Location: Stoneshower | Tag: Phenli
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"Fingal! Astrid! Zachary! Enzo! Let's be having you."
Three figures traipsed through the sand. From a distance, it would appear a beach ball, an octopus, and a scarecrow were marching in formation. There was a rustle of paper and fabric when the trio turned and put their backs to the sea.
"Marvelous! Five stars to all of you."
The speaker said this without looking. For he was busy annotating the margins of a giant book that rested on his lap. The tome was leatherbound in red, which was the most decisive color about him. For otherwise he wore a coat with turtleneck and tassels - brocade in leaf green and metallics. His hair too, while shaggy grey, hid multicolored eyes that glistened on his dome. Each orb swirled with a different color. Those that wept sent paint trickling down his forehead.
"Alright, I've taken out the part with the storm lord."
Phenli said.
"We all knew it was silly."
"I can't breathe!" Fingal complained.
Phenli set down his script before peering at the beach ball. Fingal was up to his sixth layer of clothing (
seventh if you counted the sheepskin rug they had wrapped him in). A medley of wedding dresses, lace curtains, nightshirts and funeral shrouds adorned the portly boy. And all was held in place with careful stitching... which Fingal would split soon enough if he didn't stop fidgeting.
"Fingal, my boy - you are the very avatar of all things airy. Breathing should become you."
Fingal shifted the potato sack on his head. He was about to retort when a tentacle slapped him. The appendage was made from parchment rolls and seashell necklaces.
"He ate a cinnamon bun. That's why he can't breathe." Astrid snitched on her friend without hesitation. The girl had twelve tentacles sewn to the lobster cage she wore. She twirled them as she stood there, striking the other children.
Phenli tutted.
"You know you're allergic to cinnamon, Fingal. And you know the buffet table is for everyone."
He pointed at a rowboat, beached nearby and filled with rotting food that the children had scavenged. Seagulls swarmed around it.
"And as for you, Astrid: it's very rude to implicate your friends. Though I do appreciate you getting in character."
Under the bucket she wore, Astrid smiled smugly.
Phenli then turned to the last of the figures.
"Alright, now... Zachary?"
The giant standing next to Astrid shook his head and pointed at his crotch. Phenli lowered his gaze.
"Zachary?"
The giant's fly unbuttoned, and a teenager's head poked out. "Aye, Boss."
"You're doing wonderful, Zachary."
"Aye, Boss."
The fly re-closed. Phenli lifted his gaze to the upper half of the giant.
"And Enzo: I hope you went to the toilet this time."
The smaller child seated on Zachary's shoulders nodded. It caused sawdust and seaweed to spill from the gourd he wore on his head. "Yeah!" Enzo shouted. "I've only been fartin' so far!"
"Not something to share in mixed company, Enzo. And certainly not something to share with Zachary. Go for a swim after we're done here, okay?"
The god reclined on his sand mound and retrieved his leather book. Laying it flat, he sent the pages flicking. Each assumed a rainbow shimmer. Then the text leapt off the paper and repainted itself in the air. Ghostly, psychadelic hues.
"Alright. I've outlined each of your parts in a different color, and added phonetic spellings like you asked. Fingal, you have the floor..."
The boy stood wheezing, and stared at the script. Then Astrid slapped him with her tentacle again. He straightened his potato sack and commenced in monotone.
"I am Bernie-Moff--"
"--Bay-E-Moth."
"--Bay-He-Moff. And I am not nice. Anris made me mad, so I will burn the houses of East-Endia--"
"--Est-En-E-A."
"Est-En-Ee-Ah. The fires will burn for ten thousand years. And I will fill the forest with nasty Gore-Hearts. To eat all children who--"
Astrid jumped in on her lines, cackling as she waved her tentacles around. "And Iiiiiiiii am the deeeeeevious and eeeeeevil Leviathan! Mistresssssss of the Seeeeeeeas!"
"Less is more, Poppet."
"Behoooold! The world shall eeeeeend in my monstrous deluuuuge! All flesh shall be forfeit to the Fur-Lashings!"
"Thalassans... Zachary! Zachary, you're slouching!"
"Sorry, Boss," the giant's crotch murmured. As the larger boy straightened, Enzo struggled to stay balanced while reading his lines.
"And I am Girl-High-Elf... Lord of the Underpants.... I have read the drums of all turtles... and... and... know that... boobies... conceal of the death... beaver..."
"Stop! Stop, stop, stop!"
Phenli stood up and gesticulated at the children.
"Enzo, you need to slow down. Don't just shout out what you think the words are. I wrote the script for a reason."
A seagull had taken a shine to Enzo's gourd. The boy screamed as it divebombed his head. "I wanna be the bottom!"
"Well, you can't. Zachary's much stronger than y--"
"Fingal's dead!"
After shooing away the seagull, Phenli turned to see Fingal slumped on the ground. His Behemoth suit expanded and contracted while he took slow, rasping breaths.
"Juuuuuust asssssss I foresaw!" Astrid cackled from under her bucket.
"He's not dead. He just needs to wait till the swelling goes down. Astrid, fetch my aloe vera."
"Wooooo!" the girl cheered while running away, flailing paper tentacles.
"Zachary - we'll need a new gourd. Enzo's ruined that one."
"Aye, Boss." The larger boy dragged away the shorter one by the ankle. Enzo, now on his back, continued howling as seagulls rode along on his head, pecking and screeching.
"Let's all take five minutes."
"Thank you, five," Fingal sobbed.
Phenli stood over the boy while patting his padded shoulders. With his other hand, he gestured to dissipate the floating script. Each page winked out, its nimbus devoured by dusty twilight. And as rainbow saturation receded from the beach, nothing remained to obscure the inland view.
His eyes drifted over the skyline there. Ruined temples and slumping colonnades. Cracked roads and smoking pyres. The city was a wound: bones snapped and sticking through the festering breach. Buildings groaned as their weight resettled, while their insides echoed with the shouts of child gangs and monstrous vermin. It smelled of spoiled food; of plague. It tasted metallic - entropy on the very air.
And every color had drained away.
Phenli squeezed Fingal's shoulder.
"It's going to be alright."
He kept his eyes on the city.
"It's going to be alright."