The wise Trowa was sitting in the town square, as usual, reading his new manga and trying to ignore the chanting of the monks in the background.
He was actually being pretty successful, so he was in a pretty good mood when suddenly, he heard a shout from the village.
"A witch! A witch! We've found a witch! Burn her! Burn the witch! Burn her, burn her! Burn the witch! A witch! A witch!" and so on.
Trowa sighed and put his manga down, because he knew what was coming next. All of the halfwits in this village would be out with their new victom, and would be asking his permission to burn her. His suspicions were confirmed when he saw Dorothy and Duo dragging Relena along between them, with half the village in attendance. as the crowd made their way up to the square, Trowa noticed with some amusement that they had dressed her all in black and stuck a parsnip1 over her nose. It improved her appearance a great deal, Trowa had to admit.
"We have found a witch, may we burn her?" Duo asked. Trowa sighed in his usual, Trowa-ish way, and asked,
"How do you know she is a witch?"
"She looks like one!" Dorothy replied.
"Yah! Right! Good point!" the crowd of half-wit villagers agreed. Trowa sighed again, though he knew this would be more or less amusing.
"Bring her forward," he said. Wufei stepped out of the crowd and pushed Relena up the stairs towards Trowa, causing her to lose her balance, so that she had to windmill her arms in a most amusing manner to keep from falling flat on her face. When she had recovered her balance, she said,
"I'm not a witch. I'm not a witch!"
"Ah, but you are dressed as one," Trowa pointed out, for the sake of amusement.
"They dressed me up like this!" Relena argued. At this, the crowd replied,
"Augh, no, we didn't, we didn't!"
"And this isn't my nose," Relena continued. "It's a false one!" Trowa bent forward to examine said nose, even though he already knew it was a parsnip. He had to agree, she had a point.
"Well?" he turned to the crowd.
"Well, we did do the nose," Duo admitted.
"The nose?"
"And the hat, but she is a witch!"
"Yah!" Dorothy agreed. With that, the crowd started up their war chant again.
"Burn the witch, burn her, burn her! Yahh!"
"Did you dress her up like this?" Trowa asked.
"No!" Duo said.
"No," Dorothy agreed.
"No!" Quatre chipped in for the first time.
"No!" Duo said again.
"No way!" Dorothy agreed a second time.
"Nuh-uh," Quatre said. Then,
"Yes," Duo admitted.
"Yes," Dorothy agreed.
"Yes, yeah, a bit," Quatre chipped in.
"A bit," Duo said.
"A bit," Dorothy said.
"She has got a wart!" Duo pointed out. Someone in the crowd coughed.
"What makes you think she is a witch?" was Trowa's next question.
"Well, she turned me into a newt," Duo said.
"A newt?" Trowa raised his eyebrows in disbelief.
"I got better," Duo said defensively.
"Burn her anyway!" Dorothy shouted.
"Burn!" Duo agreed. With that, the entire crowd started shouting.
"Burn! Burn! Burn the witch! Burn her! Burn the witch! Burn, burn! Yah!"
"Quiet, quiet!" Trowa raised his arms to soften the tumult of noise the crowd was emitting. "There are ways of telling whether she is a witch."
"Are there?" Duo asked incredulously.
"Ah?" Dorothy added.
"Tell us, tell us!" the crowd chanted. Trowa decided he'd go for the logical approach. If the half-wits in this village needed anything, it was a bit of common sense. He didn't really expect it to work, but he figured it was worth a try.
"Tell me, what do you do with witches?" he asked.
"Burn 'em!" Dorothy cried.
"Burn!" Duo agreed.
"Burn, burn, burn!" the crowd chanted.
"And what do you burn apart from witches?" Trowa asked.
"More witches!" Duo cried.
"Shh!" Quatre shushed Duo, knowing this wasn't the correct answer, though it was a very good one.
"Wood!" Dorothy answered.
"Precisely. So why do witches burn?" Trowa asked.
There was a pause, in which no one spoke. Finally, Quatre answered, a bit timidly,
"B...because they're made of...wood?"
"Good! heh heh!" Trowa favored Quatre with one of his rare smiles as the crowd took this interesting new revelation into their tiny brains.
"Oh, yeah! Oh!"
"So, how do we tell whether she is made of wood?" Trowa continued.
"Build a bridge out of her!" Duo shouted enthusiastically.
"Ah, but can you also not make bridges out of stone?" Trowa asked.
"Huh? Oh, yeah. True...Uhh..." Duo trailed off, unable to come up with another response.
"Does wood sink in water?" Trowa prompted.
"No, it floats! It floats!" Dorothy was quick to respond.
"Throw her in the pond!" Duo shouted happily.
"The pond! The pond! Throw her into the pond!" The crowd took up this new idea with enthusiasm.
"What else floats in water?" Trowa asked.
"Bread!" said Duo.
"Apples!" said Dorothy.
"Uh, very small rocks!" said Quatre.
"Cider!" said Duo.
"Uh, gr-gravy!" Dorothy added.
"Cherries!" Duo cried.
"Mud!" cried Dorothy.
"Uh, churches! Churches!" Quatre called.
"Lead! Lead!" Dorothy cried.
"A duck!" said Heero, who had been silent up to this point, contemplating the stupidity of the other villagers, but eager to see Relena burn, all the same. However, he knew if THIS went on, they'd never get around to burning her.
"Ooh!" the crowd oohed.
"Exactly. So logically..." Trowa trailed off, praying that someone would be smart enough to answer the question. Surprisingly enough, it was Duo who responded.
"If...she weighs...the same as a duck...she's made of wood?"
"And therefore?"
"A witch!" Duo cried gleefully.
"A witch!" Dorothy cried just as gleefully.
"A witch, a witch!" The crowd cried gleefully.
"We don't have any ducks." Wufei pointed out. "Will a kiwi work?" he held up a kiwi bird.
"Yes, very good. We shall use my largest scales." Trowa took the kiwi from Wufei and lead the crowd to his set of large wooden scales. He sat the kiwi in a small cage on one side, where it sat quietly, looking pleased with itself, and had some of the eager townspeople maneuver Relena to the other side.
"Right! Remove the supports!" Trowa called. Someone chopped the rope that held the large balance steady, and the crowd oohed happily as they saw not a dip in the scales, and the cry of "A witch! A witch!" was taken up with much enthusiasm once again. They removed Relena from her side and Wufei took his kiwi bird from the other side, and everyone went off to burn Relena, and no one noticed that once both weights were removed from the scale, the end which had held the kiwi bird dipped all the way to the ground. The scales had been fixed, but so much the better.
Relena-the-witch was fixed to a stake and burned without further adieu. And all was good, because Trowa got to go back to reading his manga.
The end
1 A parsnip resembles a pale carrot.
I love Monty Python almost as much as I love Gundam Wing. So I brought the two together in one happy place. Isn't it happy? I think so. The world will be much nicer with one less bi- I mean witch. I realize the real Sir Bedevere was tying a coconut to a pigeon when he was interrupted by the moronic pesants, but I just can't see Trowa being mean to animals. I also realize that there was no kiwi bird anywhere to be seen, either in that scene, or throughout the entire movie. Artistic liberty, you understand. Anywho, feedback is welcome.