Nova's ears flattened as he sorted the stacks of scrolls. There was no way
in hell that he was leaving the library cavern; not now. It was /that/ time
of year, the time when things seemed to reach the climax of being bizarre.
Each year was worse than the last. This time, they were singing. For a
moment, the unipeg considered the possibility of forcing himself into
unconsciousness. It'd keep him from joining in the singing, at least. The
sound of frantically buzzing wings caught his attention, and he glanced up
with an exasperated look.
"Do I even want to know?"
Hovering over the desk, Spitfire nodded with a grin, her wings still sounding like a hummingbird's on speed.
"Horus and half of the acolytes went into a production number in the cavern next to Noir's. Well, they were in a production number, but then something in Stormy's cavern exploded, and that caused part of the temple complex cavern to cave in, and that made some of the other living caverns cave in, too, so.."
Nova slammed his head his against the desk in a desperate attempt to knock himself out as Spitfire continued through the list of the various mini- disasters that had occurred so far. However, all he wound up with was a pounding headache and his horn stuck in the woodwork. Meanwhile, Spitfire was busy finishing up the list.
"..So then Horus and Firecracker got into a fight, and Blizzard's going to finally send Wraith and the other ambassadors to Dream Valley because the storms finally cleared up. And according to that unicorn from Khemket, there's a bounty on Vesper's head for murdering the English language, but then Riptide got into an argument with him, because you can't murder words.."
The library cavern suddenly shudder and several pieces of the ceiling came loose, taking out a few shelves of scrolls with them. Spitfire swung to the left, barely avoiding a falling chunk of ice.
"And Stormy just blew something else up, apparently."
Nova groaned softly to himself, horn still firmly embedded into the desk. More wingbeats caught his attention as Stormbringer flew into the cavern with a harried expression as well as a scorched hide. Her ears twitched back as she glanced around, gnawing for a moment on her lower lip as parts of her still smoldered.
"I'd suggest you guys go into hiding soon. I'm going to hide in my cavern behind the scrap pile, if anyone needs me."
Nova and Spitfire regarded the pegasus with looks of slight curiosity. Spitfire landed on the desk and began to try and help Nova get his horn unstuck.
"Why?"
"Because-" Stormbringer started, but was cut off by a piercing, high pitched squeal that either came from a cat being tortured or someone who was extremely excited. The trio winced simultaneously at the ear-splitting sound. "-because the princess ponies just arrived. Well, four of them, at least. I've heard that the other two are busy torturing Queen Nekhbet today."
Nova shook his head as his horn was freed, rising up into the air to join the other unipegs in flight. His ears were flat and his tone was humorless. "Great Rainbow. If we were lucky, one of them might've gotten eaten by those demon ponies or attacked by those hordes of chipmunks, but no.."
Spitfire winced visibly, then glanced around. "Maybe we can hide in an empty cavern. And it could be worse..we could be in the king's position."
Elsewhere, Blizzard, monarch of Icestorm Point and an older-than-dirt pegasus, was wondering if it was a good thing that he had gone through his reign with only unsuccessful attempts at stabbing him, poisoning him, and in one instance setting a rabid seapony after him, among other assassination attempts. If he had died before the six princesses came to power, he wouldn't have to deal with this problem. Bowing his head, he sighed.
"Wraith, might you have any suggestions on how to fake my own death?"
Wraith blinked at the question. "Sir?" He cleared his throat, eyeing the elder pony carefully. "They can't be that bad, can they? I mean, faking your death is a little..drastic."
The white pegasus eyed him back with a blank expression. "I've lived through family feuds and the whole star-crossed suicide lovers business, raids, having to move the entire damned population here, numerous attempts on life, and those flesh-eating ponies that got everyone panicking. And yet those six are the most horrible things I've ever had to deal with." He sighed again, ears pricking up slightly as he caught sight of something across the room. "Looks like I'll have to do what I tried with a couple of warlords.."
"What would that be, sir?"
"I'm going to get drunk and hope that I make them so angry that they challenge me to monarch's duel so they can replace me with someone else. It's to the death, you know."
The blue pegasus, meanwhile, was going bug-eyed. "You want to get in a duel to the death, sir?" Looking up at the ceiling, he frantically prayed that something would come loose and take him out of the conversation. For once, nothing plummeted towards his head. "Are you sure that's wise?"
Blizzard gave Wraith a vaguely cheerful look as trotted over to the bottle. "Never lost one before." With that, he took to the air, bottle in his teeth as he flew off.
In another part of Icestorm Point, Horus was going through his own personal hell, and wondering how severe the repercussions for regicide were. He wasn't quite sure how he had gotten stuck with the job of greeting the quartet of princesses, but it appeared that he was stuck with them until they ran into the king. He sighed as Princess Royal Blue stared intently at the tattoos under his eyes.
"Didn't that, y'know, hurt? I mean, really, drawing on yourself around your eyes with a pointy thingy. What if you put an eye out? Ick."
"Madam, the facial markings are a symbol of being part of the religious facilities and of honor in my native land, and I have never heard of an acolyte having an eye lost in the process."
The unipeg was simply given a blank look for his troubles. With a splash, the calm surface of the water in one of the non-frozen over plant vases broke. Riptide paused for a moment to gulp in some air, only her muzzle sticking out of the water.
"He says that the tattoos are traditional and that nobody ever put an eye out."
With another gulp of air and a splash, Riptide's muzzle vanished back into the water. The princesses stared at each other in an uncomfortable moment of silence. Scuffling and clunking sounds shortly broke it, as Lampy and one of the princess' bushwoolies rolled past, not noticing the five as they fought. The uncomfortable silence returned, but Horus noted that their eyes had bugged for the moment and they were now glancing around with some trepidation. He smiled inwardly to himself. Perhaps if they were lucky, the princesses would flee in terror. The sound of unsteadily beating wings, however, broke his train of thought for the moment.
"Greetingsh, Princess Serena, Princess Schparkle, Princess Starburst, and Princess..eh..blueish. Purplish. Indigo. Royal color, anyway.."
Blizzard landed with a small explosion of feathers and regained his composure for a moment, managing to look noble rather than drunk. Behind him, Wraith was silently praying once more that something would take him out of the entire situation. "I welcome you to Ischestorm Point." One ear flopped lazily for a moment and then was twitched upright once more. He turned and started to walk through the main caverns, his hoofbeats as unsteady as his wingbeats were. "Right thsich way, if you please."
Still giving each other looks of vague misgivings, the four princesses followed after Blizzard. Horus glanced over towards the vase as Riptide resurfaced, snorting and shaking out her mane. Her attention went to the princesses for a moment, and the unipeg raised an eyebrow.
"We've got to get Stormy to build you one of those translator boxes one of these days."
"Hrmph. I see nothing heinous in my choice of vocabulary.."
Lord Fluffypants perched atop the rusted pile of scrap metal and rotten wood that could only be called a sleigh by a very long stretch of the imagination. Quickly, he pulled a moldy red cap with a dirty-grey pompom dangling from the end over his usual cowl as he prepared. No point in going through the current idea from tiny-horse destruction if you couldn't really get into the role, after all. He ducked occasionally as pieces of splattered chipmunk flew past his head and grinned in the typical skeletal way as he watched the creatures hooked up to the sleigh.
Eight gaunt, long-limbed ponies were hitched to the sleigh by rotting leather harnesses, saliva dripping from their jaws as they screeched and occasionally attacked one of the chipmunks making last minute preparations. The predatory equines snorted as they strained at the harnesses, testing them in hopes of getting free and causing more carnage. Lord Fluffypants hurriedly flipped through the stack of picture books beside him as he attempted to make sure that everything was perfect.
"With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.."
Nova paused for a moment to sigh. He couldn't believe it. Caught. Caught right at the moment he had found possibly the best place to hide inside the entire complex, and dragged off into 'volunteering' to read to toddlers. It could be worse, he supposed-he could be having to deal with the princesses. Although they wouldn't be using his tail as a chewtoy and drooling into it. Giving the foal an irritated look, he continued.
"More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, and he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.."
"Now DASHER, now DANCER, now PRANCER and VIXEN! On COMET, on CUPID, on DONDER and BLITZEN!" Lord Fluffypants shouted out, flipping madly through one book to make sure everything was proper. "From the top of the porch-" He suddenly cut himself off as he spied another book with a reindeer gracing the cover. "MINONS! HALT!" Heaving the book up, he glared fixedly at it for a moment, then glanced up again. "Bring me a tiny horse with a GLOWY NOSE!" The chipmunks wandered over to a pen where several more of the demonic equines were being held, peering intently for several moments. Finally, one ran over to Lord Fluffypants.
"Squeak."
"What do you mean NONE of them have a glowing nose? It's SUPPOSED to have a glowy nose! It glows, fire glows, how the hell are you supposed to have FIREY CHIPMUNK-TINY-HORSE DEATH without it glowing?!"
"Squeaksqueak squeakity."
".It'll work."
The chipmunk scrambled back over to the rest of its group, squeaking madly as they brought a pony out of the pen. This one was built differently; with a stocky, compact build and large muzzle, it looked like an earth pony. However, its charcoal colored flanks lacked a symbol and the glowing, neon- bright green eyes destroyed the illusion. Giving the chipmunks a look of indignant, mild annoyance rather than fury as she was hitched up to the sleigh, the dark pony shook her head and sighed. Lord Fluffypants started to cackle in the villainous tradition. Everything was now finally ready.
"To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, now dash away, dash away, dash away all. Look, haven't you heard this a million times before?"
The foal merely gave Nova a cheerful smile and shook his head, chirping, "More!"
"An' thisch, as you've scheen before, isch the main cavern.."
The princesses had begun to mutter to themselves and Wraith was dying a thousand deaths as Blizzard managed to slur his way through the sentence. For the third time in the relatively short time period, he wished for something-anything-to keep the situation from reaching a very bad conclusion. He cleared his throat, attempting to grab the princesses' collective attention and give them a charming smile.
"Ahem. Perhaps your majesties are hungry? We have quite a fine dining cavern that you might enjoy browsing through."
Before the princesses could respond, a shudder went through the doors of the main cavern. Blizzard perked up his ears, giving the door a bleary eyed, yet happy, look. "More vischtors! Perschaps we schould invite them in for a drin' er two.." He glanced to Wraith for a moment. "Where'sch the alc'hol?"
Two more shudders went through the doors once more before they finally broke open, allowing his sleigh to slide in. However, he wasn't expecting the ponies' snow-slicked hooves and the smooth stone floors to react quite so violently. The harness straps snapped as the ponies charged forward, sending the predatory equines careening wildly across the floor. Ponies began to flood out of the cavern, ears laid flat as the sound of buzzing wings and crackling magical energy started to flood the main cavern. They had put up with having the princesses' visit, and it appeared that they weren't going to put up with anymore trouble for the night. The gaunt ponies that hadn't accidentally splattered themselves against the walls soon found themselves being mobbed. Lord Fluffypants found himself being catapulted through the air for several moments until he landed abruptly in a small hole in the rock walls. He peered down at the carnage below him. Sure, there wasn't fire, and the wrong type of ponies were getting maimed, but it was fairly close. He leaned back to watch the show.
Meanwhile, the dark lead pony found herself suddenly sliding rapidly towards a wall. She braced herself for the impact..
..and slid on through the wall, and into the temple complex where Horus was busy missing all the excitement and repairing statues. He squinted at the bits of statue for a moment, trying to make sure that all the pieces had been found before he started to reattach them permanently. The black pony, still appearing more as insubstantial shadow than flesh, slid through the pile of rubble and past Horus. He blinked, turning to watch the pony continue to slide down the corridors.
"Why must I always be the sole witness to these various acts of supernatural forces?"
In the main cavern, things were calming down as the ponies started to clean up the splatter marks. The princesses were staring bug-eyed at each other, staying in a safe-looking corner. Blizzard eyed the carnage quietly for a moment, then turned to Wraith.
"I t'ink I need a vacation. I wanna go on schabbatical an' gid drunk. Ish that 'llowed?"
"Possibly, sir. You're already halfway there."
"That'sch nishe."
The elderly pegasus suddenly collapsed and started to snore loudly. Wraith shook his head for a moment, then put on a diplomatic smile as he flew over to the princesses.
"Uh..so. Shall I give you four the tour of the rest of the stronghold?"
Elsewhere, Nova was still suffering through storytime as he wrapped it up, giving the foal a look that could kill.
"..Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. There, we're done now. Finished. Now more story, see? All gone. And for the love of the rainbow, stop chewing on my tail! See? Adults like foals much better when they're not causing wanton yeeeEEOOW! I'm going to have your hide for th-get back here-put tha-Riptide! A little help? RIP!"
"Do I even want to know?"
Hovering over the desk, Spitfire nodded with a grin, her wings still sounding like a hummingbird's on speed.
"Horus and half of the acolytes went into a production number in the cavern next to Noir's. Well, they were in a production number, but then something in Stormy's cavern exploded, and that caused part of the temple complex cavern to cave in, and that made some of the other living caverns cave in, too, so.."
Nova slammed his head his against the desk in a desperate attempt to knock himself out as Spitfire continued through the list of the various mini- disasters that had occurred so far. However, all he wound up with was a pounding headache and his horn stuck in the woodwork. Meanwhile, Spitfire was busy finishing up the list.
"..So then Horus and Firecracker got into a fight, and Blizzard's going to finally send Wraith and the other ambassadors to Dream Valley because the storms finally cleared up. And according to that unicorn from Khemket, there's a bounty on Vesper's head for murdering the English language, but then Riptide got into an argument with him, because you can't murder words.."
The library cavern suddenly shudder and several pieces of the ceiling came loose, taking out a few shelves of scrolls with them. Spitfire swung to the left, barely avoiding a falling chunk of ice.
"And Stormy just blew something else up, apparently."
Nova groaned softly to himself, horn still firmly embedded into the desk. More wingbeats caught his attention as Stormbringer flew into the cavern with a harried expression as well as a scorched hide. Her ears twitched back as she glanced around, gnawing for a moment on her lower lip as parts of her still smoldered.
"I'd suggest you guys go into hiding soon. I'm going to hide in my cavern behind the scrap pile, if anyone needs me."
Nova and Spitfire regarded the pegasus with looks of slight curiosity. Spitfire landed on the desk and began to try and help Nova get his horn unstuck.
"Why?"
"Because-" Stormbringer started, but was cut off by a piercing, high pitched squeal that either came from a cat being tortured or someone who was extremely excited. The trio winced simultaneously at the ear-splitting sound. "-because the princess ponies just arrived. Well, four of them, at least. I've heard that the other two are busy torturing Queen Nekhbet today."
Nova shook his head as his horn was freed, rising up into the air to join the other unipegs in flight. His ears were flat and his tone was humorless. "Great Rainbow. If we were lucky, one of them might've gotten eaten by those demon ponies or attacked by those hordes of chipmunks, but no.."
Spitfire winced visibly, then glanced around. "Maybe we can hide in an empty cavern. And it could be worse..we could be in the king's position."
Elsewhere, Blizzard, monarch of Icestorm Point and an older-than-dirt pegasus, was wondering if it was a good thing that he had gone through his reign with only unsuccessful attempts at stabbing him, poisoning him, and in one instance setting a rabid seapony after him, among other assassination attempts. If he had died before the six princesses came to power, he wouldn't have to deal with this problem. Bowing his head, he sighed.
"Wraith, might you have any suggestions on how to fake my own death?"
Wraith blinked at the question. "Sir?" He cleared his throat, eyeing the elder pony carefully. "They can't be that bad, can they? I mean, faking your death is a little..drastic."
The white pegasus eyed him back with a blank expression. "I've lived through family feuds and the whole star-crossed suicide lovers business, raids, having to move the entire damned population here, numerous attempts on life, and those flesh-eating ponies that got everyone panicking. And yet those six are the most horrible things I've ever had to deal with." He sighed again, ears pricking up slightly as he caught sight of something across the room. "Looks like I'll have to do what I tried with a couple of warlords.."
"What would that be, sir?"
"I'm going to get drunk and hope that I make them so angry that they challenge me to monarch's duel so they can replace me with someone else. It's to the death, you know."
The blue pegasus, meanwhile, was going bug-eyed. "You want to get in a duel to the death, sir?" Looking up at the ceiling, he frantically prayed that something would come loose and take him out of the conversation. For once, nothing plummeted towards his head. "Are you sure that's wise?"
Blizzard gave Wraith a vaguely cheerful look as trotted over to the bottle. "Never lost one before." With that, he took to the air, bottle in his teeth as he flew off.
In another part of Icestorm Point, Horus was going through his own personal hell, and wondering how severe the repercussions for regicide were. He wasn't quite sure how he had gotten stuck with the job of greeting the quartet of princesses, but it appeared that he was stuck with them until they ran into the king. He sighed as Princess Royal Blue stared intently at the tattoos under his eyes.
"Didn't that, y'know, hurt? I mean, really, drawing on yourself around your eyes with a pointy thingy. What if you put an eye out? Ick."
"Madam, the facial markings are a symbol of being part of the religious facilities and of honor in my native land, and I have never heard of an acolyte having an eye lost in the process."
The unipeg was simply given a blank look for his troubles. With a splash, the calm surface of the water in one of the non-frozen over plant vases broke. Riptide paused for a moment to gulp in some air, only her muzzle sticking out of the water.
"He says that the tattoos are traditional and that nobody ever put an eye out."
With another gulp of air and a splash, Riptide's muzzle vanished back into the water. The princesses stared at each other in an uncomfortable moment of silence. Scuffling and clunking sounds shortly broke it, as Lampy and one of the princess' bushwoolies rolled past, not noticing the five as they fought. The uncomfortable silence returned, but Horus noted that their eyes had bugged for the moment and they were now glancing around with some trepidation. He smiled inwardly to himself. Perhaps if they were lucky, the princesses would flee in terror. The sound of unsteadily beating wings, however, broke his train of thought for the moment.
"Greetingsh, Princess Serena, Princess Schparkle, Princess Starburst, and Princess..eh..blueish. Purplish. Indigo. Royal color, anyway.."
Blizzard landed with a small explosion of feathers and regained his composure for a moment, managing to look noble rather than drunk. Behind him, Wraith was silently praying once more that something would take him out of the entire situation. "I welcome you to Ischestorm Point." One ear flopped lazily for a moment and then was twitched upright once more. He turned and started to walk through the main caverns, his hoofbeats as unsteady as his wingbeats were. "Right thsich way, if you please."
Still giving each other looks of vague misgivings, the four princesses followed after Blizzard. Horus glanced over towards the vase as Riptide resurfaced, snorting and shaking out her mane. Her attention went to the princesses for a moment, and the unipeg raised an eyebrow.
"We've got to get Stormy to build you one of those translator boxes one of these days."
"Hrmph. I see nothing heinous in my choice of vocabulary.."
Lord Fluffypants perched atop the rusted pile of scrap metal and rotten wood that could only be called a sleigh by a very long stretch of the imagination. Quickly, he pulled a moldy red cap with a dirty-grey pompom dangling from the end over his usual cowl as he prepared. No point in going through the current idea from tiny-horse destruction if you couldn't really get into the role, after all. He ducked occasionally as pieces of splattered chipmunk flew past his head and grinned in the typical skeletal way as he watched the creatures hooked up to the sleigh.
Eight gaunt, long-limbed ponies were hitched to the sleigh by rotting leather harnesses, saliva dripping from their jaws as they screeched and occasionally attacked one of the chipmunks making last minute preparations. The predatory equines snorted as they strained at the harnesses, testing them in hopes of getting free and causing more carnage. Lord Fluffypants hurriedly flipped through the stack of picture books beside him as he attempted to make sure that everything was perfect.
"With a little old driver, so lively and quick, I knew in a moment it must be St. Nick.."
Nova paused for a moment to sigh. He couldn't believe it. Caught. Caught right at the moment he had found possibly the best place to hide inside the entire complex, and dragged off into 'volunteering' to read to toddlers. It could be worse, he supposed-he could be having to deal with the princesses. Although they wouldn't be using his tail as a chewtoy and drooling into it. Giving the foal an irritated look, he continued.
"More rapid than eagles his coursers they came, and he whistled, and shouted, and called them by name.."
"Now DASHER, now DANCER, now PRANCER and VIXEN! On COMET, on CUPID, on DONDER and BLITZEN!" Lord Fluffypants shouted out, flipping madly through one book to make sure everything was proper. "From the top of the porch-" He suddenly cut himself off as he spied another book with a reindeer gracing the cover. "MINONS! HALT!" Heaving the book up, he glared fixedly at it for a moment, then glanced up again. "Bring me a tiny horse with a GLOWY NOSE!" The chipmunks wandered over to a pen where several more of the demonic equines were being held, peering intently for several moments. Finally, one ran over to Lord Fluffypants.
"Squeak."
"What do you mean NONE of them have a glowing nose? It's SUPPOSED to have a glowy nose! It glows, fire glows, how the hell are you supposed to have FIREY CHIPMUNK-TINY-HORSE DEATH without it glowing?!"
"Squeaksqueak squeakity."
".It'll work."
The chipmunk scrambled back over to the rest of its group, squeaking madly as they brought a pony out of the pen. This one was built differently; with a stocky, compact build and large muzzle, it looked like an earth pony. However, its charcoal colored flanks lacked a symbol and the glowing, neon- bright green eyes destroyed the illusion. Giving the chipmunks a look of indignant, mild annoyance rather than fury as she was hitched up to the sleigh, the dark pony shook her head and sighed. Lord Fluffypants started to cackle in the villainous tradition. Everything was now finally ready.
"To the top of the porch, to the top of the wall, now dash away, dash away, dash away all. Look, haven't you heard this a million times before?"
The foal merely gave Nova a cheerful smile and shook his head, chirping, "More!"
"An' thisch, as you've scheen before, isch the main cavern.."
The princesses had begun to mutter to themselves and Wraith was dying a thousand deaths as Blizzard managed to slur his way through the sentence. For the third time in the relatively short time period, he wished for something-anything-to keep the situation from reaching a very bad conclusion. He cleared his throat, attempting to grab the princesses' collective attention and give them a charming smile.
"Ahem. Perhaps your majesties are hungry? We have quite a fine dining cavern that you might enjoy browsing through."
Before the princesses could respond, a shudder went through the doors of the main cavern. Blizzard perked up his ears, giving the door a bleary eyed, yet happy, look. "More vischtors! Perschaps we schould invite them in for a drin' er two.." He glanced to Wraith for a moment. "Where'sch the alc'hol?"
Two more shudders went through the doors once more before they finally broke open, allowing his sleigh to slide in. However, he wasn't expecting the ponies' snow-slicked hooves and the smooth stone floors to react quite so violently. The harness straps snapped as the ponies charged forward, sending the predatory equines careening wildly across the floor. Ponies began to flood out of the cavern, ears laid flat as the sound of buzzing wings and crackling magical energy started to flood the main cavern. They had put up with having the princesses' visit, and it appeared that they weren't going to put up with anymore trouble for the night. The gaunt ponies that hadn't accidentally splattered themselves against the walls soon found themselves being mobbed. Lord Fluffypants found himself being catapulted through the air for several moments until he landed abruptly in a small hole in the rock walls. He peered down at the carnage below him. Sure, there wasn't fire, and the wrong type of ponies were getting maimed, but it was fairly close. He leaned back to watch the show.
Meanwhile, the dark lead pony found herself suddenly sliding rapidly towards a wall. She braced herself for the impact..
..and slid on through the wall, and into the temple complex where Horus was busy missing all the excitement and repairing statues. He squinted at the bits of statue for a moment, trying to make sure that all the pieces had been found before he started to reattach them permanently. The black pony, still appearing more as insubstantial shadow than flesh, slid through the pile of rubble and past Horus. He blinked, turning to watch the pony continue to slide down the corridors.
"Why must I always be the sole witness to these various acts of supernatural forces?"
In the main cavern, things were calming down as the ponies started to clean up the splatter marks. The princesses were staring bug-eyed at each other, staying in a safe-looking corner. Blizzard eyed the carnage quietly for a moment, then turned to Wraith.
"I t'ink I need a vacation. I wanna go on schabbatical an' gid drunk. Ish that 'llowed?"
"Possibly, sir. You're already halfway there."
"That'sch nishe."
The elderly pegasus suddenly collapsed and started to snore loudly. Wraith shook his head for a moment, then put on a diplomatic smile as he flew over to the princesses.
"Uh..so. Shall I give you four the tour of the rest of the stronghold?"
Elsewhere, Nova was still suffering through storytime as he wrapped it up, giving the foal a look that could kill.
"..Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good night. There, we're done now. Finished. Now more story, see? All gone. And for the love of the rainbow, stop chewing on my tail! See? Adults like foals much better when they're not causing wanton yeeeEEOOW! I'm going to have your hide for th-get back here-put tha-Riptide! A little help? RIP!"