Owlbus Humblebore Meets a Troll
Owlbus Humblebore found himself suspended in the air, hoisted by several strands of elastic cord knotted around the bulge of his pants. He was cross-eyed and tears streamed down his face—but not because of pain. No, Owlbus had been quite immune to pain for several years: the copious quantities of powders of various colours and the odd plants he smoked, snorted, or otherwise ingested had ensured that. These tears, it would happen, were of delight—mostly. The newly-formed onion mushrooms below certainly had made noble contributions to the activity of Owlbus' tear ducts.
There was a loud grunt nearby.
Well, more like a growl.
Yes, definitely a growl, thought the man Owlbus to himself. He shoved several handfuls of mushrooms down his trousers and then several more into his mouth. The elastic cords stretched just a little more as he crammed more and more mushrooms into every crevice he could find. These were his preciouses.
Another growl. This one was closer.
Much closer.
Owlbus blinked once, and then again. As he did so a pair of very large and yellow-green eyes met his. At once he was met by an odour so pungent it overpowered the smell of the onion mushrooms and made its assault on his nostrils.
"Let us down, you stupid troll," came the screech of Sola Ng Enthanxfralthfish. She hung by her ankle, covered by little more than her anger and bright red knickers. Terry Gardner hung by his right arm beside her.
Though you'd never know it by their current predicament, Sola and Terry had been discussing the palace's windows—all eight of them. They had concluded that they had liked the eighth one the best, but the seventh one was quite nice, too—it just took a bit longer to open and had a rather lot less colour as, unlike the eighth window, it was not made of stained glass.
Just as Sola began to cry for some form of assistance from the school's headmaster, the strain on the elastic cords holding Humblebore in the air became too much. There was a series of three very loud snaps, followed by the relieved groans of the willows from which he had been hanging.
"Put us down, you ugly git," Terry shouted from the top of his lungs. Terry sighed when the troll simply responded by doing three things in quick succession. First, he shook Terry and Sola erratically. Second, he ripped a fart so hard and so powerful that it set a fox on fire. And three, rubbed a drop of bird shit from his chrome-coloured helmet. "We aren't very tasty, I promise. We've barely got anything on us." Terry pulled at the skin on his arm. It barely moved.
"No, no," said Sola with the hair of her head straightening more and more with each of the troll's breaths. "You can't use logic with trolls. They can't understand it. It only confuses the troll and makes them very angry. The only thing that can make a troll happy is an apple."
"An apple?" Owlbus questioned. His eyebrows raised yet again; already they looked quite ready to escape from his face.
"Yes, an apple." As soon as the words left Sola's mouth, the troll raised its giant hand and took a swing at the three of them.
"Damn." Sola winced as she was sent on her journey to become one with the tree beside her. "This is one of those apple-hating trolls."
"Well, what do you suggest, then?" Terry ducked a pair of swings and Owlbus Humblebore, made stiff by the massive quantity of fungus in his underpants became their unlucky victim. There was a showering of mushrooms from the man as he collided with one of the higher branches of a neighbouring tree.
"At this point we can only be saved by an army of tinsy green robots." Sola sighed, resting herself against the tree against which she had been flung only a moment before. "Basically, we're screwed."
"Not completely," Terry said softly, ducking yet another swing from the troll. "Those little green robots really aren't so little anymore. In fact, over the last couple of years, they've managed to get larger and larger."
"Yeah," Sola nodded, "But I don't see any of those little robots making the rounds, do you?"
The troll sniffed several times in quick succession and turned. There was another person entering their midst. Terry wanted to shout at them to run for their lives and Sola wanted to make use of the momentary distraction to flee, but when Harmonia's small frame emerged from the trees, both minds raced with panic.
Harmonia took several steps closer to the troll. She was dressed in only Terry's bloodstained t-shirt and a yellow rubber bracelet.
She was sleepwalking. Her thumb and pointer finger rested naturally inside her small mouth and were accompanied by a zombie-like stare and a droopy bottom lip. The troll took an interest in her presence immediately. No longer was he grunting and growling, no longer was he swinging away at Sola or Terry—he was fixated on the stuffed animal she held loosely in her left arm—a small, plush penguin.
The troll clapped with excitement as the penguin fell to the ground.
"So... that's it then?" Owlbus asked. Sola nodded slowly; Terry gently took Harmonia by the hand and began to step backward in retreat. The troll was grinning widely; a large stream of drool ran down its face and pooled on the ground below. It hugged the plush penguin tightly and giggled, now both ignorant of and uninterested in the fact that his victims were escaping behind him.
They sneaked back into Pigzits, ignorant of Hickey Weaklebee, bare back against the cold marble archway of the stairs leading into the palace, trying desperately to pleasure herself with one of the few blackberries still mostly free of rot.
Author's Note: It's been a very long while since I've posted anything, and so when this oneshot from my parody Harry Potter universe came to my mind, I just had to put it to paper (figuratively, of course). I hope you can forgive me.
Don't get it? Read it again with technology in mind or, if you haven't already, read my story entitled Owlbus Humblebore and the Labyrinth of Doom in which I set-up this whole parody universe.