"The Sound and the Fury"
"Hey, is dat Barney?" asked Bully.
Cheatsy nodded. "Yeah." He was watching the show with everyone else.
Bully took a seat. "Okay, why da hell are we watchin' this?"
No one answered. There was a very long silence.
"Trouble Afoot"
Meanwhile, Hop and King Koopa were traveling across the Mushroom Kingdom to oversee the seige and pillaging of Castle Toadstool, unaccompanied and on foot. The sun was shining and it was an absolutely luminous morning; the air was temperate, congenial, and made sweeter only by the melodious strains of dream-world air-fowl reverberating over an unblemished skyline.
"Wow, it sure is nice out," reamarked Hop.
Koopa cast a glance at him.
"...I'm just surprised is all," Hop continued at length. He then added agreeably, "you'd think it would be better to do something like this at night."
Koopa gazed away peevishly.
"...It just seems weird . . . I guess I'm not used to it. It feels like we're power walking to the caper, you know?"
Having not quite gotten into character yet, King Koopa puffed up laboriously and bellowed, "...Cheatsy my boy, seizing a throne is like strategic trick-or-treating." He paused unexpectedly. "Uh . . . wait, are you Cheatsy? You're lookin' a little sketched out there."
"No, I'm Hop," Hop replied.
"...Really?" Koopa asked, surprised.
Hop nodded.
"...What the hell...?" Koopa grumbled, perplexed. He let out an irritated sigh. "Damnit, I was really lookin' forward to a Cheatsy mission today."
"I thought there was something off," Hop said diffidently.
"Anyway, go on," Koopa said, urging Hop with a flustered hand gesture, "what were we talking about?"
"Uh . . . you said that seizing a throne is like strategic trick-or-treating."
"Yeah, huh. That. Well..." Koopa scratched his nose. "Eh . . . You know what? This whole thing really knocks the wind out of my sails. Let's just venture in silence."
"...Okay."
Hop and King Koopa continued walking on the nice day. There was a very long silence.