[Diamond18]

Vogonwë awoke in the morning with the worst hangover of his life. It was, actually, the only hangover he’d ever had in his life, so that isn’t saying much. But, hypothetically speaking, if he had ever been so unfortunate as to have had a hangover before, this one would have topped that one easily. It was so terribly painful and unpleasant, that he wrote a poem about it.

My head is splitting,
The world is spinning,
I’m not winning,
Anything.
My heart is sinking,
I ought never to be drinking,
What was that stuff?
I had enough.
Or too much.
It’s hard to tell.

Fortunately for the rest of the It-ship, he was the last to awake, and found himself all alone, so that he couldn’t share his poem with anyone. This did not bother him, since he was in the midst of working on the continuation of his epic poem; The Lay of the Entish Bow and the Hunting of the Orcs: Fit the Second, Confusion and Angst in Dark Places. He hoped to be able to recite it before leaving Topfloorien, so that the Not-Queen Saladriel could hear a sample of his endless wit.

Meanwhile, the two fair and winsome members of the Whatever-ship, Merisuwyniel and Pimpiowyn, had set off hours earlier for a girl’s day out, to the chagrin of the manly men and half-elf, who were left to their own devices for the duration of the shopping spree. Indeed, one can only imagine how dull life must have been for them without fair Merisuwyniel around to impress with their unmatched manliness, elveness, and idiocy.

Yet it must be so, their day must be darkened, for the She-elf and the Half-halfling-half-thing-quaterling-thing, were bent on pillaging the high-class stores of Topfloorien for all the delights to be found therein. Merisuwyniel had visions of newer and more fashionable clothes dancing in her head, whilst Pimpiowyn was eager to discover if the Elven café’s were all they were purported to be. She wondered briefly if any of the shops would have red clothes in them, but despaired of the idea in a remarkably overdramatic mood swing. Elves never wore red, so surely she would not find what her heart desired in an Elven boutique: a dress of black velvet with flowing, gauzy, fluid, filmy, flimsy, diaphanous, gossamer, sheer, tiffany, ethereal, preternaturally gosh darn beautiful red sleeves. And a mushroom sandwich.