“Fick you, Hiccup! You know I can play drums. You came to my ensemble concert when I was in elementary school.”
“Yeah? Well that’s because all of your teachers had fickin’ crushes on me. I never told you about some of the weird sexual fickery elementary school teachers are into. How come so many end up fickin’ their students? Ever pondered that little Zen koan? It’s an untapped resource for a virtuous goblin like me.”
Aya rose into the air using her ghost limbs, spinning and coming down at Lady C., only to be struck by a powerful blast of lightning.
“Virtuous?” Spew Gorge laughed, now paying a little attention to the sword fight still playing out before him. “Who the fick told you that you were virtuous? More like vile, heinous, disgusting, villainous, stinky and ficked in the head!”
“Fick you, Spewy!” Hiccup said, drawing a blade. He pointed at the smaller goblin and I decided to step in.
“If you are going to fight him, you have to do so like they are doing, through training. Otherwise, we’re going to build you a small cabin at the very end of the meadow over there,” I told him, pointing in the distance. “As close to the outer edge of our properties as we can get. And you aren’t going to be allowed to come over here.”
Hiccup grunted. “What kind of fickered racism is this? Just send me off to a cabin in the fickin’ woods? Ageism! You are worse than Marbles! Fick!”
The elven chef walked over with more dragon wings, placing the platter on the table in front of the two goblins.
“Just eat your wings, and be a good goblin,” Iris told him. “Consider it a gift for how well you did at the tournament yesterday.”
Hiccup, who had been scowling at both of us now looked at us with confusion in his eyes. “Tournament? Spewy, you hear these two Alphas here talking their fickin’ nonsense? Yesterday, I climbed up into the tower over there with that other troll named, well, I don’t remember his name. And who gives a fick? Anyway, the troll and I looked at magazines all day, that ficker playing with his choad of a chalupa the entire time. Even though he was wearing pants. And then after that, I told him the story about a famous goblin drama called DisNike’s Star Wars.”
“No…” I whispered, turning away from the goblin with the mechanical brass arm that was covered in wing sauce up to his elbow.
Iris couldn’t resist. “Did you say DisNike’s Star Wars?”
Hiccup snorted as he ate another dragon wing, two, actually. “Of course Glasses and Not Marbles haven’t heard of DisNike’s Star Wars. Okay, I’ll make it quick.”
“Please don’t,” Iris said with a devious smile.
“A long time ago in a fickin’ galaxy way the fick away, there was this guy named Lick Stickficker who was a farmer. Or some shit. His daddy, Anafick Stickficker, was an evil fickboy who now went by the name Darth Ficker, and one day, his daddy sent some people to his shitty desert farm planet to do something. I don’t remember. And they found him. And then there was this princess or some shit, whom he totally ficked in all fickholes available as soon as they met, but who later turned out to be his sister. But that was okay, because sometimes it is best to keep things in the family, if you get my drift,” he said, winking at his counterpart.
“Fick you,” Spew Gorge growled.
“Please, Iris,” I said, my hand now on her elbow.
She shook her head, trying to contain her laughter while Lady C. and Aya continue to spar, their blades connecting, both blasting backward. “I have to hear where this goes, sorry.”
“Then there was this fickin’ troll smuggler named Fick Solo, and he had a hairy fickin’ cousin, can’t remember his name, Fickbakka or something, Chewficky, maybe. Sorry, I don’t remember why they mattered to the story anyway. Anyfickin’-hoo, the evil daddy cut off Lick Stickficker’s hand because he found out he was finger-fickerin’ his sister’s bunghole, and the dad also wanted to bang his sister because she wore white, and she had two hot ass buns. I’m serious about that. Big buns, Spewy, I know it’s not exactly your thing, but you would have liked her buns.”
“I know what the fick DisNike’s Star Wars is, Hiccup!” Spew growled. “I performed that drama in middle school. You came to that one too, you stupid ficker!”
“You did? Wait. I did?” Hiccup stuck another dragon wing in his mouth and cleaned it to the bone with one bite. “Fick, that’s right, they cast you as Jar Jar Ficks, didn’t they?”
“Hell no they fickin’ didn’t, Hiccup! And you fickin’ know better than to accuse me of that! I played fickin’ Boba Fick, the bounty hunter. It wasn’t a speaking part, but I got to wear a sweet helmet and hang out with a fat fick and his slave girls.”
“That’s right! Jatla the Fick, that was the fat ficker’s name. Anyway, fick, Spewy, learn to laugh a little. Be best. And fick yeah to slave girls. That part was fickin’ great. I’m glad they cast a couple of your teachers in that role. Fick, I can remember it now, lots of gold armor and fat bulges, all the right curves in all the right places, if you get my drift, Not Marbles. Glad my fickin’ memory machine still works,” he said, knocking on the side of his head with his gooey fist. “Where was I?”
“Heard enough yet?” I asked Iris.
“Almost,” she said, a devious smile on her face, turning back to Hiccup. “I think you’re at the part where an evil daddy cut off Lick Stickficker’s hand because he found out that he was fucking his sister. Something like that.”
“Damn, she’s smart! And yep, Lick Stickficker was fickin’ his sister, whose name I can’t remember.”
“Her name is Leia,” I said.
“The fick it is…” Hiccup rolled his eyes. “Anyway, after a bunch of bullshit, they all joined forces with Fick Solo and his hairy cousin, Fickchukka, or whatever, to take down this evil daddy, who worked for some ficked-in-the-head melty-skinned necromancer named Emperor Palahfick. Only to find out that the daddy was, well, all of their daddies. He never told him that. Did I say that part in the beginning? Fick, I hope I didn’t ruin the story. Yeah, Lick Stickficker and his sister didn’t know Darth Ficker was their daddy, that he was all of their daddies, Fick Solo’s dad too. That’s the part I was forgetting! So yeah, the moral of the DisNike’s Star Wars is easy as fick to remember: keep it in the family, unless you want a galactic war.” Hiccup burped, and stuffed another dragon wing into his mouth. “Fick, I love that message.”
Chapter Thirteen: Sweep It Back Out
The Midnight Library was packed to the brim. There was a line around the block to get inside, and standing room only for anyone who made it inside.
Government officials stood on the stage wearing electric attire, literally, the three men and three women in matching outfits that featured bolts of electricity moving under their surfaces.
“All this for second place?” I asked, looking out at the stage from the side.
Iris was next to me with her ukulele, and Dalton was in the back, smoking his hookah alongside a pair of busty drows with white face tattoos and elaborate piercings.
“I’m a little surprised too,” said Iris, who now wore a black tuxedo cut for a woman. I also wore a tux, her idea, and nothing fancy with the tie this time around.
“I don’t know how Aya and Lady C. found a place in the front,” I said.
I could see them from my current vantage point, but I wasn’t sure if they could see me or not. Our two Huntresses were in the very first row with Spew Gorge, Fujin and Sun Wukong. Hiccup had come over with us as well, but he had already lost himself in the crowd, mumbling something about finding some wizardous, which was apparently an illegal Tritanian drug.
“I have a feeling I had something to do with that,” Iris said.
“How?”
“Simple. I made sure the owner saved them a spot up front.”
“Duh.”
“Duh, Chase.”
“And when did this happen?”
“When you were smoking the hookah with Dalton.”
I laughed. “I took one puff, just one. And I made s
ure it wasn’t anything weird this time. And it wasn’t. I feel cool, really chill, actually. I definitely won’t be seeing sounds…”
“So a CBD vibe?”
“Something like that,” I told her as one of the women on stage announced our names.
Iris and I walked out, the crowd whistling and shrieking with glee, thunder going off at the back of the Midnight Library.
“This is crazy,” I said under my breath to Iris.
“Isn’t it awesome?” she asked.
“Yes,” I said as I raised my fist into the air, the people cheering even louder.
The six government officials standing on stage bowed to us by dropping to their knees, scooping one arm in front of their body as they did so.
I gave them a thumbs up, not knowing how we were supposed to respond until I saw Iris, who had both hands behind her back, bowing her head in a peculiar way. I copied her gesture, my bass pendulating on its strap for a moment.
They stood, floated up into the air, and then started to back away, encouraging us to play.
“Ready?” I asked her.
She nodded and both of us started on the same note, working into a groove from there. It was a strange one, but we kept at it, our parts building together, Iris taking a solo as I kept the lower line moving.
We swayed back and forth, dancing from one foot to the other, Iris turning her back to the audience and rocking her head left and right as she played. She moved to a keyboard on the side of the stage and hit a few notes, which she then looped, adding to the mix.
By the time she returned, Dalton had waltzed out onto the stage, wearing his king’s crown again and a tuxedo as well. It was weird seeing him in a tux, his inky form spilling out of the cuffs, over the collar of his shirt.
“Me, and you, and you, and me, and we, and us, and us, and… Me!” He threw his arms out and started tap dancing, tendrils of shadow flying off his body.
I caught sight of Lady C. in the front, her hands over her heart as she watched me play, nodding her head to the music. Even Aya was into what we were doing, the Thulean trying to rock out, but also trying to look cool in the process, which made her seem a bit stilted.
As Dalton continued to sing, I caught Spew Gorge pumping his fist into the air. Fujin and Sun Wukong were also dancing, both throwing up jazz hands and other strange gestures.
The concert continued and we shifted tempos, this time to something even more upbeat.
“All the people I see out there, every day lays and every day waves.”
The ink shadow instructed the crowd to do the wave, starting on one side and moving to the other as he scurried across the stage, conducting them. He had them all jump, and at one point he even had them all sit down, and it was then that I saw a man approaching Lady C. and Aya.
“William,” I said, nodding over to the blond-haired Alpha, who was alone aside from his giant sword. I couldn’t believe the guy who had torched our dojo had the audacity to show up at the party, or that the door people had let him in.
And he was fast too. But as he came forward to strike Aya in the back, Fujin jump-kicked William in the face, and the Alpha flew backward into a table.
Aya and Lady C. drew their blades, while Spew Gorge drew his dagger. Iris and I aimed our weapons at him, my counterpart still playing a single note on her ukulele, strumming it incredibly fast, creating a whirlwind of energy around her.
It was Dalton who spoke-sang next. “Everybody stay down,” he said in a smooth, jazzy way. “Sometimes the riffraff finds its way inside, and when it does, you got to sweep it back out. Sweep it back out. Sweep it back out. Come on, Chase. Sweep it back out.”
With the head of my instrument still aimed at William, I started playing a new groove, Dalton chanting the same words over my improvised jam. I adjusted the reverb and turned up some subsonic feels, finding all its nooks and crannies.
Just feeling the music for a moment.
“Sweep it back out. Sweep it back out. Come on, Chase. Sweep it back out,” the ink shadow continued to chant, dancing now as if he were auditioning for a vintage hip-hop video. I didn’t know what the dance was called, but it kind of looked like he was trying to start an aeros motorcycle midair.
Iris joined in with me just as William stood. He looked up at the stage, then to our Huntresses and the mythcrea surrounding them.
And that’s when William fell forward, a blade blooming from the front of his chest, blood dripping down his chin.
This was followed by a mace, which cracked him in the side of the head, the sound loud enough to make me cringe from the stage.
Hiccup the goblin stood behind him now, scratching his back with the mace, nodding his head to the music as he lifted his weapon into the air and spun it once as if to say, “Carry on.”
With that, a healing potion appeared his hand. He drank it and threw it over his shoulder, where it hit a high elf in the back of the head.
“And that’s what I call, sweep it back out!” Dalton said, spinning in the air and coming down.
Iris and I pumped up the volume, hitting the same note at the same time, the energy vibrating across the room as people started to get to their feet and jump around.
The concert went on for another forty minutes of improvisation, aside from a rendition of Happy Birthday for Aya, who took off her hat while we played it, holding it at her side as she swayed back and forth.
It was a damn good concert.
I loved being in the Proxima Galaxy.
( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I ended up sleeping in Lady C.’s cabin that night. Iris crashed somewhere as well, drunkenly saying something about how she was going to sleep under the stars and equipping a cot, Gobi and Garfield following along behind her.
It was a wonderful thing, and I even had a dream while sleeping in EverLife. Strange, but it was definitely a possibility, my dream about climbing to the top of the Steeple, meeting Ray Steampunk, the room changing color, everything around me spinning.
I woke up in a sweat, the early morning sun peeking through Lady C.’s blinds.
Iris and I had planned to go to the Steeple yesterday evening, but we got caught up at the concert and the inevitable after-party.
And boy was it an after-party.
I still didn’t quite understand the setup of the Kingdom Lume government, but there were definitely some dignitaries there, royalty too. There had also been an epic feast, table after table of stuffed animals, hearty dishes and sweet breads.
There was dancing, and an impromptu performance from Dalton in which Spew Gorge used butter knives to play on plates and glasses, crafting a makeshift drum kit.
He was good too.
The goblin could definitely join us at the next gig, Dalton’s words, not mine.
What a night.
I got out of bed quietly, letting Lady C. sleep.
I yawned, stretching my arms over my head before exiting the cabin, clothing appearing on my body almost instantly. I wore pretty much what I wore out in the real world, a band T-shirt, a loose military shirt on top, jeans and Vans.
The usual me.
I headed toward the meadow, noticing that the Steeple was now blue, a beautiful thing to see in the morning considering the dew on the ground, and the fact that the butterflies and hummingbirds were already active, the flowers opening up for the day, the dojo quiet.
I saw Yaksha in the distance and waved, knowing full well that he was in deep meditation and would not wave back. I passed Joe Camel, and also saw something large and mirrored circling in the distance, Mirror taking an early morning spin.
Eventually, I found Iris sleeping near a small gazebo she had set up by a glistening pond.
“Hey,” I told her, crouching down by her side.
“Chase?” she asked, putting her glasses on. Gobi, who slept next to her, fluttered his eyes open, sighed, and turned away, the cute baby bearadillo actually cuddling with Iris’ cat.
“Before we go to Newport, let’s go check out the Stee
ple. And I have… something to tell you as well.”
“Sure,” she said as she sat up.
It wasn’t long before we were hitting the skies on our lightning steeds, Iris riding ahead of me, making a beeline toward the blue Steeple. Oddly enough, we still saw people out front, but we also saw a blinking icon at the top of the Steeple that hadn’t been there before.
“Well, if they didn’t know, they know now,” I said as we neared the blinking icon, our horses landing on a balcony that hadn’t been there the last time we visited.
I could hear people calling to us below, but we are high up now, high enough that we couldn’t make out what they were saying.
Which was fine by me.
“Looks like we have our own private entrance,” Iris said as another lightning steed neared the balcony, this one ridden by a bearded man in a beret. He hit an invisible shield and bounced off, trying again and eventually flinging a lightning bolt at it. The Alpha gave up when he couldn’t break through the barrier.
“Always a plus,” I said as our horses settled on the new balcony.
Iris got off first, and I followed suit, bringing my hand to my horse’s neck, and patting him for a moment. He was a beautiful horse, electric blue sparks moving through his mane. He whinnied as Iris and I moved to the double doors and let ourselves into the top of the Steeple of Litur and Industria.
“So, what are we doing here exactly?” Iris asked as we stepped into the blinding white room. “Besides checking out our property…”
“I told you, or thought I told you, I need to meet with Ray Steampunk.”
“Any idea of how we call him?” She paused, her gaze settling on something in the corner. “What do you suppose that is? Was it here before?”
“I couldn’t tell you…”
We walked over to the wall to find a brass pipe sticking out of the floor, which opened into a bell, that sort of reminded me of a trumpet.
“I never could play brass instruments,” I told her, touching it and noticing that the brass pipe was quite cold.
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