Rabbit Redux (Mythklok Chapter 93)
Mar. 27th, 2012 03:47 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
tikificTitle: Rabbit Redux (Mythklok Chapter 93)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A fairy tale about rascally rabbits.
Warnings: Children's literature.
Notes: After jump
Mythklok is forever.
So last week: We had dinner with a stoned angel, and then everybody read a story which ended up getting a bit too real.
Charles was sitting at his desk late one night doing one of his favorite things: reading the profit and loss reports for the third quarter.
Suddenly, there was a scuffling: a small animal of some kind had scurried over his desk. He watched, smiling thinly as it hopped, fast and furry, toward the door, huffing, “I ams late! I ams late…”
Only to be confronted by three very small, very quick little angels, who were waiting just outside the door. Charles sat back as the sound of giggles erupted from the waiting room. And then the little angels fluttered back into the room, one of them holding the creature by its ears.
“Da wabbid, Unky Sar!” said Liam proudly.
“Ams lets me go!” shrieked the rabbit. “I ams lates! For dat dates! Wit’ da ladypersons!”
“Yes. That’s very good, Liam,” said Charles. “Your dad would be proud. Now, just sit him down on my desk. That’s good.”
Liam plonked the furry critter right down on its cotton tail in the center of Charles’ desk and then glided down to stand next to his raven-haired sister, Abby, who was scowling up. Meanwhile, Elias scrambled into his father’s lap to get a good view.
“I ams lates!” screamed the White Toki Rabbit again.
“Yes, I think we’ve established that. Let me introduce you to some people, rabbit. This is my son, and these are his cousins, Liam and Abby. Their father is a hunter. The greatest hunter on earth, some say.” Charles leaned forward, steepling his hands. “He tracks down little creatures like you and, you know….”
“Ulp,” said the rabbit, who knew. “Ams you goings to skins me and cooks me in da stews?”
“All I wanna do is talk for a little while. I think you have something of mine, don’t you?”
The little Toki Rabbit shyly pulled out Charles’ Vacheron Constantin from his waistcoat pocket.
“Now, is that your Vacheron Constantin, White Rabbit?”
“Bitcher-on … whats?” asked Toki Rabbit, shaking the watch, his pink rabbit eyes looking confused. “I ams wants da watches, because I ams always lates.”
“If you’ll give me that back, I have something special to give you in return,” said Charles. “Boon?” Elias reached into his hoodie pocket and extracted a watch, which he handed to his father. “You see this?” asked Charles.
“Ooooo, shinies!” said the White Toki Rabbit, as it was a very large and shiny watch, with lots of buttons and things.
“And you see, it has the numbers right on it, so you don’t even have to tell time?” said Charles, holding the face out so the Rabbit could see.
The Rabbit wrinkled his whiskers at the fabulous digital watch. “I ams has trouble telling da times sometimes,” he whispered. “Dat gets me in da troubles.”
“Well, you’ll never get into trouble now. So is it a deal?”
The Toki Rabbit nodded, his ears bobbling up and down. He reached a fluffy white paw out for it, but Charles suddenly drew it back.
“Just one thing!” said Charles. “Now, this is my own son’s very special watch I’m giving you!”
“Uh-huh! Speshul watch!” agreed Elias with utmost sincerity.
“You must promise not to lose it! You must keep it with you at all times. Is that understood?” asked Charles.
“Can I ams has da watches now?” asked Toki Rabbit, who was very impatient.
“Because if you lose it, Toki, I’m gonna have to send these two after you,” he said, indicating the twins. Toki Rabbit stopped grasping at the awesome cool digital watch to cast his pink eyes around at Liam and Abby, who were standing below the desk. Two pairs of ice blue eyes – hunter's eyes – glared up at him.
“Dems bat kids t’ings, dey ams scaries!” said Toki, noting the fluttering of little wings.
“Yeah, well, if you lose this watch, I’m gonna have to send ‘em after you. Then, well, I can’t help it if there’s a nice conejo or hasenpfeffer on the menu at the ‘Haus….”
“I ams takes da cares of it!” squealed the Rabbit.
“OK. Trade?” said Charles. Toki wrinkled his whiskers, but then tentatively held out the Vacheron Constantin as Charles held out the shiny new watch. In an instant they each snatched the other’s watch, Toki hugging the new watch to him with both paws.
“OK. All right. You’re now free to go. But remember!” Charles said, pointing downwards.
Toki rabbit peered over the desk, to where Abby now suddenly had a little sword, and her redheaded brother a small slingshot.
Toki gulped a rabbit gulp and, after carefully placing the watch in his vest pocket, hopped off the side of the desk and then out of the office with all the speed he could muster.
“Bye-bye!” called Elias. “Da bunny, daddy!” he told his father.
Charles said nothing, but just nodded silently as he carefully fastened the Vacheron Constantin around Elias’s wrist.
“What, Raziel?”
“You’re being soooo meeeeeean to the Toki Bunny!” whined Raziel, who was lying on the floor next to Charles, head propped up on her forearms, kicking her legs.
“Raziel,” said Charles. He sat cross-legged next to Raziel, in front of one of Valhalla’s warm and toasty fireplaces, a very old Angelic text open in his lap. “Now, we talked about this!”
“But you scared him!”
“We talked about this,” Charles sighed. “This is important.”
“You need to be less mean!”
“Raziel! You chop guys heads off!”
“Yeah, but they deserved it. Can I read a little bit now?” she asked, grasping out for the book.
“All right, all right. But stick to the plan, right?” said Charles, handing over the book and reaching for his whiskey glass.
“Of course I will,” said Raziel, scooting back against the great stone hearth and scratching the ears of a large wolf who had just settled beside her. “Don’t you trust me?”
“No,” said Charles, smiling over his glass of amber liquor. “Of course not.”
Raziel glared at him, but then grinned. “Yeah, well, OK.”
Sariel strolled contentedly down the dim corridors in one of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-basements of Mordhaus. He carried on his back a backpack. He may have even whistled a happy tune. But, I doubt it.
Anyway, he soon came to a crack in the wall. “Is the the one?” he asked his small companion.
“Uh-huh, Unky Sar!” said Liam, pointing. “Da wabbit!”
“The wascally wabbit. Cool. Good tracking. So, you go ahead back to the kitchen and have ice cream, and I’ll be right up.”
Liam’s little blue eyes lit up at the prospect of ice cream (and, it goes without saying, pie), and scampered back up towards Mordhau's welcoming kitchen.
Sariel set down his heavy backpack. He took out a stud finding device and ran it along the wall just outside the crack. When he had located the support beam, he grabbed some pitons and a hammer and pounded them into the wall. He took out a rather long rope and tied one end to the pitons. Then he secured the other end to his belt. He stood at the brink of the crack, looking down.
“Are we ready?” he asked no one in particular, as the hallway seemed quite empty after Liam had scampered off.
Sariel nodded. And then he climbed down, pausing only once in his descent. The walls were decorated with stuff like framed gold records and such. About halfway down, there was a rather large glass-fronted box fitted to the walls of the deep hole. Written on the glass were the words, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY BREAK GLASS.
“Ams it da cockstails hours yet?” asked the March Skwisgaar, who was slumped over the bar.
“It is perpetually cocktail hour here, dear chap,” sighed Ganesh the Not Terribly Mad Haberdasher. “Oh, look there! A wet angel!”
“Come on guys, we’re late for the poker party,” said Sariel, who, without even a “How do you do,” had started rooting in back of Ganesh’s bar.
“You are rather rude, rooting in back of my bar without even a ‘How do you do,’” commented Ganesh, who was quite astute.
Sariel pulled out an axe, grinning a big grin. “We’ve gotta get there soon. She chops off head, you know,” he reminded them, waggling the axe for emphasis.
“Well, that is a consideration,” agreed Ganesh, who rather liked his current head, although he had been known to change it for the whims of fashion.
“Here,” said Sariel. “I brought you something.” He took off something that was slung on his back and presented it to the March Skwisgaar, who tipped back his rabbit ears hat in wonder.
“Ams da new geetar?” asked Skwisgaar.
“You don’t wanna be playing a Grandpa’s guitar,” explained Sariel. “You want this one.”
Skwisgaar picked up the guitar, fingering it experimentally. Suddenly, he tore off a screaming riff, which ended up shattering several of Ganesh’s bar glasses through its sheer ferocity.
Ganesh and Sariel peeped up over the bar, which they had both dove behind. “Impressive!” said Ganesh.
“Where’s the JABBERWOCK!” hailed Nathan Knight, who was galloping up. When his horse abruptly stopped, Nathan kept going, and somersaulted impressively over the bar.
Sariel and Ganesh helped him to his feet.
“I’m hunting the WOCKERJABB! I mean…. Uhhhhh…..” said Nathan. “Look, I got one of the posters you guys put up,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his suit of armor and extracting a crumpled poster that read “JABBERWOCK HUNT TODAY ONLY THE MAD HABERDASHER’S BAR FEATURING THE MARCH SKWISGAAR.”
“Why ams only featursing me?” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“Yeah, you got it right, it’s just we gotta get to the Queen’s poker party first,” explained Sariel. “There will be plenty of Jabberwocks there.”
“Am I late for the classch?” sobbed the Mock Ninja Turtle, who had just hobbled up.
“The class?” asked Ganesh.
The Mock Ninja Turtle pulled out a tear-stained handbill which read, “LOW SELF ESTEEM? COME TO OUR SELF-ACTUALIZATION WORKSHOP, CHEZ GANESH AND SKWISGAAR.”
“Ganesh ams listed first again?” complained Skwisgaar.
“At least you are listed before the puppet show,” said Ganesh, pointing further down the handbill.
“Yeah, there will be classes offered. The Queen’s place,” said Sariel.
“The Red Queen? Doeschn’t sche threaten to schlice off your head if you croosch her?” asked the Turtle suspiciously.
“Well, that is one way to stave off low self esteem,” agreed Ganesh. “By the way, who has posted all these handbills? You know, Tweedle-Gog and Tweedle-Magog have anti-postering regulations.”
“Another reason why they’re assholes,” said Sariel. “And we’re waiting for one more,” he said, checking his watch. “Ah!”
“DOOOOOOOOOODS!” said the CaterPickles, who had just scrambled down from a tree branch.
“It ams da CatserPickle!” hailed Skwisgaar.
“What brings you here, friend?” asked Ganesh.
“Doods, I saw dis awesum handbill!” said CaterPickles, pulling out a sheet of paper with one of his many, many hands.
“This page is completely blank,” observed Ganesh, who had just pulled on a pair of reading glasses in order to double check.
“Yeh, dood. Ain’t it da greatest?” asked CaterPickles, snatching it back and putting it to his Cater-nose, inhaling deeply. “It’s nothin’ness! An’ everything-ness!”
“If I may inquire, if that handbill is completely blank, how did you know to come here?” asked Ganesh.
“No time for this!” urged Sariel. “We’ve all got to get to the next chapter, the Queen’s Poker Party.”
“I do not know if I approve of skipping around like this in books!” protested Ganesh.
“She’s breaking out the Cadenhead’s Old Raj,” whispered Sariel.
Ganesh’s dark eyes suddenly brightened at the prospect of very, very dry gin. He extracted his martini shaker from behind the bar. “Come along!” he urged, fixing his top hat. “We must not be late!”
“My band is so predictable,” grinned Charles as he stretched out on the couch, patting his stomach. One hand groped out blindly at the coffee table beside him. He brought back his hand and stared sadly at the crumbs.
“You wanna read for a bit?” asked Raziel.
“Naw, you’re doing OK. You got any more of those steak sandwiches?” he said, sighing and greedily licking the crust crumbs from his fingers.
“If you keep eating our steak sandwiches you won’t have any room left for pie.”
“Oh, it’s no problem! Pickles has this great stuff-“
“I’ve heard about Pickles’ great stuff,” said Raziel. “I don’t think Wotan want’s you-“
“Up in my damned tree!” said Wotan, who had just stormed into the room. “Don’t believe it! It’s the damnedest thing!”
“What is, sweetie?” asked Raziel.
“Sariel! You need to see this yourself!” said Wotan. “Come along.” Charles looked at Raziel, who shrugged, and the two angels – Charles lifting himself carefully from the couch – proceeded out after the Norse god.
A small crowd had gathered below one of the larger trees near the yard. Ganesh, as well as three small children, two very large wolves, and a rather tremendously huge, drooling demon were looking up. Looking down from a branch high above was a white tiger.
And a small wolf pup. Who was yipping and wagging his small, stumpy tail.
“Huh. Well, I guess you’re not the only one in the family to get yourself stranded up a tree, Sariel,” laughed Raziel.
“How the hell did Murgatroyd get up there, Boon?” asked Charles.
“Muggatoad id da twee, Daddy!” Elias told him rather unhelpfully.
Ganesh was speaking with the Siberian tiger in a very weird language which sounded like a long string of grunts and growls.
“What’s going on?” asked Charles.
“Well, it’s rather an interesting story, actually,” said Ganesh.
“You wanna share?” asked Charles, who was still staring up at the wolf pup yipping in the tree.
“It appears that Bagheera doesn’t care for the, er, sloppy greetings from the twins’ pet demon-“
“Owwibah!” yelled Liam and Abby.
“Er, yes, Oliver. So he tends to escape up in a branch. Only this time, as Murgatroyd was visiting as well, Bagheera says he turned around to see our wolf had scrambled up after him.”
“Murgatroyd climbed the tree?” Charles asked Elias.
“Uh-huh!” said the boy. “Muggatoad cwimb wif da kiddy!”
“What the hell was he thinking?” asked Charles, who fully realized he was asking this question in regard to a dog. He often asked such questions of a metal band, to equal profit.
Ganesh exchanged more grunts and growls with the big cat, and then said, “Well, Bagheera is unable to fully communicate with Murgatroyd, due to the fact that the tiger does not speak Wolf, but he believes our pup is under the misconception that he is part cat.”
“Our wolf. Thinks he’s a tiger,” said Charles.
“That makes sense,” said Raziel.
“Why does that make sense?” asked Charles.
“Well, Murgatroyd is a smart little guy. Your Yard Wolves are sort of grumpy, and our two are a bit light on the … you know,” she said, pointing to her head and lowering her voice.
“My wolves are perfectly fine!” averred Wotan.
“They only speak Swedish. I mean, come on,” sighed Raziel.
“Boon, why don’t you go get him down, and then maybe we can go in and get some lunch,” proposed Charles.
“Uh-huh Daddy!” said Elias. Charles helped him pull off his coat, and then the boy True Formed and flew upwards.
“You’re hungry again?” asked Raziel.
“I just had a little snack,” said Charles, who honestly was hungry again. “Reading is hungry work.”
“But you weren’t reading! You were just listening!” protested Raziel.
“Listening to you is even harder work,” said Charles.
“That’s a splendid idea!” said Wotan. “You two can read us a chapter over lunch. Sing for your supper!” he laughed, just as Elias landed with Murgatroyd in his arms. Oliver waddled over to greet the safely landed pair with what was evidently the traditional Bearcat demon greet, a great drooly lick.
“Baaaaap!” said Elias, running over, still dripping, to Ganesh, who cringed.
“Er, should you take this one, dear?” Ganesh asked Charles.
“He's clearly asking for you,” laughed Charles.
“But, Sariel! This is a 451 thread count!” said Ganesh, holding out his suit jacket. He nevertheless made a face and picked up his gooey son. “Do you have anything that gets this, er, substance out of your fabrics, Lady Raziel?”
“NOTHING gets out bearcat drool,” said Raziel. “The twins know not to come near me when they're playing with Oliver,” she laughed.
“And we need to teach this one a thing or two. You are a wolf, Murgatroyd!” said Wotan, demonstrating with a howl. The small wolf replied with another, quite more high-pitched howl. The twins and Elias joined in, as did Geri and Freki, and even Oliver, who sounded a bit more like a cat being drowned than a howl.
“Does Wotan have to do that?” asked Charles, covering his sensitive angel ears at the racket.
“Yeah, actually he does,” laughed Raziel.
“All right, here we all are,” said Charles, indicating the March Skwisgaar, the Mad Ganesh, Nathan Knight, Caterpickles and the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“I am the Red Queen,” said the gracious Red Queen graciously.
“We're here for the poker party,” said Charles,
Yes. Welcome to my poker party,” said the lovely and fashionably dressed Red Queen, who was wearing Stella with some lovely McQueen pumps.
“Uh, yeah, anyway,” said Charles, who was not terribly interested in Raziel's fucking outfit.
“Oh, I'm not Raziel,” said the Red Queen. “She's shorter, and has slightly different taste in shoes. But she's still cute.”
“Yeah, I wasn't really wondering about that either,” said Charles. “Have you seen Toki?”
“Oh, Toki is very cute,” agreed the Red Queen, who was very cute herself.
“He's got my watch,” said Charles impatiently, as he had other things to do than listen to Raziel babble about cute things.
“I told you, I'm not Raziel,” said the Red Queen, her dark hair lustrous and shining.
“Whatever,” said Charles, who had other things to do than listen to the Red Queen babble about her hair.
“What kind of watch was it?” asked the stunning Red Queen, who knew that Sariel had icky taste in accessories.
“It's just a digital watch I bought for Boon,” said Charles, who was had actually always hated the fucking name Sariel.
“Then why don't you just get a new watch?” asked the Red Queen, who thought Sariel was a lovely name that very well suited his pretty silver hair.
“Because this is important,” said Charles. “And for the last time I DO NOT HAVE LONG HAIR!”
“WILL YOU TWO CEASE BICKERING?” shouted Ganesh. He sat back in his chair and glowered. He was dressed in a white terrycloth bathrobe, his hair still wet from the shower, and he looked a bit irritable.
“What?” said Raziel, looking up from the book.
”Still pissy about getting demon drool on the suit,” Charles whispered to her in High Angelic.
“I heard that,” said Ganesh in rather good High Angelic, his eyes narrowing, and causing Charles and Raziel to look at one another in surprise. Ganesh leaned forward and extended a hand. “Here. Why don't I read the next chapter?”
“YOU DON'T READ ANGELIC!' chorused the angels.
“Is that really a requirement?” laughed Wotan, who was sitting with a twin or two playing on his lap.
Raziel reluctantly handed over the book to Ganesh, who sat back and took out a pair of reading glasses. “Now to begin! And so, they all proceeded to the Queen's engagement party....”
“Poker party!” said Raziel.
“Ah, no, for both of you have been misreading this!” said Ganesh.
“Huh. Poker, engagement. I guess it's an easy mistake to make,” agreed Raziel.
“Wait, who's she engaged to?” asked Charles.
“Welcome to my engagement party!” said the Red Queen, who was wearing a very lovely Vera Wang number
“Hey, where is the Red Wotan King dude?” asked Nathan Knight, who had just toppled off his horse again.
“I don't know what you're talking about!” said the Red Queen.
“Uh, don't you usually need a groom for an engagement, Raziel?” asked Sariel, whose hair was very short and neatly styled.
“I'm not Raziel,” explained the Red Queen. “I'm the Red Queen. I'm taller, and have slightly different taste in shoes.”
“All right, all right.”
“But, I'm gonna marry THAT GUY!” she said pointing upwards to a spherical figure balanced rather precariously up on a high wall.
“You ams marries da Humpity Dumpster guys?” asked the March Skwisgaar, playing the funeral march on his new guitar.
“Yep,” said the Red Queen.
“But that'sch not the perschon you're schupposhed to marry!” protested the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“Oh, you never have an engagement party with the person you're supposed to marry,” said the Not Terribly Mad Ganesh. “Haven't you seen our films before?”
“I thought this was a work of Victorian children's literature, not a Bollywood musical?” said Sariel.
“We are mixing genres. A bit,” admitted Ganesh. “Especially with the pervasive 90s era musical references.”
“I didn't really want to marry an egg,” admitted the Red Queen. “I was looking for something a bit closer to my species. But he promised to explain the Jabberwock poem to us if I married him!”
“Couldn't you just buy the Cliff Notes?” asked Sariel.
“I t'ink marryin' an egg is a great idea, doods,” said the Caterpickles.
“Why is that?” asked Charles.
“It's so round. An' blank! You could stare at him fer hours!” said CaterPickles, who indeed stared at the egg shining in the sun.
“So as is traditional, I must sing a song about my pain!” announced Raziel, who had already changed costume (to a lovely sari) and begun to dance.
Load up on rum and bring some dudes
It's fun to party and be rude
I'm really bored about my groom
Oh no I think he brings our doom....
So low so low so low how low?
Below below below it blows
In the abyss, it's more dangerous
We need fights to entertain us
Yes it's stupid and outrageous
Let's go through the thesaurus
Borneo
An Oreo
Hidee-ho
And a yo-yo
Yay
Skwisgaar had begun to play along, although perhaps a bit faster than the song warranted, causing a rather animated moshing.
“Ganesh, can't you stop that racket?” asked Sariel. “She makes Yoko Ono sound melodious!”
“I will see what I can do,” said Ganesh, joining in the dance to sing to the Red Queen, who was not Raziel.
Come, as you are, in couture
In McQueen finery
A diva, my Sheeba, as a fashionista
Take you time getting dressed
Designer stuff is hard to figure out
Take a rest with Chanel, with a Gaultier...
Gaultier
“Hey, Charles, that PINATA? It doesn't have any CANDY inside, just a bunch of goop....”
Sariel took his eyes off Ganesh and Raziel dancing for a moment to face the Nathan Knight, who had what looked like eggshell in his hair.
“Nathan, you guys didn't....” said Sariel, now turning to glance in horror at the high wall. And at the foot of the wall: one fiance, over easy. “You did. Oh, shit. RAZIEL!”
“What? Can't you see I'm dancing?” asked the Red Queen.
“Your finace is scrambled!” said Sariel
“Oh, shit. What the hell happened?” asked the Red Queen.
“Uh. He fell,” said Nathan, awkwardly holding a baseball bat behind his back.
“Well, gotta call Red King Wotan then,” said the Red Queen, hitting her speed dial. “Hey, hon! Yeah, it happened again!”
“What does she mean, again?” asked Sariel.
“Bring all your horses and all your men! Hey, sure, we got canapés, and the Mad Ganesh is fixing martinis.”
“I ams lates!” squealed the White Toki Rabbit, who had just hopped up. “I ams sorries, Queen Raz, but I ams has da troubles waksing up in da mornings.” He pointed to the large, colorful plastic watch he wore on one paw. “But luckisily, da alarms ams gone off!”
“That's OK, Toki,” said the Red Queen. “We were just wondering what to do with a squashed fiancé.”
“Spanish omelette?” proposed Sariel, who was hungry again.
“Hey, what's that?” said the Red Queen.
The ground was indeed shaking with what seemed the sound of mighty footsteps.
“Is is the JABBERWOCK?” asked Nathan, holding up his Vorpal sword. “Because I don’t like that guy.”
But it was not the Jabberwock. Instead it was the terrible tattooed twin giants, Tweedle-Gog and Tweedle-Magog. They loomed over the Queen’s engagement party like the two incredibly rude party crashers they were, snarling and throwing horns in what they hoped was a really cool looking pose, but was actually quite 90s.
“What do you guys think you’re doing here?” demanded the Red Queen. “This party is strictly invitation only!”
“We heard you invited all the king’s horses!” argued Tweedle-Gog.
“And all the king’s men!” seconded Tweedle-Magog.
“Yeah, but that’s just because Dethklok broke my fiance,” said the Red Queen.
“It was AN ACCIDENT!” said Nathan.
“Dethklok?” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Dethklok!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Dat ams our names, don’t wears it out,” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“We have words with you,” said Tweedle-Gog, suddenly holding out an object. It seemed to be a thin strip of paper topped by a red tassel.
“Oh no!” said Ganesh.
“What is it?” asked Sariel.
“They have a book mark!” said the Red Queen.
“And we’re going to use it!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Well, at least that is better than bending the corner of a page,” reasoned Ganesh.
“I do that sometimes,” admitted Sariel.
“Everybody duck!” said the Red Queen, throwing herself to the ground.
“Exschusche me, I am not a duck, I am a turtle,” protested the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“You ams not reallies da toitles,” the Toki Rabbit told him. “You ams da Mocks Toitles.”
“Pffft. Spoken like da bunnies,” sniffed Skwisgaar.
“What ams you knows, Skwisgaars? You ams da rabbits too!”
“Ams not da rabbits! Ams da hares!”
“What ams da differences?” asked Toki.
“Will you guys SHUT THE FUCK UP?” asked Nathan.
“Actually, dat’s an interestin’ question regardin’ bioluhgy an’ stuff!” said the CaterPickles.
But as Dethklok continued to quibble, there was suddenly a great turning of pages, and as most of the sensible party guests hid under the nearest paragraph or clung desperately to clauses, the band got swept away like a block quote, to parts unknown.
“Ha-HA!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“HA-ha!” added Tweedle-Magog.
“We now have your band!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Contrariwise, if you want them back alive, you will come with us too, Sariel!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Don’t do it, Sariel!” urged the Red Queen, who was hiding behind a dangling participle. “I don’t trust these guys, and they have terrible taste in shoes!” she said, pointing to their footwear.
“No problem,” said Sariel, leaping to his feet. “OK, giant tattoo dudes, take me to my band.”
“Tie him up first, I don’t trust him,” said Tweedle-Gog, in an odd statement, as he was talking to his brother, who was attached to the same body. Tweedle-Magog nevertheless pulled out a shiny length of chain, which he used to lasso Sariel.
“Silver chains for a silver angel. You won’t break these!” taunted Tweedle-Magog.
“I think you have me confused with a vampire,” said Sariel. “But anyway….”
“Isn’t that a werewolf rather than a vampire?” asked Ganesh.
“Maybe. Can we just move this story along?”
“But we want to sing a song!” protested Tweedle-Gog.
“Contrariwise, she got to sing a song, and she can’t even sing!” noted Tweedle-Magog pointing jealously at the Red Queen.
“Oh, gods,” groaned, Sariel, who was really wishing for a fast forward button.
“How about this, we will add your song to the director’s cut!” said Ganesh. “And then it will be exclusive to the Blu Ray!”
“Oh, exclusive. That sounds cool,” said Tweedle-Gog, who liked excluding people.
“Contrariwise, excluding people makes everything more fun,” added Tweedle-Magog. “Now, come along!”
With a ruffling of yellowy pages, they transported Sariel to a very cold, familiar part of the Tulgey Woods, where the bare trees appeared to tremble in fear. Sariel heard the familiar sound of his band snoring contentedly in a snow bank.
“We have you now, Sariel!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Tell us what we want, or your dumb and uncool band dies of hypothermia!” demanded Tweedle-Magog.
“Yeah, yeah, I already read this part. Hey, does anybody have a cigarette?” asked Sariel.
“You’re skipping ahead?” asked Tweedle-Gog.
“I usually read the poems to Boon until he falls asleep. So,” continued Sariel, straining against his chains. “I would suggest you cooperate. If you wanna stay on my good side.”
“What do you mean, grubby little angel?” asked Tweedle-Magog.
“You guys are fucking with my bread and butter,” said Sariel, inclining his head towards Dethklok. “Trust me, that is never a good idea.”
“You want to see us fuck around?” warned Tweedle-Gog.
“Not particularly,” said Sariel.
“See what you think when we summon … The Jabberwock!” said Tweedle-Magog.
As before, the sky darkened and the wind howled. And there was the sound of terrible, crashing footsteps, growing nearer, ever nearer.
It emerged from the woods, snorting fire and howling terribly, and loomed, drooling, over the sleeping band.
Suddenly, a terrible sound rang out.
It was White Toki Rabbit’s watch. “Oh, alarms ams gone off,” he yawned. He looked up with pink rabbit eyes to the horrible Jabberwock standing over him, snapping its biting jaws.
“Oh, da Jabberswocks,” he said, yawning again and turning off his alarm. He scratched his head with a paw. He stared, as if in puzzlement. One rabbit ear went up. And then the other. And then suddenly he leapt up in terror. “Holies shits, da Jabberwocks!” he shrieked. “Ams heeeelps!”
“Toki, what are you-“ asked Nathan. But then he was up, along with the rest of the others. “Aw, fuck.”
“Nathan!” yelled Sariel. There was a slight clanking sound when, as if by magic, Sariel’s chains suddenly unlocked and dropped to the floor. Sariel reached out as if grabbing the air, and all of a sudden, there was a sword in his hand. “Vorpal sword!” he yelled, tossing it to Nathan.
“Oh, Vorpal sword!” agreed Nathan, catching it by the handle. “Vorpal sword,” he muttered. “Uhhhhh….”
“Snicker-snack, Nathan!” said Sariel, making a slicing motion. “The Jabberwock!”
“Oh, yeah! I meant to do that,” said Nathan, who turned and then very handily beheaded the looming beast.
“Wait, what have you done to our pet?” wailed Tweedle-Gog, beholding the steaming corpse.
The sky had brightened as the sun came out from behind a cloud. And a very strange thing happened: the bare trees began to leaf.
“Time to make our exit, brother?” asked Tweedle-Gog. “This is not how this story is supposed to end.”
“Exit, stage right,” agreed Tweedle-Magog. But as the giants tried to escape, suddenly the trees swayed over in either direction, trapping them. They turned and ran another way, but the same thing happened again.
“Skwisgaar,” shouted Sariel, watching the twin giants once again run into the trees. “Play your guitar.”
Skwisgaar happily obliged with a great, screaming riff.
“Aiiiiii!” squealed Tweedle-Gog.
“That’s TOO METAL!” screeched his brother.
The terrible two-headed giant fell to his knees from Skwisgaar’s awesome metal riff.
“I knew it,” said Sariel, crossing his arms and nodding knowingly. “Posers.”
The Tweedles suddenly let out another shriek and fell to the ground. “Ow, my heads!”
The not terribly Mad Ganesh was standing nearby with a cricket bat.
“OK, so maybe you do know how to use that thing,” admitted Sariel.
“I am sorry we are late,” said Ganesh, waving the cricket bat. “But the Red Queen needed to change her outfit. And then we had to peek a few pages ahead.”
“What for?” asked Sariel.
“Well, to see if we would still be fashionable, of course!”
The Red Queen was now standing on the giant’s chest, holding a very big sword. “OK, tell me, which is your LEAST FAVORITE HEAD?”
“He is,” the both chorused, pointing to the other.
“Red Queen! Let’s get these losers down to size first,” said Sariel. “CaterPickles, do you have any of your magic mushrooms left?”
“Do I have mushrooms doooooood?” grinned CaterPickles.
“Yes, do you have magic mushrooms?”
“Do I have magic mushrooms?” said CaterPickles.
“Well, do you?” asked Sariel.
“Huh. Akshually, dat’s a gud question!” said CaterPickles. He used several arms to search through several pockets in his robes, discarding a hookah, bags of brightly colored pills, bags of weed, more bags of multicolored powders, blunts, and a Grateful Dead Zippo. “Ah, here we go,” he finally said, extracting a mushroom. He broke off a chunk and held it next to Tweedle-Gog.
“The side that makes ‘em smaller!” Sariel told him.
“Oh, yeh, I was gonna do dat,” laughted, CaterPickles, tossing aside the bit of mushroom and breaking off another. “Now, open wide,” he told the giant, who obeyed. “Whoa, yer breat’ dood!” he said, waving a couple hands at his face.
“You try finding dental floss in this size!” grumbled Tweedle-Gog.
“Yeh, dat’s troo,” agreed CaterPickles, holding his nose, and throwing a bit of mushroom into the giant’s mouth. There was a pause, and then suddenly, Tweedle-Gog’s head – but only Tweedle-Gog’s head – shrunk down to tiny size.
“Heeeeeey!” squealed Tweedle-Gog, in a really funny teeny-tiny high-pitched voice.
“Uh. I guess you need to give some to the other head too?” asked Sariel.
“I dunno, dood, dis is kinda cool too!”
“Pickles!”
CaterPickles shrugged and popped another mushroom in Tweedle-Magog’s mouth. The giant shrank down to tiny size. In fact, he could now fit in the Red Queen’s hand.
“Hey, this is actually pretty cute!” said the Red Queen regarding the tiny giant in her well-manicured hand. “Though not as cute as me.”
“Now, I just want some information, Tweedles,” said Sariel.
“We’re not gonna tell you anything!” squealed the teensy Tweedles, who really sounded like a 33 1/3 LP sped up to 45 rpm, or maybe like a Chipmunks album.
“You can torture us!”
“We don’t care!”
“You can even make us listen to her sing again!” they trilled, pointing up to the Red Queen.
“Everyone’s a critic,” said the Red Queen.
“No, you’re not gonna tell me,” said Sariel. You’re gonna tell the Turtle!” And so saying, he picked up the Tweedles by their tiny collar and deposited them in the hand of the gloomy Mock Ninja Turtle.
“We’re not gonna talk to you either. Nyeah!” said the Tweedles, sticking out tiny tongues.
“Isch it becausche I’m not a real Ninja Turtle,” said the Mock Ninja Turtle, beginning to weep.
“Hey! Cut out the waterworks!” squealed the Tweedles.
“You're gonna drown us!”
“Or wash off the tattoos.”
“Whoa. Temporary tatts?” asked Nathan. “Those guys really sucked.”
“OK, Tweedles,” said Sariel, once again picking the now very damp ex-giant up by the collar. “We've obviously found your Dreamtime avatars, but we've been unable to locate you in the real world. Where they they go, after they left the Abyss?”
“Where do you think we went, shorty?” squealed tiny Tweedle-Gog.
“Look who's talking,” said Sariel.
“Look right under your nose, smarty angel!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“We're in the industry, of course!”
“We're much too cool to get a real job!”
“Oh no!” said Sariel, suddenly realizing the truth.
“What?” said Raziel.
“They're A&R men!” said Sariel. “And unless I miss my guess....”
“Inside Crystal Mountain-” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Evil takes its form,” squealed Tweedle-Magog.
“Raziel!” said Charles, who had just leapt up from the couch.
“Got it!” she said. “Ganesh?”
Ganesh was on his feet. He flipped the book to Charles. “I'm going to change into something more appropriate,” he said, striding out of the room.
“Oh, I'd recommend Armani for this!” said Raziel, tottering after him.
“Da stowwy?” asked Elias, who really had been listening to all of this, as there were bunnies and monsters, and that constituted a pretty good story.
“Yeah, I guess there's another little bit,” said Charles, grabbing both his son and the book. “We need an ending, don't we?”
“Yeah, endin!” agreed Elias.
“Thanks for the help with the chains, Anna!” said Charles. The ghost girl had just appeared beside him, and she flipped him a golden, guitar-shaped key.
“No problem! This dreamtime stuff is cool!” Anna told him.
“And thanks for putting up all those handbills.”
“I love postering. Did they work?”
“Like a charm.”
“Cool! Are you coming back to Mordhaus now?” she asked.
“If you’ll just wait one moment,” said Charles. “Guys,” he told the forest, holding up his axe, “Thanks for the help. I need another favor. A big one.”
“We're here to see Mr. Cornickleson. We do not have an appointment,” said Ganesh as he and Raziel strode into the receptionist's office.
“Nobody sees Mr. Cornicklson without an appointment,” scolded the Bluetoothed receptionist. “You need to HEY IS THAT A SWORD!”
“Yeah, I coordinated it with my outfit!' agreed Raziel, who was standing on the receptionist's desk and did indeed have a sword pointed at her neck.
Ganesh pushed through to Cornickleson's office and Raziel leapt off the desk to follow him.
“Mr. Cornickleson,” said Ganesh.
“Who are you?” grumbled the crusty executive. “Oh. Fuck!”
“You must remember me? The girl with the silver rings?” grinned Raziel.
“Now, Duke Berith,” said Ganesh, as the executive had morphed into his demon Form under the influence of Raziel's rings, which in turn caused the intern who had been giving Cornickleson/Berith a blow job under his desk to scream and run away.
“What do you want?” demanded Berith. “That guy gives the best head in Hollywood.”
“Gog. And Magog,” said Ganesh.
Berith zipped up his pants sunk back down into his seat. “Those boys? Yeah, they're completely useless. So I had them doing A&R.”
“Where are they now?” asked Raziel.
“Probably what they're always doing: sitting in their office, getting high.”
Raziel and Ganesh looked at each other. “If they were not of any use, whyever did you give them a job?” inquired Ganesh.
“They had great connections! They used to work for Lucifer himself!”
“Berith,” said Ganesh, “they were banished by the Creator to the Abyss. One of Lucifer's minions was set to guard them.”
“Oh, so padding the old resume a bit,” chuckled Berith.
“Which way?” asked Raziel. Berith inclined his horned head, and the two set off down the hall.
“They have two different offices, huh?” said Raziel, looking at the nameplates facing each other across the hallway. “How do they work that?”
Ganesh looked back and forth and frowned. “Perhaps they have separate Forms?” He sighed. “I suppose we should split up and do each room at the same time.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Raziel.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A fairy tale about rascally rabbits.
Warnings: Children's literature.
Notes: After jump
Mythklok is forever.
So last week: We had dinner with a stoned angel, and then everybody read a story which ended up getting a bit too real.
Charles was sitting at his desk late one night doing one of his favorite things: reading the profit and loss reports for the third quarter.
Suddenly, there was a scuffling: a small animal of some kind had scurried over his desk. He watched, smiling thinly as it hopped, fast and furry, toward the door, huffing, “I ams late! I ams late…”
Only to be confronted by three very small, very quick little angels, who were waiting just outside the door. Charles sat back as the sound of giggles erupted from the waiting room. And then the little angels fluttered back into the room, one of them holding the creature by its ears.
“Da wabbid, Unky Sar!” said Liam proudly.
“Ams lets me go!” shrieked the rabbit. “I ams lates! For dat dates! Wit’ da ladypersons!”
“Yes. That’s very good, Liam,” said Charles. “Your dad would be proud. Now, just sit him down on my desk. That’s good.”
Liam plonked the furry critter right down on its cotton tail in the center of Charles’ desk and then glided down to stand next to his raven-haired sister, Abby, who was scowling up. Meanwhile, Elias scrambled into his father’s lap to get a good view.
“I ams lates!” screamed the White Toki Rabbit again.
“Yes, I think we’ve established that. Let me introduce you to some people, rabbit. This is my son, and these are his cousins, Liam and Abby. Their father is a hunter. The greatest hunter on earth, some say.” Charles leaned forward, steepling his hands. “He tracks down little creatures like you and, you know….”
“Ulp,” said the rabbit, who knew. “Ams you goings to skins me and cooks me in da stews?”
“All I wanna do is talk for a little while. I think you have something of mine, don’t you?”
The little Toki Rabbit shyly pulled out Charles’ Vacheron Constantin from his waistcoat pocket.
“Now, is that your Vacheron Constantin, White Rabbit?”
“Bitcher-on … whats?” asked Toki Rabbit, shaking the watch, his pink rabbit eyes looking confused. “I ams wants da watches, because I ams always lates.”
“If you’ll give me that back, I have something special to give you in return,” said Charles. “Boon?” Elias reached into his hoodie pocket and extracted a watch, which he handed to his father. “You see this?” asked Charles.
“Ooooo, shinies!” said the White Toki Rabbit, as it was a very large and shiny watch, with lots of buttons and things.
“And you see, it has the numbers right on it, so you don’t even have to tell time?” said Charles, holding the face out so the Rabbit could see.
The Rabbit wrinkled his whiskers at the fabulous digital watch. “I ams has trouble telling da times sometimes,” he whispered. “Dat gets me in da troubles.”
“Well, you’ll never get into trouble now. So is it a deal?”
The Toki Rabbit nodded, his ears bobbling up and down. He reached a fluffy white paw out for it, but Charles suddenly drew it back.
“Just one thing!” said Charles. “Now, this is my own son’s very special watch I’m giving you!”
“Uh-huh! Speshul watch!” agreed Elias with utmost sincerity.
“You must promise not to lose it! You must keep it with you at all times. Is that understood?” asked Charles.
“Can I ams has da watches now?” asked Toki Rabbit, who was very impatient.
“Because if you lose it, Toki, I’m gonna have to send these two after you,” he said, indicating the twins. Toki Rabbit stopped grasping at the awesome cool digital watch to cast his pink eyes around at Liam and Abby, who were standing below the desk. Two pairs of ice blue eyes – hunter's eyes – glared up at him.
“Dems bat kids t’ings, dey ams scaries!” said Toki, noting the fluttering of little wings.
“Yeah, well, if you lose this watch, I’m gonna have to send ‘em after you. Then, well, I can’t help it if there’s a nice conejo or hasenpfeffer on the menu at the ‘Haus….”
“I ams takes da cares of it!” squealed the Rabbit.
“OK. Trade?” said Charles. Toki wrinkled his whiskers, but then tentatively held out the Vacheron Constantin as Charles held out the shiny new watch. In an instant they each snatched the other’s watch, Toki hugging the new watch to him with both paws.
“OK. All right. You’re now free to go. But remember!” Charles said, pointing downwards.
Toki rabbit peered over the desk, to where Abby now suddenly had a little sword, and her redheaded brother a small slingshot.
Toki gulped a rabbit gulp and, after carefully placing the watch in his vest pocket, hopped off the side of the desk and then out of the office with all the speed he could muster.
“Bye-bye!” called Elias. “Da bunny, daddy!” he told his father.
Charles said nothing, but just nodded silently as he carefully fastened the Vacheron Constantin around Elias’s wrist.
“What, Raziel?”
“You’re being soooo meeeeeean to the Toki Bunny!” whined Raziel, who was lying on the floor next to Charles, head propped up on her forearms, kicking her legs.
“Raziel,” said Charles. He sat cross-legged next to Raziel, in front of one of Valhalla’s warm and toasty fireplaces, a very old Angelic text open in his lap. “Now, we talked about this!”
“But you scared him!”
“We talked about this,” Charles sighed. “This is important.”
“You need to be less mean!”
“Raziel! You chop guys heads off!”
“Yeah, but they deserved it. Can I read a little bit now?” she asked, grasping out for the book.
“All right, all right. But stick to the plan, right?” said Charles, handing over the book and reaching for his whiskey glass.
“Of course I will,” said Raziel, scooting back against the great stone hearth and scratching the ears of a large wolf who had just settled beside her. “Don’t you trust me?”
“No,” said Charles, smiling over his glass of amber liquor. “Of course not.”
Raziel glared at him, but then grinned. “Yeah, well, OK.”
Sariel strolled contentedly down the dim corridors in one of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-basements of Mordhaus. He carried on his back a backpack. He may have even whistled a happy tune. But, I doubt it.
Anyway, he soon came to a crack in the wall. “Is the the one?” he asked his small companion.
“Uh-huh, Unky Sar!” said Liam, pointing. “Da wabbit!”
“The wascally wabbit. Cool. Good tracking. So, you go ahead back to the kitchen and have ice cream, and I’ll be right up.”
Liam’s little blue eyes lit up at the prospect of ice cream (and, it goes without saying, pie), and scampered back up towards Mordhau's welcoming kitchen.
Sariel set down his heavy backpack. He took out a stud finding device and ran it along the wall just outside the crack. When he had located the support beam, he grabbed some pitons and a hammer and pounded them into the wall. He took out a rather long rope and tied one end to the pitons. Then he secured the other end to his belt. He stood at the brink of the crack, looking down.
“Are we ready?” he asked no one in particular, as the hallway seemed quite empty after Liam had scampered off.
Sariel nodded. And then he climbed down, pausing only once in his descent. The walls were decorated with stuff like framed gold records and such. About halfway down, there was a rather large glass-fronted box fitted to the walls of the deep hole. Written on the glass were the words, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY BREAK GLASS.
“Ams it da cockstails hours yet?” asked the March Skwisgaar, who was slumped over the bar.
“It is perpetually cocktail hour here, dear chap,” sighed Ganesh the Not Terribly Mad Haberdasher. “Oh, look there! A wet angel!”
“Come on guys, we’re late for the poker party,” said Sariel, who, without even a “How do you do,” had started rooting in back of Ganesh’s bar.
“You are rather rude, rooting in back of my bar without even a ‘How do you do,’” commented Ganesh, who was quite astute.
Sariel pulled out an axe, grinning a big grin. “We’ve gotta get there soon. She chops off head, you know,” he reminded them, waggling the axe for emphasis.
“Well, that is a consideration,” agreed Ganesh, who rather liked his current head, although he had been known to change it for the whims of fashion.
“Here,” said Sariel. “I brought you something.” He took off something that was slung on his back and presented it to the March Skwisgaar, who tipped back his rabbit ears hat in wonder.
“Ams da new geetar?” asked Skwisgaar.
“You don’t wanna be playing a Grandpa’s guitar,” explained Sariel. “You want this one.”
Skwisgaar picked up the guitar, fingering it experimentally. Suddenly, he tore off a screaming riff, which ended up shattering several of Ganesh’s bar glasses through its sheer ferocity.
Ganesh and Sariel peeped up over the bar, which they had both dove behind. “Impressive!” said Ganesh.
“Where’s the JABBERWOCK!” hailed Nathan Knight, who was galloping up. When his horse abruptly stopped, Nathan kept going, and somersaulted impressively over the bar.
Sariel and Ganesh helped him to his feet.
“I’m hunting the WOCKERJABB! I mean…. Uhhhhh…..” said Nathan. “Look, I got one of the posters you guys put up,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his suit of armor and extracting a crumpled poster that read “JABBERWOCK HUNT TODAY ONLY THE MAD HABERDASHER’S BAR FEATURING THE MARCH SKWISGAAR.”
“Why ams only featursing me?” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“Yeah, you got it right, it’s just we gotta get to the Queen’s poker party first,” explained Sariel. “There will be plenty of Jabberwocks there.”
“Am I late for the classch?” sobbed the Mock Ninja Turtle, who had just hobbled up.
“The class?” asked Ganesh.
The Mock Ninja Turtle pulled out a tear-stained handbill which read, “LOW SELF ESTEEM? COME TO OUR SELF-ACTUALIZATION WORKSHOP, CHEZ GANESH AND SKWISGAAR.”
“Ganesh ams listed first again?” complained Skwisgaar.
“At least you are listed before the puppet show,” said Ganesh, pointing further down the handbill.
“Yeah, there will be classes offered. The Queen’s place,” said Sariel.
“The Red Queen? Doeschn’t sche threaten to schlice off your head if you croosch her?” asked the Turtle suspiciously.
“Well, that is one way to stave off low self esteem,” agreed Ganesh. “By the way, who has posted all these handbills? You know, Tweedle-Gog and Tweedle-Magog have anti-postering regulations.”
“Another reason why they’re assholes,” said Sariel. “And we’re waiting for one more,” he said, checking his watch. “Ah!”
“DOOOOOOOOOODS!” said the CaterPickles, who had just scrambled down from a tree branch.
“It ams da CatserPickle!” hailed Skwisgaar.
“What brings you here, friend?” asked Ganesh.
“Doods, I saw dis awesum handbill!” said CaterPickles, pulling out a sheet of paper with one of his many, many hands.
“This page is completely blank,” observed Ganesh, who had just pulled on a pair of reading glasses in order to double check.
“Yeh, dood. Ain’t it da greatest?” asked CaterPickles, snatching it back and putting it to his Cater-nose, inhaling deeply. “It’s nothin’ness! An’ everything-ness!”
“If I may inquire, if that handbill is completely blank, how did you know to come here?” asked Ganesh.
“No time for this!” urged Sariel. “We’ve all got to get to the next chapter, the Queen’s Poker Party.”
“I do not know if I approve of skipping around like this in books!” protested Ganesh.
“She’s breaking out the Cadenhead’s Old Raj,” whispered Sariel.
Ganesh’s dark eyes suddenly brightened at the prospect of very, very dry gin. He extracted his martini shaker from behind the bar. “Come along!” he urged, fixing his top hat. “We must not be late!”
“My band is so predictable,” grinned Charles as he stretched out on the couch, patting his stomach. One hand groped out blindly at the coffee table beside him. He brought back his hand and stared sadly at the crumbs.
“You wanna read for a bit?” asked Raziel.
“Naw, you’re doing OK. You got any more of those steak sandwiches?” he said, sighing and greedily licking the crust crumbs from his fingers.
“If you keep eating our steak sandwiches you won’t have any room left for pie.”
“Oh, it’s no problem! Pickles has this great stuff-“
“I’ve heard about Pickles’ great stuff,” said Raziel. “I don’t think Wotan want’s you-“
“Up in my damned tree!” said Wotan, who had just stormed into the room. “Don’t believe it! It’s the damnedest thing!”
“What is, sweetie?” asked Raziel.
“Sariel! You need to see this yourself!” said Wotan. “Come along.” Charles looked at Raziel, who shrugged, and the two angels – Charles lifting himself carefully from the couch – proceeded out after the Norse god.
A small crowd had gathered below one of the larger trees near the yard. Ganesh, as well as three small children, two very large wolves, and a rather tremendously huge, drooling demon were looking up. Looking down from a branch high above was a white tiger.
And a small wolf pup. Who was yipping and wagging his small, stumpy tail.
“Huh. Well, I guess you’re not the only one in the family to get yourself stranded up a tree, Sariel,” laughed Raziel.
“How the hell did Murgatroyd get up there, Boon?” asked Charles.
“Muggatoad id da twee, Daddy!” Elias told him rather unhelpfully.
Ganesh was speaking with the Siberian tiger in a very weird language which sounded like a long string of grunts and growls.
“What’s going on?” asked Charles.
“Well, it’s rather an interesting story, actually,” said Ganesh.
“You wanna share?” asked Charles, who was still staring up at the wolf pup yipping in the tree.
“It appears that Bagheera doesn’t care for the, er, sloppy greetings from the twins’ pet demon-“
“Owwibah!” yelled Liam and Abby.
“Er, yes, Oliver. So he tends to escape up in a branch. Only this time, as Murgatroyd was visiting as well, Bagheera says he turned around to see our wolf had scrambled up after him.”
“Murgatroyd climbed the tree?” Charles asked Elias.
“Uh-huh!” said the boy. “Muggatoad cwimb wif da kiddy!”
“What the hell was he thinking?” asked Charles, who fully realized he was asking this question in regard to a dog. He often asked such questions of a metal band, to equal profit.
Ganesh exchanged more grunts and growls with the big cat, and then said, “Well, Bagheera is unable to fully communicate with Murgatroyd, due to the fact that the tiger does not speak Wolf, but he believes our pup is under the misconception that he is part cat.”
“Our wolf. Thinks he’s a tiger,” said Charles.
“That makes sense,” said Raziel.
“Why does that make sense?” asked Charles.
“Well, Murgatroyd is a smart little guy. Your Yard Wolves are sort of grumpy, and our two are a bit light on the … you know,” she said, pointing to her head and lowering her voice.
“My wolves are perfectly fine!” averred Wotan.
“They only speak Swedish. I mean, come on,” sighed Raziel.
“Boon, why don’t you go get him down, and then maybe we can go in and get some lunch,” proposed Charles.
“Uh-huh Daddy!” said Elias. Charles helped him pull off his coat, and then the boy True Formed and flew upwards.
“You’re hungry again?” asked Raziel.
“I just had a little snack,” said Charles, who honestly was hungry again. “Reading is hungry work.”
“But you weren’t reading! You were just listening!” protested Raziel.
“Listening to you is even harder work,” said Charles.
“That’s a splendid idea!” said Wotan. “You two can read us a chapter over lunch. Sing for your supper!” he laughed, just as Elias landed with Murgatroyd in his arms. Oliver waddled over to greet the safely landed pair with what was evidently the traditional Bearcat demon greet, a great drooly lick.
“Baaaaap!” said Elias, running over, still dripping, to Ganesh, who cringed.
“Er, should you take this one, dear?” Ganesh asked Charles.
“He's clearly asking for you,” laughed Charles.
“But, Sariel! This is a 451 thread count!” said Ganesh, holding out his suit jacket. He nevertheless made a face and picked up his gooey son. “Do you have anything that gets this, er, substance out of your fabrics, Lady Raziel?”
“NOTHING gets out bearcat drool,” said Raziel. “The twins know not to come near me when they're playing with Oliver,” she laughed.
“And we need to teach this one a thing or two. You are a wolf, Murgatroyd!” said Wotan, demonstrating with a howl. The small wolf replied with another, quite more high-pitched howl. The twins and Elias joined in, as did Geri and Freki, and even Oliver, who sounded a bit more like a cat being drowned than a howl.
“Does Wotan have to do that?” asked Charles, covering his sensitive angel ears at the racket.
“Yeah, actually he does,” laughed Raziel.
“All right, here we all are,” said Charles, indicating the March Skwisgaar, the Mad Ganesh, Nathan Knight, Caterpickles and the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“I am the Red Queen,” said the gracious Red Queen graciously.
“We're here for the poker party,” said Charles,
Yes. Welcome to my poker party,” said the lovely and fashionably dressed Red Queen, who was wearing Stella with some lovely McQueen pumps.
“Uh, yeah, anyway,” said Charles, who was not terribly interested in Raziel's fucking outfit.
“Oh, I'm not Raziel,” said the Red Queen. “She's shorter, and has slightly different taste in shoes. But she's still cute.”
“Yeah, I wasn't really wondering about that either,” said Charles. “Have you seen Toki?”
“Oh, Toki is very cute,” agreed the Red Queen, who was very cute herself.
“He's got my watch,” said Charles impatiently, as he had other things to do than listen to Raziel babble about cute things.
“I told you, I'm not Raziel,” said the Red Queen, her dark hair lustrous and shining.
“Whatever,” said Charles, who had other things to do than listen to the Red Queen babble about her hair.
“What kind of watch was it?” asked the stunning Red Queen, who knew that Sariel had icky taste in accessories.
“It's just a digital watch I bought for Boon,” said Charles, who was had actually always hated the fucking name Sariel.
“Then why don't you just get a new watch?” asked the Red Queen, who thought Sariel was a lovely name that very well suited his pretty silver hair.
“Because this is important,” said Charles. “And for the last time I DO NOT HAVE LONG HAIR!”
“WILL YOU TWO CEASE BICKERING?” shouted Ganesh. He sat back in his chair and glowered. He was dressed in a white terrycloth bathrobe, his hair still wet from the shower, and he looked a bit irritable.
“What?” said Raziel, looking up from the book.
”Still pissy about getting demon drool on the suit,” Charles whispered to her in High Angelic.
“I heard that,” said Ganesh in rather good High Angelic, his eyes narrowing, and causing Charles and Raziel to look at one another in surprise. Ganesh leaned forward and extended a hand. “Here. Why don't I read the next chapter?”
“YOU DON'T READ ANGELIC!' chorused the angels.
“Is that really a requirement?” laughed Wotan, who was sitting with a twin or two playing on his lap.
Raziel reluctantly handed over the book to Ganesh, who sat back and took out a pair of reading glasses. “Now to begin! And so, they all proceeded to the Queen's engagement party....”
“Poker party!” said Raziel.
“Ah, no, for both of you have been misreading this!” said Ganesh.
“Huh. Poker, engagement. I guess it's an easy mistake to make,” agreed Raziel.
“Wait, who's she engaged to?” asked Charles.
“Welcome to my engagement party!” said the Red Queen, who was wearing a very lovely Vera Wang number
“Hey, where is the Red Wotan King dude?” asked Nathan Knight, who had just toppled off his horse again.
“I don't know what you're talking about!” said the Red Queen.
“Uh, don't you usually need a groom for an engagement, Raziel?” asked Sariel, whose hair was very short and neatly styled.
“I'm not Raziel,” explained the Red Queen. “I'm the Red Queen. I'm taller, and have slightly different taste in shoes.”
“All right, all right.”
“But, I'm gonna marry THAT GUY!” she said pointing upwards to a spherical figure balanced rather precariously up on a high wall.
“You ams marries da Humpity Dumpster guys?” asked the March Skwisgaar, playing the funeral march on his new guitar.
“Yep,” said the Red Queen.
“But that'sch not the perschon you're schupposhed to marry!” protested the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“Oh, you never have an engagement party with the person you're supposed to marry,” said the Not Terribly Mad Ganesh. “Haven't you seen our films before?”
“I thought this was a work of Victorian children's literature, not a Bollywood musical?” said Sariel.
“We are mixing genres. A bit,” admitted Ganesh. “Especially with the pervasive 90s era musical references.”
“I didn't really want to marry an egg,” admitted the Red Queen. “I was looking for something a bit closer to my species. But he promised to explain the Jabberwock poem to us if I married him!”
“Couldn't you just buy the Cliff Notes?” asked Sariel.
“I t'ink marryin' an egg is a great idea, doods,” said the Caterpickles.
“Why is that?” asked Charles.
“It's so round. An' blank! You could stare at him fer hours!” said CaterPickles, who indeed stared at the egg shining in the sun.
“So as is traditional, I must sing a song about my pain!” announced Raziel, who had already changed costume (to a lovely sari) and begun to dance.
Load up on rum and bring some dudes
It's fun to party and be rude
I'm really bored about my groom
Oh no I think he brings our doom....
So low so low so low how low?
Below below below it blows
In the abyss, it's more dangerous
We need fights to entertain us
Yes it's stupid and outrageous
Let's go through the thesaurus
Borneo
An Oreo
Hidee-ho
And a yo-yo
Yay
Skwisgaar had begun to play along, although perhaps a bit faster than the song warranted, causing a rather animated moshing.
“Ganesh, can't you stop that racket?” asked Sariel. “She makes Yoko Ono sound melodious!”
“I will see what I can do,” said Ganesh, joining in the dance to sing to the Red Queen, who was not Raziel.
Come, as you are, in couture
In McQueen finery
A diva, my Sheeba, as a fashionista
Take you time getting dressed
Designer stuff is hard to figure out
Take a rest with Chanel, with a Gaultier...
Gaultier
“Hey, Charles, that PINATA? It doesn't have any CANDY inside, just a bunch of goop....”
Sariel took his eyes off Ganesh and Raziel dancing for a moment to face the Nathan Knight, who had what looked like eggshell in his hair.
“Nathan, you guys didn't....” said Sariel, now turning to glance in horror at the high wall. And at the foot of the wall: one fiance, over easy. “You did. Oh, shit. RAZIEL!”
“What? Can't you see I'm dancing?” asked the Red Queen.
“Your finace is scrambled!” said Sariel
“Oh, shit. What the hell happened?” asked the Red Queen.
“Uh. He fell,” said Nathan, awkwardly holding a baseball bat behind his back.
“Well, gotta call Red King Wotan then,” said the Red Queen, hitting her speed dial. “Hey, hon! Yeah, it happened again!”
“What does she mean, again?” asked Sariel.
“Bring all your horses and all your men! Hey, sure, we got canapés, and the Mad Ganesh is fixing martinis.”
“I ams lates!” squealed the White Toki Rabbit, who had just hopped up. “I ams sorries, Queen Raz, but I ams has da troubles waksing up in da mornings.” He pointed to the large, colorful plastic watch he wore on one paw. “But luckisily, da alarms ams gone off!”
“That's OK, Toki,” said the Red Queen. “We were just wondering what to do with a squashed fiancé.”
“Spanish omelette?” proposed Sariel, who was hungry again.
“Hey, what's that?” said the Red Queen.
The ground was indeed shaking with what seemed the sound of mighty footsteps.
“Is is the JABBERWOCK?” asked Nathan, holding up his Vorpal sword. “Because I don’t like that guy.”
But it was not the Jabberwock. Instead it was the terrible tattooed twin giants, Tweedle-Gog and Tweedle-Magog. They loomed over the Queen’s engagement party like the two incredibly rude party crashers they were, snarling and throwing horns in what they hoped was a really cool looking pose, but was actually quite 90s.
“What do you guys think you’re doing here?” demanded the Red Queen. “This party is strictly invitation only!”
“We heard you invited all the king’s horses!” argued Tweedle-Gog.
“And all the king’s men!” seconded Tweedle-Magog.
“Yeah, but that’s just because Dethklok broke my fiance,” said the Red Queen.
“It was AN ACCIDENT!” said Nathan.
“Dethklok?” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Dethklok!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Dat ams our names, don’t wears it out,” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“We have words with you,” said Tweedle-Gog, suddenly holding out an object. It seemed to be a thin strip of paper topped by a red tassel.
“Oh no!” said Ganesh.
“What is it?” asked Sariel.
“They have a book mark!” said the Red Queen.
“And we’re going to use it!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Well, at least that is better than bending the corner of a page,” reasoned Ganesh.
“I do that sometimes,” admitted Sariel.
“Everybody duck!” said the Red Queen, throwing herself to the ground.
“Exschusche me, I am not a duck, I am a turtle,” protested the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“You ams not reallies da toitles,” the Toki Rabbit told him. “You ams da Mocks Toitles.”
“Pffft. Spoken like da bunnies,” sniffed Skwisgaar.
“What ams you knows, Skwisgaars? You ams da rabbits too!”
“Ams not da rabbits! Ams da hares!”
“What ams da differences?” asked Toki.
“Will you guys SHUT THE FUCK UP?” asked Nathan.
“Actually, dat’s an interestin’ question regardin’ bioluhgy an’ stuff!” said the CaterPickles.
But as Dethklok continued to quibble, there was suddenly a great turning of pages, and as most of the sensible party guests hid under the nearest paragraph or clung desperately to clauses, the band got swept away like a block quote, to parts unknown.
“Ha-HA!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“HA-ha!” added Tweedle-Magog.
“We now have your band!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Contrariwise, if you want them back alive, you will come with us too, Sariel!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Don’t do it, Sariel!” urged the Red Queen, who was hiding behind a dangling participle. “I don’t trust these guys, and they have terrible taste in shoes!” she said, pointing to their footwear.
“No problem,” said Sariel, leaping to his feet. “OK, giant tattoo dudes, take me to my band.”
“Tie him up first, I don’t trust him,” said Tweedle-Gog, in an odd statement, as he was talking to his brother, who was attached to the same body. Tweedle-Magog nevertheless pulled out a shiny length of chain, which he used to lasso Sariel.
“Silver chains for a silver angel. You won’t break these!” taunted Tweedle-Magog.
“I think you have me confused with a vampire,” said Sariel. “But anyway….”
“Isn’t that a werewolf rather than a vampire?” asked Ganesh.
“Maybe. Can we just move this story along?”
“But we want to sing a song!” protested Tweedle-Gog.
“Contrariwise, she got to sing a song, and she can’t even sing!” noted Tweedle-Magog pointing jealously at the Red Queen.
“Oh, gods,” groaned, Sariel, who was really wishing for a fast forward button.
“How about this, we will add your song to the director’s cut!” said Ganesh. “And then it will be exclusive to the Blu Ray!”
“Oh, exclusive. That sounds cool,” said Tweedle-Gog, who liked excluding people.
“Contrariwise, excluding people makes everything more fun,” added Tweedle-Magog. “Now, come along!”
With a ruffling of yellowy pages, they transported Sariel to a very cold, familiar part of the Tulgey Woods, where the bare trees appeared to tremble in fear. Sariel heard the familiar sound of his band snoring contentedly in a snow bank.
“We have you now, Sariel!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Tell us what we want, or your dumb and uncool band dies of hypothermia!” demanded Tweedle-Magog.
“Yeah, yeah, I already read this part. Hey, does anybody have a cigarette?” asked Sariel.
“You’re skipping ahead?” asked Tweedle-Gog.
“I usually read the poems to Boon until he falls asleep. So,” continued Sariel, straining against his chains. “I would suggest you cooperate. If you wanna stay on my good side.”
“What do you mean, grubby little angel?” asked Tweedle-Magog.
“You guys are fucking with my bread and butter,” said Sariel, inclining his head towards Dethklok. “Trust me, that is never a good idea.”
“You want to see us fuck around?” warned Tweedle-Gog.
“Not particularly,” said Sariel.
“See what you think when we summon … The Jabberwock!” said Tweedle-Magog.
As before, the sky darkened and the wind howled. And there was the sound of terrible, crashing footsteps, growing nearer, ever nearer.
It emerged from the woods, snorting fire and howling terribly, and loomed, drooling, over the sleeping band.
Suddenly, a terrible sound rang out.
It was White Toki Rabbit’s watch. “Oh, alarms ams gone off,” he yawned. He looked up with pink rabbit eyes to the horrible Jabberwock standing over him, snapping its biting jaws.
“Oh, da Jabberswocks,” he said, yawning again and turning off his alarm. He scratched his head with a paw. He stared, as if in puzzlement. One rabbit ear went up. And then the other. And then suddenly he leapt up in terror. “Holies shits, da Jabberwocks!” he shrieked. “Ams heeeelps!”
“Toki, what are you-“ asked Nathan. But then he was up, along with the rest of the others. “Aw, fuck.”
“Nathan!” yelled Sariel. There was a slight clanking sound when, as if by magic, Sariel’s chains suddenly unlocked and dropped to the floor. Sariel reached out as if grabbing the air, and all of a sudden, there was a sword in his hand. “Vorpal sword!” he yelled, tossing it to Nathan.
“Oh, Vorpal sword!” agreed Nathan, catching it by the handle. “Vorpal sword,” he muttered. “Uhhhhh….”
“Snicker-snack, Nathan!” said Sariel, making a slicing motion. “The Jabberwock!”
“Oh, yeah! I meant to do that,” said Nathan, who turned and then very handily beheaded the looming beast.
“Wait, what have you done to our pet?” wailed Tweedle-Gog, beholding the steaming corpse.
The sky had brightened as the sun came out from behind a cloud. And a very strange thing happened: the bare trees began to leaf.
“Time to make our exit, brother?” asked Tweedle-Gog. “This is not how this story is supposed to end.”
“Exit, stage right,” agreed Tweedle-Magog. But as the giants tried to escape, suddenly the trees swayed over in either direction, trapping them. They turned and ran another way, but the same thing happened again.
“Skwisgaar,” shouted Sariel, watching the twin giants once again run into the trees. “Play your guitar.”
Skwisgaar happily obliged with a great, screaming riff.
“Aiiiiii!” squealed Tweedle-Gog.
“That’s TOO METAL!” screeched his brother.
The terrible two-headed giant fell to his knees from Skwisgaar’s awesome metal riff.
“I knew it,” said Sariel, crossing his arms and nodding knowingly. “Posers.”
The Tweedles suddenly let out another shriek and fell to the ground. “Ow, my heads!”
The not terribly Mad Ganesh was standing nearby with a cricket bat.
“OK, so maybe you do know how to use that thing,” admitted Sariel.
“I am sorry we are late,” said Ganesh, waving the cricket bat. “But the Red Queen needed to change her outfit. And then we had to peek a few pages ahead.”
“What for?” asked Sariel.
“Well, to see if we would still be fashionable, of course!”
The Red Queen was now standing on the giant’s chest, holding a very big sword. “OK, tell me, which is your LEAST FAVORITE HEAD?”
“He is,” the both chorused, pointing to the other.
“Red Queen! Let’s get these losers down to size first,” said Sariel. “CaterPickles, do you have any of your magic mushrooms left?”
“Do I have mushrooms doooooood?” grinned CaterPickles.
“Yes, do you have magic mushrooms?”
“Do I have magic mushrooms?” said CaterPickles.
“Well, do you?” asked Sariel.
“Huh. Akshually, dat’s a gud question!” said CaterPickles. He used several arms to search through several pockets in his robes, discarding a hookah, bags of brightly colored pills, bags of weed, more bags of multicolored powders, blunts, and a Grateful Dead Zippo. “Ah, here we go,” he finally said, extracting a mushroom. He broke off a chunk and held it next to Tweedle-Gog.
“The side that makes ‘em smaller!” Sariel told him.
“Oh, yeh, I was gonna do dat,” laughted, CaterPickles, tossing aside the bit of mushroom and breaking off another. “Now, open wide,” he told the giant, who obeyed. “Whoa, yer breat’ dood!” he said, waving a couple hands at his face.
“You try finding dental floss in this size!” grumbled Tweedle-Gog.
“Yeh, dat’s troo,” agreed CaterPickles, holding his nose, and throwing a bit of mushroom into the giant’s mouth. There was a pause, and then suddenly, Tweedle-Gog’s head – but only Tweedle-Gog’s head – shrunk down to tiny size.
“Heeeeeey!” squealed Tweedle-Gog, in a really funny teeny-tiny high-pitched voice.
“Uh. I guess you need to give some to the other head too?” asked Sariel.
“I dunno, dood, dis is kinda cool too!”
“Pickles!”
CaterPickles shrugged and popped another mushroom in Tweedle-Magog’s mouth. The giant shrank down to tiny size. In fact, he could now fit in the Red Queen’s hand.
“Hey, this is actually pretty cute!” said the Red Queen regarding the tiny giant in her well-manicured hand. “Though not as cute as me.”
“Now, I just want some information, Tweedles,” said Sariel.
“We’re not gonna tell you anything!” squealed the teensy Tweedles, who really sounded like a 33 1/3 LP sped up to 45 rpm, or maybe like a Chipmunks album.
“You can torture us!”
“We don’t care!”
“You can even make us listen to her sing again!” they trilled, pointing up to the Red Queen.
“Everyone’s a critic,” said the Red Queen.
“No, you’re not gonna tell me,” said Sariel. You’re gonna tell the Turtle!” And so saying, he picked up the Tweedles by their tiny collar and deposited them in the hand of the gloomy Mock Ninja Turtle.
“We’re not gonna talk to you either. Nyeah!” said the Tweedles, sticking out tiny tongues.
“Isch it becausche I’m not a real Ninja Turtle,” said the Mock Ninja Turtle, beginning to weep.
“Hey! Cut out the waterworks!” squealed the Tweedles.
“You're gonna drown us!”
“Or wash off the tattoos.”
“Whoa. Temporary tatts?” asked Nathan. “Those guys really sucked.”
“OK, Tweedles,” said Sariel, once again picking the now very damp ex-giant up by the collar. “We've obviously found your Dreamtime avatars, but we've been unable to locate you in the real world. Where they they go, after they left the Abyss?”
“Where do you think we went, shorty?” squealed tiny Tweedle-Gog.
“Look who's talking,” said Sariel.
“Look right under your nose, smarty angel!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“We're in the industry, of course!”
“We're much too cool to get a real job!”
“Oh no!” said Sariel, suddenly realizing the truth.
“What?” said Raziel.
“They're A&R men!” said Sariel. “And unless I miss my guess....”
“Inside Crystal Mountain-” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Evil takes its form,” squealed Tweedle-Magog.
“Raziel!” said Charles, who had just leapt up from the couch.
“Got it!” she said. “Ganesh?”
Ganesh was on his feet. He flipped the book to Charles. “I'm going to change into something more appropriate,” he said, striding out of the room.
“Oh, I'd recommend Armani for this!” said Raziel, tottering after him.
“Da stowwy?” asked Elias, who really had been listening to all of this, as there were bunnies and monsters, and that constituted a pretty good story.
“Yeah, I guess there's another little bit,” said Charles, grabbing both his son and the book. “We need an ending, don't we?”
“Yeah, endin!” agreed Elias.
“Thanks for the help with the chains, Anna!” said Charles. The ghost girl had just appeared beside him, and she flipped him a golden, guitar-shaped key.
“No problem! This dreamtime stuff is cool!” Anna told him.
“And thanks for putting up all those handbills.”
“I love postering. Did they work?”
“Like a charm.”
“Cool! Are you coming back to Mordhaus now?” she asked.
“If you’ll just wait one moment,” said Charles. “Guys,” he told the forest, holding up his axe, “Thanks for the help. I need another favor. A big one.”
“We're here to see Mr. Cornickleson. We do not have an appointment,” said Ganesh as he and Raziel strode into the receptionist's office.
“Nobody sees Mr. Cornicklson without an appointment,” scolded the Bluetoothed receptionist. “You need to HEY IS THAT A SWORD!”
“Yeah, I coordinated it with my outfit!' agreed Raziel, who was standing on the receptionist's desk and did indeed have a sword pointed at her neck.
Ganesh pushed through to Cornickleson's office and Raziel leapt off the desk to follow him.
“Mr. Cornickleson,” said Ganesh.
“Who are you?” grumbled the crusty executive. “Oh. Fuck!”
“You must remember me? The girl with the silver rings?” grinned Raziel.
“Now, Duke Berith,” said Ganesh, as the executive had morphed into his demon Form under the influence of Raziel's rings, which in turn caused the intern who had been giving Cornickleson/Berith a blow job under his desk to scream and run away.
“What do you want?” demanded Berith. “That guy gives the best head in Hollywood.”
“Gog. And Magog,” said Ganesh.
Berith zipped up his pants sunk back down into his seat. “Those boys? Yeah, they're completely useless. So I had them doing A&R.”
“Where are they now?” asked Raziel.
“Probably what they're always doing: sitting in their office, getting high.”
Raziel and Ganesh looked at each other. “If they were not of any use, whyever did you give them a job?” inquired Ganesh.
“They had great connections! They used to work for Lucifer himself!”
“Berith,” said Ganesh, “they were banished by the Creator to the Abyss. One of Lucifer's minions was set to guard them.”
“Oh, so padding the old resume a bit,” chuckled Berith.
“Which way?” asked Raziel. Berith inclined his horned head, and the two set off down the hall.
“They have two different offices, huh?” said Raziel, looking at the nameplates facing each other across the hallway. “How do they work that?”
Ganesh looked back and forth and frowned. “Perhaps they have separate Forms?” He sighed. “I suppose we should split up and do each room at the same time.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Raziel.
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Title: Rabbit Redux (Mythklok Chapter 93)
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A fairy tale about rascally rabbits.
Warnings: Children's literature.
Notes: After jump
<lj-cut text="Rabbit Redux">
<i>Mythklok is forever.
So last week: We had dinner with a stoned angel, and then everybody read a story which ended up getting a bit too real.</i>
Charles was sitting at his desk late one night doing one of his favorite things: reading the profit and loss reports for the third quarter.
Suddenly, there was a scuffling: a small animal of some kind had scurried over his desk. He watched, smiling thinly as it hopped, fast and furry, toward the door, huffing, “I ams late! I ams late…”
Only to be confronted by three very small, very quick little angels, who were waiting just outside the door. Charles sat back as the sound of giggles erupted from the waiting room. And then the little angels fluttered back into the room, one of them holding the creature by its ears.
“Da wabbid, Unky Sar!” said Liam proudly.
“Ams lets me go!” shrieked the rabbit. “I ams lates! For dat dates! Wit’ da ladypersons!”
“Yes. That’s very good, Liam,” said Charles. “Your dad would be proud. Now, just sit him down on my desk. That’s good.”
Liam plonked the furry critter right down on its cotton tail in the center of Charles’ desk and then glided down to stand next to his raven-haired sister, Abby, who was scowling up. Meanwhile, Elias scrambled into his father’s lap to get a good view.
“I ams lates!” screamed the White Toki Rabbit again.
“Yes, I think we’ve established that. Let me introduce you to some people, rabbit. This is my son, and these are his cousins, Liam and Abby. Their father is a hunter. The greatest hunter on earth, some say.” Charles leaned forward, steepling his hands. “He tracks down little creatures like you and, you know….”
“Ulp,” said the rabbit, who knew. “Ams you goings to skins me and cooks me in da stews?”
“All I wanna do is talk for a little while. I think you have something of mine, don’t you?”
The little Toki Rabbit shyly pulled out Charles’ Vacheron Constantin from his waistcoat pocket.
“Now, is that <i>your</i> Vacheron Constantin, White Rabbit?”
“Bitcher-on … whats?” asked Toki Rabbit, shaking the watch, his pink rabbit eyes looking confused. “I ams wants da watches, because I ams always lates.”
“If you’ll give me that back, I have something special to give you in return,” said Charles. “Boon?” Elias reached into his hoodie pocket and extracted a watch, which he handed to his father. “You see this?” asked Charles.
“Ooooo, shinies!” said the White Toki Rabbit, as it was a very large and shiny watch, with lots of buttons and things.
“And you see, it has the numbers right on it, so you don’t even have to tell time?” said Charles, holding the face out so the Rabbit could see.
The Rabbit wrinkled his whiskers at the fabulous digital watch. “I ams has trouble telling da times sometimes,” he whispered. “Dat gets me in da troubles.”
“Well, you’ll never get into trouble now. So is it a deal?”
The Toki Rabbit nodded, his ears bobbling up and down. He reached a fluffy white paw out for it, but Charles suddenly drew it back.
“Just one thing!” said Charles. “Now, this is my own son’s very special watch I’m giving you!”
“Uh-huh! Speshul watch!” agreed Elias with utmost sincerity.
“You must promise not to lose it! You must keep it with you at all times. Is that understood?” asked Charles.
“Can I ams has da watches now?” asked Toki Rabbit, who was very impatient.
“Because if you lose it, Toki, I’m gonna have to send these two after you,” he said, indicating the twins. Toki Rabbit stopped grasping at the awesome cool digital watch to cast his pink eyes around at Liam and Abby, who were standing below the desk. Two pairs of ice blue eyes – hunter's eyes – glared up at him.
“Dems bat kids t’ings, dey ams scaries!” said Toki, noting the fluttering of little wings.
“Yeah, well, if you lose this watch, I’m gonna have to send ‘em after you. Then, well, I can’t help it if there’s a nice conejo or hasenpfeffer on the menu at the ‘Haus….”
“I ams takes da cares of it!” squealed the Rabbit.
“OK. Trade?” said Charles. Toki wrinkled his whiskers, but then tentatively held out the Vacheron Constantin as Charles held out the shiny new watch. In an instant they each snatched the other’s watch, Toki hugging the new watch to him with both paws.
“OK. All right. You’re now free to go. But remember!” Charles said, pointing downwards.
Toki rabbit peered over the desk, to where Abby now suddenly had a little sword, and her redheaded brother a small slingshot.
Toki gulped a rabbit gulp and, after carefully placing the watch in his vest pocket, hopped off the side of the desk and then out of the office with all the speed he could muster.
“Bye-bye!” called Elias. “Da bunny, daddy!” he told his father.
Charles said nothing, but just nodded silently as he carefully fastened the Vacheron Constantin around Elias’s wrist.
“What, Raziel?”
“You’re being soooo meeeeeean to the Toki Bunny!” whined Raziel, who was lying on the floor next to Charles, head propped up on her forearms, kicking her legs.
“Raziel,” said Charles. He sat cross-legged next to Raziel, in front of one of Valhalla’s warm and toasty fireplaces, a very old Angelic text open in his lap. “Now, we talked about this!”
“But you scared him!”
“We talked about this,” Charles sighed. “This is important.”
“You need to be less mean!”
“Raziel! You chop guys heads off!”
“Yeah, but they deserved it. Can I read a little bit now?” she asked, grasping out for the book.
“All right, all right. But stick to the plan, right?” said Charles, handing over the book and reaching for his whiskey glass.
“Of course I will,” said Raziel, scooting back against the great stone hearth and scratching the ears of a large wolf who had just settled beside her. “Don’t you trust me?”
“No,” said Charles, smiling over his glass of amber liquor. “Of course not.”
Raziel glared at him, but then grinned. “Yeah, well, OK.”
Sariel strolled contentedly down the dim corridors in one of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-basements of Mordhaus. He carried on his back a backpack. He may have even whistled a happy tune. But, I doubt it.
Anyway, he soon came to a crack in the wall. “Is the the one?” he asked his small companion.
“Uh-huh, Unky Sar!” said Liam, pointing. “Da wabbit!”
“The wascally wabbit. Cool. Good tracking. So, you go ahead back to the kitchen and have ice cream, and I’ll be right up.”
Liam’s little blue eyes lit up at the prospect of ice cream (and, it goes without saying, pie), and scampered back up towards Mordhau's welcoming kitchen.
Sariel set down his heavy backpack. He took out a stud finding device and ran it along the wall just outside the crack. When he had located the support beam, he grabbed some pitons and a hammer and pounded them into the wall. He took out a rather long rope and tied one end to the pitons. Then he secured the other end to his belt. He stood at the brink of the crack, looking down.
“Are we ready?” he asked no one in particular, as the hallway seemed quite empty after Liam had scampered off.
Sariel nodded. And then he climbed down, pausing only once in his descent. The walls were decorated with stuff like framed gold records and such. About halfway down, there was a rather large glass-fronted box fitted to the walls of the deep hole. Written on the glass were the words, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY BREAK GLASS.
“Ams it da cockstails hours yet?” asked the March Skwisgaar, who was slumped over the bar.
“It is perpetually cocktail hour here, dear chap,” sighed Ganesh the Not Terribly Mad Haberdasher. “Oh, look there! A wet angel!”
“Come on guys, we’re late for the poker party,” said Sariel, who, without even a “How do you do,” had started rooting in back of Ganesh’s bar.
“You are rather rude, rooting in back of my bar without even a ‘How do you do,’” commented Ganesh, who was quite astute.
Sariel pulled out an axe, grinning a big grin. “We’ve gotta get there soon. She chops off head, you know,” he reminded them, waggling the axe for emphasis.
“Well, that is a consideration,” agreed Ganesh, who rather liked his current head, although he had been known to change it for the whims of fashion.
“Here,” said Sariel. “I brought you something.” He took off something that was slung on his back and presented it to the March Skwisgaar, who tipped back his rabbit ears hat in wonder.
“Ams da new geetar?” asked Skwisgaar.
“You don’t wanna be playing a Grandpa’s guitar,” explained Sariel. “You want this one.”
Skwisgaar picked up the guitar, fingering it experimentally. Suddenly, he tore off a screaming riff, which ended up shattering several of Ganesh’s bar glasses through its sheer ferocity.
Ganesh and Sariel peeped up over the bar, which they had both dove behind. “Impressive!” said Ganesh.
“Where’s the JABBERWOCK!” hailed Nathan Knight, who was galloping up. When his horse abruptly stopped, Nathan kept going, and somersaulted impressively over the bar.
Sariel and Ganesh helped him to his feet.
“I’m hunting the WOCKERJABB! I mean…. Uhhhhh…..” said Nathan. “Look, I got one of the posters you guys put up,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his suit of armor and extracting a crumpled poster that read “JABBERWOCK HUNT TODAY ONLY THE MAD HABERDASHER’S BAR FEATURING THE MARCH SKWISGAAR.”
“Why ams only featursing me?” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“Yeah, you got it right, it’s just we gotta get to the Queen’s poker party first,” explained Sariel. “There will be plenty of Jabberwocks there.”
“Am I late for the classch?” sobbed the Mock Ninja Turtle, who had just hobbled up.
“The class?” asked Ganesh.
The Mock Ninja Turtle pulled out a tear-stained handbill which read, “LOW SELF ESTEEM? COME TO OUR SELF-ACTUALIZATION WORKSHOP, CHEZ GANESH AND SKWISGAAR.”
“Ganesh ams listed first again?” complained Skwisgaar.
“At least you are listed before the puppet show,” said Ganesh, pointing further down the handbill.
“Yeah, there will be classes offered. The Queen’s place,” said Sariel.
“The Red Queen? Doeschn’t sche threaten to schlice off your head if you croosch her?” asked the Turtle suspiciously.
“Well, that is one way to stave off low self esteem,” agreed Ganesh. “By the way, who has posted all these handbills? You know, Tweedle-Gog and Tweedle-Magog have anti-postering regulations.”
“Another reason why they’re assholes,” said Sariel. “And we’re waiting for one more,” he said, checking his watch. “Ah!”
“DOOOOOOOOOODS!” said the CaterPickles, who had just scrambled down from a tree branch.
“It ams da CatserPickle!” hailed Skwisgaar.
“What brings you here, friend?” asked Ganesh.
“Doods, I saw dis awesum handbill!” said CaterPickles, pulling out a sheet of paper with one of his many, many hands.
“This page is completely blank,” observed Ganesh, who had just pulled on a pair of reading glasses in order to double check.
“Yeh, dood. Ain’t it da greatest?” asked CaterPickles, snatching it back and putting it to his Cater-nose, inhaling deeply. “It’s nothin’ness! An’ everything-ness!”
“If I may inquire, if that handbill is completely blank, how did you know to come here?” asked Ganesh.
“No time for this!” urged Sariel. “We’ve all got to get to the next chapter, the Queen’s Poker Party.”
“I do not know if I approve of skipping around like this in books!” protested Ganesh.
“She’s breaking out the Cadenhead’s Old Raj,” whispered Sariel.
Ganesh’s dark eyes suddenly brightened at the prospect of very, very dry gin. He extracted his martini shaker from behind the bar. “Come along!” he urged, fixing his top hat. “We must not be late!”
“My band is so predictable,” grinned Charles as he stretched out on the couch, patting his stomach. One hand groped out blindly at the coffee table beside him. He brought back his hand and stared sadly at the crumbs.
“You wanna read for a bit?” asked Raziel.
“Naw, you’re doing OK. You got any more of those steak sandwiches?” he said, sighing and greedily licking the crust crumbs from his fingers.
“If you keep eating our steak sandwiches you won’t have any room left for pie.”
“Oh, it’s no problem! Pickles has this great stuff-“
“I’ve heard about Pickles’ great stuff,” said Raziel. “I don’t think Wotan want’s you-“
“Up in my damned tree!” said Wotan, who had just stormed into the room. “Don’t believe it! It’s the damnedest thing!”
“What is, sweetie?” asked Raziel.
“Sariel! You need to see this yourself!” said Wotan. “Come along.” Charles looked at Raziel, who shrugged, and the two angels – Charles lifting himself carefully from the couch – proceeded out after the Norse god.
A small crowd had gathered below one of the larger trees near the yard. Ganesh, as well as three small children, two very large wolves, and a rather tremendously huge, drooling demon were looking up. Looking down from a branch high above was a white tiger.
And a small wolf pup. Who was yipping and wagging his small, stumpy tail.
“Huh. Well, I guess you’re not the only one in the family to get yourself stranded up a tree, Sariel,” laughed Raziel.
“How the hell did Murgatroyd get up there, Boon?” asked Charles.
“Muggatoad id da twee, Daddy!” Elias told him rather unhelpfully.
Ganesh was speaking with the Siberian tiger in a very weird language which sounded like a long string of grunts and growls.
“What’s going on?” asked Charles.
“Well, it’s rather an interesting story, actually,” said Ganesh.
“You wanna share?” asked Charles, who was still staring up at the wolf pup yipping in the tree.
“It appears that Bagheera doesn’t care for the, er, sloppy greetings from the twins’ pet demon-“
“Owwibah!” yelled Liam and Abby.
“Er, yes, Oliver. So he tends to escape up in a branch. Only this time, as Murgatroyd was visiting as well, Bagheera says he turned around to see our wolf had scrambled up after him.”
“Murgatroyd climbed the tree?” Charles asked Elias.
“Uh-huh!” said the boy. “Muggatoad cwimb wif da kiddy!”
“What the hell was he thinking?” asked Charles, who fully realized he was asking this question in regard to a dog. He often asked such questions of a metal band, to equal profit.
Ganesh exchanged more grunts and growls with the big cat, and then said, “Well, Bagheera is unable to fully communicate with Murgatroyd, due to the fact that the tiger does not speak Wolf, but he believes our pup is under the misconception that he is part cat.”
“Our wolf. Thinks he’s a tiger,” said Charles.
“That makes sense,” said Raziel.
“Why does that make sense?” asked Charles.
“Well, Murgatroyd is a smart little guy. Your Yard Wolves are sort of grumpy, and our two are a bit light on the … you know,” she said, pointing to her head and lowering her voice.
“My wolves are perfectly fine!” averred Wotan.
“They only speak Swedish. I mean, come on,” sighed Raziel.
“Boon, why don’t you go get him down, and then maybe we can go in and get some lunch,” proposed Charles.
“Uh-huh Daddy!” said Elias. Charles helped him pull off his coat, and then the boy True Formed and flew upwards.
“You’re hungry again?” asked Raziel.
“I just had a little snack,” said Charles, who honestly was hungry again. “Reading is hungry work.”
“But you weren’t reading! You were just listening!” protested Raziel.
“Listening to you is even harder work,” said Charles.
“That’s a splendid idea!” said Wotan. “You two can read us a chapter over lunch. Sing for your supper!” he laughed, just as Elias landed with Murgatroyd in his arms. Oliver waddled over to greet the safely landed pair with what was evidently the traditional Bearcat demon greet, a great drooly lick.
“Baaaaap!” said Elias, running over, still dripping, to Ganesh, who cringed.
“Er, should you take this one, dear?” Ganesh asked Charles.
“He's clearly asking for you,” laughed Charles.
“But, Sariel! This is a 451 thread count!” said Ganesh, holding out his suit jacket. He nevertheless made a face and picked up his gooey son. “Do you have anything that gets this, er, substance out of your fabrics, Lady Raziel?”
“NOTHING gets out bearcat drool,” said Raziel. “The twins know not to come near me when they're playing with Oliver,” she laughed.
“And we need to teach this one a thing or two. You are a wolf, Murgatroyd!” said Wotan, demonstrating with a howl. The small wolf replied with another, quite more high-pitched howl. The twins and Elias joined in, as did Geri and Freki, and even Oliver, who sounded a bit more like a cat being drowned than a howl.
“Does Wotan have to do that?” asked Charles, covering his sensitive angel ears at the racket.
“Yeah, actually he does,” laughed Raziel.
“All right, here we all are,” said Charles, indicating the March Skwisgaar, the Mad Ganesh, Nathan Knight, Caterpickles and the Mock Ninja Turtle.
<i>“I am the Red Queen,” said the gracious Red Queen graciously.</i>
“We're here for the poker party,” said Charles,
<i>Yes. Welcome to my poker party,” said the lovely and fashionably dressed Red Queen, who was wearing Stella with some lovely McQueen pumps.</i>
“Uh, yeah, anyway,” said Charles, who was not terribly interested in Raziel's fucking outfit.
<i>“Oh, I'm not Raziel,” said the Red Queen. “She's shorter, and has slightly different taste in shoes. But she's still cute.”</i>
“Yeah, I wasn't really wondering about that either,” said Charles. “Have you seen Toki?”
<i>“Oh, Toki is very cute,” agreed the Red Queen, who was very cute herself.</i>
“He's got my watch,” said Charles impatiently, as he had other things to do than listen to Raziel babble about cute things.
<i>“I told you, I'm not Raziel,” said the Red Queen, her dark hair lustrous and shining.</i>
“Whatever,” said Charles, who had other things to do than listen to the Red Queen babble about her hair.
<i>“What kind of watch was it?” asked the stunning Red Queen, who knew that Sariel had icky taste in accessories.</i>
“It's just a digital watch I bought for Boon,” said Charles, who was had actually always hated the fucking name Sariel.
<i>“Then why don't you just get a new watch?” asked the Red Queen, who thought Sariel was a lovely name that very well suited his pretty silver hair.</i>
“Because this is important,” said Charles. “And for the last time I DO NOT HAVE LONG HAIR!”
“WILL YOU TWO CEASE BICKERING?” shouted Ganesh. He sat back in his chair and glowered. He was dressed in a white terrycloth bathrobe, his hair still wet from the shower, and he looked a bit irritable.
“What?” said Raziel, looking up from the book.
<i>”Still pissy about getting demon drool on the suit,”</i> Charles whispered to her in High Angelic.
<i>“I heard that,”</i> said Ganesh in rather good High Angelic, his eyes narrowing, and causing Charles and Raziel to look at one another in surprise. Ganesh leaned forward and extended a hand. “Here. Why don't I read the next chapter?”
“YOU DON'T READ ANGELIC!' chorused the angels.
“Is that really a requirement?” laughed Wotan, who was sitting with a twin or two playing on his lap.
Raziel reluctantly handed over the book to Ganesh, who sat back and took out a pair of reading glasses. “Now to begin! And so, they all proceeded to the Queen's engagement party....”
“Poker party!” said Raziel.
“Ah, no, for both of you have been misreading this!” said Ganesh.
“Huh. Poker, engagement. I guess it's an easy mistake to make,” agreed Raziel.
“Wait, who's she engaged to?” asked Charles.
“Welcome to my engagement party!” said the Red Queen, who was wearing a very lovely Vera Wang number
“Hey, where is the Red Wotan King dude?” asked Nathan Knight, who had just toppled off his horse again.
“I don't know what you're talking about!” said the Red Queen.
“Uh, don't you usually need a groom for an engagement, Raziel?” asked Sariel, whose hair was very short and neatly styled.
“I'm not Raziel,” explained the Red Queen. “I'm the Red Queen. I'm taller, and have slightly different taste in shoes.”
“All right, all right.”
“But, I'm gonna marry THAT GUY!” she said pointing upwards to a spherical figure balanced rather precariously up on a high wall.
“You ams marries da Humpity Dumpster guys?” asked the March Skwisgaar, playing the funeral march on his new guitar.
“Yep,” said the Red Queen.
“But that'sch not the perschon you're schupposhed to marry!” protested the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“Oh, you never have an engagement party with the person you're supposed to marry,” said the Not Terribly Mad Ganesh. “Haven't you seen our films before?”
“I thought this was a work of Victorian children's literature, not a Bollywood musical?” said Sariel.
“We are mixing genres. A bit,” admitted Ganesh. “Especially with the pervasive 90s era musical references.”
“I didn't really want to marry an egg,” admitted the Red Queen. “I was looking for something a bit closer to my species. But he promised to explain the Jabberwock poem to us if I married him!”
“Couldn't you just buy the Cliff Notes?” asked Sariel.
“I t'ink marryin' an egg is a great idea, doods,” said the Caterpickles.
“Why is that?” asked Charles.
“It's so round. An' blank! You could stare at him fer hours!” said CaterPickles, who indeed stared at the egg shining in the sun.
“So as is traditional, I must sing a song about my pain!” announced Raziel, who had already changed costume (to a lovely sari) and begun to dance.
<i>Load up on rum and bring some dudes
It's fun to party and be rude
I'm really bored about my groom
Oh no I think he brings our doom....
So low so low so low how low?
Below below below it blows
In the abyss, it's more dangerous
We need fights to entertain us
Yes it's stupid and outrageous
Let's go through the thesaurus
Borneo
An Oreo
Hidee-ho
And a yo-yo
Yay</i>
Skwisgaar had begun to play along, although perhaps a bit faster than the song warranted, causing a rather animated moshing.
“Ganesh, can't you stop that racket?” asked Sariel. “She makes Yoko Ono sound melodious!”
“I will see what I can do,” said Ganesh, joining in the dance to sing to the Red Queen, who was not Raziel.
<i>Come, as you are, in couture
In McQueen finery
A diva, my Sheeba, as a fashionista
Take you time getting dressed
Designer stuff is hard to figure out
Take a rest with Chanel, with a Gaultier...
Gaultier</i>
“Hey, Charles, that PINATA? It doesn't have any CANDY inside, just a bunch of goop....”
Sariel took his eyes off Ganesh and Raziel dancing for a moment to face the Nathan Knight, who had what looked like eggshell in his hair.
“Nathan, you guys didn't....” said Sariel, now turning to glance in horror at the high wall. And at the foot of the wall: one fiance, over easy. “You did. Oh, shit. RAZIEL!”
“What? Can't you see I'm dancing?” asked the Red Queen.
“Your finace is scrambled!” said Sariel
“Oh, shit. What the hell happened?” asked the Red Queen.
“Uh. He fell,” said Nathan, awkwardly holding a baseball bat behind his back.
“Well, gotta call Red King Wotan then,” said the Red Queen, hitting her speed dial. “Hey, hon! Yeah, it happened again!”
“What does she mean, again?” asked Sariel.
“Bring all your horses and all your men! Hey, sure, we got canapés, and the Mad Ganesh is fixing martinis.”
“I ams lates!” squealed the White Toki Rabbit, who had just hopped up. “I ams sorries, Queen Raz, but I ams has da troubles waksing up in da mornings.” He pointed to the large, colorful plastic watch he wore on one paw. “But luckisily, da alarms ams gone off!”
“That's OK, Toki,” said the Red Queen. “We were just wondering what to do with a squashed fiancé.”
“Spanish omelette?” proposed Sariel, who was hungry again.
“Hey, what's that?” said the Red Queen.
The ground was indeed shaking with what seemed the sound of mighty footsteps.
“Is is the JABBERWOCK?” asked Nathan, holding up his Vorpal sword. “Because I don’t like that guy.”
But it was not the Jabberwock. Instead it was the terrible tattooed twin giants, Tweedle-Gog and Tweedle-Magog. They loomed over the Queen’s engagement party like the two incredibly rude party crashers they were, snarling and throwing horns in what they hoped was a really cool looking pose, but was actually quite 90s.
“What do you guys think you’re doing here?” demanded the Red Queen. “This party is strictly invitation only!”
“We heard you invited all the king’s horses!” argued Tweedle-Gog.
“And all the king’s men!” seconded Tweedle-Magog.
“Yeah, but that’s just because Dethklok broke my fiance,” said the Red Queen.
“It was AN ACCIDENT!” said Nathan.
“Dethklok?” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Dethklok!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Dat ams our names, don’t wears it out,” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“We have words with you,” said Tweedle-Gog, suddenly holding out an object. It seemed to be a thin strip of paper topped by a red tassel.
“Oh no!” said Ganesh.
“What is it?” asked Sariel.
“They have a book mark!” said the Red Queen.
“And we’re going to use it!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Well, at least that is better than bending the corner of a page,” reasoned Ganesh.
“I do that sometimes,” admitted Sariel.
“Everybody duck!” said the Red Queen, throwing herself to the ground.
“Exschusche me, I am not a duck, I am a turtle,” protested the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“You ams not reallies da toitles,” the Toki Rabbit told him. “You ams da Mocks Toitles.”
“Pffft. Spoken like da bunnies,” sniffed Skwisgaar.
“What ams you knows, Skwisgaars? You ams da rabbits too!”
“Ams not da rabbits! Ams da hares!”
“What ams da differences?” asked Toki.
“Will you guys SHUT THE FUCK UP?” asked Nathan.
“Actually, dat’s an interestin’ question regardin’ bioluhgy an’ stuff!” said the CaterPickles.
But as Dethklok continued to quibble, there was suddenly a great turning of pages, and as most of the sensible party guests hid under the nearest paragraph or clung desperately to clauses, the band got swept away like a block quote, to parts unknown.
“Ha-HA!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“HA-ha!” added Tweedle-Magog.
“We now have your band!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Contrariwise, if you want them back alive, you will come with us too, Sariel!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Don’t do it, Sariel!” urged the Red Queen, who was hiding behind a dangling participle. “I don’t trust these guys, and they have terrible taste in shoes!” she said, pointing to their footwear.
“No problem,” said Sariel, leaping to his feet. “OK, giant tattoo dudes, take me to my band.”
“Tie him up first, I don’t trust him,” said Tweedle-Gog, in an odd statement, as he was talking to his brother, who was attached to the same body. Tweedle-Magog nevertheless pulled out a shiny length of chain, which he used to lasso Sariel.
“Silver chains for a silver angel. You won’t break these!” taunted Tweedle-Magog.
“I think you have me confused with a vampire,” said Sariel. “But anyway….”
“Isn’t that a werewolf rather than a vampire?” asked Ganesh.
“Maybe. Can we just move this story along?”
“But we want to sing a song!” protested Tweedle-Gog.
“Contrariwise, she got to sing a song, and she can’t even sing!” noted Tweedle-Magog pointing jealously at the Red Queen.
“Oh, gods,” groaned, Sariel, who was really wishing for a fast forward button.
“How about this, we will add your song to the director’s cut!” said Ganesh. “And then it will be exclusive to the Blu Ray!”
“Oh, exclusive. That sounds cool,” said Tweedle-Gog, who liked excluding people.
“Contrariwise, excluding people makes everything more fun,” added Tweedle-Magog. “Now, come along!”
With a ruffling of yellowy pages, they transported Sariel to a very cold, familiar part of the Tulgey Woods, where the bare trees appeared to tremble in fear. Sariel heard the familiar sound of his band snoring contentedly in a snow bank.
“We have you now, Sariel!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Tell us what we want, or your dumb and uncool band dies of hypothermia!” demanded Tweedle-Magog.
“Yeah, yeah, I already read this part. Hey, does anybody have a cigarette?” asked Sariel.
“You’re skipping ahead?” asked Tweedle-Gog.
“I usually read the poems to Boon until he falls asleep. So,” continued Sariel, straining against his chains. “I would suggest you cooperate. If you wanna stay on my good side.”
“What do you mean, grubby little angel?” asked Tweedle-Magog.
“You guys are fucking with my bread and butter,” said Sariel, inclining his head towards Dethklok. “Trust me, that is never a good idea.”
“You want to see us fuck around?” warned Tweedle-Gog.
“Not particularly,” said Sariel.
“See what you think when we summon … The Jabberwock!” said Tweedle-Magog.
As before, the sky darkened and the wind howled. And there was the sound of terrible, crashing footsteps, growing nearer, ever nearer.
It emerged from the woods, snorting fire and howling terribly, and loomed, drooling, over the sleeping band.
Suddenly, a terrible sound rang out.
It was White Toki Rabbit’s watch. “Oh, alarms ams gone off,” he yawned. He looked up with pink rabbit eyes to the horrible Jabberwock standing over him, snapping its biting jaws.
“Oh, da Jabberswocks,” he said, yawning again and turning off his alarm. He scratched his head with a paw. He stared, as if in puzzlement. One rabbit ear went up. And then the other. And then suddenly he leapt up in terror. “Holies shits, da Jabberwocks!” he shrieked. “Ams heeeelps!”
“Toki, what are you-“ asked Nathan. But then he was up, along with the rest of the others. “Aw, fuck.”
“Nathan!” yelled Sariel. There was a slight clanking sound when, as if by magic, Sariel’s chains suddenly unlocked and dropped to the floor. Sariel reached out as if grabbing the air, and all of a sudden, there was a sword in his hand. “Vorpal sword!” he yelled, tossing it to Nathan.
“Oh, Vorpal sword!” agreed Nathan, catching it by the handle. “Vorpal sword,” he muttered. “Uhhhhh….”
“Snicker-snack, Nathan!” said Sariel, making a slicing motion. “The Jabberwock!”
“Oh, yeah! I meant to do that,” said Nathan, who turned and then very handily beheaded the looming beast.
“Wait, what have you done to our pet?” wailed Tweedle-Gog, beholding the steaming corpse.
The sky had brightened as the sun came out from behind a cloud. And a very strange thing happened: the bare trees began to leaf.
“Time to make our exit, brother?” asked Tweedle-Gog. “This is not how this story is supposed to end.”
“Exit, stage right,” agreed Tweedle-Magog. But as the giants tried to escape, suddenly the trees swayed over in either direction, trapping them. They turned and ran another way, but the same thing happened again.
“Skwisgaar,” shouted Sariel, watching the twin giants once again run into the trees. “Play your guitar.”
Skwisgaar happily obliged with a great, screaming riff.
“Aiiiiii!” squealed Tweedle-Gog.
“That’s TOO METAL!” screeched his brother.
The terrible two-headed giant fell to his knees from Skwisgaar’s awesome metal riff.
“I knew it,” said Sariel, crossing his arms and nodding knowingly. “Posers.”
The Tweedles suddenly let out another shriek and fell to the ground. “Ow, my heads!”
The not terribly Mad Ganesh was standing nearby with a cricket bat.
“OK, so maybe you do know how to use that thing,” admitted Sariel.
“I am sorry we are late,” said Ganesh, waving the cricket bat. “But the Red Queen needed to change her outfit. And then we had to peek a few pages ahead.”
“What for?” asked Sariel.
“Well, to see if we would still be fashionable, of course!”
The Red Queen was now standing on the giant’s chest, holding a very big sword. “OK, tell me, which is your LEAST FAVORITE HEAD?”
“He is,” the both chorused, pointing to the other.
“Red Queen! Let’s get these losers down to size first,” said Sariel. “CaterPickles, do you have any of your magic mushrooms left?”
“Do I have mushrooms doooooood?” grinned CaterPickles.
“Yes, do you have magic mushrooms?”
“Do I have magic mushrooms?” said CaterPickles.
“Well, do you?” asked Sariel.
“Huh. Akshually, dat’s a gud question!” said CaterPickles. He used several arms to search through several pockets in his robes, discarding a hookah, bags of brightly colored pills, bags of weed, more bags of multicolored powders, blunts, and a Grateful Dead Zippo. “Ah, here we go,” he finally said, extracting a mushroom. He broke off a chunk and held it next to Tweedle-Gog.
“The side that makes ‘em smaller!” Sariel told him.
“Oh, yeh, I was gonna do dat,” laughted, CaterPickles, tossing aside the bit of mushroom and breaking off another. “Now, open wide,” he told the giant, who obeyed. “Whoa, yer breat’ dood!” he said, waving a couple hands at his face.
“You try finding dental floss in this size!” grumbled Tweedle-Gog.
“Yeh, dat’s troo,” agreed CaterPickles, holding his nose, and throwing a bit of mushroom into the giant’s mouth. There was a pause, and then suddenly, Tweedle-Gog’s head – but only Tweedle-Gog’s head – shrunk down to tiny size.
“Heeeeeey!” squealed Tweedle-Gog, in a really funny teeny-tiny high-pitched voice.
“Uh. I guess you need to give some to the other head too?” asked Sariel.
“I dunno, dood, dis is kinda cool too!”
“Pickles!”
CaterPickles shrugged and popped another mushroom in Tweedle-Magog’s mouth. The giant shrank down to tiny size. In fact, he could now fit in the Red Queen’s hand.
“Hey, this is actually pretty cute!” said the Red Queen regarding the tiny giant in her well-manicured hand. “Though not as cute as me.”
“Now, I just want some information, Tweedles,” said Sariel.
“We’re not gonna tell you anything!” squealed the teensy Tweedles, who really sounded like a 33 1/3 LP sped up to 45 rpm, or maybe like a Chipmunks album.
“You can torture us!”
“We don’t care!”
“You can even make us listen to her sing again!” they trilled, pointing up to the Red Queen.
“Everyone’s a critic,” said the Red Queen.
“No, you’re not gonna tell me,” said Sariel. You’re gonna tell the Turtle!” And so saying, he picked up the Tweedles by their tiny collar and deposited them in the hand of the gloomy Mock Ninja Turtle.
“We’re not gonna talk to you either. Nyeah!” said the Tweedles, sticking out tiny tongues.
“Isch it becausche I’m not a real Ninja Turtle,” said the Mock Ninja Turtle, beginning to weep.
“Hey! Cut out the waterworks!” squealed the Tweedles.
“You're gonna drown us!”
“Or wash off the tattoos.”
“Whoa. Temporary tatts?” asked Nathan. “Those guys really sucked.”
“OK, Tweedles,” said Sariel, once again picking the now very damp ex-giant up by the collar. “We've obviously found your Dreamtime avatars, but we've been unable to locate you in the real world. Where they they go, after they left the Abyss?”
“Where do you think we went, shorty?” squealed tiny Tweedle-Gog.
“Look who's talking,” said Sariel.
“Look right under your nose, smarty angel!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“We're in the industry, of course!”
“We're much too cool to get a real job!”
“Oh no!” said Sariel, suddenly realizing the truth.
“What?” said Raziel.
“They're A&R men!” said Sariel. “And unless I miss my guess....”
“Inside Crystal Mountain-” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Evil takes its form,” squealed Tweedle-Magog.
“Raziel!” said Charles, who had just leapt up from the couch.
“Got it!” she said. “Ganesh?”
Ganesh was on his feet. He flipped the book to Charles. “I'm going to change into something more appropriate,” he said, striding out of the room.
“Oh, I'd recommend Armani for this!” said Raziel, tottering after him.
“Da stowwy?” asked Elias, who really had been listening to all of this, as there were bunnies and monsters, and that constituted a pretty good story.
“Yeah, I guess there's another little bit,” said Charles, grabbing both his son and the book. “We need an ending, don't we?”
“Yeah, endin!” agreed Elias.
“Thanks for the help with the chains, Anna!” said Charles. The ghost girl had just appeared beside him, and she flipped him a golden, guitar-shaped key.
“No problem! This dreamtime stuff is cool!” Anna told him.
“And thanks for putting up all those handbills.”
“I love postering. Did they work?”
“Like a charm.”
“Cool! Are you coming back to Mordhaus now?” she asked.
“If you’ll just wait one moment,” said Charles. “Guys,” he told the forest, holding up his axe, “Thanks for the help. I need another favor. A big one.”
“We're here to see Mr. Cornickleson. We do not have an appointment,” said Ganesh as he and Raziel strode into the receptionist's office.
“Nobody sees Mr. Cornicklson without an appointment,” scolded the Bluetoothed receptionist. “You need to HEY IS THAT A SWORD!”
“Yeah, I coordinated it with my outfit!' agreed Raziel, who was standing on the receptionist's desk and did indeed have a sword pointed at her neck.
Ganesh pushed through to Cornickleson's office and Raziel leapt off the desk to follow him.
“Mr. Cornickleson,” said Ganesh.
“Who are you?” grumbled the crusty executive. “Oh. Fuck!”
“You must remember me? The girl with the silver rings?” grinned Raziel.
“Now, Duke Berith,” said Ganesh, as the executive had morphed into his demon Form under the influence of Raziel's rings, which in turn caused the intern who had been giving Cornickleson/Berith a blow job under his desk to scream and run away.
“What do you want?” demanded Berith. “That guy gives the best head in Hollywood.”
“Gog. And Magog,” said Ganesh.
Berith zipped up his pants sunk back down into his seat. “Those boys? Yeah, they're completely useless. So I had them doing A&R.”
“Where are they now?” asked Raziel.
“Probably what they're always doing: sitting in their office, getting high.”
Raziel and Ganesh looked at each other. “If they were not of any use, whyever did you give them a job?” inquired Ganesh.
“They had great connections! They used to work for Lucifer himself!”
“Berith,” said Ganesh, “they were banished by the Creator to the Abyss. One of Lucifer's minions was set to guard them.”
“Oh, so padding the old resume a bit,” chuckled Berith.
“Which way?” asked Raziel. Berith inclined his horned head, and the two set off down the hall.
“They have two different offices, huh?” said Raziel, looking at the nameplates facing each other across the hallway. “How do they work that?”
Ganesh looked back and forth and frowned. “Perhaps they have separate Forms?” He sighed. “I suppose we should split up and do each room at the same time.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Raziel. <i.“uno, due,="due," tre!”</i="tre!”</i"> she said, and upon reaching three in Italian, the two fashionistas kicked down their respective doors.
“Oh!” shouted Magog, who was just lighting up.
“Shit!” shouted Gog, who was in the middle of snorting a white line off his desk.
And then, like a pair of synchronized divers, the two simultanously stood up and took a header out of their respective windows.
Ganesh rushed to the broken window.
“Mine's a jumper!” said Raziel.
“Did you see where he went?” asked Ganesh.
“No, that's why I didn't follow. He fell down partway....”
“And then vanished,” concluded Ganesh, leaning out the window and staring downwards.
“So, dis ams it?” asked Skwisgaar.
“Yes,” said Charles, who did not bother looking up.
“You ams sures dis times?”
“I am quite sure.”
Skwisgaar looked curiously at the workbench his manager was hunched over, and regarded the guitar that was rapidly taking shape under Charles' careful hands.
“How you ams brings da woods back from da Dreamstime?” asked Skwisgaar.
“That’s for me to know,” grinned Charles. “Boon! The neck!”
“Da neck Daddy!” said the child, pattering over to a nearby workbench as his dog padded at his heels. “Da neck da neck da neck,” he said, picking it up.
Charles pulled Elias into his lap, and then carefully matched the neck to the guitar body, letting Elias point out the small defect. “So, you need to sand, right? The way we said?”
Elias took a small piece of fine grained sandpaper, and with great concentration, leaned forward to sand the imperfection.
“Now, since Boon is working on this one,” said Charles, looking over the boy, “it's gonna have his magic too. It's gonna be very powerful.”
“Ja,” said Skwisgaar, who actually looked as if he may have been a tiny bit impressed. He nodded and rose up off of his stool. “Da good works,” he muttered, turning to leave. Charles glanced up at Skwisgaar's back, not letting the guitarist see the half-smile on his face.
“Sand, Daddy,” said Elias. Charles checked the fit of the neck once again.
“OK, looks like we can put in the screws.”
“Yay!” said Elias. “Da skwoos...” He wriggled off Charles' lap to get a handful of them.
“That is looking very good,” said Ganesh, who had just breezed into the room.
“Skwisgaar thinks so, oddly enough,” Charles told him.
“Er. Yes. I encountered him on the way in. He wishes to resume sitar lessons,” said Ganesh, making a sour face.
“How are you guys gonna play? You've got nothing left but matchsticks!”
“Perhaps I will ask my favorite luthier for assistance. And it is retaining your magic,” said Ganesh, slipping slim fingers down the side of the guitar's body.
“Wait, you can tell?”
“Um. Yes. I am not certain how, but yes. This is a magical object.”
“Boonie hepped, Baap!” said Elias.
“Why, yes, you are a fine apprentice,” said Ganesh, hefting Boon.
“Any word?” asked Charles, jerking his head.
Ganesh set Elias on the floor, and then hopped up on a stool. “Nothing further, I am afraid. They have gone to ground. I fear we will inevitably have to do as the Creator suggested.”
“Old bastard,” grumbled Charles, reaching down for some screws. “Thanks, Boon.”
“An', Daddy an Baap go dawn an da 'Byss!” said Elias.
“Uh,” said Charles.
“We are only talking about things now, Boonie,” said Ganesh.
“An' Boonie go dawn!” said Elias.
“Er,” said Ganesh.
“Absolutely not!” said Charles. “No, baby, you're too little.”
“Boonie pwotect Daddy an' Boonie pwotect Baap!” the child insisted, crossing his arms stubbornly. “Boonie id da pwentice!”
“Elias,” said Ganesh softly. “Now, it is like there are Daddy words, there are also things that Daddies do sometimes....”
“Boonie id go dawn!”
Charles and Ganesh exchanged a pained look.
“OK. All right. Boon. Nobody is going ANYWHERE right now, OK?” said Charles. “I need to finish this guitar, and if you're my apprentice, you need to help me. You gonna do that?”
“Uh-huh!” said Elias, who immediately brightened.
“Now come on up here,” said Charles, as Elias once again scrambled in to his lap. “Oh, I need some clamps,” he said, twisting around.
“I'll get them,” said Ganesh, walking over to a neat row a bins behind Charles. “Which size?”
“No bigger – no smaller – yeah, that one,” said Charles.
“Dat one!” said Elias.
Ganesh handed over some clamps, and then scooted a stool over so he could watch the assembly. “You know this is gonna put some of your magic in the guitar as well,” said Charles.
“Skwisgaar will become perfectly <i>impossible!</i>” said Ganesh.
“He already is,” laughed Charles.
And the three men sat hunched over the workbench, making magic.
Author: tikistitch
Rating: PG-13
Summary: A fairy tale about rascally rabbits.
Warnings: Children's literature.
Notes: After jump
<lj-cut text="Rabbit Redux">
<i>Mythklok is forever.
So last week: We had dinner with a stoned angel, and then everybody read a story which ended up getting a bit too real.</i>
Charles was sitting at his desk late one night doing one of his favorite things: reading the profit and loss reports for the third quarter.
Suddenly, there was a scuffling: a small animal of some kind had scurried over his desk. He watched, smiling thinly as it hopped, fast and furry, toward the door, huffing, “I ams late! I ams late…”
Only to be confronted by three very small, very quick little angels, who were waiting just outside the door. Charles sat back as the sound of giggles erupted from the waiting room. And then the little angels fluttered back into the room, one of them holding the creature by its ears.
“Da wabbid, Unky Sar!” said Liam proudly.
“Ams lets me go!” shrieked the rabbit. “I ams lates! For dat dates! Wit’ da ladypersons!”
“Yes. That’s very good, Liam,” said Charles. “Your dad would be proud. Now, just sit him down on my desk. That’s good.”
Liam plonked the furry critter right down on its cotton tail in the center of Charles’ desk and then glided down to stand next to his raven-haired sister, Abby, who was scowling up. Meanwhile, Elias scrambled into his father’s lap to get a good view.
“I ams lates!” screamed the White Toki Rabbit again.
“Yes, I think we’ve established that. Let me introduce you to some people, rabbit. This is my son, and these are his cousins, Liam and Abby. Their father is a hunter. The greatest hunter on earth, some say.” Charles leaned forward, steepling his hands. “He tracks down little creatures like you and, you know….”
“Ulp,” said the rabbit, who knew. “Ams you goings to skins me and cooks me in da stews?”
“All I wanna do is talk for a little while. I think you have something of mine, don’t you?”
The little Toki Rabbit shyly pulled out Charles’ Vacheron Constantin from his waistcoat pocket.
“Now, is that <i>your</i> Vacheron Constantin, White Rabbit?”
“Bitcher-on … whats?” asked Toki Rabbit, shaking the watch, his pink rabbit eyes looking confused. “I ams wants da watches, because I ams always lates.”
“If you’ll give me that back, I have something special to give you in return,” said Charles. “Boon?” Elias reached into his hoodie pocket and extracted a watch, which he handed to his father. “You see this?” asked Charles.
“Ooooo, shinies!” said the White Toki Rabbit, as it was a very large and shiny watch, with lots of buttons and things.
“And you see, it has the numbers right on it, so you don’t even have to tell time?” said Charles, holding the face out so the Rabbit could see.
The Rabbit wrinkled his whiskers at the fabulous digital watch. “I ams has trouble telling da times sometimes,” he whispered. “Dat gets me in da troubles.”
“Well, you’ll never get into trouble now. So is it a deal?”
The Toki Rabbit nodded, his ears bobbling up and down. He reached a fluffy white paw out for it, but Charles suddenly drew it back.
“Just one thing!” said Charles. “Now, this is my own son’s very special watch I’m giving you!”
“Uh-huh! Speshul watch!” agreed Elias with utmost sincerity.
“You must promise not to lose it! You must keep it with you at all times. Is that understood?” asked Charles.
“Can I ams has da watches now?” asked Toki Rabbit, who was very impatient.
“Because if you lose it, Toki, I’m gonna have to send these two after you,” he said, indicating the twins. Toki Rabbit stopped grasping at the awesome cool digital watch to cast his pink eyes around at Liam and Abby, who were standing below the desk. Two pairs of ice blue eyes – hunter's eyes – glared up at him.
“Dems bat kids t’ings, dey ams scaries!” said Toki, noting the fluttering of little wings.
“Yeah, well, if you lose this watch, I’m gonna have to send ‘em after you. Then, well, I can’t help it if there’s a nice conejo or hasenpfeffer on the menu at the ‘Haus….”
“I ams takes da cares of it!” squealed the Rabbit.
“OK. Trade?” said Charles. Toki wrinkled his whiskers, but then tentatively held out the Vacheron Constantin as Charles held out the shiny new watch. In an instant they each snatched the other’s watch, Toki hugging the new watch to him with both paws.
“OK. All right. You’re now free to go. But remember!” Charles said, pointing downwards.
Toki rabbit peered over the desk, to where Abby now suddenly had a little sword, and her redheaded brother a small slingshot.
Toki gulped a rabbit gulp and, after carefully placing the watch in his vest pocket, hopped off the side of the desk and then out of the office with all the speed he could muster.
“Bye-bye!” called Elias. “Da bunny, daddy!” he told his father.
Charles said nothing, but just nodded silently as he carefully fastened the Vacheron Constantin around Elias’s wrist.
“What, Raziel?”
“You’re being soooo meeeeeean to the Toki Bunny!” whined Raziel, who was lying on the floor next to Charles, head propped up on her forearms, kicking her legs.
“Raziel,” said Charles. He sat cross-legged next to Raziel, in front of one of Valhalla’s warm and toasty fireplaces, a very old Angelic text open in his lap. “Now, we talked about this!”
“But you scared him!”
“We talked about this,” Charles sighed. “This is important.”
“You need to be less mean!”
“Raziel! You chop guys heads off!”
“Yeah, but they deserved it. Can I read a little bit now?” she asked, grasping out for the book.
“All right, all right. But stick to the plan, right?” said Charles, handing over the book and reaching for his whiskey glass.
“Of course I will,” said Raziel, scooting back against the great stone hearth and scratching the ears of a large wolf who had just settled beside her. “Don’t you trust me?”
“No,” said Charles, smiling over his glass of amber liquor. “Of course not.”
Raziel glared at him, but then grinned. “Yeah, well, OK.”
Sariel strolled contentedly down the dim corridors in one of the sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-sub-basements of Mordhaus. He carried on his back a backpack. He may have even whistled a happy tune. But, I doubt it.
Anyway, he soon came to a crack in the wall. “Is the the one?” he asked his small companion.
“Uh-huh, Unky Sar!” said Liam, pointing. “Da wabbit!”
“The wascally wabbit. Cool. Good tracking. So, you go ahead back to the kitchen and have ice cream, and I’ll be right up.”
Liam’s little blue eyes lit up at the prospect of ice cream (and, it goes without saying, pie), and scampered back up towards Mordhau's welcoming kitchen.
Sariel set down his heavy backpack. He took out a stud finding device and ran it along the wall just outside the crack. When he had located the support beam, he grabbed some pitons and a hammer and pounded them into the wall. He took out a rather long rope and tied one end to the pitons. Then he secured the other end to his belt. He stood at the brink of the crack, looking down.
“Are we ready?” he asked no one in particular, as the hallway seemed quite empty after Liam had scampered off.
Sariel nodded. And then he climbed down, pausing only once in his descent. The walls were decorated with stuff like framed gold records and such. About halfway down, there was a rather large glass-fronted box fitted to the walls of the deep hole. Written on the glass were the words, IN CASE OF EMERGENCY BREAK GLASS.
“Ams it da cockstails hours yet?” asked the March Skwisgaar, who was slumped over the bar.
“It is perpetually cocktail hour here, dear chap,” sighed Ganesh the Not Terribly Mad Haberdasher. “Oh, look there! A wet angel!”
“Come on guys, we’re late for the poker party,” said Sariel, who, without even a “How do you do,” had started rooting in back of Ganesh’s bar.
“You are rather rude, rooting in back of my bar without even a ‘How do you do,’” commented Ganesh, who was quite astute.
Sariel pulled out an axe, grinning a big grin. “We’ve gotta get there soon. She chops off head, you know,” he reminded them, waggling the axe for emphasis.
“Well, that is a consideration,” agreed Ganesh, who rather liked his current head, although he had been known to change it for the whims of fashion.
“Here,” said Sariel. “I brought you something.” He took off something that was slung on his back and presented it to the March Skwisgaar, who tipped back his rabbit ears hat in wonder.
“Ams da new geetar?” asked Skwisgaar.
“You don’t wanna be playing a Grandpa’s guitar,” explained Sariel. “You want this one.”
Skwisgaar picked up the guitar, fingering it experimentally. Suddenly, he tore off a screaming riff, which ended up shattering several of Ganesh’s bar glasses through its sheer ferocity.
Ganesh and Sariel peeped up over the bar, which they had both dove behind. “Impressive!” said Ganesh.
“Where’s the JABBERWOCK!” hailed Nathan Knight, who was galloping up. When his horse abruptly stopped, Nathan kept going, and somersaulted impressively over the bar.
Sariel and Ganesh helped him to his feet.
“I’m hunting the WOCKERJABB! I mean…. Uhhhhh…..” said Nathan. “Look, I got one of the posters you guys put up,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his suit of armor and extracting a crumpled poster that read “JABBERWOCK HUNT TODAY ONLY THE MAD HABERDASHER’S BAR FEATURING THE MARCH SKWISGAAR.”
“Why ams only featursing me?” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“Yeah, you got it right, it’s just we gotta get to the Queen’s poker party first,” explained Sariel. “There will be plenty of Jabberwocks there.”
“Am I late for the classch?” sobbed the Mock Ninja Turtle, who had just hobbled up.
“The class?” asked Ganesh.
The Mock Ninja Turtle pulled out a tear-stained handbill which read, “LOW SELF ESTEEM? COME TO OUR SELF-ACTUALIZATION WORKSHOP, CHEZ GANESH AND SKWISGAAR.”
“Ganesh ams listed first again?” complained Skwisgaar.
“At least you are listed before the puppet show,” said Ganesh, pointing further down the handbill.
“Yeah, there will be classes offered. The Queen’s place,” said Sariel.
“The Red Queen? Doeschn’t sche threaten to schlice off your head if you croosch her?” asked the Turtle suspiciously.
“Well, that is one way to stave off low self esteem,” agreed Ganesh. “By the way, who has posted all these handbills? You know, Tweedle-Gog and Tweedle-Magog have anti-postering regulations.”
“Another reason why they’re assholes,” said Sariel. “And we’re waiting for one more,” he said, checking his watch. “Ah!”
“DOOOOOOOOOODS!” said the CaterPickles, who had just scrambled down from a tree branch.
“It ams da CatserPickle!” hailed Skwisgaar.
“What brings you here, friend?” asked Ganesh.
“Doods, I saw dis awesum handbill!” said CaterPickles, pulling out a sheet of paper with one of his many, many hands.
“This page is completely blank,” observed Ganesh, who had just pulled on a pair of reading glasses in order to double check.
“Yeh, dood. Ain’t it da greatest?” asked CaterPickles, snatching it back and putting it to his Cater-nose, inhaling deeply. “It’s nothin’ness! An’ everything-ness!”
“If I may inquire, if that handbill is completely blank, how did you know to come here?” asked Ganesh.
“No time for this!” urged Sariel. “We’ve all got to get to the next chapter, the Queen’s Poker Party.”
“I do not know if I approve of skipping around like this in books!” protested Ganesh.
“She’s breaking out the Cadenhead’s Old Raj,” whispered Sariel.
Ganesh’s dark eyes suddenly brightened at the prospect of very, very dry gin. He extracted his martini shaker from behind the bar. “Come along!” he urged, fixing his top hat. “We must not be late!”
“My band is so predictable,” grinned Charles as he stretched out on the couch, patting his stomach. One hand groped out blindly at the coffee table beside him. He brought back his hand and stared sadly at the crumbs.
“You wanna read for a bit?” asked Raziel.
“Naw, you’re doing OK. You got any more of those steak sandwiches?” he said, sighing and greedily licking the crust crumbs from his fingers.
“If you keep eating our steak sandwiches you won’t have any room left for pie.”
“Oh, it’s no problem! Pickles has this great stuff-“
“I’ve heard about Pickles’ great stuff,” said Raziel. “I don’t think Wotan want’s you-“
“Up in my damned tree!” said Wotan, who had just stormed into the room. “Don’t believe it! It’s the damnedest thing!”
“What is, sweetie?” asked Raziel.
“Sariel! You need to see this yourself!” said Wotan. “Come along.” Charles looked at Raziel, who shrugged, and the two angels – Charles lifting himself carefully from the couch – proceeded out after the Norse god.
A small crowd had gathered below one of the larger trees near the yard. Ganesh, as well as three small children, two very large wolves, and a rather tremendously huge, drooling demon were looking up. Looking down from a branch high above was a white tiger.
And a small wolf pup. Who was yipping and wagging his small, stumpy tail.
“Huh. Well, I guess you’re not the only one in the family to get yourself stranded up a tree, Sariel,” laughed Raziel.
“How the hell did Murgatroyd get up there, Boon?” asked Charles.
“Muggatoad id da twee, Daddy!” Elias told him rather unhelpfully.
Ganesh was speaking with the Siberian tiger in a very weird language which sounded like a long string of grunts and growls.
“What’s going on?” asked Charles.
“Well, it’s rather an interesting story, actually,” said Ganesh.
“You wanna share?” asked Charles, who was still staring up at the wolf pup yipping in the tree.
“It appears that Bagheera doesn’t care for the, er, sloppy greetings from the twins’ pet demon-“
“Owwibah!” yelled Liam and Abby.
“Er, yes, Oliver. So he tends to escape up in a branch. Only this time, as Murgatroyd was visiting as well, Bagheera says he turned around to see our wolf had scrambled up after him.”
“Murgatroyd climbed the tree?” Charles asked Elias.
“Uh-huh!” said the boy. “Muggatoad cwimb wif da kiddy!”
“What the hell was he thinking?” asked Charles, who fully realized he was asking this question in regard to a dog. He often asked such questions of a metal band, to equal profit.
Ganesh exchanged more grunts and growls with the big cat, and then said, “Well, Bagheera is unable to fully communicate with Murgatroyd, due to the fact that the tiger does not speak Wolf, but he believes our pup is under the misconception that he is part cat.”
“Our wolf. Thinks he’s a tiger,” said Charles.
“That makes sense,” said Raziel.
“Why does that make sense?” asked Charles.
“Well, Murgatroyd is a smart little guy. Your Yard Wolves are sort of grumpy, and our two are a bit light on the … you know,” she said, pointing to her head and lowering her voice.
“My wolves are perfectly fine!” averred Wotan.
“They only speak Swedish. I mean, come on,” sighed Raziel.
“Boon, why don’t you go get him down, and then maybe we can go in and get some lunch,” proposed Charles.
“Uh-huh Daddy!” said Elias. Charles helped him pull off his coat, and then the boy True Formed and flew upwards.
“You’re hungry again?” asked Raziel.
“I just had a little snack,” said Charles, who honestly was hungry again. “Reading is hungry work.”
“But you weren’t reading! You were just listening!” protested Raziel.
“Listening to you is even harder work,” said Charles.
“That’s a splendid idea!” said Wotan. “You two can read us a chapter over lunch. Sing for your supper!” he laughed, just as Elias landed with Murgatroyd in his arms. Oliver waddled over to greet the safely landed pair with what was evidently the traditional Bearcat demon greet, a great drooly lick.
“Baaaaap!” said Elias, running over, still dripping, to Ganesh, who cringed.
“Er, should you take this one, dear?” Ganesh asked Charles.
“He's clearly asking for you,” laughed Charles.
“But, Sariel! This is a 451 thread count!” said Ganesh, holding out his suit jacket. He nevertheless made a face and picked up his gooey son. “Do you have anything that gets this, er, substance out of your fabrics, Lady Raziel?”
“NOTHING gets out bearcat drool,” said Raziel. “The twins know not to come near me when they're playing with Oliver,” she laughed.
“And we need to teach this one a thing or two. You are a wolf, Murgatroyd!” said Wotan, demonstrating with a howl. The small wolf replied with another, quite more high-pitched howl. The twins and Elias joined in, as did Geri and Freki, and even Oliver, who sounded a bit more like a cat being drowned than a howl.
“Does Wotan have to do that?” asked Charles, covering his sensitive angel ears at the racket.
“Yeah, actually he does,” laughed Raziel.
“All right, here we all are,” said Charles, indicating the March Skwisgaar, the Mad Ganesh, Nathan Knight, Caterpickles and the Mock Ninja Turtle.
<i>“I am the Red Queen,” said the gracious Red Queen graciously.</i>
“We're here for the poker party,” said Charles,
<i>Yes. Welcome to my poker party,” said the lovely and fashionably dressed Red Queen, who was wearing Stella with some lovely McQueen pumps.</i>
“Uh, yeah, anyway,” said Charles, who was not terribly interested in Raziel's fucking outfit.
<i>“Oh, I'm not Raziel,” said the Red Queen. “She's shorter, and has slightly different taste in shoes. But she's still cute.”</i>
“Yeah, I wasn't really wondering about that either,” said Charles. “Have you seen Toki?”
<i>“Oh, Toki is very cute,” agreed the Red Queen, who was very cute herself.</i>
“He's got my watch,” said Charles impatiently, as he had other things to do than listen to Raziel babble about cute things.
<i>“I told you, I'm not Raziel,” said the Red Queen, her dark hair lustrous and shining.</i>
“Whatever,” said Charles, who had other things to do than listen to the Red Queen babble about her hair.
<i>“What kind of watch was it?” asked the stunning Red Queen, who knew that Sariel had icky taste in accessories.</i>
“It's just a digital watch I bought for Boon,” said Charles, who was had actually always hated the fucking name Sariel.
<i>“Then why don't you just get a new watch?” asked the Red Queen, who thought Sariel was a lovely name that very well suited his pretty silver hair.</i>
“Because this is important,” said Charles. “And for the last time I DO NOT HAVE LONG HAIR!”
“WILL YOU TWO CEASE BICKERING?” shouted Ganesh. He sat back in his chair and glowered. He was dressed in a white terrycloth bathrobe, his hair still wet from the shower, and he looked a bit irritable.
“What?” said Raziel, looking up from the book.
<i>”Still pissy about getting demon drool on the suit,”</i> Charles whispered to her in High Angelic.
<i>“I heard that,”</i> said Ganesh in rather good High Angelic, his eyes narrowing, and causing Charles and Raziel to look at one another in surprise. Ganesh leaned forward and extended a hand. “Here. Why don't I read the next chapter?”
“YOU DON'T READ ANGELIC!' chorused the angels.
“Is that really a requirement?” laughed Wotan, who was sitting with a twin or two playing on his lap.
Raziel reluctantly handed over the book to Ganesh, who sat back and took out a pair of reading glasses. “Now to begin! And so, they all proceeded to the Queen's engagement party....”
“Poker party!” said Raziel.
“Ah, no, for both of you have been misreading this!” said Ganesh.
“Huh. Poker, engagement. I guess it's an easy mistake to make,” agreed Raziel.
“Wait, who's she engaged to?” asked Charles.
“Welcome to my engagement party!” said the Red Queen, who was wearing a very lovely Vera Wang number
“Hey, where is the Red Wotan King dude?” asked Nathan Knight, who had just toppled off his horse again.
“I don't know what you're talking about!” said the Red Queen.
“Uh, don't you usually need a groom for an engagement, Raziel?” asked Sariel, whose hair was very short and neatly styled.
“I'm not Raziel,” explained the Red Queen. “I'm the Red Queen. I'm taller, and have slightly different taste in shoes.”
“All right, all right.”
“But, I'm gonna marry THAT GUY!” she said pointing upwards to a spherical figure balanced rather precariously up on a high wall.
“You ams marries da Humpity Dumpster guys?” asked the March Skwisgaar, playing the funeral march on his new guitar.
“Yep,” said the Red Queen.
“But that'sch not the perschon you're schupposhed to marry!” protested the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“Oh, you never have an engagement party with the person you're supposed to marry,” said the Not Terribly Mad Ganesh. “Haven't you seen our films before?”
“I thought this was a work of Victorian children's literature, not a Bollywood musical?” said Sariel.
“We are mixing genres. A bit,” admitted Ganesh. “Especially with the pervasive 90s era musical references.”
“I didn't really want to marry an egg,” admitted the Red Queen. “I was looking for something a bit closer to my species. But he promised to explain the Jabberwock poem to us if I married him!”
“Couldn't you just buy the Cliff Notes?” asked Sariel.
“I t'ink marryin' an egg is a great idea, doods,” said the Caterpickles.
“Why is that?” asked Charles.
“It's so round. An' blank! You could stare at him fer hours!” said CaterPickles, who indeed stared at the egg shining in the sun.
“So as is traditional, I must sing a song about my pain!” announced Raziel, who had already changed costume (to a lovely sari) and begun to dance.
<i>Load up on rum and bring some dudes
It's fun to party and be rude
I'm really bored about my groom
Oh no I think he brings our doom....
So low so low so low how low?
Below below below it blows
In the abyss, it's more dangerous
We need fights to entertain us
Yes it's stupid and outrageous
Let's go through the thesaurus
Borneo
An Oreo
Hidee-ho
And a yo-yo
Yay</i>
Skwisgaar had begun to play along, although perhaps a bit faster than the song warranted, causing a rather animated moshing.
“Ganesh, can't you stop that racket?” asked Sariel. “She makes Yoko Ono sound melodious!”
“I will see what I can do,” said Ganesh, joining in the dance to sing to the Red Queen, who was not Raziel.
<i>Come, as you are, in couture
In McQueen finery
A diva, my Sheeba, as a fashionista
Take you time getting dressed
Designer stuff is hard to figure out
Take a rest with Chanel, with a Gaultier...
Gaultier</i>
“Hey, Charles, that PINATA? It doesn't have any CANDY inside, just a bunch of goop....”
Sariel took his eyes off Ganesh and Raziel dancing for a moment to face the Nathan Knight, who had what looked like eggshell in his hair.
“Nathan, you guys didn't....” said Sariel, now turning to glance in horror at the high wall. And at the foot of the wall: one fiance, over easy. “You did. Oh, shit. RAZIEL!”
“What? Can't you see I'm dancing?” asked the Red Queen.
“Your finace is scrambled!” said Sariel
“Oh, shit. What the hell happened?” asked the Red Queen.
“Uh. He fell,” said Nathan, awkwardly holding a baseball bat behind his back.
“Well, gotta call Red King Wotan then,” said the Red Queen, hitting her speed dial. “Hey, hon! Yeah, it happened again!”
“What does she mean, again?” asked Sariel.
“Bring all your horses and all your men! Hey, sure, we got canapés, and the Mad Ganesh is fixing martinis.”
“I ams lates!” squealed the White Toki Rabbit, who had just hopped up. “I ams sorries, Queen Raz, but I ams has da troubles waksing up in da mornings.” He pointed to the large, colorful plastic watch he wore on one paw. “But luckisily, da alarms ams gone off!”
“That's OK, Toki,” said the Red Queen. “We were just wondering what to do with a squashed fiancé.”
“Spanish omelette?” proposed Sariel, who was hungry again.
“Hey, what's that?” said the Red Queen.
The ground was indeed shaking with what seemed the sound of mighty footsteps.
“Is is the JABBERWOCK?” asked Nathan, holding up his Vorpal sword. “Because I don’t like that guy.”
But it was not the Jabberwock. Instead it was the terrible tattooed twin giants, Tweedle-Gog and Tweedle-Magog. They loomed over the Queen’s engagement party like the two incredibly rude party crashers they were, snarling and throwing horns in what they hoped was a really cool looking pose, but was actually quite 90s.
“What do you guys think you’re doing here?” demanded the Red Queen. “This party is strictly invitation only!”
“We heard you invited all the king’s horses!” argued Tweedle-Gog.
“And all the king’s men!” seconded Tweedle-Magog.
“Yeah, but that’s just because Dethklok broke my fiance,” said the Red Queen.
“It was AN ACCIDENT!” said Nathan.
“Dethklok?” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Dethklok!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Dat ams our names, don’t wears it out,” grumbled Skwisgaar.
“We have words with you,” said Tweedle-Gog, suddenly holding out an object. It seemed to be a thin strip of paper topped by a red tassel.
“Oh no!” said Ganesh.
“What is it?” asked Sariel.
“They have a book mark!” said the Red Queen.
“And we’re going to use it!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Well, at least that is better than bending the corner of a page,” reasoned Ganesh.
“I do that sometimes,” admitted Sariel.
“Everybody duck!” said the Red Queen, throwing herself to the ground.
“Exschusche me, I am not a duck, I am a turtle,” protested the Mock Ninja Turtle.
“You ams not reallies da toitles,” the Toki Rabbit told him. “You ams da Mocks Toitles.”
“Pffft. Spoken like da bunnies,” sniffed Skwisgaar.
“What ams you knows, Skwisgaars? You ams da rabbits too!”
“Ams not da rabbits! Ams da hares!”
“What ams da differences?” asked Toki.
“Will you guys SHUT THE FUCK UP?” asked Nathan.
“Actually, dat’s an interestin’ question regardin’ bioluhgy an’ stuff!” said the CaterPickles.
But as Dethklok continued to quibble, there was suddenly a great turning of pages, and as most of the sensible party guests hid under the nearest paragraph or clung desperately to clauses, the band got swept away like a block quote, to parts unknown.
“Ha-HA!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“HA-ha!” added Tweedle-Magog.
“We now have your band!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Contrariwise, if you want them back alive, you will come with us too, Sariel!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“Don’t do it, Sariel!” urged the Red Queen, who was hiding behind a dangling participle. “I don’t trust these guys, and they have terrible taste in shoes!” she said, pointing to their footwear.
“No problem,” said Sariel, leaping to his feet. “OK, giant tattoo dudes, take me to my band.”
“Tie him up first, I don’t trust him,” said Tweedle-Gog, in an odd statement, as he was talking to his brother, who was attached to the same body. Tweedle-Magog nevertheless pulled out a shiny length of chain, which he used to lasso Sariel.
“Silver chains for a silver angel. You won’t break these!” taunted Tweedle-Magog.
“I think you have me confused with a vampire,” said Sariel. “But anyway….”
“Isn’t that a werewolf rather than a vampire?” asked Ganesh.
“Maybe. Can we just move this story along?”
“But we want to sing a song!” protested Tweedle-Gog.
“Contrariwise, she got to sing a song, and she can’t even sing!” noted Tweedle-Magog pointing jealously at the Red Queen.
“Oh, gods,” groaned, Sariel, who was really wishing for a fast forward button.
“How about this, we will add your song to the director’s cut!” said Ganesh. “And then it will be exclusive to the Blu Ray!”
“Oh, exclusive. That sounds cool,” said Tweedle-Gog, who liked excluding people.
“Contrariwise, excluding people makes everything more fun,” added Tweedle-Magog. “Now, come along!”
With a ruffling of yellowy pages, they transported Sariel to a very cold, familiar part of the Tulgey Woods, where the bare trees appeared to tremble in fear. Sariel heard the familiar sound of his band snoring contentedly in a snow bank.
“We have you now, Sariel!” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Tell us what we want, or your dumb and uncool band dies of hypothermia!” demanded Tweedle-Magog.
“Yeah, yeah, I already read this part. Hey, does anybody have a cigarette?” asked Sariel.
“You’re skipping ahead?” asked Tweedle-Gog.
“I usually read the poems to Boon until he falls asleep. So,” continued Sariel, straining against his chains. “I would suggest you cooperate. If you wanna stay on my good side.”
“What do you mean, grubby little angel?” asked Tweedle-Magog.
“You guys are fucking with my bread and butter,” said Sariel, inclining his head towards Dethklok. “Trust me, that is never a good idea.”
“You want to see us fuck around?” warned Tweedle-Gog.
“Not particularly,” said Sariel.
“See what you think when we summon … The Jabberwock!” said Tweedle-Magog.
As before, the sky darkened and the wind howled. And there was the sound of terrible, crashing footsteps, growing nearer, ever nearer.
It emerged from the woods, snorting fire and howling terribly, and loomed, drooling, over the sleeping band.
Suddenly, a terrible sound rang out.
It was White Toki Rabbit’s watch. “Oh, alarms ams gone off,” he yawned. He looked up with pink rabbit eyes to the horrible Jabberwock standing over him, snapping its biting jaws.
“Oh, da Jabberswocks,” he said, yawning again and turning off his alarm. He scratched his head with a paw. He stared, as if in puzzlement. One rabbit ear went up. And then the other. And then suddenly he leapt up in terror. “Holies shits, da Jabberwocks!” he shrieked. “Ams heeeelps!”
“Toki, what are you-“ asked Nathan. But then he was up, along with the rest of the others. “Aw, fuck.”
“Nathan!” yelled Sariel. There was a slight clanking sound when, as if by magic, Sariel’s chains suddenly unlocked and dropped to the floor. Sariel reached out as if grabbing the air, and all of a sudden, there was a sword in his hand. “Vorpal sword!” he yelled, tossing it to Nathan.
“Oh, Vorpal sword!” agreed Nathan, catching it by the handle. “Vorpal sword,” he muttered. “Uhhhhh….”
“Snicker-snack, Nathan!” said Sariel, making a slicing motion. “The Jabberwock!”
“Oh, yeah! I meant to do that,” said Nathan, who turned and then very handily beheaded the looming beast.
“Wait, what have you done to our pet?” wailed Tweedle-Gog, beholding the steaming corpse.
The sky had brightened as the sun came out from behind a cloud. And a very strange thing happened: the bare trees began to leaf.
“Time to make our exit, brother?” asked Tweedle-Gog. “This is not how this story is supposed to end.”
“Exit, stage right,” agreed Tweedle-Magog. But as the giants tried to escape, suddenly the trees swayed over in either direction, trapping them. They turned and ran another way, but the same thing happened again.
“Skwisgaar,” shouted Sariel, watching the twin giants once again run into the trees. “Play your guitar.”
Skwisgaar happily obliged with a great, screaming riff.
“Aiiiiii!” squealed Tweedle-Gog.
“That’s TOO METAL!” screeched his brother.
The terrible two-headed giant fell to his knees from Skwisgaar’s awesome metal riff.
“I knew it,” said Sariel, crossing his arms and nodding knowingly. “Posers.”
The Tweedles suddenly let out another shriek and fell to the ground. “Ow, my heads!”
The not terribly Mad Ganesh was standing nearby with a cricket bat.
“OK, so maybe you do know how to use that thing,” admitted Sariel.
“I am sorry we are late,” said Ganesh, waving the cricket bat. “But the Red Queen needed to change her outfit. And then we had to peek a few pages ahead.”
“What for?” asked Sariel.
“Well, to see if we would still be fashionable, of course!”
The Red Queen was now standing on the giant’s chest, holding a very big sword. “OK, tell me, which is your LEAST FAVORITE HEAD?”
“He is,” the both chorused, pointing to the other.
“Red Queen! Let’s get these losers down to size first,” said Sariel. “CaterPickles, do you have any of your magic mushrooms left?”
“Do I have mushrooms doooooood?” grinned CaterPickles.
“Yes, do you have magic mushrooms?”
“Do I have magic mushrooms?” said CaterPickles.
“Well, do you?” asked Sariel.
“Huh. Akshually, dat’s a gud question!” said CaterPickles. He used several arms to search through several pockets in his robes, discarding a hookah, bags of brightly colored pills, bags of weed, more bags of multicolored powders, blunts, and a Grateful Dead Zippo. “Ah, here we go,” he finally said, extracting a mushroom. He broke off a chunk and held it next to Tweedle-Gog.
“The side that makes ‘em smaller!” Sariel told him.
“Oh, yeh, I was gonna do dat,” laughted, CaterPickles, tossing aside the bit of mushroom and breaking off another. “Now, open wide,” he told the giant, who obeyed. “Whoa, yer breat’ dood!” he said, waving a couple hands at his face.
“You try finding dental floss in this size!” grumbled Tweedle-Gog.
“Yeh, dat’s troo,” agreed CaterPickles, holding his nose, and throwing a bit of mushroom into the giant’s mouth. There was a pause, and then suddenly, Tweedle-Gog’s head – but only Tweedle-Gog’s head – shrunk down to tiny size.
“Heeeeeey!” squealed Tweedle-Gog, in a really funny teeny-tiny high-pitched voice.
“Uh. I guess you need to give some to the other head too?” asked Sariel.
“I dunno, dood, dis is kinda cool too!”
“Pickles!”
CaterPickles shrugged and popped another mushroom in Tweedle-Magog’s mouth. The giant shrank down to tiny size. In fact, he could now fit in the Red Queen’s hand.
“Hey, this is actually pretty cute!” said the Red Queen regarding the tiny giant in her well-manicured hand. “Though not as cute as me.”
“Now, I just want some information, Tweedles,” said Sariel.
“We’re not gonna tell you anything!” squealed the teensy Tweedles, who really sounded like a 33 1/3 LP sped up to 45 rpm, or maybe like a Chipmunks album.
“You can torture us!”
“We don’t care!”
“You can even make us listen to her sing again!” they trilled, pointing up to the Red Queen.
“Everyone’s a critic,” said the Red Queen.
“No, you’re not gonna tell me,” said Sariel. You’re gonna tell the Turtle!” And so saying, he picked up the Tweedles by their tiny collar and deposited them in the hand of the gloomy Mock Ninja Turtle.
“We’re not gonna talk to you either. Nyeah!” said the Tweedles, sticking out tiny tongues.
“Isch it becausche I’m not a real Ninja Turtle,” said the Mock Ninja Turtle, beginning to weep.
“Hey! Cut out the waterworks!” squealed the Tweedles.
“You're gonna drown us!”
“Or wash off the tattoos.”
“Whoa. Temporary tatts?” asked Nathan. “Those guys really sucked.”
“OK, Tweedles,” said Sariel, once again picking the now very damp ex-giant up by the collar. “We've obviously found your Dreamtime avatars, but we've been unable to locate you in the real world. Where they they go, after they left the Abyss?”
“Where do you think we went, shorty?” squealed tiny Tweedle-Gog.
“Look who's talking,” said Sariel.
“Look right under your nose, smarty angel!” said Tweedle-Magog.
“We're in the industry, of course!”
“We're much too cool to get a real job!”
“Oh no!” said Sariel, suddenly realizing the truth.
“What?” said Raziel.
“They're A&R men!” said Sariel. “And unless I miss my guess....”
“Inside Crystal Mountain-” said Tweedle-Gog.
“Evil takes its form,” squealed Tweedle-Magog.
“Raziel!” said Charles, who had just leapt up from the couch.
“Got it!” she said. “Ganesh?”
Ganesh was on his feet. He flipped the book to Charles. “I'm going to change into something more appropriate,” he said, striding out of the room.
“Oh, I'd recommend Armani for this!” said Raziel, tottering after him.
“Da stowwy?” asked Elias, who really had been listening to all of this, as there were bunnies and monsters, and that constituted a pretty good story.
“Yeah, I guess there's another little bit,” said Charles, grabbing both his son and the book. “We need an ending, don't we?”
“Yeah, endin!” agreed Elias.
“Thanks for the help with the chains, Anna!” said Charles. The ghost girl had just appeared beside him, and she flipped him a golden, guitar-shaped key.
“No problem! This dreamtime stuff is cool!” Anna told him.
“And thanks for putting up all those handbills.”
“I love postering. Did they work?”
“Like a charm.”
“Cool! Are you coming back to Mordhaus now?” she asked.
“If you’ll just wait one moment,” said Charles. “Guys,” he told the forest, holding up his axe, “Thanks for the help. I need another favor. A big one.”
“We're here to see Mr. Cornickleson. We do not have an appointment,” said Ganesh as he and Raziel strode into the receptionist's office.
“Nobody sees Mr. Cornicklson without an appointment,” scolded the Bluetoothed receptionist. “You need to HEY IS THAT A SWORD!”
“Yeah, I coordinated it with my outfit!' agreed Raziel, who was standing on the receptionist's desk and did indeed have a sword pointed at her neck.
Ganesh pushed through to Cornickleson's office and Raziel leapt off the desk to follow him.
“Mr. Cornickleson,” said Ganesh.
“Who are you?” grumbled the crusty executive. “Oh. Fuck!”
“You must remember me? The girl with the silver rings?” grinned Raziel.
“Now, Duke Berith,” said Ganesh, as the executive had morphed into his demon Form under the influence of Raziel's rings, which in turn caused the intern who had been giving Cornickleson/Berith a blow job under his desk to scream and run away.
“What do you want?” demanded Berith. “That guy gives the best head in Hollywood.”
“Gog. And Magog,” said Ganesh.
Berith zipped up his pants sunk back down into his seat. “Those boys? Yeah, they're completely useless. So I had them doing A&R.”
“Where are they now?” asked Raziel.
“Probably what they're always doing: sitting in their office, getting high.”
Raziel and Ganesh looked at each other. “If they were not of any use, whyever did you give them a job?” inquired Ganesh.
“They had great connections! They used to work for Lucifer himself!”
“Berith,” said Ganesh, “they were banished by the Creator to the Abyss. One of Lucifer's minions was set to guard them.”
“Oh, so padding the old resume a bit,” chuckled Berith.
“Which way?” asked Raziel. Berith inclined his horned head, and the two set off down the hall.
“They have two different offices, huh?” said Raziel, looking at the nameplates facing each other across the hallway. “How do they work that?”
Ganesh looked back and forth and frowned. “Perhaps they have separate Forms?” He sighed. “I suppose we should split up and do each room at the same time.”
“Sounds like a plan,” said Raziel. <i.“uno, due,="due," tre!”</i="tre!”</i"> she said, and upon reaching three in Italian, the two fashionistas kicked down their respective doors.
“Oh!” shouted Magog, who was just lighting up.
“Shit!” shouted Gog, who was in the middle of snorting a white line off his desk.
And then, like a pair of synchronized divers, the two simultanously stood up and took a header out of their respective windows.
Ganesh rushed to the broken window.
“Mine's a jumper!” said Raziel.
“Did you see where he went?” asked Ganesh.
“No, that's why I didn't follow. He fell down partway....”
“And then vanished,” concluded Ganesh, leaning out the window and staring downwards.
“So, dis ams it?” asked Skwisgaar.
“Yes,” said Charles, who did not bother looking up.
“You ams sures dis times?”
“I am quite sure.”
Skwisgaar looked curiously at the workbench his manager was hunched over, and regarded the guitar that was rapidly taking shape under Charles' careful hands.
“How you ams brings da woods back from da Dreamstime?” asked Skwisgaar.
“That’s for me to know,” grinned Charles. “Boon! The neck!”
“Da neck Daddy!” said the child, pattering over to a nearby workbench as his dog padded at his heels. “Da neck da neck da neck,” he said, picking it up.
Charles pulled Elias into his lap, and then carefully matched the neck to the guitar body, letting Elias point out the small defect. “So, you need to sand, right? The way we said?”
Elias took a small piece of fine grained sandpaper, and with great concentration, leaned forward to sand the imperfection.
“Now, since Boon is working on this one,” said Charles, looking over the boy, “it's gonna have his magic too. It's gonna be very powerful.”
“Ja,” said Skwisgaar, who actually looked as if he may have been a tiny bit impressed. He nodded and rose up off of his stool. “Da good works,” he muttered, turning to leave. Charles glanced up at Skwisgaar's back, not letting the guitarist see the half-smile on his face.
“Sand, Daddy,” said Elias. Charles checked the fit of the neck once again.
“OK, looks like we can put in the screws.”
“Yay!” said Elias. “Da skwoos...” He wriggled off Charles' lap to get a handful of them.
“That is looking very good,” said Ganesh, who had just breezed into the room.
“Skwisgaar thinks so, oddly enough,” Charles told him.
“Er. Yes. I encountered him on the way in. He wishes to resume sitar lessons,” said Ganesh, making a sour face.
“How are you guys gonna play? You've got nothing left but matchsticks!”
“Perhaps I will ask my favorite luthier for assistance. And it is retaining your magic,” said Ganesh, slipping slim fingers down the side of the guitar's body.
“Wait, you can tell?”
“Um. Yes. I am not certain how, but yes. This is a magical object.”
“Boonie hepped, Baap!” said Elias.
“Why, yes, you are a fine apprentice,” said Ganesh, hefting Boon.
“Any word?” asked Charles, jerking his head.
Ganesh set Elias on the floor, and then hopped up on a stool. “Nothing further, I am afraid. They have gone to ground. I fear we will inevitably have to do as the Creator suggested.”
“Old bastard,” grumbled Charles, reaching down for some screws. “Thanks, Boon.”
“An', Daddy an Baap go dawn an da 'Byss!” said Elias.
“Uh,” said Charles.
“We are only talking about things now, Boonie,” said Ganesh.
“An' Boonie go dawn!” said Elias.
“Er,” said Ganesh.
“Absolutely not!” said Charles. “No, baby, you're too little.”
“Boonie pwotect Daddy an' Boonie pwotect Baap!” the child insisted, crossing his arms stubbornly. “Boonie id da pwentice!”
“Elias,” said Ganesh softly. “Now, it is like there are Daddy words, there are also things that Daddies do sometimes....”
“Boonie id go dawn!”
Charles and Ganesh exchanged a pained look.
“OK. All right. Boon. Nobody is going ANYWHERE right now, OK?” said Charles. “I need to finish this guitar, and if you're my apprentice, you need to help me. You gonna do that?”
“Uh-huh!” said Elias, who immediately brightened.
“Now come on up here,” said Charles, as Elias once again scrambled in to his lap. “Oh, I need some clamps,” he said, twisting around.
“I'll get them,” said Ganesh, walking over to a neat row a bins behind Charles. “Which size?”
“No bigger – no smaller – yeah, that one,” said Charles.
“Dat one!” said Elias.
Ganesh handed over some clamps, and then scooted a stool over so he could watch the assembly. “You know this is gonna put some of your magic in the guitar as well,” said Charles.
“Skwisgaar will become perfectly <i>impossible!</i>” said Ganesh.
“He already is,” laughed Charles.
And the three men sat hunched over the workbench, making magic.
