Fiddleeebod

Harpo, the first chronicler, wrote a two part story called ‘A Tale of Fiddleeebod’. Today I’ll post an excerpt from part one, ‘Orrun’. In it, a winged Prince and his faithful servant are fleeing for their lives. The faithful servant, Yones, is pictured below.

RAKATCHABAROOOOM!! Boulders bounced, tumble crash. Lightning flashed, crooked quick yellow daggers thrown from dark churning clouds. Scramble. The craggers reeled back from the falling rocks.

“Look there! That buried ’em sure,” said one of the bony creatures in a squeaky cragger voice. “The rock fall completed our task for us. Let’s go! Let’s go! We might get wet!”

“Take a broken stone! Take a broken stone to show to Darvo See. Proof that the family is wiped away,” cried another cragger, and stooped himself to pick up a few shattered shards. Dust like mist hung in the air above the massive fresh slide of skidded, plummeted, cracked boulders. Splat. Spatter. The rain began to fall.

“Back to Cloud Castle! Back!”

The call was heeded by all craggers, and they hurried on their way down the road, a road built with circular green bricks. Cobbles, really. Craggers did not like the rain. Their bodies were bony. Thin. Their faces were round. Circles. They held their spidery hands above their heads as they ran. They ran on the road to Cloud Castle City. Cloud Castle City nestled at the foot of the towering Orrun Mountain Crag. They ran on the road in Orrun Mountain Hollow. The Hollow was a bowl surrounded by peaks. The bowl and the peaks were known by a name. What name? The Realm of Orrun Mountain Crag and Hollow. The craggers hammered with fists at the gate when they reached Cloud Castle City. The gate opened, and in they went.

Back down along the road where the cragger chase had ended in rocky avalanche, the rain splash took the dust from the air. Drip and dribble. Drops seeped low in the pile of stones. Drip and dribble. Something moved.

“Gone. They are gone, my Young Lord. Follow,” a reassuring voice spoke.

“Yones, lead. I will follow,” answered a young voice, a determined voice, a sad voice.

What voices? Who voices? The reassuring voice belonged to Yones the Hollowite, a wearer of six-legged trousers, for one thing. The young determined sad voice belonged to Master Lord Fay Dot, a forest green winged Royal 8-year old, for more than one thing.

“Take me down, Yones. Take me down to my family. Take me to the orruneries. I will make my pledge,” said Fay Dot.

“Yes, my Young Lord. Down we’ll go. You shall speak with the orruneries,” said Yones, and down he went into a tunnel, leaving the protected chamber under the weight of rocks at rest. Fay Dot followed.

The first story written by the second Chronicler, Lace, describes a single night she spent in the company of a time-traveling shapeshiftress, Zom Falbu. The painting below depicts Zom Falbu captured in mid-shift.

A single night spent in Woeful Wanderers’ Wasteland listening to a time travelling shapeshiftress named Zom Falbu. There. I have written it down in purple ink on oat parchment. My formerly well-guarded secret now speaks in lines and wiggles. When Harpsandichord Lambsbottler travelled the rainbow and I became New Royal Chronicler of Fiddleeebod, there was no moment of doubt. Not a nince. I knew my first Chronicle would be the story of one long magic night spent in the company of Zom Falbu. It’s a story I locked away and never shared with any listening ear or reading eye until now. Now I tell it. Now I share it with you in your oddest of languages. I share it with you, the dangerously strange creatures down the well.

How did it start? Ah, yes. How many roads? I was born an Eastern Clover Roamer near the ruins of Tredgemont. My Moothoo and my Fith were called Feather and Rags. Daisydove Wingfeathers. Sadthimble Raggedboots. We roamed Clover from Sadlar’s to Skrabble to Longthin Lake and sold our fine stitchery at Honeygold, Clover Castle. I grew. I learned to weave and sew. I helped our miffen tend the herd of fleece. I rolled down hills and ate my fill of honey. I worked happily at my little shuttleloom. My thimble and needle and measuring tape all were precious to me. Mine. Ah, well. So and sa. The years. Roads. I found my name. Fuzzybug Lacejacket. Lace. A story. Another road. More years. Many. And then. And then the clans disappeared. Just gone poof. Gone. We hosted Rendezvous, and no one came. I was looking forward to once again telling my Naming Story. To seeing the others. Ah. Just there. Just that. No one came. We stood outside our creamy yellow yote, my Moothoo, my Fith, and I. We searched the horizon. Empty road. The silence. Did my Moothoo and my Fith lose heart then? They might have. After the failed Rendezvous and before a full bar year had passed, they travelled the rainbow road, first Fith, then Moothoo. Such. Such. So there was I, a lone roamer with only one hundred and fourteen bar years of life lived, roaming on my own. I abandoned the fleece at Longthin Lake. I left them there with our herd miffen, Galan. I left them. I did not look back. I walked away in my best wanderboots, starstitched with plumed tugs. Road. Roads. I went straight to Sadlar. I needed to see a friendly face. I stayed eight short bar years in the gardens. Well, then. I helped. I learned. Dig, prune, shape, rake. I crimped the hedges. I yearned. Road. I yearned to find another roamer. Mystery. Where had they gone? Was I alone? Travellers brought rumors of roamers lost in the Woeful Wanderers’ Wasteland. Drawn to the road, pulled, I left Sadlar with a shuttleloom on my back and a pack of mesh petals to munch on. Sadlar pointed west with a trembling claw. Tears dripped from his goggle eyes. I walked away. I left. I did not look back. Road. So and sa. I skirted Honeygold, Clover Castle. Hill and valley west. Green mounds. Honey huts. Dragon’s Deep Pool. Falls of Horn. Down the cliff. No fear of heights. Chack Tree Forest. Roads. Across the muddy skunch where the Greenwilla River sinks away. Into the desolation of the Woeful Wanderers’ Wasteland. At roamer pace I strode across the gray stubble. Rubble heaps. Dank reeds. Tuft grass. Gray. All gray. Cracked mud. Crumbling ridge. Night mist low to the ground. I dug in to make a shelter. I trumbled down to sleep. No sleep. I tossed. I turned. Stars. A dream? No. The creature loomed. Startling violet eyes.

Here is a chapter from one of Bekka’s future chronicles, The Woodlock. For the first time, she is sent on an adventure alone, and has to perform her time travel task without the comforting presence of her best friend, Kar. The title character, the woodlock Delia Branch, is pictured below.

I sat deep in thought, elbows on the table, quill between fingers, chin on the palms of my hands. I stared at the creamy emptiness of the oat parchment page neatly laid out before me and at the efficient fatness of the inkpot waiting for the dip of my quill.

“Mek fan wull, Bekka of Thorns,” breathed a voice softly behind me.

I spun to see a creature leaning in the doorway and silhouetted against the day outside. A doubleblink of my eyes made the creature step into focus. Powdery pale blue from boots to feathered cap it was. Startling violet eyes set in an otherwise powdery pale blue face regarded me. Wisps of powdery pale blue hair sprouted in curls from under its cap. Never had I seen or heard of so such a creature. Truth. It spoke again.

“Ah, your page is blank, I note. Dek sho. I am here arrived at this when to help you fill it. Is your mind snapjaw? Can you make a guess at who I am?” said the creature, tilting its head, regarding me as so said before with its startling violet eyes all twinkle bright.

“Time traveler?” I guessed, fair clued by the creature’s manner of speech, so such clearly recalled by me from a Gwer drollek story I heard as a youngling, a story collected and written long eons ago by the Chronicler Lace, a story of the time-traveling shapeshiftress Zom Falbu.

“Bo ken! You ARE the Chronicler I expected to meet! I am Shendra  Nenas, a shifter from Jom. Friends call me Shen. Do you admire this shift? I surmise that you have never seen the like of it before,” said the shifter, posing and slowly, slowly turning. “I am guised as a bool, dweller in the moon caverns of Jeth.”

“Jeth?” I mumbled, the gates of my mind having opened and my wits fled.

“A thousand short years in the future, to be sure. The moon caverns are quite nice then. The pools are warm. Cho dett. Of course, not as nice as Jom where we shifters gather and chat. No sort. Not at all …”

The shifter fell silent, nodding its head, seemingly lost so such in pleasant thought. I waited, but not too long. I cleared my throat loudly, an open effort to bring the shifter out of the dreamy trance.

“Hatch! Oh, yes. This when. Here. The bendo dreen to be sent. Cor ban. Bekka of Thorns, you are the bendo dreen Chronicler. Do you know I was summoned from Jom a scant flick of time after I placed my egg in the care of a chosen hutkeeper one hundred bar years ago? I am yet left to wonder if it got safely to Mara Ko. I won’t know until …”

The shifter fell silent again. I possessed more information, but not enough. The shifter was a she, like Zom Falbu of the Gwer drollek story. What was she doing here? Why did she know my name and other more about me? Again I cleared my throat as loudly as I could to nudge her from wherever her mind had drifted.

“Hatch! Oh, yes. This when. Here. Very. Ki dak. Where is your tambourine? You should bring it. One thousand years ahead in the moon caverns of Jeth she said so, did the Harick.”

“Babba Ja Harick!” I interrupted, livened. “You were sent to me by the lavender witch herself one thousand years in the future on the moon Jeth? Why?!”

“Not on the moon, Bekka of Thorns. For accuracy’s sake, in the moon caverns. Yes, I have been sent to take you to a when in the ago. You have a task to perform. Nar ved. If you do it, all will be as it is. If you don’t, all will be as it isn’t,” said Shendra Nenas, shapeshiftress from Jom, traveler in time, so called Shen by her friends.

“What task do I have to perform?” I asked.

“You might figure it out,” she replied, and reached out with her powdery pale blue hands. She took my chonka, so said tambourine, from the shelf and attached it to my belt. Those pale blue hands rose slowly and brushed with slender fingers a timely march across my yellow green bendo dreen lips. Tingle explode, I whirled to gone.

Harpo, pictured below, was the first chronicler. He dictated his autobiography to Lace, the second chronicler. The first chapter of that memoir is today’s excerpt.

First, I’ll start firstly. Lace, write down everything I say. Yes, even that. What? No. Now, where was I? First? Ah, yes. First, I’ll start firstly. My parents, they were ramblers who tended their herd of fleece and rambled the eastern foothills beyond the Outer Orchards in what was then called the Kingdom of Fiddleeebod with only two e’s. What? F-i-d-d-l-e-e-b-o-d. Got it? I’ll continue. Spring was roam and shear time. Summer was market trade, and every fifth year, RENDEZVOUS. Fall was ramble and search for winter CAVE site. Winter was sit tight and weave. My Moothoo was famous throughout the Kingdom for the fineness of her oatstraw and fleecethread weaves. Her name was Saltwiggle Redbonnet. Fith called her Wiggy. She found her name in the Chasm of Kraan and what a story that was! She told it often – I hear her yet – to my brother and me. We asked for it every night. She pretended to protest, but could not refuse our pleas. Those were times. Yes. What is it, Lace? Yes, I am. Listen.

She followed a wiggle of a stream at night by starglimmer. A shadow dark monster rose dripping from the streambed and roared at her, “HELP ME FIND MY HAT!!” Moothoo was frightened out of her wit. She said she was so young she had just one wit to be frightened out of. I tell you by my well when she made that shadow monster loom up out of the stream, Pep and I were struck rigid every time. When I see myself listening to Moothoo tell the story, I have three bar years and Pep seven. What? Pepperhead Beanpackage. He will be Chapter Two. Now, the hat. The looming shadow turned out to be an extremely upset ogre who had lost her hat.

“If you help me find my hat,” she growled, “I surely will not eat you.”

My Moothoo thought quickly and swung down her pack and assembled her shuttleloom in the nince of a nonce. “I am a famous weaver,” she said.

“If you are famous, who are you?” asked the ogre slyly.

“I don’t know yet. I’m looking for my name,” answered my Moothoo.

“Don’t know your name? Don’t know your name? What possible help can you be to find my hat? I might just as well eat you now,” said the ogre while stamping the ground in frustration.

“I will build you a better hat,” said Moothoo, grinning nervously. She removed her crimson coat, nicked it with her needle, unravelled, ravelled, reloomed, wove and crimped, thread and pose, loom awobble, her fingers flying, shaping crest and crown, sleeve to brim, and the night moved on.

“If by dawn I haven’t my hat, I’ll gobble you up SLURPYSLURP for a snack,” said the ogre, and she sat down glumly with folded arms.

Measuring tape, calculations, Moothoo made a hat. And when orange crept into the sky at dawn, the ogre loomed shadow again, ready to have her snack.

“Well?” demanded the ogre.

“Try it on,” said Moothoo with a shrug, calm on the outside, dancing on flames of fear on the inside.

The ogre felt the fineness of the weave even with the curved and scaly claws of her bony fingers. She placed the hat on her head. It was a bonnet. Red.

“How do I look?” asked the ogre, tying the ribbons into a bow under her hairy chin.

“Wonderful,” said Moothoo. “A picture of glory.”

The ogre preened and smiled, pirouetted, hopped from clawfoot to clawfoot, and sang very badly. Moothoo made us laugh ourselves to dizzy when she took the part of the ogre. Fith would call, “What are you doing? Stop the nonsense! Get to sleep!” Moothoo would giggle with us, and we would go down to sleep. What? Oh. The ogre jumped into the stream and disappeared. Moothoo had found her name. Saltwiggle Redbonnet. Salt? The wiggly stream was salty. The ogre’s new hat was a red bonnet. Saltwiggle Redbonnet. Simple enough.

Now, Fith. Fith’s name was Trumpetbeak Palemittens. He didn’t tell stories. Moothoo called him Trump. When we asked him where he found his name, he said he was too busy to talk. He WAS busy. His shuttleloom never rested when we did. He wore thimbles on all of his fingers and both of his thumbs. He clicketty clacked with needle and thread and even fleeced with his thimbles. Whenever Moothoo went by, he smiled and followed her with his eyes. That was always a good time to ask him a question. A bit at a time, if you could practice patience, sabeek orrun, you might pry some information out of him. For instance, over time, we got him to tell us he found one part of his name at Shangra Pass when he stumbled on a shriekowl’s nest and disturbed its foultempered occupant. The other part he discovered lying abandoned in plain view on an outcropping of splintered shale later that same day. “Did you pass Shangra Pass?” we asked. “Almost,” was his only reply.

Moothoo and Fith. Oats and berries. Morning gruel! Ah, this chapter is long enough. Put down the quill.

The Ledgemoon is a story in which the chapters are like the spokes of a wheel. They go round and round. Lace and Harpo, pupil and teacher, alternate writing the chapters. The story concerns those twins up there, Fiss, on the left, and his sister, Sill, on the right. Excerpt below.

“I want to know. Know,” said Sill, turning to face her brother.

“You want to know what? What do you want to know?” asked Fiss, removing his wig of curly pink hair and tossing it aside.

“How can I know? How? I’ll know when I put my hands on the Ledgemoon. These hands,” said Sill, holding out her ungloved pale green hands.

The brother and the sister, twins, truth to tell, continued to peel off their Acrotwist Clown costumes. They made a pile of discarded slapshoes, pompon hats, frilly white collars, spats, a white puffy shirt with big red spots, a green and red striped puffy shirt with cinched elbows, two pairs of rainbow suspenders, three giant gold safety pins, flowery pantaloons with ribbons, jubbled pantaloons with one blue leg and one yellow, vertical socks with a black and white diamond pattern, pink sag socks, two pairs of white webbed handgloves, one wig of curly pink hair, one wig of frizzed rainbow striped hair, and two candy cane hankies. They knelt down and washed the face paint away with splashes of water from the Bay. What Bay? Fan Wa’s Bay. They stood and stared one at the other and back. Stood and stared. Twins. They wore identical collarless oat gray jumpers with reinforced knees and elbows. Their blue fire hair hung lankly. Lankly hung their blue fire hair in front of their watery sea green eyes. Sill had a habit of raking her hair out of her eyes and over her ears with her web-fingered pale green hands. Fiss never bothered, content to observe the world through the hanging lank blue fire strands.

“Which boots do you want? Which boots?” asked Sill.

“The gold, of course, the gold. What do you think? Are you thinking?” replied Fiss, claiming the springy gold hopperboots and pulling them on over his pale green webfeet.

“Just to be sure. To be sure. A question. Only a question,” mumbled Sill, sliding her own pale green webfeet into the common purple tagboots. “There now, there. We are ready. Ready.”

The twins marched along the silver sands. The moons were double full. Shallow shadows on gentle dunes. A strake of rushes grew down where the beach became rocky with jutting boulders. Fair and true, Sill and Fiss headed directly there. They waded through the waist high reedy rushes, splopping in the muck. Splop. Muck.

“That’s the boulder. That. The biggest one. Big. Mark off the paces. Count them. The paces,” said Sill in her creamy musical voice. Her voice was musically creamy and pleasant to hear.

“I see it. I see it. I’ll count. Count,” said Fiss in his not quite as creamy voice. “One, two, three, four, five, six. Here. I stand here.”

“Yes, yes. I go from … One, two, three, four, five, six. Here. I stand here. Now it should be … It should,” said Sill, craning her neck and squinting with her watery sea green eyes. “There!”

Both twins sploshed through the rushes and found what they’d been seeking. What had they been seeking? Truth to tell, by my well, a raft. A trampoline raft.

Here is a very short sneak peek at the second Bekka chronicle, The Carven Flute. It will be coming soon from Wild Child Publishing.

Many were the mornings I listened content to the Gwer drollek story of the Carven Flute. Gwer drollek is how we bendo dreen say Once Upon A Time. Such is so, a truth. Once Upon A Time stories are the most important of the bendo dreen tales. Bendo dreen is what we call ourselves. In the language from the world down the Well – perhaps yours? – we are bramble dwarves. We dwell in the boundary hedge on the edge of the Woeful Wanderers’ Wasteland by the Boad, all Fidd and Leee Combined, where I, Bekka of Thorns, have earned the title of Chronicler. Thus and so, I write in purple ink on oat parchment paper this new tale of Jo Bree, the Carven Flute. The old time Gwer drollek story of Jo Bree thrilled us. We never tired of its wrinkles and thrusts. My best friend Kar and I ever hung entranced at the troubles and adventures of the lavender witch and her evil sister in the Chack Tree Forest and at the Falls of Horn and in the Meadow of Shells where the Well was formed. Such is why it shocked us to discover the story’s ending was a warm deception, so such a specially woven patterned carpet to cover a fearsome truth. The flute was not stolen, as ever we had heard in the story. No. Something other happened. Such. Now I write the truth in the strange language from the world down the Well. The beginning is the best place to start.

Long before Bekka’s time in the bramble bower hedge on Boad, the first chronicler Harpo wrote a story featuring her distant ancestors. A tale well known to Bekka, it was in fact the direct inspiration for her journey with Kar into the Woeful Wanderers’ Wasteland.

a standard bendo dreen chonka

Jellies, the finest, bowl quivering. Thorns, catalogued and arranged, small to large, thin to thick, and, come to think of it, sour to sweet. Cappmelons, split into crescents, leaking white sugary dribbles onto stony smooth slabplatters. The bower cleared of twigs, swept of leaves, and ready for the dance. Excited bramble dwarves rummaging through nests, donning finest fripperies, pantaloons and all, admiring the perfection of their precious tambourines. chinka. A test. chunkachankle. An answer. Of a sudden, of a moment, the bramble thorn border hedge bursting alive with chankachanka chinkachonk chinkling. The hedge sways. kachunka. The march to the bower. chinklechanka chinklechanka. Nests abandoned. chankle. Bramble dwarves, highbooted, jacketed and pantalooned, tambourines shaking in red gloved hands, wind the paths down thorny briar tunnels in single file columns on their way. On their way where? Why, to the bower. The bower cleared of twigs, swept of leaves, and ready for the dance. chunka chunka chunka. The march. The rhythmic chankling of chinkle. No other sound. Had the Festival of Tambourines gotten off to its traditional start there in the bramble briar border hedge marking the westermost boundary of what then was known as, I do believe, the Queeendom of Fiddleeebod? Yes, on second and third thoughts, I am certain of it. The Festival had commenced, and Fiddleeebod was a Queeendom. I mark the time. It was during the time of the Queeendom. Yes.

It was morning, early morning. Streaky sky. Sunrise. Orange. Purple. The bramble dwarves assembled, circle within circle, there in the spacious, well-prepared bower. Younglings, barely containing their need to leap about and shriek, gazed with shining yellow green eyes at the quivering jellies, the leaking cappmelon crescents, the sweet and sour thorns. Oh, it was hard, hard work to remain standing still. The chankle and the chinkle of the tambourines ceased. The circles stood quiet. Minutes passed. How did they pass? Like hours. A cough here. A throat cleared there. More time passed. What were they waiting for? The creaking of a crank. They waited for the creaking of a crank. The crank creaked. Aha. Lowering from the bower roof came the 5-sided Mirror, spinning slowly. 5-sided Mirror? The 5-sided Mirror, when lowered and spun, signaled the dance to begin. And it certainly would have, had not something else happened at that very same time.

What happened? As the 5-sided Mirror began its descent, a strange figure slipped into the bower and dashed to the center of the bramblewalled room deep in the heart of the hedge. Shocked at the unexpected, even unlawful, downright rude intrusion, the bramble dwarves were rooted in place, transfixed, their yellow green yellow green faces registering alarm. And not only alarm. Dismay, too. Copper colored eyebrows were raised. And when the strange figure tossed aside the hooded Ibbler cloak it had been wearing and showed itself for what it was, the dwarves, as one, shrank back and gasped. Tambourines dropped, all of them, from red gloved limp fingered hands. chanka. Some rolled a few feet before falling chonk. chinkle chinkle chonk.

The third of the ‘thinzers’ written by Harpo tells the story of the young jesterbeast pictured below and features the incredibly regal Quing of Blossom Castle. That’s her below the jesterbeast.

In that long ago time, fair and true, Blossom Castle was a marvel of blooms. A riot of rainbow ivy swarmed its walls and towers. Its entrance was a bound timber gate carven with fanciful leaves and flowers. The pink walls were high and linked the great circle of towers. Inside, the garden beds of the courtyard terraces rose in layers, stacked, up and up to the Gemstudded Pod. Water flowed from terrace to terrace in tiny falls. Carven Dragon Fountains, with jewelled eyes polished to gleaming, gushered plash and burble. The sweet scent of nectar perfumed the air. Zagger red and filter blue, sunyolk yellow and blinding white, flowers massed in hordes unbroken, overflowing every terrace. Ripe orange. Bold purple. Rashes of pink. Gem Studded Pod? A smoothly dome perching on the topmost terrace. A twining path from the bound timber gate led up and up to stone steps, neatly joined, which in their turn climbed to the door of the Gemstudded Pod. Emeralds, diamonds, sapphires, it’s true. Stars, moons and sky depicted. Glitter. Flash in the sunlight. Above the door spelled out in rubies was ‘BLOSSOM CASTLE’. Lovely runes. The door was made of battered silver and pummelled gold. The Quang, Regal in his pummelled silver garb, and the Quing, Royalty Defined in her battered gold array, stood in Receptive Glory in front of the Goldsilver Door.

“I believe it is rude. I said so before, and yes, weighing it and pruning it again, yes, I do believe that it is rude,” said the Quing, tapping her pale blue nose three times with a pale blue finger to emphasize her point.

“Rude? Rude? Hardly the word. Twigwhackslap, the better. At any rate, by any length of stem, a thorn in the eye,” said the Quang, nodding, nodding, nodding.

“We have blossomed well enough without a jest, have we not?” asked the Quing, directing her query to a high distant cloud. Fair and true, by any measure, she raised her face skyward to speak.

“The bud has bloomed. No going back,” sadly stated the Quang, shaking his head. “Look, Petal, the gate, it opens.”

Truth. The bound timber gate was pushed open by a pair of stern-faced gate guarding fleckrunners, a signal for every door in wall or tower to be thrown open. A stream of all the creatures and citizens and guests of Blossom Castle flowed out to take position along the twining path up the terraces to the neatly joined stone steps. Stonejagglers, nestlers, kitchen staves, leaftrimmers, soilsweeps, waterdrippers, younglings and oldlings of every stripe and wiggle, a few miffens, a visiting roamer toting her shuttleloom, two water wizards carrying starred pouches, several varieties of fleckrunner, a bevy of weeders and tenders, and assorted others lined up efficiently and craned necks of various lengths to get a glimpse of the high cobbled road leading to the bound timber gateway. What were they trying to see? The Royally ordained procession returning.

Led by the haughty Zheeon in his battered silver and pummelled gold Robe of State, the nesters marched, left, right, left, their flutes, pangros and ziler held at rest. The sober fleckrunners brought up the rear, carrying the rainbow quilt. What of the monstrous jesterbeasts? They bounded and bounced, springing flips and making faces. Now on the road, now off. Now ahead, now behind. And all the while chirping like skybirds, beeket or hemrunner. Through the open gate they came. Every eye was on them. All mouths were shut. The Quang and the Quing, unmoved, wore frowns. Ziv AND Harlo hopped onto the head of Oppo AND Shell, balancing there on one well-clawed foot. The pair of them grinned, flashing their fangs. They stuck out their long green tongues. Way out. Their creamy green goggle eyes flicked around and flicked around more, taking in all of the colorful gaffus. They trembled in joy and clacked their fangs. The crowds lining the twining path turned mutely for instruction to the Quang and Quing.

“Jesterbeasts,” snapped the Quang.

“Welcome,” snarled the Quing.

As the Quing snarled, Zheeon reached the gate and marched through, followed by the nesters and the fleckrunners. The group halted at a nod from Zheeon. The nesters raised mallets, ziler and flutes. Zheeon nodded again, back and front. The nesters played. They wove a tune, and as they wove, they parted to let the fleckrunners pass by. Zheeon raised six of his hands and swept forward up the twining path. The fleckrunners, almost sneering, but not quite, trailed the haughty crump. Along the path all eyes could not refrain from staring at the bulge of something concealed in the swaying rainbow quilt.

“Well. Zheeon, show us the bud,” said the Quing, after raising a blue hand to quell the music.

“Yes, do. It may be weedy, weedy rude, you know,” said the Quang.

“A full blooming glory to be praised!” sang out the front face of Zheeon. Crump spin.

“Success and happiness!” added the back, now front. Crump spin.

“What good fortune!” gushed the front. Crump spin.

“The egg has hatched,” happily smiled the back, now front. Crump spin.

“No need to wait for a harvesting. We…” began the front.

“WHAT?? HATCHED!! Uproot yourself, Zheeon. Step aside,” interrupted the Quing.

“Fleckrunners! Wither away. Leave the quilt,” ordered the Quang.

Zheeon stepped aside. The fleckrunners dropped the quilt and turned away, suppressing yawns. The Quing and the Quang, hand in hand, descended the neatly joined steps. The Quing nudged the quilt with a battered golden satin slipper. The Quang did the same with a pummelled silver boot. The folds of the rainbow quilt fell away, and there sat the newly hatched jesterbeast youngling.

Harpo’s second ‘thinzer’, The Little Hutter, sees a young hutter maiden dare to visit her banished brother, who broke the supreme hutter rule by speaking his name aloud. Little Hutter is pictured below, wearing her harvest celebration garb.

The eldest hutter maiden busily cleansed her oat comb. The middle youngling tended to the bean patch. The youngest of the three wandered dreamily by herself, whishing swish through the tall grassy grain.

“Little hutter, shouldn’t you be helping middle sister?” called the eldest.

“I told her to wander, sister,” said the middle youngling. “She was sprouting far too dreamy for bean patch work.”

Three hutter maidens, sisters all, there they were on a sunny summer’s day out in the oat fields and out in the patches surrounding the white and red spirals of the conical cottage which was, fair and true, their lives long home. Absent were their parents, gone on a trading trek to Fiddleeebod Castle with a load of ladgecakes and some palmpear pies. The sisters were left on their own to cope and muddle as best they could. They coped and muddled fitfully well. The eldest, a full fifteen of bar years, was dutiful, trustworthy and efficient. She knew her thimbles. The middle, twelve bar years grown, was methodically competent and hard working. Her stitches ran straight. The littlest, the youngest of the three, standing eight bar years tall, was a drifty dreamer who stood and gazed more than enough out across and far into the distant sky above the Orrun Mountains. Her threads were tangled and sometimes lost. She thought things. She wondered where her brother was. What brother? Her banished brother. Banished? Yes. Sent away for speaking his name out loud. Why? Hutters must never speak their names or, truth to tell, reveal them in any other manner you or I or the wittiest water wizard could think of. It was not done. The brother of the three hutter maidens had done it. Banished seven long years in the past to beyond the farthest fringes of the Outer Orchards, the littlest hutter maiden remembered nothing, not the least sliver of nince, about him. She knew him only by tale and teardrop on Mother hutter’s cheek.

“Little hutter, come, it is time for nibblesnack,” called the eldest sister, helping middle sister spread out the checkered cloth.

Little hutter heard her sister’s call, but paid it no heed. She sat surrounded on all sides by walls of grassy grain. In thought she tapped her pale blue cheek with a pale blue finger. Her big brown eyes were raised to the sky. Her straight black hair, parted in the middle, hung lank to the shoulders of her tunic. Tunic and tannerbritches, there she sat, thinking, plotting, planning. She had a secret secret.

“Little hutter! The mollywater is poured! Quell your thirst!” shouted the middle sister.

“Little hutter! Where are you?” shouted the eldest, stamping her booted foot.

When Harpo, the first chronicler, began to go blind, he decided to write shorter tales in order to get more of them completed before he was sightless. He called these chronicles ‘thinzers’. The first one was about a young Nimble Missst, a character so beloved by Bekka that she chose to write a full length chronicle about a later adventure in Nimble Missst’s life. But first, Harpo told the story excerpted below.

Young Nimble Missst

Her grandfather

Nesting in the shadow of Orrun Mountain Crag, a city of domed and spired palaces slept. What city? Cloud Castle City. A city of marble pillars and crystal walls and pulsing gleams of gold and jewels. A city with a sheen of obsidian streets. A wondrous flying city at rest. Streaks of red dawn crept the sky. In the Blue Marble Tower a lone window was lit. One room in the city was awake. Buckletar torches blazed in sconces clinging to rounded blue walls. Assembled on tables were puzzles, dozens, not a piece out of place, crafted complete. Trickfolders were folded, neatly solved. Stackers were stacked, unjumbled, with nary a leftover stick. Seven cubes and a hook and a loop had been formed successfully into an orb. It can’t be done, you say? For you and for me, so true. But for her, it was easy as oats. Her? Her.

On the round blue marble tile floor of the round blue room high up in the Blue Marble Tower of the Sapphire Palace looming in its accustomed place in Cloud Castle City, she sat studying the topmost scroll in a pile of Ancient Orrunian texts. Her startling violet eyes flicked from symbol to symbol looking for patterns. She’d vowed to teach herself at night, while her Grampa slept, the language of Ancient Orrun. Brightest of the bright she was. No puzzle could keep its secret trick locked away from her snapjaw mind. Fair and true, try as they might, they could not do it. And oh, her flame orange hair was green at the roots. Her wings were a feathered pale blue. Curve and bend, they delighted the eye, but sadly, they could not fly. Why? Truth to tell, I do not know. Wings too small, perhaps? Not strong enough to lift the youngling? She stretched her wings and combed them and flapped them from time to time, to be sure, but only to battle boredom. More truth? She was rarely bored. Snapjaw mind. Inquisitive. Her skin was smoke ash green, and her fingers and toes were webbed. Can you guess she was a powerful swimmer? If you can, you guessed well. She swam bang bo nearly as fast as her mother did, but not quite. Wings under water, you see, slowed her down a nince. What else about her? Oh, her name! And oh, shapeshifter! She was the daughter of Rindle Mer, watery woodlock, Restorer of the Woods Beyond the Wood, and Lord Jay Dot of Orrun, a pearly green winged Royal of Cloud Castle City. Her name was Nimble Missst. She was a shapeshifter. What shape could she shift? Her own into a cloud of green mist. Or missst, I could say, and will, from hence to forth. Is that all? I think enough. Wait. A nince more. Daughter of a watery woodlock, granddaughter of a stream,  floating as a cloud of green missst was a natural pleasure for her. She enjoyed seeping. It helped her think. It focussed her snapjaw mind. And more? Is there more? Well, yes. She always wore a simple gray tunic, roamer made, with a groatvine belt. Silks and satins made her yawn. She needed a mere dibble of sleep each night to be perfectly thimble fit. She ate a small meal, ool or kettel, once a month whether she hungered or not. She never drank water, but liked to be in it. Whenever she wasn’t solving puzzles or studying or drifting or seeping, she was most often swimming. She was ten bar years old. She was her Grampa’s delight. He called her the Queeeen of Puzzles.

By my well, as the morning sun flamed the tippy tip tip of Orrun Crag, Old Dabber of the West rap tap tapped on the door of Nimble Missst’s Sapphire Palace room. He was eager to see his granddaughter, his little Queeeen of puzzles.