Sitting beside his mother, Scouter could do little but hang his head in agony. Why his family had to humiliate him at every turn of the trail, he did not know. It had all begun many turns back, before his birth. Several events which he had no control over now haunted him with every passing hour. Feeling sick of it all, he kicked the ground, but only succeeded in unearthing a cockroach.
Meanwhile, One-Eye was in his usual mood: awful. He tended to mumble... a lot. Few elves ever paid any attention to him. Since he was quoted with saying, "Another day, another dumb human," "I never liked this in the first place," and even "My life is falling apart even as I speak," he was unanimously hated by others.
To be direct and honest, the malfunctional family probably would have just stayed there. But then a familiar green-clad Wolfrider started to descend from the cliffs. She called out to them, "You can't just stay here ALONE FOREVER!"
"Just watch us, why don't you," grumbled One-Eye, but he was wisely ignored.
Scouter sprang to his feet, glad to be relieved of taking care of his relatives. "Where to? Where to??" the youth exclaimed, jumping and twirling a full 360.
The one comment that came from the mouth of Clearbrook was, "Huh?!" It was only excusable because she was currently high on water (or maybe the frog).
Hardly even blinking, Nightfall continued, "Like I just found out, this place is called Sorrow's End, whatever that means. It's inhabited by a bunch of weird pacifist elves, but I guess it's better than walkin' through this on our nameless wolves. So c'mon, you deadbeats."
Though Scouter was already on his way up, it took more than a little time before his deranged parents struggled to their feet. One of them could not refrain from editorializing ("Tomorrow's end... it comes too dang soon, you know."), but in due time Nightfall dragged them into the realm of the Sun Folk.
***
Around the same time, Sun-Toucher was stumbling around as he "examined" the Wolfriders.
The vision-impaired elf struck them as a poor chief, or even leader-figure, for he needed Rayek's
help just to be steered around. He would pat each elf's head (or somewhere in the vicinity), and
say something silly like, "Um, uh, this one's female - oops, sorry, I meant male. And your
name is... Mike. What? You say Pike? Oops again, not my fault." His routine went on for
over an hour, and by the time he was finished, all the Wolfriders who had been present had
major knee pains.
As the Sun Folk's leader concluded his little ritual, Scouter lead the pack of missing ones. The first remark he made upon seeing the village was, "What's up with that central hut? There's some kind of weird symbols on it... it looks like a bunch of--naked elves." [Author's note: Yes, I know Geocities policies. I'm just stating a fact, this is not dirty, and I'm not showing anything. Now be quiet!]
"It's cultural," retorted Rayek, "And it's not my fault." Needless to say, or send, he was still bitter about what he now called the "Shenshen incident." He was keeping a very good watch for that infamous female.
Nightfall, slightly taken aback, stated, "I don't suppose I missed much while I was gone," examining the crowd of exhausted, aching, sunburnt Wolfriders.
"To be brutally honest, no," declared Dewshine, her pride shining like a lighthouse. She boldly went up to Scouter and all-too-conspicuously asked, "I would have to wonder, however, what could be in this 'cultural' hut? It must be something interesting..."
As Scouter's father grumbled and swore to himself about his cub's poor choice in a lovemate, Sun-Toucher finally caught up to what was happening there. The Sun Folk elder pompously replied to the touristy question, "Ah, the grand central hut! Yes, yes, that is the home and permanent residence of the Mother of Memory, Savah the great." He stood facing the wrong direction, but at least his arms were down just in case one of them would have had a camera along with them.
Rayek would normally have tolerated this kind of fluff-talk, but he saw a certain someone coming his way at near-lightspeed, and so he evacuated the area without a word. The dust clouds he left behind only obscured Shenshen's vision for a moment, and she was hot on the trail again.
One Wolfrider was not terribly amused with all this strangeness. Skywise said, surprisingly practical all of a sudden, "If we wanted to see this Mom of Memory, this Savah, I'm sure that she could just as easily come here to meet us."
Cutter interjected a little reminder to help his soul bro': "We've come this far... best to play along with them, you know. Not a whole lot of that desert's real good for a holt." The chief neglected to look at the ground then, for along came a massive lizard, right across his feet.
***
Back by the old holt, though, things were almost even stranger. Foxfur had agreed to bring two
of her "unexpected friends" out for her guests to meet. She told the two males, "This
is Dobil the 'Go-Back.'" The silly-looking elf waved feebly to Redlance and Rain. Foxfur
forcefully continued, "He claims to be from an obscure tribe of elves in a frozen wasteland, or
something like that. Between the three of us, I think he's an idiot. However," she mentioned,
and though Dobil was still waving his right hand, Foxfur scooted a young female elf who was clad
in a blue tunic, and stated, "And this is Stormbringer, or 'Stormie,' as she likes to call
herself. She is the product of the time when the 'Dark Days' started to really kick in - six
turns ago, I think - but it's best not to talk about that now. What's going on with you two?"
"I'm the only 'possible' character around here, I guess," nervously mentioned Redlance, whose life was getting much more complicated by the second, "But I see no reason to just bum around here. Why can't we go looking for the other Wolfriders?"
Rain began, "Well, that's part of the whole secrecy deal--" but Foxfur stopped him with a kick in the pants. She instead said, "We, the 'formerly dead,' have our own culture around here. I think you will enjoy it here if you stay, and join the rebel Wolfriders," she noted with a wicked smile.
The red-haired Wolfrider groaned. He had no choice in this.
And so all five went inside Foxfur's oddly shaped hut. Things could only get more normal from this point forth...
***
But as the Wolfriders entered the courts of Savah's chamber, the Mother of Memory happened to
be sending privately with Rayek. She demanded of him, **What do you MEAN, cancel the Flood and
Flower Festival again?! There has to be a good reason for your little orders this time, Rayek!"
she sent to the elf who was but a few Elf-Widths away.
Rayek refused to negotiate. He sent in reply, **Maybe I don't like your stupid festivals. The Wolfriders will like them far less, and one can only guess how they might profane them. So take this as an advance warning, Savah!**
Though she was about to fire back at him, and share her true thoughts, she was rather rudely interrupted by Rayek sending suddenly, **Aaah! Save me from HER!** He was referring, of course, to his frightening lifemate-to-be, who had finally caught him.
Savah quietly laughed at the hunter's failure, but then she noticed a crowd of strange elves marching up toward her. "Sorry to keep you waiting," she said lightly, "And what do we have here?"
What sort of question was that? Cutter, unnerved, answered to the best of his ability: "Well, we're in the World of Two Moons, in some place called Sorrow's Block... no, End; it's the middle of the day, and we're the Wolfriders. Anything else you want to know?" he asked, not really expecting a reply.
"Yeah," Savah said in a stilted voice, "When was the last time you elves washed?"
Moonshade was quick on the draw this time. "Three moons, four days, five hours, six minutes, and - just now - seven seconds. To be exact, naturally," she said coquettishly.
The Mother of Memory snorted. "Get out of my presence until you smell at least a little less like zwoot dung! Now! I mean it! Off the carpet!" she declared, and literally threw Pike out of the room, for he was not sober enough to move. The Wolfriders then wisely took her advice, and headed off to the local pool.
***
Rayek, at last, was alone. What was a much-abused Sun Folk hunter to do? Shenshen had chased him
all around and through the village, Savah was blowing him off, Leetah was about as apathetic as
always, and even Zhantee had something more important to do. Realizing the sheer irony of his
situation (after all, he was the best), Rayek concluded that the one thing he must do was set a trap
for all the others - and publically humiliate them! But how would he go about doing this? His
so-called lifemate would be the hardest, so he chose to save her for last. He perched on top of the
mountain on the "safe" side of the Bridge of Density to think, and remained there until the darkness finally settled in,
and he had decided.
The next day, while the Wolfriders were getting settled in their new cave homes, Rayek happened to drop by a cave where Cutter and Skywise were bantering. You shall play my game tonight, he told himself, and silently placed a metal needle into Skywise's left hand. The Sun Folk slithered out, barely not laughing, as the Wolfrider dropped the object at Cutter's feet...
Also Available: Chapter 4: A Most Interesting Rivalry.
No Escape from Geocities...
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_Elfquest_ is copyright 1978-1998 Warp Graphics. "The ElfQuiz Parody" is intended as satire and should not be misconstrued as an actual work of Warp Graphics or its employees. This is a not-for-profit fan site, and its contents are not endorsed by Warp Graphics. Any resemblance between fictional characters and any actual persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental. This page was last modified March 13, 1998, by John Alan "Merejez" Riggs. I cleaned up a little error in the last paragraph, a single quotation mark, and a slight spelling error. Sorry 'bout that.