"For goodness sake Halfie," pleaded Merisuwyniel. "Now is the time!"
In the heat of the moment and the confusion into which they had all been thrown, like croutons in the soup of combat, she had neglected her martial prowess and was clinging on Lord Gormlessar's arm as a limpet would a limpet-attracting surface. At any other moment, he would have been rather pleased at this abrupt turn of events; however, prior to the sodden Lord Etceteron's fumbled rescue attempt (he had not untied Gormlessar's wrists but had very nearly severed his thumb) he was feeling rather queasy. He refused to look at his (presumably bloodied) hand for fear of the fainting fit he knew (with some small shame) would result in him seeing anything red and moist.
Merisuwyniel tugged on his arm more fiercely. Luckily, with this being an action sequence, the director had slowed the bad guys down to super-slow-mo, but due to time constraints, the editing team had left the Fellow/Gal-ship running at normal speed, allowing them quite a bit of time to prepare. Orogarn Two sat down, cross-legged, and began cleaning his nails out with his sword, that the inept River Pirates had neglected, neglectfully, in a wanton display of neglectful neglect.
"Merisuwyniel, please bandage my thumb," gasped the injured Hero Halfullion. Adroitly she did so, ripping material from her bodice. Etceteron tried unsuccessfully not to gawk and mumbled something about the South Downs, and rolling slopes, but no-one was listening.
"Why so afraid, oh mighty one?" she whispered as she finished off the make-shift dressing.
"Will all great Neptune's ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rather the multitudinous seas in incarnadine, making the green one red," he replied carelessly, rather surprsing her for she thought that line had been punned on previously and considerably more humourously. Etceteron, trying to yank a hitherto unsuspected black dagger from a similarly sable soft satin boot, stumbled into her.
"Out, damned sot!" she cried.
Ah, I see now, it was a sort of precursory pre-emptive premonitory sort of affair, she mused. She finished wrapping the strips from her tunic around his hand.
Will I ever cut her hair? wondered Halfullion.
This wound to my hand seems most grievous. Yet I am a Hero! I must ignore my pain.. He yanked the dread blade L'Envey Piennhas from the gorgeous yet somewhat effeminate scabbard gift from the Lady of the Bowel, Not-Queen Saladriel, and removing himself from Merisuwyniel's whitened grasp, he strode forth manfully to meet his destiny. He had managed to retain the sword through their capture due to it's miniscule size at the time. The scabbard magically matched the sword, inch for inch.
His haircut was simply unbelievable and accounted for three of the enemy before battle was even joined. He shook his supreme waves of faultless folicles at their backs, as they scampered away, gibbering in fear and awe of his stupendous bouffant.
Even his companions seemed dumbstruck by Halfullion's grand charge, this flaming hunk of a man, all rippling muscles, superbly tailored tight leatrher armour pieces and a flying buttress cod-piece that bespoke of a quite incomprehensibly incredible masculinity. His charge was only slightly lessened by the sight of his sword, which in its current state would not have caused a softened slab of butter to tremble unduly. It was, to use the friendliest word available, stubby.
This did not stop the mighty impact of his first blow, a blow so strong that it clean knocked the head off the first marauding maruader. The head span, in a graceful arc, coming finally to the hands of Ororgarn Two, who had risen from the ground. Orogarn Two, that most athletic warrior, caught the flying noggin adeptly, slapped it down upon the ground, whereupon the springy turf sent it bouncing swiftly up again. Undeterred, he tapped it thrice more upon the ground, becoming more surprised each time it returned, finally jumping, spinning, and slamming the head down into a circle of rocks leading into a small ravine beside him, and inventing the game of Basketball in the process.
"Huzzah," mumured Vogonwe and tried to think of suitable words for the spell-binding action he had witnessed. He spent the remainder of the skirmish thinking of rhymes for 'hoop-meister'.
Halfullion meantime had rediscovered his heroic qualities. His sword now at a more appropriate size for a blade of such dread repute, he was busily chopping the heads of all the enemies that came at him. The pile of heads was growing rather rapidly and the other members of the party started to become rather nauseous. Seeing that they were not required, they walked off, heading where, they knew not, befuddled by the darkness and the difficulty of the way.
* *
Fearing for his safety, sometime later in the night, the Dwarf and the Dragon were sent back to discover what had become of him. They were gone for a long time.
When they finally returned, they bore with them the noble Hero, who was quite liberally coated in the life-blood of their would be captors. The Dragon seemed replete and immediately settled down to sleep.
"Where have you been?" questioned Merisuwyniel, with a note of hysteria in her voice, and more than a trace of Listerine on her mouth.
"I found him," said the Dwarven Merchant, grimly. "I found him, squatting atop a gruesome pile of heads, busily..."
His voice faltered and it seemed that it would not go on. Halfullion helped him out.
"I was cutting hair!" he said happily. "I have discovered a fabulous new hairstyle! It's business in the front, party in the back!!!"
"Eh?!" cried all the assembled in mass confusion, as dawn flooded the skies around them with a somewhat listless light.
"A mullet!" cried the wood-be hair-stylist, sword wielding hero. "To the French, mullét! Business in front, party out back, like I said. A mullet!"
And he had pictures.
And
links.
Finally, all in the party knew true terror. More than pants-wetting, consciousness-fracturing terror, we're talking real, unadulterated, primal
fear.
It was the grimmest part of the whole quest. It took them another dayus walking, in utter silence, with Halfullion uncermoniously tied to Tofu's back and gagged, before any of them could set the horror aside at all. However, Vogonwë managed somehow to lower the tone before they slept that night. In a dread tone, his aspect fell, he recited the grim words of the Mullet Haiku:
It's not a trailer.
Angry mullet man insists.
Manufactured home.
[ February 12, 2003: Message edited by: Rimbaud ]