OMG! Terry, this was so good!
Flyer’s jaw dropped. “Do you mean that the scroll might be stolen by Sore-Man?”
Everyone else put his or her index finger over his or her mouth and forced air through his or her pursed lips. “Shh!” they all said to clarify their gestures.
After a long moment, Pergalf turned to Flyer and intoned, “That name shall not be spoken here.”
Flyer lifted his hands to either side. “Okay, okay! How Luthoresque for him to have a name we can’t speak aloud.”
Boring-more sighed as if he was tired of Flyer getting all the attention. “How can we fight one whose name cannot be mentioned?”
“You mean Voldemort?” blurted Jimli.
“No, you dunce, the forbidden name spoken by Flyer!” As Boring-more sharply turned his head, his long, straggly hair ended up in his mouth. He paused to spit it out. “Pffft! Pffffffft!” Then he shook back his hair – in slow motion, yet – as if he were a L’Oréal shampoo model. Instead of making him appear impressive, he closely resembled a rock drummer who’d barely survived the 60s.
Froyo stepped toward him as he was fighting his hair. “Fear not, friend Boring-More,” she said. “The tale is fully formed in my mind. All that is wanted is to transcribe it to the scroll and deliver it to the Archives.” She smiled glowingly. “It will be the perfect fanfic.”
Elround stepped forward. (That group is starting to get really close to each other, I thought.) “Boring-more does state the truth, as much as I hate to admit it. There are many dangers along the way. Beside the crafts and treachery of the one whose name will not be spoken in this place, you would face the FDK-Hai, those ready to rend the tale to its smallest bits, or the Sorry-Man, the tall, white-haired wise man turned evil who is in league with the other whose name so closely resembles his own.” He took a step closer to the stump and reverently lifted the scroll with both hands. “Yet I have confidence in this company, this Fellowship of the Fanfic. I believe that, with wisdom and perseverance and a bit of unreasonable luck, you will win through to the Archives with the Perfect Fanfic.”
Boring-more shook his head in exasperation. “One does not simply write the perfect fanfic. Its paragraphs are guarded by more than just capital letters and careful punctuation. There is evil there that does not sleep, and the Grammar Nazi is ever watchful. It is a barren wasteland, riddled with metaphors, allusions, clichéd plots, and labored descriptions. The very words you read are a confused jumble. Not with ten thousand beta readers and a hundred General Editors could you do this! It is utter folly.”
Sorry to quote so much, but honestly. I. Died! Especially at Boring-More's L’Oréal hair sweep and "FDK-Hai".
