The Mafia's Quest for the Holy Grail, Chapter One
Title: The Mafia's Quest for the Holy Grail (as narrated by Andy Serkis)
Author: Melisus the Wee (melisus)
Genre: Humor/Parody
Rating: PG
Notes: This is all purely fiction and done in good fun.
What You Need to Know: Billy is referred to as Billeh because we prefer to spell his name how we phonetically pronounce it. Dom is referred to as DOm because there was a member of the SBMB named Dom and we needed to somehow tell the difference between which one we were referring to.
In which the strength of sparrows is heatedly debated.
Chapter Index
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
The Mafia's Quest for the Holy Grail
Chapter One
It was ten o’clock in the morning on October the 24th. Normally this hour of the day would imply that the birds would be out singing, the sun would be shining, and all the lovely things in the world would be going about their peaceful and passive business. This doesn’t make for very good dramatic atmosphere for a serious saga involving a sacred and holy quest though, so it was dark. Thick grey clouds hid the sun from view, casting a mysterious gloom across the land. Mist and fog hung in the low valleys, giving the hint that something dramatic and important was about to happen. Indeed something did happen, but whether or not it was dramatic or important is up to the reader’s discretion.
Out of the mists appeared a lone figure; proud and noble with his head held high. One was left in revered awe until the mists parted revealing not a proud and noble man but Elijah Wood, trotting along gallantly like he was on some sort of an invisible horse. A surly Penny followed behind him, laden down with packs, banging two halves of a coconut together, and muttering how she was going to strangle the author when this story finished.
Lij was on a quest; for what he was not quite sure but for it he needed some knights or a suitable equivalent. Now why Lij decided it was better to wander all over the world instead of going straight to Rohan or Gondor where knights were in large supply is beyond anyone. But then again, one must remember that Lij was a simple-minded hobbit who loved apples, Mav, and shiny things.
Lij continued on his way, happily daydreaming about Mav dressed in something shiny and feeding him apples, ignorant of Penny’s complaining and griping. Being too far off in dreamland, Lij didn’t hear Penny warn him about the wall looming ahead and Lij only discovered it when he rode smack into it.
“You dolt, can’t you see a massive brick wall when it’s right in front of you?” accused Penny, reluctantly pulling the dazed man to his feet.
“It’s a castle!” exclaimed Lij, seemingly unphased by his encounter with brick. He frowned. “Who put this castle here?!”
“Whoever built it, idiot,” grumbled Penny.
Lij dusted off his medieval robes and looked around. No one was in sight. He peered up onto the battlements but couldn’t see anything. So he did the only thing he could think of doing. “Hello?”
Sure enough there was an answer. “Halt! Who goes there?” It was Billeh.
“BILLEH!” grinned Lij. “Hi there!”
“Who’s down there?” called Billeh. “I can’t see a damn thing in this bloody fog!” Billeh stamped his foot and glared at the sky. “What sort of dramatic atmosphere are you creating if two characters can’t even see each other to converse? I mean really, Andy!” He shook his head. “I would have expected better.”
Well fine then. The setting shall be changed. And so the fog lifted a little so Lij and Billeh could see each other, but not before an omnipotent force had thwapped Billeh over the head.
Billeh rubbed his head, grumbling before regaining his composure and getting back into character. “I say again: who goes there?”
“It is I!” replied Lij happily, “Elijah son of Warren of Bag End Under the Hill and Across the Water-” We get it, Lij. We don’t need an entire mailing address. “Official driver of the mafia, bearer of the original One Ring, and lover of all things shiny!”
Billeh stared down at Lij for some time blankly. He was at a loss for what to say and finally decided on a simple “uh huh…”
“I am!” insisted Lij, “and this is my trusted servant-” Penny let out a threatening growl. “…I mean um… caddy-” Penny looked murderous. “This is Penny!” Penny said nothing so Lij continued. “We have ridden the length and breadth of this land in search of the bravest knights and such who will join me at my court!”
“Where is this court?” asked Billeh, taken aback by Lij’s verbal eloquence.
“I haven’t decided yet, but I will know it when I see it!”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” said Billeh.
“That’s what I keep telling him!” interjected Penny.
“First of all,” explained Billeh, who happened to be a lover of logic, literature, and anything else that began with the letter “L,” “how did you ride here when it’s obvious that you have no horse, donkey, goat, cow, or elephant?”
“I have a horse,” replied Lij confidently.
“No you don’t,” insisted Billeh. “Penny’s got two halves of a coconut and she’s banging them together to create some sort of meager sound effect!”
“So?” Lij folded his arms across his chest. “We have ridden since the snows of winter covered the land. Through the kingdom of… Penny, what was that kingdom place called again?”
“Tamar,” was the reply.
“Yes! Tamar! We have ridden through the kingdom of Tamar!”
“Uh huh, and where did you get the coconuts?” asked Billeh.
“We uh… we found them,” Lij replied.
“Oh really? Found them in Tamar did you?” Billeh leaned against the battlements in mild interest. “The coconut’s tropical.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lij.
Billeh rolled his eyes. “This is a temperate zone.” Lij still looked confused. “It means it gets cold here!”
Lij frowned and tried one last time to outsmart Billeh. Summoning up the last of his poetic nerve he launched into verse. “The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin or plumber seek warmer climes in winter, but surely these are not strangers to our land.”
“Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?”
“Not at all,” replied Lij, “they could be carried.”
“What? A swallow carry a coconut?”
Lij hadn’t been thinking about swallows. He had been thinking about trucks delivering the coconuts to grocery stores but what Billeh said was good as well. “Of course! It could grip it by the husk.”
Billeh sighed. “It’s not a matter of where he grips it.” This is of course, assuming the swallow is of the male gender. “It’s a simple matter of weight ratios. A five-ounce bird cannot carry a one pound coconut.”
Lij had been defeated by Billeh’s superior brain and logic. So he did the only thing he could do. Give up and try and retain what little dignity he ever had. “Well it doesn’t matter. Now do you want to join my band of knights? Or is your master home?”
There was a slight pause as a few clouds drifted by overhead lazily. Lij and Penny waited expectantly for Billeh to let them inside. Lij’s bags were very heavy. Billeh, however, had other plans and was still caught up on the entire swallow and coconut.
“Look!” exclaimed Billeh. “To maintain velocity a swallow needs to beat its wings four hundred and ninety-three times every second. Right?”
“Please open the door, Billeh!” begged Penny.
“Am I right?” asked Billeh.
“I’m not interested!” shouted Lij.
“It could be carried by an African swallow!” Lij groaned. Now DOm had joined Billeh atop the battlements. This discussion would never end now.
“Smote them, please?” Lij asked desperately, looking towards the sky.
The answer was a firm no.
“Please, Andy? Please please please please? Just make them stop!”
No, Lij. Go away and be good or someone will be smote and it won’t be a Took or a Brandybuck.
“Mav will kill you if you try anything.”
Only if she finds out.
“Andy!!!”
Can’t stop the precious! Now pipe down! You’re making this more difficult than it has to be. Lij promptly complied and the story continued.
“Oh yes, an African swallow maybe but not a European swallow,” Billeh was saying. “And that’s my point.”
DOm nodded. “Oh yes, I agree there.”
Lij was quickly losing what little patience he had now. Penny had taken off her pack and sat down, resting. “Will you ask the master of the castle if he, she, or it would like to join my court?!”
“But then of course African swallows are non-migratory,” pointed out Billeh. Lij let out a cry of frustration. It appeared he and Penny had been promptly forgotten, the discussion of swallows and coconuts much more riveting. Glaring and grumbling, Lij motioned for Penny to follow and the two of them set off in search of knights. DOm and Billeh didn’t notice. “So they wouldn’t be able to carry a coconut back anyway.”
“Wait a minute!” cried DOm. “Suppose two swallows carried it together?”
Billeh shook his head. “No, they’d have to have it on a line.”
“They could use a bit of vine or something,” suggested DOm.
“What? Held under the dorsal guiding feathers?”
“Well why not?”
>>Chapter 2
Author: Melisus the Wee (melisus)
Genre: Humor/Parody
Rating: PG
Notes: This is all purely fiction and done in good fun.
What You Need to Know: Billy is referred to as Billeh because we prefer to spell his name how we phonetically pronounce it. Dom is referred to as DOm because there was a member of the SBMB named Dom and we needed to somehow tell the difference between which one we were referring to.
In which the strength of sparrows is heatedly debated.
Chapter Index
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10
The Mafia's Quest for the Holy Grail
Chapter One
It was ten o’clock in the morning on October the 24th. Normally this hour of the day would imply that the birds would be out singing, the sun would be shining, and all the lovely things in the world would be going about their peaceful and passive business. This doesn’t make for very good dramatic atmosphere for a serious saga involving a sacred and holy quest though, so it was dark. Thick grey clouds hid the sun from view, casting a mysterious gloom across the land. Mist and fog hung in the low valleys, giving the hint that something dramatic and important was about to happen. Indeed something did happen, but whether or not it was dramatic or important is up to the reader’s discretion.
Out of the mists appeared a lone figure; proud and noble with his head held high. One was left in revered awe until the mists parted revealing not a proud and noble man but Elijah Wood, trotting along gallantly like he was on some sort of an invisible horse. A surly Penny followed behind him, laden down with packs, banging two halves of a coconut together, and muttering how she was going to strangle the author when this story finished.
Lij was on a quest; for what he was not quite sure but for it he needed some knights or a suitable equivalent. Now why Lij decided it was better to wander all over the world instead of going straight to Rohan or Gondor where knights were in large supply is beyond anyone. But then again, one must remember that Lij was a simple-minded hobbit who loved apples, Mav, and shiny things.
Lij continued on his way, happily daydreaming about Mav dressed in something shiny and feeding him apples, ignorant of Penny’s complaining and griping. Being too far off in dreamland, Lij didn’t hear Penny warn him about the wall looming ahead and Lij only discovered it when he rode smack into it.
“You dolt, can’t you see a massive brick wall when it’s right in front of you?” accused Penny, reluctantly pulling the dazed man to his feet.
“It’s a castle!” exclaimed Lij, seemingly unphased by his encounter with brick. He frowned. “Who put this castle here?!”
“Whoever built it, idiot,” grumbled Penny.
Lij dusted off his medieval robes and looked around. No one was in sight. He peered up onto the battlements but couldn’t see anything. So he did the only thing he could think of doing. “Hello?”
Sure enough there was an answer. “Halt! Who goes there?” It was Billeh.
“BILLEH!” grinned Lij. “Hi there!”
“Who’s down there?” called Billeh. “I can’t see a damn thing in this bloody fog!” Billeh stamped his foot and glared at the sky. “What sort of dramatic atmosphere are you creating if two characters can’t even see each other to converse? I mean really, Andy!” He shook his head. “I would have expected better.”
Well fine then. The setting shall be changed. And so the fog lifted a little so Lij and Billeh could see each other, but not before an omnipotent force had thwapped Billeh over the head.
Billeh rubbed his head, grumbling before regaining his composure and getting back into character. “I say again: who goes there?”
“It is I!” replied Lij happily, “Elijah son of Warren of Bag End Under the Hill and Across the Water-” We get it, Lij. We don’t need an entire mailing address. “Official driver of the mafia, bearer of the original One Ring, and lover of all things shiny!”
Billeh stared down at Lij for some time blankly. He was at a loss for what to say and finally decided on a simple “uh huh…”
“I am!” insisted Lij, “and this is my trusted servant-” Penny let out a threatening growl. “…I mean um… caddy-” Penny looked murderous. “This is Penny!” Penny said nothing so Lij continued. “We have ridden the length and breadth of this land in search of the bravest knights and such who will join me at my court!”
“Where is this court?” asked Billeh, taken aback by Lij’s verbal eloquence.
“I haven’t decided yet, but I will know it when I see it!”
“You’re an idiot, you know that?” said Billeh.
“That’s what I keep telling him!” interjected Penny.
“First of all,” explained Billeh, who happened to be a lover of logic, literature, and anything else that began with the letter “L,” “how did you ride here when it’s obvious that you have no horse, donkey, goat, cow, or elephant?”
“I have a horse,” replied Lij confidently.
“No you don’t,” insisted Billeh. “Penny’s got two halves of a coconut and she’s banging them together to create some sort of meager sound effect!”
“So?” Lij folded his arms across his chest. “We have ridden since the snows of winter covered the land. Through the kingdom of… Penny, what was that kingdom place called again?”
“Tamar,” was the reply.
“Yes! Tamar! We have ridden through the kingdom of Tamar!”
“Uh huh, and where did you get the coconuts?” asked Billeh.
“We uh… we found them,” Lij replied.
“Oh really? Found them in Tamar did you?” Billeh leaned against the battlements in mild interest. “The coconut’s tropical.”
“What do you mean?” asked Lij.
Billeh rolled his eyes. “This is a temperate zone.” Lij still looked confused. “It means it gets cold here!”
Lij frowned and tried one last time to outsmart Billeh. Summoning up the last of his poetic nerve he launched into verse. “The swallow may fly south with the sun, or the house martin or plumber seek warmer climes in winter, but surely these are not strangers to our land.”
“Are you suggesting coconuts migrate?”
“Not at all,” replied Lij, “they could be carried.”
“What? A swallow carry a coconut?”
Lij hadn’t been thinking about swallows. He had been thinking about trucks delivering the coconuts to grocery stores but what Billeh said was good as well. “Of course! It could grip it by the husk.”
Billeh sighed. “It’s not a matter of where he grips it.” This is of course, assuming the swallow is of the male gender. “It’s a simple matter of weight ratios. A five-ounce bird cannot carry a one pound coconut.”
Lij had been defeated by Billeh’s superior brain and logic. So he did the only thing he could do. Give up and try and retain what little dignity he ever had. “Well it doesn’t matter. Now do you want to join my band of knights? Or is your master home?”
There was a slight pause as a few clouds drifted by overhead lazily. Lij and Penny waited expectantly for Billeh to let them inside. Lij’s bags were very heavy. Billeh, however, had other plans and was still caught up on the entire swallow and coconut.
“Look!” exclaimed Billeh. “To maintain velocity a swallow needs to beat its wings four hundred and ninety-three times every second. Right?”
“Please open the door, Billeh!” begged Penny.
“Am I right?” asked Billeh.
“I’m not interested!” shouted Lij.
“It could be carried by an African swallow!” Lij groaned. Now DOm had joined Billeh atop the battlements. This discussion would never end now.
“Smote them, please?” Lij asked desperately, looking towards the sky.
The answer was a firm no.
“Please, Andy? Please please please please? Just make them stop!”
No, Lij. Go away and be good or someone will be smote and it won’t be a Took or a Brandybuck.
“Mav will kill you if you try anything.”
Only if she finds out.
“Andy!!!”
Can’t stop the precious! Now pipe down! You’re making this more difficult than it has to be. Lij promptly complied and the story continued.
“Oh yes, an African swallow maybe but not a European swallow,” Billeh was saying. “And that’s my point.”
DOm nodded. “Oh yes, I agree there.”
Lij was quickly losing what little patience he had now. Penny had taken off her pack and sat down, resting. “Will you ask the master of the castle if he, she, or it would like to join my court?!”
“But then of course African swallows are non-migratory,” pointed out Billeh. Lij let out a cry of frustration. It appeared he and Penny had been promptly forgotten, the discussion of swallows and coconuts much more riveting. Glaring and grumbling, Lij motioned for Penny to follow and the two of them set off in search of knights. DOm and Billeh didn’t notice. “So they wouldn’t be able to carry a coconut back anyway.”
“Wait a minute!” cried DOm. “Suppose two swallows carried it together?”
Billeh shook his head. “No, they’d have to have it on a line.”
“They could use a bit of vine or something,” suggested DOm.
“What? Held under the dorsal guiding feathers?”
“Well why not?”
>>Chapter 2