MOTTY, THE HOLLOWITE
Motty is the Princess Nimble Missst’s nanny and plays a supporting part in QUEN NIM, one of the future chronicles written by Bekka. That’s Motty below along with a little piece clipped from QUEN NIM.
High in the round blue tower of the Sapphire Palace in Cloud Castle City was a round blue room. It was filled with Ancient Orrunian scrolls and riddle runes on oat parchment pages and with assorted confusing constructs of straw, bricks, and cane. All were puzzles, puzzles completed, puzzles solved, evidence truly of Nimble Missst’s snapjaw mind. So said, the Sapphire Palace was her own domain, and the round blue room in the round blue tower her private retreat. Such was so. When she wasn’t away at the ledge next to O’Tan Falls, more likely than not she could be found studying texts or solving puzzles in the round blue room. A hollowite hurried there to dust and straighten on hearing the news of Nimble Missst’s return to Cloud Castle City.
“Should have done this earlier, should have,” sang the hollowite to herself. She danced yes merrily around the room flicking the duster over the many and various puzzle constructs.
A hollowite dancing is a sight. Six trousered legs stepping in time while supporting a round pudgy body with stubby arms and stubby yellow wings might be oddment enough, but when topped by a froggy head with a curled up tongue which when unleashed could travel the distance of the room wall to wall, the sight is well …
“Ridiculous!” cried Nimble Missst as she opened the oaken door and entered the round blue room. “What are ye doing, Motty? Step lively. Take your dusting dance elsewhere. I’ve got thinking to do. Leave me.”
“Glad you’re back. Happy to have you. Isn’t it, though? Exciting I mean. The Prince and all. A wedding. Queen of the Boad. How many ‘e’s? Twenty? Twenty, I’ll wager. That would show ‘em. My little snapjaw,” gushed Motty the hollowite. She trousered here and there, ignoring Nimble Missst’s command to leave.
“Ridiculous, Motty, ridiculous! I need to think,” said Nimble Missst, pressing her hands to the sides of her head. “Ye may go. Bring me something to eat if ye need a ridiculous task to perform.”
“Your command. A bowl of ool, freshly squeezed, I think. I’m not full on sure about the hoddle. We might be scraped clean out of it. Ool without hoddle is good enough, true, but with it …”
“With! Without! Hoddle! No hoddle! I don’t care! Ridiculous!” moaned Nimble Missst, and she paced in little circles.
“Don’t fret. Don’t worry. Don’t pout. Efficient Motty is here to help you out,” sang the hollowite. She exited the room with a six-footed spin turn and, for good measure, flung her tongue high and far.
Almost at once, Nimble Missst heard on the stairs outside a short ruckus, a ‘Pardon me, Replenisher, I did not see you’ and a ‘Step along, hollowite, and keep that tongue closer to ye’. Her mother approached. Nimble Missst composed herself and masked her jumbled doubts with a placid frown. She folded her arms and waited for her mother to appear in the doorway.
“That be the daftest of hollowites, I tell ye. Why don’t ye send her off and replace her?” Rindle Mer greeted her daughter. “So ye be returned for this … thing. Ye do have a plan, don’t ye?”
“Motty pleases me. She is ridiculous. I have a plan,” coolly replied Nimble Missst.
Leave a Reply