Bubbling Mud Heads

WOOOOTTTT!!!! I finally finnished one of my stories!!!!! Yay!!! It's soo hard to find endings!!!!

The Fiddler and the Pea Many stories start with a mistake. This story is an exception; it begins with success, though perhaps the success was a mistake. One morning cycle, on old Earth-that-was, a geneticist was fiddling with the DNA of a sweet-pea plant. She put it is test tubes, and isolated it, extracted it from the cells and looked at it under her trusty microscope. She took out certain proteins and replaced them with others, and she placed the DNA in a blank bacteria cell. As she fed her little creation proteins, sugars, and other nutrients, she saw it quickly grow and divide and grow some more. Thanks to binary fission, by the time she stopped for lunch this fiddler had a beautiful little colony of glowing green prokaryotes. Carefully, very carefully, the geneticist isolated her colony, placing it in a controlled glass box under her one and only window, and left it to itself for an hour. Now, a lot can happen in an hour. You can take a short nap, do a jigsaw puzzle, write a short story, or die from the bite of a snail in an hour. Incidentally, one hour was all it took for a sneaky little girl to sneak into the geneticist's little underground lab and completely ruin her marvelous new creation. This sneaky little girl was the geneticist's daughter, and having already eaten her sugar-tuna and peantnut butter sandwich she wanted to explore and to marvel at her mother's facinating creations, and being only eight years old, she couldn't resist playing with them just a little. Coming apon the little glass box on the window sill she half remembered her mother telling her something bad would happen if she opened her boxes. Pendra, which was the girl's name, thought it over. She could leave the box alone, she was almost certain her mother would be angry if she found out, but her mother would be angry with her for being in the lab anyway. The green stuff in the box sloshed around she nicely when she shook it, it looked almost like the green cool-aid back in the top cupboard at home. Believing her mother would never know, Pendra lifted the lid and stared at the green liquid. She poked it, “This feels like green cool-aid jello!” She sniffed it, “This smells like green cool-aid jello!” and finally Pendra liften it up to her mouth and took a big slobbery mouthful, “This tastes like green cool aid jello! But, a little different...” and she happily ate all the rest of it. Eating too much in a short while tends to have one of two effects on small children, they either become extremely sleepy, or they become rather hyper. In Pendra's case she became extremely sleepy and, spying her mother's lab coat in a puddle on the floor of the little closet, she crawled over and curled up in it, already dreaming of sunlight and spiders. When the fiddler returned from her delicious luncheon, still wiping a bit of tomato ice cream off her nose she discovered to her horror what had occurred. On the floor by the window lay the empty glass box and a sticky little handprint trail leading off to the supply clost in the corner, where, curled up in her lab coat on the floor, the geneticist found a small green creature that vaguely resembled her eight year old daughter, fast asleep. When the Pea woke up she was sleeping comfortably in her own little bed. She had woken up because she was a little cold and thought to move into the sunlight under the window. Being in her own bed in her own room was only the first of several changes she noticed. First and most importantly, she noticed she was not alone, staring at her from the other side of her little bed was the fiddler. The Pea, which was previously Pendra, tried to smile sheepishly, whereapon her mother glared and shook her head. Looking down into her hands, the Pea noticed something strange. Her hands were green! Not only were they green, but they had little vines growing from them, and not only did she have vines, but, apon closer inspection she didn't appear to have any skin at all. Instead the green covering had toughened over her whole body, her bones were soft and movable, and little leaflets had sprouted all over, turning her hair, eyebrows and even eyelashes into soft, green, viney, tendrils, and the previously known Pendra looked down at her new body and said, “Awesome!” Her mother sighed, and gave a tired smile, it hadn't been easy stablizing her daughter, luckily the girl had eaten most of the bacteria, sending it to be broken down in her stomach, and yet the speed with which the tiny amount of virus the girl had breathed in had taken over her entire system was frightening. The geneticist was careful to clean up everything the bacteria gotten stuck in and had to wipe down her whole lab after fixing up her daughter, but at least everything was well now. She had made it back to the lab in time to save her Pendra's major organs, her heart, brain, lungs, and a few others. Unfortunately, she hadn't been able to stabilize her completely, or restore her to her previous state, as a little girl. So Pendra became Pea, a happy, curious, odd little creature, mutated greatly from her former self, and the fiddler swore to never leave her lab unlocked again. The years flew by, and the fiddler and the pea were happy on the barren dusty shell of Earth-that-was. One of the pea's siblings became jealous, and her father was heartbroken, but those are different stories. Eventually, all the rest of the scavengers living on Earth-that-was left the place, including the pea's father and older brothers and sisters. Only the pea's mother stayed, and they tried to make the best of it and live happily over the years. Occasionally one of the two's relatives would visit, and once a whole team of other scientists came to view the 'anomaly' but left apon hearing of another, more interesting genetic mix up, between a vlob mushroom, a space squid, and a Jolperian time traveler. The worlds continued turning and the geneticist grew older, the pets Pea and the fiddler kept died off one by one, and were buried with a few tears and much solemnity in their backyard. The fiddler became blind from all the years spent pearing down at slides through her trusty miscrope. The pea meanwhile ran the house, and helped her mother with everything she could. She rented the extra rooms to the occasional sightseer wanting to come see the barren deadness of Earth-that-was. The pea followed the fiddler's directions, to find and create new creatures, ideas, and type up new theories. Meanwhile the pea was noticing new things, she discovered she didn't need to eat, only stand in the sunlight and drink a bit of water now and then. She and the fiddler had noticed early on that she appeared to have stopped aging, though with each season she felt new changes come across her, and with each year that passed her beautiful green skin turned paler, dryer and browner. Perhaps it was only her human face that remained as young and lively as ever. Lastly, she discovered one winter that it just felt like the most natural thing ever to step outside without a mask, and sink her toes deep down into the sandy soil. She even found that by reaching down far enough with her feet her could find some earth that was not sand.... The fiddler, to her credit, never stopped searching for a way to help her daughter, however, she never found it, and on one sunny, windswept saturday, late in the month of July, the fiddler died. Pea threw herself to the ground and wept. She could feel herself sinking farther and farther down into the sand, but she no longer cared. She let herself be pulled deep, deep, down into the soil, her dry brown skin cracking and breaking off on the sand as she felt it pull past her. Deep, deep down in the bit of true earth she nestled, and there, she felt a warmth that reminded her of the fiddler's hugs. She wrapped her arms around herself and let the earth take in her tears until she felt almost completely drained of water. Then pea's true instincts took over and as many many years passed she cracked, broke, and hatched from her shell, racing up through the sand and spreading her arms to the sunlight once more. She grew and grew, and became so tall that she had to bend over and cover the ground. Pea grew so vast that she covered the whole of Earth-that-was, and visitors returned to the empty shell with awe and wonder. Once she had grown and covered Earth-that-was several times in a dense green jungle of vines, Pea died. She withered up and let the rains that now fell turn her into a delightfully soft and squishy mud which soaked down and mixed with the sand all the way through to the deep, deep, earth. A soft primordial soup, full of life and squishy critters, just waiting for a fiddler to come around and create something new.

Earlier, on a previous night, whilst M. D'Aire was still barely alive, an elderly couple were startled awake by the 4am train from Clifton. Shrieking filled the comfortable apartment as the couple huddled together in their sunken king-sized bed listening. From the first whistle they counted the train's screams hissing and zipping past, the honking of a car alarm outside their apartment, and the cadence of a two voices swirling above, on the next floor, until a last train whistle cut everything off, and the night resumed it's dead silence, as before. The couple sighed, sinking together in grief. This last trick, they knew could not be shaken off. Their child would die, tears filled their throats and shone in their eyes as they allowed a few drops to fall together, onto the blankets. No more could they do for their little one, they had tried to teach the hidden way and it was not accepted. In their hearts they knew that this was for the best for the child, and for the rest of them, that it forever ended it's movements. In their grief, no noise did they ever make but a small rustle of sheets, and a slight creaking of the bed, and a few taps of the water falling on blankets. Simply their tears, and then comfort, as the couple leaned together and lay back on their giant bed still shivering with repressed grief, the little old couple held each other till they fell back asleep. In the early morning, the great emperor and empress awoke, arose wiping away all traces of their night-time weakness, and conferenced with their advisers on how best to deal with this problem. Another train whistle arrived in the course of their discussion relaying the news of M.'s death as well as a few messes M. had left behind, for the sovereign's to clean up. The old couples sighed inwardly and rose as one, their stern faces perfect reflections of the authority they bore, whilst they swiftly began to make tracks, weaving their webs quietly and subtly throughout their kingdoms. Mrs. D'Aire, for that is what we shall call the great empress, abandoned the body of her child in the tomb where it lay, allowing a small punishment for the one, as an example of it's disgrace. Mr. D'Aire, the high emperor, meanwhile sent emissaries, and diplomats to his child's enemies distracting them with other important news, and setting their minds against new foes. A brief consternation arose on Mr. D'Aire's features as he pondered what to do with the man left behind in all the mess. Of course they must use him, but how? Consulting with Mrs. D'Aire they thought to give him free reign, he did not know everything, he had only briefly met the three of them, and had only ever seen the face of M. D'Aire. To underestimate was never wise, the D'Aires agreed, yet what harm could he cause? A short phone call to the man revealed part, a broken heart, a betrayal, by them, and small threat. A threat? Their majesties mentally queried, to us? How could you possibly harm us? Yet the line had ended before this question could be asked, and the D'Aires pondered in silence all they knew. He was the most loyal of all, yet his life had belonged entirely to M. D'Aire, he was the most trusted of M.'s partners, and the only one M. had kept though all it's criminal history. He had been bought by M. as a child, and they had grown up working together. Yet, despite all their history, what did he know that could hurt them? A quick fear crossed Mrs. D'Aires face as an idea of his abilities set in. Catching sight Mr. D'Aire brow wrinkled in response. Understand the enemy, anticipate moves, retreat, react. Shortly the two set out to one of their little hideaways, to better think and be in a starting position for whatever else might take place.

This story begins, as many good stories do, with a death. The death of an important criminal, though not an extremely flashy one. M. D'Aire, as this criminal was called, had supposedly died in one of a series of conflicts fought across the globe. This news grabbed at the hearts of the criminal and law communities and completely flipped their worldview, it enraged a high detective, awakened an elderly couple in the middle of the night with dread, and broke the heart of a poor middle-aged man. M. D'Aire had been a part of the notorious, though highly speculated, D'Aire family, which is only the oldest criminal family time had ever known, and the only one able to keep up it's enterprising into the 21st century. Their work resembled not so much the quick and abstract art common among the museums nowdays, nor the crumbly old renaissance styles with it's so carefully trained skills, but a new, simple, and completely modern yet obviously old style filled with so much hidden meaning the critics would find themselves puzzling over it for years. Many lesser gangs had risen and fallen, it has been rumored that the D'Aire house had briefly entertained the thought of working with Al Capone in his early years, but dismissed him early on as 'a flashy youth'. “Lucky for the D'Aires,” one might here remark, knowing how that history has turned out. However, it is as far from luck as the turkey vulture is from the blakiston's fish owl. If a decent criminal were to rob a bank, steal the money, and hide their tracks, they would have to convince the police and public that the money actually belonged to them. If a D'Aire were to rob a bank, though I can't imagine one of them stooping to so crude a gesture, they would do it in such a way that the law and the people never knew the money even existed. The D'Aires could not be tracked, they could not be traced, yet their invisible presence was clearly there, in the shadows, ever craftily tinkering with the very frames of our lives. The D'Aires knew everything before it happened, and though the regular folk, like you and me, upon hearing their fabled existence pass them off as mere rumor and myth, for the high law, and the very best detectives, they are the real, yet impossible, truth. The very existence of M. D'Aire rocked the two worlds and even slightly impacted the third. The criminal and legal worlds now had stories, shocking but by far more realistic stories, based off actual events, rather than the obviously false campfire tales usually heard about the D'Aires. The general public, who would not have for one instant believed in their existence, now paused and considered, “perhaps,” their thoughts might say, “Perhaps, one might have existed.” This person, this D'Aire, was the very first in known history that could be traced, almost tracked, whose movements, though as completely invisible as those of it's predecessors, left undeniable ripples, ripples that led back to M. D'Aire. There were even a few rumors about this criminal. The ardent detective, T. Levran, had put together a list of them all in his speculation, and had crossed out the more far-fetched. However, some of those included stated: that 'the 'she-devil' was colder than hell itself,' or ''he' led the charge', on one or another of the vicious battles, 'that fine bastard, slaughtered the lot in cold blood'. A recent tale appeared on the nets of the mighty M. D'Aire: Once upon a time, there existed a thief so cunning and a murderer so bloody, that the devil himself bowed to his power. The thief was the king of an extensive court, reaching all across the world and he had as many riches as his heart could desire. Yet, the thief was insanely bored with his staff and his riches. So, one day he took all of his most trusted and best advisers, and invited them to a ball. In the thief's underground mansion, the top criminal lords danced away before retiring to a conference. There in the room, the thief announced he was supremely bored with them all, and had decided to start over, in hopes of finding a more exciting game. The advisers, who had heard this sort of tale before from their young master, did not fear, but simply nodded and waited to hear what came next. Yet, to their surprise the cunning thief had no more to say, he simply vanished, leaving them locked in a massive underground death chamber, slowly emptying of oxygen. The criminal lords, advisers, ladies and servants all choked to death. While the evil thief, depositing his massive wealth in an empty yet not completely unused gold mine, disappeared to start his life over, in a new and exciting way. And he lived happily ever after. The end. While Levran noted the lack of a name, and the magical appearance or the crude little tale, there were certain startling similarities. For example, an underground mass grave had been recently discovered, where the bodies, of servants, middle and upper class men and women lay together in groups on the ground near assumed exits. The doors had been scratched and bashed in feeble attempts to break them down, and yet the cause of death, was not asphyxiation, but some other unknown method, scientists and even conspiracy theorists could not make heads or tails of. The recent discovery of a large horde of gold bars had been found in an old gold mine used for tourism. A neighboring rancher told the news he had seen smoke coming out of the mine in the past few months and coined the belief that a dragon might have briefly made the mine it's home. There had been many rumors of a D'Aire involvement in the mass grave in both the law and the crime worlds. Yet, this story brought together a few of the frightened theories in a bold statement. 'D'Aires existed, and one was coming.' Levran was astonished and at the same time incensed that a member of the notorious D'Aires would allow a trail to be speculated, allow stories to emerge, or allow their existence to become more than rumor and myth. To catch a D'Aire, the phrase had once been such an impossibility, and such a rude remark to the clear beauty of the D'Aire involvement, like an ethereal web spun of finest fairy gossamer, and utterly invisible to the naked eye. This work, though cunning and deceptive, could surely not be the work of a D'Aire, and yet, the theory was not without merit. It was possible, and reviewing rumors from some of his more trusted sources, plausible considering the supposed nature of M. D'Aire. Levran was disappointed, his long childhood dream seemed more real to him than ever, and he had vowed that if such a man existed, he, Levran, would find him and uncover his real name before putting him to justice. The fraud, attempting to use the D'Aire name to detail his mischief, must be caught. When he first heard the news, that M. D'Aire had died, Levran tossed it aside as a groundless rumor. He had half convinced himself that the criminal was a D'Aire, and had faked it's death in order to return to the underground for a brief calm in the music. Of course, being a D'Aire, the criminal could not die. In his other half, Levran speculated that perhaps the criminal had died was proof, that it could not have been a D'Aire, yet that seemed too coincidental a belief to be true. Sitting at his impeccably neat and completely clutter-free desk, sipping his latte and scanning the newspaper, Levran had seen a brief note in the obituaries, "M. D'Aire. cause of death: murder. means of death: burnt at the stake with another wooden stake through the heart. Time of death: April 23rd, at approximately 2:00 o'clock." How this story had not made the front page could only be through unpure means, Levran noted. Some slight decency, a token respect for the D'Aire name, to not allow a member the humiliation of public existence, while still shaming the criminal for it's lack of immortality. Levran, clipped out the obituary for habit's sake, and added it to the less likely of the D'Aire file he now had.

"Perhaps you don't know either?" The Professor sighed, "Oh, well..." The Professor half turned as if to leave, but was stopped by the shadowy figure. "Oh! You want to help me? That is very kind of you! Thank you so much!" and linking arms with the shadowy figure, the Professor skipped off merrily down the hall... .... Mara found a hole in the wall and, thinking it a rat's nest, she squeezed inside and looked around. Mara sneezed, "My what dust!" sweeping her tail across the floor created a cloud of little terrified lumps of dirt, all fleeing before her... Mara grimaced, she absolutely hated dirt, and followed a little tunnel inside the walls, careful not to brush the sides or floor with the fur. The tunnel led directly into a drop, with the outer wall on one side and the inner wall with the tunnel opening on the other, little bridgelike tubes and flooring stuck out into the drop, and Mara, feeling slightly impish, hopped down onto good, sturdy-looking piece of pipe, and slipped completely off the side into the drop. Falling down, a long long way down, Mara tried to catch boards or hook her claws into the wall, but they were too far away. Then the floor appeared, or what she thought was the floor, it was green and slimy and sploosh, Mara fell straight into a pool of nasty sewage water. Claws sprang into action and Mara latched onto a strip of cloth, pulled herself up onto a cleanish wooden board and looked around. She was still between the walls, "Good, no one watching." Mara shook herself, rather like a dog, and turned the walls slightly hairy and dark. Luckily, dirt was afraid of her, and she was mostly just wet and cold. Looking up she spied an opening in the wall, and dragged her drenched and shivering carcass across the wooden board. Through it an amazing battle was taking place, water splashed, magic glowed, and mighty warriors danced. Mara watched in wide eyed amazement, as the fight continued....

Elsewhere in the Pen, Mara decided she was bored. The professor was still trying to find room 47, and was as usual, very lost. So, Mara lagged behind until he disappeared and snuck off in another direction. She had heard a squeaking earlier and traced back to the room where she saw a large black rat sniffing at mugs and cupboards. Silent as the feline she was, Mara pounced, paralyzing the rat with a bite to the back of it's neck, and breaking it's spine. Mara looked around, there were several more squeaks, echoing in the room, apparently they were unused to cats. Mara picked up the now dead rat and carried it to the door, proudly depositing her offering to the occupant of the room, and crept back out into the hall to hunt for more. .... The Professor looked around, each door looked the same, the wooden floor of the hallway divided a nearly identical pair of walls. He turned around searching for some sign, anything when a shadowy figure menacingly stepped around a column towards him. "Oh, my! Are you a shadowy figure?" the figure hissed in response, "Well, it's very nice to meet you! Might you be able to direct me to room 47 please?"

The Professor struggled to hold his footing on the sand as wind whipped around him, there was not even a fence post to grab hold of, despite the fact that his hands tightly clutched a book, and birdcage and his eyes were barred shut against the flying sand. A cat was yelling from inside the cage, but the professor could barely even hear her. Then suddenly, a stronger hand of wind tossed the professor up high in the air, his hat flew away and disappeared, while the birdcage and book dug little groves in his palms in their efforts to escape as well. The Professor opened his eyes a crack, a mistake, instantly a horde of little sandy gnats stung his eyes forcing them completely open to drain out sandy tears. Through the battering clash of the storm the Professor could see a looming shape edging closer, then crash. Down through the roof along with quite a bit of debris the Professor fell. "Ouch." Struggling out from the pile, he looked around, dust everywhere, and little fires eating up the edges of crates, and old supplies of goodness knew what. The professor called his hat, which appeared quite happily and shook dirt out of it's corners against everything, including him. Sighing, the Professor dug a cleaning charm out of one of his pockets, tapped it a bit, and was relieved to see it's edges glow faintly. Then digging his birdcage and book out of the debris the professor tripped over to a little fire, removed a small black cat from the birdcage and placed it inside the flames. As he curled up beside the flames with his book, hat and birdcage, the professor smiled, and drifting off to sleep, he thought, "This place looks like fun..."

Wow, you two can go back and forth with haikus! I can't do that. Here is my first attempt... A sip, happiness, warmth, seeping into fingers, Coffee is my love...

I have a few questions about citing work from the pen: is it allowed? does it depend on the author? is it allowable to cite names that arn't true?

This is so awesome!!!

Now I can get back to my story! I will grab some of Ethele's maps and stick them in here later, to help with seeing pictures. Right now I am sitting in my room writing to you instead of sulking. I don't want to go to sleep and I doubt I could sleep even after what happened today; also I am locked in my room. Mara said they should keep me in here for the rest of my life, they probably could too, but I really hope they don't! I'll tell you why I'm here, and how this happened. It all started, Jurnel, when I got an idea. The idea was from reading my father's books, it basically the same thing he did for years to the ol' wiz. I thought if I could create a diversion or a double or something then I would be able to sneak out of this old castle or maybe off Mara completely and have an adventure! My first goal though was just to get out of the castle. So, here is how it went. I had this idea to build a flinger and send bits of my magic up past my father's window. He would notice the strange smell, and while he was distracted I would disguise myself as him, I am fairly good at illusions, and slip past the guards by the castle gates. It did work in a way I guess, I snuck in Master OrNele's clock-tower and built the flinger. Master OrNele is a good friend of mine, mostly I think, because he has pet mice, which I help him hide from Mara. He helped me build the flinger, and I took it and set it up in my room. Then I snuck out of the tower and across town, only to be caught by Michael. I felt a hand grab the back of my shirt and lift me up into the air, as a voice beside me bellowed, “where are you sneaking off to now?” I twisted my head around and smiled sheepishly, “hello Michael!” “I am.... going nowhere?” I am not a good liar. “No, that's not right, you are going somewhere. Will you tell me where you are going, or should I tell you where you are going?” I looked down at the cobbles, trying to think of an answer, Michael was tricky, he would always find a way to trick me, no matter what I said, but I still wanted to think of something, the only thing I could think of was, “I am going to see if I can sneak past the guards and get outside town to the cloud forest so I can have an adventure and see what the clouds are like and jump around in them and try to catch frogs, and see if anything else lives there and have tons of fun!!” I didn't say this, because this was the only thing I could think of, instead of speaking at all I just hung there in the air, looking at the ground. Michael broke the silence, “can't think of anything? Well, I'll tell you what you're doing, you are coming with me to the kitchens to help prepare for the evening meal.” I sighed, somehow, I knew he was going to say something like this. Michael marched me to the kitchens and I spent what must have been hours scrubbing, and peeling gouti fruit. The nuts inside the fruit are super bitter and gross, but the peels are soft and crunchy once the juice has been drained, for use in other dishes. Even the bitter nuts inside gouti are used, in this drink that older people like, which is naturally disgusting. I finally managed to slip out when Michael was flirting with Strea. Jurnel, you probably wouldn't think that looking at someone’s face and barely talking could be flirting, but the way they acted definitely was flirting. It was scary. I sincerely hope this never happens to me. Anyways, I slipped out of the kitchens the first chance I got and raced across town. I slowed down when I was in range of the gate and slipped into a dark corner. I sent my mind back through the town, up the tower to my room and triggered the flinger. Then, I pulled my mind back to myself and cast a simple hiding spell, and an illusion spell. The hiding spell just tricks the eyes of anyone nearby into not seeing at me, but if they accidentally did notice me then it wouldn't be that great, I'd have to send the illusion of my father in first, and get the gate open, then sneak through the gate while the guards are distracted, and have my 'father' change his mind and decide to not go out today. Surprisingly, this all worked! I walked right up to the gate and waited. As soon as they saw 'my father' the guards opened the gate and I snuck through, onto the 2 feet of cobbles before the barrier, then I had 'my father' mumble something about checking his notes to the guards, turn around walk a few paces and disappear. I heard the guards muttering their annoyance, “Guy's like a cat....” as they closed the gate. I turned and walked through the barrier. Now, that I can think about it Jurnel, that was not the best thing I could have done. Luckily for me, the guards were facing the city and no one was looking over the wall. The barrier, the giant dome around our island removed all magic spells when you passed through it, I have been studying it, it's the Professor's, Mara's and a few other people's magic. They specifically designed this spell so that anyone entering our town would be revealed as who or what they actually were. The Professor and I prefer to know exactly who the people entering our world are. Anyway, when I passed through the barrier, my hiding spell completely disappeared, and I scurried into the cloud trees before someone saw me.

That makes sense, I'll try to edit it a little and see if I can create paragraphs. I think my main problem is I have way too much that I want to say, but It's really not necessary to say it all and it creates clutter when I try to put those parts in... but I still want to add more to it... Anyway, Thank you! I will try to put up more soon!

this fits everyone I know, including me! We all have attention deficient... Oh Look! Peanuts! ...Also don't you think OCD should be CDO, the letters are in the proper alphabetical arrangement in CDO.... but Yes! This is a great poem! I Love it!!

Yup! it's nice having an intern though... Oh! I forgot to have Pickle ask if he was dill or sweet!! Another day in a pickle-ish life: The next day, the Author was hungry. Hungry for pickles. So, she created a she-pickle named Sweet and sent her to live with Pickle the pickle. Eventually, they was children hordes and masses of little baby pickles, most of which the Author devoured. Several of Pickle's other children went on to be great heroes and heroines of the unclear realms. But the rest of them settled down with other wandering pickles (and one cucumber) and created more comfortable houses with terrified flowers everywhere, and they formed the happiest village in the Void Lands, Pickle Town, named after their founder, Pickle. Pickle lived to a very ripe old age and died happily and in peace, and Seamus the goat, who came and took the job of village undertaker in Pickle Town, ate Pickles corpse, and all was happy and strange in the world. The (better) End.

The Professor trudged through a dry and withered land, the wind blowing bits of sand and dust everywhere. He was incredibly bored hot, and tired. In one hand he clutched a book and his jacket, and in the other he carried a covered birdcage, while a small black cat sat on his shoulder licking her already clean paws. The Professor had come through a strange unknown portal in one of the unclear realms and was trying to find some sort of life, or food, or even possibly a portal back into his own realm. But alas, all he could see in this barren waste was..."Wait, what's that?" On the edge of the horizon he saw a shape, a small dark smudgy shape but still definitely a shape! Hopeful, the Professor shook his hair out of his face, squinted against the increasingly strengthening wind and continued his trek a little less tiredly than before.