Arashix! You are so enthused! I love it! But what are these houses you so enthusiastically endorse?
The Two Cowards. Book 6.
Or, In Which Piping Is Encouraged, Theoldone Loses Weight, Legless Gains Some And Tom And Hoho Are Relatively Ignored.
Piping became aware of his surroundings before he opened his eyes. He didn't want to open them. He knew what he would see. He would see his dreams, lying before him, dead and lifeless like gutted fish. His head hurt. "Piping, wake up!" urged a voice. The blobbit groaned.
"Piping, quit fooling around and wake up! Sillyman is defeated!"
"Yes, but at what cost?" he said despondently.
"Open your eyes and see what you have done, you and yourself alone!" cried the voice, which in case you were wondering happened to belong to Mary Christmas.
The words were salt in an open wound. Pickle juice, even. Piping sat up carefully. He slowly opened his eyes. What met them was nothing short of a mess. He groaned and fell back again.
"I may say, you are acting very foolish. If you won't get up, I may have to, shall I say, persuade you," hissed Mary.
"Your puny words may work on the Daft, but they will no longer work on me!" snapped Piping. Mary stepped back.
"What has gotten into you, Piping? You've changed so!"
"Gotten into me?" cried the other blobbit, "Gotten into me?! I'll tell you!" He stood up. "You have gotten into me! You and every other life form on the face of the planet! Your puny, unchoreographed attemps at greatness make me sick! Handoff and his pompousness, Hoho and his aspirations, Arrogant and his hope in his lineage, even you and your hopes to drive Wimpy to his grave! Mere childsplay! And what now of Handoff? Dead! Hoho? He's going to die! And Arrogant?" He laughed wildly. "The day Arrogant son of Thornbush is a king anyone would want is the day I eat my own feet! What is the use of my life? There is nothing!" he waved his arms in the air. "No hope, nothing at all! I could have been something," he turned and waved despondently at what used to be something. All that now stood was the great tower of Ithinc. It had withstood everything, as it had been doing for eons. "It could have been mine!!" he screamed. "But not anymore. The Rents and my temper took care of that." He sat down again and began to sob. "It's all gone! Lost, lost!"
Mary slapped him. "Oh get over it! When has Piping Take ever given up? Do you remember the time we tried to block the river to stop the mill, so that we would never have to eat oatmeal again? Do you remember the bullies and parents that kept breaking the dam?" Mary shook his head. "But did that stop you? No! 'Let's build it further upriver,' you said. Even nearly drowning, and that policeman didn't stop you! I can't believe that that Piping is gone. He isn't. He's still inside, crying to get out." He knelt by his friend.
"It's too late," murmured Piping. "Even you can't help me now."
Mary grabbed his shoulders. "I know that I can't help. You've got to help yourself. Find the old Piping. Bring him back. He would never give up." He stood back up. "Not like you." And with that, Mary stomped off. Piping listlessly watched him go.
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Arrogant woke up early. He was not sure what had awoken him. He opened one eye a little bit. He saw the very dim form of Wimpy kneeling beside him. The Daft seemed to be talking to himself. His hands kept creeping towards Arrogant's neck, and then suddenly jerked back.
"It's ugly, yes, it should be put out of its misery," he hissed. "Then we would have a reason to desert, yes!" Then he spoke quietly again. "But that would not be nice! Not nice at all!"
"Yes, but then we could say we were attacked, yes, then we could desert!"
"But it's been nice to us!"
"Oh no, not nice at all, remember? We really should do away with him."
"No!" he wailed. "We can't do that!"
"Yes, yes you must, or He will never leave us alone," there was an ominous pause. "Unless, She would help, yes."
"No, not Her!"
"Yes, She will help us, She will! And then He will leave us alone, yes all alone!"
"Noo!"
Arrogant decided that this was freaking him out just a little bit too much. After a moments delibaration, he suddenly jumped up and screamed "Boo!"
Wimpy jumped at least twelve feet in the air, Handoff three and Legless four. Arrogant rolled around on the ground, laughing his head off.
"That was not funny!" gasped Legless. Wimpy was lying flat on his back, white as a sheet and breathing very very fast.
Handoff untangled himself from his robes and stood above the giggling man. Things would have gone ill with Arrogant, but at that moment the sun chose to rise above the horizon, and a shaft of light pierced towards them and blinded them.
"ARRGH!" shouted Arrogant. "What is that?" Handoff peered through the blinding shaft of light.
"It is the sunlight, reflected by the shiny roofs of the city of the Horsie People! We are closer than we thought, or I would have warned you." He coughed. "On we go then!"
The companions tromped on for several minutes, until they reached the gates of the city. Two guards were there, with sunglasses.
"Hello!" they shouted in their own language.
"Hello!" shouted Handoff.
"How are you?" shouted the guards.
"Not bad! You?" shouted Handoff.
"What is going on?" whispered Legless.
"It's the very famous and very rigorous entrance ritual of the Horsie People," whispered Arrogant. "It is very hard to learn, and even harder to remember." He looked at Handoff.
"So! How is your sister these days?" shouted Handoff.
"Mother!" screamed the guards. "Access denied!" and the gates were slammed in their faces.
Wimpy walked up to the gate and knocked. A guard poked his head out. "What do you want?"
"May we please come in?" queried the Daft. "Why certainly!" said the guard, and the door opened and they were beckoned forward. Handoff and Arrogant gaped.
They wound their way up, and up, and up, and up, "Remind me never to build my house on a mountain," wheezed Legless, and up and up and up they went until finally they came to the courtyard of the palace. More guards stood there.
"Hello," gasped Handoff.
"Hello, persons who come from elsewhere! You've been expected, Handoff the Gloomy."
"Oh, really?" said Handoff. "No doubt Theoldone wishes to welcome me himself!"
The guard gave a laugh that under different circumstances they would have called evil. "No doubt. But alas, he is so, um, ill that he could not beat even you. You must give me your weapons, if you wish to enter."
"Ah! What a cunning old codger!" said Handoff.
"And quit stalling."
Handoff looked somewhat deflated. Reluctantly he handed over his sword, his knife, his switchblade, his blackjack, his bullystick, his club, his swiss army knife, his screwdriver, his Uzi, and the picture of himself with a bad hairday. The guards shuddered at this last impliment and seemed reluctant to touch it.
Legless handed over his bow and his knife, Wimpy his axe, but Arrogant seemed reluctant.
"Nooo!" he sobbed, hugging Andy to himself.
"Come on, Arrogant, don't be such a crybaby!" growled the blizzard.
Arrogant sniffed and slowly handed the sword over. "Be gentle!" he hiccuped. "Oh, and he has naptime in about half an hour, he likes to have a story read to him, and maybe give him a graham cracker or two..."
"Your staff too," said the guard to Handoff.
Handoff immediately threw a fit. "No! It's mine, it's mine! Noooooooooooooooo!!" He jumped up and down and would have gone on screaming for hours if the guards had not given up and shoved them inside.
"A queer lot, if I may say," they were heard to mutter in afteryears.
Handoff, Arrogant, Legless and Wimpy...
"Why am I always last?" whined Wimpy.
"Because you're slow and fat," growled Legless.
ANYWAY, the said companions walked down the long hall. It was illuminated only faintly by two or three torches, the light of which cast eerie shadows about them. At the end of the hall were several figures. On closer inspection, there was a king on a great throne, a woman dressed in white standing behind him, and a queer little man on the floor in front of him. But the companions only had eyes for the king. He was so fat, even the great throne looked too frail to hold him.
"Oh look, Handoff the Gloomy is returned from who knows where, bringing who knows who with him, to get who knows what from us!" said the man at the foot of the throne.
"Listen, Snakelips, I know where I've been and I know who is who and what is what, so just shut your piehole!" snarled the blizzard. "So, Theoldone, how ya been doin'?"
Theoldone with some difficulty stood up.
"Why should I welcome you, Handoff the Gloomy? You only come with woe, why are you even here? Tell me that!" he sat down, and the hall shook.
"I bring tidings of war!" said Handoff, pointing his arm grandly. "Sillyman wants your land to expand his theme park, and even now he's sending his army of corcs to take it!"
"It's a lie," hissed Snakelips. "Sillyman is our friend." He looked at the companions. "And even if it were not so, which of these men could withstand even a normal corc, much less these SuperCorcs which Sillyman is supposedly sending?"
"AHA!" shouted Handoff, pointing his staff at Snakelips. "I didn't say they were called SuperCorcs! Did I, Arrogant? Yes, Snakelips is a SPY! And not just any spy, but a spy for Sillyman the Plaid! He has rendered you helpless with his evil fattening pancakes! He has told you unfounded lies to slow your reaction! You, Theoldone, must battle against Sillyman!" he jumped up and down in his excitement.
"Oh brother," muttered Arrogant.
"Yes! You must lose weight to fight those evil bad corcs! And I shall help you! Yes, I shall be your personal trainer! Now drop and gimmie 20! We've got a lot of work to do."
"Have pity on my lord!" whined Snakelips, "He is old, and tired, and must go slowly."
"I did not ask your advice!" shouted Handoff. "And I am Handoff the Gloomy no longer. I am Handoff...the Plaid!" And with that, the blizzard threw off his dingy cloak. Everyone in the hall threw their arms in front of their faces and screamed in agony, for it is well known that blizzards have poor taste in fashion.
"And you, Grimy Snakelips," said Handoff in a deep melodramatic voice, "Must leave the lands of the Horsie People! Go back to Sillyman! What was the promised price? That you were to pick your share of the treasure, and make all the pancakes you desire? Too long have you been sneaking into the kitchens of late!"
Snakelips snarled and ran. "Now, Theoldone, come out into the sunlight! See your kingdom, which you have not seen for ages!" Theoldone stood up slowly, and started waddling out. The woman hastened to his side to support him.
"G'wan, Yawning, he won't need you anymore!" cackled Handoff. "I'll help him now! Mwahaha!"
The woman turned and ran. But at the doorway to the great hall, she turned and stuck her tongue out at everyone.
"It's not so dark here," said Theoldone.
"Nope," said Handoff inspecting the king. "Let's see, I'd say to be in trim fighting shape, you'll have to lose about four hundred pounds. You can start by walking up and down these stairs!"
So Theoldone king of the Horsie People was doomed to exercise. He did push ups, sit ups, knee bends, pull ups, stairwalking, treadmilling, jumproping, (but that was stopped when several complained of an earthquake,) and ate many many salads, but it only made him tired.
Handoff looked at the results sadly. "At this rate, you'll never lose enough weight. We have only one choice," he said in an impossibly deep and irritated voice, "The fat must be liposuctioned."
"Eep!" said everyone within earshot. Handoff waved his hands around, and there in front of their very noses and under their very eyes, a machine appeared. Handoff plugged one suction hose to Theoldone and one end out the window, and turned it on. Magically, Theoldone grew thin as several watched on.
"Uh, Handoff?" said Arrogant.
"What, can't you see I'm busy?"
"Where is all that fat going? I think that unaccounted plot material may surface in ways no one could imagine..."
"Oh, what do you know?" said the blizzard glancing nervously at the Authors, who were twittering evilly in their glee.
But Handoff's thoughts were interrupted as Theoldone began to make sucking noises. For it seemed that while the blizzard had been distracted for a bit, the king had become a tad, um, underweight. He surveyed himself angrily.
Handoff retaliated by stuffing a pastry into his mouth. "The king must gain at least eighty pounds by nightfall! Where are those pancakes of Snakelips?"
And so at long last Theoldone king of the Horsie People was returned to his former state. He flexed his muscles. Those at least had not suffered.
"Well!" said Handoff, surveying his so-called handiwork. "Now we must look to Sillyman. He's sending an army of SuperCorcs right as we speak, to destroy you. I'd advise going to Qualm's Keep, for it is sung that it has never fallen to enemies. Now, erm, I must be going because, erm, you don't have enough people to fight, and, erm, I have to go find reinforcements! Tata!" And with that, Handoff fled the hall. "Oh yeah," he shouted, "I'm borrowing Bumblefax! So long!" and he was gone.
"I thought he'd never leave," said Theoldone wiping his brow. He looked around. "Where's Yawner? He should be here, somewhere."
"He was imprisoned by Snakelips, sire, for burning several of his recipies," said one of the guards.
"Well, bring him here! I need to talk to him," the king stood and looked at his city. He put his hand to his side. "Now where is that stupid sword got to?"
"Well, give me a hankercheif and call me a cold, you don't have a sword?" came a voice, "You can use mine!"
"Ah, Yawner! Just the person I wanted to see! We are going to Qualm's Keep. Make the city ready!"
"Well, flush my personality down the drain and call me a Self! We're going to Qualm's Keep, huh?" Legless glared at Yawner.
"Uh, I wanna go home," whined Wimpy. But a voice seemed to speak to him. 'You aren't deserting, are you Daft? I told you I don't like that,' it said. Wimpy clutched his arm, as if an old wound pained him. "I mean, what of Mary and Piping?"
"Handoff said they were safe," said Legless doubtfully. "Anyway, it's getting dark."
"Yes, tomorrow at first light we journey to Qualm's Keep. We'll provide tents for you," said Theoldone. "Goodnight, all!"
What the king had neglected to tell them, however, was the size of the said tents, which happened to be called 'pup tents'.
When they awoke next morning still twisted like bedsprings, the host of the Horsie People started thier way to Qualm's Keep.
"I feel like two men!" said Theoldone flexing his muscles.
"Well, lower my i.q. forty points and call me a Daft! You only look like half a man!" said Yawner.
"Huh?" said Wimpy. Legless sprinted effortlessly to the head of the company.
"What?" he gasped reading that last sentence very carefully. It still read the same.
"Legless, er, you have legs!" said Arrogant.
"Well, give me a bath and stop calling me stinky! How did that happen?" said Yawner.
"Well I wish you would," muttered one of his men.
"It must have been Theoldone's excess fat!" said Arrogant. "How disgusting!"
"So what do we call you now? Legfull?" said Wimpy.
"No, Daft. What does this portend, I wonder?" mused the Self. Just then, Handoff came back.
"Bad news," he wheezed. "SuperCorcs are amassing from Sillyman and Ithinc! We have to hurry! I know a shortcut. Follow me!" He started to ride off, but then as for the first time he noticed Legless's legs.
"Woah!" he cried when he heard the story. "I suppose we call you Legfull now? Heh heh." It was with great difficulty that Legless kept from strangling the collapsed and giggling blizzard.
****************************************************************************
"Do you think they followed us?" hissed Hoho. It was the next morning.
"If they kicked us out, I hardly think they'd follow us," said Tom.
"There is wisdom in that last statement," said Solemn who had switched back to his english accent.
"What's with those accents?" said Hoho.
Solemn shrugged. "They're to please my audience."
"Audience?" said Hoho blankly.
"You mean you can't see them?" said Solemn waving to the dawn. "The crowds, clapping and cheering me? My adoring fanbase? Surely you can see them. Although their adoration gets a bit noisy if we're in a tight spot."
Tom and Hoho edged away slightly. "Sure," they said looking at each other with a look that said 'help'.
The Two Cowards. Book 6.
Or, In Which Piping Is Encouraged, Theoldone Loses Weight, Legless Gains Some And Tom And Hoho Are Relatively Ignored.
Piping became aware of his surroundings before he opened his eyes. He didn't want to open them. He knew what he would see. He would see his dreams, lying before him, dead and lifeless like gutted fish. His head hurt. "Piping, wake up!" urged a voice. The blobbit groaned.
"Piping, quit fooling around and wake up! Sillyman is defeated!"
"Yes, but at what cost?" he said despondently.
"Open your eyes and see what you have done, you and yourself alone!" cried the voice, which in case you were wondering happened to belong to Mary Christmas.
The words were salt in an open wound. Pickle juice, even. Piping sat up carefully. He slowly opened his eyes. What met them was nothing short of a mess. He groaned and fell back again.
"I may say, you are acting very foolish. If you won't get up, I may have to, shall I say, persuade you," hissed Mary.
"Your puny words may work on the Daft, but they will no longer work on me!" snapped Piping. Mary stepped back.
"What has gotten into you, Piping? You've changed so!"
"Gotten into me?" cried the other blobbit, "Gotten into me?! I'll tell you!" He stood up. "You have gotten into me! You and every other life form on the face of the planet! Your puny, unchoreographed attemps at greatness make me sick! Handoff and his pompousness, Hoho and his aspirations, Arrogant and his hope in his lineage, even you and your hopes to drive Wimpy to his grave! Mere childsplay! And what now of Handoff? Dead! Hoho? He's going to die! And Arrogant?" He laughed wildly. "The day Arrogant son of Thornbush is a king anyone would want is the day I eat my own feet! What is the use of my life? There is nothing!" he waved his arms in the air. "No hope, nothing at all! I could have been something," he turned and waved despondently at what used to be something. All that now stood was the great tower of Ithinc. It had withstood everything, as it had been doing for eons. "It could have been mine!!" he screamed. "But not anymore. The Rents and my temper took care of that." He sat down again and began to sob. "It's all gone! Lost, lost!"
Mary slapped him. "Oh get over it! When has Piping Take ever given up? Do you remember the time we tried to block the river to stop the mill, so that we would never have to eat oatmeal again? Do you remember the bullies and parents that kept breaking the dam?" Mary shook his head. "But did that stop you? No! 'Let's build it further upriver,' you said. Even nearly drowning, and that policeman didn't stop you! I can't believe that that Piping is gone. He isn't. He's still inside, crying to get out." He knelt by his friend.
"It's too late," murmured Piping. "Even you can't help me now."
Mary grabbed his shoulders. "I know that I can't help. You've got to help yourself. Find the old Piping. Bring him back. He would never give up." He stood back up. "Not like you." And with that, Mary stomped off. Piping listlessly watched him go.
***********************************************************************
Arrogant woke up early. He was not sure what had awoken him. He opened one eye a little bit. He saw the very dim form of Wimpy kneeling beside him. The Daft seemed to be talking to himself. His hands kept creeping towards Arrogant's neck, and then suddenly jerked back.
"It's ugly, yes, it should be put out of its misery," he hissed. "Then we would have a reason to desert, yes!" Then he spoke quietly again. "But that would not be nice! Not nice at all!"
"Yes, but then we could say we were attacked, yes, then we could desert!"
"But it's been nice to us!"
"Oh no, not nice at all, remember? We really should do away with him."
"No!" he wailed. "We can't do that!"
"Yes, yes you must, or He will never leave us alone," there was an ominous pause. "Unless, She would help, yes."
"No, not Her!"
"Yes, She will help us, She will! And then He will leave us alone, yes all alone!"
"Noo!"
Arrogant decided that this was freaking him out just a little bit too much. After a moments delibaration, he suddenly jumped up and screamed "Boo!"
Wimpy jumped at least twelve feet in the air, Handoff three and Legless four. Arrogant rolled around on the ground, laughing his head off.
"That was not funny!" gasped Legless. Wimpy was lying flat on his back, white as a sheet and breathing very very fast.
Handoff untangled himself from his robes and stood above the giggling man. Things would have gone ill with Arrogant, but at that moment the sun chose to rise above the horizon, and a shaft of light pierced towards them and blinded them.
"ARRGH!" shouted Arrogant. "What is that?" Handoff peered through the blinding shaft of light.
"It is the sunlight, reflected by the shiny roofs of the city of the Horsie People! We are closer than we thought, or I would have warned you." He coughed. "On we go then!"
The companions tromped on for several minutes, until they reached the gates of the city. Two guards were there, with sunglasses.
"Hello!" they shouted in their own language.
"Hello!" shouted Handoff.
"How are you?" shouted the guards.
"Not bad! You?" shouted Handoff.
"What is going on?" whispered Legless.
"It's the very famous and very rigorous entrance ritual of the Horsie People," whispered Arrogant. "It is very hard to learn, and even harder to remember." He looked at Handoff.
"So! How is your sister these days?" shouted Handoff.
"Mother!" screamed the guards. "Access denied!" and the gates were slammed in their faces.
Wimpy walked up to the gate and knocked. A guard poked his head out. "What do you want?"
"May we please come in?" queried the Daft. "Why certainly!" said the guard, and the door opened and they were beckoned forward. Handoff and Arrogant gaped.
They wound their way up, and up, and up, and up, "Remind me never to build my house on a mountain," wheezed Legless, and up and up and up they went until finally they came to the courtyard of the palace. More guards stood there.
"Hello," gasped Handoff.
"Hello, persons who come from elsewhere! You've been expected, Handoff the Gloomy."
"Oh, really?" said Handoff. "No doubt Theoldone wishes to welcome me himself!"
The guard gave a laugh that under different circumstances they would have called evil. "No doubt. But alas, he is so, um, ill that he could not beat even you. You must give me your weapons, if you wish to enter."
"Ah! What a cunning old codger!" said Handoff.
"And quit stalling."
Handoff looked somewhat deflated. Reluctantly he handed over his sword, his knife, his switchblade, his blackjack, his bullystick, his club, his swiss army knife, his screwdriver, his Uzi, and the picture of himself with a bad hairday. The guards shuddered at this last impliment and seemed reluctant to touch it.
Legless handed over his bow and his knife, Wimpy his axe, but Arrogant seemed reluctant.
"Nooo!" he sobbed, hugging Andy to himself.
"Come on, Arrogant, don't be such a crybaby!" growled the blizzard.
Arrogant sniffed and slowly handed the sword over. "Be gentle!" he hiccuped. "Oh, and he has naptime in about half an hour, he likes to have a story read to him, and maybe give him a graham cracker or two..."
"Your staff too," said the guard to Handoff.
Handoff immediately threw a fit. "No! It's mine, it's mine! Noooooooooooooooo!!" He jumped up and down and would have gone on screaming for hours if the guards had not given up and shoved them inside.
"A queer lot, if I may say," they were heard to mutter in afteryears.
Handoff, Arrogant, Legless and Wimpy...
"Why am I always last?" whined Wimpy.
"Because you're slow and fat," growled Legless.
ANYWAY, the said companions walked down the long hall. It was illuminated only faintly by two or three torches, the light of which cast eerie shadows about them. At the end of the hall were several figures. On closer inspection, there was a king on a great throne, a woman dressed in white standing behind him, and a queer little man on the floor in front of him. But the companions only had eyes for the king. He was so fat, even the great throne looked too frail to hold him.
"Oh look, Handoff the Gloomy is returned from who knows where, bringing who knows who with him, to get who knows what from us!" said the man at the foot of the throne.
"Listen, Snakelips, I know where I've been and I know who is who and what is what, so just shut your piehole!" snarled the blizzard. "So, Theoldone, how ya been doin'?"
Theoldone with some difficulty stood up.
"Why should I welcome you, Handoff the Gloomy? You only come with woe, why are you even here? Tell me that!" he sat down, and the hall shook.
"I bring tidings of war!" said Handoff, pointing his arm grandly. "Sillyman wants your land to expand his theme park, and even now he's sending his army of corcs to take it!"
"It's a lie," hissed Snakelips. "Sillyman is our friend." He looked at the companions. "And even if it were not so, which of these men could withstand even a normal corc, much less these SuperCorcs which Sillyman is supposedly sending?"
"AHA!" shouted Handoff, pointing his staff at Snakelips. "I didn't say they were called SuperCorcs! Did I, Arrogant? Yes, Snakelips is a SPY! And not just any spy, but a spy for Sillyman the Plaid! He has rendered you helpless with his evil fattening pancakes! He has told you unfounded lies to slow your reaction! You, Theoldone, must battle against Sillyman!" he jumped up and down in his excitement.
"Oh brother," muttered Arrogant.
"Yes! You must lose weight to fight those evil bad corcs! And I shall help you! Yes, I shall be your personal trainer! Now drop and gimmie 20! We've got a lot of work to do."
"Have pity on my lord!" whined Snakelips, "He is old, and tired, and must go slowly."
"I did not ask your advice!" shouted Handoff. "And I am Handoff the Gloomy no longer. I am Handoff...the Plaid!" And with that, the blizzard threw off his dingy cloak. Everyone in the hall threw their arms in front of their faces and screamed in agony, for it is well known that blizzards have poor taste in fashion.
"And you, Grimy Snakelips," said Handoff in a deep melodramatic voice, "Must leave the lands of the Horsie People! Go back to Sillyman! What was the promised price? That you were to pick your share of the treasure, and make all the pancakes you desire? Too long have you been sneaking into the kitchens of late!"
Snakelips snarled and ran. "Now, Theoldone, come out into the sunlight! See your kingdom, which you have not seen for ages!" Theoldone stood up slowly, and started waddling out. The woman hastened to his side to support him.
"G'wan, Yawning, he won't need you anymore!" cackled Handoff. "I'll help him now! Mwahaha!"
The woman turned and ran. But at the doorway to the great hall, she turned and stuck her tongue out at everyone.
"It's not so dark here," said Theoldone.
"Nope," said Handoff inspecting the king. "Let's see, I'd say to be in trim fighting shape, you'll have to lose about four hundred pounds. You can start by walking up and down these stairs!"
So Theoldone king of the Horsie People was doomed to exercise. He did push ups, sit ups, knee bends, pull ups, stairwalking, treadmilling, jumproping, (but that was stopped when several complained of an earthquake,) and ate many many salads, but it only made him tired.
Handoff looked at the results sadly. "At this rate, you'll never lose enough weight. We have only one choice," he said in an impossibly deep and irritated voice, "The fat must be liposuctioned."
"Eep!" said everyone within earshot. Handoff waved his hands around, and there in front of their very noses and under their very eyes, a machine appeared. Handoff plugged one suction hose to Theoldone and one end out the window, and turned it on. Magically, Theoldone grew thin as several watched on.
"Uh, Handoff?" said Arrogant.
"What, can't you see I'm busy?"
"Where is all that fat going? I think that unaccounted plot material may surface in ways no one could imagine..."
"Oh, what do you know?" said the blizzard glancing nervously at the Authors, who were twittering evilly in their glee.
But Handoff's thoughts were interrupted as Theoldone began to make sucking noises. For it seemed that while the blizzard had been distracted for a bit, the king had become a tad, um, underweight. He surveyed himself angrily.
Handoff retaliated by stuffing a pastry into his mouth. "The king must gain at least eighty pounds by nightfall! Where are those pancakes of Snakelips?"
And so at long last Theoldone king of the Horsie People was returned to his former state. He flexed his muscles. Those at least had not suffered.
"Well!" said Handoff, surveying his so-called handiwork. "Now we must look to Sillyman. He's sending an army of SuperCorcs right as we speak, to destroy you. I'd advise going to Qualm's Keep, for it is sung that it has never fallen to enemies. Now, erm, I must be going because, erm, you don't have enough people to fight, and, erm, I have to go find reinforcements! Tata!" And with that, Handoff fled the hall. "Oh yeah," he shouted, "I'm borrowing Bumblefax! So long!" and he was gone.
"I thought he'd never leave," said Theoldone wiping his brow. He looked around. "Where's Yawner? He should be here, somewhere."
"He was imprisoned by Snakelips, sire, for burning several of his recipies," said one of the guards.
"Well, bring him here! I need to talk to him," the king stood and looked at his city. He put his hand to his side. "Now where is that stupid sword got to?"
"Well, give me a hankercheif and call me a cold, you don't have a sword?" came a voice, "You can use mine!"
"Ah, Yawner! Just the person I wanted to see! We are going to Qualm's Keep. Make the city ready!"
"Well, flush my personality down the drain and call me a Self! We're going to Qualm's Keep, huh?" Legless glared at Yawner.
"Uh, I wanna go home," whined Wimpy. But a voice seemed to speak to him. 'You aren't deserting, are you Daft? I told you I don't like that,' it said. Wimpy clutched his arm, as if an old wound pained him. "I mean, what of Mary and Piping?"
"Handoff said they were safe," said Legless doubtfully. "Anyway, it's getting dark."
"Yes, tomorrow at first light we journey to Qualm's Keep. We'll provide tents for you," said Theoldone. "Goodnight, all!"
What the king had neglected to tell them, however, was the size of the said tents, which happened to be called 'pup tents'.
When they awoke next morning still twisted like bedsprings, the host of the Horsie People started thier way to Qualm's Keep.
"I feel like two men!" said Theoldone flexing his muscles.
"Well, lower my i.q. forty points and call me a Daft! You only look like half a man!" said Yawner.
"Huh?" said Wimpy. Legless sprinted effortlessly to the head of the company.
"What?" he gasped reading that last sentence very carefully. It still read the same.
"Legless, er, you have legs!" said Arrogant.
"Well, give me a bath and stop calling me stinky! How did that happen?" said Yawner.
"Well I wish you would," muttered one of his men.
"It must have been Theoldone's excess fat!" said Arrogant. "How disgusting!"
"So what do we call you now? Legfull?" said Wimpy.
"No, Daft. What does this portend, I wonder?" mused the Self. Just then, Handoff came back.
"Bad news," he wheezed. "SuperCorcs are amassing from Sillyman and Ithinc! We have to hurry! I know a shortcut. Follow me!" He started to ride off, but then as for the first time he noticed Legless's legs.
"Woah!" he cried when he heard the story. "I suppose we call you Legfull now? Heh heh." It was with great difficulty that Legless kept from strangling the collapsed and giggling blizzard.
****************************************************************************
"Do you think they followed us?" hissed Hoho. It was the next morning.
"If they kicked us out, I hardly think they'd follow us," said Tom.
"There is wisdom in that last statement," said Solemn who had switched back to his english accent.
"What's with those accents?" said Hoho.
Solemn shrugged. "They're to please my audience."
"Audience?" said Hoho blankly.
"You mean you can't see them?" said Solemn waving to the dawn. "The crowds, clapping and cheering me? My adoring fanbase? Surely you can see them. Although their adoration gets a bit noisy if we're in a tight spot."
Tom and Hoho edged away slightly. "Sure," they said looking at each other with a look that said 'help'.