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Old 09-22-2004, 09:45 PM   #214
Bęthberry
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Boots Who Mourns For Adonaialion?

There's got to be a morning after and this was the one to beat all mornings after, except possibly for the morning after Vinaigrettiel had died. Earnur groaned. A familiar refrain, spoken with irregular stress, and accompanied by tatty tat music, reverberated inside the brain of the Lord of Dun Sóbrin like repeated strikes of dwarven blacksmithery--not that dwarves ever had labour problems or work stoppages. The words seemed punctuated like hammer blows upon an anvil. And Earnur, the Lord Etceteron, the very last of the very manly Manly Men, felt like the anvil. Misery!

These have been the sousings of the Manlyship Etceteron. His well-over-a-year-mission to seek out new beverages and abstain from them, to discover strange new forms of travesty with Merisuewyniel, to boldly go where Vinaigrettiel had not gone before ....

Although it was not a manly thing to do, Etceteron winced at the repetitions. He could not remember if it was the final beer or thoughts of Vinaigrettiel or his stay at the Houses of Bettifordeth which caused him to feel such pain. In search of the dull edge of courage, he fished around for his bottle of Old Rotgut and remembered giving it to Grrralph, who upon emptying it had rapidly gone where any reader worth his or her salt can imagine.

"Blimey, you sot," Earnur said to himself. "Now you've gone and done it. Drunk to the depths of Lethe or sunk or something daft punk like that." He hadn't the faintest idea what punk meant, as it was several ages down the road, turn left at the oak and then hang a right outside the middle of the Seventh Age, but he liked the sound of the word. He didn't think he had reached the depths of delirium, but it had been so long since he had drunk any considerable amount that the effects seemed ... considerable. Not since the screeching tyres of Vinaigrettiel's lamentable death and his lamentations thereof had he felt like this. Perhaps that is why he could hear her calling, calling him back again. Vinaigrettiel! His once and future girlfriend!

Earnur stood up in what can only be termed an approximation of upright stance. He shook his fist at his slanderous sword in one of the famous expressions of wordless sarcasm for which he held himself famously renown. He, Earnur, enobled noble and brazen warrior that he was, would not go before his time but only just before payment to the Taxman was due. Live long and prosper he always said. But this hour was indeed hard: Vinaigrettiel calling to him, in his state of O-can-I-drink-sake-I-can. Once, in the early hours of their relationship, she had tried the elven mind meld with him, but that thing with the fingers had been distracting and he had not been able to master it. But now here She was. Or, rather, she was, as she had renounced her role as She. And so Earnur began one of those famous conversations with himself, which can now be revealed in the pages of this book for the first time, where he gets to play several parts.

What are you doing thinking you would sail West?

Dunno. Seemed like a good idea at the time. It was good enough for Morriquendey of the Smithiels and Radiodhol. And like, there's Merisu and Pimpi and Leninia. And we'll have fun, fun, fun till Emu takes our shieldboards away.

This deserves to be discussed within the confines of heroic Muddled Mirth verse, especially the late-flowering epic style which The Entish quest typifies. Vinaigrettiel is not at Valleyum, waiting for you. She had forsaken the West when she pledged herself to you! Ungratefully, you have forgotten this and now she is correcting you, telling you you are not bound to the circles of the world, but that other bonds await you!

Oh right. This Old Age religious stuff with all the Big PoncyWords. I never could get through that book, whazzit called, The SmellyOnion. Why use lots of languages when one'll do?

Once this Muddle Mirth is overthrown in the Drag or Undrag Bath, you will be together again, but only if you don't sail west.

Gotcha. My thoughts must be harder now.

He hiccuped. Earnur was bound, but determined to think this through, although thinking was not necessarily his strong point. At first he couldn't see what the Prime Directive was. But this extra-sensual correction helped focus his mind wonderfully. He recalled one of his favourite Ortho Riddermarking songs and began to hum it: "She put the hurt on me," he sang. He belched a particularly strong belch and tasted the after effects. It was a rough trade, but he submitted to his fate. This brawn, he decided, was bound for glory. Wild meaeras couldn't tear them apart. Orcs maybe, but not wild meaeras.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Later, not wanting to be overthrown at the final test, he joined the Enterprising-Ship downstairs at Sethamir's. He made a handsome entrance even if he did say so himself, but it was wonderfully quiet. Nothing seemed to be going on and nobody seemed to want it to. Not after what had happened the night before. He spoke up in hopes of getting everyone's attention but they all scowled as if to say "SHHHHS.?"

"Flowerless is the grave of Vinaigrettiel."

"Sounds like a right sort of thing for a tart," retorted a muffled voice whose owner Earnur could not determine. It didn't sound like his flask talking this time, so he wondered if it could be his sword. But just in case, he retaliated.

"Be aware of whom you are castigating. I shall crack your knuckles faster than She could crack her whip! This is Merisuwyniel's Mother of whom I speak," replied Earnur. "Keep a civil tongue in your head or my butter knife will slice through your pate faster than you can spread a smile." Pleased with his witticisms, he could have continued in this vein had not another voice come to him. "Get on with it or you'll have me to answer to." Believing he recognised this voice, Earnur took a swig from his Flask of Eternal Refilling, which he swore was becoming as voluble as his sword ever had been. He began again.

"Flowerless is the grave of Vinaigrettiel and rootless the white tree I uprooted when I buried her. What ship would bear me across so wide a sea with such a garden untended as that?"

"Eh?" asked Kuruharan. "MeriSue has found us our ship."

"No, I don't mean what real ship. I mean, an existential ship. An Emuonic ideal."

"When I ask a question, it means exactly what I intend it to mean,?"said Vogonwe.

"You wish," retorted Soregum, willing to grab hold of any occasion to make himself look better than Pimpiowyn's boyfriend.

"As I was saying," intoned Etceteron, "It is time to drink the Cup of Farewell."

"I think we did enough drinking last night," piped up Gateskeeper.

"I have yet to finish shopping," moaned MeriSue, but in a most polite manner.

"Will you shut up and let me get on with it?" hollered Earnur, who slurped another swig from the flask.

"Get it on, by all means," answered Leninia winsomely.

"Cretins!" murmured Etcerton. "I've been surrounded by cretins all this time."

Earnur took yet another swig from his flask, for he was sure now each draught was beaming him closer to Vinnie. In fact, it tasted darn like Jim Beam, a not bad substitute for a Scottish elixir.

"I shall give you all gifts to remember me by for drink is flowing between us and you shall gain what I have lost."

"Did someone mention mathoms?" Pimpi asked.

Earnur groaned. This was turning out to be just as bitter a pill as other partings and he couldn't skip over it easy like as other authors had.

"To the Hair of Isildur I give this Brick that was Broken. I seem to have picked this up during our Seventh Age adventure. It has some runes on it but what Wovercot means I can't translate, unless it means 'Wictory over orcs.'" Orogorn Two grunted as he caught the relic Etceteron threw to him.

"To Gateskeeper who so loveth numbers I give this best of all numbers, its sound round but irregularly rhyming and its consonants pleasingly repeated: Forty-two." Gateskeeper looked up briefly from his ceyboarding and hurriedly typed in the magical number.

Now, the only members of the Soon-To-Be-Broken-Ship who had perked up their ears at the mention of receiving anything were the dragon Chrysophylax and the dwarf Kuruharan, who complimented Earnur's gentle words. Earnur was emboldened. "That no one call you grasping, let me reward your listening, that the both of you may preserve your hearing should you ever return to the smithies of your home. To you I give this golden ball of earwax."

Kuruharan was going to tell Earnur what he could do with such a gift, but MeriSue's gentle hand restrained him and her melodious voice requested The Lord of Dun Sóbrin to continue.

"Soregum, your fondness for the bottle has not gone unnoticed, and so to you I leave this bottle of Sparkling Crystal Waters. May it be a support to you in your thirst as it has supported mine." Soregum was ready to crack the bottle over Earnur's head, but once again our peerless if not perilous Shieldmaiden kept the peace.

"Leninia, my once possible dearest Leninia, whose acid tongue burned many a midnight oil with me, to you and to you alone I leave my talking sword, for you alone know how to keep his tongue in his cheek." Leninia was secretly ecstatic to receive so noble a gift, but, determined to stay in character, she thus sat nonchalantly blowing little puffs of air over her fingernails to dry her new manicure.

Pimpi, on the other hand, could not control her curiosity and began to tire of waiting for her mathom. Earnur turned to her and Vogonwe. "I shall suffer mild depression at leaving you, my dear half-Halfling." Vogonwe was ready to take offense at the wink which accompanied thus, but Pimpi held him down. "For the excellence with which you have followed this quest, I give to Pimpi my housecoat, my very best housecoat, and to Vogonwe, a very good cup of tea." Pimpi nearly choked, had Vogonwe not patted her solicitously on the back and murmured endearments about worrying not over canonicity and the bleeding of other books into this one. Who but Vogonwe could argue this best?

Finally, The Lord Etceteron turned to the last members of the Smaller-now-by-one-Ship. Grrralph had been stayin' alive, but barely so. Only one of his red glowing eyes could be seen. "In my stead, Wraith, you shall go and pass over the water without grief." And he gave to Grrralph the bottle of old Rotgut that had been broken the night before. There had always been a great deal of breakage wherever the Could Care Less Ship had been, and this was no little reminder of the indispensable aid they had always been. Grrralph knew he would be troubled by the memory of darkness only just a little from then on.

"Your hands are now empty, Lord Eceteron,"spoke MeriSue quietly.

"They are," he replied to the maiden he regarded as his stepdaughter. "Yet I leave you with the greatest gift of all. I acknowledge you MeriSuewyniel, daughter of Vinaigrettiel, and henceforth all ages shall know your name."

"That's it" That's all you leave me with?" she questioned, almost unbelievingly.

"It is more than other writers have left daughters with and if you appreciate it not, in later ages many others will thank me for this."

"I .. I ... I would have thought you would have left me with greater token of my mother."

"Ah, yes. I had a piece of her jewelry that I was going to leave with Cirkdan. He needed a cloaking device, he said. But when I went to hand it to him, a swan from the harbour walked up and pecked it and so it fell into the harbour. But don't worry. It could have been worse. You could have been a boy named Sue."

Silence fell over the room at Sethamir's. Something touched them deep inside, but it wasn't gratitude. More like disappointment. It was not quite the parting the Lord of Dun Sóbrin had been expecting. Nor what the others had imagined either. Bunch of self-indulgent narcissists, he murmured to himself.

"Well, of course I'd like to stay and chat. Of course I'd like to chew the fat. But I've got a date with destiny. I'm off," he said. "Those who are about to sail West, I salute you." And as Earnur departed, he no longer seemed perilous or terrible or even all that manly but as someone already left far behind.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

As with all journeys of heroic quests, Etceteron's return took fewer pages to cover than the setting out, especially since nothing more strenuous occurred than his constant recourse to the Flask that was Never Ending. In short, Earnur found himself back in Topfloorien in no time, and thence to the heart of the ancient emporium, to the Hotel sacred to him and Vinaigrettiel, the Roll and Toss, where their troth had been blighted.

And he dwelt there alone in the cold nights and partook of his Flask unfailingly, ever anxious to hold off despair. And the end of his days was utterly unknown for there came upon the hotell one night a huge flash of fire. It was said in after ages that the Lord of Dun Sóbrin had found a legendary end, one as highly wrought of fantasy as any subcreative faculty could imagine, for Earnur, the Lord Etceteron, went out like a flame, burning in the middle as well as both ends, combusting spontaneously one night and leaving behind nothing but blackened earth where grew no longer elanor and niphredil.

And who but the most obtuse reader could imagine unquiet slumbers for the Last Manly Man and his Vinaigrettiel when the Last Bath is drawn.

Last edited by Bęthberry; 10-06-2004 at 10:15 AM.
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