[Diamond18]

Vogonwë set off through the woods, following close on Pimpi’s heels. She swung her arms energetically as she walked, and after she socked him in the gut once, he fell back (some would say down) and then resumed following at a safer distance. Soon, the members of the Itship who had chosen to take a detour (that would be, everyone besides Merisu and Grrralph, who had chosen to sulk) emerged from the trees to find a picturesque glade dotted with colorful tents and awnings. The smell of frying bacon lay thick upon the air, and Pimpi nearly fainted from a sudden surge of ecstasy. But she kept her wits about her, and ran to a nearby stand.

“Bacon!!! Baconbaconbacon!!!” she cried.

“No,” replied the cook doggedly, “it’s Beggin’ Strips. Dogs don’t know it’s not bacon!”

“Are you calling the love of my life a dog?” Vogonwë leapt to her defense with a snarl.

The cook shook his head, “No indeed!” he said, and then grinned at the lithe half-halfing with a wolfish gleam in his eyes. “Rrrow!”

“Hey! Keep your eyeballs to yourself!” Vogonwë put an arm around Pimpi’s shoulders and glowered at the cook, his hackles raised.

“Oh, Voggy, don’t fight,” Pimpi said with astounding insincerity, exacerbating the situation by surreptitiously batting her eyelashes at the cook. “Could I try a Beggin’ Strip?” she inquired.

“Oh… well, it’s really more of a dog treat… but you can strip my beggin’ any time,” the cook replied.

“You mangy mutt!” Vogonwë screamed. “How dare you—”

“Who is this nutcase?” the cook asked Pimpi. “And what’s a girl like you doing with a flake like him?”

“I am not a flake! I’m half-elven!” Vogonwë snapped.

“Ah… I see.” The cook turned back to Pimpi and leered suggestively, “Hey, cutie, how would you like to cook something up with a real man for a change?”

Vogonwë barred his teeth, and began to growl in a low and menacing tone (which is basically what a growl would sound like, wouldn’t it?)

For a fleeting moment, the cook wondered if Vogonwë had had his shots, but in the next instant his attention was diverted by a splatter of hot bacon grease being flung in his face. Vogonwë had seized a frying pan and emptied its contents upon the mug of the cook. Sizzling Beggin’ Strips clung to his face, in a fashion rather reminiscent of burning leeches.

“AAAAAAHHHHHH!” he screamed, clawing at his eyes in agony.

“VOGGY!” cried Pimpi in rebuke, though her big blue eyes shone with thinly veiled delight.

The cook’s skin bubbled and peeled apart in a grotesque fashion as the grease soaked into his pores, and he continued to scream melodramatically, until Vogonwë put him out of his misery by conking him over the noggin with the underside of the frying pan. He fell to the floor kind of like a tree in a forest, the main difference being that there were a lot of people around to hear him.

“Bloody ‘ell!” a bystander exclaimed, “just wot d’you think yer doin’, mate?”

“Huh? What kind of accent is that?” Pimpi wondered.

“Indefinite. And I think we should move on,” Vogonwë said, noticing the rabid looks they were getting from the friends of the inert cook.

“Wait just a minute, there, buddy,” a man said threateningly, seizing Vogonwë’s shoulder. “You’re a stranger in these here parts, and we don’t take kindly to strangers waltzing in and bopping our field mice, I mean, fry cooks, on the head!”

“Don’t touch me, I’m an Elf!” Vogonwë said, jerking away and whipping an arrow from his quiver.

“Half,” Pimpi added helpfully.

“If you’re looking for a fight, you’ve come to the right stand!” said a burly looking specimen of hurly manliness. He cracked his knuckles and took a step forward.

Other similar specimens began to close in, slowly but surely, glowering in a most unsettling fashion. Vogonwë was aware that, encircled at such a close range, his arrows would not do much good, so he tried a different approach. “Have any of you heard the Lay of Bakh-tôn-Gréasé? And, if not, would you like to?”

“First things first,” a man with beady, close-set eyes sneered, slapping his right fist against his left palm. “In a moment you’ll be reciting out your—”

“As soon as you’re finished, can we get something eat?” Pimpi interrupted, from where she stood outside the ring of threatening thugs. “The smell of bacon is driving me crazy.”

“No, darling—I think it would be better to get help at this moment!” Vogonwë replied, assuming a defensive stance (slouching sulkily with his hands in his pockets—you know, you’ve seen teenagers).

“Oh, okay,” Pimpi said. “Be right back.”

She turned and ran off to find their comrades in Shipping, which was not hard, since Chrysophylax stood out from the crowd rather nicely over by the stand where he stood. “Guys! Come quick! Vogonwë’s in trouble!” Pimpi cried when she reached her destination.

“Did he fall down a well?” Earnur inquired around a mouthful of Beer Battered Bacon.

“No! He started a fight with a bunch of disgruntled Grundorians, and I fear they will beat him into a bloody pulp and then mince him into bacon and eat him!” Pimpi replied fretfully.

“Why, that’s ridiculous,” Orogarn Two scoffed, “Grundorians are civilized people: we do not mince bacon, we slice it!”

“He’s vastly outnumbered,” Pimpi whimpered. “And it’s all my fault! He was fighting to protect my honor, so if he gets hurt I’ll never forgive myself! Oh, it’s just so hard to be pretty!”

“Oh, I know what you mean!” Kuruharan sympathized. “Once, back home, a dozen Dwarf-women got into a brawl over who got to comb my beard! It was a whale of a fight, but after a while all those breaking bones and cleaving heads for my sake got to be embarrassing to watch, and in the end I just snuck away and combed my own beard!”

Chrysophylax snorted derisively.

“Won’t you come help?” Pimpi asked impatiently.

Earnur swallowed his food down manfully, and grasped the hilt of his noble sword. “Lead on to the fray!” he declared, “Let it not be said that Master Brownbark fought alone whilst the only living admirer of his poetry was in the vicinity!”

“I’m bored,” Chrysophylax burped, “so why not?”

“If anyone dies, I can pick their pockets…” Kuruharan mused. “Okay!”

“I’m not in the habit of fighting my own people, it’s unseemly!” Orogarn Two protested. “But I will see if I can mediate a cessation of hostilities—after all, I am the son of Orogarn One, son of—”

“Has it occurred to any of you, that in the time it has taken to have this conversation, the little maid’s young man could be getting beaten up quite badly?” the Gateskeeper spoke up.

“Right!” Pimpi said, “let’s go! Only, he’s a Half-Elf, not a young man!”

They got their act together and hastened (or something like it) over to where Vogonwë was staving off his attackers with a heretofore unknown (and non-canonical) talent for the martial arts. The Grundorians came at him in waves, but he met each one with karate kicks, jujitsu blows, and judo throws. Still, they came, one after the other, like ants to poison, and still, he battled them tirelessly. Okay, he was getting tired, but there wasn’t much else to do while waiting for Pimpi to arrive with backup. His limbs moved in a flurry of frenzied maneuvers, but the Grundorians came at him with cold, impassioned determination, like killing machines (only they weren’t doing any killing, oddly enough).

“By the Pants of Denimthor, Proctor of Grundor, I order you to cease this disturbance!” Orogarn Two ordered.

He was ignored.

He tried again: “By the power invested in my by my father, I now pronounce you in violation of Statute #8,313: staging a brawl without a license! Cease and desist or I will fine your pants off!”

“It’s not working!” Pimpi whined. “Let’s just attack them. I have a dagger and I know how to use it! …Sort of.”

“Right-ho,” Earnur agreed, brandishing his sword manfully. “Griper will have them groping for their severed limbs in no time!”

Oh, I will, will I? I object to being associated with this ridiculous contest of stupidity in any way, shape, or form!

Meanwhile, Kuruharan had already set to work hewing down a few of the feckless foes. “Two gold pieces, Master Elf!” he cried to Vogonwë as he emptied the pockets of a now headless horseman (his horse wasn’t with him, but there was one somewhere, I’m sure).

Eventually, the fight was joined by all, even Orogarn Two, who wielded his sword in one hand while writing out citations with the other. Earnur sliced and diced and parried very manfully (of course), all the while ignoring the gripes of his sword as best he could, though as he fought his mind did ring annoyingly with complaints:

Oh, this is so degrading! Ack, I’m all covered in blood! Oh, Emu, I’ll bet that guy never bathed in his life! You stab like a girl! I don’t even care about the ‘honor’ of that silly chit of a half-hobbit! I want to go back in my sheath!

Pimpi darted in and out of the fray, squeezing her eyes shut and jabbing her dagger out in front of her, in hopes of stabbing someone. She nicked Kuruharan a couple times, but otherwise luckily limited all fatal plunges to the faceless, nameless, mass of inexplicably hostile Grundorians. Chrysophylax trotted around the perimeter of the fight, whacking people with his tail, and every now and then pausing to seize people with his jaws and snap them in two (then tossing them over his shoulder, for he wasn’t really into eating people).

The Gateskeeper stood a little ways off and pointed at them, laughing. He did not join in on the killing spree, and indeed had no plans to involve himself in the general fracashness at all, but the mood was so infectious that he did take a moment to pilfer a pecan pie and plunge it in the face of a passerby. His victim fought back with a lemon meringue, he parried with a pumpkin, was met with a key lime, and then triumphed with the dread coconut cream. Chrysophylax noticed the comestible contest, and bellowed gleefully:

“FOOD FIGHT!!!”

And lo! the tide of the battle turned. Gradually, people lowered their fists and weapons in favor of seizing whatever edible items were near, and flung them into the faces of their adversaries. Bacon bits, pie crusts, tomatoes, cheesë-whíz, fish sticks, tartar sauce, bran flakes, spaghetti, meatballs, Jell-ô-Squares, rice pudding, cream of wheat, Caesar salad, hamburger casserole, ice cream, deviled eggs, mashed potatoes, onion soup, barbecued ribs, and chocolate fondue were just a few of the foods flying through the air. Pretty soon, everyone in the glade was fighting with everyone else, regardless of friend or foe. Basically, the idea was that if it moved, you hit it with food, which explains why Vogonwë smeared a glop of asparagus purée in Pimpi’s face, Earnur slung a scoop of hot fudge into Orogarn Two’s hair, and Kuruharan hit Chrysophylax between the eyes with a yam.

This was how Merisu found them when she entered the clearing.