Wakey wakey

Baughb couldn't take it anymore. The rumbling noise was worse than an army of cave dwelling trolls digesting a late night dinner of slop and beans. When they had worked out the sleeping arrangements, he hadn't taken into account the noise a satyr makes snoring.

Baughb buried his head in his pillow, then got hooved off the side of the mattress when Zeff kicked in his sleep. Again.

Enough was enough. Still scrunching his eyes, Baughb pulled one of the sheets behind him and stumbled down the hall, back to the master bedroom. He homed in on his bed by instinct, forgetting that it was full of faeries and mermaids. Thoe was softly ribiting in her sleep. Prymno was as quiet as a corpse. He settled in on something soft and furry. His head came to rest in between what felt like two very large, very soft pillows. He was faintly aware of the sound of a cat purring in his ear. Psekas felt something warm against her, and pulled the elf closer.

TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP.

Ryley mumbled in her sleep. "Get that willya, Val," she murmured. "Zyour turn tupay, Ryley," Val muttered back.

TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP.

Ryley groaned and pulled herself upright, and tottered to the sunlit window, wearing Baughb's nightshirt. It was the middle of the afternoon, but it had been quite a night. She leaned out, with Baughb's big floppy red nightcap bobbing around her face, and tried to open her eyes. She began to dimly focus on the blonde elf maiden glaring at the front door.

"Filis," she squeaked. Her eyes popped open, and the shutters slammed shut. Filis looked up crossly at the noise.

TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP TAMP.

Filis yelled at Baughb to open the door. Her decibel level built up to critical mass, and she let out a deafening NOW!

"Baughb, wake up," Ryley hissed, shaking him violently. She grabbed him by the leg and dragged him out of Psekas' soft grasp. Psekas instinctively tried to pull him back, but he was already gone. She rumbled in her sleep and turned on her side, her pillows avalanching onto Val, who thought she was being buried in teddy bears.

Baughb suddenly found himself awake, lying on the floor again. "Whu," he said. "Oh, Ryley. Is it morning already?"

"It's Filis, Baughb. Filis."

Baughb yawned, a big, healthy, gaping yawn. "Who?" He was already nodding back to sleep. Ryley shook him again. "It's Filis," she whined.

Baughb blinked, trying to wake up. "Oh," he said. "Sorry. I thought your name was Ryley. I'm a little goofy in the mornings. Been through the faerie gate one too many times, you know. Sometimes I forget who I am, even."

"No, Baughb," Ryley interrupted. "It's Filis at the door. You've got to go answer it."

Baughb staggered down the stairs. He was having a hard time putting one foot in front of the other, because he was distracted by the loud rapping.

"You idiot," Filis said, looking over the elf at the open door. "Everybody thinks you're missing, and you're here the whole time. And who was that I saw in your window?"

"Do I know you," Baughb asked. "You look familiar."

Filis shoved past him into his parlor.

At the top of the stairs, the faeries peeked. "Filis," Val whispered in a panicked tone. "We gotta hide!"

"What's all the ubbub-hay," Zeff asked, suddenly appearing behind them, pulling his shirt on. Ryley brightened, happy to see him for the first time, ever. Zeff found himself roughly pushed out onto the stairwell by four arms. He looked back, and Val and Ryley both shooed him with their hands. "Oh, yeah," he said. "I remember." If anybody asked, he and the girls were sleeping over because their house had been destroyed in the big forest fire the night before. Not complicated, completely innocent. No uss-fay, no uss-may. No need even to pretend that Val and Ryley weren't there. Baughb promised that the best lie is the truth, properly choreographed.

After hopping down the stairs, Zeff greeted the non-plussed elf maiden with a big handshake, and promised her that there weren't any faeries or mermaids around at all. That's right, Baughb said nervously. Why would there be? He kicked Zeff in the leg, getting him back for the night before.

Ryley vs Prymno

Flame-haired Ryley rocketed through the smoke, still searching for any sign of movement. Her only hope was that the column of fire she had ignited through the forest would force the big blue mermaid back in the other direction, back towards the hovel.

Baughb called out to Prymno to keep close behind; they had to make it to the clearing. But the smoke was too thick, and they lost each other. Baughb cursed himself for not holding her hand, and doubled back to find her.

But it was Baughb who had veered off course, and Prymno quickly stumbled into the clearing, blearing and curraughing. Then, she went tumbling to the ground when doubled fists hit her from behind.

"Got you," Ryley crowed, as she swooped back around for another shot. "Tell me where Baughb is, or I'll fry you to a cinder."

Prymno couldn't breathe. Sprawled on the ground, all she could do was lash out with several arcing veins of electricity.

"Holy mother of," Ryley started cursing, performing some extreme gymnastics to keep from getting sheared by the electricity. Her wings could grow back, but not fast enough in a fight. She countered with a volley of fire that sent the big blue mermaid scrambling back to her feet and back to the forest.

"Uh uh." Ryley grunted and touched down onto the ground to push herself forward, fast, tackling the tall sea creature. Feeling herself grappled, Prymno burst like an electrified fence, sending a singed faerie flailing back onto the ground behind her.

Val screamed, watching from the doorway of the hovel.

Prymno rose to her full height, stumbled, then turned to run, once again. She had been lucky, so far. The power of a faerie was not to be taken lightly, and a fish was no match for fire.

But she stumbled back again, when a wall of flame suddenly ramped around her, shutting off escape from all directions. The menacing fire faerie glowered at her with eyes burning like suns, and strode through the fire to finish her off. As she passed through the wall, she seemed to become pure fire herself.

Prymno was on her knees. She couldn't cry, because her eyes were dry from the smoke. She couldn't ask for mercy, because she couldn't breathe. She crumpled to the ground, waiting to die.

"For the last time," Ryley said, with a voice ringing through hell, "where is the elf?"

"Help," a distant voice called. "I'm pinned under a tree, somebody help!"

"Oh, no," Ryley said. "It's Baughb."

Prymno was still huddled on the ground when Baughb ran up from behind, keeping low. "Come on, Prymno, quick--take my hand."

Prymno didn't hear at first; she had already prepared herself for death, and was thinking of nothing else but her lost child.

"Hurry, Prymno, while she's looking for me."

Prymno blinked, and the blurry shape of Baughb's hand appeared before her.

Baughb put her arm around his shoulders and helped the big mermaid as best he could. She was near collapsing from the heat. He called out to Zeff the satyr, still sitting on the bank of the frozen creek, to find some water, and to find it fast. There was a mixture of urgency and threat in Baughb's voice that sent the layabout scrambling as he had never scrambled before. He would be back with a bucket of well water in no time flat.

Val pointed Baughb towards the bed, what was left of it. As he eased Prymno down, Baughb worried about the ice, but Prymno told him that it felt good. She needed something cold against her, and she was already starting to get her voice back.

"I'm confused," Val said, "who's going to eat who again?"

Ryley put out her inferno as fast as she could. It took longer to tamp it back down than it did to spread it. But she couldn't stop fretting, because she still hadn't found Baughb. Maybe she had killed him. She sat down on a log and cried. There was nothing left of her fire but a few smoldering ashes.

With a heavy sigh, she plodded back to the hovel. She didn't feel like flying, anymore. Her wings even drooped on the ground behind her. When she reached the clearing, Val was already there to meet her, wearing a party dress.

"Ryley, Ryley," Val sung at her, trying to get her attention. Ryley just plodded on. "I've got something to tell you, and I've got to tell you before you go in, because-if-I-don't-tell-you-before-you-go-in-you-might--"

At the doorframe, Ryley looked up. The hovel had been reduced to almost nothing but a junkyard on a house frame. Worse, there seemed to be a loud party in full swing, on what was left of her furniture. Three carousing mermaids, a lazy satyr, and a floppy-hatted elf were eating and drinking from fragments of plates and cups.

"Oh, Ryley," Baughb called out, cheerfully. "Did Val get a chance to tell you?"

Ryley felt something in her face twitch.

Ryley's gambit

Baughb listened to the mermaid's story, humoring her at first. Her name was Prymno Gelatta, the product of genetic engineering by mermen scientists. She was part mermaid, part electric eel, part killer whale. She was an experiment gone wrong, by the reckoning of the scientists who tortured her night and day.

As soon as she could, she escaped the grasp of the underwater world and found a life for herself in a seaport in the south. She made love to many Greek sailors, who treated her not like a monster, but like a goddess. Her hair was beautiful, then, wavy, and held high in a gold band. She became pregnant, and bore a human child, but she was soon found out by paid henchmen and returned by force to Atlantis. In chains, she wept over her lost baby ever since, comforted only by her fellow prisoners, who had their own stories to tell.

Queen Leukothea had given them this chance to win their freedom. But Prymo didn't altogether trust her.

"It is not just that the Queen is capable of lies and capricious whims," Prymno said. "She is not as powerful as she supposes. The mermaids who serve her scheme and betray her at every opportunity. No one can be trusted."

"Then why go back," Baughb asked.

"There are no safe havens for us," Prymno said. "Mermaids are stationed all along the coast, waiting for us to return with our prize."

The wheels in Baughb's mind were spinning, and he couldn't stop them even if he wanted to. And, somehow, he couldn't stop his mouth, either. "You'll have to stay here, then."

"But--your faerie lover--"

"She'll get over it. I'm not going to let that mob get anything they want. Not even you. In fact, I've got half a mind to let them take me, so I can deal with this 'Leukothea' myself."

Prymno still wasn't sure if she had heard right.

"That smell," Baughb said, "it's getting stronger. It's almost like--" He leaned out from underneath their hiding place and looked.

"Great toad," Baughb shouted. "The whole forest's going up in smoke!"

Valencia's ice hammer smashed through the front wall and narrowly missed cracking Psekas' head, busting through the upended table, instead. "Drat," Val shouted, catching the hammer on its return. "That really was a miss."

Thoe was scrambling in circles. "Run, Thekath, run!"

Psekas, also running in circles, demanded to know where. The hammer crashed through the wall again, and the two screaming mermaids had no choice but to tumble into the creek behind the hovel, with arms and legs and breasts flailing.

They both bobbed right back up, wet and cold and miserable. "Thekath! Thekath! I thtill got my legth! Look!" Psekas was delighted. She still had hers, too.

Then, a sudden cloudburst.

Val leaned over the back end of the house, smiling. Her hair and eyes were no longer terrifying white, but soft violet. "It's not salt water, sillies. Even I know mermaids have to hit salt water to get their fins back. This is just plain creek water."

"Oh, that right," Psekas said.

"Thekath--"

"Just like bath. Psekas forget."

"Thekath, you dummy, pay attenthun--"

"What? What, stupid frog? What so important that--ROWR! Pskeas can't move!"

"That'th what I'm trying to tell you, you big dummy," Thoe cried. "We're thtuck in thith great big block of ithe."

Valencia was immensely pleased with herself. She never meant to hit the mermaids with the hammer at all; she only had to freeze the creek after forcing the mermaids to jump in. She couldn't wait to tell Ryley.

Turning back around, her smile vanished. She hadn't even stopped to think how much destruction she was causing with the hammer. Not only was the front wall riddled with gigantic holes, she had also managed to destroy what little was left after the mermaid vandalism. What remained of the hovel groaned, as if it were about to keel over and die.

Val put her hands up to her face. "Oh," she whinnied, "what am I going to tell Ryley?"

Ice ice baby

Ryley soared over the treetops, flame licking behind her. Somehow she had lost Baughb and the big blue mermaid. Think, Ryley, think. Where were they headed? To the ocean? To some prearranged rendezvous in a nearby village or town? And she had no way of knowing if the blue mermaid would wait for her companions or not. There was only one thing she could do. One desperate gambit.

Zeff crawled out of the creek, soaked to the marrow. He felt the freezing wind blow past him, and saw the creek begin to surge and swell. A cloud billowed out of the back of the hovel and burst. Dude, he said to himself.

"Yowr!" After the cloud burst, there was the sound of falling hail, and the feathers around Psekas' head froze all around her in a shiny canopy. When she moved her arms, it all cracked apart and fell unpleasantly on her head.  "Look at pillow," she said, trying to pull at it. "It froze. How it get so cold in here?"

"The thilverware ith all thtuck together with ithe, too," Thoe said. "It'th that faerie'th doing. Let'th get her!" Psekas nodded assent, and the two mermaids lunged forward at Valencia. Thoe's foot hit something round, and she slipped and somersaulted backwards. At the same time, Psekas bounded onto the floor, and found herself balancing with one foot on a round, icy marble. The floor was full of them! She tried the other foot, and found another marble. She fell forward, trying to use her front paws to get better traction, but she just kept hitting marbles, and found all four of her paws and her two monstrous breasts scrambling in a mad frenzy.

"I'll be waiting for you outside," Val said, cheerily waving at them, as she stepped lightly back out the front door. "Playtime's just getting started."

"Ooooowwwoooo," Thoe moaned, rubbing her round backside. "Thith jutht ithn't my day."

With another howl, Psekas crashed.  She lay face down on the uncomfortable marbles, breathing heavily. "Elf right," the mermaid said, "Psekas would be happy lounging on flat rock. Legs not all cracked up to be."

"We thimply haff no thoithe, though, do we?" The two crawled across the ice to the doorframe. It was slow going, because the marbles still rolled underneath them, and their overly voluptuous bodies only complicated matters. But Valencia stood outside, cheering them on, waving them to keep coming. Then, all the marbles simply began rolling back outside, out the back and into the creek.

The mermaids exulted, figuring that Valencia's paltry magic had worn off. Psekas leapt to her feet. "Me first!" she howled, bounding at the doorframe, with Thoe close behind. 

Psekas crashed full-on, like a smashed bug with huge breasts,  against the  invisible wall of ice that was blocking the door, and Thoe and her equally huge breasts smashed right up behind her. They both fell back on the  hardwood floor as Val waved the ice block back out of the way. Valencia congratulated herself out loud on the fine craftsmanship of her ice sculptures. Making art with ice was about all she knew how to do, but it was through constant practice that she learned how to make the ice smooth enough to be almost invisible.

"And I'll show you another trick," Val said, waving the ice block down hard on the ground. It snapped in two, and fell away, leaving a smaller, more sophisticated ice sculpture inside. It flew into her hand, and she reared back and threw it at them. "Hammer of Thor!" she roared.

The two mermaids gasped and scrambled back out of the way as the spinning hammer flew into the door, narrowly missed them, and boomeranged back into Val's grasp. "That was just a warning shot," Val said. "This is even better than the Hammer of Thor. It's made of  ice, and you're not. This," she said, brandishing it proudly, "is a heat-seeking hammer."

Homewreckers

Baughb's bluff had worked. "Let me save you," he had whispered to the tall, blue mermaid. "There's a powerful faerie in that cottage, and she demands that I kill you three in order to prove my love. She's already angry that I haven't killed your friends, yet."

Startled, Prymno had looked towards the hovel and saw Rylie glowering at them from the doorframe.

"We have to run, and run as fast as we can."

Prymno had no need for further argument. She had scooped Baughb up in her arms and drove her strong legs through the foliage so fast that it knocked the breath out of him, forcing a whoop from the surprise of being carried.

As soon as he had made sure his floppy hat was still on, he navigated his mermaid round trees and outgrowths and down through a ditch, and finally into a dark cul-de-sac, where they both scrambled under a dead log.

Baughb had counted on using the ruse to gauge the blue mermaid's confidence in her powers. She must have been far less powerful than he figured, judging from her lack of composure. She was wild-eyed like a hunted animal, and didn't need to be told to be quiet. He put his arm around her back, and his other hand on her closest shoulder, and she trembled as a roar of fire flew through the forest. Ryley put on quite a show, and Prymno could see the fiery wings as they soared by.

Baughb was a little angry with himself for feeling sorry for her. It would make it more difficult to kill her. He knew he would have to, since the faeries had no stomach for it.

Prymno whispered hoarsely. "I thought--I thought the faeries were all dead and gone."

"They came back," Baughb lied, "came back with me. And they're not about to let me go without a fight."

"My friends," Prymno said. "Will she kill them, too? They're slow and stupid, but they're all I have."

"What are they to you?" Baughb asked. "They failed you."

"No," Prymno said. "We all gain our freedom, or we don't. I've failed them."

Back at the hovel, Zeff the satyr had taken the intelligent coward's way out, splashing, swimming, and sputtering down the creek, away from the hovel. But the cat girl and frog mermaid didn't even bother to give chase, contenting themselves instead with smashing everything inside the house they could get their hands on.

"The plates!" Val shouted. "Not the plates!"

Psekas was tearing the bed sheets to shreds, and Thoe had found a particularly beautiful piece of china, snatched from the cupboard and held high in the air, when Val flashed in through the front door. "You--you tongue freak, that's Ryley's favorite. You put that down." With a satisfied grin, Thoe put it down as hard as she could, and smashed it to little bits on the hardwood floor. Val screamed. Psekas finally discovered the goose-down pillows, and was tearing the feathers out, laughing as they floated around her head.

"That tears it," Valencia said, trembling. "You've violated the sanity of our little home." It was time to improvise. A cold gust of wind flew down the creek and in through the back of the house. "I think I heard somewhere," Val said, her violet hair and eyes turning deathly white, "that invention is a mother. Well, I'm that mother!"