Dragonelf and Friends (and Swords!): a Fantasy-Romance Saga, Part 7

Princess Laurel's swamp teemed with noisy, slimy creatures. Borts, dangling upside-down from the slouching Sappy trees, screeched and dribbled tiger-wasp guts on George's bushy tail. Groaning slorgs slithered through the mud to sniff Heather's shoes. Green-striped biggle lice nipped at Seamus' ankles.

"Squash 'em," George urged the elf.

"I'd rather not," Seamus said, stepping over a puddle of orange gelatinous liquid (Gromper urine, more than likely). A couple of biggle lice dropped into the puddle and screamed as their sticky legs and stripes melted away.

"Princess Laurel!" Heather called.

A startled, long-haired maple monkey leaped out of the reeds, clutching a twitching figfish in his hands. He snarled at Heather and snapped the fish in two, stuffed half in his mouth, and disappeared beneath the roots of a limp Sappy tree.

Seamus cowered behind Heather, burying his face in her dark hair.

George snickered and patted the top of Seamus' golden head. "There, there, now. 'Twas only a maple monkey. Perfectly harmless."

"PRINCESS LAUREL!" Heather bellowed.

Seamus clutched Heather's arm, trembling and mumbling, "Is she deaf?"

"Laurel's waiting to make her grand entrance," George said with a derisive snort. "Typical fairy."

"Let go of me, Seamus," Heather snapped, elbowing him in the ribs.

"Pewthergrimms," Seamus grumbled. He scratched his neck and moaned like a maple monkey in heat. "Thanks again for the lovely, itchy rash, Heather, dear."

Heather gritted her teeth. "For the ten-thousandth time, I'm sorry! I didn't know you were allergic to fairy dew lip gloss. I can promise you-it will never happen again!"

Heather took a deep breath and tried to steady her shaking hands. Her enchanted, lit-up fingertip was their only light source in the swamp. Now the light flickered and dimmed as a fresh wave of humiliation and fury washed over her. She leaned against a Sappy tree trunk, weak with rage, hiding her crimson face.

George and Seamus exchanged puzzled frowns. Hadn't Heather laughed the first twenty times Seamus had complained about his rash, after they were safely across the Bridge of Melancholy Grompers? And when George had pointed out that one of the burning red marks on Seamus' throat was the exact shape of Heather's lips, hadn't Heather giggled hysterically before threatening to turn George into a grime leaf? (Soft, absorbent grime leaves are commonly used as toilet paper in Poshollow.)

"You know, I kiss much better when I'm not comatose," Seamus quipped, stomping through a pack of snoozing blingsnorkelers. "Weeeeeya bwaaaack!" the fat, wingless birds squawked as they scattered into the reeds dotting the shallow brown water.

"Heather?" Seamus said gently, touching her arm.

Heather recoiled. "Leave me alone."

"It doesn't itch that bad," Seamus assured her. "I'll be fine."

"Oh, goody!" Heather cried. "I'm so glad to hear that!" She grabbed a low-hanging tree branch, bent it way back and let go.

"Watch out!" George yelped, diving off the elf's shoulder. Seamus turned his head and got a snapping mouthful of leaves and flaky gray bark.

"Oops," Heather said coldly.

George giggled into her paws. Seamus cursed and whined and started picking feathery Sappy leaves out of his perfect teeth. Even with red blotches all over his cheeks and throat, and swollen lips, Seamus was insanely handsome-and Heather couldn't stop noticing. She sighed, disgusted with herself, and tried to keep her fingertip-flashlight from fizzling out completely.

"That was totally uncalled for," Seamus whimpered, rubbing his inflamed cheek. "If this Laurel witch doesn't show up in the next five seconds, I'm-"

"Helloooooooo!" a spritely voice called.

A glowing lavender blob drifted out from behind a Sappy tree on the other side of the swamp. It hovered gracefully for a moment, then floated across the murky water toward the gawking elf, woman, and squirrel. The figfish swarmed to the surface, slurping and snapping at the bright blob's wispy toes. "Oh no you don't!" trilled the effervescent blob. She jammed her tiny wand down a figfish's open mouth and turned the snaggle-toothed fool into a slice of pringleberry pie, which she immediately tasted.

"Ick," she spat, tossing the pie over her crescent-shaped wings. It splashed into the brown muck below, where a squeaky blue slorg snatched the oozing crust and dragged it under a rock. "I can never get rid of the raw fish taste," the cantaloupe-sized blob explained.

"Princess Laurel?" Heather said, drawing her axe.

"It's her, all right," George murmured, climbing onto Seamus' shoulder for a better look. "Even fatter than the last time I saw her."

"Welcome," Laurel said, a leery smile on her plump, pink face.

She was missing her two front teeth, Seamus noted, and her other teeth were rotten and twisted. A jagged red scar slanted diagonally across her cheek, from her left eyebrow down to the center of her chin-her original chin, that is (she had two more chins where her neck used to be). Her ample breasts and belly jiggled beneath a roomy lavender polka-dotted muumuu, with holes cut out in back for her pearly wings. But Seamus scarcely noticed the polka dots or her rapidly-beating wings. He squinted to make sure he wasn't imagining it...Stuck into Laurel's empty left eye socket was-yes, Seamus was certain of it-a bright-red rectangular block. A small block unlike anything he'd ever seen before.

George spotted the fairy's bizarre eye replacement the same moment Seamus did, and screamed, "That's mine, you wretched, butt-faced hog!"

Seamus restrained the snarling squirrel. George clawed at his arm and grunted, "Lemme go! She stole my Lego!"

Laurel merely laughed-a pleasant, tinkling sound-and fluttered upward and backward a few feet, out of striking distance. She waved her wand as she spoke. "So good to see you again, George! Where's Legoless?" Her smirk and smug tone indicated that she already knew the answer to that question. Clearly, she wasn't the least bit sorry that Legoless was dining with the Grompers tonight.

"What I want to know is," Laurel remarked with another tinkling laugh, "is Legoless the guest of honor or the main course?"

Heather shot Seamus a brief, agonized expression, then forced a defiant chuckle. "Legoless can take care of himself," she told Laurel, twirling her axe.

"GAH!" George screamed, squeezing out of Seamus' arms and lunging at the fairy.

Laurel flicked her wand, suspending and paralyzing George in midair. "Tsk, tsk." She shook her gray curls and laughed in George's frozen, livid face. "I detest naughty squirrels."

"My father detested naughty fairies," Seamus declared, puffing out his chest. "I can see why he trapped you in this Fozzy Meringue-forsaken swamp."

Laurel gasped and stammered, "I...I had no idea..."

Heather, who knew nothing of Seamus' plan to kiss Princess Laurel and break the spell which bound her to this despicable swamp for all of eternity-in exchange for a detailed map to the Pigeontoed Dwarf's home where Dreamweaver was being held-watched, awestruck, as Seamus stripped off his muddy cloak and tucked his golden hair behind his regal, pointed ears and boomed, "I am Seamus Dragonelf!"

Laurel bowed her head. "Please," she breathed, quivering with fear, "accept my most humble apologies, Sire. I didn't greet you properly." Then she dropped to the elf's feet and kissed them repeatedly.

"See here, fairy," Seamus sneered. "You've been hanging out with Grompers so long you forgot all your manners."

"Shall I bathe your feet with my humble tears, Sire?" Laurel asked.

Seamus scoffed. "How about you unfreeze my little friend, for starters?"

Laurel glanced up at Seamus' crotch, smiling eagerly; then she remembered George, and blushed. "Of course, Sire! Of course!"

The fairy swished her wand and flipped George over twice, and directed the squirrel onto a tree branch above Heather's head.

George stretched and smacked her lips. "Legoless?" she murmured sleepily.

"Is it true what the squirrel said?" Seamus demanded, pinching the fairy's wings between his fingers and lifting her up to glare into her red face. "Did you steal your...er...eyepiece from her?"

George snapped to attention and sprang onto Seamus' shoulder, shrieking, "It's mine, all right!"

"The Lego never belonged to you, and you know it!" Laurel exclaimed, shielding her face with her wand. George swiped at the fairy's fleshy arms and tore a hole in her muumuu.

"George! Calm down!" Seamus commanded.

"Hmph," George muttered, ripping another polka dot off Laurel's muumuu and angrily flicking Seamus' nose with her tail before retreating.

Laurel flashed a timid smile. "Thank you, Your Majesty," she effused, her pungent bort-and-leek breath making Seamus cringe. "As I was saying, this Lego never belonged to George, although she did keep it safe once, long ago, when Legoless was too sick to bear the burden himself. Of course, that was before he was known as 'Legoless.' Such a cruel nickname, really..."

George shuddered and huddled closer to Seamus' neck.

Seamus frowned and asked, "Is this going to be a long story?"

"Don't you want to hear about your uncle's glory days?" Laurel replied, widening her good eye-ancient wisdom swelled in its cool, violet depths.

Suddenly Seamus glimpsed the radiant, irresistible violet-eyed fairy Laurel had once been. Beneath the layers of age and scarred, bloated flesh resided the innocent creature his own father had excommunicated from Poshollow. Just because she was more beautiful than his wife. Seamus' mother. Bristling with shame, Seamus released Laurel's wings and beckoned her to sit down on a clean rock.

Heather rested on a nearby tree stump and leaned in to listen to the fairy's tale.

"It all started 497 years ago," Laurel began.

"Just round up to 500, for Fozzy's sake," George interjected.

"Hold on!" Seamus gasped. "Did you say Legoless is my uncle?"

Laurel nodded. "You didn't know?"

"No!" Seamus cried.

"I knew," George boasted.

"So did I," Heather added.

"Nobody tells me anything," Seamus moped.

Laurel rolled her eye. "I'm trying to tell you something now."

"Right. Get on with it, then."

"You mind if I smoke?" Heather interrupted.

Laurel caught a whiff of the pouch of bubbleweed in Heather's hands. "Not as long as you share," the fairy grinned.

"You really ought to quit," Seamus told Heather.

"You really ought to shut up," Heather retorted, digging her pipe out of her purse.

George cleared her throat. "I don't normally partake of bubbleweed...but if the old, fat, rotten fairy's gonna smoke, so am I!"

To be continued...

Here are links to the first six chapters of Dragonelf and Friends (and Swords!):

Part 1: Barbarian Surprise

Part 2: A Night in the Ghastly Belly of James Woods

Part 3: A Fellowship of Freaks

Part 4: In Search of a Good, Raunchy Joke

Part 5: The Bridge of Melancholy Grompers

Part 6: Seamus' Golden Underwear