Chapter 1: Lunch Lady Land
Chapter Text
My name is Smeagol Smith, but my friends call me Gollum. I’m pretty basic, like every sixteen-year-old boy. As I stretched out in my bed, the early morning sun pried open my voluminous crystal orbsies with delicate rays of flaxen sun. Birds chirped outside, probably robins or cardinals, because I love birds a lot and study them very often. I leaned over to my alarm clock. Fifteen minutes early as usual. Most people hate waking up before their alarm clock, but I’ve learned to like it.
I do push ups for ten minutes and then waltz to the bathroom to get ready. My clothes, a neat checkered button up dress shirt with khaki pants and an elegant scarlet bowtie, hung on the closet door. I looked in the mirror as I pulled out a comb. My fluffy brown hair was untamed as usual. I debated whether or not it needed brushing, but then I remembered that my best friend Deagol said bed hair was “in,” according to his older sister Tiffany. We always turned to her for styling advice. She knew what she was talking about. She was a girl, after all.
I brushed my teeth with my lucky back scratcher made of a genuine halibut ribcage, a family heirloom left for me by my great-great grandmother. After a healthy coating of AXE Body Spray (Dark Temptations flavored), I glanced back at my reflection and noticed a red dot on my cheek. I’ve come to accept these little crimson friends. After all, my body is changing because I am a sixteen year old boy.
Once I was finished getting ready, I did Deagol’s homework for fun, because I love math, grabbed my prepared bag of turkey jerky marked “Tuesday,” and hopped out to the bus stop as soon as it pulled in. Mr. Theoden waved at me as the yellow door creaked open in greeting.
I marched to the back of the bus where my best friend Deagol was sitting. At the moment, he was playing Super Mario 64 on his DS. As soon as he noticed me, which usually takes a while because his brain is the size of a lima bean, we did our secret handshake as the bus continued. First we clapped and spun around. Then after a few steps of the macarena, the fifth and seventh steps of Cotton Eyed Joe, and a chest bump, we high fived under our legs and spun around again into a dab.
Once the bus pulled up at the school, everyone hopped off and entered the school, Isengard Academy. I sat in classroom 2-B in the third seat to the right in the second row. Deagol sat to my left, Sam in front, and Othrod behind me. At the end of the row to my right sat Frodo, Merry’s brother, but the seat between us collected dust, vacant for the past two weeks.
Mr. Boromir, our homeroom teacher, walked in with a clipboard to take attendance, which droned on as usual. The clearing of his throat, a disruption from his usual pattern, jolted everyone awake. I was more bored than tired, and my thoughts drifted elsewhere until he announced that someone new would be joining our class. Maybe now someone would finally inhabit the lonely seat between Frodo and I.
Mr. Boromir stroked his sad little goatee as he cracked the classroom door open. The angelic being that strolled into the classroom stopped me mid-yawn. I half expected another lazy orcsy to get packed into the classroom.
“This is Marigold Ring. Miss Marigold, care to share a bit about yourself?” he asked half-heartedly as he checked his ancient watch for the fifth time that morning.
The girl brushed a long, golden curl out of her face to reveal sky blue sight organsies which glistened in the fluorescent ceiling lights. Her long eyelashes batted like butterfly wings against her rosy cheeks. I could tell she didn’t wear makeup because she didn’t need it. I’m not one to believe in auras, but she certainly had one which made even Mr. Boromir appear less unpleasant. She was clearly not like other girls.
“H-hi. I-I’m M-M-Marigold. I transferred from the school on the other side of Mordor, Morannon Girls Academy, so that I could go here with my brother. He’s Saruman, in class 3-A.” Her dulcet tones were like a thousand choirs of cherubs dancing upon mine earsies.
“Welcome, Marigold Ring. You’ll be sitting between Frodo and Smeagol. If anyone gets the chance, maybe introduce yourself to her and make her feel at home here at Isengard Academy. If you don’t I will pay you a personal visit , and I don’t think anyone wants that”
I could barely pay attention in Algebra 2 with Professor Gothmog. By some miracle, I overheard from Orsinia, one of the popular queen orcs, that Marigold and I had fairly similar schedules. Unfortunately, my rather stupid friend Deagol interrupted her before I could hear which Lunch she’d be in. As I care quite a lot about my grades, being Gondor University bound, Lunch, homeroom, and dismissal were to be my only occasions for mingling with the celestial creature.
“Hey Gollum, did you catch that new episode of Space Wars ?” asked Pippin, leaving Spanish, as I left Latin.
I nudged my round spectacles up my nose. “Of course. What do you take me for? An uncultured swine?”
A flash of orange and yellow zoomed by sputtering, “You should watch One Piece.”
Sam exited the music room. He was always the last to leave as one of the only students with any apparent interest in Miss Eowyn’s class. He would have been dubbed a teacher’s pet if it weren’t for the school-wide lack of interest in anything she had to say.
“Look at the book Professor Eowyn lent me!” He waved a faded paperback in our faces.
“You can hardly call her a professor,” jabbed Deagol, squinting at the title in old widow’s cursive.
“Agreed,” said Frodo in monotone. He was in my Latin class, which happened twice a week. Whereas I learned it for purely intellectual purposes, he thought it made him cooler because the language had been proclaimed dead . “Anyone who refuses to teach these feeble sheep about true art should have their teaching license revoked.”
Pippin snorted. “Hate to break it to you but My Chemical Meltdown doesn’t exactly qualify as ‘art’ by anyone’s terms.”
The colorful flash zipped by again. “You should watch Death Note.”
“Yeah, and these bands like Drop Out Kid haven’t exactly been around long enough to withstand the test of time like Bach or Beethoven or–”
“It’s Fall Out Boy ,” corrected Frodo, frowning at his brothers. He had three brothers, to be precise, and they were all quadruplets.
Sam raised an eyebrow. “You still shouldn’t tease Professor Eowyn. She teaches lots of valuable information.”
“Yeah, like fifteen different ways to fall asleep at a wedding,” joked Deagol with a windshield wiper laugh.
“Hey! She teaches about modern groups too. You should try a few of them, Mr. Frodo. Surprise; At The Country Club has some soothing slow pop I’m sure you’d like. You too, Pippin. I’m sure it’d do wonders for your nerves and save you a few trips to Doctor Faramir’s office.”
Merry, in colorful cosplay, halted in front of them. “TAILED BEAST BALL RASENSHURIKEN!!!” He flailed his hands around in painfully elaborate knots. Suddenly both he and Pippin perked up.
“The scent of pepperoni calzones and choccy milk summons us,” announced Pippin solemnly.
“Watch Bleach bye!” proclaimed Merry as he and Pippin Naruto-ran down the halls to the cafeteria. Principle Gandalf himself gave up assigning them to a specific lunch. They basically owned fourth period, earning elevenses and second lunch if they agreed to help Lunch Lord Gimli serve and prepare.
As I looked into the cafeteria, I frantically scanned the masses for that angelic being of glorious light with my crystal eagle orbsies. In the far corner of the room, Janitor Theoden was cleaning up a new orcsy spill, probably from Birmingsnort or one of his cronies like Goliatronoth. Alas, my precious princess was nowhere to be seen. As I reached over for my lunch, a rare salmon filet slathered in baby sheep blood hollandaise with a side of mashed warg brains seasoned with Shelob caviar and Smaug flakes; Professor Legolas strutted with his THICCC hips in full swing into the kitchen, his elbows flapping around him like a swan with a machete. He tossed his luxurious platinum locks in the air like a well-toned lifeguard girl emerging from the crystalline waters of Neverland while his obnoxiously long nose skyrocketed to high heaven. His tap shoes clacked as his feet flailed dramatically in front of him and he whipped a pair of tiny opera glasses out of his floral fanny pack.
He sighed deeply like a middle aged woman tired of her husband ignoring her for the newspaper. The Lunch Lord heaved some slop onto the tray of the orc behind me and took no notice. Professor Legolas sighed deeper than the Mariana Trench and then cleared his throat higher than my grades until some strays by the garbage bins started howling. Just as the Lunch Lord set down his golden serving ladle forged in the Fires of Moria (a Jewelry Store) of ULTIMATE POWAHS, Legolas exclaimed,
“Do you not care what I have to say?”
Gimli gave him a side eye before inevitably finding himself far too intrigued to ignore the dramatic and fabulous man to his left. “What is it this time?”
Legolas waved the tiny opera glasses in front of the short little man in a weary hairnet. “Did you hear about the new transfer student? Miss Marigold Ring?”
Gimli the Lunch Lord grunted gruffly. “Of course not, I’m just here to wait on the kids foot and foot (because he is very short and has a very strong and legitimate phobia of hands). It’s not like Principal Gandalf tells me anything besides what I’m supposed to serve these ungrateful gremlins.”
Legolas held the tiny opera glasses in front of his glittering elven spheres. “Well, remember Saruman? I think he’s been dealing Starshine between classes.”
“Where’s the proof? You know I don’t believe in empty rumors.”Gimli said, trying to act nonchalant, and failing utterly.
Legolas guffawed and bopped Lunch Lord Gimli on his warty nose with his tiny opera glasses. “All my sources are reliable, you silly little man.”
I craned my neck over the counter and saw a bodacious orc skitter across the kitchen ceiling and out the window, which was cracked open to ventilate the cafeteria from the inevitable orc flatulence. Gollum tore his eyes away from the completely normal spectacle, and refocused on his superiors’ conversation.
“And these sources are ?”
Legolas swung his THICCC hips. “Remember that one time Boromir got suspended from teaching for beating up a student?”
Gimli shuddered and nodded.
“Well that but per request. You know how I feel about these pressing issues plaguing the youth of our beloved nation, Gimli.” He tossed his saucy hair glossier than a widow’s vinaigrette at the neighborhood block party. “I wouldn’t have started my ‘Arson, not Drugs’ campaign if I wasn’t seriously concerned about these things.”Legolas huffed, showing his obvious concern in the issues of today. “Instead of committing actually cool crimes they resort to weak sissy crimes like seeing God and getting hungover. The crime lives of students as a whole have become disappointing to me. Back in my day we burned down buildings and threw homemade bombs at the government.”
Gimli snorted, which caused a snot meteor to rocket onto a nearby orc student’s tray, not that the nashty boi didn’t mind. “Sure, sure. And let me guess, Gandalf, our Principal, is dating the neighborhood crackpot Brianrietta.”
Legolas gasped like a twelve-year-old girl, his delicate hands fluttering excitedly near his face. “How did you know? Were you inspecting Tom Bombadil’s Prophecy?”
The Lunch Lord dragged his gloved hand down his scruffy beard, which was also in a worn hairnet. “You’ve been nipping at the Principal’s starshine again, haven’t you?”
Legolas scoffed and flipped his voluptuous radiant strands and waved his tiny opera glasses around. “You simply do not understand my sophistication.” He adjusted his fuschia feather boa and planted his grabbing appendages on his THICCC hips.
My brain hurt from the conversation. I knew Professor Legolas had several screws loose– never mind, all of them. He never suspected that it went to this extent. His train of thought was suddenly interrupted by a silky voice working its way into my ear crevice.
“E-excuse me?”
My life flashed before mine orbsies as they had the beautiful image of that empyrean goddess. Her azure, sapphire, cerulean, lapis lazuli ultramarine gleaming balls of vision enraptured mine feeble mind with conceptualizations of Elysian glebe.
“Um… did you hear me?”
I bent down on one knee and bowed my head in reverent submission with my hands outstretched. “Of course, fair lady,” I said in the most suave Spanishish accent I could muster.
Miss Marigold Ring blushed a charming shade of pink which only inflamed my passion for this pretty dove. “W-well…”
“Oh, my deepest, most sincere apologies, m’lady. I forgot to introduce myself. I am Smeagol of the house of Smith, but you may call me Gollum, if you so desire.” I fancied to kiss her delicate hand at my first opportunity. I instead bowed deeply to show my respect. Best to not look too much like a weirdo the first time we met– unlike my compatriot Deagol, who is an idiot.
Miss Marigold Ring giggled, the sound not unlike silver sleigh bells in a cranberry forest on a crisp winter night. “Well, Gollum , I just thought I’d let you know that I also like salmon. I see you got that today. My old school, despite being a prestigious all-girls academy, never served food as amazing as this. It was in their minds that frivolous food is bad for the constitution and weakens character growth into strong, independent young lassies.” She smiled a beautiful smile from which heavenly pearls glittered in the ghoulish lights of the cafeteria. I could feel little hearts fluttering from her glorious curled mouth and flirtatiously tickling my sunken cheeks. She was clearly very enamored by my own precocious, precious, picturesque, passionate, preeminent, pristine, prolific, prominent, parsimonious, perspicacious profundity.
I slicked back my unkempt, devilishly wild, rich, chocolatey-caramelized locks and adjusted my spherical spectacles. I glanced coyly at her and looked away while batting mine long orb strands. Her delicate smile pirouetted happily so I adjusted my scarlet tie because Deagol does that when he’s around Orsinia Octogoggles. As I opened my full, plump, speech organ to proceed with vocal audio waves of attraction, a cloth-wrapped potato disrupted our delightful interaction.
Pippin popped up in front of Frodo like a demented daisy. “Howdy partner!” he greeted, clicking his heels. “This is my insufferable mascara monster, Frodo. He has the window seat next to you in homeroom and a couple of other classes.”
“Well hello, Frodo,” she greeted with a lil’ razzle-dazzle. She stuck out a delicate porcelain paw.
Pippin shoved Frodo in front of him– well, I think it was Frodo. All I could see was a button nose peeking out of a shroud of darkness. Pippin futilly attempted to pry open the hoodie cave while Frodo waddled around with his hands buried in his pocket spewing angry grunts.
Miss Marigold Ring let out another uwu giggle. “My, my, you’re a funny little critter.” She swished her endless pink ruffles.
Frodo tore the hood off his head– very, very dramatically. “How darst thou? You- you–” His gaze softened like a fluffy kitten in a sweater knit from the wool of baby alpaca lambs from the Himalayas knit by the sweetest babushka one could imagine for her grandson in Montana. In his bloodshot golden eyes– purer than the flaxen petals draping Miss Marigold Ring’s demure face like a platinum frame crafted from the finest starlight– you could see his brothers potato-y figures floating with tiny cherub wings against a backdrop of the Babylonian Hanging Gardens as doves in cloth diapers spewed birdsongs and glitter and petals and sequin fluff into the never ending abyss of glorious heavenly nectar. His pupils shrank like an imploding planet, like a collapsing black hole, and then dilated into perfectly symmetrical hearts. He stumbled back, his arms flailing and his weak breath failing him. “YOU WICKED TEMPTRESS! YOU– YOU VILE SEDUCTRESS!”
Miss Marigold Ring continued to smile, swaying with her precious hands clasped behind her innocently. “You can call me Goldie, if you so please, Sugar Plum.”
Frodo collapsed into a black ball, hyperventilating into a paper bag lying on one of the lunch tables– one which still had a homemade sammich, which Pippin had swiped because he likes committing felonies. Out of the corner of my eye, I spied Professor Legolas nodding his pointy head in approval– so, so pointy.
Pippin leaned over and screamed into his brother’s ear, “GOOD LUCK, GOOBER!” and dashed onto the lunch table and flossed all across the lunches. Then Merry Naruto-ran circles around us and punched Frodo into the far end of the cafeteria with a baseball bat he “borrowed” from Coach Eomer.
“SUGOI! ONIISAN HAS A TAMAGOTCHI!” He came to a screeching halt in front of Miss Marigold Ring, dust and lightning trailing behind him. “Konichiwa, Goldie-chan! I’m Merry, and I’m an otaku. You’re so kawaii! My brothers are very baka. Will you be his senpai?”
Sammy boi– being the blonde potato that he is– putzed over and pulled his brother aside. “I apologize, Miss Marigold. Merry… and Pippin… and Frodo. They’re all a little strange. But I’m sure you’ll get along once you get to know them.”
Pippin, who had apparently acquired pixie sticks, popped up behind Sam and flung his arms around his neck, nearly strangling him. Then Merry burst free and screamed, “JAILBREAK!”
Pippin bit off the tips of his pixie stix wrappers– about thirty or forty of them in hand, and cackled whilst dumping the vibrant narcotic powder into his open, drooling mouth. He thrashed the open stix around his head like several spiked metal flails and zoomed around the cafeteria like a savage gazelle with rabies and a brain transplant from an enraged bull. “MY BRETHREN, TASTE THE RAINBOW!!!!!!!!!!!”
One of the orcs, Galaphagopolis Lurz, tripped Pippin and he skidded into a pile of safety grip scooters that was there for some reason– probably set up by Mr. Boromir with completely pure intentions. The psychotic child shot up, blood spurting from his various appendages. A stray tear escaped his orbs. “I saw the abyss. It was dark and cold. And yet… warm.” He looked down and saw that some sugar powder had congealed with his blood and a broken lightbulb sparked above him. He bit the tops off some pixie stix he’d crammed in his shoes like grenades and poured the powder all over him and then rubbed some into his open wounds. His pupils shrank until they imploded from existence. “Heh… heh… heh heh.” As if on command, multicolored foam spilled from his mouth and he began rolling around the floor doing 360’s like a pig in its own filth. “I’VE NEVER FELT SO ALIVE!!!!!! I SEE SOUND AND TASTE PURPLE!!!!!”
I spotted Professor Melkor frantically jotting down notes on a tiny notepad with a luxurious fountain pen in the dark, sulky corner of the room– the one which Frodo typically occupied.
Pippin continued, very reasonably, “REALITY IS AN ILLUSION!!! WE’RE ALL LIVING IN THE MATRIX IN MY GRAMMAMA’S BASEMENT!!!!! YOUR MOMAMMAMAMAMAMAMAMAMASSSSSSSSS!!!!!!! BLWEHAHEHAHHWHHEHAHIHOIJEOIJFOIIHOIJOIGJOITGOWTGOIDJOIJD *pigeons pecking at keyboard*!!!!!”
Suddenly, Professor Legolas ascended from the heavens onto the lunch table and tossed his tiny beret and fuschia feather boa aside. Swinging his THICCC hips to gird his loins for battle, he raised his hands like swan wings and swirling the machete from his crossbody fanny pack like a sword dance and let out fabulous war cries while his dainty feet tapped beneath him to summon the Nazguls of war. “YOTROLOLO!!! YOU ONLY LIVE FABULOUSLY ONCE!” He dove like a mermaid caw-cawing onto the unsuspecting child convulsing on the floor. “ARSON NOT DRUGS!” He flamboyantly chopped the pixie stix in half with his razor sharp swan-wielding-a-machete elbows and danced around Pippin with his calming aura. He then whipped out his tiny opera glasses and a glossy pamphlet and slapped him in the face with it (both). “Read it and weep, demon child!” He flicked a match out of his bottomless fanny pack, struck it on his flaming THICCC hips, and handed it tenderly like a fragile rose to him. “Ignite responsibly. Remember, it’s only a felony if anyone actually cares… and you get caught, of course. Don’t tell your parents or I might have to adopt you!” he said, booping him on the nose fondly with his tiny opera glasses and grand-jeteing away into a goose strut.
All this time Ms Marigold Ring had been standing off to the side, and Sam’s mouth had dropped open in either shame or awe. “My, my, you sure are a lot of fuuUuUuUuun!” This would have sounded sarcastic coming from anyone other than the absolute goddess standing in front of me. “You’re so not nearly as uptight as my old classmates at Morannon Girls’ Academy. And the teachers are soOoOoOoOOoo nice!”
The shtanky cafeteria melted into the honey nectar of her golden ringlets. She was so pure, so innocent, so absolutely elegantly PERFECT. I just had to possess her affections somehow. I had to. I knew I had to consult Deagol after school. The rest of the day would prove difficult, but I am strong, for I am a man of intelligent, cunning manliness.
Chapter 2: How to Abuse Your Thesaurus
Summary:
Stuff happens... I guess...
Welcome to the ever-changing rotation of character POVs 😜
Notes:
This chapter features some ever so slightly darker humor. You have been warned.
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
I blasted the volume of my indie rock music through my Crossfade 2 wireless headphones. I could feel the deep, soulful emotions bleeding into my broken soul from the buttery throat noises of my favorite obscure artist, who I am certain nobody has ever heard of because my palette as a music connoisseur is impeccable.
My golden orbs moodily drifted to the smudged window as the murky sky’s pearls of sadness trickled down the glass forlornly. My hands, engulfed in the coarse black fabric of my hooded shroud, stroked the window, tracing the soft paths that they’ve traveled so often, as I contemplated the mysteries of life. The dim slivers of light refracted through the crystalline droplets into an aurora borealis of sapphire hues, and reminded me of Marigold and her azure globes.
I rubbed my sight crystals with my free hand as that wretched reeducation camp pulled into view. I glanced down at the obsidian smudges printed onto what little of my ghostly vampiric flesh was visible, and refocused on my previous moody thoughts, refusing to let any ray of sunshine breach the dark cave of my mind. In the muddy reflection, dark streaks trailed down from my dark, soulless eye bags. I liked it. Soon the prison barge vehicle entered the yard, and pulled up to the front. I reluctantly made my way out of the barge, and entered the building. I looked for Marigold, even though I had told myself I wouldn’t. My brothers joined me, pulling me from my angsty thoughts. I quickly neutralized any emotions that might have crept onto my face. I hated emotions, unless they were anger or sadness. You know, cool emotions.
I dragged my heavy feet, donning only the best Dr. Martens, to homeroom, and dropped into that wretched window seat. Oh, how the spiteful sun seared my side with its piercing flame in those past days of yore. Much to my immense relief, that foul flame was held back by the conquering clouds of thunderous storms hailed from the North. I sighed deeply, turning my thoughts and my eyes to the dark day outside. I heard the door open, and I turned my head towards it, hoping while also dreading to see and hear the delicate click-clack of well polished Mary Janes. Unfortunately, it was just Gollum, and his lovesick puppy-dog eyes. The disgusting lovelorn fool went to his seat nearby, I quickly turned my attention back to the window.
Oh how the rain cleansed that oozing sensation called amor dripping in its sludge-like sentimentality into my cold, dark heart. If only I could tear it right out of my chest and jettison it at my wretched wardens in their low-pay, government-funded, drug-induced, worthless, wretched existence imbued with an existential self-loathsome pitiful being. Oh how I wish I could send them back to the USSR. Vile commies.
The door demurely creaked open and a pink ruffled clad figure spilled through the gate to the glorified prison cell, and her presence seemed to suck all of the room’s darkness and throw it in a metaphorical trash can. I could not tell if I loathed it or loved it. Probably loathed it.
Waterfalls upon waterfalls of blush frills and trims flowed down her dainty frame, topped with a crown of impeccable golden tresses decorated in fine fresh flowers and strings of flawless pearls like the tears from the forlorn sky outside the poorly maintained very stained-glass windows of our prison cell. White sea foam clusters of beauty alternated between tiers of rose hung all the way to her graceful ankles, protected in lacy ivory stockings. I wanted to yank out my orbs with a melon baller and bleach them twice over. And yet that morbid sight made my broken heart attempt to fix itself. A feeling I hated more than Gollum’s stupid face.
The porcelain doll glided to her seat beside me and whatever other nobody was on her right. The way her ruffles floated like swan feathers in a lightning storm after just narrowly dodging a sizzling encounter with the rage of the heavens purloined my attention. Oh how I wish I would just spontaneously combust on the spot. Oh how I wished Pippin’s bowels would disagree with him in the middle of class so I could escort him to nurse Galadriel’s and avoid this wretched but inevitable confrontation. OH HOW I WISH THE FOUL TEMPTRESS WOULD LEAVE MINE FEEBLE ORGANS OF VISION ALONE.
Visions of pink scalded the dark recesses of my mind, making the shadows recede into the darkness. The relentless rustles of her ruffles bombarded my ears. Despite how obviously annoying it was, Gollum sat sighing like an asthmatic blob fish in a toupe it stole from everyone’s favorite reality comedian, Donald Trump, after he emerged from the depths of his man cave, which was enveloped in clouds of Old Spice steam. His sad, sad combover put my deep, depressive emotional cavern– or rather lack thereof– to utter shame. If only I could emulate the tragedy his tendrils brought to this pathetic excuse for a world half as well in the own sphere of my nonexistent influence, because nobody ever pays attention to me. But I like it that way, because humanity deserves to burn in the cesspool that it is.
My lifeless orbs couldn’t help stealing a glimpse at whatever sat beside me throughout the announcements. Each subtle ruffling of chiffon drowned out every syllable which erupted from Mr. Boromir’s pathetically bearded mouth. I didn't even notice that homeroom had ended until I felt some strange sensation on my shoulder. It stung like a battalion of power-drunk yellow jackets. I hissed sharply, drawing back. The beast that had dared to impale my superior being– which is only superior because I do not consider any of the muzhiks anything remotely resembling a human. I’ve met crickets with more humanity than these callous fools.
I turned to face my assailant and found it to be only one of the serfs with which I share a date of birth and a vast number of my genes– one decked out in “weeb culture,” to be specific.
“Ohayo, onii-chan! It’s time to go to Melkor-sensei’s class.”
I rolled my eyes like the axis of the earth. At least his class was entertaining. Something about the air in that foreboding, chilling room instills a crazed, predatory nature back into the confused minds of teenagehood.
I nudged open the door with my side, as my arms were completely cocooned in my dark shroud. My nose hairs crinkled as I entered the only room which harbored a singular creature that could rival the mires of despair from whence I came. A tall, thin specter lurked in the shadows pierced by the narrow rays of fire which the closed blinds had allowed to escape. The darkness lifted me on the wings of pterodactyls born from tenebrosity. Twas the only room which caused me to “ feel ” this way. Only the seclusion of my cave of contemplation and gloom could offer a greater sense of what a layman who won’t ever be enlightened would call “peace.” A long, black, chemical-stained beak entered the sliver of light in the classroom. Hoarse breathing and the relaxing scent of formaldehyde and eucalyptus oil flooded my senses.
“Select your lab tables, if you dare,” commanded Professor Melkor from behind his mask. He tapped his clipboard with his long, spindly fingers and scratched his hunched back with one of his spaghetti arms. I could have sworn I heard violent coughing from underneath the mask. He had likely choked on the slightly too old herbs that had been doused in (rancid) essential oils in the tip of his beak.
An air of something one might term “confidence” entered my being as I sauntered to the lab set up in the darkest corner. A single chain dangled above each station to illuminate them with a ghoulish, flickering, fluorescent glow. However, I, like usual, of course, left mine off. The light was distracting, and I read somewhere during one of my late night research sessions before the glorious blue gleam of the small screens of infinite knowledge that darkness was the supreme companion of solitary geniuses, the men who have surpassed the futile smalltalk of this inevitably doomed planet.
Nobody shared mine. EVER. It was the taboo table. Most of the students– and perhaps even the teacher himself– forgot that my solitary station even existed. There was a legend that it was haunted. Of course, if it was, it was most definitely the work of Mr. Boromir. Either that or something about Professor Legolas attracted some malevolent being from the other side. I had never personally bought into all of that ghost nonsense. Only idiots like a certain *cough* Gollum *cough* would lower his intelligence to the level of an amoeba. NO! Lower than that of an amoeba!
As I hauled my chemistry textbook onto the table and collected my specially-made black obsidian lab coat (which I crafted myself from the finest materials of Forever 21, my favorite apothecary for peddlers of immortality), I could have sworn the light above me flickered ever so subtly, like a firefly desperately trying to remain hidden from a savage child set on capturing it within its grubby, clawed hands. I blinked, and the light grew and grew and GREW! What was happening!? I wasn’t used to light, the light never shone here in my own personal realm of darkness!? Who would commit such an atrocious crime? WHO WOULD DARST TO INVADE MY SACRED TERRITORY?!
My neck creaked with a grimace towards the perpetrator… and an unforeseen ocean of serenity deluged my senses. As I hissed and retreated back to the safety and security of the absence of light, those glowing rays shone down upon her . HER! Her wretched golden ringlets dangled from her porcelain head. Oh how I wish that image would shatter into a thousand pieces and grind to powder in the hurricane of conflicted animi motus . A cracked, cursed doll would have pleased me more.
“Howdy, sugar cube! I know we got off on the wrong foot yesterday, but I want you to know that I think you seem positively delightful ! Are you enjoyin’ the sciencein’ this time ‘round?”
I scratched my head, flabbergasted and utterly discombobulated. But the shadows comforted me. They moved my mouth and poured forth the elixir of social interaction. “You’re a perfect arrangement of atoms.” Words! WORDS! What were these words??! Why would the darkness betray me so! Why wouldst my only comfort on this forsaken planet forsake me? ME! I retreated under the only safe place which remained– the dark cavern of the bottomless hood.
“My, my, you sure do have a great sense of humor! You’re so genteel,” she complimented with sparkling giggles– more like the yipping of hungry puppies awaiting their slaves to feed them. “By the way, would you mind if I shared textbooks with you? Mine is a hand-me-down from my dearest older brother Saruman, but I couldn’t find it for the life of me! Chemistry was his favorite subject growing up,” she winked, her flaxen lashes batting like sun-kissed ocean waves. “He probably took it to do some extracurricular research. Professor Melkor is his favorite teacher. He’s likely doin’ another of his little extra credit projects. He’s just dying to go to Gondor University and needs all the credits he can get.”
My mind short circuited. “Good book. Read well. School good. Learn fun can.”
She giggled again. Oh how I prayed her nonsensical cackling would cease! But then my dreadful mouth just had to move again. I bent over without thinking and picked up a scalpel that just happened to have taken up residence on the floor. “E-excuse me?” My voice cracked tragically. “Have you lost an electron? Because you are positively attract–” A violent fit of sneezing overtook me, much to my relief.
The double doors to the classroom swung open with much panache. The light from either the hallway or the creature which had made an entrance flooded the room (Professor Melkor was rushing to shove piles upon piles of papers and vials filled with liquids of indeterminate origin into his infinite desk drawers). I just barely managed to look towards the entrance. Heaps of glossy platinum rippled in the smoke wafting into the room. A long nose protruded almost to meet the beak of Professor Melkor’s plague mask. A hand lifted to adjust a petite black beret atop the blonde, luxurious crown and elegantly floated back down to some THICCC hips. The other hand held a pair of tiny opera glasses above the Pinnochio nose. Fuschia feathers enveloped the fabulous man. His tiny tap shoes clacked on the floor as he strutted into the classroom, a swing of his razor-sharp elbows planted upon his THICCC hips hit the light switch and illuminated the room so that all might bathe in his full glorious supremacy.
The long nose of Professor Legolas traversed every corner of the classroom.
“What are you doing?” asked Professor Melkor, casually nudging a student who had been foaming at the mouth out an open window (we were only on the second floor, so he was probably not dead, just sleeping).
Professor Legolas elegantly ignored him and continued his pursuit for whatever eccentricity he was now obsessed with. Suddenly, he seized Pippin by the collar of his T-shirt. “Child of darkness, how hast thy arsonry proceedeth?”
Pippin’s hands instantly dove into his pockets, likely to deeply bury the Reese’s Pieces he’d smuggled into the school. “Well, sir. I swallowed the match and ran around the neighborhood shirtless while Merry chanted something in Japanese in a cat maid costume which was stolen from Old Lady Brianrietta Balrog.”
Legolas dropped him (elegantly) and wiped his hands in pure alcohol. “Very good. Next time, though, try to set something on fire. I’d advise allowing it to fall perchance into a pool of highly flammable substances. If gasoline is unavailable, just mix whatever corrosives your mother keeps under the sink and douse the neighborhood with that.”
He moved on sniffing the air, his nose raised slightly and daintily in the air. His sniffs grew louder until they trumpeted like busy-body pigs trying to get the latest dirt on their friends behind their backs. Then he gasped a gasp so gaspy even an old Victorian woman couldn’t compete. “WHO DARST BRING THE FORBIDDEN CHEMICALS INTO THIS CLASSROOM???” He strutted, swinging his THICCC hips aggressively, and yanked one of the orc inmates, Gilgogglethamew, out of his seat. “WHAT IS THIS FOUL DEMON OF DARKNESS?” He shook the child violently until mounds of colorful powder fell from his trench coat, because we’re inclusive, and trenchcoats are not against the school dress code in the name of inclusivity.
Legolas inhaled deeply over the powder.
“It’s just sugar powder, I swear on Snuffles, my guinea pig!” the pathetic child protested.
“ ONLY sweet sugar powder? I THINKS ME NOT! LOOK FOUL BEAST OF MORDOR!” He put on delicate white parade gloves and dotted the powder with his index finger, then shoved the colored powder in the orc child’s face. “YOU SEE THE SINGES! YOU SEE THE BURNTEDNESS! TIS CRISPY INDEED!”
“I-I don’t know what you’re talking about, Professor! Please! Release me!”
“THE SINGINESS SINGS OF YOUR SIN! THE SMOKE! THOU HAST SMOKED THE PIXIE STIX! THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT OF CONFECTION!”
Pippin choked on a butterfinger and held up his hands to shield the sight of the crime scene in his mouth. But that was a grave mistake. Waterfalls of Reese’s Pieces and relentless swarms of smarties spilled from his deep, deep pockets.
Legolas’s nostrils flared with wrath as steam shot forth from his elegantly pointed ears. He dropped the orc child and his hands flew to his THICCC hips. His itty bitty feet tapped in disappointment. He seemed to have grown fond of Pippin, I personally don’t know why, though. But the sight of such wretched narcotics incensed him. He marched up to him, his pace quickening like an ant scurrying to a picnic.
Merry Naruto-ran across the room and Pippin hopped onto his back. “ONWARD VALIANT STALLION! SAVE US ALL!!!” As Merry dashed with him into the hall, Legolas bounced on one foot and raised his arms, spinning his machete faster than his THICCC hips could propel him forward. Pippin tumbled off, frightened by the Professor’s fabulous war cries. “SAVE YOURSELF, MERRY!” Merry quickly deserted Pippin racing off into the hallway.
Pippin quickly sprinted to the window and jumped out. I would have been worried, but he had been practicing. What was more concerning was how quickly any respect I had for myself was shrinking.
Professor Melkor skittered to the classroom door and bolted and welded it shut. His pencil thin legs marched ostentatiously in front of him as he returned to the spotlight above his desk. “Now, class. Turn to page 927 of your Chemistry textbooks. Today, we’ll be doing the second lab from Module 13. We’ll be handling slightly more dangerous chemicals this time around. But remember,” he dipped forward until his beak nearly impaled the front row, “I didn’t. See. Anything .” His hand clapped onto his desk, causing every glass vial in the room to tremble. “You have one hour. If you complete the assignment early, you may formulate experiments of your own. Do what you must .”
I curled up into a ball under the table. The light singed my already lifeless orbs. But then I heard a clack upon the table, and a singular, nibbled pencil rolled off the top and drifted beside me.
“Hello, Mr. Pencil,” I muttered pathetically. “Welcome to hoodieville, population solitary.”
A singular aureate curl greeted me from above, followed by another and another and finally the fair features of a wicked maiden. “Well you ain’t gonna get nothin’ done hiding out down there!” joked Marigold, offering her hand to kidnap me back to the prison of students.
I eyed her exquisite hand. Her nails were painted bubblegum pink– such a disgusting color. It called to me, begged me to take it and join her on the other side. And yet I couldn’t. I just couldn’t . I swatted her hand away and hissed, retreating to the cave under the desk in front of us. This time, a new mop of curls yanked me up.
“Frodo? What’re you doing down there?”
It was Sam. The only one of my brothers I considered human. I found his sadistic nature of forcing that dreadful feeling of hyperventilation (something he calls by the euphemism of happiness ) upon all who look his way admirable. If only I could inflict the same.
“You wouldn’t understand,” dismissed, burying my head depressingly in my knees.
Sam dragged me out from my cocoon of love– hatred! I MEAN HATRED!!! “You know you’ll get bad marks if you don’t complete the lab.”
“But this time I have a creature hindering my scientific progress!”
“What? Marigold’s being perfectly normal,” said Sam. Ugh, such a simpleton could only wish for understanding.
I yanked my shroud further over my tired face and released an exasperated sigh. “No one understands me,” I groaned, shielding my pallor face from the seizure-inducing LED beams with my cloaked arms.
Sam pinched the bridge of his nose as he always did when he simply couldn’t understand my deepest thought processes.
“How about this,” he said, sighing deeply, “we switch places. I will work with Ms. Marigold, and you can work with Ms. Elvira.”
I groaned even louder. OH THE DILEMMA! Remain trapped with that saintly, disgusting angel of death, or join that faker ! That pretentious, pick-me of a girl who only wore makeup and fishnets for attention. Anyone could see through her studded belts and multiple fake piercings just how poorly she mimicked the emotional soul of gothic sentimentality. Oh how sick she made me!
“Well, go on, Frodo! We haven’t got all class.”
My soulless eyes of an arthritic grandpa dancing in the sun shaped like a cute bird who stole my favorite fettucini alfredo from my bento box dragged from Marigold the saint of darkness, and Elvira, the painted bat in knee-high heels. At least that Everstar she-beast wouldn’t coerce me into some form of nail-pulling torture like SMALL TALK .
My Dr. Martens pulled me upright. “ FiiiIiIiIiIiiiiiiIIIineeeEeEeEEEEEeeee !”
“Good,” said Sam, moving his laboratory materials to the back corner table.
I stared daggers into the phony beside me. She returned the favor.
“It’s not like I wanted to be lab partners with you or whatever,” she muttered, puffing pitch black oily tendrils out of her dark, makeup-smeared face. She had such a pathetic lisp. Very Gollum-esque.
“Well it’s not like I like your makeup or whatever. That probably took like, all morning to put on, and it isn’t even that neat.”
“Yeah, well I’ll have you know that I woke up this way! I haven’t showered in three days. THAT’S THREE. WHOLE. DAYS. MAXIMUM SMEAR! SOMETHING YOU COULDN’T ACHIEVE BY SO MUCH AS STARING WISTFULLY OUT THE BUS WINDOW WHILE IT’S RAINING!”
My blood boiled at the AUDACITY! “HOW DARST THOU! I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT THAT’S EXACTLY HOW I BECAME THIS FABULOUS! NO EFFORT REQUIRED! I JUST HAPPENED TO FALL INTO A PILE OF EYELINER THIS MORNING!”
“Y-YEAH????? WELL– GO DRINK SOME CYANIDE!”
I threw back my obsidian hood and flipped my hair proudly. “I ALREADY HAVE!” Such a comment stopped the beast dead in her tracks. My wits had shaken her to her flimsy core. Of course she couldn’t compete with my Machiavellian ethos– no one could. Blood red stained her ashamed pseudo-vampiric cheeks. How could you not blush in my preeminent presence.
As the girl-elf-child-thing fiddled around hopelessly with the various tools on the table, she uttered what I interpreted to be the language of her so-called, self-proclaimed edgy cynicism.
“It’s Elvira Elinda Dawn Everstar. In case you were wondering, Mr. Byoottz .”
I, of course, very naturally, felt inclined to correct her. “It’s Buttz , Miss Blis star .” My wit once again caught her off guard and completely demolished her composure. I could have sword her inky black tendrils stuck out in even more directions than before– an improvement on her ghastly, fake, intentionally cracked-porcelain doll face.
She snorted like the painted pig she was. “Just focus on the experiment already. I’m not going to let my grade tank because of your antics.”
Ahah, and scoff! “I didn’t think you’d care about such temporal things as grades . Purely our meaning as homo sapiens degraded to a numerical value.” My wits never failed to silence her.
Her hand suddenly slammed on the table. It was covered in the chopped off legs of fishnet tights. I could tell she could barely afford her budget rags from Hot Topic. I shopped in better arenas– far better arenas. She puffed more smoky bangs out of her long, drooping face, then, much to my surprise, tucking some behind her pointed elfen ears right before dumping a whole bottle of a powdered substance of indeterminate origin into a bubbling vat of a non-newtonian fluid, also of indeterminate origin. She muttered some things here and there which I didn’t care to attempt to understand. At the end, she shoved the bubbling, most likely incredibly corrosive concoction in front of me.
“Bring this to Professor Melkor. I think it’s what he’s looking for,” she said, her complexion reddening scarlet in my magnificence.
I simply nodded and confidently held the flask in front of me with titanium tongs. All in all, I considered this lab to be a complete success, as I had already been confident it would be the second I entered the shadowy territory of the highschool laboratory.
Notes:
Thank you so much for reading!! I'll be posting some more character art later this week so stay tuned ;P
Chapter 3: Hopeless Wanderer
Summary:
Watch as a new character pines from afar after another.
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I paced nervously from one end of the swing set of Gondolin Park to the other while my lifelong (well, closer to since the fifth grade) best friend Samwise Buttz rocked on one of the abandoned swings, a curly lollipop in hand. He hadn’t touched it since removing the wrapper. I fiddled with the lavender bows at the ends of my long, black braids and skipped every few steps. A light kick at the woodchips with my Uggs finally brought some coherent thoughts forward.
“I just don’t know what to do, Sam!” I sighed.
“Maybe you could try… I don’t know… talking to him like a regular human being, and not some emo goth? Could be worth a shot,” he said, staring at her and speaking around his lollipop.
“But–” I threw my clenched fists down and twirled in my pink argyle cardigan with frustration.
“No buts,” he said, holding his hand up to shush me. “I’m not saying to do anything hard. All I’m saying is to stop trying to be something you’re not. How hard can that be? Anyone can see that you’re trying way too hard. Even my oblivious brother, although he clearly doesn’t know why,” he finished, huffing in frustration.
“Yeah, but— ugh, it’s not that simple!” I dropped to the ground and covered my scarlet face.
“It absolutely is that simple,” he said in a monotone.
I glanced across the park to see a group of middle-aged women stretching on yoga mats. I squinted and made out a rather curvaceous figure in an obsidian leotard with streams of platinum blonde and fuschia swimming around it. The person somehow noticed me from afar and gave a wink. Such a wink revealed a tiny beret atop the snowy locks. He swung his THICCC hips in a complicated dance-like movement, and I immediately knew what cultish ritual was going on. It was no innocent yoga class. It was Professor Legolas’s interpretive dance class for disillusioned mothers.
Professor Legolas tossed the loose end of his fuschia feather boa over his shoulder, adjusted his neon purple fuzzy leg warmers, and strutted over to the swing set. When he reached us, he removed his opera glasses from his fabulous fanny pack with flourish.
“What are you two beautiful people doing at this time of night in this dark and deserted park?” He said, shielding his eyes from the sun.
I raised an eyebrow and checked my Pusheen wrist watch. It was two o’clock. I contemplated whether or not it was worth asking the flamboyant man if he was in his right mind, but deemed the answer too painfully obvious.
Sam leaned down and whispered with an eye roll, “He’s been staring at the sun too much again.”
Legolas’s carrot-like nose speared between our heads. “For the sun is the ultimate fire, my dear children. Tis the crispiest fire INDEED!”
I jumped back, but my exhausted friend had seen enough of his antics to not flinch even a bit.
“Now I have to ask, pint sized humans, what were you discussing before my fabulous presence graced you?” he said, planting a delicate paw on his THICCC hips. His elbows protruded sharply between us in contrast, so I scooted back a few feet just in case he was seized by yet another fit of fabulous passion.
My face grew warmer, and he could tell. I knew he could tell.
“Ah, I see it is a matter of the heart, is it not?” He stuck his nose up in full assurance of his sheer transcendent perception.
“Please don’t ask,” Sam said, completely done. “Once she gets started she won’t stop, and I’ve already heard her bad excuses more than once. Much more than once.” His eyes drifted off into the distance as he shuddered remembering the dark past.
My face boiled over. I felt like I would spontaneously combust and evaporate at any other word that slipped out of his conniving mouth. jjnqj@foai% f#fh%^fn joijazs&wxdcfvgbhnj h^$E2 jgvfjmnb oifugjhf gvbhn yrcgfvnfbzx wertyuioknbvfryhn hstr!!!!!!!!!!! I thought. The rest of these perfectly coherent threads exploded violently. It hurt my lungs. “You see there’s this guy and he’s cool and all but like talking is hard and I’m scared of what he’ll think of me and he’s just so gosh diddly darn cool and I love him and I want him to notice me but I think he hates me but I really really want him to like me and then we can get married and have a million adorable little babies with cool fantasy names and live happily ever after but I’m hopeless because I’m cute and he’s edgy and I hate being cute because I feel basic and boring but Sam says I shouldn’t be edgy either but it’s so hard because he won’t notice me if I’m cute because he thinks cute things are gross and I’m so stinking cute I have to wear blood red contacts to cover my sparkling anime eyes I hate them so much I’m literally so cute I puke RAINBOWS and that’s so gross like I can’t and now I feel gross from slathering white paint and crisco all over myself before school and any time I leave the house thinking I just might see him and if I do and I look cute and normal and kawaii then I run into the nearest Hot Topic and burn ALL MY ALLOWANCE just so I don’t look hideous and—”
Sam pinched my mouth and sighed deeper than the depths of my despair. “Elvira, please, stop . You’re giving me a migraine. I can’t take this anymore. And what have I said about the white paint? You know that’s bad for you.” Sam looked at her with the desperation of an Amish widow whose husband was accidentally drafted to Mongolia and was watching as his long, thicc, lucious beard wafted in the sea breeze as the ship departed from the cold, harsh harbor of lies and deceit while she trotted home knowing that her egg and butter money couldn’t possibly support her and her family of ten, but she doesn’t have any other male relatives and her son is still only allowed to chop wood despite him already being nine and able to drive the carriage to town for the essentials.
I curled into a fetal position, on the brink of tears. Legolas took one look at my distraught face, and immediately began pouring forth his cursed wisdom.
“Dearest adolescents, since you seem to desire my advice, I will give it to you freely and without charge. Consider yourself blessed, for I am here. My personal experience is that something cute can overcome even the darkest of souls, and if your kawaiiness is as powerful as you make it sound, then you can easily conquer this friend's heart. I assume Frodo is the object of your affections based on the description you gave me. Even he can be conquered. You must however fully embrace your adorableness, if you do not your quest is hopeless. You will have already lost. If this does not work, you can simply threaten him with the power of the flame.” He finished his speech with a decorative flourish of his opera glasses.
I uncovered my eyes, peachy eyeshadow and blush staining my pink cardigan sleeves. It was then that I remembered from a visual reminder that this wise man was still very much in a leotard. I could even see a single golden curl of chest hair.
Sam bent over and helped me stand up. My legs were quite wobbly. It was definitely because of the autumn chill. I was only wearing my cat tights. It was definitely the autumn chill. Not because I had just revealed my deepest, darkest secret to the most flamboyant member of the school faculty.
“I can’t believe I’m saying this, but he does make some good points,” remarked Sam. He held my arms back as I was about to bury my face in my hands for the fiftieth time that day.
I bowed to Professor Legolas and thanked him (barely audibly) for his unsolicited advice. He booped me on the nose with his pair of tiny opera glasses and twirled around fabulously.
“You seem to be on the right track now. Unfortunately, I must depart. My interpretive dance class has been left unsupervised for too long, and I fear that the mothers might have become feral in my absence.”
I watched the fabulously THICCC hipped man twirl away in a whirlwind of fuschia feathers. Sam glared at Legolas with an inexplicable mix of admiration and disapproval. I plopped into the swing beside him and rocked back and forth, still scarlet. I could feel my best friend staring daggers into me.
“Don’t say it!” I exclaimed as he opened his mouth to lecture me about courage and identity and so-and-so. I’d heard that bit enough to quote it for drama class.
The next day, school dragged on as usual. I tried my best to pay attention in class, but the upcoming announcements in the drama club after school where they would announce what this year’s school play would be, competed long and hard against my attention span. Though most highschools perform two plays a year, one to mark the end of each semester, Isengard Academy did things a little differently. Our previous drama teacher, who was hospitalized for months in a coma after inhaling a dangerous amount of toxic fumes which some speculate were created by a high quantity of lactic acid bacteria found in the school vents for no apparent reason, did things the old-fashioned way, but our new fabulous club teacher, Professor Legolas, would have none of it once he “ascended the throne,” as he put it.
Last year, my freshman year, that brilliant madman begged Principal Gandalf for an extension on planning. You see, Professor Legolas had somehow managed to get his hands on a troupe of traveling escape artists to aid in the spectacle, but they were at the moment, caught up in more “pressing matters” (which according to the newscast following the performance that year, was a run-in with the Italian mafia). This delayed the production until the end of the school year. Unfortunately, since I was a freshman, I couldn’t land any lead roles, so I settled for stage technician with Sam. This year, Legolas swore on his THICCC hips that he’d make the change permanent so as to solidify his control of the acting masses.
I had no idea what play we were doing this year, for Professor Legolas was rather secretive and even protective of his plans for the school drama club. Pippin even told me he kidnapped a kid who walked in on one of his play writing sessions during summer school. I couldn’t wait, though. I really, truly, couldn’t wait.
I finished washing the dishes in the home economics classroom with Merry while we discussed our schedule for the anime club this semester. He wanted to subject everyone to Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure , but I advised against it. It was far too advanced for the feeble newcomers of our elite club of connoisseurs of Japanese culture. I suggested One Punch Man instead so we don’t scare them away with intense action sequences or unrealistically proportioned people.
After we finished putting things away, we gathered our backpacks n’ stuff and made a beeline for the double doors of the gym. Under “normal” circumstances, drama would be held in the auditorium. However, Professor Legolas was putting together a secret project there, and forbade anyone without clearance from entering on pain of spontaneous combustion.
A few students had already entered the gym, from what I could tell from the faint outlines in the pitch blackness. Blackout curtains had been drawn over the high windows. That wasn’t necessarily “normal” for the gym. Even the light from the fluorescent hallways couldn’t penetrate the darkness.
I squinted and felt around for Sam. I mumbled something here and there, but adultish voices hushed me, so I sat beside the first curly haired person whom I swore was Sam and waited in silence for something to happen. The double doors creaked open a few times more, and before I knew it, I could feel the hot breath of at least forty teenagers packed like sardines in the already sweaty gym.
Suddenly, a loud thud echoed in front of us. One by one, spotlights clicked on above thrones several yards away on a raised platform. In each sat members of the PTA, two elves, Mrs. Galadriel and Mr. Elrond, and the rest a mix of orc and goblin parents and a stray dark wizard of some sort, including Mr. Sauron, the superintendent of the school district.
I leaned to Sam beside me and whispered a joke about how over-the-top this year’s casting announcement was.
And then I realized…
He was not Sam.
A pale face glared back at me, his sparkling golden eyes outlined perfectly in ebony eyeliner beaming with depression.
My heart did somersaults at 6 G’s. It felt as though it would implode from either happiness or absolute horror. There is no inbetween. I tried to muster up some form of comprehensible English; I really really tried. But alas, it was not to be!
I reeled backwards sputtering unintelligible nonsense, though if I was lucky, he’d suspect that I was summoning some Lovecraftian being to impress him to grace his magnanimous presence. My arms moved in random directions, like they had minds of their own. I couldn’t tell where I moved as my vision swam in a hurricane of butterflies and confusion. I landed on my bum on the polished plywood of the gymnasium and my eyes popped open, gazing upon the angelic luminescence from above which spotlighted me. I thought I heard bells and singing. Is this death? Am I finally free?
Twas only Sam perched upon one of the spotlights dangling from thin wires. How it supported his weight I’ll never know. His hands appeared folded together, like the praying Archangel Gabriel. Was I ascending to heaven? Was I finally to meet Barry Myles, central member of Five Directions?
I blinked and my hopeful vision disappeared as my sight cleared up. He was not praying. He was facepalming repeatedly, muttering chastisements which could only be directed towards me. Why was he even up there? I had half a mind to pull him down by the ear and scold him for not sitting where he normally sat. HOW DARE HE TRICK ME LIKE THAT! I THOUGHT WE WERE BESTIES! It took every fiber of my being to not chew him out on the spot and storm out of the gym. After all, the cast still had not yet been announced.
Sam stood up on the spotlight and jumped down without making it swing even an inch. Then again, I knew my bestie was a man of many secrets. He glared at me, arms crossed tightly and foot thundering on the floor. His face read the most dreaded phrase to fall upon child ears: “I’m not mad, I’m just disappointed.” His orbs stared daggers into me wordlessly. His silence was stifling. His silence was violence. His silence was enough to suffocate. I could feel my soul departing my body as his “disappointed” gaze followed me while he marched to his seat beside Frodo. I meekly followed him, practically crawling in utter shame for whatever he would inevitably accuse me of.
Once all the chatter had settled down, as the spotlights weren’t that unusual to the vast majority of the student body anymore, Professor Legolas strutted his THICCC hips to the front of the Fellowship of the PTA, a 24-karat gold scepter crowned in Swarovski crystals in hand and a red velvet, ethically fur-lined cape gently wafting in the light breeze generated by his fabulousness behind him as he sparkled, you guessed it, FABULOUSLY!
He beckoned Sam forward to hold onto his rather expensive and questionably sourced scepter. Somehow, in the 0.5 seconds between when I sat down and the Professor took the stage, Sam had done a full change into a squire outfit, tassled red velvet pillow resting in his gloved hands. He knelt before His Preeminence Legolas– as was one of the titles he had bought online from a Russian auction some decades ago, and he (His Preeminence Legolas) delicately hurled the scepter onto the pillow, whipping a faded scroll out from his cross-body fanny pack and pulling out his tiny opera glasses, holding them daintily above his gloriously and elegantly long nose. With a clear of his throat, and a long and exasperated sigh from Sam, he began dictating the will of the Fellowship.
“Ahem, my dearest and finest student body, the Fellowship of the PTA has reached a decision for the casting of this year’s dramatic extravaganza. Now I want to make it clear that this casting list does not reflect the will or worldview of every member of the Fellowship of the PTA, nor my own. It merely reveals the worldview of the unfortunate majority.” He scowled and rolled his fabulous eyes.
“Now we begin first, as is the tradition established by moi at last year’s casting announcement ceremony, with the tech support and behind the scenes members, who will be allowed into my inner planning circle. Samwise Dmitri Buttz, you have been bestowed the honor of all these roles at once, because you are the only truly competent technician in the entire school, as was evidenced by your excellent performance last year and the unfortunately bombastic failure of your stagehand partner.”
“And now we must announce the leads and the understudies. The rest of you with smaller roles may find out your positions in the handouts that Squire Sam will pass out at the door as you exit the sweaty throne room.”
I glanced beside Professor Legolas at Sam, still kneeling beside him, and saw a single tear trail down his stoic face in sheer horror.
The thunder-thighed Professor cleared his throat again and continued his announcement. “First, we have our dearest Peregrin “Pippin” Asbjorn Buttz cast as ‘Forest Jenkins.’”
Hushed chatter erupted amongst the eagerly anticipating plebeians. Most of it was to the effect of wondering whether this was the name of the male lead of the play. The Professor quickly put that notion to death.
“Because, of course, there is not a being in existence with enough speed and stamina to play every tree at once. Twill save much money on the set budget. All the more for decorating the costumes. Also I forgot to mention earlier, but Samwise Dmitri Buttz shall also be bestowed with the role of ‘Chair, Throne, Stool, etc…’ Just thought he needed to be credited for such highly honored roles.
“We now move on to the human cast. Frodo Theodore Buttz, stand up, young man.”
Frodo huffed and rolled his eyes. I got butterflies every time he did that. It was so cute. He shuffled and creaked out of his seat as the room fell deathly silent, all in honor of him receiving his role.
“Come forward, ma boi!” He tapped Sam with his opera glasses, and Sam pulled the sacred machete out of nowhere and handed it to his benevolent overlord. Professor Legolas somehow convinced Frodo with his domineering manliness to kneel before him as he knighted him. “I hereby declare, in the name of the Fellowship of the PTA, that thou hast had the title of Male Lead Prince Xákerie Viseríon Warwick bestowed upon thyself from henceforth and forevermore.”
My eyes darted to and from Frodo, afraid of him making eye contact. His entire body appeared lifeless, but his golden eyes revealed some form of contempt towards the role. His eyeliner was especially good today. I could only dream of makeup so impeccable. Sam did his usual gesture to remind him to bow, so he puffed some curly brown curls out of his face and barely bent forward five degrees. Legolas clapped his delicately gloved paws and nodded approvingly. I too was proud. Frodo hadn’t even tried out and somehow his immense talent had landed him a leading role.
Frodo shuffled back to his seat, his hands buried in his black hoodie pocket. I gripped the edges of my metal folding chair as Professor Legolas prepared to announce the next cast member. He cleared his throat and ruffled his parchment scroll.
“Marigold Solanine Ring, please step forward.” His lips curled with displeasure as the mound of pink-and-white ruffles teetered to the spotlight. His sharp nose which stretched to high heaven crinkled. Perhaps she was wearing a sickly sweet perfume. I wouldn’t know, as I tried my hardest to avoid her. My heart thundered in my chest. I didn’t know, and yet I almost certainly knew who she’d be. I couldn’t know… I didn’t want to know anymore. I was too nervous.
Marigold curtsied and giggled. It reminded me of those talking baby dolls everyone swore they burned once they turned twelve. Her bleach-blonde perm– which at this point I wasn’t averse to considering it a wig; I mean, who has hair that shiny?! – practically begged to jump off her head as her cackling persisted.
“Miss Ring, I hereby declare you…” His face contorted in distaste as his voice trailed off, as though something better had suddenly occupied his thoughts. He blinked rapidly and refocused on his casting scroll. “Ah, yes, by decision of the Fellowship of the PTA, which is composed of both staff members and the parents of several popular students and them alone based on majority vote, you have been cast as Female Lead Princess Yasmín-Yashiaña Spæranzá Starbürst.”
Of course, that bubblegum bumpkin had to continue that wretched giggling. “Oh, my, my, what an honor! I daresay I don’t rightly know how to thank y’all. I’m just pleased as a peach! Oh deary my, I’m blushing!” She did one of those shy anime girl wiggles– how darst she, a mockery of my culture! – and made an… uwu face. I shuddered at the sight. I heard chihuahua-like laughter behind me. It was Gollum. I looked back at his beady blue eyes. He planned bloody murder behind them. It was quite obvious. He had a laugh which possessed an unpleasantness only second to Marigold herself.
I looked towards Frodo and saw sheer horror splattered on his face like blood at a crime scene. At least that’s what I hoped he was feeling. The gravity of the situation crashed down on me all in that moment as I made eye contact with Sam, his own face first bearing the same despair I could feel was on mine. Tears streamed down my face one by one in silence. I sniffled slightly, but then realized in one last effort of hope that the salty waterfalls might smear my own makeup and catch Mr. Frodo’s attention.
Professor Legolas resumed his list of cast members. I heard my name not even once. I curled up on my chair and hugged my knees, my face concealed under my intentionally ratty black hair.
Then I suddenly heard Sam cough. I looked up and saw renewed determination on his face. He made eye contact with me again and nodded towards Professor Legolas, whose own face mirrored the same but slightly more… psychotic? The Professor beamed at me.
“And now, we must announce some of the most vital members of our cast: the understudies. As quite a few main cast members have a tendency to attract misfortune before a performance, we require these noble back-up actors in case of such an unfortunate event. Now first and foremost, Elvira Elinda Dawn Everstar, please step forward.”
I wiped my eyes with my striped fingerless arm warmer gloves, brushed off my asymmetrical lacy black miniskirt, and stepped forward with elated conviction. I curtsied almost to the floor and bowed my head. Professor Legolas pulled out his machete, which he had stowed for a majority of the announcements, and gently tapped my shoulders with it. “I bestow upon thyself the role of utmost importance, a role vital to the revival of this dramatic extravaganza. You, Miss Elvira Elinda Dawn Everstar, hath been gifted by unanimous vote, the role of understudy for the Female Lead Princess Yasmín-Yashiaña Spæranzá Starbürst.”
Pure joy swelled within me. I knew it was unlikely that Marigold would ever be pulled away from her role, being the malicious genteel witch that she is. After all, she’d probably be surrounded by an army of security guards the moment she exited the gym. But one can hope. One can really, truly hope.
Notes:
Pronunciation note- The eye-murder names featured in this chapter are pronounced as follows:
Prince ZAH-ker-ee vis-air-EYE-on WAR-wick
Princess yahs-MEEN YAH-shee-ah-nya spay-rahn-ZAH STAR-byurst
Chapter 4: In Which Sam Controls His Emotions
Summary:
I scream, you scream, we all scream for SAMMY BOI! Sit back and enjoy the most mentally stable perspective that you'll ever get to see in this saga. Maybe, just maybe, it will replenish a miniscule fraction of the braincells the previous chapters have successfully pulverized.
Notes:
Elloooo my fine, sane readers. Sorry it took longer to post this chapter. The past few weeks have been pretty busy, but the wait is FINALLY OVER. Anyway, I'll try to post more regularly. Enjoy ;P
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
I double checked the Home Economics classroom. Good; Elvira was still inside cleaning up. She was usually in charge of cleaning up due to the schoolwide preference of my command of the cooking utensils. She had a tendency to burn everything. Sometimes even anything in the immediate vicinity. I liked it though, so I was fine with the work being pushed on me.
I glanced inside each of the classrooms as students not remaining behind for clubs filed out. There wasn’t much of interest inside any of them. The… “ Lunch Lord” Gimli, our teacher in Home Ec., informed me that Professor Legolas needed to see me after class. I have some vague idea of why; I could only pray it wasn’t true. I could see it in the dangerous glint in his eye. He had something cooking. Something bad .
The farther down the hallway I went, the dimmer the lighting. I had to be in the right place. The traces of suffocating glitter shards at the foot of the supply closet was a dead giveaway– that and the operatic warbling of a strangled cat in a body bag.
I carefully stepped into the foreboding shadow cast by the door and peered into the window. The scene was as expected: a one man reenactment of the Phantom of the Opera. I couldn’t even act surprised. At the moment, he was attempting, and failing, to hit Christine’s high notes before running to the other side of the room and slipping on a half mask for the Phantom’s parts. The spectacle was visually exhausting.
I rapped on the door once, and it swung open dramatically. A toothpick arm lunged out and snapped me into a now pitch black room by the collar. What the Professor was plotting this time must have been yet another convoluted and ostentatious crackpot scheme to accomplish one of his ever-changing delusions.
My surroundings remained dark even after the maniac opened his mouth. “Sammy Boi, there is something of utmost importance which we must discuss.”
I could tell. I was, after all, in a blindfold and tied down to a chair in the middle of a dark room. I’m not entirely sure when the majority of these things had occurred, but I certainly was in a bind.
He flicked a match and tore off my blindfold. I was still tied down, but that didn’t matter at this point.
“Sammy Boi, the Fellowship of the PTA has doomed us all. I hate to be the harbinger of bad news, but alas!” He fell onto a conveniently placed fainting couch. Fainting couches were required by special order of Principle Gandalf in every hall of the school after some unfortunate head injuries sustained by the theater professor. “You see, Sammy Boi, the Fellowship of the PTA has selected Frodo as the Male Lead of the drama!”
I suppressed a snort. Very tragic. He’ll probably hide in his room all night in rebellion . I wished to verbalize these thoughts but deemed it best not to. “Continue.”
“Alas, our dear Lady Elvira was cast aside as an understudy in favor of that wretched Marigold Ring! Pure nepotism! I bet she can’t even vocalize half as well as moi!” He fanned himself, clearly overcome with passionate melancholy. This was more of a problem than I had originally anticipated.
“And what do you want me to do about it?”
He twirled and smacked my face with his pair of tiny opera glasses. “We still have hope! After all, understudy is like a second chance, practically a guarantee of the role! All that is necessary is for a small misfortune to befall a certain actress.”
“Oh? I’m listening.” I was usually against such measures, but one, Miss Ring (and her entire family) gave what Pippin would call sus vibes , and two, Elvira needed help. Oh she needed it badly . After all, it wasn’t necessarily against my principles to deliver justice to those who deserved it.
Professor Legolas glittered with malice, and excitement. “Indeed! We must plan! Otherwise your unfortunate sibling will be forced to perform with that horrible wolf in glittery pink sheep’s clothes.”
Of course, he would probably end up doing most of the planning. Why he needed me was a total mystery. The only possible explanation I could think of is he has the mind of a seven-year-old girl and sees me as a hamster that he can’t help torturing out of affection. I decided to say something so he’d reveal whatever harebrained scheme he devised in the five seconds that had passed. The sooner he did, the sooner I could leave. “What ideas do you have?”
Professor Legolas tapped his fingers together and cackled girlishly as a vindictive smile stretched beneath his carrot nose. “Oh, silly, silly, Sammy Boi, you haven’t the slightest idea of my cunning plot. Of course, you are required to take part, Sammy Boi.” He reached into his crossbody fanny pack and whipped out a bedazzled royal uniform. “Question, can you fit in this, Sammy Boi? It might be a little tight, though a little tubby around the tummy is nothing to be ashamed of,” he reminded, swinging his THICCC hips around.
I reached out mechanically to take it, but he yanked it back.
“Never mind, Sammy Boi! There is no time! So long as you can perform the role of squire to moi, there naught to fear!” He tossed the uniform in my face and twirled. “Alas, I must depart to prepare for the casting announcements for my Broadway-worthy production. Just don’t forget to change into that once you handle the lighting. We can’t have any of those nasty members of our Fellowship of the PTA angered, can we!”
He danced out of the room but paused in the doorway to adjust his tiny black beret. “Oh, if you could give Elvira some encouragement in the realm of you know what , please do. Oh, this matchmaking business is absolutely exhausting! ” He fanned himself as he disappeared into the hallway, an inexplicable trail of sequins behind him.
I facepalmed and rolled my eyes. This routine again? I thought. Luckily, I’d already had something planned to give Elvira a little push for a while. There was absolutely no way she could mess this up.
She messed it up. How, HOW did she mess this up!? I made it so easy for her. All she had to do was say a simple “Hello,” or, “What role are you hoping for?” She’d already begun talking, so why on this SWEET EARTH did she stop? TELL ME!
I marched to the boys’ locker room to change out of this ridiculous costume, fuming. “How? HOW COULD SHE POSSIBLY MESS THIS UP!” I tossed the impossibly puffy, and hip thicccening into my duffel bag.
“Sam–”
I held the feathery cap high above my head to smite the unfortunate fellow who stood behind me. He would be lucky I wasn’t wearing flip-flops, or I would surely beat him to a pulp with them. If not a bloody pulp, then I’d at least gift him a pair of shattered knee caps.
Pippin’s eyes widened in terror.
“Oh. It’s just you.” I lowered my weapon and stuffed it into my bag with disappointment. Unfortunately, I loved my brothers too much to deliver them to their maker.
Pippin wiped the waterfall of sweat off his forehead. “Heh, scary. What is it this time?” His legs were shaking. He knew not to mess with me. He learned that the hard way.
I hurled my duffel bag against one of the lockers and dropped onto my knees on the floor, breathing in deeply. One… two… three… “Okay. I am ready to answer you now.” I stood up and brushed off my khaki pants. “One of my dear, dear friends made a little kerfuffle of my carefully laid out plans to fix all her problems. Again.” I felt a little embarrassed about my outburst. I really only had this issue once every six months, and only when I felt incredibly provoked. It was about that time though. At least I wouldn’t have to deal with this again for a while. Until then, I would be storing up many wonderful experiences. Truly delightful, not in the least irksome, experiences.
Pippin nodded. “Uh huh. Welp, Imma go do pixie stix– I mean, homework , out in the parking lot.” I could hear wrappers crackling in the pockets of his shorts.
Finally, something I could deal with. “Remember, you have to be home by six for dinner. If you are late, I will not hesitate to use the flip-flop.”
He nodded meekly and scurried out of the locker room like a squirrel on Adderall. I only then realized the bright red blanket he’d tied around his neck for a cape. I knew it. He’d been sneaking sugar between classes. If he had his way, he’d be wandering the halls tomorrow decked out as Shirley Temple’s demented spirit animal.
I gathered my things and quickly mopped the locker room to save Mr. Theoden some time. Then I left for the bus. It was rather colorful. Today it featured a mural of winged unicorns vomiting rainbows. Pippin had clearly gotten a hold of some paint during lunch. The chicken scratch which vaguely resembled anime characters were the obvious work of Merry. Those two really needed another visit to Professor Faramir’s office.
Elvira scrambled into the bus, her goth attire replaced with a fuzzy pink cardigan, a purple plaid skirt, and cat leggings. She plopped down next to me, her head hanging in shame.
The bus rumbled down the road for a solid minute.
“Are you really not going to say anything?” she asked, fiddling with her long black braids.
I sighed. “It is what it is.”
“At least I said something?”
“And then you ran away,” I retorted frankly.
The hundreds of glittery chibi animal keychains jangled on her lilac cat-eared backpack.
“You know, you wouldn’t be late for the bus if you just waited until you got home to change.”
Elvira wrinkled her nose like a bunny. “But I feel so gross in all that…”
I shot her a hairy eyeball. “You know, you don’t have to wear it at all to begin with.”
She blushed and covered her face. “B-but… I can’t!”
I repeated my deep, deep sigh, mopping my face on my hands. “But why not ?”
Our pep talk was interrupted by none other than my dearest brothers.
“Hey Elvira, I just wanted to double-check the plan for tomorrow’s anime club meeting.” Merry found it prudent to strike a cute schoolgirl pose.
While they talked, I spotted Frodo lurking behind him. His face almost bore a form of emotion that wasn’t strained stoicism. His eyes were even wider than they were when he’d crossed me the wrong way. I almost forgot that he’d never really acknowledged Elvira’s existence outside her… grunge attire. Of course Merry could sense her from a mile away due to something he calls “otakutuition.” But Frodo, being denser than a brick wall, gave quite the reaction to this revelation. One might even say that there was blushing involved.
My brother reeled down the bus and fell backwards onto the laps of Gilgogglethamew, Orsinia, and Melopharochester. They didn’t seem to care… or maybe they didn’t notice him. The latter was far more likely.
I tapped Elvira on the shoulder so she would see she wasn’t nearly as hopeless as she thought she was, but she was far too engrossed in her discussion with Merry about their top ten ahoge characters. By the time they finished talking, Frodo had already settled into the crevice between the orc students’ feet and the seat in front of them.
The load of students on the bus slowly dwindled until only a few orcs and elves, Gollum and Deagol, and two of my brothers and I were left. Finally, we pulled up to our house, and I carefully watched to make sure both of my brothers actually made it into the house and not on the roof of the bus for a joyride. However, with Pippin gone “doing homework,” there was still him to worry about. He’d be home on time. I was confident he would be.
The scent of strong seasonings immediately filled my nose inside. Something must’ve been cooking. Frodo trudged upstairs sulking while Merry tossed his bags onto a whimpering lump on the couch and dashed to the game room. I took off my shoes, set my bags by the stairs, and peeked under the mass of shriveled blankets. Our pruney Uncle Bilbo hissed at the entrance of light into his cocoon of pity parties and scurried back into the attic. I grabbed the feather duster by the door.
“He left a trail of dirt again… he’s never even been outside, how does that happen?” I murmured as I cleaned up his mess.
Once that was taken care of, I walked into the kitchen for inspection. Something of that smell carried a source of meat, so either Mother was home early cooking dinner or Uncle Bilbo had decided to boil down whatever had gotten caught in the rat traps again.
This time, it was actually Father. His vacant, baggy eyes stared into the souls of the wall tile as he stirred whatever was in the enormous pot on the stove in slow motions. He had one of Mother’s fuzzy spa headbands keeping his greasy hair out of his face and a frilly white apron wrapped around him like a protective swaddle.
I snapped in front of him and he blinked. Good. He’s still alive. Must’ve been a rough day as a dentist . I peered into the pot and only saw a murky surface with the occasional chunk of something bobbing in the swirling food (?). One of Mother’s recipe books was propped up against the knife block and old plastic wrappings lay scattered throughout the kitchen.
I picked up all the ones I could find, checking the expiration dates to make sure he wasn’t unwittingly poisoning us. As I dropped them in the trash can, I saw none other than Pippin seated at the table. Everything was perfectly set an hour in advance. He even had a napkin tucked into his shirt! And no cape! Not even a trace of sugar remained on his face.
“How…?”
Pippin smiled widely. “The delightful scent of chaos stew summoned me. Reece’s Pieces and Skittle fever can wait. There is no substance in existence which can replicate the euphoria of the ragoût du chaos!” He gave a chef kiss and the Italian hand thing.
I shook my head and switched to supervising Merry.
After about half an hour, Mother came home bearing the gift of pastries. “Oh Aragorn! Kids! I’m home!” I rushed to help her carry in her bags, and kept Pippin away from said pastries. While I barricaded the pantry, Mother plopped a bizarre vase on the kitchen table. I don’t know how, but that somehow tore Father’s attention from the painstaking task of watching a pot boil.
He threw off his oven mitts and ran his finger along the trim of the lid? Spout? Porcelain orifice? “What a beauty…” he marveled.
It was a rather ridiculous thing, but I guess it could have charm to the right person. Uncle Bilbo would probably end up collecting dead spiders and old mothballs inside it.
“It’s from 9th-century China. The guy who brought it into the shop had authentication papers and everything. Said it’s been in his family for generations but he couldn’t find any uses for it so he wanted to get rid of it. Supposedly, this vase was once a decoration in the Daming Palace. It’s a wonder it hasn’t wound up in a museum yet.”
Father fell to his knees, his arms outstretched. “It’s gorgeous !” he exclaimed, almost tearing up.
Never mind. He cried. Alot. Mother had to finish preparing dinner for fear of him watering the stew down with his tears.
The waterworks were soon over and dinner proceeded relatively normally, though Uncle Bilbo did sneak in to steal some wilted lettuce for his mouse friend Winifred and some bacon grease that had congealed on one of the frying pans for himself.
Finally, I was able to focus on my homework in peace. Merry and Pippin, who shared the room to the right of mine, bounced off the walls like usual, but Frodo’s to the left was deathly silent. By now, he would have been blasting edgy music while literally shredding his guitar (strings). As the eldest of four quadruplets, I felt responsible for checking up on my younger brothers whenever something seemed off. This rarely happened, as everything “off” they did on the day-by-day was completely normal.
I pressed my ear against his bedroom door, which was covered in skulls and band posters with such dim lighting you could barely make out the actual people on them. I had yet to ask him about the scene he made on the bus, so I thought I might as well knock out two birds with one stone.
He wasn’t inside his bedroom. A sad mixture of late homework and discarded poems littered his desk. The pink diary poorly concealed under one of his black pillows caught my attention, but I shook my head. Now, now, best to just ask him instead of snooping .
A sudden zap of eurodance music boomed from the far end of the hall and quickly faded under the yowling of Merry and Pippin’s karaoke battle. I tiptoed to the door so as not to startle whatever was behind it. A different voice cracked on top of the song. Ah, here we go .
I opened the door to see Frodo, a white towel around his waist, singing into his hairbrush and skipping around on the bathmat.
“ Ma-i-a hi, Ma-i-a hu, Ma-i-a ho, Ma-i-a ha-HA!” He still hadn’t noticed me. “Vrei să pleci dar nu mă, nu mă iei, Nu mă, nu mă iei, nu mă, nu mă, nu mă iei, Chipul tău și drago–” He froze in place as though that would make him invisible. The hairbrush clattered onto the floor and his face contorted with mortification.
“So about what happened on the bus?” I began, ignoring the fact that my brother was still very much in a towel. The music continued in his silence.
Frodo sheepishly picked up the hairbrush and set it on the vanity counter. Despite already looking quite embarrassed, his face managed to grow even more red when I mentioned the bus. He adjusted his towel and backed into a corner to sulk.
“Go on. If you don’t tell me directly, I have other ways of finding you out,” I added with a dash of Legolas. The Professor was rubbing off on me, but that was a problem for another time.
“It’s nothing…” he mumbled.
“Clearly it is.” I scoffed. How could he believe me to be so stupid? My time with Elvira had greatly lengthened my vocabulary of excuses.
He shuffled back to the counter and applied facial moisturizer liberally. “I was just surprised, okay? Sheesh,” he glowered.
I shot him a hairy-eyeball. I had been dishing out a lot of them recently. “You know she looks like that every day after school, right?”
Frodo shrugged. “Yeah, and?”
“ And was that seriously the first time you recognized her?”
He scoffed. “Pfffff, no! I just… no way! But… yeah… No! I kinda sorta thought… I thought… I dunno… maybe she was a stray cat Pippin had kidnapped and dressed up ‘er something…” He turned to face me, forcing his eyes to burn out like a dead lightbulb. “Now can you leave? I’d like to put on something that isn’t a towel!”
My eyebrow remained raised. “Fine, but we’re continuing this conversation later.” I just barely dodged the door as it slammed open. “Uh oh…” The song had changed. That could only mean one thing.
Pippin jumped into the bathroom in a black suit stuffed with pillows and sunglasses. “OPPA GANGNAM STYLE!” He began dancing like a madman– or rather, like himself.
Frodo hissed and retreated behind the shower curtain. “MAKE IT GO AWAY!” He clutched his face like a vampire withering away in the sunlight.
“It’s your playlist…” I rolled my eyes, skipped the song on his speaker, and left. Of course, Pippin was happy to turn it back on and continue his one-man flash mob.
I returned to my bedroom to plan my next assault on Frodo’s feelings and perhaps do some light reading. How I’d pry something out of him, I had no idea. All I did know is that it was going to be a long school year.
Notes:
Expect some new and improved Professor Legolas art soon >:]
Chapter 5: A 20-Step Guide to Wooing Women and the Metaphor Graveyard with Johnny
Summary:
I don't even know how to describe this. Long story short, Gollum seeks romantic advice from the school counselor, and................you get the picture by now. Enjoy.
Notes:
Disclaimer: We are not responsible for any mental deterioration and/or intense confusion one might receive as a side effect from consuming this piece of media.
Chapter Text
I, Smeagol “Gollum” Smith, a sixteen-year-old sophomore at Isengard Academy, expertly answered Miss Eowyn’s question concerning triad chords. Of course, Deagol, my idiot wingman, had the nerve to whisper his own answer into my ear before I could answer. He nearly made me forget my own! Luckily, thanks to my magnanimous wit and brainsies, I was able to recall the factually correct remedy to the problem with which the teacher thought necessary to ask us.
Sam, my rather portly classmate, dominated pretty much everything before and after me. Of course, nobody actually cared about Miss Eowyn’s class, so nobody really cares that he’s the best. I only replied to one to reinforce my reputation as the school’s top student no matter the class. Now that I had met my brilliance quota of the day, I could finally allow my mind to drift elsewhere.
Mine crystalline orbsies floated to the front row of the classroom, to a crown of 24-karat gold ringlets which dangled like a waterfall of angel hair pasta on a cool summer’s day as the breeze wafts through the gently curling noodles, and a strikingly handsome young man feeds the delectable food to the woman of his dreams in the sunset inside a golden carriage as it bumps down the road to Morocco where they would honeymoon as newlyweds in a toadstool cottage run by a lonely babushka just praying for one last glimpse at true love before she kicked the bucket and reunited with dedushka over bottles of vodka and a feast of bear steak in Siberian heaven surrounded by an applause of mafia rifle salutes.
Then that glorious, angelic creature of feminine grace was called upon by teacher what’s-her-face for a musical demonstration. It turns out that the fine little princess possessed the ability of both song and strings. Her voice sounded like the ringing of tiny golden bells which can only be found beside the bedsides of angels which the angels then use to summon their butlers to prepare them for war upon their laser unicorns, the mechanics of which I had not yet figured out, but they were surely graceful, elegant and deadly beasts, which also, coincidentally, sounded like the golden bells that the angels would ring, which in turn sound like the beauty of this precious creature’s immaculate vocal chord sounds.
And then she warbled another word. It was hard to believe that she had only uttered a single word before this one, not even a full phrase. Her intonation was so sublime that she needed only a word to encapsulate her full musical potential and envelope one in its delectable ear-aroma. Who knows what it was? I was too caught up in her stunning yodeling and grandiose pretty sounds.
Then Miss So-and-So handed her a violin, the most regal of instruments, in my opinion, to be the so-called “guinea pig.” However, the delightful young lassie of pure enthralling, pulchritudinous beauty impressed the entire class with her masterful mastery of the s t r i n g s . Nearly every boy in the class was gaping at her skill. Of course, I was quite confident that absolutely none of them even stood a chance. Samwise Buttz was the only miscreant who remained unimpressed, that uncultured swine with absolutely no taste in women. I mean, even that pestilent Frodo had googly eyes for her, that moody lump of blackness. Besides Sam, Deagol–whose brain could probably be likened to both the size and intelligence of an amoeba, but even that would be a generous comparison– appeared in control of his immense attraction to her. I knew he was only doing it to spare my feelings. That ignorant fool would fall for just about any female in existence. He even stooped so low as to compliment Brianrietta Balrog’s nose job. Of course, this was the same blockhead who adored compliments about his rather tasteless outfits from the local grandmothers.
Teacher Who the What selected a few more volunteers to try out the various instruments she had brought with her, and then class finally ended.
I double checked my schedule. I had a free period before lunch. Of course, I had been anticipating this free period all week (‘twas a fine Tuesday morning, by the way) with a plan of my own to kill the time. Ordinarily, I’d spend the precious half hour studying or rehearsing for the school choir (I joined after merely hearing my darling Mademoiselle Marigold Ring speak. Her delightful genteel accent spoke volumes of her vocal capabilities. I had met many a middle-aged gentlewooman who carried a speech pattern of similar likeness, and each sang with the singiness of a Victorian Italian opera duchess. Naturally, as my ears are well-tuned to musicality– and I can, in fact, plink out any little ditty by ear on the pianoforte– so I was confident in my assumption. Today’s music class proved my scientific law which required no experimentation or hypothesis confirmation), but I had a much more beneficial idea for today.
I skip-hopped down the halls, clicking my heels and whistling with my thumbs in my armpits, passing doorways upon doorways, casting their pathetic shadows upon my sunshine, lollipops, and rainbows down the street. The halls snaked about in their usual way, winding along like an elderly worm with arthritis and purple dentures as he putzed along to make peace with his “too cool for school” brother, Eierkuchen , who had broken his back in a skiing accident in Siberia while fighting a deadly tiger-panda hybrid doing the tango with its platypus-mongoose fiance the night before Ragnarok but he had been doing it out of anguish because he had broken his parents’ hearts by dropping out of school– and his pancreas– to become an organ donor and a surgeon for worms, but his parents wanted him to go to school to become the lead singer in an emo boy band that all of the teenage girl worms would go crazy for, but he didn’t feel it in his heart, so he somehow ended up in Siberia tangoing with several deadly hybrid creatures, and broke his back (which he doesn’t technically have, because he’s a worm) and so he sent for his brother, Kitzler, to at least try to make peace with someone in his family before he died because he broke his back, which he doesn’t have.
A large poster, which read “One does not simply cure their debilitating anger management issues”, duct taped to the wall signaled that I was headed in the right direction. A few strides later, I happened upon an ever-so-slightly splintered door with rinky-dink metal letters nailed above the door with a staple gun to spell out “Official School Counselor's Office.” An LED OPEN sign in a similar dilapidated condition dangled below it. I tapped my foot, and it finally flickered for a split second. Good. He was open. There was no window to check inside, as the office served several purposes, namely, a broom closet and storage of miscellaneous paraphernalia.
I jiggled the door handle. It wasn’t locked. Occasionally, one could hear wailing from the other end of the school escaping through the cracks in the well-loved door. On those weekly incidents, the door was immovable. Not even Mr. Boromir could bulldoze his way through. Some legends indicate that it is he who caused the splintering of the wood, but we wiser folk know it was the doing of the sad creature harbored within.
Since there was nothing stopping me, I swung the door open with purpose. Behind his plastic kiddie desk sat Professor Faramir. He appeared to be pouring out his heart and soul and tear ducts to a crumpled-up piece of paper. A natural-looking quill nearly snapping in half in his white knuckles signaled that it was a document of great importance. Of course, because he had failed to announce to the school that he was occupied at the moment, my psychological problems had precedence over whatever matters he was contemplating.
I sauntered up to the plastic kiddie table, noting the Doc McStuffins stickers that covered the surface. Nary a bare space could be located with mine crystalline orbsies. With a tinkling ding of the tarnished bell wallowing pitifully on the edge of his desk, begging me for sweet relief, Professor Faramir appeared to instinctively balled up whatever shreds of paper were in front of him and chucked them unceremoniously into the eternally burning trash can fire fueled by the endless stream of discarded papers of either crucially important or pathetically insignificant meaning– the only source of warmth in his broom closet office, because the heating and AC units broke down, but only in his office, the AC blasting all fall and winter and the heating basically threatening to erupt the room in flames all spring and summer– in the far corner of the room.
He adjusted his hand-me-down, thrifted, ever-so-slightly moth-eaten blazer and cleared his throat louder than the crackling of the garbage fire of eternal soulless flames. “How might I help you this fine morning, Mr. Smith. You haven’t been frequenting my office as of late.”
I ran a masculine hand through my luscious brown locks and sighed deeply with wistful contemplation as I dwelled upon my plans for electing a female life companion. “Dennyson, Farry-berry, Mr. Professor Faraden.”
“All incorrect, but do continue.”
I cleared my throat. “Flarperphalophalisabethamew–”
“Still wrong.”
I politely ignored him. “Denilopoafarabitacutiemorbalis, ma guy. I come with a plight of utmost importance. DROP EVERYTHING, SIR PROFARAMADENETHITIS! I…” I swung my arms back and tossed my head passionately to emphasize my point. “I… I am in LUUUUUUUUUUUVVVV! ” I would have thrown myself zealously onto one of the many fainting couches littering the tiny, tiny broom closet, but I feared it might ruin my impeccably styled wolf-cut hair. Instead to compensate for the lack of props for true, fulfilling dramatic expression, I fell to my knees and clutched my manly hands over mine feeble, enamored heart.
The Professor Faramir’s facial muscles contorted into some expression which, because I can decipher anything with my immeasurable wit, I concluded to be a sad hallucination conjured by the melancholy man’s mere presence. Whatever he was thinking, his trachea decided they best not enter the light of day. Thankfully, his train of thought realigned to face my utterly important romantic Gordian knot.
“Ah, yes. I do not believe anyone has sought advice from me concerning affairs of the heart. That is usually Professor Legolas’s specialty.”
I flung my arms out in supplication. “Alas, when I consulted the so-called master of Amor, he simply spat on the floor and strutted THICCCly away.”
A delicate sneeze sounded from the vents above. I cared not to check, as it was likely one of the many, many sewage people who took up residence in the ventilation system because our beloved country, Nonspecific Political Entity, simply could not afford assistance to the indigenous sewage people natives, because our beloved Nonspecific Political Entitian governors cared little for compensating the indigenous sewage people natives for encroaching upon and purloining their sewage territories of Toiletia Wateria and Wasticleria.
Professor Faramir’s eyes darkened. “This must be serious, then, if not even our Professor Legolas could assist you. Who is the object of your affection?” he asked awkwardly.
I danced in a circle, twirling like a bridesmaid seeking the bouquet of arranged marriage from her wooden nymph BFF from the badlands of Alaskan glebe hurling baseballs upon the wise old sage Bilbo Bagginforth the Buttocks III as he ice skated upon the Lipton fountain of lipglossy age and eyesight and caffeine-fueled fury and vice as he swung his pathetically thin hips across the globe to find his Etheorpean fiancee from Brinarietta Balrog’s kitten silo where the kittens were so smart that they made clones of her in case she accidentally unalived herself from embarrassment while trying to court the ancient Principal Gandalf. “Tis the lovely, enchanting, positively radiant and genteel Lady Marigold Ring.”
We both looked heavenwards towards the tiny dink! in the vents, a single string of spittle dropping down onto the forsaken linoleum.
“Legolas is in the vents again. Oh joy,” Faramir muttered, seemingly finding no joy at all from this. “Took us months, and a full scarf collection to lure him down last time. The vents were emanating radioactive sequins, so naturally we had to call in a HAZMAT team and–”
I held a finger against his ever-chattering lips. “Sh, sh, SHHHH!” I lowered my voice to a whisper. “I’m sure that story is wonderful, and I’d love to hear it at a later appointment, but back to the problem at hand, dearest Farabolaphalagolewtamis.”
The tragically forlorn professor nodded and pulled out a notepad to record our counseling session. “Yes, yes. I apologize. Now what is it that troubles you in your relationship with Miss Ring?” He swallowed loudly between each word, holding back some form of weak emotions.
I grand-jeté-d across the room with masculine grace and pirouetted with my shredded arms bulging, as I am too swole to control. “Alas, tis the founding of a relationship with that angelic being with which I hath come to seek advice!” I sighed like a Victorian widow secretly pining after Lord Balinkadonk of Custardshire while simultaneously being haunted by a sickly victorian child, named Tommy, who is trying to tell me that Lord Balinkadonk murdered his previous wife for the insurance, but I don’t care because I am in love, and honestly the aesthetic of a dapper murderer is just peak aesthetic value, all whilst her eldest daughter is plotting the murder of her own fiance via pillows and ice crinkles and toe-cheese danishes while her youngest daughter is feasting upon tofeef (from the ancient Latviantivan word bêœfæ , meaning “beef,” and töŭfėũ , meaning “artificial food of lies and deceit and corruption and basically the reason there’s evil in the world” [i.e., plant loaf of suspicious origin]) ravenously as though she were gnawing upon the flesh of a rabid snake-bear because she might or might not have been raised by wolves in the wild forests of Æhnglebörgheñstein which is absolutely a real place, and she acquired a taste for the native snake-bears but specifically the ones that she beat in hand to hand combat, because yeah, they have really weirdly buff hands, after strangling them with her slender but incredibly strong hands she would then eat them like a disturbing buff popsicle with non frozen bits.
Professor Faramir’s eyes darkened and he laced his fingers, resting his elbow upon the desk. “Ah. Yes. I see.” His thinning thoughts spiraled into oblivion. I could see it in his dead orbsies. After exactly 3 minutes, 17 seconds, 129 milliseconds, and 762 microseconds, he poured forth the wisdom which I so desperately sought. “So. You wish to court Miss Ring.”
I flung my arms out like Rosalita on the Mimantic and sang out the musical notes of LUUUUUUUV . “Tis the thing which I desire the most in mine heartsie! How doth a young man such as mineself woo a desirable young lass such as the beauteous young Marigold?”
Professor Faramir snatched a tiny handbook out of his teeny tiny plastic drawers and flipped through it behind his clipboard. I caught a glimpse of the cover; the title began with 101 tips . I concluded that he needed advice on communicating such knowledge with the younger generation. I could tell. He was not long for this world.
“So, ahem …” he tore away a “One does not simply cry into a pillow after their highschool sweetheart rejects them” poster and yeeted the tiny handbook out a gaping hole in the broom closet wall. “Like I was saying, Mr. Smith, you must first present yourself with confidence. Confidence is key. You must call out to the young lady in order to present your courting application. If she accepts, she shall glance in your direction with an ambiguous face. Basically, if she looks disgusted or mortified or melancholy, she’s almost certainly ‘in to you.’ If she bats her eyelashes or sighs, then she’s more likely than not a two-timing player who only wants to steal your emotions and invest years upon years of your life into the possibility of a relationship, just to tear out your heart, toy with it with needles and knives, and shove it back in like an alleyway plastic surgeon! A plastic surgeon because from thenceforth, thy heart shall be artificial, for she’ll tear apart the original beyond recognition! And then when you find yet another beautiful woman years later and she’s kind and funny and makes you feel like living again but that wicked heart-stomper stole what little emotion you had and you can’t work up the courage to do anything about it and–”
“Yes, yes, but back to my problems. I’d advise seeking professional help for whatever heart defects you have. It’s normal for one of your age, though, so I wouldn’t be too concerned.”
Professor Faramir shook his head. “Yes, I apologize. I got sidetracked. Back to the problem at hand, the next step once you’ve discerned her feelings for you is to…” he checked a pamphlet on his lap, “… not be afraid to express your affection for her at every opportunity. The more you ask her out and tell her you love her, the more chances there are that she’ll accept you for who you are rather than both literally and metaphorically tearing your heart out and stabbing it with a toothpick before your eyes. Basically, the best way to win her over is persistence and consistent romantic advances.”
“Ah, yes,” I replied. “So like throwing homemade bricks through her window with notes and portraits of what she’s doing at that very moment painted in fresh natural stains made from local flora and fauna.
“Um… not quite,” said Faramir. “It– I mean, according to my extensive years through university and medical school, which prepared me to properly handle affairs of the heart, say that it would be best to consider less aggressive courting tactics. Some include holding up a boombox blasting her favorite song that played on the radio the night you met everywhere, or perhaps throwing something smaller, like a pebble, at her window and conveying your affection by means of poetry on notecards.”
A light breeze from the vents (accompanied by a deep sound) blew through my voluminous, textured, shiny locks, enhancing my romantic, YA novel male lead appearance. “Of course! I must start small. After all, I need to make a good first impression! Many thanks, Mr. Farpalogahartysoniphilabologna.”
He sighed and waved me away. “Yes, yes. Now you’d best hurry to lunch or you’ll be late. Not like I get a lunch break… or lunch… or breaks in general…”
He muttered something, but my sweet elation silenced his droning complaints.
I swung open the splintered broom closet door and twirled into the hallway. As I turned to meet Deagol, I caught Coach Eomer yeeting Frodo into the sad office. Something to the likes of, “Frodo, what I have I said about screeching misquoted Shakespearean insults at teachers when they ask you to perform basic tasks?” sighed through the door as it creaked shut.
Mulling over the school counselor’s advice, Deagol and I proceeded to the cafeteria to obtain sustenance in the form of questionably fresh cardboard-and-styrofoam dishes. Of course, as the top student, I was rewarded with a sustainably-sourced steak one a week. And today was the day that I would receive the fruits of my labor, a certified, free-trade, non-GMO oliphaunt steak.
We were about to enter said cafeteria when a mysterious figure shrouded in a hot pink, heartsy apron came through the kitchen door wheeling a food cart.
“Who’s that?” I inquired to my idiot friend. He may have possessed little to absolutely no intelligence whatsoever, but he could still acquire reasonable bites of information on local know-how, otherwise known as “street smarts.” Of course in his case, these street smarts might be better likened to an accidental collision of neurons in his brain that caused him to remember insignificant snippets hurled at his unsuspecting, dim-witted, and rather shtoopid consciousness.
Deagol replied by complete chance, “Apparently her dad’s so rich that they have a butler to bring her gourmet lunches two to three times a week.”
As we watched, Miss Eowyn walked down the hall to grab her lunch (probably a meager meal of watercress sandwiches and an unhealthy serving of prunes on the side) from one of the industrial fridges in the kitchen. However, her march to sad, sad , sustenance was halted by the slimy little man dragging out the food cart.
Wormtongue whisked out a delightful bouquet of aged (Deagol argued that they were moldy, but he was likely overreacting with the whole gag-reflex and choking on the sheer number of mold spores just punching his sinuses, as he is a rather dramatic idiot) flowers (?). He slicked his slick, glossy, greasy Black Death-colored hair and grappled for her disheveled hand and puckered his plump, graciously chapped lips to bestow a passionate kiss upon it.
She politely pulled her hand back and declined the gesture of romantic affection. Wormtongue shook the bouquet in her face, pleading her to accept his chivalrous advances. He had so much game. He was probably the most attractive individual in school, second only to Professor Legolas and my dearest Marigold Ring. She covered her face with a tissue– likely because Wormtongue’s overwhelming charisma overpowered her delicate senses– and pushed back the bouquet with a gloved hand.
The sound of determined stomps thundered behind me. Deagol and I glanced back to see Professor Faramir marching onto the scene, his face bearing an expression not unlike a disconcerted naked blobfish serving up his great-great gramama Minkalorfina Mafidlabubbler in a silver platter decorated with fried snail shells and babushka scarves that his great-great grandpapa Dinglesnorf Mafidlabubbler had won in battle against his nerd kings and kittens, who ate zombie Pinkie Pies for elevenses and midnight snacks, all of this served up into a Bûche de Noël to his Nobel Peace king Drinklerpigdonalby who specifically requested a meal that was part of the family, but his request was wildly taken out of context, and so now he is unwittingly eating someone’s great-great grandmama, and his tummy realizes this and fills him with an indescribable rage, but he doesn’t know why because he of course is kept in the dark, since she is the creme of a Bûche de Noël, he continues to eat despite being so incredibly mad about nothing in particular, so he takes his anger out on his favorite seahorse, Johnny Del Darinio Dastenrupert, but Johnny isn’t mad because this has happened before, and he’s promised to take the secret to his grave, before heading to some snazzy seahorse club for royalty, and is kidnapped by an ex girlfriend of the king who wants to cause him emotional pain, and also she just got really attached to Johnny, but the king is a sea detective and quickly discovers she was the one who took his favorite seahorse, Johnny, so he calls her to beg for his seahorse’s life, but they end up reconnecting and falling in love, so they get married and no one has to leave Johnny behind ever again, which is exactly how Johnny planned it.
Then.
The cafeteria door, which had closed behind Wormtongue, swung open. Not only did it swing open, it flew open upon wings of angels and flattened Faramir into a two-dimensional cardboard cutout of a sad, middle-aged man barely making more than minimum wage with his doctorate which chucked him off the cliff of stability and plummeted his pathetic existence into the pit of crippling lifelong debt that he’ll never be good enough to pay off in his path.
Two little curly-haired munchkins skipped out the door hauling gargantuan black trash bags. The psychedelic brothers Peregrin and Meriadoc Buttz were helping the Lunch Lord Gimli clean up the cafeteria in preparation for the second lunch period. After all, The Lunch Lord Gimli’s very real and legitimate phobia of hands also extends to the messes made by such digited appendages. The pure gold-haired (you see, he was naturally strawberry blonde, but in his current mental state, strongly influenced by Japanese pop culture and the fact that he is a member of Generation Z, as well as he and his brother Peregrin’s favorite childhood show Puppa Pig, which influenced his periodic “gangsta” phases, he can be frequently seen in pure gold bling with sideways baseball caps and his pure gold “wig,” just showering monopoly money upon the masses as they refer to him by his street name, Lil Big Dawg Swag Boi Mo-nay) otaku child swung his enormous trash bag over his head screaming, “IIIII’MMMM GONNAAAA SWIIIIIIIING! FROM A CHANDELIIEIEIEIEIEIEIEIEEIEIEIIRRRRRR!!!!!” He released the trash bag and it somehow, by complete coincidence, by pure chance, it magnetically slammed into Wormtongue’s masculine face, yeeting him out an open window several feet behind him. The cafeteria is, naturally, unlike all the other pathetic schools who get it wrong, on the top floor. Our school has thirteen floors. This means that the cafeteria is on the thirteenth floor. The governor of Nonspecific Political Entity has sent the president of the Department of Health and Safety to try to relocate all the facilities on the thirteenth floor to the various other floors, many of which are actually unused. We only actually use the bottom two floors of the school. The reason why the cafeteria has remained on the thirteenth floor, which, by the way, floats detached from the school because the purity of the cafeteria has caused it to ascend to another plane of existence from the sad, sad school, is because Principal Gandalf has always been fond of courting death. He has thirteen black cats, walks under thirteen ladders every day, and basically owns the mirror manufacturing plant so he can shatter thirteen mirrors every day and sprinkle the glass on his beloved rutabagas. He’s also fond of courting Brianrietta Balrog. Enough said. Wormongue was quite safe in his current predicament. I should know. I have affectionately pushed my dearest idiot friend Deagol off the thirteenth floor on numerous occasions, and he has survived every single fall.
Professor Faramir stumbled back and staggered around in every possible direction that wasn’t directed towards Miss Eowyn holding a pathetically small wildflower he’d likely found growing amongst weeds in the cracks of the blacktop parking lot. Samwise Buttz, what a portly fellow, bumbled out the cafeteria door and saw the professor reeling in his state of utter humiliation, like when your parents walk in on you playing with your best friend who your parents disapprove of, because despite the fact that you two are absolute best friends who have so many things in common, the fact that his bestie’s parents once dumped the bowel voidings of a cow upon his own parents because his own parents were making fun of his native body cream from the wild jungles of France where the natives grow the body cream on their special trees (fertilized by pulverized monkey kidneys harvested from the rare cacao pods of Wyoming, which are actually the tears of the fabulously thipped man descending from the heavens as he showered sparkling whipped cream upon the indigenous sewer people of Paris, Montana) specifically for the purpose of growing body cream.
Samwise Buttz, the tubby tunky, just facepalmed, as he does when his brain ceases to function properly, and guided the professor to the school nurse Miss Galadriel’s office. Of course, he only had to traverse one set of stairs, because Principal Gandalf and the flamboyantly fabulous Professor Legolas declared that the floors three through twelve do not exist, and their immense power made it so. The thirteenth floor still remains the floating, enlightened thirteenth floor, while simultaneously existing outside of time and space so that our school only visibly has two and a half floors.
I yawned, tired and ready for lunch. Mulling over the advice that the school counselor Professor Faramir had given me, I got in line and served myself a healthy portion of Warg Nuggets. Being the masculine, suave sixteen-year-old young man that I am, I knew that wooing and winning over the heart of dearest Marigold Ring would be an absolute cinch.
Chapter 6: The Bazelonian Captivity
Summary:
In which... uh... in which... the gang goes to the Rivendell Recreational Center and Frodo introduces us to his arch nemesis. Enjoy the lack of coherence made readable only by a bare minimum of a plot thread!
Notes:
So it's been a while since I last posted, and that is because my Italian uncle summoned the entire family for a funeral for our mysteriously employed great-grandfather and handed out pieces of inheritance in the mafia (jk jk). I'm actually just lazy and got preoccupied for a few ten weeks or so. Anyway, to make up for it, this chapter is much longer than usual for mind numbing reasons so enjoy this bizarre little trip to... a very strange place. Yes, our sense of humor is slowly deteriorating into a pit of absurdity and madness. Sorry not sorry for the eyesore walls of text ;P
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
My life was ruined. There was no other way to say it. My foul, fiendish, absolutely depraved brothers had dragged me to, EUGH, the… the… the Rivendell Recreational Center for the Bored and Depressed Individuals of Nonspecific Political Entity (or RRCBDINPE). Evidently, my disgustingly optimistic brothers thought that a place like this could turn me into some horrendous creature created out of light and sunshine and rainbows. Their lack of faith was insulting to my very being. I shaft of betrayal the color of the void had pierced my heart gradually dragging me further and further into the blackness of the pessimism of the age.
My brother Pippin ran head first into the door and somehow warped through it without breaking the glass. I assumed that he managed to do this through sheer willpower. Merry then proceeded to run like that one runty yellow-haired bottom-feeder cat-boy with the whiskers and the obnoxiously hideous headband through the miniscule opening left in the doors and then around the front desk and out again clutching everything that was in every vending machine inside.
I groaned as Sam stood by the open automatic doors tapping his foot expectantly. That child is a fool to think he could expect anything from MOI! I fell onto my belly like a poetically wet fish out of water, and smacked my face against the concrete sighing out in protest. I dragged my blacker than the nighttime in a boxing match with Chain “The Brick” Jansen hood over my paler than Snow White the Vampire after her tanning salon membership expired and she was forced to walk this not long for this world world in a tunnel system under all the major streets, refusing to see the sun, for she shunned it when the the tanning salon rejected her card, as she owed more to them than the collective population of the world owed to the government in taxes, and she associated any complexion on her pallor that was darker than a sheet of paper made out of invisible nothingness because she associated that delightfully fake tan that the UV ray beds gave her with the oppression of the tanning salon, and the fact that it was her fault that the economy was tanking, and hers alone, because she refused to go outside ever since her boyfriend Prince Lil Dwaynie the BiGG ManNnN confessed that he was running a secret underground ballroom dancing gig without her knowing, because she frowned upon such high society, and much preferred more edgy activities, like European EDM and not showering, so she instead plotted revenge in a room painted black while sipping red wine on a mahogony couch with the blinds drawn for optimum plotting, where she then decided to frame him for tax evasion, while also buying the entire worlds supply of sparkly, and black fabric, so that no one could look more fabulous than her at the balls, but for some reason global economy rested on the shoulders of those fabrics so the world economy tanked, and so the world spontaneously combusted, but she is secretly a space vampire (who is also exactly 4.27% Cthulu) so she was fine, and continued to walk in the rubble of the tunnels of the streets, musing on the demise of her boyfriend, and the destruction of the tanning salon which she hated because they declined her card, because they were also members of the underground ballroom classical dance studio, and the manager and the employees all wore the same type of dress made out of the same red sparkly fabric, which was the specific type of fabric that she bought all of and then burned, just so she could get back at her boyfriend, and the tanning salon people, and honestly every person in charge of some government somewhere, because they probably wronged in some way, because she was arrested in a lot of countries, largely for petty theft (such as the purloining of the occasional credit card on an hourly basis like her kleptomaniac life depended on it), and accidental arson, which was actually on purpose, but that’s irrelevant, except for Australia because she really liked koalas, and she had a good friend in the Australian government named Greg Aussimonious McKiwison whom she used to go to college with, but they lost Toughie, which was his pet Kangaroo made of cardboard boxes that washed up on shore, which Snow White the Vampire had to use her Cthulian telekinetic powers to collect, because otherwise, she would’ve been mauled by a Great White Shark, named Jeff, which was sad, face .
“SAAAAAAAAAMMMMM!” I protested. “I don’t wAAAANnnAaAaA be heeeerrrreeeeEEEEEEEee!”
Sam whipped a flip flop out from his gym bag. “Why, pray tell? Mom got memberships, so we need to use them.”
“BAAAaaaAAaAaAaazzzEEEEELLLllllllLLlLlLllLllllllllllll!” I cried in utter anguish. How darst he drag me here to this fiendish establishment, where I must face off with my most hated (I spat on the pavement on which my forlorn face rested) FOE.
Sam gave me a hairy eyeball. Those dreadful orbulus expressions with eh overgrown blonde unibrow, tis horribly dreadful to bestow mine eyes upon. “He’s just an employee. And it’s your fault that you deliberately follow him around everywhere just to glare at him menacingly until you can jump from the shadows and challenge him to a duel while screaming misquoted Shakespearean insults at him, just for him to respond with big, vaguely-scientific-sounding words to appear smarter than you, thereby bruising your delicate but… existent ego.”
I gave him… THE PUPPY EYES . “But SaaAaAaAaaAMMM! He’s so meeeeaaaaannnn! His existence makes me wanna vomit up my stomachhhhh! He makes me want to weep and then die .”
Sam raised the flip flop higher above his head to assert his nonexistent dominance, for none could rise above my gloomy, confidently-dead-on-the-inside identity.
“Nyyo!” I swatted at his feet with my voluminous ebony hoodie sleeves. I remained steadfast against my beloved blood brother, the concrete sidewalk. Alas, I had no time to react to the engine rumbling above me. Before I knew it, I had been seized by my hoodie sleeves, and was slowly being dragged onto the flaming carpet on the other side of the forbidden gateway to H-E-DOUBLE-HOCKEY STICKS!
Little did he know that my hoodie was fifteen sizes too large. “YOU CAN’T MAKE MEEEEEEEE!” I reluctantly (because my dark shroud was my only source of comfort in life, but desperate times called for desperate measures) but swiftly slipped out of my hoodie and scrambled in the opposite direction. “YOU CAN’T CATCH ME, PEA-BRAIN!” I gave him the “loser” gesture and Fortnite danced across the parking lot to assert my own rightful dominance upon HIM!
Then, I caught a lightning fast glimpse of a flash of something wrestling out of the hedges at the edges of the parking lot. I heard the caw-cawing of only one type of manly bird. Once again, before I could react, some arms with elbows sharper than a swan-wielding-a-machete grasped my helpless frame. I felt mine feeble limbs float off the ground. I opened my edgy dark-gold orbs, and gazed upon what can only be described as the Sun. The sheer glory of this pale, pale man caused me to shrink back, trying to hide myself from the light my skin so hated. The light of the sun reflected off of his skin, like a laser hitting a diamond in a museum during a suspenseful heist movie scene. The beams of light shot in all directions, essentially blinding me, and making me useless. Curse this fabulous man, as he grand-jetéd infinitely across the sky on wings of peacock eleganzas, and the hands I assumed belonged to my supposedly sane brother. I should have known my brother would equip Professor Legolas’ help, he was, after all, the teacher’s favorite student.
Slowly, I was cruelly dragged back to the Rivendell Recreational Center for the Bored and Depressed Individuals of Nonspecific Political Entity (or RRCBDINPE). I, of course, tried to escape my captors’ hands, but it was to no avail. The darkness of my being was no match for the brightness of the Professor.
The stunningly, manly, elegantly THICCCly hipped Professor Legolas whipped a pair of tiny opera glasses out of his fanny pack and bopped me on the head with it. “Tut-tut, we can’t have you running away from such a prestigious establishment. After all, the laundered money I donated to this place for the purpose of keeping the youth of today off the streets chugging the Light of Iluvatar by the bottle, will not go to waste, young man. I will not allow it!”
I nodded meekly at the man. Now that I looked more closely at him, instead of his usual black turtleneck and violet yoga pants, he wore a dark red track suit with a single white stripe down the sides of the legs and the sleeves. My admiration for him grew, as he donned the color of blood. He cartwheeled gracefully into the building while bidding us a temporary farewell.
Sam tied my obsidian shroud around me like a straightjacket and dragged me into the Rivendell Recreational Center for the Bored and Depressed Individuals of Nonspecific Political Entity (or RRCBDINPE) over his shoulder like a body bag. I only allowed him to do so because I, in my creative poetic Edgar Allen Poe-like mind, wished to know what it felt like to be a lifeless, dead, shredded corpse being dragged from the scene of my timely demise to the other side.
Once inside, Sam dragged me further to the rank locker room after greeting Mr. Elrond (who owned the RRCBDINPE) at the front desk. I protested out of self respect, as the aforementioned locker room is below me in every way, shape, and form. Who on this wretched planet would let their flaky, bare skin touch the slimy, goopy, absolutely horrendous floor, green guck and muck congealed in the crevices of the cracked, mildewy tiles. The absolute horror I felt upon entering, was rivaled only by the feeling I got when I wore a t-shirt on a sunny day, or when I have to stand in brighter than dungeonly dim lights for any amount of time, or when I had to face that WRETCHED, TERRIBLE, AUREATE TEMPTRESS OF AZULEAN ORBS AND PINKISHLY GIRLY FRILLS AND RUFFLES, Maaaaaarigooooold RiiiiIiIiIiIiiiiiiNNnnGGgggg.
Sam tried and barely succeeded because I let him, not because he’s stronger than me, to remove my ebony shroud. He dropped a tennis uniform on top of my head of gothically curled locks and ran off to rangle Merry and Pippin, who were dishing out blessings, towel whippings, and dishing out spritzes of holy AXE Body Spray, Dark Temptations Flavored. I refused to put on the uniform, but then remembered the tattoo that Sam had written (the text itself crafted by Merry, but stabbed into my belly skin with permanent red ink by my brother Sam out of his infinite bloodlust) onto my belly in my sleep, which reminded me that if I did not wear my tennis uniform, I would get sweat and ick on my black shroud, and other FOREVER 21 boss rags (reading: “Boi betta wear his uniferms er dem girly guy boi people germants wer gonna get soil-ified, man”). I only didn’t murder him for it because tattoos are cool, and add to my alluring mystique as a man of literature and backstreet factory reset phones which crafty wormy pieces of poetic beauty paint in thready blue glue gum and carrot tears upon the eyelashes of the sun and the chinskers of the moon.
I pulled on the scratchy straightjacket-esque tennis uniform as “underwear” to protect mine elven buttress garments of obsidian pitch blackness. As I put on a black as my immortal soul track sweater, I felt the sting of a questionably cleansed public-use towel against my gluteus maximus. I whipped around in fury for the violation of my dignity to see Holy Father Pippin wrapped in his ceremonial towel robes and hat thing.
“I bless you, my child.” He folded his hands and bowed. And then proceeded to squirt me in the face with AXE Body Spray, Dark Temptations Flavored, and whipped my face with his towel again. Stupid locker room pope, I thought. I had never yet acquired the position of locker room pope– oh how I prayed for the day that I wouldst be the one who would be bestowed with the title of ULTIMATE POWAHS and be gifted the ceremonial towel whip, named Sting by the entire population of Nonspecific Political Entity, hence explaining the questionable state of said towel’s cleanliness, but I was planning a very dark and brooding assassination attempt on my unfortunate brother.
He screeched something to the likes of, “ARERFHGOUUHSKJN NHJOIJO! ARGABAGADINGLADONKALINIOUSACLES! THOU ART CLEANSED OF THINE DWEEBINESS!” Then he Naruto-ran in his holy popeness around the locker room flogging the sinners with the anti-dweeb towel cleansed in holy sweat.
I slammed my locker door shut and groaned, rolling on the dank floors and wallowing in my melancholy as my wretched slavedriver Sam dragged me out into the fluorescently, flickeringly lit hallways of the RRCBDINPE, like a corpse being dragged to the fabulous morticians office after it had died a questionable death and had been found in the bay nearby, but he was clutching some bulbous pearls, so the police naturally assumed that his wife, Matilda Macklelory McElmosmithsonnyboi XXVII, murdered him for the insurance money, but nothing could be proven because the pearls were bought at a pawn shop with wet, tres leche cash cakes so nothing could be traced back, and the description the pawn shop owner gave was of someone who looked suspiciously like two three-headed hamster children with seventeen arms in miscellaneous wrong locations, including their livers and cochlea, in a purple trenchcoat, so the police then suspected his children, but his children don’t have three heads and are also 43, so they were ruled out, but they were wrong because together with their mother, an ex-submarine, they are the exact height of two children in a purple trenchcoat and are also all eldritch beings from the deep blue sea, as shown in that one episode of X-files where everyone in that Florida town kept being eaten by that worm thing in a hurricane, which is why they ruled them out because none of them looked like worms or eldritch horrors from beyond the vale, so the Soviets decided to invade ancient Montana for Pixie Stix money and Wheelies, and took the square root of negative one, equalling a nuclear Pippin reaction, which created Yggdrasil and the Grinch while simultaneously outlawing toupees in thirteen provinces across the Australian colony of Bobabiddladoodads.
Inside the large, empty, soulless room of pale yellow walls and tennis tables and ceiling high windows, I dragged myself across to a dark corner behind a monstrous bonsai tree the size of Legolas’s THICCC hips, so you can imagine how well it shielded me from the horrible recreation of sports and PHYSICAL EXERTION OUTSIDE THE REALM OF DARK LIMERICKS AND FLAMBODIOUS ODES TO DEATH AND DECAY AND DARNITUDE TO WHICH ALL THINE SOULS SHALL BE BEQUETHEST TO IN THINE FINAL WAKING BREATHES.
I hummed silently to myself, the only child of the universe, to fill in the void which would ordinarily be made whole with my Crossfade 2 headphones blasting Fallout Boy (not that blasted Dropout Kid). I occasionally peered through the shades of leaves to catch a glimpse of the world outside my cocoon of hatred, and of course to check if Sam was ready to leave. To my complete surprise and anger, rather than Sam packing his bags so we could leave this horrible brainwashing center before I yeeted myself out the window to end my misery, yet another foul creature entered the gym. For some reason my darkness enshrouded soul could not understand, this horrible creature was wearing a rainbow of blush pinks. The white lace skirt made my eyes burn, and I briefly considered finding Mr Elrond’s secret stash of whiskey to pour into my eyes to purify them.
Before I could carry through my, frankly, genius idea, my worst enemy, that HORRIBLE, TERRIBLE PERSON, THAT ABSOLUTE AFFRONT TO THE HUMAN(ish) RACE, BAAAAZEEELLLL SACKVILLLEEEEE, entered the gym. To my utter disbelief, the foul creature of light which had recently entered the physical exertion prison (and who was apparently playing that tennis thingy game, whatever you call it, with Sam, twirling and giggling every time she (I THINK???) hit the ball), approached that MORTIFIABLY DEATHLY ALIVE, MORBIDLY EXISTING, THAT, THAT PATHETIC EXCUSE FOR A CARBON-BASED LIFEFORM BAZEL!!!!!! THAT UNHOLY MARRIAGE OF A MOODY YA MALE LOVE INTEREST AND A HOT ANIME BOY IN A BORING POLO REC CENTER UNIFORM! I DON’T CARE WHO THAT STUPIDLY PRETTY MONSTER WAS! HOW COULD IT GIVE ATTENTION TO ONE WHO IS NOT ME? DOESN’T IT KNOW HOW MUCH MORE ALLURING AND MYSTERIOUS I AM. ART! I AM ART! I AM A WORK OF ART! MINE EGO SHALT NOT BE DEFILED IN THIS ACT OF SOCIAL VIOLENCE! THE INJUSTICE! THE INJURE TO MINE EGO! I CANNOTEST STANDETH THE PAINETH.
THAT BaAaAaaAaAaAaaaAZzZZzZzEeEEeeeLlLllLlLlLLlLL held a stack of off-white cloth thingamajigs. Pah, stupid towel boy. He wasn’t even paying attention to his menial task of handing out non-ceremonial, non-Locker Room Pope-purposed towels to the masses; he was on his FYÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜÜNEEE! I am a poet of DARKNESS, and henceforth dost not relyeth upon my mobile phone of cells for inspiration, for mine inspiration comes from the depths of my soul (or lack thereof).
Then. That. Bright. Gleaming. Kawaii. Monstrosity. Took. A. Non. Ceremonial. Towel. Absent. Of. The. Privileges. Of. Locker. Room. Pope. From. That. Wretched. Abomination. Of. A. Filthy. Wretch. BAZEL. THAT. WET. LOAF. OF. BREAD.
HOW DARST SHE ACCEPT AN OFFERING OF CORNCORN FROM A REPUGNANT SWINE! AND- AND—-- AAAAAAANNDNDNDNDND!
She thanked him. She thanked him? THAT CRITTER OF SPARKLES AND ILLUMINATION! SHE THANKED THAT REVOLTING PILE OF REFUSE!
She walked away without another word, a smile upon her hideously bright facial features, if they could even be called that behind the radiant pink face paint.
I stared daggers into BAAAZEELELLELEL, locking on his trajectory through the doomed ward of calorie-ridden delusions. He had to pay for what he did to me, for how he wounded me so. HE HAS TOUPEEEEEEEE! FOR HE ART SHALL BETH BALDITUDINOUS SPARKLING ON HIS EGGULOUS HEAD! *shoulder angel pops up upon mine shoulder; shoulder angel takes the form of Sam and gasps, warning me to stop spiraling or I will have an aneurysm and die*
I chose to listen to my shoulder angel for once and deescalate the spiraling *insert zen noises here*. Instead, I selected an alternative coping mechanism. I inhaled deeply, remembering the exercises I had learned from Counselor Faramir. Breathe in, challenge Bazel to a duel to the death. Ah, yes, what a lovely coping mechanism.
I gracefully bounded out from behind my thinking palace of solace, and positioned myself for battle. Breathe in again, but do not forget to breathe out, or your infinite bloodlust will poison you from the inside out.
“FIEND! I CHALLENGE THEE TO A DUEL! YOU HATH GRAVELY INSULTED MINE OWN HONOR! I INSIST THAT YOU MEET ME IN THE PARKING LOT AT 12 SHARP TOO FULFILL MY NEED FOR YOUR BLOOD TO BE SPILT, AND MY HONOR TO BE RESTORED! Bazel stared at me, clearly shaken by my declarative acumen, and foreboding physical prowess.
“Nah.”
“I’m sorry, what?”
“Nah, don’t really feel like it.”
I summoned the song of my people as my eyes burned with total, all-consuming, wrath. “YOU DARE! YOU NUMA NUMA! MAIAHI! MAIAHU! MAIAHO! MAIAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHHAHAHAAHAHHA!!!!!!!”
“The flippity flop you be doing, bruh?” He spat at my feet and putzed into the hallway on his lazy caboose. HOW DARST HE DECLINE MY GENEROUS OFFER AT RESTORING MINE HONOR AND RIDDING HIM OF THE GUILT HE BORE FOR BESMIRCHING MINE HONEUR! OUI OUI! I AM ART!
Naturally, I did what any sane human being would do in a situation like this one. I followed him to the ends of the earth to exact my revenge upon him. I slinked past the various rooms in those doomed halls searching for mine enemy, when the dulcet tones of another distracted me from my main mission. I followed the fiendishly tempting notes to a room filled with the death machines of infinite running. Inside the torture chamber, two members of the human (?) race battled each other in the drugulous need for speeditude. A grossly bald little man in overalls drooled over his dreadmill as he gawped at the mound of hot pink and white lacy ruffles on the fed-up-with-life-mill beside him.
TWAS THAT HORRIBLE CREATURE OF BRIGHTNESS! MARIGOLD RINGGGGGGGGGGGGG!
I nearly passed out from the sheer shock of seeing that horrid temptress, when Gollum began flexing his arms more noodly than Justin Timberlake’s hair in his *NSYNC days so that gravity worked against them and made his biceps drop off the face of the earth in DARKNESSSSSSSSsSsSSssSsSsSSSsSs. As he said more obviously Gollumly things not in the slightest way intelligent or poetic as mine own Gothic sensibilities, and that Marigold Ring giggled so incessantly at his nails on sidewalk (because I think nails on chalkboards are delightful, but nails on sidewalks are for people who want to get only their fingers run over by a car and not their whole bodies, because being hit by a car is very gothic), my two younger brothers ninja-ran circles around the room in bright costumes that made me want to yank my eyes out with a melon baller and squeeze lemon juice into my empty, bleeding eye sockets.
I ran away as I saw that repulsive fountain of revolting, Shreklike beauty. I jumbled down the twisty, turny halls which confused my already discombobulated senses like a rat who had just chugged 500 pounds of glittery blue nail polish with a side of pure ethanol after he turned 83, for 83 is the age in Ratopia in which one might consume corrosive substances, but his mother refused to let him cook after his cousin hit it big in the city of Paris, Stinkoville, because he smelled like feet, and everything he cooked tasted like feet and made them die because everyone hates feet, but not Mr. Rat, Mr. Rat loves feet; he sold his soul to the mafia just to sniff out all the good foot joints in town, because Mr. Rat loves feet, he’s practically a foot at this point, he looks like one, he smells like one, and he forgot how to floss, so his ears are always in pain; his mother hates him because he’s not his cousin, and because he once ate his cousin’s feet because his cousin’s feet were more beautiful than his own, and he was jealous, so he ate his cousin’s feet because he thought that eating part of another living creature’s anatomy would give him the trait of the anatomy consumed, but alas, he just got athlete’s foot in his mouth, and that is why Queen Victoria divorced him; his belly always flapped in the wind, because he had a rare skin condition that gave him purple thighs, his relationship with Vicky caused him to be outlawed from England, so he became a Robinhood type character, and would steal from Vicky to give to himself, and for this reason he incited all major political bodies to attack Britain to ensure that Vicky would be ridiculed in the sight of all nations, and he also got his mafia cousin Tony to help him quietly take out Vicky and establish himself as King, but this didn’t work because the queen hired a private noir detective, to come and smoke on the scene, and somehow figure out the case, no one was entirely sure how that worked, but they went with it cause Johnny was pretty chill, and he only smoked something that smelt like cottoncandy, which was a smell Mr. Rat hated, which helped keep him away, and also helped Johnny create a brand, which he needed because he was a small business and he worked out of a broom closet, and barely had room for his red string theory board, but he does what he has to for the aesthetic, which is very important to him, because his Ma is very fashionable, and greatly encourages the aesthetic.
I ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and ran and RAN as fast as my anemicly glorious legs of fine spirits could carry me into the great beyond, but alas, I was banished back to the horrid today where I must face my greatest fear: GOLLUM’S TOENAIL CLIPPINGS! But that is beside the point. Being whipped back from the great life of the after to the dead life of sadness morn murdered mine last gothically sensible logicabilities with flashbacks of unholy bad personal grooming belonging to that bridge troll of a teenaged Quasimodo, for Quasimodo is gothic and therefore ethically sound in my orbs, so a bad quasi-hunchback indeed.
THEN.
I.
CRASHED.
INTO.
A.
DELUGE.
OF.
HORRID.
GIRLY.
COLOURSSSSSS.
My eyes burned as the fabric scraped its blinding hues against my fragile retinas, enfeebled by long days in dark closets writing soulful poetry by the light of a single, dying, homemade wax candle. I stumbled back, trying to regain consciousness over mineself, BUT! TWAS SHE! TWAS THE SHEEEEEEE! MARIGOLD RIIIIIING!!!!!!
HER VOICE GRATED UPON EVERY LAST OF MY SEVEN TRILLION NERVES, KNOCKING ME OUT INTO A COMA AS I FOAMED AT THE MOUTH! THAT HORRID TEMPTRESS! SHE MADE ME FOAM AT THE MOUTH! SHE DIDST NOT EVEN GIVE ME RABIES! RABIES IS THE WAY TO GO! SHE MERELY REMOVED ME FROM THE CONSCIOUS PLANE OF EXISTENCE WITH A MERE EXPLOSION OF RUFFLES! OH HOW I DETEST HER! OH HOW I LOATHE HER!
HER VOICE RUNG OUT…… like… like…… LIKE…… A choir of cherubs…… EVIL CHERUBS! EVIL NAKED LITTLE BABY BUTTS! GO AWAY YOU LITTLE NUDISTS! GO AWAY STUPID BABIES! OH BABY! They sang like little toot toots of tiny baby trumpets and bebe’s brehth. SIENS! SCIENCE! I MEAN THE DOING OF FACTS GOOD! Her voice was like a chariot filled with golden bells, tinkling like diamonds in the wind at exactly 5:02 pm on a Monday evening in July as the butterflies of the east colony of Erkentortillia (not tortilla, Erkentortillia, because this is a middle-aged elementary school teacher who went to a Mexican’t restaurant for their kwinsenera [not quinceañera, kwinsenera], “their” because she shared a birthday with half the country, because the country owed so much in war debts that they could only afford two national birthdays, or else the IRS would come for them with burnt sushi milkshakes and force them into a computer eating contest against the whole city of Milwaukee, Botswana, but they all vomited rainbows instead of printing out their latin rulers, because they were also too poor to afford spaghetti transplants in the state of WATTERBOTLE, of course, you wine of pickled swine, but I hate lipstick made of gel pen ink and highlighter fluid, but your mom!) swarm their famed pink sunflowers as Timothy, the young prince of Erkentortillia, drove home his best friend Janice, whom he swears is just a friend, but everyone can tell that he likes her because he gave her a pink sunflower which is a sign of marriage in Thor country but Janice is a foreigner from the delightful land of DELMORROW…SONsssBURG…er…son, so she doesn’t understand, and Timothy is very sad most of the time despite the beautiful climate of Erkentortillia which rivals that of Bulgaria, so he has personal rain cloud that follows him around unless he’s with Janice because Heaven forbid Janice figure out he has a crush on her, because Timothy is a bleeding coward and doesn’t deserve the crown, but his brother faked his death very early on because he has a fear of responsibility, and eventually his brother Chad (who is very handsome, according to the ladies, bearing a striking resemblance to both Zac Efron and Michael Jackson, but if they were thrown into a blender with Jungkook, but only his tattoos, because Chad loves microwavable tattoos and hates being attractive, because he got Zac Efron’s hair from High School Musical the 17th and Michael Jackson’s nose; that’s it, that’s the only resemblance; he is one, and he is all; HE IS THE GIGACHAD OF CHADLINGTONITONTONSTEINBURG) will come back and steal Janice unless Timothy gets his act together, but he ALSO HAS A FEAR OF BEING OPENLY AFFECTIONATE WHEN IT IS SUNNY AND it is always sunny in Erkentortillia, but Chad recently learned how to tame rainbows and is riding back on one, and rainbows are crazy fast yo, and he also went on a life changing journey and gained the friendship of a unicorn and a rhino which is just an elderly unicorn, and Chad ain’t no coward, and actively loves old people, he actually works at a retirement home, because he’s a very good person, which is why Janice could be won over, but Chad is nice and will stay away long enough for his brother to ask her out, because Chad had also been visiting him at night to have a girl talk with him, which he desperately needs, so Timothy will finally get over himself and ask her out and eventually the kingdom will have a queen and it will be beautiful and the golden bells will play at that wedding, also the sleigh of bells is on fire. Just thought I should make myself clear. Everything that WICKED SEDUCTRESS OF HATRED lights my brain on fire, but not in a good way. It lights my brain on fire the way your toddler cousin lights your favorite eyeliner on fire and you just have to watch in horror as he smiles and threatens to call mommy if you do anything, but you really really wanna punch their face in, but you can't because they’re little kids, despite the fact that my cousin toddler is the spawn of the devil and must be dealt with for the greater good of humanity, but apparently , NOBODY THINKS I AM RESPONSIBLE ENOUGH TO TAKE THE GOOD OF HUMANITY INTO MINE OWN HANDS! I’LL HAVE YOU KNOW THAT I CARE NOT FOR THE GOOD OF HUMANITY! I CARE FOR MINESELF, AND MINESELF ALONE, YOU WRETCHED TODDLER COUSIN! I SHALL SPIT UPON YOUR GRAVE! THERE! THOU HAST BEEN SPATTEN… spitten? SPATTEN! SPATTEN UPON!
“Ahem?”
That miniscule beam of lightning pierced my ears and caused waves within my cochlea to create the sensation that is sound, awakening me from my mouth-foaming coma not induced by the radical, gothically beautiful rabies.
She stood over me, menacing. My heart began beating. What was this feeling? Hatred? Fear? Anxiety? Romance? NO! IT COULDST NOT BE ROMANCE! For… it would be… a… “ Rah, rah-ah-ah-ah, Roma, roma-ma, Gaga, ooh-la-la, Want your bad romance…” My voice worked against me. NO! NOT AGAIN! WHY YOU HORRID PROFESSOR FARMIR! FIX MY EMBARRASSING COPING MECHANISM ALREADY, YOU QUACK! I CANNOT HANDLE THE SHAME OF BELTING OUT LADY GAGA SONGS, THE FINEST ARTIST OF ALL TIME, IN A PERFECT FALSETTO, WHENEVER I AM PSYCHOLOGICALLY CORNERED BY A BEING OF SUPERIOR INTELLECT!
“ Rah, rah-ah-ah-ah, Roma, roma-ma, Gaga, ooh-la-la, WANT YOUR BAD ROMANCE!” NO! I BEGAN… DANCING! I TRIED TO SUPPRESS THE DANCINGNESS! BUT THEN… THE DANCING… IT TURNED… ANGRY! I WAS ANGRY DANCINGGGGG!!!!! “I want your love! Love, love, love, I want your love, HEY!” My arms were flailing against their will. OH NO! EITHER WAY, THIS SITUATION WOULD END HORRIBLY! Either everyone in the immediate vicinity would discover my devotion to her High Empress, Lady Gaga, or Marigold Ring , would approach me like the loathsome siren that she was.
Her golden, curling eyelashes batted at me as her giggles overtook the painful sighs of the overworked air conditioning in the already dusty, musty, dank recreational center. How could she? How could she! “My, my, Mister Frodo~ You sure do have a wonderful voice~~~~”
“Huhhhhh…Hhhhhhhhhuhuhuhuhhuh……hhuuhuhuhuhuhuhu HUHUHUHUHUHhhhuuuuuhhhhhhhhhhhhhhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhuhhauahuahuahauhauahuahuahauhauhauahauhauhaa????” I began hyperventilating.
“My, my, I’m pleased as a peach to hear your dulcet tones grace my delicate little Southern ears!” She clasped her hands together in sadistic glee. She inched closer as I inched farther and farther into my shroud of comfort and hatred to block out all that cracklemonious rays of non-darkness which she scalded my balls of vision with. “We should practice a duet sometime. You know, being in the play together and all as the main leads, mhmhm~”
My senses were slightly– only slightly– overwhelmed. “UHEUHGIURHHAHAHAAHAHAHHAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” I began crying.
“My, my, yer pretty cuuuute, ya know?” She booped me on the nose with her massive tube of lipgloss that I am 99.63% sure is actually just chicken grease with glitter in it. But that fact is beside the point. She booped me. She BOOPED ME! HOW DARST SHE! HOW DARST SHE VIOLATE MY SACRED BOUNDARIES AGAINST HUMANITY! NONE HAVE TOUCHED ME SINCE THE DAYS OF YORE, BEFORE MY BUM BUM STOPPED BEING SORE, FROM THE PADDLING OF THE POSTERIOR IN THE DAYS OF YORE! HAH! I composed myself and replied to this new development accordingly. I began foaming at the mouth, however, before my words of utmost intelligence and gothic scheme could escape me.
Sam marched into the room with a fire extinguisher and a Home Depot bucket stuffed with epipens. He thought I was allergic to girls. He was wrong. I am allergic to humanity. How wrong of him to assume that only girls repulsed me. Everyone repulses me. How darst he. HOW DARST HE! Marigold continued trying to charm me with her breath of mayonnaise and expired carrot juice, but she wouldst not fool me. I saw Sam wave to another figure, shrouded in pink and white lace, hiding behind a plastic potted plant, because we all know that a real plant would just spontaneously combust from the sheer amount of condensed farts permanently handing in the air of the RRCBDINPE around the Concessionstantinople. Her face appeared horrified, and I didn’t blame her. Because she was obviously gawping at how well I handled my current situation. I know, I’m such an amazing role-model. BUT NO! I SHALL NOT ADVERTISE MYSELF TO THE PUBLIC AS AN OUTSTANDING CITIZEN FOR FEAR OF WOUNDING MY GOTHIC REPUTATION!
I continued convulsing on the floor screeching unintelligible nonsense like the last pterodactyl about to kick the bucket.
Then. I saw… the light! Twas round and long and red and golden and magenta! Wait… upon more closely examining the colors as I was obviously not in the throes of death, twas… twas fuschia! A veil of fuschia feathers enveloped the luxuriously THICCC hips of an otherworldly being of masculinity and manliness. His arms flailed around like that graceful swan-wielding-a-machete that he was.
His delicate black tap shoes landed in front of me, and he stood tall in all his thipped grace. I gazed up towards the celestial plane upon which he glided to see a loose white crossing guard tank top and a red speedo over red sweatpants. What a trendsetter. What a man. What a myth. What a legend. Professor Legolas.
He reached out a ceremonial paw. All I had to do was take it, and I could shuffle off this mortal coil. I was so close to reuniting with Whitney Houston, the only queen above her Majesty Lady Gaga. Then, a light tap stroked against my left cheek. No… it stung. It stung more than any stingy stang stid stung. I blinked, and I was against the wall on the other side of the room. I shook my head, replevining my senses. I… I had been slapped all the way across the room. My head ached, both from the foaming at the mouth and the convulsing on the floor in shapes that shouldn’t be possible simply because physics exists, apparently, and from THE SLAP. I was so dazed, I hadn’t the time to conjure a retort towards BAZEL , who was in the midst of commanding his nashty cronies to clean up my mouth foam at the feet of Marigold Ring.
Before I could stand, Merry and Pippin, in their own Puppa Pig speedos, zipped through the room, running circles around Professor Legolas, the on-duty lifeguard at the RRCBDINPE since today, according to my knowledge, and chanted sacreligious prayers of death and Naruto jutsus, tossing around a teddy bear wrapped in muddy ballerina pointe shoes to play monkey in the middle with the sundry bacteria sandwiched between the gunk in the linoleum. Legolas belted out “Habanera” in the most sublime opera dialect one could conceive of from their mind-beadies.
I stared in awe as I drifted away from the beautiful scene, my head spinning. Sam waved his spaghetti 🤌🤌🤌 in my face while he enunciated several Gregorian chants in the key of Neff Danger while that frilly child of light from behind the plant somewhere or the tennis room of dungeon huh yodeled aggressively to the tune of “Call Me Maybe” while Principal Gandalf descended from the heavens upon wings of pickled baseball bats with Freddie Cocopuffs eating more of Sam’s spaghetti 🤌🤌🤌 anatomy spontaneously through a PVC pipe made out of Peanut Butter Enriched Vascular Cockroaches.
A hairy old woman dragged me into the back of a white van with flashing lights on it. YAY! I WAS GOING BACK TO MUBDER RUSHA! I WUV BORSCHT! AND HABANERO PUPPIES! My friends and family, the loverly people of Waffle Sposie Topical Ointment, stoodeth over mine beauteous, beauteous frame of gothicality and waved with worry (of never being able to meet their expectations of reaching my greatness) as the white double doors of the van closed, and more hairy women strapped various rush hour ant tools to my appendages to prepare me for the landing of Sputnik VII. I can’t wait to turn ninety-foive. I can’t wait to wake up in the glorious white halls of Waterclosetia. I can’t wait to eat more borscht. Oh, how I love borscht.
Notes:
Stay tuned for a completely rational "Halloween special" at the end of October :}
Chapter 7: Eerie Ramen
Summary:
Elvira and Merry, cohosts of the well-renowned creepypasta podcast Eerie Ramen, host the internet's most anticipated livestream of the year: The Halloween Special. You should know by now that their story will not turn out the way Elvira had planned. I apologize in advance for what you're about to suffer. This chapter was painful to write. Proceed with caution. The cringe is great with this one.
Notes:
I know it's late but Happy Halloween 🎃
I also might post an illustration for this chapter later. I have not yet decided ;P
(See the end of the chapter for more notes.)
Chapter Text
I twirled around in the mirror to see the pink magical girl dress as it floofed up. I was cosplaying as Sailor Chibi Moon for Halloween this year. My cosplay, which I stitched myself because I learned how to sew to avoid my cutesy internet history being discovered (I think a certain someone frequents the dark web, so I can’t let anything slip through the cracks) was nearly complete. However, there was one final step missing: my hair. I couldn’t decide. I had already ordered and styled the perfect pink wig weeks ago, but I couldn’t help thinking, what if I just dyed my hair? I mean, I could always dye it black again… right? Hair chalk exists… and I don’t need to dye all of it. If I leave the roots, I can just use pink hair chalk… riiiiiight?
I had been clutching the same bottle of pink dye for the past five hours deliberating whether or not to fully commit to my craft. Previously, I had limited myself to dark haired characters. Unfortunately, peer pressure from a certain Samwise forced me into a pink pickle. Don’t get me wrong, I love the color pink, only… there are certain colors that certain company accepts, and pink is not included under that dark, limited umbrella. But now that Samwise yanked me out from the refuge of an ebony mask, I was going all or nothing. I was addicted to the pink once again. I swore I’d never go back. But now that I’d relapsed, there was no going back. I’m done with rehab. I must embrace the color combination of white and red, blood and purity. PINKNESS, ROSE-TINTED GLORY.
Three hours later (I had been getting ready for Trick-or-Treating since 9:00 pm yesterday) I slinked to the park where I would be meeting my fellow candy collecting party in secret, as I couldn’t have anyone associating my current face with my home. I sat on a large, lumpy rock alone, surprisingly being the first one there. I wondered if everyone had forgotten… I began humming to myself to soothe my aching soul. How could they just leave me behind? How could they leave me like this, trudging up the eternally down escalator that is life? Those hums swirled into belted lyrics of the pain and emotion of a simply misunderstood, outcast teenaged girl.
Then the rock beneath my tookus stirred. It grumbled, and it ROARED! I stumbled back, squeaking at the appearance of living sediment. A mound of screeching foliage, cardboard, paper mache, and face paint reared on its hind legs to assert its dominance. It reached into what was probably, hopefully pockets located who knows where and unsheathed what appeared to be a Juicy Drop Pop, tossed the lollipop into his mouth and crunched it with painfully sticky, grinding teeth in seconds, hosed down his mouth with the neverending fountain of sour juice- fluoroantimonic acid compound, and yeeted the drained keg of liver curdling concoctions aside as more of that blinding liquid squirted out the sides of his caw-cawing mouth like a volcano of corrosive venom.
Twas only Pippin Asbjorn Buttz.
“Grumblecakes………..” he grumbled. “Training… Forest Jenkins… Hibernate… Energy… Butter-da… Grumbly… fhqwhgads…” He roared, yeeted a pinecone at the swings, farted loudly (it smelled like a clown on a dark summer’s eve after single handedly eating every KFC in the state of Arrr-KanSASS out of house and home so that his mother had to get a part time job as a button tester– for shirts, not for machines– then farted and the whole world died because they hated avocados, because those take fossil fuels to transport and that’s bad for the elephants, but nobody cares because elephant meat is absolutely delicious according to a number of clown hucksters), and resumed his position as a method acting rock.
More people suddenly appeared in the park just as Pippin “the Buttz” Rock continued to be a stationary buttocks rest. I heaved a sigh, knowing that no one, not even Sam, would believe that Pippin could be still enough to method act a rock. Alas despite this horrible lack of trust on the part of my friends, I must continue on with our plan. Besides, the sooner I finish with trick-or-treating, the sooner I can commence with… other plans.
Trick-or-treating proceeded well. I was Chibi Sailor Moon, Sam was a pirate (a bootleg merchandise pirate, not a sea pirate), Pippin was Where’s Waldo (in hibernation), Frodo was Mr. Rochester (he thought it was a Sir Rock the Chester, vampire rival of Alucard or whatever Merry told him), Merry was Naruto (Kurama Chakra Mode; last year, he cosplayed as his own fan form, Fartooto), Deagol was Paper Mario, Gollum was a knight in shining armor, Marigold was a princess (Pancake Princess), Gilgogglethamew simply wore a sign that read “Your Mom,” his girlfriend, the queen bee orc Orsinia Octogoggles, was Princess Lee’ah from Space Wars , Galaphagopolis Lurz was a zombie mime, Othrod was Ronald McDonald (he had a thing for clowns), and Birmingsnort and his cronies (Goliatronoth & co.) were The Man in the Yellow Hat and an army of seven Curious Georges . As we collected the sweet merchandise, our gloriously masculinely THICCCly-hipped Professor Legolas, dressed as a sleek black cat, would advise us which houses to avoid, providing each of us with a box of matches for good measure in case a middle-aged man with a candy van dropped by, as he does every year.
Merry and I made it home successfully without the need for defensive arson, but alas, Pippin and Gilgogglethamew’s trek through the icy streets of Da Shriner (our municipality) faced the opposition of the Man in the Suspicious Van. Thankfully, the man backflipped out of his van (he was on fire– quite literally, in fact) before it exploded so that he could have fun with us again next year. Merry and I had to sneak into his basement to avoid being recognized by the rest of his family. None could know our secret identities as the hosts of the world-renowned Creepypodcast, Eerie Ramen.
Merry and I put our festive masks on to conceal our identities and flicked out the old scroll of Creepy Pasta mania where we recorded all of our original ideas. Merry opened the hatch containing the snacks of forbidden lore, the fuel which opened our third eyes for this special story occasion, the snacks which granted us powers beyond our understanding, and bestowed upon us the ability of Virality. The great, the powerful, THE MAJESTIC OREOSSSSSS! We had been on an oreo fast all year in order to conserve the properties of the special oreos. The power was addicting. We had to resist it all year. But it was time. It was time to unleash the true power of Eerie Ramen, as we did every year on Halloween night.
Merry opened the livestream on his gaming PC, and so it began.
“Hello, and welcome back to Eerie Ramen. This year we’re bringing you a suspenseful and nerve-wracking gothic romance.”
“Where everyone dies!” interjected Merry. He flailed his arms around as though he were being gutted like a sheep.
I shot a glare at him through my cat mask and then continued. “This year, we bring you, Rise of the Undertakers *cough* titled by co-host *cough*. Now, let us begin with the gripping tale of love and tragedy. We open at a mortuary with our gentle female lead, Ophelia Desdemona Lavender Andromeda Rose Aregula. Her long, messy but wavy ebony black hair draped in front of her pale, sobbing face. She is kneeling at the grave of her lost lover, mourning what will never be. Tears streamed down her face as delicate pearls of melancholy. Her eyes were red and raw. A black lace veil draped over her head, covering the shame of her grief. Women were not supposed to show their mourning. They were to weep in silence, according to the social laws of the day. She couldn’t bear to think of what would happen if someone caught her in such a vulnerable state. She suddenly hears footsteps sounding behind .”
“ What tragedy brings such a fine young maiden like yourself to such a dark and morbid place as this? ” Merry read off the script I’d handed him. He was just waiting for his time to interject, as always, but this year I prepared a lengthy script. We would not go off the rails. We could not go off script. Not again. Never again.
“ Ophelia Aregula swung around, horrified at being caught in such a vulnerable state. His voice, nevertheless, had a soothing effect on her. It was dark and husky, like dark chocolate hot chocolate on a frigid winter day as the warm cup, its comforting steam rising in the icy air, touches your lips. It flooded her senses and stopped her in her tracks,like a mind-controlling spell over her consciousness. He was absolutely enchanting.
“She rose to her feet, brushing off my skirt. She prayed that my veil kept the tears of her forlorn grief concealed, in addition to her horribly plain dirt brown eyes. She glanced up to make out the man’s face. Her heart skipped a beat, taken aback by the rugged features of the –
“ Hot, hot man,” interjected Merry. I glared at him again and returned to my script.
“ Taken aback by the bewitching man. His eyes were pale and ghostly, like a stormy winter sky speckled with flecks of sparkling snowflakes. They allured her, their opalescent light and their hypnotic, kaleidoscopic color drawing her in, and making her speechless. They took her back to a simpler time, when she would ice skate over the frozen lake with her dead husband. Sipping warm cider on the porch, wrapped in a blanket while watching the snow fall softly. Oh how she missed those days.
“Her eyes drifted down to his perfect nose, the perfect 136 degree angle of the bridge of his nose reminded her of my dead, dead husband as he crossed the perfect bridge into the afterlife of sunshine and rainbows and perpetual elysian glebe. I too wished to cross that bridge to reunite with my deceased husband, unless another willing soul were to offer me guidance and love to help her through this mortal realm in order to assuage my eternal grief with a new zest for love.
“His eyebrows were perfectly arched and thick, like a forest she could get lost in with her dead husband as they ventured on one of their surprise picnics in a sunset of lies. His ears bore two masculine piercings. Oh, how brave and rebellious he must have been, to decorate himself in such a manner which conflicts with societal expectations. Oh how–
“Long his ear hairs must have been. Twas against societal expectations to have ear hair, and he was against beauty standards. He was a mess. He was a hot, hot mess.”
I smacked Merry on the head with the back of an empty box of oreos. “ His ears were normal. They were normal, as far as she could tell, except… were the tips of his ears… pointed? She couldn’t tell. His sleek, styled hair was the color of dried blood against snow, clashing with his pale and perfect skin, not a single microscopic pore in sight. He looked at me, one of his perfectly arched brows raising coyly at me.” I glared at Merry so he would stop devouring oreos and read his lines.
“‘ Can I help you, miss?’ His steely ivory gaze pierced her soul, seeing into the depths of her despair for her dead husband. Ophelia Aregula’s face turned blood red in embarrassment behind her soot black veil. She prayed he couldn’t see behind her lacy covering. Twould mortify her soul for him to notice her absolute melancholy.
“ The man chuckled, impressed by his own ability to make the woman freeze on the spot due to the radiance of his glittering smile. ‘I apologize,’ he said, his husky voice causing her heart to flutter within her despite her obvious despair for her unalived husband. ‘I am not one for conversing with womenfolk, for I fear their charm. What is a name by which I might call you, my fair lady?’”
“‘ Ophelia Desdemona Lavender Andromeda Rose Aregula, but my relatives and life companions simply call me Phelia,’ she replied, her blushing spreading to her ears.”
Merry cleared his throat loudly. “‘Well, Miss Phelia, I am known by many as Tedward Lorenzo Leonardo Alexander Giovanni Santiago Alfonso Nikolai Devereaux III. But, because you’re you, you may simply call me Tedward, you lovely woman.”
I smacked Merry for going off script again. Not again. NOT AGAIN. “‘ Pleasure to meet you, Mr. Tedward–’”
“‘No, please, just Tedward, my lady. I can’t stand formalities.’” Merry began snickering uncontrollably behind his Naruto mask. “‘ Now, my lady, what brings you here? It’s awfully gloomy out for someone such as yourself to be out.’ He narrowed his eyes so as to peer through Ophelia’s lace veil, but to no avail. Ophelia merely lowered her face so as to further conceal her emotional suffering and distraught over her fallen husband. But Tedward was having none of it. In his courageous hotness , he tore the veil away from her face to reveal dewdrops of despair falling down her woebegone face.”
“Ophelia stumbled back, her face growing redder than the luxurious hair atop Tedward’s mystifying head. His actions maddened her, frustrated that such an attractive gentleman–and a stranger at that– would do such a thing. ‘How dare you!’ her voice grew dangerously low.
“‘I did not mean to vex you, madam. It is simply that I could not see your beautiful face behind that horrid covering.’ He paused to inspect her face more closely. ‘Your eyes, they’re so–’”
“‘Hideous!’ cried Ophelia, burying her face in her gloved hands.”
“‘No, my lady. They are stunning, like warm honey, like sunlight glowing through amber, like a newborn fawn galloping through a spring meadow to its mother. They are full of life and warmth. You should be proud to have been blessed with such angelic features,’ said Tedward, his eyes gleaming at her. ‘Now, my lady, what brings such sorrow to this bright face of yours?’”
“Ophelia stifled a sniffle. ‘Oh, nothing. Just visiting my husband.’ She looked toward the grave behind her decorated with a single black rose. ‘He’s dead, you see.’ Tedward gasped in a horrified fashion–”
“ His mouth said horror, his eyes said interested.” This time I used a shoe on Merry.
“ His eyes only implied condolences, nothing else. He’s perfectly normal.”
Merry glared at me, huffed, and looked back to his script. “ ‘I am so sorry, my lady. I too have felt loss in recent years. I know your pain. I offer my utmost condolences to your downfallen situations. I too am a widower. My dear wife passed not but a year ago. She was so young, so promising, and yet so not long for this world. She was quite sickly you see, not a very robust woman. I wished I had only seen that previous to our marriage. But alas, fate wished for me to feel the pain of heartbreak.’”
“ ‘I am sorry for your loss, Tedward. Alas, my dear husband passed merely a month ago. I am to go into mourning for another five months before I can live with myself again. The grief is simply too much.’”
“ Tedward sighed and gave her a sad smile. ‘I understand. I shall leave you be for now. Until fate shall have us cross paths again, my lady. Thou art lovely as flowers and as bright as the stars. Farewell.’ Tedward took his leave, and Ophelia remained at the grave of her expired husband.”
“ Back at her husband’s mansion, which now belongs to her because he loved her so much that he willed it to her, Ophelia sat dejected in her parlor speaking of her trials and her meeting with Tedward with her childhood best friend, Blacob Everret Theodore Valerian Finnegan Montgomery. My only butler, Mr. Templeton, brought us some tea. Its color reminded me not only of my deceased husband, but of that beguiling man from the cemetery… Tedward.
Merry cleared his throat loudly. “‘Oh, dear Ophelia, why ever dost thou stare wistfully off out the window? Thou havest already thought much about thy deceased spouse? What else must be on thy mind?’ Blacob thought about how much he wanted to kiss Ophelia—”
I smacked Merry on the head with an empty oreo box. “ Blacob was actually thinking about how much he pitied his poor, dear friend in her time of tribulation. He knew he didn’t have a chance with her because he was the good boy. He knew she was out of his league, and he didn’t want to pressure her into a relationship even though she was technically freed from her marriage contract. He loved her so much that he just wanted her to be happy. He loved her more than shredded wheat.
“Ophelia looked down at her hands, cold, dry, and cracked from busying herself with housework to distract herself from the loss of her husband and the entrance of an alluring potential suitor into her life. She was still sad about her husband. She didn’t wish to think about remarrying. It was too painful to consider. She needed to find closure with herself before seeking the romance of another man. ‘Oh, Blacob, it’s just… I’ve been thinking… I’m so gosh darn lonely!’ She threw her hands over her face and wept in despair.”
“‘Oh, Philly, I know it must be so hard to have just lost your husband, the love of your life, whom you loved, and whom was hot (so so hot), but maybe you should put yourself out there again. It might have only been a couple days since his death, but everyone will understand. The widow Jones started courting again mere hours after her husband’s unfortunate demise. A woman simply cannot survive in this cruel society without a husband. Besides, say you had an attractive… ahem… friend whom you wished to be courted by, surely you cannot expect yourself to wait a full 12 months before entering the dating scene again,’ said Blacob in a very suggestive tone, because he was that friend, who also happened to be attractive, and who might or might not have had a crush on her for their entire lives. That wasn’t really for him to say because he’s a blooming coward.”
“ Ophelia blushed, wringing her hands around a stained handkerchief. ‘Oh, Blacob, I have a terrible, terrible secret. I do not know what to do! My feelings… I don’t know what to do with them! Oh, please help me, my dear, dear friend of my childhood. My best, best friend. My perfect, perfect friend. You’re the best male friend a single widowed woman could ever wish for. May I confide in you, my dear friend– my dear brother?’ ”
“Blacob began vomiting violently all over the couch and turned into a violent werewolf and–” I had to hit Merry over the head with the keyboard. He was straying from the script. STICK TO THE SCRIPT! Merry rolled his eyes and continued. “ Blacob looked away, for he had secretly been in love with Ophelia since their earliest days. He loved her so much that he wanted her to be with the man she loved, not the man he wanted her to love. He waited when she found her first husband, and now he would have to wait again. He would wait. He would wait for eternity for her–” Merry gagged, muted the lifestream, turned around and screamed, and resumed the livestream. “ Blacob opened his mouth to speak. ‘You may tell me anything, my dear Philly.’ ”
“ Ophelia paused to formulate her words carefully. ‘Blacob… I met a man at the graveyard. He was… he was… he was irresistible. His manner of speaking was so distinguished, so beguiling, so harmonious to the ears. He revealed to me that he too was a widower. Perhaps… he might be the one to fill this void in my heart. I– I don’t know what to do with myself! I think… I think I love him.’ she exclaimed, blushing furiously. ”
“ Blacob looked down at his feet. Of course it would happen. It always happened this way. The love of his life always decided that he wasn’t the one. He never confessed for fear of confusing her. Alas, his confession would have to wait longer. Such a fickle girl, falling for a man she met at the graveyard. But he had to be patient. He would tell her one day. But it would be a long time, from the looks of it. Of course, he could tell her sooner. He could eliminate the competition. He could hit Ophelia over the head with a baseball bat and drag her to a little shack in the woods and start a little civilization there raising their children as wolves and feasting upon the carcass of her lover, BWAHAHAHAHAHAH!”
I was getting quite irked with Merry’s antics. I muted the livestream and pulled Merry aside to give him a stern talking to. He rolled his eyes at me through the mask and returned to his seat. He then shook around a box of oreos until the force pulverized the confections within into a miracle powder that he than ingested in one fell swoop like pure protein powder at the gym.
“ Blacob stood up and offered Ophelia his hand. ‘Ophelia, I shall help you win the heart of this dark and mysterious man that you have told me of just now, and whom I hate with ever -’”
I once again found it necessary to discipline Merry. I used a plate this time, which seemed to work a bit better.
“ ‘I shall help you win the heart of this man, my dear friend, for your happiness means more to me than the air which we breath. You know I would eat glass for you, I would jump into a pool of flames, I would swim across an ocean of lava, I would–’ ”
“ Ophelia held a finger against his lips, which were equally, if not more luscious than those of Tedward. ‘I know, Blacob, I know. Your brotherly love for me surpasses that of any man I’ve ever met, and I thank thee for that. I must confess, I know little about the man, only his name and appearance. He bore such a wonderful name, such a masculine name, such an enchanting name. Tedward Lorenzo Leonardo Alexander Giovanni Santiago Alfonso Nikolai Devereaux III, but he allows me to call him simply Tedward. Such a wonderful man. His eyes were pale and piercing, his hair was like blood, and his whole appearance was sharp and elfen. He was…’ Ophelia swooned, ‘He was everything.’ ”
“ Blacob made it his life’s mission to track down the man that had claimed Ophelia’s heart. He was determined to find the man who managed to seduce Ophelia and figure out just how he did it! I mean, honestly, he’s been best friends with her since their wee little years, and someone she was so dense that she fell for short-lived and short-personalitied men and could never ever find the sense to love a man such as himself, clearly the perfect man for her, but that was besides the point. He was going to find Tedward and EXPOSE HIM!”
I rolled my eyes and returned to my script. “ Ophelia waited days upon weeks upon months, but to no avail. That wonderful, masculine man appeared to have been spirited away. He was nowhere to be seen, much to her despair. Her period of mourning had ended, and yet Tedward would not show himself. Blacob was growing impatient. He was convinced that in her grief, Ophelia had merely dreamt up that mysterious man. He was done waiting for his opportunity. If he didn’t confess soon, who knew what man she’d fall for next. He had to tell her. He just had to. Would she accept him, or would she reject him? He cared not. He merely wished for closure so that he might move on.
“Then, while Ophelia sauntered about town, wistfully daydreaming about her future love and loneliness, she bumped into a man as she turned a corner too quickly. She fell face first into a flood of black fabric. A dark, husky voice apologized and helped her up. ”
“ ‘Miss Ophelia?’ It was Tedward! He apologized repeatedly and kissed Ophelia on the hand. ‘I must say, I feared I would never see you again. It appears that fate had another meeting in store for us. Perhaps we are written in the stars.’ Too bad using horoscopes to predict your love life is a recipe for DISASTER! HE WAS BURNED AND DUNKED AND BURNED FOR WITCHCRAFT, FOR MERE REFERENCES TO HOROSCOPES ARE JUST THE DOORWAY TO THE DARK ARTS! HE MUST BE BURNED! WE SHALL BURN HIM! BURN BURN BURN BURN BURRRRN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Merry burped loudly.
I threw a pillow against Merry’s face and speedily said my lines before he could interject again. “ Ophelia nodded stupidly, awestruck by his piercing gaze and luxurious hair. How could he be here??? She thought he was dead. He hadn’t spoken to her for an entire year? Yet he’s alive? She thought she had lost yet another love, but here he was-”
“And she would never let him leave ever again. He wouldn’t like what happens if he does that. Noooooo, he wouldn’t like it at all. He would be in for a treat if he tried abandoning her like her other fifteen bajillion husbands, half of whom she MURDERED for suspected EVERYTHING! HE WOULDN’T LIKE HER WHEN SHE WAS MAD! SHE KILLED HALF OF THE DEAD HUSBANDS FOR THE INSURANCE MONEY! BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD BLOOD BLOOAOAAHHAHAHAHAHAHH!!!!!” Merry mimicked dying on the floor, so I ignored him and continued.
“ Ophelia and Tedward spoke longer, and Ophelia gave him her address so he could call when he found it most prudent. She was so excited to tell Blacob that she had finally located the love of her life. ”
“ Back at the mansion that her only *wink* dead husband had left her, Blacob paced back and forth, contemplating how he would confess his undying love to her. He loved her so, so much. He was done waiting. He needed to express how he felt. The pressure was too much for him.
“ Ophelia came bursting through the front door, claiming to be bearing exciting news. Then Blacob admitted that he too had something important to share. Ophelia allowed him to speak first, which is something she never did because she didn’t care about Blacob or his feelings–” Merry dodged a roundhouse kick to the head. “ ‘Ophelia, my dearest friend. I have known you my whole life. I don’t know how to say this. You have meant so much to me since our earliest days together. I must confess that I have grown to feel more for you over the years.’ Blacob ran a hand through his luxurious caramel brown curls as a deep blush stained his lightly freckled cheeks. ‘Ophelia, I love you!’ Ophelia’s eyes widened at the revelation, but he gave her no time to process it. He– ” Merry gagged on his oreos. “ He… HEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE………… ” Merry couldn’t bring himself to say it, so I tore the script from his hands and said it for him.
“ Blacob closed the gap between them with a loving kiss. Tears streamed down his face as the pain inside him left. He backed away, gently brushing an ebony wave of hair out of her face. ‘I’m sorry,’ he said simply, and without another word, he left.
“I was shocked to say the least, but also… flattered. I hadn’t realized it until now, but I had always had feelings for Blacob. He had been my best friend for years, and was there when my husband died. How had I never seen this? I had to go after him, I had to stop him from leaving me, like people always do. ‘Blacob! Don’t go!’ I ran outside into the rain, as it had begun raining since I had returned from my run in with what’s-his-face. Thunder cracked outside as Blacob disappeared from my line of sight. How could I have been so fickle? So easily swayed by men of superior appearance–”
“Because Tedward was JACKED, like really really jacked, like there were abs for miles on that guy, which Ophelia didn’t know for sure because she had never seen him shirtless, but she occasionally did in her daydreams. She knew he had all the muscles. He had all of Blacob’s muscles. That’s why Blacob was a wimpy shrimp. The shrimpiest of wimps. And yet she had a thing for men who hid their true motives. After all, Blacob kept his love for her a secret, and Tedward kept his desire to MURDER HER a secret, because it is no fun to know that a hot man is gonna murder you. It is much more fun to be surprised when he shows you his highway to heaven of abs and then whisks out a dagger and goes KAPOW! YOU DEAD! ANOTHER ONE BITES THE DUST, SUCKAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!”
“Well Ophelia decided to run after Blacob because she realized that he was the true man for her and that he had been hiding in plain sight–”
Merry cackled. “WELL TEDWARD WENT AFTER HER TO MURDER HER IN A CRIME OF PASSION! HE KNEW HE WAS OUT OF HER LEAGUE, SO HE MURDERED HER–”
“Ophelia made it to where Blacob hid in a tavern while he contemplated what to do with his life because he was too insecure to reveal the full extent of his feelings to Ophelia–”
“BUT OPHELIA WASN’T FAST ENOUGH TO OUTRUN THE SERIAL KILLER TEDWARD! AS IF SHE COULD OUTRUN HIM!”
“Months passed and Ophelia was struggling to find him, and we will have to skip the arc where she’s confused about her love for Tedward and her love for Blacob and goes on a journey of self-discovery because we simply don’t have time for that anymore, for as Blacob had hinted at earlier, he could not only not be with her because he valued her happiness over his own, but he had a dreadful secret he could not bring to light–”
Merry threw handfuls of Skittles into the air. “HE WAS A GHOOOOOSTTTTT! THAT IS WHY HIS KISSING ABILITIES WERE HORRIBLE SO HE RAN AWAY BECAUSE HE’S A LOUSY SMOOCHER! THAT’S RIGHT, THAT MAN DON’T KNOW WHAT CHAPSTICK IS! BWAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAH!!!!!!
“Blacob was a normal young man who simply ran away because he doesn’t know how to confront his feelings due to a lifetime of neglect from others, even the woman he loved so dearly–”
“Ohohohoh, but ghosty shenanigans are so much more romantic than a stupid real boy.”
I paused. “Oh… you actually make a good point. I guess Blacob was a ghost and he was terrified of telling Ophelia, because the only way to break his curse was true love, but he wanted Ophelia to love him because she loves him, not because she pitied him as a pitiful, loveless ghost–”
“AND BECAUSE HE WANTED TO EAT HER BRAINS!!!!!”
“No, because he was conflicted about how he felt and didn’t want her to feel like he was manipulating her–”
“BUT THE SMOOCHER DID THE SMOOCHING SO THERE’S NO TURNING BACK! HE MUST ACCEPT HIS FATE AT THE HANDS OF THE TRIBUNAL OF DEATHHHHHH! HE SHALL BE EXORCISED BY THE—”
“Ophelia goes to a tavern and finds Blacob there and runs over to him, crying and crying and pleading for him to return home–”
“But wait, THERE’S MORE! FOR OUR DEAREST TEDWARD THE VAMPIRE HAS DESCENDED UPON THE TAVERN IN A QUEST FOR OPHELIA’S LIFEBLOOD, BECAUSE HE PREFERS THE BLOOD OF WIDOWS, IT SIMPLY TASTES LIKE MELANCHOLY, AND HE LOVES THAT!”
“Blacob takes Ophelia outside so her racket is not seen by the gruff men inside the tavern–”
“BUT THEN TEDWARD SHOWS UP AND USES HIS VAMPIRE POWERS TO DUEL BLACOB TO THE DEAATTHHHHH!!!”
“But then Blacob, being a mature young man, settles the dispute with a mature, adult conversation with Ophelia and Tedward to smooth out any misunderstandings–”
“INTESTINES, EVERYWHERE! WIDOW CONFETTI, EVERYWHERE! BLOOD! BLOOD! BLOOD! BRVRVRVVVVRRRRRRRR CHAINSAWWWWWSSS!!!! YAHAHAHAHAHAAHHAAH! DEAAAATHTHTHTTHTHHHHHTHTHTHTHTHHHTTTTTTTTTTTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHTHHTHTTHHTHTHTHT!!!!!”
We heard a creak and turned around. I currently had Merry in a headlock while Merry was holding up his podcast microphone with one foot and a large Red Bull with the other. His hands were somewhere. Probably in China grabbing more candy, but we’ll never know. Sam stopped dead in his tracks behind us.
“Uhhhhhhhhhhh… I don’t even want to know…” he mumbled, strapping a safe with chains and duct tape and padlocking it and tossing it into a freezer that he welded shut and duct taped and chained and padlocked and buried it under the house in the same spot where Uncle Bilbo keeps his mouse manure compost. He then threw the key at Uncle Bilbo, who had been lurking in a dark corner of the basement the whole time we had been live streaming. Uncle Bilbo then ate the key and scurried through the rafters and into the ventilation system. Sam trudged back up the stairs, but as the door closed, we heard Frodo shouting something about Sam being famous. Sam ignored it and went to bed.
I took the opportunity to turn off Merry’s mic and wrapped up the story as quickly as I could. “And then Tedward admitted the error of his ways and left and became a mortician so he dedicated his life to honoring the dead and whatever other stuff morticians do while Blacob and Ophelia confessed their true love for one another and had a small wedding at a remote meadow inviting only a few close friends and family members and they said their vows and kissed romantically as the sunset and flower petals were thrown in the air and had their first dance as fireflies emerged from the enchanting forest and carved their names into a tree to immortalize their love forever and then this broke the curse for Blacob and they moved to a tiny cottage in a cute little village and had millions of cute little babies who all grew up and they lived happily ever after the end.” I turned off the lifestream and sighed deeply. Somehow, that was still better than last year. Next year, for sure , I would be prerecording his lines so he could just sit there. Next year, maybe, just maybe , Merry wouldn’t screw anything up.
Notes:
An Oreo for those of you who managed to make it through the whole chapter 🍪
Anyway, I've been super busy so our posting schedule has been out of whack, and I know it'll be late but we'll be doing a Thanksgiving special for the next chapter because there obviously aren't enough holiday specials out there already XD
Chapter 8: In Which Sam Refuses to Participate in Takesgiving
Summary:
Hahahaha don't worry, we're still alive. It's been a hot minute since we posted but education and existing as a human on this mortal plane is rather time-consuming. BUT NOW WE PRESENT: TAKESGIVING, an NPE holiday *very* loosely based on the American tradition of Thanksgiving. You're welcome. Enjoy the lack of hinges at your own risk >;P
Notes:
(See the end of the chapter for notes.)
Chapter Text
I hauled a monstrous stock pot full of mashed potatoes off our tiny stovetop. Frodo glared daggers into a pile of bread he’d burnt “on purpose” (he muttered at the loafs, “Dark and decrepit, like my soul”). Merry and Pippin, who were blocked from the single pumpkin pie centered on the dining room table by fifteen rolls of police tape coated in rat poison wrapped around precariously stacked steel vases, a decoy pie made of cardboard and caterpillar slime that Uncle Bilbo harvested sitting on a perfectly Pippin-sized mouse trap, took turns squirting fountains of homemade whipped cream (which our mother made every year on her annual summer travels across Europe in a desperate effort to cut down Merry and Pippin’s sugar intake) into each others’ mouths.
“I AM A WHIPPED CREAM GODDESS, BOW BEFORE ME YOU CHEESY PEASANTS!!!” screamed Merry, flailing his arms around with seventeen firecrackers clutched in each hand, which he then used to smack our father’s backside as he listlessly sirred a vat of gravy in a double boiler. Based on the number of tears, it was going to be an especially salty batch.
I heard the taps of little, menacing feet from atop the refrigerator. A series of grunts and giggles emanated from a lime green mass. “COME FORTH, MY SWIMMING FELLOWS!!!!! WE RIDE AT DAWN, CHEEZITS!!! BRING THE GUNPOWDER, FOR THE CHILD SHALL WISH TO LIVE ANOTHER TUESYEAR! EAT BELLY BUTTONS AND FLY TO HAPPENSTANCE! I HAVE AN ANTEPLOP!!!!! HARSHARSHARSHARSHARRAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHHAAHAH!!!!!!!!!!!” Pippin chittered animal noises and jumped off the fridge and faceplanted onto the stuffing casserole. “GIVE ME LIFE, MY SACRED FRIES! EAT UNICORN PELLETS YOU STUFFING STUFFERS OF STUFFY STUFFNESS!!!!! BLAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!!!!” He rolled around in the masses of now spoiled food on the table while screeching in his secret language to the fire on the stovetop. Father cried heavily into the vat of gravy and tossed in the first thing his hand came across on the countertop. It was Frodo’s iPod. I knew that, like every year, I would not be partaking in the pre-Takesgiving feast.
Frodo watched in horror as his iPod disintegrated into the ether that was the smoke arising from both the oven and Father’s burnt double boiler of gravy. He threw himself onto his knees and screamed at the electronic death in front of him. “OH CURSED, FOWL, DEADLY DEATH WHICH DEALS THE DEADNESS OF DEATHLY DEADLINESS!!! THOU HAST STOLEN THE LIFE OF MY BELOVED FOR THE LAST TIME! I SHALT NEVER FORGET THIS, YOU STINKING, MOUSE-EATEN BLOOD-SUCKER!!! YOU SAUCY, INSOLENT BOY! YOU THRASONICAL, SHEEP-BITING PARASITE!!! YOU LISPING, TAR-BELLIED, MOTLEY- MINDED PURPOSE-CHANGER!!! HOW DARST THEE!!! HOW. DARST. THEE. YOU GREASY, TARDY-GAITED ABOMINATION!” Father pat Frodo on the head and gave him a handful of fruit snacks from his uncleansed apron pocket. Frodo’s rage was temporarily quenched.
“I’LL BE BACK YOU GORBELLIED, SWAG-BELLIED MALMSEY-BUTT.” He swallowed the fruit snacks whole, threw a metal spatula into the oven with the burnt, foaming cornbread rolls, slammed the door, and marched upstairs to console himself with more Dropout Kid and Kellee Eyelash while possibly crying onto a piece of homemade parchment (tea-stained) paper as non-smudge proof eyeliner runs down his face while he glances longingly out the window, occasionally crumpling up an old piece of paper bearing his darkest secrets of poetry and emotional musings and tossing it into an open flame that was the Lady Gaga seungminning circle of scented candles on his desk. He let out a Lady Gaga-like swan impression with each ember of death and arson, and it was a wonder that our house hadn’t burnt down yet.
I dragged Pippin and locked him in the laundry room for the remainder of food preparation. Yes, he would try to drain every last bottle of laundry detergent and gargle foamy concoctions of laundry powder and cleaning fluid, but that was a sacrifice I was willing to make. He’d built up an immunity to even paint thinner at this point, so I wasn’t worried in the slightest.
Merry continued lighting small things aflame in the living room while singing in a shrill soprano. “IIIIIIIIIIII AM THE VERY MODEL OF A MODERN MAJOR BARNACLE!!! I’VE FIFTEEN MILLION SEVENTY AND EIGHTEEN FIFTY TURTLE SHELLS!!!!! AHAHAHAHAH MAMA MIAAAAAA! IT’S A ME, DARIOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!” He wolluped into a trash can and threw it at the wall. It crashed right through a Brandyscrantch Crumpledink poster mother had hung up to cover the hole Merry had created in the wall last Takesgiving… and the one before that… and… the one before that.
I threw some AXE Tear Gas (Dark Temptions flavored) into the living room to help him go to sleep. He fell onto his back and twitched, and I stood, slowly placing my gasmask on my face and sighing, seven cockroach foggers hidden in my HAZMAT suit. One year I will have a normal Takesgiving, but, evidently, it wouldn’t be this year. I’ll survive, and I’ll ensure everyone else survives. We will NOT have a repeat of the mashed potato massacre of 20ñ15. I simply will not allow it; we lost… far too many extended family members. Unfortunately for Frodo, Bazel was the only one who survived. He was still mad about that.
Merry coughed up truffle spores (he was a part-time truffle sniffing pig, but only so long as he could wear a bubblegum pink pantsuit without chafing) and hissed as his eyes glowed a sickly green and shot lasers through the kitchen. He jumped onto the ceiling and skittered out a window singing an off-pitch rendition of NPE’s national anthem (José Cans the Sea). I threw the roach foggers out the window, super-glued a new poster of mother’s second favorite worldwide handsome, Bom Biddlestonington, over the now deceased Bottlebooger Crabsticks poster, and welded the window shut so as to keep the vermin outside until the festivities began– or at least long enough for him to ravage someone else’s feast stockpile.
I quickly pushed my depressed father out of the way before sticking my hand in one of the thirteen-inch-thick silicone-lined rubber gloves my mother provided and stuck my hand in the pot to find the iPod. Last time an electronic ended up in the food Pippin got poisoned, and Takesgiving had to be spent at the hospital. And jail. Evidently, Pippin had accidently taken drugs when eating a pixie stix. I still believe Professor Melkor had something to do with that, but the police ad said that he couldn’t possibly be a criminal, as he donated fifteen gallons of AB negative blood and seventeen kilograms of home-brewed antiemetic and paralytic medications to every hospital in the NPE (there being only two hospitals, one atop the southmost hill and the other underneath the mile high overpass over the northern Lake of Evendimmers, the fateful waters in which Frodo nearly drowned twice two summer vacations ago because he refused to take off his oversized black rag, which weighed over fifteen pounds once fully saturated), so obviously, the local authorities deemed him an innocuous philanthropist. The time Merry overdosed on stool softeners (red flavored) at Nurse Galadriel’s office (all the school medicine is unbranded, but it is a very poorly kept secret that “locally sourced by a community pharmacist” has something to do with it) begs to differ.
With the crackling remains of Frodo’s fifth iPod in the throes of death set aside upon the living room table to prevent further cross contamination, I returned to the kitchen to dispose of the tastefully browned rabies-infected, metal-alloyed muffins (???). As I threw them outside for the nextdoor neighbors to deal with (Pippin had already left neglected flames in their yard on multiple occasions, so setting their yard aflame with our discarded dishes has become a Takesgiving tradition), I heard a knock on the door. I put Father in the living room, his arms still mechanically stirring the air while his eyes glazed over and he muttered about terracotta vases. I tossed my duckling-embroidered oven mittens on the couch, dusted off my MOA (Miracle Orphan Animals) apron, and opened the door.
A pink fluffy lump of unironic melancholy stood before me. She held three tote bags full of miscellaneous items, including but not limited to roses, lemon slices, llama pins, glass eyes, and tubs of AXE Cool Whip (Dark Temptations Flavored). “Hello! Aww I love your apron. Isn’t that the one you got on your trip to Smėltvødɨnȱdęnĩtȗnbyőrtlȉngsteiningiaborough?”
I nodded and sighed deeply. “Yep.” I grabbed her bags for her and set them on the living room table, which was snapped in half due to llama shock-waves. The smell an aura of the maroon roses brought Frodo from whichever dark, damp, moldy, and poetic cave he had been brooding in. At the sight of this dark and terrible being, Elvira promptly hid her face behind a poof of bubbles which had appeared from under the door to the laundry room. A loud crash came from the dining room.
Frodo took this opportunity to speak in order to distract us from his thievery of the maroon roses, but only the maroon roses, for the pink and orange ones were far too happy to decorate his ghostly pallor. “What was that?” He threw a can of AXE hairspray (Dark Temptations flavored) in the direction of the sound while shoving seven maroon roses into his mouth.
I checked the room to see the dining room table snapped clean in two. “Ah, yes, that would be the fault of the Takesgiving Llama.” Frodo had skittered back upstairs before I could confirm the source of the destruction for him.
“Really? Have you seen this year’s llama yet? Is it cute? Is it here??? Is it cute??????” Elvira was awestruck at the miniscule yet oh so in her face possibility of meeting such a celebrity.
I sighed again. “Have you ever wondered where the Takesgiving Llama comes from?”
“CANDYLAND?!?!?!!?”
I swung the laundry room door open to reveal Pippin stomping on several laptops while gargling Windex (Bright Temptations Flavored, because it’s the forbidden orange snak) and lathering Pixy Stix powder into a purple-and-green stained llama, which was also gargling Windex, in the washing machine.
Every last ounce of innocence left Elvira in that moment. I could see it in her eyes. Life was no longer worth living.
“At least you don’t know how the Easterly Bunnicorn is made.” I slammed the door and began helping Elvira unpack her industrial tubs of AXE Cool Whip (Dark Temptations Flavored). While Elvira sorted the tubs, I gathered several gargantuan spatulas from the attic (and some antique vase butter crust, an important bonding agent). Before we could seal off our fortress, we scrubbed every crack and crevice with Bobolot cleaner, which, while it claims to possibly remove all grime and stains, is actually a wonderful adhesive. Then father churned the butter crust and AXE Cool Whip (Dark Temptations Flavored) for a good hour while crying into the cursed batter to bless it with his melancholic depressive fortitude and applied it liberally to the primed locations. Our house now smelled like the insides of a worm, but that is what the cockroach farmers are for.
As we finished fortifying home base, an earthquake seized the very foundations of the house. The linoleum in the hallway quivered with the uncomfortable anxiety of a sweaty, angry-dancing nerd attempting to “rizz” a Charizard. Then it happened. Like a dwarf after the Isengard Academy MEAT (Malevolent Enchilada Attack Turnips) contest spiralling through the depths of a porcelain throne (the one on Principal Gandalf’s wall, which he uses as a thinking space to formulate how best to approach Brianrietta Balrog at the annual NPE hoedown) into a lava cake that contains actual lava, two neon wraiths rocketed out from the floor, sending shockwaves that could rival even the silent but deadly burps of the Takesgiving Llama (acid edition) throughout the entire city. Blinding light seized our eyes, quite literally pinning us against the walls in fear that our retinas would come to life and murder us in the dark.
Mother and…
PROFESSOR LEGOLAS?!?!?!?!?!?
They twirled in jazzercise uniforms across the floor and spit LEMONS (Lethal Economical Mortuary Obsequious Neurotic Scones) into the pit from which they had sprouted forth.
“Prepare for carnage!” Mother twirled with a bouquet of bees in both hands.
“And make it garbage!” Professor Legolas swatted superfluous jazz hands in my face, a maroon rose magically falling into his mouth.
“To protect the NPE from illicit medication!” She threw “Arson Not Drugs” pamphlets across the living room like ninja stars.
“To bedazzle the world with fire creation!” More superfluous jazz hand swats.
“To pronounce the words that rhyme with dove!” An embarrassing interpretive dance ensued.
“To extend our reach to Chinhar above!” My face was red and on fire. Literally. He set fire to my face. What is wrong with this man?
“Arwen!”
“Legolas!”
“The Dazzling Duet blasts off at the speed of light!” Mother’s eyes began shooting lasers through the walls.
“Surrender now, or prepare to ignite!” Professor Legolas flicked a switch on his brass knuckles, which started five tiny lighters on each hand and roundhouse kicked me in the face with a me-sized match.
Merry barreled through the front wall (which father then began repairing with his tearful AXE Cool Crust Whip Butter [Drugged Firely Flavored???] and fluffy hair ties). “MERRYLICIOUS BON JOUR MY SENIOR CORRIANDER!”
“That's right!” The house was on fire.
Father wailed into a mongoose-shaped vase and began putting out the flames with his eternal stream of tears. Meanwhile, Mother bolted up the stairs and returned seconds later with Frodo hanging by his collar from her pink sweat bands; she then proceeded to throw him across the room next to the distraught pastel heap of Elvira. He hissed and hid behind the television set, which was undisturbed by the rampant arson invading our living quarters due to that one time that father, at his lowest point, purchased a suspicious insurance policy from a Buff Taco Truck after the vendor (i.e., Professor Melkor in a sombrero and mustachioed plague mask) promised him that it would give him chest hair.
“MY DEAR CHILDREN, IT IS NEARLY TIME TO WATCH THE TELEVISED TAKESGIVING COMMENCEMENT CEREMONY!!!!!!!” Mother screeched into a duck lips-shaped megaphone. Another miniature earthquake shook the fire out of our house, which then ran away to damage the neighbors’ property. Ah. Yes.
Pippin griddied to the sofa while screaming “BUTTERED KNIFE SQUIRRELS ARE HERE TO STAY!” as Jajilipe (which, in polite society, is more commonly referred to as the perpetually high and drunk cousin of the jalapeño pepper) juice gushed from his nostrils in a bioluminescent fury. He collected Elvira’s jar of glass eyes and returned to the laundry room. Not even I know what the purpose that that horrifying sacrifice holds in manufacturing the Takesgiving Llama. I splashed some holy water on the door frame just to be safe.
While that fiasco occurred, Professor Legolas seized that moment of distraction as an opportunity to squirt lemon juice in everyone’s eyes. I wish I was on anesthetics. Unfortunately, this is an annual tradition (though usually it is Merry who performs the seasoning of the eyes of the warriors, but, alas, he was convulsing on the floor from a lard overdose), so Legolas took it upon himself to promise our optometrists thousands upon thousands of dollars come summer vacation.
While rain dances and war cries screeched from the laundry room and the sad monotone trombones of the televised sacrificial commencement ceremony, somewhere in the background I could hear a saxophone crooning out Klutzy Warbles (the distant and hated cousin of Careless Whisper). I climbed the stairs, tossing maroon roses behind me and glancing down at my five-inch thick stack of spiral-bound notecards. Despite repeating these traditions for the sixteenth time, they seemed to keep multiplying like bacteria at a rabbit farm run by Pippin and his secret dealings with the Windex Mafia ( don’t ask ). Either way, the sprinkling of roses had to be done. I initially thought that it had something to do with the feeding of the Takesgiving Llama to promote the generation of the heavenly acid, according to index card 952, section 7.3, clause 9, but upon further inspection of index card 43, section 15.2, clause 8.6, it could be connected to the Integration of the Unpainted Graham Cracker, a ritual held at the eighth minute of the fifth hour of the Takesgiving free-for-all. All I did know was that whatever these rose petals were intended for, feathers and plush moths would follow.
I grabbed one of the decorative vases from its bullet-proof display case embedded in the wall. This one, a neon green and pastel goth ceramic dating back to the pre-Aphotuscanubimornoian era of Greefinlondersonia, smelling faintly of paint thinner and mothballs, entered father’s collection thirteen months ago. He obtained it at a silent disco, which he mistook for a silent auction, but alas, he was woefully mistaken. After loudly weeping into the DJ’s microphone for an hour straight to the point that security began sympathy-crying for him, thus breaking all their expensive technology and causing the electricity to short circuit. After a few of the light fixtures erupted in flames and crushed the table of age-appropriate beverages, the mobster running the event surrendered his prized possesion to make him leave. Needless to say, we had the vase of questionable origin now, and it had become another of our numerous traditions to remove Frodo (who had, as dictated by tradition, scuttled back to his room to avoid the seasoning of his eyes by Legolas in order to have them seasoned by the alcoholic ??? contents of the vase) from his room by breaking down the door with it since acquiring it.
Frodo screeched mid-Lady Gaga dance (Poker Face, I believe) and launched remicrowaved chimichangas at me with double-edged sporks (the most depressing of cutlery, apparently). I caught the several chimichangas with his emotional support rubbish bin forlornly watching his performance and threatened him with the contents of the crack-laced vase.
“HOW DARST THEE DISTURB MOI!!!” he garbled while maroon rose petals shot from his nostrils. “UR LIKE! OLD!”
I facepalmed and ushered him out of his room to be helicoptered into the TV by Professor Legolas, who was doing somersaults in mid-air while vomiting rainbows onto the carpet—another tradition that entered the codex some time ago. It was nearly time for the sacrificial commencement ceremony broadcast, and then the week-long NPE-wide turf war, and then the decoration of the triumphant mobster parade, and then the afterparty feast parade, and then school. I forgot the semester wasn’t over. I would like to exit the simulation. Alas, my family might implode if I left them unsupervised for more than 24 hours.
As the channel on the crackled to reveal the unwelcome face of the mayor and dictator of NPE—Manwë McMannington—who was oddly winged-llama-shaped, a spotlight descended upon the door to the laundry room, from which a carpet of velvet bubbles spewed out in a regal-ish fashion. The rest of the house dimmed to a dull grey as thunderclouds rolled in from the east over the vastness of this lovely county of Nonspecific Political Entity. The garbled nonsense on the television quieted as Mayor and Dictator Manwë McMannington called everyone’s attention to the fateful door.
Then, the door creaked open as an almost monotone yet suave voice began mologoguing as smooth, noir jazz emanated from the apparent thunder clouds. Dear golly. At least it’s not the shonen protagonist voiceover from last Takesgiving.
“I walked out of that dark and dingy detergent dungeon, a cigarette in my mouth and a glass of whiskey in my hoof. People tell you not to drink and smoke, but… at the end of the day my life is just… a speck in the story of this world. I took a sip of my whiskey, nursin it like you would an injured dog. It burned its way down my throat and tamped down the misery in my heart. The smoke of my cigarette, dark as the thunderclouds gathering outside, obscured the faces of the motley group assembled outside the door. The breath of a breeze blew through the room, dissipating the acrid clouds… And there she was. I’d seen her type before. Her long black hair billowing in the overpowered air conditioning of the room, sparkling eyes darting nervously from person to person - she was lookin for trouble. Or maybe trouble was lookin for her.”
Wait a minute. I had been here before. I had… nearly forgotten. I focused on the gentlemen in front me. Joe Trivigalio’s boys, or so it looked. That’s right. It was takesgiving. A season of dog eat dog in this frog eat fly world. Time flies, they say, but it flies on the wings of a much smaller fly, which flies into the mouth of a very large frog. We’ll all be eaten by time one day, at least that’s what my pops always told me. Some might say that was a little heavy to tell a fresh faced boy of four years old. But those people aren’t the symbol of a nation now are they. To understand the weight of time, one must fear what time brings with it… But that’s beside the point. The point is, a dame was standin in my office, and she clearly knew somethin about the upcoming turf wars.”
Professor Legolas began applauding wildly and whipped a large bell out from his floral fanny pack to ding loud enough to break the sound barrier. Fortunately for us, all cars manufactured in NPE were sound barrier-breaking proof. Then, Mayor and Dictator Manwë McMannington announced the five-minute countdown of the Takesgiving free-for-all turf war, and a large digital countdown clock materialized in the sky outside. Ah, yes, legalized holiday witchcraft. Someday, things will go back to normal, but I may not see that day in my lifetime.
Manwë McMannington then handed the floor to the Entropy Reporters, who were responsible for keeping tabs on the net chaos of the turf war every Takesgiving. The rest of the family began preparing munitions by loading cannons with miscellaneous holiday foods. The last thing I saw before Professor Legolas dragged me back through the depths from which spawned, a journey which lasted the remaining lifespan of my sanity, was Elvira riding the acid-spitting noir detective Takesgiving llama out the window. When I finally came to, I found myself in a bedazzled bat cave.
I was once again tied to a chair. How this happened, I admittedly have no clue, but Professor Legolas never made sense so this doesn’t matter in the grand scheme of things. As I looked around the cave I found that the walls were completely covered in those little plastic rhinestones that normal people would buy at the craft store and that Uncle Bilbo collects from the mafia and then eats but in the way that a fly-cow would. Like the fish tank rocks. As I took this in, Legolas appeared from the last remaining shadow in the cave. He didn’t need to hide in the shadows though, with how entirely covered he was in rhinestones, sequins, and liquid light, he would have camouflaged perfectly against the cave walls. This was not in the notecards.
The cave began spinning. What was happening? Not another tradition… it couldn’t be…
“SAMMY BOIIIIIIIIIIIII!!!!!!!!!!” Legolas slapped me with a Sailor Moon wand painted black but also shiny. “WE MUST FORMULATE A PLAN TO BETROTH THE YOUNG LOVEBIRDS!” His voice sounded louder than usual. “I say we lock them in the birthing room of the Takesgiving Llama! Forced proximity did wonders for the progress of Professor Faramir’s and Professor Eowyn’s budding romance, OH HO HO!” He chortled with the delight of a Victorian widow matchmaking every single individual she set eyes upon to make up for her own history of unsuccessful relationships. He chucked a mask at my face.
I looked down to see that I wore nothing but a green speedo over yellow tights, a cape, and a jester hat. I opened my mouth to speak, yet no sound could leave my body. Actually, it did. In the form of a scream. A very. Loud. Scream.
Father materialized before me with a golden vase. He was likely going to anoint me with holy Caprisun. I shook my hat off and began stomping on it wildly, still bound to the chair. The chair tipped over. Thus, I did what any rational individual with a normal, perfectly functional suburban family would do.
I rolled into the moat of nonspecific sea monsters surrounding the expensive glam bat-themed technology. Takesgiving or not, I was NOT about to partake in yet another stupid, ridiculous, dangerous, and overall imbecilic tradition. Today was the day I declared NAY! NO MORE! I AM FREE! I HAVE FREE WILL! AND I AM GOING TO USE IT!
Legolas roundhouse kicked father’s golden vase into my face.
Blood and porcelain
Everywhere I look, it hurts
Father weeps softly
- A haiku by me
Finally… the sweet release of death… oh how I have longed for this day… ouch… the back seat of the Batgolasmobile is full of rocks. I see a light… and feel a warmth… it is the acidic tongue of the Takesgiving Llama licking my face…
Notes:
Thanks for reading even after the dry spell 😭 I can't promise when chapter 9 will release BUT a little content hint hint it's Christmas-themed and from the POV of Gollum XD
(Also don't worry Sam recovered after 2 weeks in the intensive care unit at the only hospital in NPE and a month of psychological examinations by Professor Faramir)
Ur mom (Guest) on Chapter 1 Sat 28 Oct 2023 12:38AM UTC
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calcifurby on Chapter 1 Sat 04 Nov 2023 12:27AM UTC
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Viking (Guest) on Chapter 1 Thu 02 Nov 2023 03:35PM UTC
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calcifurby on Chapter 1 Sat 04 Nov 2023 12:26AM UTC
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