62. "Robin's Charm School, Pt. 3"
"So… no reports about the Sherwood bandits at all?"
"You've asked us this several times now and the answer is still no."
"I see no harm in asking-"
"The harm is that you bring into question your own mental fortitude when you're sitting in the same room as we are and you can see we haven't gotten any calls about them."
"Well perhaps asking again may jar some memory of a call you've forgotten-"
"There's nothing of the sort for us to remember or forget because there were no calls about them. Ward, back me up here."
"Nutsy's right, Mister Mayor. We ain't heard nothin' about 'em one way or another."
"Read it and weep."
"Well I can't simply have my two highest-ranking officers sitting around, waiting for their shift to expire-"
"You actually can, as evidenced by the fact that that's what we've been doing."
"Well it's not what you're being paid to do!"
"Pretty sure you're gonna legally hafta pay us for this anyway and you're just bitter because we've figured out a way to get you to pay us to kill time."
"Deputy!"
"Actually, wait, no! That's the same as what you do all day! Sit on your ass sipping wine, collect taxpayer money, and call it a paycheck to yourself!"
Very good, Dear Reader! You successfully surmised that we were sitting in on Mayor Norman, Sheriff Woodland, and Deputy Nutzinger sitting in the parlor room of the mayoral mansion, having a one-sided non-argument about whether any sighting reports had come in about the Merry Men after the second draft of the wanted posters was released, with George doing most of the telling-off of the mayor while Ward infrequently added to the discussion. You also successfully deduced that Charles Hess was somewhere in the room, keeping his mouth shut. And you did that all by yourself! Do you even need me anymore?
"George, if you could channel that bravery you feel when you fearlessly jeopardize your employment by-"
"By telling you to your face that you can fire me if you insist, but have fun finding someone else in this department who'll put up with working under your so-called leadership without quitting after a week or leading a mutiny against you themselves?"
"...and use that bravery to seek out and do away with the outlaws… you could prove yourself to be quite a useful man indeed."
"...Useful? Is that the best word you could come up with, useful? Not… not noble, not heroic, not anything like that, but a word that suggests I'm good at being a tool for you instead of my own person? Jesus, even with the political machine in this town making sure that Richard's retarded little brother stays in power because he's an easy-to-mainpulate little patsy, I'm fucking shocked that you still keep getting democratically reelected as the leader of a major city when you're this bad at speaking extemporaneously."
"..."
"Yeah, I just said extemporaneously, I read books, motherfucker! I'm not as stupid as you think I am! Hey. Hey, spell extemporaneously. Do it."
"I do not consent to play your little game, Deputy-"
"Charlie, spell extemporaneously."
"I fail to see what that would prove."
"Ward, you wanna try?"
But the squirrel had to suddenly grasp for the sheriff's epaulet strap as the wolf let out a big and unexpected sigh. And perhaps more unexpectedly, it wasn't directed at his insubordinate little deputy.
"...Do ya wan' us to do sumpthin' 'sides sit around and wait for civilian tips that ain't comin', Mayor?"
Pop quiz: when's the last time we saw this guy? Do you remember? Uh… because… because I was kinda hoping you would know, Dear Reader, because I forget. Hold on, gimme a second to Ctrl+F through the most recent posts, fucking Blogspot… okay, so we last saw him farting blood after the Kanker sisters did… something to him, he's still not saying what after all these years and I sure as hell ain't interviewing them.
But even beyond being assaulted by adolescent girls, Ward Woodland had been feeling… down. He was feeling a lack of purpose brought on by the search for the Merry Men seeming to go on pause for a while for no discernable reason. The mayor had seemed to run out of ideas and just told the sheriff and deputy to literally wander the whole of Southern Delaware in hopes they'd happen upon them, but as you can imagine, nothing came of that. And Ward was struggling a little bit with this, because as much as he wanted to be like Nutsy and say fuck you, Mayor, you might be my boss but you're not the boss of me, I'm doing this my own way (which, as the county sheriff, he was well within his rights to do)... he kind of got a sense of fulfillment out of serving the lion.
Now that it seemed the lion had no use for him, he had no idea what to do, because as much as he wanted to make the Merry Men pay for all the times they'd embarrassed him… he would have liked the approval of a superior as he did it. He was typical in the sense that he wanted to be in charge as much as the next typical guy, but recall that this was someone who struggled in school and came from a time and place where his and most other families were neither wealthy in love nor personal success; the idea of someone well above him praising him for his accomplishments was an itch he still never got to completely scratch. And making all of this more complicated was the fact that these last few days… it really seemed as though Prince John had been spending a lot more time than usual chumming around with his assistant.
"If you'd like to take your leave and search again for the criminals," answered the mayor, "I will not stop you-"
"Where?" Ward demanded.
The lion looked incensed. "Why, wherever you think you ought to look! That's your province!"
So ya only wanna let me make my own choices when it's convenient for ya, huh, Mayor? Woodland wanted to snark right back at his boss but dared not to.
"So you only wanna let him make his own choices when it's convenient for you, huh?" Nutsy snarked right back at his boss daringly. "Because in reality, he should be doing this all independent of you, he's the law enforcement expert in this town, this isn't the presidency to the military, you're not the commander-in-chief… but you want him around as your little lapdog to do your bidding and then when you suddenly have creative block, you get angry at him for not having his own ideas. Seriously, what the fuck is wrong with you that you're making me defend this slovenly jackass? How dare you make me do something like that?"
And while the wolf really didn't care for being compared to a docile once-domesticated dog, he did otherwise appreciate his little buddy actually standing up for him.
The mayor simply took a calm, deep breath through his nose. "Never a dull moment with you around, is it, Deputy Nutzinger?"
"Can we go now and start our day-off early?" the squirrel grumbled. "Maybe come Saturday, you'll have some ideas about what exactly you want us to do. Not that we're incapable of coming up with our own, but it seems like you're gonna get your way one way or another, so I'd just kind of want to get right to it and get it over with."
"What about him?" the sheriff suddenly asked, pointing to the weasel (whom, by the way… I'm starting to hear now that he might have actually been a mink or a polecat or something? And just nobody ever cared to get his species right because ha ha mustelids are unimportant? I'm still hearing conflicting things about him, I'm so confused).
"...What about him?" asked the mayor, poorly hiding a sense of irritation toward the sheriff's tone.
"You two seem ta' been talkin' a lot lately," Ward explained, sounding more disinterested than bitter.
Here's the thing, though: Prince John hadn't been spending that much more time with his assistant than usual; I would have shown you if he had. But when John heard that remark, he had to wonder… was he showing too much of his reliance on the weasel/mink/polecat/whatever armless dude? All he knew was that he didn't want his top policemen to think he was beholden to the little cripple, and that he could faintly remember thinking it was a good idea to write himself a letter reminding himself to treat Charles as an equal partner but couldn't remember why.
And because he was suddenly struck by the thought that his top cops had somehow discovered that the mayor was deferring to the weasel and consequently lost faith in his leadership, he just stayed completely silent and ignored the question, wearing an annoyed look so nobody would realize he was internally freaking out.
"Well?" Nutzinger prodded. "Does he have any brilliant ideas?"
Hess put on a smirk and gave an unexpected reply: "Strangely enough, Deputy, I agree with you! You two are the top law enforcement officials in this city - this county now! We may have our ideas for strategies now and then, but we'd be mad to overrule your wisdom on the topic! If we have any ideas we'd like you to try, we'll surely let you know, but for now? Do as you please."
And Prince John couldn't say anything because he had sworn to himself (apparently) that he would start to let his assistant have a stronger say in how they ran shit, and if he had no ideas on this matter and his assistant's idea was to go with the cops' idea… well, he… uh… hell, he had no idea how to do this whole 'letting someone else take the reins for a moment without making it look like you were giving them the reins forever' thing.
"Alright," said the squirrel, "well, my idea is to let us get out of here now instead of just taking a knee to run the clock out and let us come back Saturday to reassess the problem with fresh eyes. Sound good?"
The lion just kept staring at them.
"...Hello?"
How could the sheriff and deputy have already figured out that John had bestowed more power onto Charles?
"...Are you gonna answer me?"
Perhaps he'd slipped up just now by not overruling the weasel, and that gave it away.
"...At all?"
Or perhaps it was something he'd done earlier to give it away that he hadn't even registered.
"...Ever?"
All he knew was that now, he was in a catch-22 where he couldn't assert himself without betraying himself.
"Johnny, talk to me, dude, you're freaking me the fuck out right now with that thousand-yard stare."
And Prince John would not allow anybody to betray him, not even himself.
"…CAN WE FUCKING GO NOW!?"
…How did they know?
"...Yes," the mayor finally muttered, "I don't see why not."
"THANK YOU!" George said with a groan and an eye roll as he tapped his foot against Ward's neck. "C'mon, Wolfie, let's get the hell outta here."
Ward didn't say a word as he stood (oddly slowly and gently, much to the surprise of the rodent who was expecting to have to grab onto the wolf's shirt for balance) and made his way towards the front door. He wasn't going to tell anybody how much he was feeling like a failed project who'd been discarded.
The sheriff and deputy probably exchanged some words as they walked out of the mayoral mansion, but what they discussed has been lost to history and probably wasn't too important. All we know is that when they walked out and made their way to the sidewalk, whatever they were talking about was interrupted when Ward realized he'd bumped into something - or someone. Distracted as he'd been, he hadn't bothered looking down to notice a tiny fox kit walking past. But in his defense, looking down at the kid in his yellow shirt with a blue collar and an offset red stripe running down the front, it looked like the little fox hadn't been paying attention either, his eyes having been fixed on an overstuffed envelope he'd been holding before bothering to look up at the hulking wolf.
"Hey!" the sheriff barked down at the smaller canine. "Watch where you're-!"
But call it a mammalian moment, Ward decided to change his tune when he realized the boy was clearly terrified of him, his butt on the ground and staring straight up at the highest lawman in the land.
"...Uh… sorry. My apologies, young man."
"You alright, kid?" the deputy asked.
The fox lad just nodded meekly, mouth hanging open a little, clutching the envelope as if it were something dear to him.
"Alright," said Woodland as he tipped his cap at the boy and started walking off, "good to hear. Ya take care now."
"Jesus Christ, Ward," George chided, "at least help the fucking kid up."
And maybe if Nutsy had used a kinder tone of voice, Ward might have. But as it was, the wolf simply responded: "Don'tcha remember, Nutsy? We're off the clock now! We ain't gotta help people anymore till the day after tomorra'!"
"My God, you're a heartless asshole."
But Ward just needed to get out of there. He needed some time to get drunk and do some thinking. Hell, he was going so crazy that with his sense of smell that would make his primitive ancestors proud, he could have sworn he'd smelled the Englishman coming off of that kit. But nah, sometimes Woodland's nose was too good and it gave him false positives, and he knew he was probably just being racist against foxes. Plus he thought he smelled his nephew on the kid, too, which also seemed ridiculous.
…Holy SHIT, that was a close one.
Yeah, more than you know, Eddy. Thankfully the sheriff's mind was completely somewhere else so he didn't even clock that there was a connection between Robin Hood and his Li'l Pup, God knows what he might have done had he realized there was a very real possibility that this kid knew the both of them.
But Eddy had no idea that Ward's smelling was off-the-charts amazing to the point of being able to distinguish different specimens of the same species. He'd just been pants-shittingly terrified that he'd somehow botched his mission before even starting it, running into a cop he understood to be an enormous asshole to the point that it was not out of the question that if someone bumped into them, he'd book them for assaulting an officer. At which point the message would be confiscated, one thing would lead to another, and… you can see where this is going.
No matter. Eddy stood himself up, trying desperately to calm his nerves. Most frustratingly of all, he wasn't consciously nervous about any of this; Robin had assured him that either Marian would answer the door, Marian's trustworthy sheep friend would answer the door, or nobody would answer the door at all, and if one of the two safe individuals did greet him, literally all he had to do was hand over the letter and give a hint-hint-wink-wink. That's it, that's all. But his subconscious mind didn't get the memo, and he had to wonder whether you could see his jugular vein pulsing through his coat of fur. He had to wonder whether these nerves were a sign that he wasn't qualified to roll with the Merry Men on the grounds that he was too beholden by fear, but he knew one thing for sure: he'd definitely be a pussy if he didn't climb the stoop and ring the doorbell.
He was certainly surprised by how easily-accessible the front door was. Yes, there was an iron gate running all around the rest of the property and flanking the edges of the short walking path to the entrance so that potential visitors couldn't go anywhere else besides in a straight line to the door, and there were clearly cameras all over the place, and that door looked like a rhino would suffer a concussion if one tried to knock it down. But this was not the White House, nor was it a fortified medieval castle (as much as the small decorative moat running on the far side of the fence and connecting in back to the Peach Creek tried to invoke that aesthetic); this was simply an urban mayor's residence, and while certainly an expansive estate, it did not demand the security restrictions of Fort Knox. It all just seemed like it was egging the kit on: c'mon, this isn't a challenge, just come up and ring the doorbell already. And so he did.
For a moment there, it looked like nobody really was going to answer the door. It wouldn't have been worse than this facile mission being a failure, but it wouldn't have been that much more preferable for this to turn out to be an enormous waste of time.
And then someone opened up a sliding viewhole and peeked out at him with brown eyes on a red face, looking shocked to see him and not saying a word before sliding the viewhole back shut. The fact that someone had indeed come to see him made the reality of this endeavor hit Eddy like a ton of bricks, and the fact that he had no idea how to interpret the fact that this individual had shut the peephole again without saying a word just made his anxiety spike further.
…And then the door opened and Eddy was just confused.
…Who was this guy?
The strange fox stared down at him with a look like he was just as nervous as Eddy was. But to reiterate: this individual stared down at him. Nevermind that it was an adult looking down at a child; this fox was, much like Robin, astoundingly above average size and stature. Not nearly at Robin's level, not by a good margin, but definitely taller than Eddy's dad and brother; if those idiots lied to the government and claimed four feet on their driver's licenses, this guy may have actually been four feet tall and dwarfed Terry and Eddy's Brother if they should ever meet. And that wasn't even the strangest thing, this fox was also disproportionately red-furred even down to his extremities, not completely crimson like Robin but certainly not much in the department of black coloring on his hands or white on his tail-tip. Not to mention the strange androgynous manner of dress, a low-cut red V-neck t-shirt over rather slender jeans before such jeans were in fashion, all going together with a very youthful, boyish face that made Eddy wonder if Robin had a kid he didn't know about who was already a freaking giant like his father and his single mother didn't know how to dress him appropriately. But no, that would be loony, this surely must have been a cousin of Robin's or something, brought in to somehow use him as bait to track the outlaw down.
Eddy was quite literally feeling very small right about now, and that made him want to seethe. This couldn't have been Marian, but whoever this was was making the diminutive kit angry just looking at him. Fucking tall people don't realize how good they have it, and so also this guy. But Eddy told himself: he must not let his emotions get in the way.
"Uh… hi, um, sir," he squeaked, waving meekly up at the stranger before holding up the envelope. "I, uh…Marian? Marian, uh… Swift? Does - does she live here? Someone told me she lives here."
And the tall tod responded by chuckling awkwardly, covering his mouth in a very ladylike manner, before verbally replying in an unmistakably feminine voice:
"Oh! Erm… that's me, young man. I'm Marian Swift."
…OKAY, WHAT THE FUCK!?
HOW IN THE HOLY MOTHER OF FUCK WAS A VIXEN THIS TALL? That was illegal. If not, it should have been. Eddy already wasn't comfortable with the idea of being shorter than most guys of his species, but shorter than a vulpine woman? Like, okay, fine, he knew he wasn't alone in this one, this chick was clearly bigger than most tods, even tall Terry would feel emasculated next to her, but considering he was so far behind her in this regard even more than most male foxes… Eddy just felt infuriated that this vixen was literally lording over him, standing taller than he ever would. And if you're wondering, no, Robin had never clarified how tall Marian was and yes, Eddy had just assumed she was at least reasonably close to normal size, and perhaps he shouldn't have and perhaps he should have expected the tall guy to have a tall girlfriend since those infernal tall specimens of any given species only ever seem to date other tall specimens of the same species, but… man, just to clarify, Dear Reader, Robin had been talking this woman up as being the most beautiful vixen you'd ever see, so when Eddy saw the door open and it was a "vixen" who was not only grotesquely tall but looked just like Robin and could pass for a boy in general…
…Eddy did not find her the least bit attractive. In fact, he looked her up and down with feelings of anger and revulsion, and these feelings caused him to completely forget that he was supposed to say something.
And perhaps sensing that the strange lad had dropped a line, Marian offered to pick it up: "...Would that letter happen to be for me, young man?" she asked sweetly, folding her fingers together and holding her held paws up as if to beg.
Now Eddy remembered his script. "Uh, yeah, uh…" He handed the letter over and delivered the rest of his spiel without making eye contact with her: "It's your weekly, uh, poem, from, uh… Poems Monthly, which you, uh, signed up for…" (He was supposed to wink at her for this part, but he refused to crane his neck that much and belittle himself.) "...Oh, and, uh… if anybody else asks to see it… maybe it'd be best if you read it out loud to them… ahem…" And after looking everywhere else but at her face, he simply turned and walked away. "Alright, bye."
"Oh, er… goodbye, young man! Nice to meet you!" Soon after, Eddy heard the door close behind him.
Bitch, go fuck yourself. Feeling thoroughly humiliated, now Eddy couldn't stop thinking about how Robin had talked this little task up as an opportunity to practice the strategic charisma that he'd just been taught, charming Marian into accepting the message and feeling completely at ease with taking a letter from a strange child at her door; apparently the stupid limey bastard couldn't even conceive of a situation where Eddy wouldn't want to do all he could to make this vixen feel comfortable. And to think there was now security footage of him standing at this mansion's door with a message that could easily be tied to wanted criminals; to think he'd risked his own tail just to walk into a situation where he felt like this giantess was mocking him without even trying to. In that moment, Eddy truly didn't care whether she got the message safely or not, he just never wanted to see that woman again, and kind of would rather never have seen Robin's lanky ass either; but unfortunately, Robin and Johnny knew the way home and he didn't, so they were basically his ride, and now as he went off to the bar they were waiting out at, he had to formulate a lie about how he had successfully "enchanted" the "pretty" lady just to make his "teacher" proud.
-IllI-
"Johnny, don't tell me you're nervous."
"Oh, don't you dare interpret my discomfort for anxiety."
"Ah, but what is discomfort if not anxiety?"
"Are you anxious if you're sitting in a crappy chair?"
"A bit, yes."
"...Well you can be uncomfortable without being nervous, Rob. Get that through your head."
A waiter came up to their table tucked away in the corner. A mountain goat, he seemed to recognize who these two patrons were, even if most of the rest of the crowd didn't. But he wasn't going to blow their cover beyond a knowing smirk.
"What'll it be, boys?" he asked, tiny pencil and notepad at the ready.
"I'll just take a Miller Lite," said the bear, sounding exhausted already.
"May I get a Moscow Mule, please?" asked the fox, smiling warmly.
"You sure can, I'll be right back." And off the goat went to retrieve their beverages.
"You're going straight for the hard stuff?" Johnny inquired.
"Ah, but you know what they say! 'Liquor before beer, you're in the clear!'"
Little John winced and put his paws out with his palms up. "Are you implying that you're gonna have beer after this? How long are we planning on staying here!?"
"Just as long as we need to. And I don't necessarily mean drinking here, we can imbibe some more back home. Consider this pregaming!"
The bear just turned to stare into space and shake his head in exasperation. "You fucking alcoholic."
"We have a name to live up to, Johnny! But enough about this. Let's recall why we're here!"
Robin twisted in his seat and gestured to the large communal space behind him. This watering hole was a particularly big one, and the fox had made a point to have his friend sit in the seat from which he could clearly see everybody in the establishment at any given time.
"Johnny…" Robin began gently, "pretty soon, Marian and I will be reunited again, and when that moment comes, I would never be able to blame you if you were to feel left out. And for this reason, I think… what if we simply tried to remedy this situation so that such a feeling might not persist for very long at all? You deserve to have love too, Johnny, and mark my words, I'm going to help you find it!"
The bear responded by sighing through his nose. Truly, he didn't look nervous, he just looked bored. "I appreciate you trying, Rob, I swear to God I do, but forcing the issue isn't going to fix anything."
"'Forcing the issue'? What on earth are you talking about?" The fox gestured again to the crowd of people of all shapes and sizes fraternizing after a long day of work. "This is how people meet, Johnny! This is where people find love! You can't expect love to just come to you as you sit around and wait for it!"
"In my experience, love almost always happens by accident," his friend countered disinterestedly, "it really does seem like the one thing in life where you kinda do have to just hope you get lucky and stumble into it."
"Oh, rubbish!" Robin scoffed, just a little genuinely annoyed by how combative his friend was being. "You may have to get lucky in finding the right one, but in order to do that, you must first seek the right one! Put yourself out there!"
"Yeah, but going up to strangers and saying 'hey, wanna be my girlfriend?' doesn't seem like it would ever work in a million years-"
"Because it wouldn't!" said Robin, his smirk wild in disbelief. "Johnny, do you know nothing about something called flirting?"
"I know of it, and I know that I still don't have a freaking clue how it even works - and by that I mean both I don't know the mechanics of it and I don't get how anybody successfully woos anybody without just seeming creepy."
"Well Johnny, if not this, how do you think people meet each other and fall in love?" Robin challenged.
"I dunno. Never thought about it because I just thought that it would never apply to me. Honest to God, the idea of going up to a woman and hitting on her just seems…" The bear searched for the word. "...awkward at best, predatory at worst."
The fox rolled his eyes. "Did you fail to retain anything I said earlier about the importance of confidence?"
"Confidence don't mean shit if you actually don't know what the fuck you're doing. People like you because you have the skills to back your shit up. If you acted like you do without the experience you have, people would just think you were cocky and stupid."
Robin pretended to weigh two items in his paws like a scale. "Eh, fair point…"
"Miller Lite and a Moscow Mule," the waiter said as he dropped off the drinks.
"Thank you, sir," said Robin, "and if I may trouble you for a moment longer?"
The goat was indeed about to start walking away, but he made time for the local heroes. "Yeah, sure, what's up?"
"How's the clientele here? And by that I mean…" He gestured to Johnny. "Are they open to meeting new people?"
While the bear looked appalled, the mountain goat looked confused.
"I mean, you guys are cool," said the waiter, "Probably not existing supporters of the cause, but definitely not fans of City Hall either. I'm sure they wouldn't be offended if you stopped by and introduced yourselves."
Not quite the answer Robin wanted, but it got the point across just fine. "Thank you again, sir."
"Not a problem. Call me over if you need anything else."
As the goat walked away, the fox turned back to the bear, who was looking none too pleased.
"What the fuck was that?" Johnny demanded. "You just wanna broadcast to the world that my love life is so nonexistent that there's a big 'N-slash-A' next to it on my stat sheet?"
But Robin seemed to ignore that. "Johnny… because you are one of my favorite people, I'll share with you extra information I didn't share with the boys. Such as this…" He began gesticulating as he explained himself. "...So another idea of how to describe true core confidence is the idea that… no matter what happens to you, you'll be okay. Whether it's a woman rejecting your asking for the privilege or a random bloke knowing you're completely inexperienced in love… you know in your heart that you'll be okay. If you don't feel confident in that, then I do on your behalf. What's the worst that can happen, Johnny? Honestly. They say no?"
The pupil, however, remained unconvinced. "Sounds nice and zen and shit, but that doesn't really work in a world where people will actually, tangibly treat you worse if they think you're a loser."
"But you're not a loser," Robin insisted with a warm smile. "A loser wouldn't have shared as much success with me as you have-"
"So you're forgetting the part where they think you're the winner between us and I'm just the dumb muscle you drag around?" the bear seethed as he took an aggressive sip of his beer. "Rob, you know I think you're a good dude, but I swear, your optimism can bleed into naïveté more often than you'd fancy it does. And this is one of those times."
The fox scoffed and turned in his seat to get a good view of the patrons. "Think of it: even if they're not interested in romance… they may still be in the market for a friend! Even if you don't get the preferred outcome, you may well wind up with something enjoyable! Come now, Johnny, you're braver than you think you are!"
Little John was unmoved. "Alright… now you're forgetting the part where after all the shit I've been through… man, I don't see other people and see opportunities to make friends and girlfriends. I just see obstacles to overcome."
His friend asked the obvious question. "Do you see me that way?"
"Jesus fuck- you know what I mean, Rob. I'm not afraid of people anymore, but I'm just so used to them either not giving a shit about me or actively fucking with me that… if they don't initiate and make it abundantly clear that they want me in their life, like you did… I might wind up enjoying their company, but I'm never gonna crave meeting them."
Robin rolled his eyes before tapping the bear's paw and gesturing towards the crowd. "Johnny. Humor me. Tell me which women you'd be interested in getting to know. I know there has to be at least one bird here you'd like to imagine yourself with. There has to be. Just tell me who, and I'll coach you through it. I'll be your wingman! You know I'd never let you down."
Now it was Johnny's turn to roll his eyes. Beyond that, he didn't do much to respond. He took another sip of his drink and went back to staring unenthusiastically at the fox.
"Now I know you're usually too bashful to discuss this with me, but… what kind of women are you into, Johnny?" Robin prodded. "Perhaps I can help you find some in this crowd! Do you prefer your own kind exclusively, old boy? If you'd like to connect with someone else, hey, no judgment here! I see some bear ladies… some wolves… some tigers, some lions… or if you're like your famous grandfather, there's an elephant woman who might tickle your fancy!"
Little John put a paw over his face and shook his head. "You just don't get it, do you? I'm not interested in any of the women here."
But Robin just shook his own head right back at him. "Johnny, Johnny, Johnny… frequently when men are afraid of approaching a woman, they'll feign disinterest in her so as to hide their fear - when a man is afraid of approaching all women, he'll often pretend to be disinterested in all of them!"
As the fox took a sip of his own drink, the bear just kept staring at him, looking dreadfully unamused.
"That's not to belittle you, Johnny," Robin continued, "that's an actual thing that happens. That's a known phenomenon."
"Does the look on my face look like I'm scared?" Little John demanded, pointing to his own countenance. "Because it's supposed to look like I don't give a shit about any of these people."
"But how will you ever give a shit about them if you don't get to know them? How will they give a shit about you if they never even get to meet you? Please, Johnny…" The fox looked into his friend's eyes with a look that could only be described as begging. "...You're a good man and the idea of you going your whole life without finding love breaks my heart. Please trust that I can help you show others that you're a good man, too. There will be people out there who will appreciate you for who you are and they'll love you for it - but you have to trust me."
Johnny just kept staring, not quite glaring but not really anything else.
"Tell me which woman looks the most attractive to you, Johnny - in any sense of the word," Robin urged, gesturing back to the breadth of the room. "And I'll do everything I can to help you. You have my word."
The only reason Little John played along as much as he did is because he didn't want to give Robin ammunition for saying he was a coward or a bad friend. But as he turned and looked out at all the people of all shapes, sizes, and species populating the bar… no, he was right the first time. None of them jumped off the page. None of them seemed like people he'd like to get to know to that extent. Certainly none of them got his willie whistling. Maybe he was a narcissist, or maybe he was just too broken, but with none of these people showing an interest in him in that way… he couldn't pretend to have an interest in any of them in that way, either. He just saw a bunch of people who would probably ignore him and perhaps even try to hurt him.
"...I tried, Rob," he said, turning back to his wingman in the wings, "I'm not seeing a single person here who strikes me as someone I… someone I'd want to be that close with. Potential friends? Maybe. Life partners? God, no."
"As your friend, you have the right to know that I don't believe that."
"Then what do I have to do to prove I'm not bullshitting you?"
"Quite frankly, I don't think I'll ever believe it."
"C'mon, Robin, when's the last time you heard me musing about pretty girls!? Never."
"Because you're a gentleman who doesn't spend all day fantasizing about women! And women will appreciate that!"
"Oh, Jesus fucking Christ, next I expect you to say, Oh, Johnny, if this is your way of saying that you're not into women, ahem, ahem, I'm so proud of you for being so brave and so honored that you trust me to know that, you know I won't judge, my stepdad turned out to be the same way!"
After taking another sip of his drink, the fox smirked. "You know me that well, eh?"
Little John gave Robin a flabbergasted look to convey that he was offended that his friend would even suggest that. "You know I'm not into guys, Robin, guys are fucking assholes! C'mon, how do you think I feel knowing that my desire to be loved in… in that romantic way that everybody else on this planet seems to enjoy, is completely at odds with my utter inability to find someone I desire to love that way back? I would love to have someone like Marian is to you, but… goddammit… getting that close to somebody? I think my deep-seated mistrust of people is always going to outweigh and erase however attractive they might be."
The fox took a deep breath. "And how can I help you move past that?"
"You can start by understanding that I'm not fucking around with you and I'm not just being a pussy about this."
"I understand and acknowledge that these feelings of yours are true and valid."
"Good boy."
"Okay, what's next?"
"Huh? There is no what's next, that's it. We stop here."
Robin chuckled a little. "Well, as you know… perhaps my biggest flaw is that I don't know when to quit."
"Tell me about it…" Johnny spat as he took another drink. "And… hell, at the risk of you thinking I'm just being a pussy about this all over again… you still haven't even prepared me for what I would do even if I did have the nerve to do it."
"What's there to prepare you for? You go up to a woman and talk to her!"
"'Hi, my name is Johnny, I'm unemployed, I'm homeless, I've been sharing a sleeping space with other men for seven years, I'm grossly overweight even for a bear, I have severe babyface and generally just ain't attractive in any conventional sense, I hang out with a guy who does check all the boxes of being conventionally hot making me look even uglier by comparison and just broadly making me look more like the designated funny-looking sidekick instead of the good-looking main character, I have a small dick, I have a severe case of Short-Man Syndrome that's never gonna fully go away, I'm pushing forty and I have absolutely no experience in a romantic relationship no matter how serious, my only sexual encounter REALLY wasn't supposed to even happen, oh yeah and also I'm a criminal.' Please explain to me how none of those are automatic dealbreakers."
"You're a hero to this city, Johnny! Any woman with a good head on her shoulders would want that! You're not ugly, you're perfectly sufficiently endowed, you're fun to be around when you want to be, and you have a heart of pure gold. There's nothing disqualifying about you."
"I like how you just ignored how much of a turn-off it would be for a woman to find out I've never even had a girlfriend."
"Oh, yeah, maybe if you brought that up right at the beginning! But I'm telling you, Johnny: just find a woman, talk to her like you'd talk to anybody else, and if you get a good feeling from one another and decide to take it to another level, then neither of you are going to care about your history!"
"I guarantee you it'd be a problem eventually."
Robin groaned as he looked down at the table, paws on his temples. "You see, Johnny, you certainly have the heart of a champion if you're not backing down about this. Now just channel that resilience into finding love!"
"What the fuck would I even talk about?"
"Anything! Here's some conversation-starter ideas that they taught me in those damned lessons: How are you doing today? What brings you here? Did you come here with anybody? - now that's a good one for sniffing out whether somebody's taken! What do you do for a living? What do you do for fun? And while I'd usually advise against discussing politics, I'd say asking about her opinion on Prince John might be quite useful given our current situation!"
"They really taught you to just go up to women and ask these questions out of the blue?"
"No, Johnny, you mad lad! You introduce yourself first! 'Hi, my name is Johnny, I don't think we've met yet!' 'I saw you and I just needed to say hello!' 'I-!'"
"All of those sound incredibly creepy."
"Then how do you think conversations start with romantic interest?"
"I don't know, motherfucker! I have no intuitive sense of how to convey romantic intentions without looking like a fucking sexual predator!"
"Johnny…" Robin said calmly as he seemed to be sliding out of the booth. "...You're overthinking this. Just be yourself, and you'll find the one eventually. It might not be today, but you'll never know until you try. I'll even come with you."
"Which you want me to think is you offering because you think I'm a noble man who shouldn't have to fight these battles alone, but in reality it's because you think I'm a weak man who can't."
"You're not displaying confidence right now, Johnny."
"No shit I'm not." The bear took another swig, then stayed quiet for a second as he pondered something. "Alright, if it's so easy… you do it."
"I just said, I'll gladly be your wingman."
"Nonono… you go and get a girl to give you her number."
"Me!?"
"Now who's nervous?"
"Johnny, I'm spoken for!"
"They don't know that."
"Well it would be dreadfully dishonest to approach them looking for a date I have no plans to follow up on!"
"It wouldn't be much better if I pretended to be attracted to a chick just to practice flirting, now would it be?"
"Then don't pretend. You might find they're attractive once you get to know them, that's how Marian and I decided to be more than friends!" Robin was clearly starting to genuinely lose his patience. "Now come on, Johnny, I fail to see how you'll learn anything by sitting back and watching me do it, especially if you aren't even in earshot."
And with that, Little John took a deep breath through his nose and looked around the room again. But this time, he wasn't looking at the presumed singles. He was looking at the couples, enjoying something he never thought he'd have himself, teasing and taunting him without even knowing he was there. And he thought of how lucky Robin was, that he had found someone who loved him like nobody could ever love the lonely old bear, how fortunate that fox was that he'd had his entire life to love and be loved by this person because they had met at such an early age…
…Wait.
Did you catch that? Johnny sure caught that.
"Hold on," said Johnny, suddenly looking very pensive, "...do you even know how to pick up chicks?"
Robin looked at him as though the bear had just genuinely asked whether the fox knew how to tie his own shoes. "Of course I know how! That's my whole point, there's nothing to it! There's nothing to know!"
"Well I'm just saying, you've only ever been with one woman and she's one you met when you were kids. Stands to reason that you'd never a' needed to hit on women as an adult."
The English gentleman did not look very charming in that moment, his mouth slightly agape and his eyes narrowed just enough to convey his objection to such an insulting conclusion. And he was shaking his head just a little bit, but not saying a word.
"You're not saying a word," Johnny observed.
"What's there to say? You plainly accused me of not knowing how to do something I'm offering to teach you! What kind of arrogant arsehole would I be if I were to try to teach you something I couldn't do myself!?"
"As they say, 'those who can, do; those who can't, teach.' You're not addressing my point that there's no logical reason for you to know how to-"
"Johnny, it's easy! Have you not seen how it's done even in films or on television?"
The bear had to wince at that. "Did you seriously just say that you think it's as easy to do as it is in made-up stories? In scripted fiction? Where they're predestined to fail or succeed?"
"They may be works of fiction, but do you think those tropes would survive this long in popular canon if they were that detached from reality? Come on, Johnny, we're in our line of work because we believe that this world can be greater than the grim reality we're born into, don't write something off as implausible just because you saw it on a screen somewhere!" Robin huffed and turned again to assess the crowd.
…And when he found a potential target, he put on a foxy grin.
"Well, old boy, if you were seeking to put me in a position where I'd do it anyway just to shut you up, you've won," the redhead beamed as he turned back to his friend. "I'll prove there's nothing to it - and if I get back and you accuse me of having it easy because women find me irresistible-"
"I wasn't even gonna say that. I really just wanna watch and see if you can hit a home run on your first attempt at picking up a girl."
Allowing himself to be a bit more dramatic than usual, the tod shrugged and rolled his eyes as he slid out of the booth seat and made his way over to another fox. This vixen was a corsac, and she sat alone at a table, sipping a glass of beer and reading a thick paperback book. Robin walked up to her with a smile on his face and not a care in the world. All he had to do was be himself and everything would fall into place. Worked every time.
"Excuse me, ma'am," Robin greeted, not thinking his words through before saying them nor feeling any need to do so, "may I ask what it is you're reading? Reading in a bar - my kind of lass!"
The corsac fox folded her book shut onto a finger and blew some air out her nose as she smirked and looked up at him. "Well, your friend isn't gonna see you hit a home run with an opening line like that."
…Confidence. Gone. Immediately. Nope. Bye-bye. What!? How!?
"Er… I beg your pardon?"
"I've got the same ears you do, sweetheart," she replied with a sweetness that seemed genuine but surely must have been fake. "You're only two tables away, I heard everything. And you're friend's right, it would be rude to hit on women you're not even interested in just for practice. I can't imagine how your girlfriend would feel about this."
Robin, however, was not the type to resign to this being an irrevocably awkward moment, and just as he had instructed his friends, he decided to seek confidence in his lack of confidence. "Well, I will concede, you caught me fair and square!" he said, projecting a sense of carefree joviality and almost pulling it off, but the obvious damage had been done.
The vixen forced a very artificial chuckle. "Well, nice to see you can lose gracefully. But you still lose, so please don't try to come back from that. I was sitting here reading the same page over and over, overhearing you two talking, thinking oh, don't you dare come over and experiment on me… and then you did."
Now Robin came to feel that projecting confidence would simply have been inappropriate. "Er… I see. My apologies for my, er… boorishness, as it were."
She nodded. "Oh, and… about your friend-"
"My friend!? You're right, he was correct in saying it would be out of line to use you as a practice template! He's far more of a gentleman than I am, would you like me to summon him over?" Credit where it's due, Robin was trying to swallow his own embarrassment so he could still genuinely be a good wingman for his friend.
The vixen, however, looked a tad embarrassed herself. "Uh- no, quite the opposite, actually. I want you to tell him - and I take no pleasure in saying this, so tell him gently…" True to her word, her smirk was gone, and she looked glum for all three of them. "...He's afraid he's too far behind to step into the dating game for the first time at his age? Honestly… he's right. Pushing forty and never been in a relationship? That's…" She actually seemed conflicted about saying this, but appeared to be pushing through because she thought this anvil needed to be dropped. "...I'm not saying it's impossible, but in his situation, his only options are going to be someone very desperate or very immature. I'm sorry, but at our age, I'm not gonna want to get into a serious relationship with someone who has to learn from absolute scratch how to be in a serious relationship. I wouldn't, most women wouldn't, most people wouldn't. We all have one life to live, and he'll be hard-pressed to find anybody who's willing to put their life on hold as he plays catch-up gaining romantic experience. Not saying it won't happen, but I wouldn't bet money on it, and if it does happen, it'll probably be with someone else who's horribly stunted in romance, or someone inappropriately young for him, or someone who might not even really love him but just doesn't want to die alone. And…" She suddenly took her finger out of her book to put her paws to her temples for a moment and groan. "I really don't want to be a bitch here. When I said 'tell him gently,' I meant it. He seems like a perfectly nice guy, and I don't want him to feel like a stranger just told him off, but…" She made an awkward shrug. "...I really think you, as his friend, have the duty of breaking it to him that he's just screwed in love."
And unable to fight the urge, Robin snuck a quick glance back at the bear. The look on Johnny's face made it clear: just as the vixen had heard everything the Merry Men had said, so too had Little John heard everything. He didn't look outwardly heartbroken, but he was staring straight at them without so much as a flicker of light in his eyes.
"...And, y'know, that's fine," she continued, "that doesn't make him a bad guy or anything, it's… y'know, it's just the way it is, and now the mature course of action is just to make peace with it, y'know, we all don't get one thing or another we want out of life-"
"But surely his good heart will be enough for someone to look past his inexperience!" interrupted the fox, looking a tad desperate to win this one-sided argument.
The vixen seemed to be pitying him. "Well, if you go into a job interview and tell them you're willing and able to learn quick but don't actually know anything about the job you applied for, do you think they're going to hire you over someone with actual know-how?"
"They might! They ought to! A good employer should value a positive attitude above all else!" Robin squeaked.
Yeah, that pitying look the corsac was giving him? It intensified, and began to show signs of worry and confusion as well. (Modern Robin now understands that as much as he loved his dear old mum, the job-seeking advice she'd always instilled in him didn't exactly fly in 21st Century America, and he hypothesizes this was probably another reason why he could never get a decent job in Philadelphia or New York.)
The strange woman tutted her tongue exactly once and looked back up at him. "Well, maybe you need some more experience in dating and relationships yourself. And again, I'm saying this to help you. You guys don't seem evil, you two just seem… really naïve."
There was that word again.
"Okay then!" Robin suddenly proclaimed jollily. "Tell me what I could have done better! If my pickup line bombed that badly, what was wrong about it and how could I improve it for next time?" Truly not knowing when to quit, the tod was hoping that he could nevertheless make a comeback here by showing himself to be mature and secure enough to ask for help where he needed it, and to make this woman feel honored by upholding her wisdom on the subject no less.
But her funny look now just looked uncomfortable. "Honestly, asking what I was reading was fine enough, it was that 'my kind of girl' part that seemed kind of cheesy and… forward. And even that wasn't that bad, it was just… like I said, I overheard the whole thing, I heard your accent coming closer and I knew why you were asking."
"Hm! So is it possible that it might work on someone else?" Robin asked hopefully. "For posterity, I'm asking chiefly for my friend's benefit, I've not been on the market myself for a bit as I've been in a relationship since I was a lad." These were wholly uncharted waters for him, so he figured he might as well use this profoundly awkward moment to learn as much as he could.
And now the corsac just looked outright disgusted; in retrospect, Robin surmises she didn't take his openness about doing this fake flirting while already having a girlfriend as well as he had anticipated.
She stood up out of her seat and started grabbing her items. "You know, this table's under an air vent and the AC's up too high, I'm gonna find a new table. Uh…" Perhaps she felt she needed to make it clear that she didn't want the tod following her: "Good luck to your friend." She started off, paused, and turned back to show off her book to him: "It was The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen, by the way, in case you were… genuinely curious. Nice enough book, just kinda preachy at times." And then she left him for good.
Off in the corner, Johnny watched Robin watch her walk off.
"Strike one," the bear murmured under his breath.
Robin stood there staring in disbelief for just a moment, nothing too long but enough for him to realize he was probably embarrassing himself by standing there and staring. He made his way back to the booth and took a seat, not making eye contact with his friend, just keeping his gaze faintly downward and his tail straight down. It was understood that there need not be any play-by-play of what just happened.
"Sorry you had to go through that," Johnny offered.
"But was that really a failure?" Robin pondered. "'Failure' assumes there was a chance of success; she was aware of what I was doing, so there was no possibility that she'd ever go along with it."
The bear's expression, however, went from looking disconnected to looking sort of pitying as the vixen's had not even a minute prior. "Uh… Rob, dude, it's okay, failure isn't the end of the world-"
"It wasn't a failure, Johnny, it was a… it was something predestined to never be. We mustn't let it weigh down our data set."
"...You're going to give it another try, aren't you?" Little John felt a strange sinking feeling as he asked a question with an obvious answer.
"Of course I am, the real question here is whether you'd like to come along and try with me."
The bear held up a paw. "I'm good, thanks."
Robin scoffed as he shimmied back out of the booth. "Suit yourself. I'll concede, though, I wasn't following my own advice there. This time, I'll try to make it less obvious that I'm seeking companionship and let that become clear in its own time. I'll just be friendly first." And off he went back onto the floor - and then immediately stopped, turned around, and grabbed his Moscow Mule. "Pardon me, I might need this."
"Godspeed," bid Johnny as his friend walked off onto the battlefield.
The fox didn't have a target as he set sail, he simply wandered the bar looking for lonesome ladies who could use some company. He made a point to watch his posture and body language to portray himself as confident but friendly, and made himself smile to placebo himself into feeling - knowing - that this would go swimmingly.
And before too long, he noticed a single coyote woman at the bar, nursing a beer. There was not even a moment's hesitation in Robin's stroll towards an adjacent stool.
"Excuse me, ma'am," he greeted with his winning smile, "would you mind if I sat here?"
"Oh!" Sure enough, the coyote saw his friendly face and had to return a smile of her own. "Sure, go ahead. It's the bar, that seat's for everybody."
"Why thank you," he said as he put his drink up on the counter and adjusted the stool. "I would hate to occupy a whole table all by myself, that would simply seem rude in a room as crowded as this."
Still smiling warmly, she looked past him and gestured with her head toward the far corner of the room. "Like that guy?"
Robin glanced and saw that she was referring to a bear who was staring right at them, who then realized they were looking back at him and turned to stare off into space as he took another swig of his beer.
The fox had to wonder for a moment whether this woman, too, had noticed that he had been sitting back there, so he tread carefully. "Precisely! Hey, the fact that you noticed him taking up space confirms that sitting up here was the right decision!"
And she chuckled. "And I get it, I can't judge the poor guy too much because… hey, I'm here alone, too… but at least I'm not taking an entire table to myself. Especially in the mixed-size section. C'mon, guy, don't hog those tables!"
To this, Robin chuckled in return, not taking pleasure in mocking his friend but pushing through it towards his goal. The coyote's response seemed to indicate that she did not, in fact, realize that the fox and the bear were in cahoots. And by extension… surely she must not have known who they were, either.
"...I'm Jack, by the way."
She smiled wider still. "Claire."
"A pleasure to meet you, Claire. And I must say, I feel much less self-conscious finding someone else here alone. Perhaps some miserable judgmental people might look down on me for drinking alone at a bar, but… ah, surely it's not nearly as bad as drinking alone at home! And my word, after the day I've had, this fox needs a pint!"
A risky move, perhaps a very risky move. There was a chance that this woman might be offended if she got the idea that she was to be codified into the same category of losers to which the fox was assigning himself, but Robin said it with a jocular smile and a playful tone and was sure he had done enough to communicate that he was just goofing around. He had to take risks to get ahead, so he would strike while the iron was hot.
And she seemed to respond well to it. "So… that's what you call a pint?" she teased as she pointed to the mixed drink. "I mean, I'm not the best with the metric system-"
"Oh, I'm getting there! Didn't say that a pint was the only thing I needed, now did I?" He laughed heartily, and she along with him.
"But…" she began again as the giggles wound down, "...you are a fox, though? I mean, please stop me if you're sick of hearing this question, but… how tall are you?"
He giggled yet again. "Not a worry, Claire. Four-eleven." Giving himself an extra three-quarters to match his new fake ID, and besides, this was just a test run, none of this mattered.
Claire was visibly impressed by this number. "...Wow. So… are you a basketball player for one of the MS minor-league teams? And no, it's not just because you're tall, it's because you're tall and… British? English? I'm sorry, I don't know which one you guys prefer. But my point being, why else would you be in Nottingham of all cities? And- jeez, I hope that's not how you broke your arm."
Let the record show, Dear Reader, that the plan going into this had been for Robin to heed his training and show interest in her, since everybody likes being around people who seem interested in them. But apparently "Jack" was doing such a good job of being an intriguing, mysterious stranger that Claire was simply eating him up. He didn't even need to do the heavy lifting in the conversation because she was just so darn interested in him. And perhaps this would skew the data set, but hey, anything to show Johnny that just because the fox never had to approach women as an adult didn't mean that he couldn't quickly figure it out.
And so they talked. Dear God, did they talk: "Jack" explained that he was an actor by trade but that he did pick up basketball as a hobby and often played with some of the players and coaches from the USD and NSU teams of his size class (because again, none of this mattered) and that he had just finished a long shift working security with very little mammalian interaction and now needed to get his social fix for his own sanity. The conversation did eventually turn to Claire, however, and it turned out she worked IT at an architecture firm, though her true passion lay in graphic design, but she hadn't realized that until graduating college, so now she was debating whether to go back to school full-time for a graduate degree or try to teach herself in her free time and build a portfolio on her own to try to get the credentials necessary for a career shift - of course, if she were really following her dreams, she'd be trying to figure out a way to play professional beach volleyball for a living while she still had the body for it.
And they talked about still more than this, and it was a grand old time, but there was one topic they did not talk about. At no point in the conversation had it steered anywhere near love, romance, and relationships. From Robin's end, this was intentional. He'd come on too strong right out of the gate with the corsac fox, and he was still embarrassed for forgetting his own strategy. His entire thesis was that a good romantic relationship could only work if the two enjoyed being friends with one another first, therefore now he sought to make this coyote feel as comfortable as possible in his presence, and if his hypotheses proved correct, a desire for something more would occur naturally.
Perhaps this strategy would have worked, but by Modern Robin's own admission, he didn't execute his plan quite right.
"...And I feel bad getting so invested in this stupid workplace drama," Claire carried on, "but… y'know, it's like the only thing that gets me through the bad days at this point, y'know? Like even on the days when I don't think anything good is gonna happen, at least that gives me something to look forward to."
"The things I would do to have some workplace drama right about now," Jack moaned in a way that was charmingly silly and not just obnoxiously whiny, "this security job might offer flexible hours but the loneliness is soul-crushing!"
"Yeah," the coyote smiled, "it's good to have a constant in life…" She trailed off, still seeming perfectly tranquil in his company, but turned to show that smile to random sides of the bar, and after looking all around the room she ultimately consulted her wristwatch before quickly turning to the fox and giving him one last friendly look. "Well, Jack, it was nice to meet you!" she said before downing the scant remainder of her beer.
"As to you, Claire!" Robin replied, not yet sure what was going on - having an inkling, yes, but refusing to believe that she was actually-
"Tom, I get paid tomorrow, I'll pay off my tab then," the coyote called to the bartender with a wave.
"You got it, Claire," the skunk bartender replied.
Robin was confused. Wait… was she…?
"Bye, Jack!" she waved as she slid off her stool and made her way out. "It was nice talking to you! Good luck with the performance, hope that arm heals soon!"
…She was actually ditching him.
And he had no idea how to keep cool about it now that he realized it.
"Er… yes, thank you, Claire! Hopefully I'll see you here again!" he called after her, rather loudly at that, getting several other patrons' attention.
Including Johnny's. "Strike two."
"Yeah, hopefully!" Claire said, and then she was gone out the door into the blinding summer sunlight, disappearing into the flash of white before the door closed behind her and the darkness of the bar took shape once again.
Robin once again stared at the space she had once occupied, dumbfounded at how something going so well could just bottom out at the drop of a hat. And he may have never figured it out if not for some outside observations.
"Er… excuse me? Tom, was it?"
The skunk looked up and walked over. "Yeah? What's up, bud? Need a refill?"
"Er- s-sure, but, er-"
"What was it?"
"...Moscow Mule. But, er… that coyote, does she frequent this place often?"
"Well, she's running a tab with us, and she knows me by name," the bartender said flatly as he fixed the fox another drink. This guy clearly wasn't as amicable as the mountain goat.
"Hrm… this is none of my business, but is she… with someone, as far as you know?"
"I don't know," he replied, "but I had a funny feeling that that's where you were going with her. And you got along pretty well with her from what I saw, and as far as I know she doesn't hate foxes or… really tall guys, or… Brits. Maybe next time, don't forget to shoot your shot before it's too late."
A cord seemed to snap in Robin's brain when the skunk said that. "What do you mean? I was shooting my shot!"
Tom shrugged. "Well, I didn't hear the entire conversation front to back, but I definitely didn't hear you say the words 'hey, do you wanna go out sometime?' or anything like that. And you two were talking for a while. You gotta make your intentions clear eventually, man. Seems like she really thought you were just looking for someone to talk to with no ulterior motives because you just never popped the question."
…Ah… yes. Yes… It all seemed so clear now. Ah, silly Robin, you'd been overly cautious this time! Establishing yourself as being someone enjoyable to be around outside of the bedroom was a good move, but it meant nothing if you forgot to elevate it to the next level! This would not be a mistake he'd soon forget.
"I was seriously starting to worry you were never coming back," Little John said without a drop of levity as his friend returned, the bear pointing to a clock on the wall as he did. "That was almost half an hour."
"And you would be right to criticize me for taking too long, because it seems my downfall that time was biding too much of my time." Indeed, he was presently preoccupied with the thought that after such a strong start with the joke that they were both alone in a place meant for communing, he had utterly missed the opportunity to build off that. "But no matter! I've learnt my lesson and I'll surely succeed on my next attempt! Third time's the charm, eh, Johnny?" the fox said with a wink.
"Ohhh, Jesus fucking Christ…" the bear said with an eyeroll.
"Oh, ye of little faith-"
"It's telling that you had to stop and ask the bartender for more liquid courage before you came back here."
For but a moment, Robin looked called-out as he glanced at the drink in his hand. "Hrm. Just seemed so automatic of me to ask for one while I was talking to the barkeep that I didn't even notice!"
"Robbbin iiis an aaal-kiiie," Johnny quipped in a low singsong, to the tune of na-na na-na boo-boo or batter's got a big butt.
But his friend merely scoffed at him, took a long swig of his liquor, and slid back out of the booth once again. "Behold, Johnny: those first two were merely warm-ups. Watch and learn!"
"Dead man walking," Little John sneered before taking a drink himself, watching his friend waltz through the bar looking cooler than he himself ever could.
And that in fact was the plan. Robin was going to turn on all his swagger for this one. No more playing Coy Nice Guy, but certainly not playing Pushy Bad Guy either. Instead… he would play the part of the Handsome Mysterious Stranger. He'd rarely admit it so freely lest he seem cocky or narcissistic, but he was sexy and he knew it. (Fuck you for making me write that, Robin.)
And it was about time that that wolf sitting alone at a table knew it, too. She wasn't occupying herself in any clear or obvious way, no book, no journal, no crossword puzzle, nothing. She just seemed to be sitting there for a man to sweep her off her feet. And if that man just happened to be of a different canid species, standing a foot shorter than her, and sporting a plaster cast on his arm, none of that would matter when he worked his magic on her. Confidence was attractive and he was confident she'd find him attractive; it was the best kind of self-fulfilling prophecy.
"Excuse me," he said as he walked up to the table behind her speaking as sensually as possible, "but I don't believe we've met yet, and I would never forgive myself if I didn't take the opportunity to introduce myself. Jack Wigglesworth…" he said with a small bow before gesturing toward an empty chair. "Is this seat taken?"
Sure enough, the wolf was immediately giving him a smile in return as well as eyes that might best be suited for the bedroom. She did not speak at first, simply nodding towards the chair. As the fox welcomed himself to the table, she finally spoke: "What struck your fancy about me, Jack?"
"Please do stop me if it turns out you were waiting on somebody, but all I know is that I saw a woman sitting all alone." The words dripped off his tongue like melted butter. "Whom among us would want to be alone in a room full of people? Surely you've done nothing to warrant being left all by yourself; this world is so cruel and lonely, it is all I can do to make it less so." And as per his training, he delivered these lines in a relaxed posture leaning back from her, at once making him look comfortable and confident in his surroundings as well as giving her her own space to feel comfortable around him and not encroached-upon.
The wolf smirked, intrigued by what the fox was saying. "Next you're going to tell me you broke that arm when you fell for me."
Robin let out a controlled chuckle. "A lesser man may use such a silly line… but no, I seem to have pulled something trying to restrain myself from approaching you. Alas… a gorgeous woman such as yourself proved all too enchanting. I simply could not resist." He spoke slowly to buy himself time to formulate an answer as well as to further paint himself as having absolutely no worry about his situation, and the words sizzled on his tongue as he did everything he could to emulate the Hollywood leading men he admired.
Such methods seemed to be effective, as she soon began to match his tone. "Rita."
"Rita, the pleasure is mine."
She blew some air out her nose as her smile seemed to become more genuine and less taunting. "Very well, Jack… you've introduced yourself. Now what would you like to say?"
He similarly gave a nasal laugh before replying. "I'd be content to say any number of things, but more than anything, I'd very much like to get to know you better. If not… I can be content knowing that I've at least met such a dashing woman today. But I confess, I can be greedy… you've piqued my interest, and left me wanting more."
Their eyes had not broken contact for the better part of a minute. "Okay. Tell me, Jack," said Rita with a daring tone, "what would you like to know?"
"Whatever you'd like to tell me," said the Englishman as he raised his glass to his mouth but stopped short of sipping. "I can see you're a capable woman, I'd be fine with you steering the conversation - and I'd quite like to see where you'd see fit to take it!" He took a quick swig, just to prove he was a normal person, and only now did he start leaning in towards her. "Oh, my, how rude of me! Asking for your time and attention for free… may I at least buy you a drink for your troubles?"
She tilted her head, but still kept that look about her. "But if I'm a capable woman, couldn't I afford my own drink?"
"I'm quite certain you could, but should you have to? I trust you deserve to be the recipient of an act of kindness, nothing to be asked of in return… though if you were to grant me your audience… that would be ever so generous…"
This was going perfectly. She clearly had her eyes on him, and he clearly had her attention. Getting this woman to agree to the next step in courtship seemed the only logical way this scene could go. Therefore he decided the time was right to push the envelope just a little further…
"Of course…" he continued, "...if you'd prefer we get to know one another in another time and place, that can be arranged. If you'd like a change of scenery, say the word… and it can be done." And for a second, it looked like he was going to wink, but instead he went with the classier option and bounced an eyebrow at her.
The scant light glistened in the rings of hazel in her eyes. She understood exactly what he was getting at. And if she were to say yes right then and there, Robin would have kept with it and left with her if that's what it would have taken to prove to his friend that there was nothing to this.
But Rita certainly knew how to keep a man on his toes. "Hm…" she hummed as she brushed her paw up her face to her ear, shaking her head just a little while still maintaining that seductive smile. "...There's no way you're real."
And at first, poor Robin thought she was playing with him. "Well," he purred, "I wasn't about to call myself the man of your dreams, but if you-"
"No…" she interrupted, still smiling but shaking her head a little more now. "No, you can't be real. Nobody's this charming."
The thought did cross Robin's mind now that perhaps she wasn't just playing coy with him, but even if that was true, he couldn't just surrender at the drop of a hat, he had to maintain his air of excellence and push through it. And he was fairly certain that that wasn't true because… dear God, that face. How could a face like that not be into him? When Marian looked at him like that with such amorous eyes…
"I've set the curve, have I?" he asked, still playing it cool.
But she shook her head fully this time, extinguishing any ambiguity. "No… you can drop the act now."
…Well, with his hand being forced like that… what could Robin do but stop seeming so charming and just look confused?
"The act? I… beg your pardon?"
"You can stop being impossibly perfect," she explained, and with that it became clear that somewhere along the line, her smile had come to mock him. "Nobody gets all these lines right on the first try, this has to all be rehearsed, I don't think that accent's real-"
"You don't think my accent is real!?" Robin's not proud to admit it, but he got angry when he heard that. "What- why? What could I possibly have done to give you that impression that it's fake? What the bloody hell would I need to do to prove to you that it isn't?"
But her smile just came to mock him further. "'Bloody hell'? It's a good attempt, but you can tell it's not your natural accent."
"I've lived in the States for over a decade now! Of course I've probably picked up some American twang here and there!"
She chuckled through her nose. "Right, and this impossibly classy English gentleman just happens to be in a completely unfabulous bar on a Thursday afternoon in Nottingham of all exciting places. Next you're gonna tell me when you moved here, it was a tough choice between here or Kansas City."
He'll admit, he was flustered. "I think you mean we're in Notting'UM, my dear, because that's how we English pronounce it! Not NottingHAM!" (We've discussed how the process of losing his accent is kind of a sensitive topic for him, right? Okay, good.)
And again, she giggled. "Took a little poking and prodding, but the mask comes off. The slightest disagreement and you demonstrate that you're not as much of a gentleman as you want me to think you are."
What Robin's primitive animal brain wanted to do was bark back at her, it wasn't a disagreement, you're verifiably wrong! But he knew that would just be proving her right. And as he sat there silently for a moment, staring at her, trying not to look like he was glaring but certainly glaring at least a little bit… she just kept smiling her smile that once seemed inviting, inviting him to do something that would have been the pinnacle of social success - a discipline in which he thought he'd always excel. But that smile was not one that sought to make him feel comfortable; it was merely a signal that she was comfortable with her own success in this battle. In some ways, it resembled the smile the corsac vixen had given him, and yet there was something off about it to differentiate them. That vixen had made clear that she wasn't trying to hurt him, but this wolf…
"That shut you up," she quipped.
...She was trying to hurt him. She was enjoying this.
The disgraced fox tried to remain calm as he folded his paws together on the table in front of him and said in a very formal tone, "If this is how you insist this goes, Rita…" (If that IS your real name!) "...what would you like me to say next, then?" When forced into an unwinnable argument with no clear way out, this was his go-to strategy to move forward.
She shook her head in pity - but still wore that condescending smirk. "I don't want you to say anything, Jack - if that is your real name. I just want you to realize that women aren't stupid; when you go out of your way to seem too good to be true… we'll know you aren't being true. It's that simple."
But poor Robin couldn't see the forest for the trees; he was hung up on the notion that he was being fake. He couldn't help but scrunch his face up. "And why, pray tell, is it so impossible that this is who I actually am? That perhaps after striving to be an excellent example of a gentleman my whole life, I've succeeded? Why are you so skeptical that someone like myself can even be?"
She rolled her eyes and gave her another scoffing nose-laugh. "Real people aren't that perfect and it's pretty suspicious when you encounter someone who is. You said all the right things. Either you memorized a peer-reviewed script somebody wrote for you, or - more likely - you're a textbook sociopath and your charm is your biggest red flag." She grabbed her drink and held it up to him. "Should I dump this? Did you put something in it when I wasn't looking? Do I need to ask you to empty out your pockets right here and now?"
Our hero was trying desperately to remain calm again, something he usually had no trouble with, but this accusation was just boiling his blood. This woman was accusing him of having date-rape drugs in his pockets!? The nerve of her… Well, I mean, he did have roofies on him, but, hey, we already showed how the Merry Men only use those on the bad guys, right? Actually, come to think of it, the pills on his person were actually much more powerful than your standard benzodiazepines because they were some gnarly Frankenstein's-monster super-drug that the mad scientist polar bear had concocted, some wicked things that could cause memory loss from before dosage and not just after so as to erase any mental imprint of the perpetrator, so okay, technically he had something even worse than tranquilizers, but not for the reasons she was suggesting! Oh yeah, and there was also the knife he had on him, it's been a while since we've alluded to him and Johnny carrying switchblades as necessitated by their lifestyle, best not forget about that, too. Jeez, thank God this wolf wasn't being serious when she challenged him to turn his pockets inside-out for her.
But she didn't have to. She'd already won. And to put the poor fox out of his misery, her finisher:
"But if you aren't here to take advantage of me.." she said, that faux-sweetness and sensuality never failing her, "...you were still too afraid to be imperfect in front of me. You didn't trip over your words or say um or uh even once. Remember, Jack: the easiest way to get busted cheating on a test? Get all the answers right."
It took three or four different ways of her saying it for it to get through to him, but he eventually got it, and when he did, his blood ran cold: he'd failed to win her over because he had indeed been too perfect. Oh, the irony, the bitter, stinging, damnable irony. He'd succeeded at charming her to the point of implausibility.
…Almost as though he was someone who was indoctrinated at a young age by an actual sociopath to be charming well beyond the capacity of a normal individual, thereby robbing him of the mortal flaws that made him a real person. Oh, perish the thought.
"Unlike those other two women," Rita continued, "I'm not gonna walk away from you. I was here first. You're dismissed, Jack."
She flicked her wrist at him and he got the hint. Looking completely deflated, he stood from his chair and left the table. He didn't push in his chair. He didn't even take his drink.
"Strike three and he's outta there," Little John murmured to himself as he saw Robin leaving, the bear not looking much less broken than his fox friend did.
Robin sat down and let out a heavy sigh, looking this way and that and basically anywhere but at his friend.
"So… I couldn't make out what happened all the way over there," Johnny said gently. "Uh… what went wrong? ...If you don't mind me asking-"
"You were right," Robin said with an aggressive shrug. "You were right, it's not as simple as I thought, it's not as simple as just being myself and letting everything else fall into place around me." He sighed again, shook his head rather violently, and finally looked his friend in the eye. "...You were right, Johnny. You win."
Little John nodded ever so slightly, wanting to give a response but not wanting to rub it in. "Understood," is all he said before taking a somber sip of beer.
"So…" The fox looked around the room at nothing in particular again before looking at the bear again. "...Does that make you happy? Does seeing me fail make you feel better?"
Johnny just stared blankly at him for a second. Oh, he had an answer for that, and in these last few days he'd had multiple opportunities to say it, but always bit his tongue. And yet he couldn't help but wonder whether he'd get another chance to say it.
"Honestly… yeah, it does. I do."
The redhead had been caught red-handed: he'd asked a rhetorical question and hadn't been ready for an unexpected genuine answer. His expression was completely frozen as he looked at Johnny, utterly shocked.
"...You do?"
"I do, if I'm being honest."
Exhausted, Robin let out an annoyed groan. "Johnny, even if that is true, why would you say that?"
Little John, however, remained steadfast, and didn't seem to regret his answer. "Hey, man, I'm not happy that you feel bad, I just… I'm relieved that I'm not alone in… struggling with life sometimes. This isn't about taking joy in you hurting, this is me feeling… un-bad about… when I think you can't relate to my average-person problems." Now he broke eye contact from the glaring fox to think of something else to add, and sure enough, a bulb went off. "I mean… didn't you say that a key way to win people over was to be honest and genuine, even when it might agitate people? You know I love ya, bud, but I'm being honest and genuine right now. Weren't… weren't those your words?"
At first, Robin wanted to retaliate. He wanted to say something to the effect of yes, but only if you're tactful with it. But Johnny had been put in a weird position where that wasn't really an option and it wouldn't have been fair to him to blame him for it, and even in his flustered state, Robin could see that. So instead he took a breath and simply said,
"Yeah… yeah, I did say that." He shook his head a little again and put his folded paws up to his mouth as he looked at the table and pondered. "And that's why you're a good friend to me, Johnny, truly you are, you keep things honest with me… I'm sorry I can't be as good a friend to you, I just wanted to help you learn how to find love and I failed miserably."
"Hey! Hey. Hey," Johnny chided as he put a paw on Robin's elbow. "You did your best. You did better than I coulda probably done. This shit is hard. Not getting a date is like not getting a job you applied for, failure is so common that it's not even a strike against you, it's just the default."
"Yes, but once again, I didn't heed my own advice: I told myself not that I could succeed, but that I would. That's not confidence, that's foolish arrogance."
"But you know what else you said?" the bear asked demandingly. "Rob… Rob, look at me."
Robin did.
"You also said confidence means knowing that even if you fail, you'll be okay, right? And you're gonna be okay. Fuck these women who rejected you, you got a better woman waitin' in the wings and if all goes according to plan, you're gonna see her again tomorrow. Is that not true?"
Robin's eyes kept darting back and forth from looking at Johnny to looking anywhere else, to back to Johnny. "Yeah… yes, that's right. I'll be okay. Looking toward the future."
"Good boy," his friend said as the waiter walked over.
"Pardon me, gents," said the goat, "I've got a kid at the bar saying he's looking for a British fox and a bear who won't shut up about NASCAR? Fox kid, says his name is Eddy? I'm guessing he's looking for you guys?"
"Oh, yes sir," Robin said, forcing himself to suddenly perk up as he sat upright and pulled a wad of cash out of his back pocket, extracting a fifty and handing it to the server. "We'll see him out in a moment." Then he leaned over the table and grabbed the bear's Miller Lite and chugged what was left of it. "Sorry, Johnny, I needed that," he explained as he slid out of the booth, "I'll get you back."
"I'm just more put off by the fact that you drank out of a bottle I probably backwashed in," Little John remarked as he followed Robin to the entrance.
"That grosses you out, but what we did on Geoff's stoop the other day didn't?"
At the front of the bar, the skunk bartender was watching the underage visitor to make sure he didn't go anywhere; apparently most bars take their "nobody under 21 allowed inside, even if they're not drinking" rule seriously, and it was weird that my parents took me to their favorite bars as a toddler and showed me off to their alcoholic friends. In any case, the Merry Men soon arrived and escorted their messenger out of the premises.
"Good to see ya, kid," Johnny said as they walked out, "I was about to say, it'd been, like, what, forty-five minutes that you were gone?"
"Well, you guys picked a bar that was a long-ass walk away," Eddy grumbled. He seemed frustrated, but the adults just assumed that he was steamed about how far he'd had to travel on his short little legs.
"So, Eddy," asked Robin tiredly, "how did your encounter with my Marian go?"
Much like how the outlaws had no idea why the kit seemed irritated, however, Eddy had no idea why Robin seemed so… winded.
"Uh… it went pretty good," was all the lad said, fully expecting Robin to press him on how he'd implemented the charm strategies he'd taught him and ready to go with a bullshit answer.
But Robin never did ask. "Hrm. Good to hear." The fox didn't care right now what the hell Eddy had done so long as the message was safely delivered. To take his mind off the multiple tailspins he'd just suffered through, Robin had his mind focused on the face and essence of one specific vixen, one who would make him feel like the most charming tod in the world.
-IllI-
Oh my God, that was embarrassing. For both of them. She was embarrassed for herself, of course, but she was also embarrassed on that poor kit's behalf.
As much as it mortified her when the lad called her sir, she could empathize for how mortified he must have felt when he realized he'd misgendered her. Similarly, there were times where she was proud of her stature, but more frequently it made her feel unfeminine and there were times when she just wished she could shrink away and hide, and this was one of such times; as much as she felt awkward towering over this young man, she knew how boys were, and teenage boys especially probably wouldn't feel too good about themselves looking up to a female of their species. She felt bad for making the both of them feel like they were poor representations of their sex.
She had every right to be cross with how she felt during that interaction with that strange kit, but she couldn't bring herself to get angry at him; he was just a child, and he was certainly feeling bad about it in his own way. And when she saw that little fox boy, it was everything her heart could do to keep from aching. She just couldn't get mad at him. She was sure he meant well. He must have if he was an agent of-
"MARIAN!"
...Well, there was someone else she could get annoyed at.
In a strange showing of not being a lazy layabout, Prince John stormed into the entryway, his little assistant in tow, to intercept her before she could run off to any other part of the mansion. He got there so quickly and so unexpectedly that the vixen didn't even have the chance to hide the overstuffed parcel behind her back.
"Who was that, Marian?" the lion demanded. "And what's in that envelope!?"
But Marian still found herself shoving the message behind her back as a knee-jerk reaction, something she immediately kicked herself for as it made it seem all the more incriminating. "Oh, it's just… junk mail…" she muttered as she brought it into view again, just to quell suspicion.
"In that case, I can take it and dispose of it for you," her uncle said darkly as he extended a hand to receive it.
"Oh, no, I'll humor them and see what it says-"
"Marian, I remind you that all mail received at the mayoral mansion is to be searched and vetted for security purposes!" Prince John interrupted, beginning to raise his voice. "Rocky has already gone home for the night, therefore I must trouble myself to scan the letter and its contents myself!"
"Och, what's all this hollerin'!?" an exhausted Annie demanded as she walked into the room.
"Marian received a strange letter and she won't give it to me!" the lion growled, stabbing his cane into the floor.
"But Uncle…" Mari said gently, if only for pragmatic reasons, "...it is addressed to me. It's mine alone to open."
"Nonsense! It's addressed to a residence I am the head of, that means I am entitled to open it!"
"Ah, no, Johnny," said the ewe, much less gently, "you're not allowed to open other people's mail." She probably knew what said mail was.
"I don't care if it's impolite, I am legally entitled to open and handle any post that comes to my household!"
"Er, no, sir…"
Mayor Norman was shocked to turn around and see his assistant speak up.
"...The ladies are not simply being overly polite," the weasel explained politely, "it is actually federally illegal to open mail addressed to someone else… even if you live with them."
Incensed, the lion glared at him for a moment before shaking his head and huffing. "I am a man of stature and status! These rules do not apply to the mayor! When the mayor does it, that means it is not illegal!"
"I'm… fairly certain Nixon said something similar about Watergate…" Hess murmured; he would know, he was probably the most American person in the room.
Prince John just kept taking this worse and worse. "Charles, are you suggesting that you'd report me to my own police if I were to exert my power!?"
"Honestly, sir… I hope it should not come to that," the assistant said as he gave his boss… a look. "I wish you would just listen to me."
John's nasty attitude melted away immediately, and now the lion just looked sheepish. He remembered the deal he'd inexplicably made to himself.
Hess simply nodded once, firmly; he knew that pitching a bitch-fit over this letter would not help in any way and only sabotage their goals - both their shared goals and their individual ones.
"Er… in that case, Charles, I… I will defer to your judgment…" the mayor muttered bashfully, "I… do suppose you may know the laws of this strange country better than I-"
"Fairly certain ye can't open other people's mail back home, either, Johnny," Kluck interjected.
"But Uncle?"
All eyes turned to the vixen, who was smiling with an unexpected warmth considering the circumstances.
"If you wish to know what's in the letter so badly," she offered, "...I can always read it aloud to you."
Everybody was confused.
"You can!?" asked Prince John.
"Er… Mari, why would you want to… read it out loud?" asked the sheep, surely thinking the crazy fox would be blowing their cover if she did.
Marian simply gave her friend a knowing look to say, follow my lead. "Apparently someone falsely signed me up to regularly receive curated poems in the post," she explained. "The lad who delivered it was a representative of the company, he said that they're best read out loud!" And she wasted no time unsealing the letter with a claw.
"Hmm!" Mayor Norman hummed in anticipation, thinking this stupid girl was about to unknowingly divulge confidential information. "Shall we, then?"
"Yes, I…" Marian extracted the sheets of paper - and there sure were a lot of them. She glanced at the text and took no more than two seconds to decipher the extremely simple code, deciding it was safe to read verbally as long as she kept it up-tempo with minimal breaks between lines. "Perhaps you'd like to have a seat? It seems a bit of a long one."
There were only two chairs in the entryway, so the mayor, ever the gentleman that he was, helped himself to one and let the sheep and weasel fight over the other one. In fairness, Charles actually did gesture with his head toward the open armchair, but Annie raised a hoof and shook her head to decline; she wanted to be on her feet in case Prince John tried to pull a fast one.
Marian watched the weasel weaseling onto the seat and the lion adjusting the top hat that had fallen over his eyes once again, and she cleared her throat to get their attention. "Are we ready to begin?"
"Oh, most assuredly…" John said, leaning forward in anticipation of gleaning some hidden clues from this poem, not even trying to hide his insidious grin.
"Yes," said Hess plainly, knowing how to maintain an image.
"Mmhmm," said Annie.
"Very well, then…" said the vixen as she turned to the page, "this is called… Mighty Winds by, er… Alan Smithee."
"Alan Smithee, what could that name mean!?" the mayor could be heard thinking aloud under his breath.
"SHHH!" went Charles and Annie in unison.
With no better cue to begin, Marian got reading:
Mighty winds cool my face
As the sun shines alight
Rising in the East
In this beautiful morning
All the world can see
Now is a moment of beauty
My mouth is speechless
You must surely feel the same?
Don't be afraid
A wonderful sight it is
Readily sparking wonder in those
Longing to feel wondrous
I myself feel alive again
Never wanting to leave this place
Gracing me with its glory
Is this what they call,
Tranquility?
Is this what they call,
Splendor?
It is!
This is where I am meant to be
Here in the cradle of nature
Endlessly aware of its power and majesty
Oh, to feel so free
Never beholden to modernity
Elated by such simple pleasures
Why can't everyone
Here on this Earth
Observe such awesome scenes?
Let us not ignore it
Or we might soon forget
Vivaciously the world reminds us
Earth is a Mother
Sweet in her doting
Youth can be eternal
Only if we keep it
Unwilling to let it go
What is better than this?
I cannot tell you
Therefore ask your heart
Hearts know these things best
Alive is a lovely thing to be
Life is lovely!
Lovely is life!
Here, my friend
In this quiet space
Secrets are safe
Hear me now
Everyone heed my word
As long as I am breathing
Ready to seize the day
There is nothing that can stop me
"Hrm," the mayor grumbled as he started to stand up from his chair, privately frustrated that he hadn't figured out a single clue from that. "Well, that was an interesting piece of art-"
"Oh, but it's not finished yet, Uncle," Marian corrected. "Those were simply the opening stanzas."
Prince John sat back down. "That's not the end of it?"
"It isn't."
"...I see." Well, if nothing, maybe this meant he'd have another chance to catch something in the way of a hint.
"We must be patient, sir," said the weasel, "art is not a race!" Indeed, Hess was wishing Marian would slow it down a little so he could keep up with the code.
I can hear you asking…
Are you sure this is a good idea?
Maybe you are mistaken?
Silly doubter!
There is no better notion!
I shall embrace this world!
Living forever!
Living free!
Free as the wind blows
Rising into the sky
Elevating toward the heavens
Every nation under my shadow
Alas!
Non-believers hinder me!
Damn them to hell!
Who are you!
Evil you are!
Lose your cold heart!
Let go of your bitterness!
Alas!
Non-believers still weigh me down!
Die, non-believers, die!
A shame that there are so many of them
Many of them is too many
Frost-hearted bullies!
Evil in their hearts!
Evil in their souls!
Let them eat cake
In hell
Now that is where they belong
Get them away from me!
Everybody, hear me!
Verily I do say
Evil people are not to be listened to
Neither now nor ever
Better yet
Evil people should be shunned
Thrown away to the fringes of society
Thrust into pain like they wish to inflict
Evil people are unnecessary
Really unnecessary
Although…
Some of you may ask…
I cannot fix them?
Woe is me
I tried once to mend them
Love could not pierce them
Love could not heal them
So I confess
Of my failures
Of my losses
Never to be repeated
So hear me:
Everyone in the world,
Evil is incurable
Yet I can admire
Optimistic dreams
Unwilling to surrender hope
As I was once such a lad
Gunning to make this place
A world without danger
I never wanted to surrender hope
Never wished to quit
Alas it was
Foretold by fate
There would be no cure
Evil would persist
Resistance was my only option
Woe is I who gave up hope!
Abandoned my convictions!
I did not want to!
There was simply no choice!
I was forced to doff my ideals!
Nothing could be done!
Good hearts were not good enough
Foolish youth
Oh to be young again
Ready to die for my dreams
Or is this for the best?
Have I truly lost myself?
Somehow I get the feeling
Old age is still far from me
Lo and behold,
Over my dead body,
Nobody can tell me
Grey hairs are nearing
Therefore I do decree,
Old age is no fear of mine!
Of course...
Nobody knows for sure
Can I see it?
Eventually I might...
And by the way,
Got a sixpence to spare?
All we ever knew
Is that what we are
Never goes away
Such is the way
Every child knows
Every young man dreams
You cannot tell me
Our collective mind is incapable
Until my dying breath
Reach into the sky!
Maybe I'm blind
And perhaps I'm a fool
Rarely have I felt
Viciously loving as I do now
Even as I write this
Love overcomes me
Overbears me!
Utter passion consumes me
So do you so do?
Find me a light!
And illuminate this darkness!
Certainly we can win this
Especially tonight
Ashes litter the streets
Night descends anew
Do not let it frighten you
Leave your sorrows behind
Over the hills and through the valleys
Over the seas somewhere...
Kindly awaiting is our destiny
Dearest beloved!
Eat of my flesh and drink of my blood
Erase your inhibitions
Pursue your dreams with me
I will never leave you
Neither to die nor to live without me
Tremble not your heart
Our futures are betwixt
There is a place for us somewhere
Heaven knows there is
Our lives shall be spent in splendid hours
Sunshine raining down upon us
Every bird singing our favorite song
Better it is to die in bliss
Ever than to live in agony
Astutely we know to seek it
Under a rock somewhere?
There up in the trees?
Is it on the other side of the wall?
Forever we may seek it
Unrelenting until we find it
Lest we die whilst still breathing
Earnestly I beg you
Yearn for what you deserve!
Every living soul
Should be upright and strong
"Och, Mari, do you need some water?" Annie quipped. "That's quite a mouthful so far and it seems you're hardly halfway done! You said a lad named Alan wrote this?" (You just know the sheep's heart was fluttering at the sound of that name, one that had not been tarnished like "Johnny" had.) "Typical men, rambling on about nothing and never knowing when to shut up!"
"...Some water actually might be nice," the vixen answered. She gave the ewe a look to convey that she didn't want to be left alone with Prince John and Charles, but this "read the poem out loud" strategy was actually taking a bit of a toll on her. She was starting to understand why an oration was only supposed to be the emergency backup plan.
"...Ah, all right, then," Kluck muttered as she walked off to the kitchen. No harm, no foul, Mari could hold her own and Annie wasn't picking up on the clues any better than the boys were.
"And some popcorn, perhaps," sneered the lion, "seeing as this poem seems to be a Greek epic. And what on God's earth is this poem even about!?"
"I must say," added the weasel, "it did start out somewhat coherent and became increasingly… stilted and esoteric, I believe would be the words."
"Well, we'll see where it goes!" Marian said cheerfully as she continued:
I can be your angel
Weird, some call me
I was never that strong
Some would see me sillily
Head now into the fire
Numerous numbers haunt me
Oh, how they hoel in the night!
Terror and horror holler in my heart!
Take this gift
Open it quietly
Kiss me away
Eleven demons claw at me
Evaporating in the light
Poor Yorick, I knew him well
Yorick was a Noble man
Obvious to all who knew him
Unless you were his enemy
Why would you be his enemy?
A fool makes foolish choices!
I can't explain your decisions!
Tell me then,
Is there reason to despise Yorick?
No?
Go tell it in the mountain, then
As you see fit,
Now we shall dance
Yorick will chauffeur us
Little dancer of mine!
Oh, how I love you!
Needles sting my heart
Getting ever closer to you
Easy it may never be
Ready I will always be
(THANK YOU, Robin, Marian found herself thinking at this pausing point.)
My darling,
End this charade now!
End my suffering!
Tell them the truth!
My darling,
End this unnecessary torture
Time and time again
On the stroke of midnight
Millions of phantoms smother me
Only my screams can breathe
Ruffians seek my company
Rapscallions thirst for my blood
Onward toward morning we cry
When the light finally broke
Newly anointed
In the dead of night
Go to the watchtower
Hark, sing the angels!
There is glory here
Islands of fire,
Nearer to thee
Threatening auras!
Hellfire all about!
Evil has invaded!
All good soldiers,
Leave your posts,
Leap into battle,
Eviscerate this foe!
Your honor depends upon it!
Opulent eyes,
Fire burning within,
Feed upon my bravery
Hello, mother
Are you doing well?
Read me a story,
Riddle me a rhyme
I wish again to be
Small and secure in your arms
Stop!
Think!
Retreat!
Espace!
Escape!
There is no hope!
Nevermore shall I slumber
Everybody is gone
Xylophones play in my bones
There is blood in my marrow
Try as you might,
Overwhelmed by fear...
And then what?
Put your hands on me
Lay your palms upon my chest
Alleviate me if my pain
Your touch is my balm
Give me your love
Reveal to me your passion
Only you can save me
Under this starry sky
Night time draws the end
Darkness fills my eyes
I cannot see you!
No, do not leave me here!
Please, my beloved!
Escort me home!
Ambule me to somewhere safe!
Check my heart
Has it stopped beating?
Can you hear it?
Release me!
Elsewhere I must be!
Everywhere is better!
Kindly let me go!
What is my name?
Have you your money?
Engage with my soul
Read my lips
Eyes on me
While we bask in the light of dusk
Expect to be expected
Why are we here?
Is there a better place for us?
Let us find it!
Let us leave this land!
Best not to make waste
Every time I toil
Stop the clock
Alive in the cellar
Front of the mind
Ease into the coffin
"Would you like me to take over?" Prince John proposed, leaning forward once more. "It surely must be exhausting to be reading all that aloud without a break!"
"Oh, no, Uncle, it is quite a chore, but I'll manage," Marian insisted. "It's probably bad enough for the flow of the poem that we keep having breaks like this!"
But the lion had already figured out by this point that whatever value this poem had was only available to the one physically reading it. "Oh, please, let me be a gentleman, I insist-"
SMACK!
"GAH!"
The mayor retreated the paw that had just been whacked with a tin pan. "Miz Klum, what was that all about!?" he demanded as he rubbed his aching hand.
"Oh, my apologies, Johnny," Annie answered with a fake sweetness before holding up the tin pan again. "But I was meaning to ask ye, what the fook is this? You ask for popcorn, and all I can find is this? I know you want your home to look like it came from the Middle Ages, but do ye really want everything in your life to be centuries out of date?"
"...Do you not like Jiffy Pop?"
"I… didn't even know they still sold stovetop popcorn," said Marian before continuing her reading:
Trust in me
O desired one
Steel not your heart
And you shall see the light
Vivid fantasies fill your vision
Exactly as was planned
Frostbitten toes,
Runny nose,
Oh, my darling,
Make me yours
Sure as a summer's day
Hail to the chief
Of perfect landscapes
Crisp with dew
Kings and queens bow
In reverence of it
Nary a sorrow in the world
Growing in their hearts
Yell my name
Over the hills
Unless you don't know it
I will answer
Wait!
I have seen the future!
Love has not died!
Love goes on and on!
Toys for children
Excrete their essence
Like bags of sand
Little do they know!
Young hearts,
Oh, be free tonight!
Understand your power
Time is on your side
Heaven is not impatient
At least not for a long while
That is my understanding
Mothers and fathers mourned the day
You made their children theirs
As the waves crash upon the shore
Reach towards the sky
Maybe you'll catch a falling star
I can only dream of it
Shall we dream together?
Can we see through one another's eyes?
Useless it is to stay in our own bodies!
Relegated to one life on this Earth!
Restless to see another view
Earth is such a lonely planet
Nations must learn to make friends
To become lovers
Let the states and countries commiserate
Yet be they the same
In the garden of Eden,
Never eat the fruit
Apples or otherwise
Candy is sweet
As is your demeanor
Sweet as sugar
That gives me palpitations
Before you go,
Undress me,
To my barest essence
Doff my garments
Only my fur and flesh
Naked I shall be
Only you will see
There in my bedroom
Fight against the darkness
Resist its siren songs
Execute its temptations
There is more for you than this
Fight against the light
Only if it blinds you
Row your boat to me
Maybe I'll see you there
Endlessly adored
"Alright, sod it, let me see the blasted poem!" Prince John growled, completely spent of false patience, lunging again and more intently this time to snag the pages out of his niece's hands.
SPLASH!
"GAH!"
"Ohhh, clumsy me!" Annie cooed as she stood up from the floor, the glass from which the water "spilled" when she "tripped" being notably completely intact. "Och, Johnny, true to form, your old-fashioned wooden floors are warping! A lass lost her balance!"
The wet cat stared annoyedly at the wall for a moment before responding: "Miz Klutz, could you please get me some-"
"I'll be back with water for real this time, Mari!" the ewe bid as she walked back to the kitchen.
"...Charles, would you get me some towels, please?"
"Er… certainly, sire- sir, certainly, sir!"
Tie me to a bridge
Healthy little things
Elicit my response
Open your eyes
Not your mouth
Like flies in the ointment
Yes, this is it
Terrible timing,
Here we shall stay
I am not God
Not now nor ever
Guess I'll have to wait
Tight as my lips
Help yourself out
As though I'm not here
There goes a bird
Callous care
Allowed by caution
Needs a new haircut
Heavily censored
Etched in the stone
Answers for a question
Like the quiz of life
Must we mourn?
Everyone else is dancing
Fly higher!
And you will be truly alive
Stay above the sun
The key to the world
Earn my respect
Right as you leave me
Noodles and sauce
On a plate with bread
What a great meal!
If I ever leave you
Slap me across the face
Bustling with life
Eggshells are cracking
It's time to be born
Nestlings emerge
Goo bathes them
And in the end,
Be that as it may,
Let it be known,
Everyone is alive
Top of the morning!
Or is it time for bed?
Headaches disable me
Oh, can you dissolve them?
Lift the pain from my brain
Drain the ache from my heart
Yes!
On and off,
Under the bed
Old souls sing
Now that they've seen
Cradled in your arms
Emerging beauty
Aghast, I am!
Ghosts surround me
Afterlife unbearable
I witness their grief
Now I must mourn them
"Here ye go, Mari."
"Thank you, Klucky." Marian took a sip of water as she did indeed fret for him. Meanwhile, the weasel returned with a towel folded up and balanced on his head, which the lion grabbed to sop up his soaked garments.
Mud in my eyes
A veil over my face
Rain blurs my windows
In a torrential storm
And when it is done
Night comes with red skies
I cannot feel my arms
Let there be a light
Oh, let there be a light!
Visions of death do blind me
Evil has me in its grasp!
You can save me!
Only you can save me!
Unless you choose not to…
Might I add?
Or shall I subtract?
Remember the days of old
Eternally forgotten
Tin cans litter the alleys
Helpless as a babe
And I cannot resist it
Now I must fade away
Lay me in the fields
In the spot where we fell in love
From there you shall be free of me
Ever more to be yourself
I cannot keep you
There is not a reason
Something tells me no
Everything tells me no
Let it go, it tells me!
For its own sake
Stop what you're doing
Observe my desire
Please, my dear,
Leave me be,
Ease me into the afterlife
As though I were no burden
Stick me in the ground
Earth must then consume me
Put me where I belong
As though I were a burden
Read me no rites
Do not waste your time
Only do what is needed
Necessary tasks alone
Mark my words,
Evil shall be killed!
I am not your savior
For this I beg your mercy
I am but a mortal
South by southwest
East toward the sea
Early in the morning
Misty dawn is brewing
Trees as tall as mountains
Inject the clouds above
Right as the birds stop singing
Everyone, look!
Drop the gun, Jack
Types of people know this
Of course some people know this
Masks made of clay
Or disguises made of plaster
Reliably cloak the wearer
Reveal nothing unwanted
Or so it is thought!
Why would you believe that?
A-ha!
So you fell for it!
I laugh at your shame!
Suck in your breath
Ugly-faced children
Rocketing into hell
Elated to be evil
Loving every minute of it
Yearning to be damned
When will they bring the drinks?
I have been waiting for an hour!
Let us leave this wretched place
Let us find greener pastures
Bright eyes of yours,
Enlighten me
Kill the pain away
Exit from my life
Put the suffering in a box
Throw the box away
As I have warned you
Warn the others
As though they seek to kill you
Kill you like a spider
Eating insects in her web
Average men tremble
Little men lie
Large men fall to pieces
Nix on praying for rain!
It is already far too dreary
Go away, rain!
Have the common decency
Think before you follow
Alabaster furniture
Nights go on and on
X-rays see no anomalies
I wouldn't imagine they would
Onto better things
Us against the world
So the story goes
Life is but a novel
You're meant to write yourself
Astronauts can see
Washed away amongst the stars
A sign of life far away
In the corners of the galaxy
Troublingly distant
In the farthest reaches of space
Never to be touched by earthling hands
Greater than we may ever be
Tighten your grasp
Head for the hills
Elevate to a higher plane
Mother, won't you whisper?
Over the blood red moon
Meet me in the orchard
Eating nuts and berries
None of you are getting my money
Treacherous hearts of yours
Wipe away those tears
Everybody hurts
Ask not, want not
Ready to face the future?
Elementary, my dear!
Fled from the fear
It is but a passing moment
Never to be seen again!
Alone in the light
Let us not dawdle
Let us seek our fortune!
You can be a giant
Ripe from the vine
Electing to go its own way
United in their convictions
Nascent upon the dawn
I shall not impede you
There is no escape
Each and every one of us
Delivered unto our fate
The vixen had to take another sip of water. Annie's remark had been kind of right, Robin didn't seem to know when to shut up. Like, she still got the code and valued and cherished what it had to say, and it felt so good to read something that clearly came from him, but could they not he not have chosen a briefer message or at least a more efficient code? He'd certainly started phoning it in about a quarter of the way through, now this so-called poem was simply gibberish. My God, how long did it take him to write this?
As for an update on Prince John, it looked like he was struggling not to doze off, kept awake only by his psychotic drive to catch the fox and bear. Not to say he was having much luck. And Charles? Well… we'll talk about him later.
Ironic, don't you think?
All we ever wanted
Listing away as we dream
Screaming out for comfort
Originally confident
Marked upon the sand
Under purple sunlight
Stick a knife into the soil
Treat this as a mission
Ripped away from the womb
Ejected from the VCR
Proper lies are granted
Ordinary citizens
Read their daily newspapers
Thinking about Michelangelo
Thieves steal my soul!
Hellbound hellians!
And if I ever see them again
They will be shot
I am not joking!
Harpsichords are beautiful
All across the heavens
Victoriously strumming
Even as I weep
Leap before you look
Excellently lost
A mystical land
Remains unfound
Not to be tampered with
Trampled under foot
Fifty percent of failures
React to the hidden depths
Emancipated horrors
Now we've found the answer
Cross my heart
Hope to die
Will you see me to the shore?
Hardly a kind request
I cannot fault you
Chores of the conscience
Hand in hand in hand
Icy roads ahead!
Woodlands drowned in timber
I want to find you there
Light seeps into my soul
Light makes the darkness die
Nearer to thee
Oh, what a thrill!
Where are we now?
As soon as I return
Skiing down the hill
Kick me in the head
Yesterday was never
Ovaries run dry
Understood to ruin
Trap me a heart
Or I shall wither away
Press the button
And it shall activate
Round and round it goes
Down into the gyre
Okay, what now?
Now we feast like kings
Put upon a pedestal
Risen above the rest
I can see your shadow
Night skies to your back
Cast upon the earth
Everyone can see you
Just do not forget
Ogling at your figure
Hydrogen and oxygen
Nitrogen is elsewhere
Fun and happiness
Unity is achieved
Can we not smile?
Kiss me under the mistletoe
Onward toward sunset
Free to be me
Free to be you
!Adiós!
And with that, Marian finished her reading with a chuckle at that bit, then looked up and immediately realized that her uncle would want to know what she was chuckling about.
"What, pray tell, are you chuckling about?"
"Oh… oh, it's nothing, Uncle, just… remembering a joke I heard a few days ago-"
"Are you certain it's not something humorous in the text that cannot be conveyed orally?" the mayor pressed, looking like he was simmering all over again. "Because I certainly got very little utility out of sitting here and listening to you blab on about… whatever nonsense that all was! Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to take a look at it myself." And with that he extended a paw forward rather calmly to solicit the papers from her, a composed and dignified look resting on his face.
"Oh, but it was such a beautiful poem, Uncle, I think I'd quite like to keep it-!"
"I never said I wouldn't return it when I was finished, I just wanted to have my turn to examine it!" Aaand the composed and dignified look was gone. "I am simply asking you to share and you have no logical reason to deny me, now hand it over!" All he knew was that he'd heard a bunch of references to a "beloved" in there, a Mother Mary, a mention of a woodland but also of a shore - there must have been something clear in there if only he could see it with his own eyes.
"Sir," Charles begged, "please don't lose your temper over this-"
"Och, but I was already next in line for it, Johnny!" the sheep interrupted, and before anybody else could contest this assertion, she yanked the pages out of Marian's hands herself and, for safekeeping, pulled out her collar and shoved it down the front of her shirt.
The mayor's jaw visibly dropped. That was indeed one place he knew he couldn't just go grabbing in unless he wanted a world of trouble. That cipher was as good as gone.
"What?" Annie teased with a shrug. "Girls' trousers don't have pockets!"
The vixen chuckled. "Oh, isn't that the truth? Well then, that was quite the-"
"No! Wait!" John yelped. "Er- what was that poem even about!? Erm… tell me, tell me, tell me…" he stammered as he crossed his legs and pretended to look cool and comfortable, fooling nobody by doing so, "let us have a roundtable discussion, what did you think the message of the poem was? If you thought it was so beautiful, surely you must have gotten something out of it…" He trailed off with a sick smirk and waited for an answer.
But Marian noticed something else inside the envelope, another piece of paper that was maybe the size of a business card. On the inside of the envelope itself was a small note written in pencil in cursive, which Robin never used:
IF HE WANTS TO READ SOMETHING \|/
She pulled it out, took a peek at it, and - containing herself from laughing - handed it to the lion. "Well, Uncle, if you desperately want to read something-!"
"I DO!" he yipped as he grabbed the scrap of paper with both paws, almost tearing it in the process, and hastily read the short mini-poem:
Hickory dickory dock
Three mice ran up the clock
In case you couldn't figure it out
I'm in Rehoboth Beach
YES, of COURSE! John found himself thinking as a crazed smile came upon his muzzle. In his head, this was the Merry Men's emergency foolproof backup plan for when that stupid vixen invariably failed to make out whatever the hell they were trying to say in that poem, which of course she wouldn't figure it out because she was a woman. And now the answer key was sitting in his hands.
"Er… yes, yes, very good, very good, what a riveting poetry circle we've had today! Right then, I'd best be off - Charles, won't you join me in the parlor room?"
"Which parlor room, sir? We have several-"
"The closest one."
Prince John pushed and shoved his assistant out of the room and left the ladies alone in the entryway.
"Hiss!" the hissy lion hissed at Hiss hissingly. "Those stupid girls gave away the bandits' location! They're planning to meet in the beach towns!" He proudly held up the piece of paper to the little mustelid's face.
"Oh, that's… very good to hear, sssire…" the weasel murmured in a similarly low volume. You see, Dear Reader, despite his best efforts, Charles could not glean what the secret message was; he'd had a pretty strong hunch what the actual code method was, but Marian had done well to recite the poem quickly so he could only solve bits and pieces of it. And he knew that this piece of paper was a bad and obvious decoy that the mayor, clouded as his judgment was, was failing to see for what it truly was.
But you know what? Hess wasn't too worried about it. So Marian had a rendezvous planned with the fox, so what? At worst, this would be a minor speed bump they'd just have to deal with. That said, however - and he still wasn't completely sure of this, this was a very spur-of-the-moment scheme of his and he'd been largely playing off-the-cuff with less planning than he'd have liked, but after a lot of contemplation, he was certainly starting to lean in this direction - yes, he was starting to come around on the idea that perhaps a little bit of chaos would indeed be beneficial for his personal endeavors… assuming, of course, it was controlled chaos. That's what the mayor's assistant was thinking as he stood by calmly and watched the mayor hurriedly dial his top policemen on the parlor telephone; you know Prince John must have really been scrambling when he didn't make his little cripple punch the numbers in for him.
"...SHERIFF WOODLAND!" the mayor said in what could perhaps best be described as a voiceless screech as soon as the phone picked up.
"...Aw, wassup, Princey?"
"Woodland! This is top secret! I know where the outlaws can be found! They're waiting somewhere in Rehoboth Beach, anticipating my niece to find them! I need you to take her there and ambush them when they show themselves!"
"...Aw, well I dunno, Mayor, I already had a few beers, I dunno if I should be drivin'-"
"YOU'VE BEEN GONE FOR HALF AN HOUR AND YOU'RE ALREADY INTOXICATED!?" No italics because he was using his voice this time, and a lot of it.
"Well, yeah, why wait ta' start mah night off, huh?"
"OH, you're bloody useless!" The mayor slammed the phone down and immediately picked it back up again to dial someone else. True, he didn't know what the little rodent could do about the situation, but… "...DEPUTY NUTZINGER!"
"I'm off duty for the next thirty-six hours."
"Deputy, this is important! I know where the outlaws are currently-"
"Suck my dick."
The lion was seething like a teapot. "I'LL HAVE YOU FIRED AND REPLACED ONE OF THESE DAYS!"
"If I can still make out what you're saying, then you're not sucking my dick very well."
"Oh, you INSOLENT LITTLE-!"
"Okay, hold up, my mom's bitching me out for talking to you that way. See you Saturday. Maybe you'll grow up between now and then."
"Who are YOU to tell ME to grow-!?"
But the call had ended.
Meanwhile back in the entryway/vestibule/foyer thing, the ladies were finding Prince John's rage rather distracting.
"...He does know he can make out every word he's saying, doesn't he?" posed Annie.
Marian just smiled and gave a dismissive wave. "Let him panic. He'll just tire himself out."
"So what was on that little piece of paper you gave him?"
"A false lead. You want to see what's actually going on?" the vixen asked, pointing to the ewe's chest.
The sheep reached down her blouse and scanned through the papers, having no trouble figuring out the extremely basic code system. She shook her head and tsk-tsked. "Always so dramatic with his affection. He really does want ye to think he's the perfect man, doesn't he?"
"I know you disagree, Klucky, but he usually succeeds at that!"
Annie looked again at the papers but didn't shove them back into her shirt. "Now… as much as I think it'd be best to destroy these, I know you'll probably want to keep it as a reminder-"
But Marian held up a hand. "I do, but I agree: it's best to get rid of these before he can see them. I've already got all the information I need."
Prince John was angrily pacing in circles, pondering his next move when the girls walked in and Kluck threw the poem into an active fireplace that nobody told me was in the room until we got to this part of the recollection.
"Oops!" said Annie. "Clumsy me again, just threw the beautiful prose into the pit!"
"Oh, no! I wanted to keep that poem!" Marian added hammily, seeing no reason to bother implementing any of her acting chops.
"No matter! Nothing of value has been lost!" Mayor Norman beamed before suddenly grabbing his assistant around the neck and power-walking towards the front door. "Marian, Miz Plum, ladies, would you please mind the house for me? Charles and I are going to be heading out for the night, we've just received a sudden invitation to a high-society social event! Sorry we can't invite you, ta-ta!"
They left out the front door, the door shut behind them, and just like that, the boys were gone. The vixen and the ewe looked at each other and shrugged before searching for a Yellow Book that would have a street map of this mythical "Peach Creek" place.
-IllI-
The seaside towns of Rehoboth Beach, Bethany Beach, Fenwick Island and environs always swelled with tourists during the summer months, but those beaches had to close for the night at some point. Safety hazards of swimming in the open water when it's dark and the lifeguards can barely see you, stuff like that; besides, the bars, restaurants, and clubs in the towns needed to make their money at some point, and a pretty good chunk of the vacationers were families with children who really shouldn't have been up that late anyway. Unincorporated Dewey Beach just south of Rehoboth famously kept the shore open until one in the morning, but despite being perhaps the most popular of the beach towns, Rehoboth closed up shop on its waterfront relatively early at 10 p.m.
Therefore Officer Peter Buckley of the Rehoboth Beach Police Department drove his SUV up and down the beach throughout his night shift, out to deter any young people getting rowdy after hours or any couples trying to live out their R.A.M. nightswimming fantasies. And it was actually pretty quiet for 10:30 on a Thursday night in June, but that made it all the weirder when the one person he did see there on the sand was a lion dressed like he'd just waltzed out of Victorian England.
The deer flipped on his blinding door-mounted spotlight and pointed it at the strange figure as he spoke over his megaphone. "Sir, the beach is closed."
The man turned around to face him, and although his face looked ragged and crazed, Buckley thought he might have recognized it.
His suspicions were confirmed when he heard the lion's accent - and attitude: "THIS IS IMPORTANT! I'm trying to find a gang of criminals who you police are doing nothing to find!"
The officer now knew for certain this was the Mayor of Nottingham. But he didn't care, this weirdo was out of his jurisdiction. "Sir," he repeated over his megaphone, "this area is closed for the night. Please get off the beach or I'll have to arrest you."
"I do not answer to you! You answer to ME!" Prince John's eyes looked wild and bloodshot - and he didn't even wince as he stared straight into the blinding spotlight. "I am the controller of all police in this county-!"
"I am not with the County department, I am with the Rehoboth Beach municipal department. You do not have authority over me and I do not answer to you. Leave the area or I will arrest you for trespassing."
"Do you even KNOW who I'm looking for, you-!?"
BOOOOOOOOOP! Officer Buckley didn't bother replying with words, he just blared his bullhorn at the strange man, then flashed the spotlight's high beams for good measure. Only now did the lion shield his eyes.
"Please, sir," begged a third voice from the edge of the beach, a similarly overdressed weasel/mink/whatever with no arms and a similarly fancy-pants limey accent. "Let's just leave. The bandits surely aren't-"
"Hey!" Buckley simply hollered out the window as he swiveled the spotlight at the mayor's assistant. "You shouldn't be here either!"
"I don't want to be here, Officer, but I can't leave without him."
"You're an adult, yes you can!" BOOOOOOOOOP!
After cringing from the deafening noise, the weasel replied: "I know, Officer, but he's my ride home. And I'm worried about him. He's been walking back up and down the beach for hours now."
Buckley turned his attention and his spotlight back at the lion, who was wandering away further down the beach.
"SIR," the officer hollered over the megaphone as he slowly drove up to him again, "do not walk away from me! Leave the beach immediately or you will be arrested!" BOOOOOOOOOP!
Prince John paid him no heed. Instead, he just turned his course to walk straight to the edge of the water, whereupon he turned his head up to address the ocean and the night sky:
"WHY!?" The lion cried into the darkness of space. "WHY CAN'T I FIND THEM!?"
"SIR!" BOOOOOOOOOP! "Do NOT make me exit my vehicle! If I do so, it will be to handcuff you!" He also didn't want to leave the vehicle because it was always a hassle to get his BOOOOOOOOOP! antlers out and back in again, but if it came to it, then it BOOOOOOOOOP! came to it.
The lion had no intention of listening to the buck; he was busy weeping as he faced the stars. "WHERE ARE YOU!?" he lamented. "WHERE ARE YOU, BANDITS!? SHOW YOURSELVES! THIS IS MY STORY AND IT ENDS WITH ME DEFEATING YOU!"
"SIR!" BOOOOOOOOOP!
SPLASH!
"GUAHHH!"
So busy looking up he'd been, Prince John hadn't even noticed a rather sizable wave coming into shore right in front of him. He was bodyslammed by water and knocked clear off his feet, and barely managed to catch his liberated top hat before it was taken by the tides out to sea. Now freezing cold and wet, the lion clutched his crumpled hat like it were a stuffed animal and curled up on his side into the fetal position.
"Please, sir, can we go now?" asked Charles.
"SIR, I WILL NOT ARREST YOU IF YOU GET UP AND LEAVE RIGHT NOW!" Officer Buckley boomed in a last-ditch attempt at negotiating. "PLEASE GET OFF THE BEACH!"
But the lion did not respond verbally, unless you count the murmuring and muttering he made to himself as he stuck a soggy, sandy thumb in his mouth and started sucking, the waves still coming in every couple seconds and enveloping him like a blanket.
The officer glanced at the weasel, who looked like he would have been facepalming right about now if he'd had a palm to face.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOP!
