Vignette 13 - 'Ni'-Jerk Reactions
Continuing, yet again, a plot thread from Vignette 6, we at last turn to the group of Heroes being led by Commander Anna. Said Heroes were a somewhat-eclectic mix, consisting of Realm-I's Barst, former woodcutter-turned-axefighter; Prince Chrom and the tactitian Robin of Realm-I's future (the latter having taken a detour at the moment to gather intelligence for the group); the healing princess Lachesis of Realm-II; Realm-IV's Colm and Neimi, swift thief and crybaby archer (Neimi [glaring in our direction]: "Hey!"), respectively; Realm-XI's Alfred, the crown prince of Firene; and Dagr, the axe-wielding younger princess of Jötunheimr (with an armored falcon for a pet). Anna and Dagr, in particular, were chatting at the head of the march while the group made their way through a dense forest, a slight fog hovering about as they went.
"So I says to Mabel, I says-" Dagr was saying before her falcon perked up at something, which she took immediate notice of. "Hmm?" On listening carefully, she soon had a sense of what got her bird active as she slightly raised her axe. "Hey, Commander-you ever get the feeling you're being watched?"
Anna, looking about, nodded as she held up her own weapon, an act mirrored by some of the others in the group while spooky music began playing in the background. They soon could make out a bit of movement in the mist, Colm gripping his dagger tightly while Neimi fretted about as she kept an arrow notched. Brief instances of chuckling could be heard, putting the party of Heroes on guard even further. The music continued to build, the suspense increasing, until finally, our heroes halted their advance at the sound of-
"Ni! Ni, ni, ni, ni!"
The group jumped a bit with a start as they found themselves face-to-face with the one who said that word. He was a 12-foot-tall warrior, clad in light armor covered by a set of earthen-hued robes; on his head was a great helm decorated with long antlers, with the opening in the front showing part of his bearded face. The group soon discovered they were surrounded by what appeared to be his followers, dressed similarly to their leader, only shorter and wearing visored sallet helmets decorated with cow horns. Just as he uttered the strange words that surprised the Heroes, his followers did the same.
Chrom, the first to recover from the surprise, held his sword at the ready. "Identify yourselves!" he commanded.
"We are the Knights Who Say...'Ni'!" the giant of a man replied, his subordinates echoing his 'Ni!' themselves.
On hearing this, the Heroes dropped their apprehension as dumbfounded expressions adorned their faces.
"...The Knights...Who Say 'Ni'," a confused Anna repeated.
"The same!" the head Knight answered, unaware of her unfamiliarity with them.
After a bit of an awkward beat, Lachesis was the first to speak up. "...And what you do is...?"
"We are the keepers of the sacred words," the head Knight began to explain. "'Ni'! 'Peng!' And 'Neee-wumb!'"
"'Neee-wumb!'" his subordinates repeated.
Colm blinked a couple of times, before giving himself a slight slap upside the head. "Oooooh, now I remember!"
"Hm?" Neimi asked confusedly.
Colm turned to his childhood friend. "You know when we were chatting up that farmer couple back in the town we stayed in earlier?"
Realization hit the archer right then. "Oh, yeah!" she said with a snap of her fingers. "They told us all about these guys."
"What'd they say?" Alfred asked.
"We thought they were nuts when they warned us about these 'Knights Who Say 'Ni'," Colm answered. "Said that those who hear their 'sacred words' seldom live to tell the tale."
Chrom and Dagr kept their focus on the head Knight. "What do you want with us?" the prince of Ylisse firmly asked.
"The Knights Who Say 'Ni' demand a sacrifice," the head Knight stated.
In response, Anna made an attempt to talk their way out of this. "Uh, look, Sir Knight, we're just a group of mere travelers. We don't want any trouble, really, so if you could just-"
"Ni!" the head Knight swiftly and loudly said, his followers echoing his actions and causing the Heroes to cover their ears.
"OW! Naga's knickers, that's irritating!" Chrom said with a wince.
-X-
At that moment, somewhere in Castle Askr, Naga herself sneezed all of a sudden.
"Bless you," Fjorm said.
"Thank you," the chief divine dragon of Realm-I replied. "Hm. A bit strange, having that said to me for once. Usually it's the other way around..."
-X-
The head Knight then signaled his men to cease their 'Ni'-ing. "We shall say 'Ni' again to you, if you do not appease us," he firmly said as he folded his arms.
"Oh-kaaaay...What is it you want, then?" Anna asked. "Besides being commander of the Order of Heroes, I'm also a merchant. I can get-"
"We want..." the head Knight interrupted her. After a brief dramatic pause, he said, "A shrubbery!"
The Heroes grew surprised (thanks in part to the dramatic chord that played at that moment), only to become swiftly befuddled at the head Knight's strange request.
"You want a what?" Dagr flatly said.
The head Knight and his men proceeded to loudly say 'Ni' again, causing the Heroes to cover their ears again.
"All right, all right! Cut it out already, we'll get you a shrubbery!" Anna said placatingly.
"You must return here with a shrubbery..." the head Knight began to warn them, "or else you will never pass through this wood...alive."
"We understand," Anna said as she nodded her head. "We'll come back with a shrubbery."
"One that looks nice," the head Knight added.
"Sure thing," Anna said.
"And not too expensive."
"Got it."
"Uh...question?" Barst said with a slight raise of his hand. "What happens after we bring you the shrubbery?"
"We will present you with a test," the head Knight answered him.
"...What kind of test?" Alfred asked as he narrowed his eyes with suspicion.
"Firstly, you will be tasked with finding...another shrubbery!" the head Knight answered, a dramatic chord sounding in the wake of his words.
The Heroes were nearly speechless at hearing this. "Another shrubbery?!" Lachesis exasperatedly asked. "Why didn't you just say to get two-"
"Ni!" sounded a knight right in her ear, causing her to recoil.
"Then," the head Knight continued, "when you have found the second shrubbery, you will place it beside the first one you acquire, only slightly higher to get a two-level effect, with a little path running down the middle."
"A path!" his subordinates shouted. "A path! A path! Ni! Shh! Knights Who Say Ni! Ni! Shh! Shh!..."
"And then," the head Knight continued further, "when you have found the shrubbery, you must cut down the mightiest tree in the forest..."
"Hah! Too easy!" Barst boastfully said as he hefted his axe. "For a pro woodcutter like me, that's nothing!"
"Wiiiith..." the head Knight continued, ignoring Barst's bragging, "...a herring!" As soon as the words left his lips, the head Knight held up the small fish in question as his men all said 'Ni!', all to another dramatic chord.
Seeing this made Barst (as well as the rest of his comrades) go slack-jawed and wide-eyed with disbelief. "You're not serious!" he said. "Nobody can cut a tree down with a fish, it's impossible!"
Suddenly, the knights jumped with a start and covered their ears. "Aaaaugh! Aaaugh!"
"Augh!" the head Knight cried out. "Ohh! Don't say that word!"
Seeing this reaction further confused the Heroes. "What word?" Chrom asked.
"I cannot tell!" the head Knight answered. "Suffice to say, this is one of the words the Knights Who Say 'Ni' cannot hear!"
The confusion among the Heroes only increased on hearing this. "But...well, how can we not say the word if you don't tell us what it is?" Neimi asked.
"Aaaaugh!" the knights cried out as they covered their ears.
"She said it!" the head Knight shouted fearfully.
"Said what? 'Is?'" Colm asked.
"Agh! No, not 'is'!" the knights replied.
"Indeed, not 'is'!" the head Knight added. "You wouldn't get very far in life not saying 'is'."
"No not 'is', not 'is'," his men affirmed.
It was then that Chrom noticed an approaching figure. "Hey, Robin's back!"
Sure enough, Chrom's good friend and chief tactician of the Shepherds was approaching them. The others soon noticed, much to their heightened confusion, that he looked very, very annoyed, and the probable reason for such was trailing behind him: a green-garbed minstrel troupe, playing as they followed him.
Troupe lead singer:
...He is packing it in and packing it up,
And sneaking away and buggering up,
And chickening out and pissing off home,
Yes, bravely he is throwing in the sponge...
"Uh, Robin?" Anna began to ask. "Where'd you pick those guys up?"
"*Sigh* I ran into the knight they were following by accident," Robin wearily explained. "When we dusted ourselves off and parted ways, the troupe started following me. (And driving me nuts ever since.)"
Troupe lead singer:
...He is sneaking away and buggering up...
"ENOUGH ALREADY!" Robin yelled with frustration as he faced the troupe, causing them to cease their playing. "I keep telling you, you've got the wrong Robin!" He then briefly threw his hands in the air in exasperation. "*UGH* And that song does nothing for morale! It wasn't helpful at all the first twenty-five times you sang it!"
"Now he's said the word, twice!" the head Knight cried out in a slight panic.
"Aaaugh!" his men cried at the same time.
It was at that moment where Anna finally put two and two together, and quickly got to work as she approached the troupe. "Gentlemen, it looks like you've gotten a bit turned around," she said with much emphasis on the letters 'i' and 't'.
"Aaaaugh!" the Knights Who Say 'Ni' cried out.
"There's the word again!" the head Knight added.
"It might do you some good to head towards the village just back that way," Anna suggested to the troupe as she pointed in that direction. "And it might bring smiles to the townspeople if you played for them, don't you think?"
"Aaaaugh!" the head Knight cried, as did his men. "Stop saying the word! The word...!"
"You could even say it would be most mutually beneficial," Anna said persuasively, a knowing grin on her face as she briefly eyed the Knights Who Say 'Ni'.
"...We cannot hear!" the head Knight bemoaned. "Ow! She said it again!"
"RUN!" Anna shouted to the other Heroes, which soon spurred them to make a break for it going one way while the minstrel troupe sped off in the other direction towards the village she pointed them to.
"Wait!" the head knight cried as he realized something. "I said it! I said it! Ooh! I said it again! And there again! That's three 'it's'! Ohh!"
As fast as their legs (or in Alfred's case, his horse's legs) could carry them, the group of Heroes worked to put as great a distance between them and the Knights Who Say 'Ni' as possible, before finally, once they determined that they wouldn't be seeing that band of weirdoes any time soon, continuing their journey at a more relaxed pace. Anna, at one point, then made a note to herself to add shrubberies to her inventory, sensing a new, promising niche when it came to those doing their traveling through these parts. She could see the gold rolling in already...