Disclaimer: "I don't want to be a pie! ...I don't like gravy!"

(An: And we start anew... what? I was getting sick of "here we go again". By the by, for those of you who apparently have no interest in classic humor, "a left turn at Albequerque" is referencing Bugs Bunny. Whenever he gets lost, he always blames it on taking that left turn at Albequerque.)

"Ok, for dis next bit we need one o' those treadmills with de changing backgrounds," Remy says, peering at his clipboard.

Forge mutters something about "barbaric" but gets to work anyway.

FIVE MINUTES LATER...

"There," Forge announces.

"Let's just hope this isn't as flimsy as your Camelot set," Bobby mutters. (1)

Forge shoots him a death glare. "So I made ONE mistake!"

Bobby mouths "one?" but doesn't say anything more.

So, anyway, we see shots of Ororo running over constantly changing backgrounds and stuff... then walking, then walking with her head down, and finally the backgrounds stop. So does Ororo... but the treadmill doesn't. "YAGH!" Ororo yells as she is propelled backwards and smacks into a wall.

"Eh heh heh... sorry about that..." Forge mumbles, backing away slowly. "My, uh, my mistake..."

Ororo stands up and regains her dignity, mouthing "I'll get you later."

Forge squeaks and attempts to run away. I say attempts because Kurt is standing on his foot.

Now we see Principal Kelley working a field. He straightens up, spotting Ororo. "Well, hello there, little one... little! She's almost as tall as me!"

"You're not allowed to adlib," Ororo responds, kicking him. Then she turns to the camera and whispers, "I've been wanting to do that FOREVER."

Principal Kelley winces, and we see things from his POV. To him, Ororo is just a weird-looking white mare... stupidhead.

"I AM NOT A STUPIDHEAD!"

"Yes, you are," the rest of the cast says, sounding bored.

Principal Kelley is Not Amused. "Hello there, medear," he coos, deciding to get this over with as soon as possible. "And just who might you belong to, a pretty little thing like you?" He takes off his belt...

All of the cast immediately covers their eyes (Ororo turns her head really quickly). "GAH!"

Again, Principal Kelley is Not Amused. Kelley snaps his belt.

The rest of the cast sighs in relief.

He walks up to Ororo, who just gives him a horsey WTF look. "Oh, come on now, good girl, good Bessie!"

"My name," Ororo says, looking P.O.'ed, "is ORORO! ...I have good reason to be P.O.'ed; we just spent half of last chapter getting Hank to say it."

"Curry ya up, clean ya off, you'll be the prettiest old mare anywhere," Kelley continues.

Ororo whinnies and rears. Of course, since this is still from Kelley's POV, he can't hear her. "Mare? Mare? I, a horse! Is that what you take me for? Is that what you see?"

Principal Kelley makes some weird noise like "sough, sough." Yeah. "Easy, easy, good girl," he continues, holding up his belt.

Ororo kind of shimmies back and forth, obviously deciding how best to kill Kelley.

"Oh, what a pretty sight ye are," Kelley goes on, oblivious. "Feed ya up, take ya to the fair, come on horse!"

We see Ororo's shadow (WITH the horn now) as Kelley advances, apparently trying to grab her.

"PERVERT!" Ororo whinnies. "A horse, am I? A horse indeed!" She rears, again, and uses her horn to get rid of Kelley's belt. Then she runs away.

Kelley wobbles and falls over. "Now there's a horse," he mumbles, shaking his head. "Hmm... my foot must've slipped." Just keeep telling yourself that.

So, anyway, there's a Quick Scene Change (QSC) to Ororo, sitting by the road and looking, for a horse, remarkably like a cat. Her ears twitch, like she's trying to pick up radar signals. I had forgotten that men cannot see unicorns, she thinks, as Rahne and Warren ride by again.

"Ye're just having me play any random dog that shows up, aren't ye," Rahne mutters.

Author: Yep, like I'm having Mystique play any random bird.

Close up on Warren, who looks at Ororo and sees (you guessed it) a white mare.

If men no longer know what they are looking at, there may well be other unicorns in the world, yet. Unknown... and glad of it.

"Cue random song dude," Remy announces.

Rogue takes out her guitar again and Piotr starts singing. "Horizon rising"

We see a sunrise. These people are NOT imaginative.

"Up to meet
The purple dawn"

We see Ororo, windblown... literally. She gets blown right off the cliff thanks to the wind machine.

"FORGE!" she shrieks.

"Sorry," he replies, giving the machine a good hard smack. "Thing's on the fritz again."

"We really need to start shooting on location," Remy mutters.

"Dust demon screaming"

Mystique swoops down in eagle form again.

Author: See? I told you.

"Manstealer," Mystique mutters.

Ororo glances up at her. "You do realize I've got a three-foot-long skewer sticking out of my head, right?"

"Bring an eagle
To lead me on
For in my heart I carry such a heavy load
Here I am
On man's road"

Ororo starts down the path.

"Walking man's road
Walking man's road"

"Chauvinists," Kitty mutters.

"Wow! Kitty, that was over three syllables!" Kurt exclaims. (2)

Kitty smacks him. "Just because this is a Kurtty-"

Kurt shuts up for once in his life.

So we see Ororo trudging across a desert... wow.

"I'm hungry
Weary
But I cannot lay me down"

Ororo walks past a river and you can TELL it's really serious 'cause she doesn't pause to admire her reflection. Then, of course, it starts to rain.

"The rain comes
Dreary
But there's no shelter I have found"

We see some random Overly-Cute-Squirrels hiding in a tree.

"So... they're not the kind that conquers the world?" John asks.

"Nope," Wanda replies. "Wrong breed."

"Damn."

Then we see some cows, and Ororo walking past a house that was obviously nicked from the set of The Hobbit.

Author: Well, it's understandable; the same people did the animated versions of this AND LOTR. (3)

"It will be a long time till I find
My abode
Here I am
On man's road"

We see the obligatory "Road Shot" as Piotr finishes up.

"Walking man's road
Walking man's road"

Then we see Ororo curled up, fast asleep, and looking like a cat again.

We see a caravan come in, and we see Dani's driving, wearing weird clothes and a hat made from a tree branch with Mystique!Raven perched on it. Then it drives past and we see the legend: "Dani Fortuna's Midnight Carnival." Ooer. Scary.

She spots Ororo and seems fascinated. "Well," she murmurs. "Well. Bless my old husk of a heart- OLD!"

Author: Well, yeah, in the book Mommy Fortuna's old enough to play Elli, the spirit of Old Age... I have too much useless knowledge concerning this movie. (4)

"And here I thought I'd seen the last of them," Dani continues with a TMI look on her face.

Apparently, somehow she's stopped the caravan, gotten off, and walked over to Ororo in the time it takes for us to glance at her (read: two seconds), because now she's standing there. She makes a come-hither-pathetic-lackeys gesture. "Here, you two!" She turns introspective, muttering to herself. "If he knew... but I don't think I'll tell him. He'll think it's a horse for sure! Some wizard I hired."

"Are you insulting my son!" Mystique demands (when in REALITY she's supposed to caw in agreement).

"You do realize that if I jerk my head you'll fall off?"

Mystique is Not Amused. "I'm sensing a pattern here..."

Jason hops off his wagon, followed by Kurt. "Now just what in hell was that to stop for?" Jason asks. "And what in hell was I casted in this part for?"

Author: Rukh looks vaguely like a monkey. You ARE a monkey. See? And stop complaining about bit parts; whenever I get to Bartok the Magnificent you're the star. (5)

Jason mutters something but shuts up.

"What do you think it is, Jason?" Dani replies. "What do you see lying there?"

"Dead horse," Jason replies, completely uninterested.

"You're a monkey!" Dani replies. "But I knew that."

"NOT A MONKEY!" (6)

The rest of the cast just stares at him. Jason is Not Amused.

"What about you, wizard?" Dani asks, pointing at Kurt. "What do you see with your sorceror's sight?"

Jason chuckles nastily and elbows Kurt in the knee (that's as high as he can reach with his elbow, since he's a monkey).

Kurt just stares at Ororo and Dani grabs him by his shirt, dragging him down to her height. "Answer me! You, juggler!"

"I see a horse," Kurt mumbles, but as we look at Ororo we see he sees a unicorn. That was a mouthful. "J-just a white mare."

Dani does a rather nasty chuckle. It's cooler than Jason's. "I thought so," she cackles. "All right. It's a white mare. I want her for the carnival. The last cage is empty." For once Mystique gets her part right as she caws in agreement.

Mystique stares scathingly at the camera.

"I'll need rope," Jason replies.

"The rope that could hold that mare has not been woven... huh?"

"Common unicorn lore," Kitty recites. "Unicorns can't be held with ordinary rope; it takes a ridiculous list of ingredients to make one that will." (7)

"There you go again, doing that 'smart' thing," Kurt says. "It doesn't suit you, really."

Kitty isn't amused.

"We'll do the best we can with cold, iron bars," Dani continues.

"Oh, she's waking!" Kurt cries, playing the part of State the Obvious Man.

"I'll put a sleep on her," Dani responds, and mutters a few random words, like with all the magic in this movie.

Some blue smoke-type-stuff settles over Ororo.

"Finally, some effects Forge got right," Remy mutters.

"And what's that supposed to mean!" Forge cries.

Kitty (being the only one around) kicks him.

The blue smoke turns into a glowy second horn. Cool, that.

"Now cage her," Dani says. "She'll sleep 'til sunrise."

"Or rather, de next chapter," says Remy, getting creative. "'Cause dat's a wrap."

"Oh, joy," Dani says. "One or two more chapters and I can go back to relative anonymity."

(There we go, lovely, that's done.)

(1) In QFS, the Camelot set had a habit of collapsing.

(2) Crack from "It's the News!"

(3) It's true; Rankin & Bass, the company who did TLU, also did an animated version of "The Hobbit" and a very, very, this-is-worse-for-sticking-to-canon-than-Jackson's-version, incorrect version of "The Return of the King." I know. I watched them a lot when I was little. And you can tell; the human characters all have a hobbit-ish look to them.

(4) Again, true; in the book Mommy Fortuna puts the unicorn in the -ninth- cage and fills the last cage herself.

(5) Yep, that's who I want to play Bartok. Of course, I'm probably not going to get to that for AGES, mind.

(6) As IF you don't know where this line is copped from... ok, if you don't, it's from "Dave the Barbarian." GOD I love that show.

(7) The list is as such: fish's breath, bird spit, a woman's beard (!), a cat's meow, a bear's muscles, and mountain roots. You also need dwarves to weave it. As you can probably tell I have a copy of the book open and right next to me.