For example, Dirant tried this gambit. “Wiuyo cannot be the name of any human who ever lived.”
Wiuyo responded with this. “Are your friends ogres?”
The question had more relevance than he liked. The party had surmounted a small rise, the most picturesque terrain element so far encountered on the journey, and from there observed a scene appropriate for inclusion in a series of stories to tell children who believed, and reasonably so, that words unaccompanied by pictures belonged in technical texts only. The typical Adaban would be inclined to refer to the four creatures seen from there as giants, though perhaps an ogre was nothing but an ugly giant. They certainly were ugly. The tumult they were generating was as loud as four ogres; to hear them was to conclude other cacophonies were best compared to them rather than the reverse.
The raucous figures surrounded an object of great interest, peculiar enough to attract some of the attention initially captured by the ogres. It was a four-walled cottage, and the walls had these qualities: One was of marble, one of iron, one of silver, and the last shining gold. The first might be explained by supposing a person of affluence wanted a rural retreat without sacrificing opulence, but the rest established it as a setting for a fairy story.
The ogres inexplicably were not tearing down the cottage and making use of the parts to secure their retirements. Instead they engaged in a great deal of roaring, banging, and falling to climb up the smooth walls, for it was a strangely tall cottage when one noticed how it measured against the ogres or the typical Adaban. Up on the roof sat the typical Adaban.
“Mr. Aptezor,” Dirant observed, “is in a predicament.”
“The word for it,” Taomenk agreed.
“So will we be if they notice us,” Yurvitas emphasized, though he stayed to watch as much as any of the others. How could they do otherwise? There was Aptezor Ristaofen atop a marvelous enchanted cottage, fit to be a model for a study named by its artist “The Forlorn Young Gentleman,” while monsters on every side scrambled up and grabbed at the air as close to him as they could contrive. They would never touch him, but he would never leave unless he decided he might as well feed someone else before he starved himself. It was a scene to arrest the mind and excite the emotions, and it demanded a response.
“A folktale relates to this circumstance.” Ordinarily Dirant would not allow a source of that nature to guide his actions, he hoped despite doing exactly that the first time the possibility arose. Doubt about his own judgment caused him to speak in a speculative manner when in fact he was proposing a definite plan.
“I know the one.” Taomenk had no such doubt.
Yurvitas examined his companions minutely, decided he was the fastest runner among them, and opted to cooperate. “We have that same story, more or less. I presume we invented it.”
“I'll take engineer iron. Mr. Dirant can have business silver. Mr. Yurvitas will have his gold today. That's enough. Leave the fairies carefree.”
“I'm very troubled,” Wiuyo asserted in contradiction despite all the available evidence, from her expression to her approving voice. “Is that one of your friends? You have to tell me what you're doing. Nobody likes half-finished lyrics.”
“But that's the fashion in Yean Defiafi right this moment,” Yurvitas averred. “The singer trails off halfway through as if overcome by emotion, and the critics, what is this I'm babbling? Gentlemen, bravery has its demands.”
The three who suffered from complications related to bravery split up in order to sneak behind the ogres while behind them one of the digger fairies remarked, “Oh, they're going to save the other one. I haven't seen a human in so long, I forgot they care what happens to their species-mates.”
“Not always, though. As the mood takes them.”
“Don't they have complex societal groupings that determine that kind of thing?”
“That's the claim, but I don't get it. I think it's all fake.”
The implications for fairy society challenged the imagination, but not of the sneakers. They were busy. The demands of bravery were levied directly on Dirant's heart to judge from the way it was beating while he walked, crouched and careful of his footing. Of course he understood the ogres were unable to hear the actions of his organs and instructed himself to stop worrying they would give him away, but he did wonder if his insides would ever return to normal. He suspected not.
This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
He also suspected, a consideration more favorable from his perspective, that in the event the ogres detected him, they would nevertheless persist in their efforts to apprehend Aptezor. The four ogre brothers in the story combined stubbornness and stupidity as a lesson to children who later learned of the wonderful power of tenacity and not overthinking from the memoirs of successful businessmen. It was for that reason one writer proposed the elimination of all current books for children as a means of increasing economic productivity. Replacements which taught lessons more appropriate for the modern financial environment could by employing modern methods be created and distributed quickly enough that no child would have to suffer from fiction deprivation.
Regardless of the proposal's merit or the motive behind it (that writer owned a publishing company), reflecting on it allowed Dirant to think louder than his heart was beating. Gratitude for that increased his respect for the theorist, though not to the extent of convincing him to buy stories with replacement morals. He was acting in accordance with as much virtue as he cared to possess right then, and the experience did not delight him.
The cottage had around it elements of scenery scattered without regard for their practical functions. Dirant reached his assigned position behind a convenient pile of hay which a touch revealed to be a roll of shaggy carpet, crouched, waited for Taomenk to get to the yellow wagon (Yurvitas was already behind his boulder, bored), and then called out the line as he remembered it.
“My friend, my friend! Your brother will reach it before you! His legs are so long!”
> +1 bonus to Panache gained.
Variations evidently existed. Taomenk commented on the length of the brother's fingers. The Yean Defiafi version differed still more. “Master, have you got it yet? Master, where is your brother? What is that in his hands?” Yurvitas invested those specious questions with such subservience as to prove everything he claimed about the social graces.
Details notwithstanding, the substance of the story persisted across borders, including those which separated the guest and fairy worlds from the normal. The three ogres so addressed bellowed uncouth threats of the sort a gentleman might say but never repeat and went after their brothers with the result that soon all four were enwrapped in a single bundle of fists and bruises.
The rescuers ran to the cottage. “Mr. Aptezor, come down! Wait. How are you to get down? How did you get up?” Dirant backed away and inspected the smooth, cold iron.
Aptezor's head popped over the side. “I kicked away the ladder. Over that direction. It's unbelievable that someone came for me. Thank you. I . . . thank you.” His rescuers forgave his failure of eloquence which had an obvious cause in that he started sobbing. They forgave him for that also, since almost being killed by monsters was considered in Greater Enloffenkir one of the few acceptable excuses for exhibiting such violent emotion in public, right below seeing someone else be killed by monsters and above killing a monster for the first time. Moreover, finding and propping up the ladder occupied them entirely.
Soon the four were hustling across the horrible landscape, Yurvitas unafraid to take the lead. They picked up the fairies and kept going without a single delay until they had crossed another obstacle, this one a canyon, by entering, crossing, and leaving more isolated ruins.
“These obstacles are conveniently placed,” Yurvitas said, at last sufficiently removed from danger to become suspicious about something else. “Coincidence is too mild a word if every one of them has its corresponding cavern like a boat has its oars.”
Taomenk sat down, decided that to be too conservative, and laid himself out on the clay. “Ah, there's a relationship for certain. I don't think it's malicious any more than when a road hits a hill and the grade goes up. It's a consequence.”
Aptezor was able to wait that long to express his gratitude in all its fullness, but no longer. He bowed so often and deeply that his top half threatened to separate from his bottom, and his offer to write favorable articles about his saviors interested all three of them, though writing and publishing are far different things. At the very least, a single article about the incident was likely.
“Provided of course it is possible to persuade your editor of the legitimacy of this fairy nonsense, which even I must treat as nonsense despite being in the midst of it,” Dirant warned. “Before that fort is stormed however, you must do your job of informing the public. What explains the presence of a ladder at all? And such.”
“The sole entrance to the cottage is in the ceiling. I presumed that to be the reason, but I may be mistaken.”
“The marble side had a door,” Yurvitas objected.
“It is purely decorative.” That intelligence surprised the listeners more than the existence of the wondrous cottage. While a fairy dwelling might not have a standard entrance, in such a case a portal usually opened in response to a particular phrase or deed. “The inside is decorative also. There are no furnishings of any kind nor any safe way down from the attic. I was attempting to pull up the ladder to use it to explore when the ogres came, for my rescue from which I haven't yet thanked you gentlemen.”
“But you did,” Taomenk reminded him.
“Not enough.”