Tweet
Some folks on the EQTraders chat channel seem to think I'm funny or something. So I figured I'd post some stories I wrote a couple years ago. But when I started looking for a forum to post 'em in, I couldn't find any "in-character" forums. But on the other hand, the rest of the forums on this site seem even less appropriate for this post than this one. So against all reason and logic, the most appropriate forum for an "in-character" post seems to be the "out-of-character" forum.
This amuses me highly.
I'm not sure how welcome this post will be, but it's vaguely (very vaguely) related to tradeskills. And I'm told it's funny, although I'll let you be the judge of that. Without further ado...
MEANWHILE...
Ruatha walked along the path through the woods, humming a little tune quietly to herself. She wasn't a real outdoorsy kinda person like her druid and ranger friends (after all, she was a gnome, more used to underground caves and things that went "tick-tock" (and occasionally things which went "boom")), but she liked seeing new things and she liked the quiet of the forest. And she liked the feeling of the wind in her hair as she walked along without her helmet.
She was feeling cheerful and happy as she walked along the forest path. This was nothing unusual, really. She was always cheerful and happy, a fact which some people found really annoying for reasons she had never quite figured out. Norrath was a wonderful place, filled with adventure and lots of interesting things to see, and also filled with lots of potential friends. And Ruatha liked having friends, because friends were fun and made adventuring even MORE fun. (And that was neet, because adventuring was plenty fun all by its lonesome!)
Suddenly, two Ogres jumped out from behind a pair of trees that flanked the path. They rushed at Ruatha and yelled "GRAR!" and "ARGH!" and other things that Ogres yell when they close in on a surprised victim.
Now, these Ogres were experienced in this sort of thing. They knew how this was supposed to go. The tiny thing on the path would scream, turn, and then run in the opposite direction. And since one of the two Ogres was a Shaman, they both had Spirit of the Wolf and would easily catch the tiny thing. And then lunch would begin.
So the Ogres ran down the path, GRAR!-ing and ARGH!-ing and so on. After a few moments they stopped. The tiny person they were chasing was nowhere to be seen. This was unusual in their experience. They paused for a moment and scratched their heads in confusion.
"Um. Where tiny ting go?" said Gumzak, the first Ogre.
"Me dunno," said Karmkez, the second Ogre. "It wuz just here. Now it gone."
"Um. You see anyting movin' in da bushes?" asked Gumzak?
"Nah. Me don't see nuthin." replied Karmkez.
"Um. Mebbe..." Gumzak's brow furrowed with the effort of thought. "You hab dat spell what gates you back to da Feerrott, right? Mebbe...mebbe da tiny ting hab a spell like dat too."
"Bah. Mebbe so." said Karmkez. "Look like we hab ta wait on lunch."
The two Ogres turned around and began walking back to their hiding spot behind the trees. Ruatha stood on the path, right where she was when the Ogres first jumped out and ran at her. She waved.
"Hi!" said Ruatha.
"Um." said Gumzak. This was very much outside the experience of the two Ogres. Up until this point in their lives, the world of Norrath had been a very predictable place. Gumzak and Karmkez chased small races like Gnomes and Halflings and Dwarves. The Gnomes and Halflings and Dwarves ran away screaming. Gumzak and Karmkez caught them, and Gumzak and Karmkez ate them. It wasn't a complicated lifestyle, but Gumzak and Karmkez weren't complicated Ogres.
And yet here was a small person (gnome, by the smell) who was neither running away or screaming. Gumzak was unsure how to cope with this new wrinkle in the way the world worked. "Um," he said again, in an effort to gain more time to ruminate over the situation.
"What are you two doing?" asked Ruatha in her cheerful, high-pitched voice. "Playing hide-and-seek? I love that game!"
"Um," repeated Gumzak.
A minute or two went by, during which the Ogres blinked a lot and looked at each other in confusion, while Ruatha continued to chatter on in an excited voice about how neet the forest was, and what a great place it would be for hide-and-seek, and how she used to play hide-and-seek when she was a young gnome, and so on.
Karmkez, being the quick thinker of the two, recovered his composure first. "SHUT UP, STOOPID GNOMIE!" yelled Karmkez. "WE NOT PLAY STOOPID GNOMIE GAMES! WE GUNNA EAT YOUZ!" And he rushed at Ruatha again.
Karmkez wasn't sure how Ruatha had gotten away the first time he and Gumzak tried to grab her, but the "Run screaming at the gnome" technique was a tried-and-true, time-tested technique used by Ogres for countless generations. And you just didn't mess with a successful formula. So even though it hadn't worked the first time, he was sure it was just a fluke, and that the second time would be a charm.
Moments later he stopped. Ruatha was not in his hands, nor was she anywhere in front of him. A jagged fingernail scraped in confusion across a stubbly scalp. Karmkez paused a moment, and sighed with resignation. He was smart, for an Ogre, and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to like what he would see when he turned around.
Sure enough, Ruatha was still right were she was mere moments ago. "Hi!" she said again, and waved.
Karmkez struggled to make sense of a world gone suddenly mad. This was a process that increased his scalp temperature to the point where most of his head lice was forced to jump off or perish from the heat. Finally, he understood. The entire "run screaming at the gnome" technique hinged upon a crucial aspect: the gnome HAD TO RUN AWAY! The technique had never been refined to cope with the situation where the gnome just stood there and didn't move.
Karmkez felt a grudging admiration for the gnome creep over him. Here was a gnome who, in one fell swoop, had turned generations of Ogre hunting strategy on its ear. She was obviously incredibly shrewd and crafty, and Karmkez couldn't help but respect that just a little. She still had to be eaten, of course; It was the natural order of things. But maybe Karmkez could get her to divulge the secrets of her anti-"run screaming at the gnome" strategies before then. Then he could pass them on to the leaders of the Ogre military, where the information would be put to good use.
After a moment's consideration, Karmkez decided that it would be best to not arouse the suspicions of the gnome. Subtlety was called for. Unfortunately, Karmkez was an Ogre, and Ogres are about as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrel of oatmeal. Nonetheless, Karmkez was determined to give it his best shot. He tried to appear nonchalant and casual. In actual fact he appeared as though someone had just smacked him in the back of the head with a fire hydrant.
"Say der, little gnomie," began Karmkez, using what he considered to be a cunning conversational gambit. "How you do dat?"
"Erm. Do what?" chirped Ruatha.
"Um," said Gumzak, who was lagging behind reality by a few minutes, and still hadn't gotten past the "hide-and-seek" question.
"Dat ting where me runs at youz, and youz don't run away. How you do dat?" clarified Karmkez helpfully.
"Well, I just stand here, I guess. No real trick to it." Ruatha smiled.
This revelation staggered Karmkez to the core of his being. Not only was the gnome capable of defeating hunting techniques that had been refined by Ogres over the course of hundreds of years, but now she was saying that it was easy. Karmkez had visions of armies of gnomes and halflings and dwarves marching on Oggok and NOT RUNNING AWAY WHEN CHASED! For the first time in his life, Karmkez felt a trickle of fear slide through his rather expansive gut. Clearly, this information needed to be brought to the Ogre military commanders with considerable haste, so that contingency plans could be formulated.
But first things first.
"Okies. Me tanks youz for da info. But now we gots ta eat youz." said Karmkez. Then he reflected for a moment. This was a gnome that had earned his respect. He felt he couldn't just eat her unceremoniously, without acknowledging that respect. "Um. Nuthin' pers'nal and no offense or anyting like dat." he said. Then, on the alert for her trickery, he reached for her.
"Um," said Gumzak, who was still lagging behind reality, and who was now grappling with the concept of the non-moving gnome.
"But you don't wanna eat me!" Ruatha said cheerfully.
Karmkez mulled this over. "But me DO wanna eat youz," he said. In another world, in another reality, someone would have accused him of semantic quibbling. But this was Norrath, and the linguistic snafu went unheralded. Karmkez once again reached for Ruatha.
"No no no, silly Ogre!" said Ruatha as she adroitly sidestepped the grasping hand of Karmkez. "What I mean is that you wouldn't LIKE me. I'm all stringy! I'm a warrior, and I've been beat up a lot!"
"Oh, meez can fix dat," said Karmkez as he re-centered his sights on the gnome. "Mez have speshul gnomie-tenderizin' tekneeks. Been in da family fer generashuns."
"But can't we just be friends?" asked Ruatha as she ducked and ran between his legs.
Karmkez paused. This was a radical suggestion. Ogres didn't usually make friends with food. Karmkez was pretty open-minded for an Ogre, but even he wasn't sure he was ready to deal with the social ramifications of being friends with a gnome. Why, he'd be laughed out of all the best Ogre nightclubs if word got out.
"Sorry," he said, and was suprised to realize that he actually meant it. "Me tink dis is da best ting for all concerned. No offense or anyting, like I said." He reached for Ruatha with both hands.
Moments later, Karmkez was lying flat on his back. Ruatha had pulled a rope out of her packs while Karmkez was chasing her around. When Karmkez reached for her with both hands, she'd quickly looped the rope around his wrists, cinched the loop tight, and ran between his legs while pulling the rope behind her. Karmkez performed a graceless somersault as his arms were yanked between his legs.
Karmkez struggled a moment for breath. Ruatha jumped up and sat down on his chest, producing an audible "OOF" from the recumbent Ogre.
"Um," said Gumzak, who was slowly catching up, but was still a good minute or so behind.
"Meez had a good life," said Karmkez. "Meez been a good Ogre, and meez got no regrets."
"Oh hush up, silly Ogre." said Ruatha, giggling. "I'm not gonna kill you."
"Oh. Torture, den?"
"No no no."
"Den whatcha gonna do?" asked Karmkez.
"I'm going to explain to you about something we gnomes call 'Risk vs. Reward.'" said Ruatha
Karmkez thrashed about wildly. "I wuz right!" he shouted. "Youz IS gunna torture me!"
"Oh hush up and listen." said Ruatha with mock sternness.
Karmkez's struggling subsided.
"Now, see, here's how it works," began Ruatha. "On the one hand, you have me. I'm a gnome, but I'm a gnome warrior. I have lotsa armor and lotsa weapons. You could try to eat me, but you prolly wouldn't succeed, 'cause I'm pretty tough! And even if you did manage to kill me, by the time you got me into a stewpot, you'd be all beat up and bruised, and you wouldn't have any teeth left and stuff, so you wouldn't be able to eat me anyways. This is what we gnomes call 'High risk, low reward.'"
Ruatha paused several minutes while this sank in. Then she resumed. "On the other hand, I have some pies in my pack that will be just as filling as I would be (and a lot tastier, 'cause I'm all stringy, like I said), and they won't be nearly as tough as I would be to eat, 'cause they won't fight back or anything! This is what we gnomes call 'Low risk, high reward.' See? It all makes perfect sense!"
And with that, she pulled out a small bag. The bag was about 4 inches wide and 3 inches deep. Ruatha opened up the bag and stuck her arm all the way into the bag. The lip of the bag rested against her armpit. Clanking sounds, as though large weapons were being shuffled around, emanated from the bag.
"Um," said Gumzak, who had finally caught up with reality, but who was on the verge of lagging behind again at the sight of a gnome with her arm buried up to her shoulder in a bag that only looked a few inches deep.
"Ah-HAH! Here they are!" exclaimed Ruatha triumphantly as she started pulling pie after pie after pie out of the small bag. "Lessee. Here's some fruit pies, and a berry pie...oh, and a couple of meat pies...oh, and a ton of veggie pies." She slid off of Karmkez's chest and began putting all the pies on the ground. Karmkez struggled to get up and untie his hands.
"Okay!" chirped Ruatha. "Here ya go! I dunno how much Ogres eat, but I figure this is enough for at least a couple days of food for you two." She pointed at the array of pies now arranged neatly on the ground in front of her and the two Ogres. "And see? You can eat these pies and I won't hafta beat you up! It's a win-win situation!"
"Um," said Gumzak, as he looked at Karmkez for guidance. Karmkez looked at Gumzak. Then at Ruatha. Then at all the pies. Several of the pies were still steaming, as though they'd just been taken fresh out of the oven. His stomach rumbled prodigiously.
"Anyhow," said Ruatha, "I gotta go! I hafta meet some friends at a tavern! But I'll be back through here in a couple of days, and I'll bring more pies! So if you want some more, just give me a yell and I'll be happy to give you some! 'cause I love baking! Maybe we can be friends! Bye now!"
Ruatha waved, then turned around and skipped off down the path.
The Ogres watched her disappear down the path and into the thick forest. Several moments of uncomfortable silence passed. The Ogres looked at each other. Then they looked at the pies.
Karmkez sat down first. Gumzak, glad to have someone to follow, sighed in relief as he sat down as well. Karmkez grabbed a pie and began to noisily consume it. Gumzak did the same.
After a while, Gumzak said "We not gonna tell nobuddy bout dis, are we?"
Karmkez chewed thoughtfully. Creases formed on his berry-smeared chin and cheeks as he considered the question. "No. Me tink it best to keep dis our lil seekrit."
Gumzak nodded his agreement.
After more time had passed, Gumzak said "Dese is good pies. You tink she really gunna come back inna couple daze?"
Karmkez, who had found a comfy rock to rest his head on, had laid down for a nap. "Shaddup, Gumzak." was all he said in response. Then he began to snore.
This amuses me highly.
I'm not sure how welcome this post will be, but it's vaguely (very vaguely) related to tradeskills. And I'm told it's funny, although I'll let you be the judge of that. Without further ado...
MEANWHILE...
Ruatha walked along the path through the woods, humming a little tune quietly to herself. She wasn't a real outdoorsy kinda person like her druid and ranger friends (after all, she was a gnome, more used to underground caves and things that went "tick-tock" (and occasionally things which went "boom")), but she liked seeing new things and she liked the quiet of the forest. And she liked the feeling of the wind in her hair as she walked along without her helmet.
She was feeling cheerful and happy as she walked along the forest path. This was nothing unusual, really. She was always cheerful and happy, a fact which some people found really annoying for reasons she had never quite figured out. Norrath was a wonderful place, filled with adventure and lots of interesting things to see, and also filled with lots of potential friends. And Ruatha liked having friends, because friends were fun and made adventuring even MORE fun. (And that was neet, because adventuring was plenty fun all by its lonesome!)
Suddenly, two Ogres jumped out from behind a pair of trees that flanked the path. They rushed at Ruatha and yelled "GRAR!" and "ARGH!" and other things that Ogres yell when they close in on a surprised victim.
Now, these Ogres were experienced in this sort of thing. They knew how this was supposed to go. The tiny thing on the path would scream, turn, and then run in the opposite direction. And since one of the two Ogres was a Shaman, they both had Spirit of the Wolf and would easily catch the tiny thing. And then lunch would begin.
So the Ogres ran down the path, GRAR!-ing and ARGH!-ing and so on. After a few moments they stopped. The tiny person they were chasing was nowhere to be seen. This was unusual in their experience. They paused for a moment and scratched their heads in confusion.
"Um. Where tiny ting go?" said Gumzak, the first Ogre.
"Me dunno," said Karmkez, the second Ogre. "It wuz just here. Now it gone."
"Um. You see anyting movin' in da bushes?" asked Gumzak?
"Nah. Me don't see nuthin." replied Karmkez.
"Um. Mebbe..." Gumzak's brow furrowed with the effort of thought. "You hab dat spell what gates you back to da Feerrott, right? Mebbe...mebbe da tiny ting hab a spell like dat too."
"Bah. Mebbe so." said Karmkez. "Look like we hab ta wait on lunch."
The two Ogres turned around and began walking back to their hiding spot behind the trees. Ruatha stood on the path, right where she was when the Ogres first jumped out and ran at her. She waved.
"Hi!" said Ruatha.
"Um." said Gumzak. This was very much outside the experience of the two Ogres. Up until this point in their lives, the world of Norrath had been a very predictable place. Gumzak and Karmkez chased small races like Gnomes and Halflings and Dwarves. The Gnomes and Halflings and Dwarves ran away screaming. Gumzak and Karmkez caught them, and Gumzak and Karmkez ate them. It wasn't a complicated lifestyle, but Gumzak and Karmkez weren't complicated Ogres.
And yet here was a small person (gnome, by the smell) who was neither running away or screaming. Gumzak was unsure how to cope with this new wrinkle in the way the world worked. "Um," he said again, in an effort to gain more time to ruminate over the situation.
"What are you two doing?" asked Ruatha in her cheerful, high-pitched voice. "Playing hide-and-seek? I love that game!"
"Um," repeated Gumzak.
A minute or two went by, during which the Ogres blinked a lot and looked at each other in confusion, while Ruatha continued to chatter on in an excited voice about how neet the forest was, and what a great place it would be for hide-and-seek, and how she used to play hide-and-seek when she was a young gnome, and so on.
Karmkez, being the quick thinker of the two, recovered his composure first. "SHUT UP, STOOPID GNOMIE!" yelled Karmkez. "WE NOT PLAY STOOPID GNOMIE GAMES! WE GUNNA EAT YOUZ!" And he rushed at Ruatha again.
Karmkez wasn't sure how Ruatha had gotten away the first time he and Gumzak tried to grab her, but the "Run screaming at the gnome" technique was a tried-and-true, time-tested technique used by Ogres for countless generations. And you just didn't mess with a successful formula. So even though it hadn't worked the first time, he was sure it was just a fluke, and that the second time would be a charm.
Moments later he stopped. Ruatha was not in his hands, nor was she anywhere in front of him. A jagged fingernail scraped in confusion across a stubbly scalp. Karmkez paused a moment, and sighed with resignation. He was smart, for an Ogre, and he was pretty sure he wasn't going to like what he would see when he turned around.
Sure enough, Ruatha was still right were she was mere moments ago. "Hi!" she said again, and waved.
Karmkez struggled to make sense of a world gone suddenly mad. This was a process that increased his scalp temperature to the point where most of his head lice was forced to jump off or perish from the heat. Finally, he understood. The entire "run screaming at the gnome" technique hinged upon a crucial aspect: the gnome HAD TO RUN AWAY! The technique had never been refined to cope with the situation where the gnome just stood there and didn't move.
Karmkez felt a grudging admiration for the gnome creep over him. Here was a gnome who, in one fell swoop, had turned generations of Ogre hunting strategy on its ear. She was obviously incredibly shrewd and crafty, and Karmkez couldn't help but respect that just a little. She still had to be eaten, of course; It was the natural order of things. But maybe Karmkez could get her to divulge the secrets of her anti-"run screaming at the gnome" strategies before then. Then he could pass them on to the leaders of the Ogre military, where the information would be put to good use.
After a moment's consideration, Karmkez decided that it would be best to not arouse the suspicions of the gnome. Subtlety was called for. Unfortunately, Karmkez was an Ogre, and Ogres are about as subtle as a hand grenade in a barrel of oatmeal. Nonetheless, Karmkez was determined to give it his best shot. He tried to appear nonchalant and casual. In actual fact he appeared as though someone had just smacked him in the back of the head with a fire hydrant.
"Say der, little gnomie," began Karmkez, using what he considered to be a cunning conversational gambit. "How you do dat?"
"Erm. Do what?" chirped Ruatha.
"Um," said Gumzak, who was lagging behind reality by a few minutes, and still hadn't gotten past the "hide-and-seek" question.
"Dat ting where me runs at youz, and youz don't run away. How you do dat?" clarified Karmkez helpfully.
"Well, I just stand here, I guess. No real trick to it." Ruatha smiled.
This revelation staggered Karmkez to the core of his being. Not only was the gnome capable of defeating hunting techniques that had been refined by Ogres over the course of hundreds of years, but now she was saying that it was easy. Karmkez had visions of armies of gnomes and halflings and dwarves marching on Oggok and NOT RUNNING AWAY WHEN CHASED! For the first time in his life, Karmkez felt a trickle of fear slide through his rather expansive gut. Clearly, this information needed to be brought to the Ogre military commanders with considerable haste, so that contingency plans could be formulated.
But first things first.
"Okies. Me tanks youz for da info. But now we gots ta eat youz." said Karmkez. Then he reflected for a moment. This was a gnome that had earned his respect. He felt he couldn't just eat her unceremoniously, without acknowledging that respect. "Um. Nuthin' pers'nal and no offense or anyting like dat." he said. Then, on the alert for her trickery, he reached for her.
"Um," said Gumzak, who was still lagging behind reality, and who was now grappling with the concept of the non-moving gnome.
"But you don't wanna eat me!" Ruatha said cheerfully.
Karmkez mulled this over. "But me DO wanna eat youz," he said. In another world, in another reality, someone would have accused him of semantic quibbling. But this was Norrath, and the linguistic snafu went unheralded. Karmkez once again reached for Ruatha.
"No no no, silly Ogre!" said Ruatha as she adroitly sidestepped the grasping hand of Karmkez. "What I mean is that you wouldn't LIKE me. I'm all stringy! I'm a warrior, and I've been beat up a lot!"
"Oh, meez can fix dat," said Karmkez as he re-centered his sights on the gnome. "Mez have speshul gnomie-tenderizin' tekneeks. Been in da family fer generashuns."
"But can't we just be friends?" asked Ruatha as she ducked and ran between his legs.
Karmkez paused. This was a radical suggestion. Ogres didn't usually make friends with food. Karmkez was pretty open-minded for an Ogre, but even he wasn't sure he was ready to deal with the social ramifications of being friends with a gnome. Why, he'd be laughed out of all the best Ogre nightclubs if word got out.
"Sorry," he said, and was suprised to realize that he actually meant it. "Me tink dis is da best ting for all concerned. No offense or anyting, like I said." He reached for Ruatha with both hands.
Moments later, Karmkez was lying flat on his back. Ruatha had pulled a rope out of her packs while Karmkez was chasing her around. When Karmkez reached for her with both hands, she'd quickly looped the rope around his wrists, cinched the loop tight, and ran between his legs while pulling the rope behind her. Karmkez performed a graceless somersault as his arms were yanked between his legs.
Karmkez struggled a moment for breath. Ruatha jumped up and sat down on his chest, producing an audible "OOF" from the recumbent Ogre.
"Um," said Gumzak, who was slowly catching up, but was still a good minute or so behind.
"Meez had a good life," said Karmkez. "Meez been a good Ogre, and meez got no regrets."
"Oh hush up, silly Ogre." said Ruatha, giggling. "I'm not gonna kill you."
"Oh. Torture, den?"
"No no no."
"Den whatcha gonna do?" asked Karmkez.
"I'm going to explain to you about something we gnomes call 'Risk vs. Reward.'" said Ruatha
Karmkez thrashed about wildly. "I wuz right!" he shouted. "Youz IS gunna torture me!"
"Oh hush up and listen." said Ruatha with mock sternness.
Karmkez's struggling subsided.
"Now, see, here's how it works," began Ruatha. "On the one hand, you have me. I'm a gnome, but I'm a gnome warrior. I have lotsa armor and lotsa weapons. You could try to eat me, but you prolly wouldn't succeed, 'cause I'm pretty tough! And even if you did manage to kill me, by the time you got me into a stewpot, you'd be all beat up and bruised, and you wouldn't have any teeth left and stuff, so you wouldn't be able to eat me anyways. This is what we gnomes call 'High risk, low reward.'"
Ruatha paused several minutes while this sank in. Then she resumed. "On the other hand, I have some pies in my pack that will be just as filling as I would be (and a lot tastier, 'cause I'm all stringy, like I said), and they won't be nearly as tough as I would be to eat, 'cause they won't fight back or anything! This is what we gnomes call 'Low risk, high reward.' See? It all makes perfect sense!"
And with that, she pulled out a small bag. The bag was about 4 inches wide and 3 inches deep. Ruatha opened up the bag and stuck her arm all the way into the bag. The lip of the bag rested against her armpit. Clanking sounds, as though large weapons were being shuffled around, emanated from the bag.
"Um," said Gumzak, who had finally caught up with reality, but who was on the verge of lagging behind again at the sight of a gnome with her arm buried up to her shoulder in a bag that only looked a few inches deep.
"Ah-HAH! Here they are!" exclaimed Ruatha triumphantly as she started pulling pie after pie after pie out of the small bag. "Lessee. Here's some fruit pies, and a berry pie...oh, and a couple of meat pies...oh, and a ton of veggie pies." She slid off of Karmkez's chest and began putting all the pies on the ground. Karmkez struggled to get up and untie his hands.
"Okay!" chirped Ruatha. "Here ya go! I dunno how much Ogres eat, but I figure this is enough for at least a couple days of food for you two." She pointed at the array of pies now arranged neatly on the ground in front of her and the two Ogres. "And see? You can eat these pies and I won't hafta beat you up! It's a win-win situation!"
"Um," said Gumzak, as he looked at Karmkez for guidance. Karmkez looked at Gumzak. Then at Ruatha. Then at all the pies. Several of the pies were still steaming, as though they'd just been taken fresh out of the oven. His stomach rumbled prodigiously.
"Anyhow," said Ruatha, "I gotta go! I hafta meet some friends at a tavern! But I'll be back through here in a couple of days, and I'll bring more pies! So if you want some more, just give me a yell and I'll be happy to give you some! 'cause I love baking! Maybe we can be friends! Bye now!"
Ruatha waved, then turned around and skipped off down the path.
The Ogres watched her disappear down the path and into the thick forest. Several moments of uncomfortable silence passed. The Ogres looked at each other. Then they looked at the pies.
Karmkez sat down first. Gumzak, glad to have someone to follow, sighed in relief as he sat down as well. Karmkez grabbed a pie and began to noisily consume it. Gumzak did the same.
After a while, Gumzak said "We not gonna tell nobuddy bout dis, are we?"
Karmkez chewed thoughtfully. Creases formed on his berry-smeared chin and cheeks as he considered the question. "No. Me tink it best to keep dis our lil seekrit."
Gumzak nodded his agreement.
After more time had passed, Gumzak said "Dese is good pies. You tink she really gunna come back inna couple daze?"
Karmkez, who had found a comfy rock to rest his head on, had laid down for a nap. "Shaddup, Gumzak." was all he said in response. Then he began to snore.
~ 
10lb. Halas Meat Pies, here I come! :P
Comment