[Bêthberry]

It was the morning of the day of the afternoon of the third night of the extraordinarily tumultuous and awesomely awesome battle of Gol Dulldor, but the orcs kept a-comin', although there weren't quite as many as there were a day ago. Indeed, the members of the Itship had been called back into the breech of the battle and in so doing had breeched the very bonds of bosom buddyship.

Lo, their boon companion was laid alone. Most true it was that Gormlessar's barrow had become a fine and private place wherein none did there embrace. Meanwhile the members fought for, what was it now? The destruction of mass means of destruction? The eradication of biochemical agents of eradication? Coffee? Oil? Did they remember now in the mass hysteria of frenzied battle and PR doublespeak the gentle entish nature of the Bow? Shall we now devise an apostrophe to the truly appalling onslaught of testy testosterone as the war drums beat? No, we shall not. We shall proceed with the passing of O Lando from the scene.

It appeared the gosh-darn-it-great Gormlessar, in death as well as in life, had imitated the art of all those hip, cool Beautiful People. He had lived fast, died young, and so far left a beautiful corpse. But his too, too solid flesh was melting and shortly his charm would be oozing from every pore. The waxy pallor of death was succumbing to a blackened bruising, a reverse Gothic if you will. Indeed, it could even be said that flies, maggots and any number of two-winged insects of the order Diptera were buzzing around him and he probably would have heard them when he died had the uproar of the battle not been so uproarious. Yet his corpse was spared the greater indignity of infestation by the furtive attendance of one whose great sobbing sobs sopped up the buzzing like stale, day old bread dipped into any mess of potage.

Yes, Gravy, faithful, ugly, bepimpled Gravy, was the sole companion to brave the stench and odoriferous odours of the rotter. He had crept forward from the underbush where Gormlessar had sent him hunting porc, a cry forming on his lips, "Flies, where are thy sting? A short swat passed and thou shalt be no more; thou shalt die." It was testament to his orcish love for Gormlessar and their great plans for the swishy salons that he had brought forth such resplendent verse, for he had not donne well in school, taking neither his O nor his A levels and thinking that SAT was a preferred position for eating.

"You've ungently stolen from our accord, Halfie my lord. Is it excepted I should know no secrets that pertains to you or our plans? Dwell I now in the suburbs of your good pleasure? Can I no longer keep you in good colour and highlight but your dark roots now come forth? Tell me your counsels!"

Suddenly, ere Gravy could quite understand from whence came the voice, for it seemed not something of this Muddled Berth, he heard again the dulcet tones of the last best manly man.

"Gravy, thy bosom shall partake the secrets of my heart. All my mullets I leave to thee, but seek ye out O Lando, for with his braid and my mullets there lies a fortune in Hairdressing Haven."

Gravy was quite come over, for it seemed a message from beyond the grave and as he looked up a radiance shone in his face and lo! he was born again into his original elvish nature and all the trappings and accoutrements of his orcish hideousness fell off him. Let it be said quite bluntly that he was not blinded. This is not an allegory. Nor are we still in Damascus, Toto.

At this point in our story O Lando raced to the scene, well, not really raced, for he skateboarded into the barrow, nearly upsetting the careful repose of the corpse, whose arms and legs had to be reposed.

"Hark! What angel here lurks," cried O Lando.

"Not you too! You're as bad as Halfullion was about my name. I'm Gravy."

"Well, never mind. We'll find you a right elvish name. I dub thee Gravielion."

"And who are you?"

"Lando."

"Lando Calrissian?"

"Wrong story. You've been listening to too many film fans. Behold I am O Lando Bloom, some sort of NoName prince of the Workmud. But haste! I come to pay my last respects," intoned O Lando. With that he bowed his head, took from Gormlessar's corpse the splendid tool Gurl-Thang, cut off his braid, and laid it across the manly chest.

"Look there," said Gravielion. "There lies the unkindest cut of all."

"Etceteron's death thrust?"

"No, your braid. Now you must grow in another before I can use you to model the Halfullion hair cutting methods."

At this point they who kept the watch that ends the knight heard yells and screams and saw a flood of burning, boiling oil spread down from the castle walls. It advanced, they retreated, and the bier and corpse of the most splendidly splendid hero became immersed in the burning liquid. The flames leapt high, higher, into the blackened sky and there were flashes of great light, giant sparks arcing into the sky, almost as if some wizard had unleased thunderbolts of fireworks. As the once resplendent corpse of Gormlessar was consumed by the flames, our two elves could have sworn they saw rebel fighters flying overhead, but then they caught themselves and remembered that that had been a cremation in a galaxy far, far away. Surely our manfully man hero, much as he had tottered on the rim, had never really passed over to the Dark Side. And as the embers died down, they slunk off into the bushes, determined that Halfullion's dream of a chain of salons would be stayin' alive. And they were never again seen by the mortal eyes of the Itship.

[ March 04, 2003: Message edited by: Bethberry ]