[Bêthberry]

Celery was stewing yet again. He had fancied a bit of garden of his own, but Saladriel had not invited him to peep. And now his hopes of dicing her were shredded. He had not intended Saladriel to string along that dwarf. "There's no good help around these days," he rabbited on, blaming Aliciel for failing to ensure that Tofu had discharged soon enough into the bower. He sulked off to devise a pithy plan to defeat these pulp fictions on the marrow.

After much cerebration, the Company were again summoned for a final celebration to the chambers of Celery where he spoke crisply but ceremoniously of hardening their hearts for the leaf-taking. Seeing their resolve wilt, he offered more of the magical mashed mushrooms, served once again by Aliciel who was quick to point out that one bite would make them large and the other bite make them small. Halfullion at this news had a spot of trouble holding manly onto l'Enviey Piennhas and Wylkynsion berated Etceteron about getting the bite right. Orogarn Two demanded the right to take two bites of the pasties, one also for Too and Pimpiowyn munched the entire mash in one masticatory mouthful. Vogonwë immediately memorialized the marvellous morsels in extemporaneous amphimacer, which cretinous cretic shall here be recorded to highlight its curiosity as an archly archaic anachronism.

In amaze
Lost, I gaze!
Can our Eyes
Reach thy size?
May my Lays
Swell with Praise
For this Meal
So unreal.

Not realizing this was the antipathetic antidote, Saladriel attempted to allure Kuruharan into nibbling on the nicety which she held in her mouth, but he was busy trying to garner Celery's attention in order to discuss the potential for this product in the weight management market.

Suddenly, the earth stood still.

"Oh, poop," said Etceteron. "These aren't the honey cakes of the born-gains. Pimpi burped. Orogarn Two did a double back flip. Halfullion tossed his head dashingly. Saladriel rolled her eyes--all that apparently she had to roll.

"I guess that what should be shall be after all," she intoned in her most meaningfully monotonous, monogomous monotone.

"Oh woe! Alas! Farewell great visions," bespoke our heroine, Merisuwyniel. "I feel your loss, good members of our 'ship. I was clearly foresightful in refusing to partake of this repast, for now I have my memories at least intact. I will not forget he whose very steps enthrall my bow. Yet you great Saladriel are fairly envious and perhaps needful as well. I will give you the Bow if you ask for it."

With these generous words the lovely girl with the lovely hands tremblingly held the lovely bow up to the not-Queen. The Bow seemed to stand upright and fairly hummed with its own good vibrations.

"Well-dressed am I but clearly I have met my match in your saucy skirts. I do not deny that I have long longed for such a long bow. And for many years I have pondered what I might do should a living bow come into my hands. And now at last it comes and if I take it all shall love me and despair."

"I know what it is you seek, for I have seen the bow quiver on your pillow beside you. I say to you, Merisuwyniel, that even as I speak to you I perceive the Dark Lord. He ever gropes to see me and my thought, but is yours the greater need?"

Saladriel lifted up her hands and from the hot peppers she held in her fingers there shot forth a firey burning taste and as she planted herself there, to Merisuwyniel she seemed herbaceous and edible beyond tossing. Then Saladriel dropped her hands and lo! she was once again merely the not-Queen of Topfloorien, a simple mixed salad rather than a Caesar.

"I pass the croutons. I will choose ascetic vinegar and leave the bow cid'er."

They stood a long while in silence and then the Lady spoke again.

"Now is the time for you to leaf." She snapped her fingers and many handhares came forward and provided them with more croutons for the journey, with cloaks woven of the strongest hemp and held about the neck with a brooch like a mushroom head veined with dollar signs.

"They are as good as credit," said Saladriel. "Now let us drink the cup of V8 and the shadows of consumerism fall between us. And here be the munificent and magnificent gifts of Saladriel and Celery to the Company."

"To the dashingly dashing Halfullion, the Lord Gormlessar, I give a sheath to fit his sword, which is overlaid with a tracery of flowers and leaves and mosses and on it is carved runes which speak the extraction of the sword, in notches."

"To the Lord Earnur Etceteron, valiantly valorous and in vino veritas, I offer a mithril flask of prodigious unemptying production and on which is carved the image of an elk's antlers and the words, in runes of course, Dorfiddich Single Malt. Other runes of the magical inscription are, unfortunately, weathered and scratched and overhatched. The only remaining runes which can be made out are the potentially portentous, 'made ..... compromise.'"

"To the mightily physically fit Orogarn Two, he of very fine fettle, I give a mithril fob for binding his wallet to his belt, should he ever find it again, that it be not lost nor taken from him ever again, knock on wood." (Here Saladriel glanced at the Entish bow quivering on Merisuwynial's back.)

"To Kuruharan the Convivial but Conniving, I give a pouch of sundried tomatoes and mixed antipasto, a sort of vegetal pemmican, and suggest he devise ways of marketing it for the tourist trade which will spring up in the footsteps of the Fellow/Galship."

"To Pimpiowyn, not-lover of orcs, I give a box of bean seeds set with the letter S for Saladriel but may it also stand for Sustenance in your tongue, so that always the half-halfling would always have something to feast upon. At the very least such musical fruit could always be used to punctuate Vogonwë's poetic output."

"To Vogonwë himself I give a raspberry wreath, to be worn around his brow as a totem to guard against those who would hazard a critical comment upon his poetic output."

"And, finally, to the splendidly lovely and sumptuously attired and perfectly finished heroine Merisuwyniel, I give a cosmetic bag 'broidered with the runes, Yo,Logo. In it are samples from all the coolest Brand Names of creams, salves, unguents, ointments and foot powders for when you will be in rough places and want to be brand-new. Oh, and emery boards for your lovely nails."

And as the Fellow/Galship took their leaf there arose the voice of the Not-Queen singing puckishly to them one last time:

If we purists have offended
Think but this and all is mended
Tolkien has but words us lended
And we our elbows now have bended
As if in jest bad verse is ended
And laughter much is cheerily sended.

[ February 10, 2003: Message edited by: Bethberry ]