosity.

All we can see is the woman's back as she squares off with the angry puffing chef. Can't really make out much of their shouted conversation over the ambient noise of the busy kitchen and the faint notes of Saffron's discordion drifting in even here, though very softly now. But body language tells the story.

He's stiff and tall and waving the knife angrily at first, but his aggression is absorbed and deflated by her resolute peasant-woman solidity. There's lots of shouting, of which all I catch are the names Francois and Zha-Zha. In moments Chef Francois is crestfallen and shuffles back to his cutting board across the kitchen while the kitchen maid who saved us remains planted firmly in front of the door.

"Nice view from 'ere mate" Xey intones. And I must admit - the heavy blue dress does reveal a nice womanly fullness of hip and thigh. As we watch, and as I feel Doreenema's contemptuous eyes burning into my back the maid places a hand behind her back and makes an upside-down A-Ok sign to us just beneath the knot of her apron ties. We take it to mean the danger is past now and she's subdued the angry chef who will no longer bother about us.

We step back just as she opens the door and steps into the larder with us.

"Ok, you're safe for a while anyway. He doesn't dare speak up - I've got too much dirt on him and he wouldn't want his fat wife to find out about his dalliances with the kitchen boys." She flashes us a winning smile while planting her hands on her sturdy peasant hips. She has a very pretty face and her shoulder-length brown hair is held back with the cornflower blue kerchief.

"I did call it right, didn't I? - You are believers?" She again makes the A-Ok sign low against her abdomen, as if it's something she's used to doing secretly so no-one can see other than the intended recipient. We're all at a loss for a moment, but suddenly it occurs to me -

"The sign of O" I breathe, returning the symbol, which I now realize stands for One Naughty Knight. I hold it low against my abdomen like she did, at first just in imitation, but then realize it's just where Neener impaled him. It's a freakin' cult!

O is now a martyr.

Well, miracles never cease!



"We can hide you here for a little while, but you can't stay in the Castle for long. We're trying to get the King out before she decides what to do with him."

"Well right now would be a damn good time!" Xey announces."Whilst everyone is spellbound in the banquet room. We were just on our way to find the King as a matter of fact, to rescue 'im."

Really - ? Is that what we were doing?

Zha_Zha chuckles with a funny look on her face at that. "Um. Well... Be prepared. The King isn't quite the man he used to be. Wait here for just a moment" With that she whirls and bursts out of the larder back into the bustling kitchen.

So we stand among the casks of flour and dried fishes and dried meats and cheeses and we wait.

Not much later she re-enters, pushing the cart. It's loaded with strings of sausages and small flat loaves of dark hard bread and various other essentials that might be needed for a long road trip - jars of water etc. She immediately starts loading us down - placing a coiled rope of sausage links over my shoulder so it crosses my chest like a bandolier and handing a pair of water jugs each to Xey and Doreenema and wrapping the trail loaves in a white bandanna that she knots and tucks into my belt. Very efficient and motherly. It's clear this is a woman who's used to taking care of people and who knows what she's doing. Obviously a woman with children of her own.

"He's in the Royal Bedchambers hiding out for now. I can get you through the kitchen, but from there it's up to you to find him. Get him out - meet me at dusk in the stables. I think I can arrange transportation for all of you. You know, you're just what the King needs right now - stalwart defenders and protectors." She lifts an edge of the white tablecloth on the kitchen cart and ushers us underneath. As the others pile in, I take a moment to ask her something:

"Have you heard anything about WalkingMonad and his group? They went to try to rescue Muffin, but since Neener obviously got her... "

"Yes, unfortunately they all got caught as well, and are currently in the dungeons. But nothing will happen to them for a while - Neener can't afford that kind of political suicide. Not yet anyway. The King has some kind of plan or something - I don't know, but you must help him. Getting his power back is our only hope at this point - and I don't know how much longer we have."

With this she stuffs me under the tablecloth into the little space beneath the serving cart and begins to trundle us out through the double doors back into the noisy kitchen.

The cart stops here for a while and we can hear platters and bowls being placed atop it - she's loading it down to be brought into the banquet room in order to re-stock tables there. Brilliant!

Then we're moving again - on through the kitchen and into the large dark Throneroom. She slows the cart and taps rapidly on the edge of it - our sign. We pile out rapidly, all carrying our allotted portions of the food she gave us. Stealthily, crouching low and with me pulling Zombie-Muffin on her leash, we move across the dark Throneroom toward another set of double doors on the opposite side.

These let into a series of antechambers that eventually let into the large spacious and elegantly appointed Royal Bedchambers themselves.

Never in my life (well, what little I could currently recall of it) had I seen such huge luxurious beds!! Two of them. Spaced far apart, with acres of beautiful mosaic tile in between and lots of little tables and dressers. It's obvious the Royal sleeping arrangements weren't on exactly intimate terms. There's a huge wading pool - or is it a bathtub? All tiled in mosaic with little mythological scenes depicted here and there beneath the clear water. Astonishingly beautiful. And many French doors in a row letting out onto a portico with tall trees visible out in the courtyard.

We're at a loss for a moment, just looking around.

"She said 'e's in here somewhere - but where?" Xey breathes, casting about uncertainly at all the rich tapestries and wall hangings and decorative Oriental standing screens. Then we hear a sound - quiet, muffled, coming from one of the incredibly large spacious closets. Rather than a door it's hung with a large beautiful red velvet curtain. And it's on the side of the room that I take to be the Queen's, by the decidedly feminine appearance of all the furnishings around it.

We move to it quietly as a group. Yes, there's definitely hushed movement inside. Furtive and secretive. Soft sighings of fabric on fabric - satins and silks from the gentle sound of it, and occasionally a very soft oooh or aaaah in a small quiet voice the gender of which I'm unable to determine with any certainty. We all look at each other perplexedly - what do we do now? It seems we may have caught the King at some very illicit and embarrassing activity. No idea of the protocol for something like this. We're held in stasis until suddenly Zombie_Muffin knocks over a small ornate pedestal table and sends a brass pitcher clanging across the floor noisily, splashing water over our feet.

The noise brings a sudden silence from inside the closet.

"Um - Yer Majesty... ?" Xey ventures in a quiet respectful voice.

"Um. Ahem. Yes." intones a strange muffled voice from inside, seemingly being made to sound extra deep and resonant like when a woman or a child wants to sound like a man.

"Um - er - aaah - well, see, we're here to rescue you." Xey announces.

The curtain moves a bit, as if a person inside is shifting his position.

"Well. Yes - I see." Comes the falsely baritone voice. "Um - but I'm not The King. Pay no attention to the little man behind the curtain... "

And suddenly into the room bursts a very familiar salt-crusted dog. It's ScurvySeaMutt, who sprints straight across the acres of mosaic tile floors and over the ornate Oriental rugs and right up to the red velvet curtain which he immediately grabs in his jaws and pulls down in a pile.

Behind it stands a rather underwhelming little man slouching embarrassedly and wearing a pale pink satin gown that ill-fits his bony form and elbow-length matching opera gloves. On his head is a plain tiara. His hands fidget nervously in front of his bony chest with the strings of pearls hung around his scrawny neck. We're all trying very hard not to laugh, a feat made twice as difficult when he stumbles forward out of the closet on low heels that he obviously has no experience walking in. Black silk stockings hang wrinkled and sagging on his thin hairy legs.

"Oh! Well!" Exclaims the King, who might at this point be more accurately described as a Queen, his voice now a high-pitched falsetto. "If it isn't Dorothy and Toto!"

We all glance at each other, snorting with barely-suppresed laughter now. In a strange way, Zombie-Muffin in her little pale yellow Shirley Temple dress does look a lot like Dorothy.

He glances toward the rest of us with an ironic expression. "And here we have the Tin Man, the Scarecrow, and the Cowardly Lion!"

Xey and Doreenema look at me and burst out at last with full-on out-loud laughter, unable to hold it back anymore.

"Ok" I say. "Doreenema is the Tin Man, with the armour and all, and Xey does look like a scarecrow, but who's the Cowardly Lion?"

At this they all burst out with peals of unfettered laughter, Xey actually bending down and slapping his knees repeatedly.

"Wait - is it ME? I'M the Cowardly Lion??!!" This only makes them roar even harder and gasp for breath, tears streaming down their faces. And then I get it. With my shoulder-length thick unkempt hair and my full beard - I suppose I do look a bit like a lion at that.

"Oh ok! The lion is me! I get it. I do. It's funny. But wait... he just meant because I LOOK like a lion, right? I mean, not the whole cowardly part... right?"

They just continue to roar and now Xey actually drops to the floor and rolls back and forth, slapping a hand repeatedly on the slick tiles.

what

So... I'm guessing Omnis is the king?

>.>

Why on earth would you think that?

Originally Posted by anonymous

what

Thank you anonymous, for the most profound comment yet!! This one must go on the front cover along with all the praise by famous writers!

Dianeva - yes, good call. I noticed only after posting that I had failed to mention the good King's name. Doh!!

You know what writing is?

What any kind of art is really - especially if it takes weeks or months to complete?


It's frozen time.


It's a way of taking those weeks and months that are always slipping past anyway and hammering them into something lasting - something worthwhile (and in this case something passing strange).