The Knights of Tortall and The Holy Grail
By Caspian Nyghtvision
====================================
DISCLAIMER IN UNDER THIRTY SECONDS: (to be read quickly, without pausing, in one breath)
Hear-ye-hear-ye-hear-ye-Lady-Nyghtvision-doth-not-own-Monty-Python-Or-Tamora-Pierce-Or-Dorothy-Catalonia-From-Gundam-Wing-(who-Really-is-an-Awful-lot-like-Joren-If-You-Think-About-it)-but-Nyghtvision-doth-own-YE-Blue-And-Furry-Drinke-of-Doome-and-most-of-the-chickens.
=====================================================================================
CHAPTER WARNINGS: This chapter may be unsuitable for very small children, emus, elves that live in sock drawers, and most species of freshwater barracuda. There is mention of "hyenas on mind-altering drugs," a furry blue drink with strange side effects, exactly one mention of 'hell' not counting that time, Dorothy Catalonia from Gundam Wing, knights playing strip poker, and general mayhem and lack of plot. Persons seeking a quality fic or one suitable for children under two feet tall should try something else, by me of course.
Kel gets on the author's nerves a bit, but she deserves to hang out on a beach rather than traipse around in a plothole-riddled universe anyway. However the author doesn't do pair-offs in any of her fics. Nothing serious anyway. Besides, what's serious about Dom in a Speedo?
=======================================================================================
Meanwhile, the remaining Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table wandered around the vast trackless desert. The author does not know why exactly it is trackless; she just assumes that deserts are. Besides, this isn't one of her "Serious" fics, where she actually worries about things like drafting and plot continuity and characterization and making sense.
Eventually -- of their own accord and not because the giant invisible Hands of the Goddess were shoving them along a bit to make things more interesting, oh no, it was all of their own accord -- they discovered a castle.
A rather large sandstorm had come up, and as the knights and their 'horses' were reeling around blindly, Sir Alanna the Wise discovered the castle. With her face. Rather painfully. Thankfully she was wearing her helm.
She put up her hand and felt around, touching sand-worn stone. She put her face against it and sniffed it, getting sand up her nose. She licked the rock that was part of the wall and nodded thoughtfully.
"Feels like a castle, tastes like a castle, smells like a castle. Hey everyone! I found a castle!"
"Ah, good knight! Truly you are Sir Alanna the Wise!" King Jon said in a king-y way. The knights led their 'horses' to the wall of the castle.
"Milord, we should wait here for the sand to die down," Raoul said quickly before Alanna or Myles could.
"Boring."
The sand stopped abruptly. Whatever particles were left hanging in the air fell rather sheepishly back to the ground.
"'Allo, who iz there?" called a voice from the castle.
"Wait a minute. If this is the desert, there should be Bazhir here, not..."
The sentry leaned casually against the castle wall. Cream-colored hair caught the bright desert-y sunlight, turning almost white. Fair skin flushed in the hot sun; pale lashes framed desert-blue eyes.
"... Joren," Neal finished with a sigh.
"What's he doing here?" Roger asked Myles.
"Author thinks he's amusing."
"Oh. Ah."
Another sentry joined the first. This one was female; long, silver-blonde hair was pulled back from her pale face, and forked dark gray eyebrows perched like boomerangs over her cold blue-gray eyes.
"Who's that?"
"Dorothy Catalonia," Myles replied grouchily. "Author thinks she's hilarious."
Dorothy sneered down at them. "War is beautiful," she stated, then fell off the wall as her pike overbalanced. "Aah! Lawsuit!"
"My long-lost cousin," Joren said proudly.
"Stick with the plot!" shouted the author from the Divine Realms.
"Allo, who iz eet?" Joren asked again.
"Why are you talking like that?" Neal wondered.
"Shut up."
"I am King Jonathan," the king interrupted hastily, "And these are the Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table. Pray tell, whose castle is this, that sits so obliviously in the Bazhir desert."
"This eez the castle of my long-lost relatives, zee family Catalonia."
"Oh cut it out Joren," Dorothy said, arriving once again at the top of the wall. "The author's screwed with Canon Continuity this far. If she's bringing ME in, chances are she won't care if you don't sound French."
King Jon, as you know, does not like being ignored. Nay, he must be worshipped at every minute. "Go and tell these Catalonias that we have been charged by the Goddess with a Sacred Quest. If they will feed us and shelter us for the night, they may join us on our Quest. Which is very Sacred."
Joren and Dorothy shared a snarky look. "Well, we can ask, but I don't think they'll be very keen," Joren replied.
"Yeah, we've already got one, you see," Dorothy said, and they started sniggering.
"What?" King Jon asked, flabbergasted.
"He says they've already got one!" Sir Alanna said in disbelief.
"Are-- are you sure you've got one?" King Jon asked rather weakly.
"Oh yes, it's very nice," and the platinum blonde boy and girl started giggling in the same high-pitched malicious way.
"Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?" Jon stammered.
"Of course not!!" Joren scoffed.
"Well, why not?"
"Well, theoretically, we're French, so we don't like you English types--" and Dorothy paused to hear something Joren whispered, "Oh, that's right, you don't have French and English here; you have Gallans and Tortallans. How pathetic. Well, in that case, we just don't like you."
"What are you doing in the middle of the desert?" Neal pleaded, craving logic for some reason. Why he is craving logic in a fic proved to be beyond logic is beyond all reason. Which could probably be the basis of some kind of religion.
"Mind your own business."
"Yeah."
"And you have a funny nose."
"He does! It's all ... funny."
"We're funny!"
"Hell, we are!" And the blondes on the wall started cackling like hyenas on mind-altering drugs.
"Look, if you do not show us the Grail, we will take this castle by force!" Jonathan shouted in a magnificent example of sticking to the script.
"Oh wibble off." Joren produced a silk handkerchief out of nowhere. "I blow my nose at you, descendants of very silly lowborn and highly unnoble people!"
"Yes, go and boil your boils, so-called Jon King and all you silly funny-looking clanky armor commoner people." Dorothy pulled off her famous Sneer o' Death.
"Thpppbbt! Thppbth! Thppth!"
Joren and Dorothy started jumping up and down and giggling. It soon became apparent why they were in such unusually good moods as they passed a bottle between them. The bottle read "YE Blue and Furry Drinke of Doome -- CAUTION -- Ye Drinke Causes Blindness in Sock-Drawer Elves and Emus!"
This drink reacts to certain elements of a character's personality and renders their emotional intelligence to about that of a five-year-old. It also causes them to see everything in rather pleasing shades of blue which wreaks havoc on depth perception. Dorothy fell off the wall again. Joren began sobbing about how nobody understood him and began eyeballing a nearby razor blade in a death-fic-y way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While the author digressed, the 'horses' of the knights shuffled about disconsolately in the hot sun.
Bored, the Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table played strip poker.
Roger was losing, down to a loincloth and a rubber ducky. He was allowed to count the rubber ducky as clothing, because nobody wanted to see what lay past the loincloth. Sir Myles would have been winning, except he refused to accept armor, demanding that everyone pay his winnings in small rubber hair ties. Sir Neal, who remembered all the cards dealt, had been kicked out early in the game and was now sulking in the shade of the castle wall. Sir Raoul was down to breeches and his helmet which he stubbornly refused to stake. Sir Alanna the Wise was fully clothed and had won quite a pile of clothing, armor and underwear. Much of the underwear was feminine which was vaguely worrying.
And King Jon was winning, because he was the King, and Kings can do things like that. The other knights pretended not to notice as cards magically floated out of their hands and into Jon's.
Then, suddenly --
THWONG--
"Oh, this is more like it!"
"MOOOOO--!"
"Aaieee!"
WHOOM! CRASH! AND THEN A NICE BIG SPLAT!
A large cow landed on Claw -- Sir Roger's 'horse' -- squishing him flat. The knights stared in shock, surprise and miscellaneous bewilderment.
"What a cruel thing to do," Roger said when he had got his voice back.
Alanna wiped a tear. "It hadn't even been milked."
The knights had barely staggered to their feet and gotten decent before they were beaten back by a hail of mattresses, watercress, farm animals and domestic poultry.
"That'll show those stinking commoners," Joren said with satisfaction. The catapult stood at the ready next to him as he peered at the knights through a telescope. "Right Dorothy? Dorothy?"
"Furry... blue..."
"Right, knights!" King Jon shouted, drawing his sword and luckily not beheading Wyldon-Patsy. "Charge!"
The Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table rallied to their king and charged at the wall.
A large mattress landed on Liam, Sir Alanna's 'horse.'
"Knights! Run away! Run away!" Jon shouted, sheathing his sword and again not killing Wyldon-Patsy. Amid shouts of "Run Away!" the knights retreated, pelted by the occasional cow, goose and emu. The knights hid behind a convenient rock to assess their situation.
"The sods," Raoul the Brave snarled, "I'll tear them apart."
"No!" Sir Roger grabbed him by the ankles as he stood up.
"I have a plan, my liege," Alanna the Wise announced.
~~~
Using wood which they found somewhere, the knights quickly built a large wooden effigy of the duckmole god. Around the platypus's bill they hung a sign which said, "A Present for the Taunters." They fixed convenient wooden wheels to its crudely made flippers and wheeled it up to the castle. Then the Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table scurried back into the conveniently rocky area.
After a while, Joren came out, looking beautiful, and evil, and beautiful and suspicious. Dorothy came out, quoting randomly from Gundam Wing and swinging a bottle of YE Blue and Furry. "Live strongly and passionately and violently," she announced, looking intently at her cousin's left ear. "Hurry up and start the war!"
Joren nodded and snapped his fingers. A troop of servants appeared and started wheeling the wooden duckmole through the castle gates.
~~~
The Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table and their 'horses' watched intently from the bush.
"Now what happens?" King Jon whispered to Sir Alanna.
"Well, Raoul, Myles and I wait until nightfall and then leap out of the duckmole and take them completely by surprise."
King Jon blinked rapidly. "Who... who breaks out?"
"Er, we... Raoul, Myles and I... er... leap out of the duckmole and..."
Sir Raoul covered his eyes.
"Look, if we were to build a large wooden badger..." Alanna tried again.
Sir Nealan, alerted by an odd noise, looked to the battlements of the castle. There was a twang, and a look of horror on all of their faces. The wooden duckmole came catapulting back at them.
"Run away! Run away!"
"It's only a model," Duke Roger whispered to Myles.
"Shh!"
=====================================
Dorothy: War cannot be fought with wooden animals, after all. People must kill each other!
Caspian: I don't know why I put up with you, Doro. Anyway, dear readers, I hope you enjoyed. It was rather long, wasn't it? Which is good because I have a lot of other fics to work on and probably won't get back to this for a bit. Sorry if I haven't been replying to reviews. If you haven't been gotten to yet please don't feel bad. And I always make time for emails and beta reading.
Dorothy: I'm nobility you know. I should have been queen of the world. But they didn't like my eyebrows!
Caspian: That's enough of YE Blue and Furry Drinke of Doome for you.
By Caspian Nyghtvision
====================================
DISCLAIMER IN UNDER THIRTY SECONDS: (to be read quickly, without pausing, in one breath)
Hear-ye-hear-ye-hear-ye-Lady-Nyghtvision-doth-not-own-Monty-Python-Or-Tamora-Pierce-Or-Dorothy-Catalonia-From-Gundam-Wing-(who-Really-is-an-Awful-lot-like-Joren-If-You-Think-About-it)-but-Nyghtvision-doth-own-YE-Blue-And-Furry-Drinke-of-Doome-and-most-of-the-chickens.
=====================================================================================
CHAPTER WARNINGS: This chapter may be unsuitable for very small children, emus, elves that live in sock drawers, and most species of freshwater barracuda. There is mention of "hyenas on mind-altering drugs," a furry blue drink with strange side effects, exactly one mention of 'hell' not counting that time, Dorothy Catalonia from Gundam Wing, knights playing strip poker, and general mayhem and lack of plot. Persons seeking a quality fic or one suitable for children under two feet tall should try something else, by me of course.
Kel gets on the author's nerves a bit, but she deserves to hang out on a beach rather than traipse around in a plothole-riddled universe anyway. However the author doesn't do pair-offs in any of her fics. Nothing serious anyway. Besides, what's serious about Dom in a Speedo?
=======================================================================================
Meanwhile, the remaining Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table wandered around the vast trackless desert. The author does not know why exactly it is trackless; she just assumes that deserts are. Besides, this isn't one of her "Serious" fics, where she actually worries about things like drafting and plot continuity and characterization and making sense.
Eventually -- of their own accord and not because the giant invisible Hands of the Goddess were shoving them along a bit to make things more interesting, oh no, it was all of their own accord -- they discovered a castle.
A rather large sandstorm had come up, and as the knights and their 'horses' were reeling around blindly, Sir Alanna the Wise discovered the castle. With her face. Rather painfully. Thankfully she was wearing her helm.
She put up her hand and felt around, touching sand-worn stone. She put her face against it and sniffed it, getting sand up her nose. She licked the rock that was part of the wall and nodded thoughtfully.
"Feels like a castle, tastes like a castle, smells like a castle. Hey everyone! I found a castle!"
"Ah, good knight! Truly you are Sir Alanna the Wise!" King Jon said in a king-y way. The knights led their 'horses' to the wall of the castle.
"Milord, we should wait here for the sand to die down," Raoul said quickly before Alanna or Myles could.
"Boring."
The sand stopped abruptly. Whatever particles were left hanging in the air fell rather sheepishly back to the ground.
"'Allo, who iz there?" called a voice from the castle.
"Wait a minute. If this is the desert, there should be Bazhir here, not..."
The sentry leaned casually against the castle wall. Cream-colored hair caught the bright desert-y sunlight, turning almost white. Fair skin flushed in the hot sun; pale lashes framed desert-blue eyes.
"... Joren," Neal finished with a sigh.
"What's he doing here?" Roger asked Myles.
"Author thinks he's amusing."
"Oh. Ah."
Another sentry joined the first. This one was female; long, silver-blonde hair was pulled back from her pale face, and forked dark gray eyebrows perched like boomerangs over her cold blue-gray eyes.
"Who's that?"
"Dorothy Catalonia," Myles replied grouchily. "Author thinks she's hilarious."
Dorothy sneered down at them. "War is beautiful," she stated, then fell off the wall as her pike overbalanced. "Aah! Lawsuit!"
"My long-lost cousin," Joren said proudly.
"Stick with the plot!" shouted the author from the Divine Realms.
"Allo, who iz eet?" Joren asked again.
"Why are you talking like that?" Neal wondered.
"Shut up."
"I am King Jonathan," the king interrupted hastily, "And these are the Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table. Pray tell, whose castle is this, that sits so obliviously in the Bazhir desert."
"This eez the castle of my long-lost relatives, zee family Catalonia."
"Oh cut it out Joren," Dorothy said, arriving once again at the top of the wall. "The author's screwed with Canon Continuity this far. If she's bringing ME in, chances are she won't care if you don't sound French."
King Jon, as you know, does not like being ignored. Nay, he must be worshipped at every minute. "Go and tell these Catalonias that we have been charged by the Goddess with a Sacred Quest. If they will feed us and shelter us for the night, they may join us on our Quest. Which is very Sacred."
Joren and Dorothy shared a snarky look. "Well, we can ask, but I don't think they'll be very keen," Joren replied.
"Yeah, we've already got one, you see," Dorothy said, and they started sniggering.
"What?" King Jon asked, flabbergasted.
"He says they've already got one!" Sir Alanna said in disbelief.
"Are-- are you sure you've got one?" King Jon asked rather weakly.
"Oh yes, it's very nice," and the platinum blonde boy and girl started giggling in the same high-pitched malicious way.
"Well, u-- um, can we come up and have a look?" Jon stammered.
"Of course not!!" Joren scoffed.
"Well, why not?"
"Well, theoretically, we're French, so we don't like you English types--" and Dorothy paused to hear something Joren whispered, "Oh, that's right, you don't have French and English here; you have Gallans and Tortallans. How pathetic. Well, in that case, we just don't like you."
"What are you doing in the middle of the desert?" Neal pleaded, craving logic for some reason. Why he is craving logic in a fic proved to be beyond logic is beyond all reason. Which could probably be the basis of some kind of religion.
"Mind your own business."
"Yeah."
"And you have a funny nose."
"He does! It's all ... funny."
"We're funny!"
"Hell, we are!" And the blondes on the wall started cackling like hyenas on mind-altering drugs.
"Look, if you do not show us the Grail, we will take this castle by force!" Jonathan shouted in a magnificent example of sticking to the script.
"Oh wibble off." Joren produced a silk handkerchief out of nowhere. "I blow my nose at you, descendants of very silly lowborn and highly unnoble people!"
"Yes, go and boil your boils, so-called Jon King and all you silly funny-looking clanky armor commoner people." Dorothy pulled off her famous Sneer o' Death.
"Thpppbbt! Thppbth! Thppth!"
Joren and Dorothy started jumping up and down and giggling. It soon became apparent why they were in such unusually good moods as they passed a bottle between them. The bottle read "YE Blue and Furry Drinke of Doome -- CAUTION -- Ye Drinke Causes Blindness in Sock-Drawer Elves and Emus!"
This drink reacts to certain elements of a character's personality and renders their emotional intelligence to about that of a five-year-old. It also causes them to see everything in rather pleasing shades of blue which wreaks havoc on depth perception. Dorothy fell off the wall again. Joren began sobbing about how nobody understood him and began eyeballing a nearby razor blade in a death-fic-y way.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
While the author digressed, the 'horses' of the knights shuffled about disconsolately in the hot sun.
Bored, the Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table played strip poker.
Roger was losing, down to a loincloth and a rubber ducky. He was allowed to count the rubber ducky as clothing, because nobody wanted to see what lay past the loincloth. Sir Myles would have been winning, except he refused to accept armor, demanding that everyone pay his winnings in small rubber hair ties. Sir Neal, who remembered all the cards dealt, had been kicked out early in the game and was now sulking in the shade of the castle wall. Sir Raoul was down to breeches and his helmet which he stubbornly refused to stake. Sir Alanna the Wise was fully clothed and had won quite a pile of clothing, armor and underwear. Much of the underwear was feminine which was vaguely worrying.
And King Jon was winning, because he was the King, and Kings can do things like that. The other knights pretended not to notice as cards magically floated out of their hands and into Jon's.
Then, suddenly --
THWONG--
"Oh, this is more like it!"
"MOOOOO--!"
"Aaieee!"
WHOOM! CRASH! AND THEN A NICE BIG SPLAT!
A large cow landed on Claw -- Sir Roger's 'horse' -- squishing him flat. The knights stared in shock, surprise and miscellaneous bewilderment.
"What a cruel thing to do," Roger said when he had got his voice back.
Alanna wiped a tear. "It hadn't even been milked."
The knights had barely staggered to their feet and gotten decent before they were beaten back by a hail of mattresses, watercress, farm animals and domestic poultry.
"That'll show those stinking commoners," Joren said with satisfaction. The catapult stood at the ready next to him as he peered at the knights through a telescope. "Right Dorothy? Dorothy?"
"Furry... blue..."
"Right, knights!" King Jon shouted, drawing his sword and luckily not beheading Wyldon-Patsy. "Charge!"
The Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table rallied to their king and charged at the wall.
A large mattress landed on Liam, Sir Alanna's 'horse.'
"Knights! Run away! Run away!" Jon shouted, sheathing his sword and again not killing Wyldon-Patsy. Amid shouts of "Run Away!" the knights retreated, pelted by the occasional cow, goose and emu. The knights hid behind a convenient rock to assess their situation.
"The sods," Raoul the Brave snarled, "I'll tear them apart."
"No!" Sir Roger grabbed him by the ankles as he stood up.
"I have a plan, my liege," Alanna the Wise announced.
~~~
Using wood which they found somewhere, the knights quickly built a large wooden effigy of the duckmole god. Around the platypus's bill they hung a sign which said, "A Present for the Taunters." They fixed convenient wooden wheels to its crudely made flippers and wheeled it up to the castle. Then the Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table scurried back into the conveniently rocky area.
After a while, Joren came out, looking beautiful, and evil, and beautiful and suspicious. Dorothy came out, quoting randomly from Gundam Wing and swinging a bottle of YE Blue and Furry. "Live strongly and passionately and violently," she announced, looking intently at her cousin's left ear. "Hurry up and start the war!"
Joren nodded and snapped his fingers. A troop of servants appeared and started wheeling the wooden duckmole through the castle gates.
~~~
The Knights of the Vaguely Roundish Table and their 'horses' watched intently from the bush.
"Now what happens?" King Jon whispered to Sir Alanna.
"Well, Raoul, Myles and I wait until nightfall and then leap out of the duckmole and take them completely by surprise."
King Jon blinked rapidly. "Who... who breaks out?"
"Er, we... Raoul, Myles and I... er... leap out of the duckmole and..."
Sir Raoul covered his eyes.
"Look, if we were to build a large wooden badger..." Alanna tried again.
Sir Nealan, alerted by an odd noise, looked to the battlements of the castle. There was a twang, and a look of horror on all of their faces. The wooden duckmole came catapulting back at them.
"Run away! Run away!"
"It's only a model," Duke Roger whispered to Myles.
"Shh!"
=====================================
Dorothy: War cannot be fought with wooden animals, after all. People must kill each other!
Caspian: I don't know why I put up with you, Doro. Anyway, dear readers, I hope you enjoyed. It was rather long, wasn't it? Which is good because I have a lot of other fics to work on and probably won't get back to this for a bit. Sorry if I haven't been replying to reviews. If you haven't been gotten to yet please don't feel bad. And I always make time for emails and beta reading.
Dorothy: I'm nobility you know. I should have been queen of the world. But they didn't like my eyebrows!
Caspian: That's enough of YE Blue and Furry Drinke of Doome for you.