Sander's Diary, First Entry -- The Sand-man ComethSander's Diary, First Entry -- The Sand-man ComethNot to long ago, Eric (not called "Uncle Eric" here due to the fact that we are all NOT one big, happy family) decided to put an end to the bitching and moaning by planting his butt on the throne and putting the crown on his big, fat head. What he probably didn't notice is that this created all new and improved bitching and moaning.
He also, in his infinite brainitude (not!) decided to cut off access to the Pattern so nobody could walk (or stagger, or crawl, or stumble) it. Oh, superior move, Bud, like we're NOT gonna find a way, even if we didn't want to before. So my cousin, Brea, Dierdre's kid, hadn't walked the thing yet, and wanted to sneak up to Tir and walk theirs. In her incredible genius and good taste, she asked me to help her out.
So we did the Mission Impossible thing up to the stairs. Would've been alot more exciting if someone were actually trying to stop us, I guess. The stairs popped up, we did the trump thing, and after looking back over her shoulder about fifty-one and a half times she went up. Saw lots of bogus Tir stuff that went waaaay beyond the usual family tiff. But since guns don't fire in Amber, I figured it was just some weird Freudian thing (ya know, the Austrian guy that thought everything was about sex? -- too bad it isn't, is all *I* gotta say) and let it go. I took a couple ganders at the moon to make sure Brea wasn't going to take a header anytime soon and started checking out that killer Kolvir surf.
So she gets to the middle and tells me she made it and she's outa there, which snapped me out of a killer hang-gliding fantasy. Of course it was totally a dream, 'cause let's face it, the straps would start chafing waaaay before I got that far.
I thought about walking back, as if, then I popped Gadget into his most righteous hang-glider mode and took the plunge. Tried all the way down to think of a good way to tell Dad about the heinous-type visions I saw at Tir without cluing him about what I was doing there but I'm a truly suck-o liar. That' s cool, though because when I tell the truth it usually throws people into brain spasms. Okay, well, not Dad, he knows me. So I told him. It's tough not to laugh when he gives me that *look*. Well, okay, it's not that tough when I mentalize about life as a smear on the wall.
A couple days later, YO! Bleys busts into Amber and starts shooting up the place and Corwin stuffs Caine's ass in Davey Jones' locker. And where was I? Since the whole family seems to agree that I've been hit in the head too many times (to this I say, you can NEVER get hit in the head too many times as long as it's for a good cause), I got crammed down in the basement to "guard the Pattern". Loosely translated, this means "we think you're more likely to cack yourself than one of the bad guys, so hang down here and scratch your ass for awhile".
I'm beginning to get the impression that everyone thinks I should be wearing an "I'm With Stupid" t-shirt with the arrow pointing straight up.
It got pretty ugly. Bleys took a header off the mountain (sucker), Eric got wasted in a most unspectacular fashion (asked for it), Caine went down with his ship (bummer, kinda liked the guy -- even let me water ski off the back of his boat once in awhile), Julian got shot about fourteen million times... oh, it didn't kill him, but his armor was SCREWED and he's been doing a fan-freaking-tastic broccoli impression since then (kinda dig him, too, despite the stick up his ass), and Dad...whoa, Dad. Dad had his legs shot off from the knees down by Corwin the Colossal Fartknocker. Dork-boy got a little too close after that, though, and Dad turned him into a stain. Hah! Rest in Puddles, Asshole.
Sander's Diary, Second Entry -- The
Sand-man Cometh
Dierdre decided to make herself boss-lady, and with a quickness, I must say. Don't get me wrong, I don't have some macho problem with a slightly wider set of hips than usual on the throne, or even with Dierdre herself (not referred to here as "Aunt Dierdre" because I think she'd prefer "Mister") it's just that she's always pissed. I don't know why, maybe her jock's too tight or something.
I spent alot of time hanging with Dad, trying so hard not to piss him off that I thought my brain was going to pop. He didn't put down Corwin's sword, ever. He keeps it there, across his lap, at all times. Yet another reason to avoid angering the Popster. During one such intense sitting around experience I met Quinn, Julian's kid. The guy was screaming "rube!" but I figured I'd give him a chance. He gives me a "hey, Big Kahuna", in a fairly lame but commendable attempt, so I smiled and said, "I got your Big Kahuna right here, buddy". He just looked kind of annoyed and didn't say much to me after that. I tell ya, ya try to be nice...
So I go back to minding my own business for awhile, reading my brand-spanking new (whoa, that ain't a pretty picture, no!) Silver Surfer Annual while Dad just sort of stares out the window. I gave up trying to think of something to say to the big guy, 'cause everything sounded cheesy or like a lame-o attempt to start a conversation. So I'm reading and I hear him talking to somebody and figure either the Dad-meister has gone around the bend or he's on a person-to-person call, either way, I butt out to avoid any person-to-person damage. I go back to reading and before I even find my place again, this scaly rat-dog from hell comes flying at me, shreds the book and shreds me, which was, do I need to say, slack in BIG way. I threw it off me, a little pissed, I must say. Somebody killed it and Dad was talking to the dog-flinging toad, but I wasn't paying any attention, 'cause first of all, Freak-boy threw a drooling rat-dog at me and second, well, let me just say that pain SUCKS when you're not inflicting it on yourself....
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Either Dad suddenly has confidence in me, which means my cover is blown and people will actually believe I can do stuff monkeys can't, or he was really itching to get rid of me, which means I'm really starting to get on the one good nerve he's got left.
Whichever it was, Dad told me he had a mission for me. He said "mission" because it doesn't sound so much like running to the corner store for a gallon of milk. It sounds IMPORTANT. Now, Dad doesn't usually trust me with things that are IMPORTANT, so I was a little surprised when he told me I was supposed to go out looking for Uncle Benny (called "Uncle Benny" here because, hell, he's never gonna read it), who was not answering trump calls. I thought of asking, "well, can you blame him?" but I was too close and Dad's pretty quick, especially when he's pissed. My job, to find Uncle Ben (not the rice guy) and tell him what had happened in Amber. This message will self-destruct in five seconds...
So I dipped, riding through creepy-ass Arden fast as hell, because, BONUS!, Julian wasn't there to make me slow down. After awhile I ditched the horse and rode Gadget the rest of the way. Ended up in some little midieval-type village, freaking the natives. Guess I should be careful, it would suck to get cooked at the stake just for wearing tacky Bermudas.
There were soldiers camped a ways outside of town. They looked in pretty good shape, so I figured they had to be Uncle Benny's guys. I rode up and got stopped by some dude who started spewing thee's and thou's like a reject from a Renaissance Festival. I told him I was looking for Ben, to which he said something like, "Ben? You mean Benedict?" I didn't want him to actually start talking to me again, so I didn't ask how many guys named Ben they had around here and just nodded.
He took me up to this big tent and told me to make it quick, 'cause the boss was busy (well, okay, he didn't say it like that, but if I said it the way *he* said, nobody would understand me). Mental note, I thought, try to make sense or you're going to meet your spleen. I went in, trying to be serious, but let's face it, how serious can you be wearing loud Bermudas and a Butthole Surfers t-shirt? After a second my eyes adjusted and I realized that he was in bed (not a good sign) and was missing a honkin' big piece of his right arm (even worse sign). Yeah, great, I couldn't show up right after he won the lottery or spent the night in a hot tub with the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, no, I had to show up now.
I told him the whole story, wondering afterward if I should have and then figuring to hell with it, I'm no good at this paranoid crap. He said about three words the entire time (about two more than I expected) and then said he had a job for me. Just call me "Useful Guy". Not too far away there was a round patch of ground, completely black, and there were weird things coming out of it. **Your mission, if you choose to accept it -- go check it out and tell us all about it. This message will self-destruct in five minutes...** He gave me two days and told me to change first. Great, itchy clothes. At least it's better than those tights you have to keep pulling out of your buttcrack every five minutes.
It wasn't hard to find the place. He wasn't shitting me when he said it was black, either. Looked like a freakin' oil spill. I didn't see anything so I popped Gadget into Big Stick (tm) mode and got a little closer. I dipped in a toe. Nothing. Okay, then. So I walked right onto that nasty black stuff and a couple steps in I felt a real strong urge to walk my ass back out. Stood back from it for a few minutes, taking inventory, and when I figured I wasn't gonna drop dead I started following the edge around the circle.
Didn't get too far before some heinous bitch jumped out from behind a tree that was waaay too small for her to have been hiding behind (ow, my brain) and tried to kick the crap out of me. Now, I don't usually hit girls, but I finally popped her with The Big Stick(tm) and she keeled. Went all the way around from about a quarter mile out and finally found something. I watched for awhile and headed back. I told Uncle Benny everything I'd seen. He said there might be a way around that "I'm gonna spew my liver any minute" feeling that I'd run into. Yeah, well, what about the scary, sword-swinging bitches? He said we'd probably scrap with the nasties pretty soon, but in the meantime I should just hang around with the guys. I flipped through the list of Stuff That Keeps Me Occupied and Out of Trouble (tm) and finally came up with something. I'll teach these guys how to play frisbee...
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So there I was, itchy clothes and all (and no sneakers, waaaail!), trying to show the guys how to throw a frisbee. After much head scratching and several hellacious bonks (note to self: next time, teach them how to catch it FIRST) they sorta got the hang of it. So we tossed the 'bee around for awhile, and just when I was getting all into it, Uncle Ben comes up behind me and says, "Lysander". That being my name, I turned around (note to self: next time, catch the frisbee FIRST).
Oh, ya just know he was laughin' on the inside, boy. He told me he had another job for me. Whoohoo. I was supposed to go to town and pick something up. That's it. So naturally I asked, like, what *is* it? And what does he say? You'll know. Gotta love Uncle Benny, that old chatterbox.
Well, he was right. Don't think even *I* coulda missed 'em. I walked into town since the bike seemed to make people nervous (guess they just invented the wheel or something) and there they were. Six big ass catapults. Oh yeah, now a body could catch some air on one of those babies. Heh heh.
We pulled out of town (after a real good "yo!" just like the Duke) and started our slow ass ride back to the camp. Oh, nothing more heinous than being on wheels and going that slow. Partway there, almost to this little river I'd totally dashed into on the way, oh yeah, I saw some of those creepy ugly white dudes sneaking around in the trees. I tried to be casual and tell the guy next to me about them, but the goonmeister looked, anyway. Where did they grow these guys? I figured all we could do was hurry, for now. Yeah, hurry with our big freakin' catapults. Real inconspicuous, Chuck.
One catapult made it across before they fired (hah, get it?) flaming arrows. Then their sword-waving, freak-o, needin'-a-tan-bad selves came out of the woods around us and attacked. Started pounding on them with my Big Stick (tm), but we were getting slammed pretty hard and getting creamed was a good possiblity. So I backed off a little and whipped out Uncle Benny's trump. Still in bugger off mode. Damn. What *is* it with that guy, and why the hell don't these things have caller ID?
I shuffled it back into the pile. Dad, uh, no. Deirdre, death before owing *her* a favor, man. Theseus? Somebody, somebody...Brea, yeah, she like, owes me or something. Besides, she kicks ass pretty good for a sheila, right? So I called her. Answer. Answer. Answer. Help?
Pulled her through, horse and all, and she dove right in. I did the human catapult thing and we beat them up for a little while before they started disappearing. No, not back into the woods. Just freakin' disappearing. Kept the catapults crossing the river while I picked up the rocks I'd tossed. Yuck, some of 'em were kinda sticky. Hope Uncle Benny doesn't mind slightly used catapult ammunition.
Back at camp, I sorta wandered, in no particular hurry, back over to the big tent with Brea. Guess she was gonna stay. I knocked on the tent flap (oh, the genius) and it opened. Before I had the chance to screw up telling him what happened, he just told me "good job", which was pretty shocking, so I just said thanks and boogied. Whew.
Now what? Frisbee was a little tough. Soccer, yeah. I started kicking around my Kolvir Mountain (tm) soccer ball, and waiting for the freaks who were brave enough to try the frisbee to come on over...
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If I were John and you were Yoko
I would gladly give up musical genius
Just to have you as my very own personal Venus
--Barenaked Ladies, "Be My Yoko Ono"
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
Soccer. Alot easier than frisbee for the sportically impaired types I've been hangin' out with here at Uncle Benny's place. Another good thing is that a soccer ball is slightly less likely to dent your skull, hence, you can imagine my intense jolliness when Uncle Ben came along and distracted me with yet another one of his oh-so-subtle ego-reducing exercises.
And don't think that just because I fell for it twice I'm brainily impaired. I'd rather get clocked in the head with a soccer ball than have Uncle Ben think I was ignoring him thhhank you very much!
To my shock and surprisitude (NOT!) he had another job for me, Sander, the One True Do-Boy of Which All Others Are But Shadow. He gave me a map and told me to haul his catapults somewhere. Cool. Catapults, far away and outta sight. Sander's goin' for a ride, yup.
So we started out for that little spot on the map. One of the catapults had a sqeaky wheel. I just know that somewhere in the universe that thing is reflected as a shopping cart.
We got there. We set up camp. Brea showed up looking kinda peeved. It's hard to tell, though, 'cause she usually looks like that. Then this righteous storm started forming. When it hit there was thunder and lightning and huge sheets of rain slammed into my tent. It was beautiful. It kept wailin' on us for awhile, then it slowed down all of a sudden. And just when I was trying to think of something cool to do in all this mud, Brea comes over and asks me if I want to help her make the bad rain go away. Whooo, she's been livin' indoors too long.
I humored her. We wandered around her tent and turned it into a drizzle, though I gotta admit it was boring as hell and I had "Be My Yoko Ono" stuck in my head and couldn't help but dance around a little. Note: it's not hard to annoy the crap out of Brea.
The rain stopped, finally and I went off looking for something else to do. Hmm. Hill. Grass. Mud. Yeah. I popped Gadget(tm) into a snowboard and invented moonlight grass surfing. It was cool.
Next morning I washed about forty pounds of mud out of my clothes, pretty good, even for me. I washed 'em 'cause I don't think it would look too studly charging into battle in tie-dyed bermudas. Not by myself, anyway.
Note to self: next time I fight a war I'm gonna dress my army in super loud surfwear.
A rider came up to tell me that Uncle Benny was on his way. Doh! Put the itchies back on. Pants were still wet, too, so I had to keep pulling them out of my...anyhow, we got our crap together and rolled it all the way over to the Big Black Spot(tm). Okay, here we go, Uncle Ben's bright idea. We tossed big rocks at them, hoping that they would get pissed and come out. They did, they just came out *behind* us and set the forest on fire, too. No problemo. Handled.
I did my kickin' catapult impression again until things got a little too close, then I had to hand out a heapin' helpin' of hurtin' with The Big Stick(tm). In the middle of it all somebody decides to give me a ring. It was Uncle Ben, apparently the only guy in the whole family who thinks I can do two things at once. He told me there was a bunch of guys trapped over yonder somewhere and I should go rescue them. I got a brilliant idea.
I sent a whole mess of my guys in that direction, but figured that the situation also called for something a little more, uh, immediate. I licked a finger and held it up to test the wind. Oops, wasn't any. Had six guys help me turn the catapult around, climbed in and poked the lever with Gadget. Another note to self: do this shit more often. I musta shot fifty yards before I even popped Gadget to a hang-glider and took off.
Came down behind enemy lines (always wanted to say that) and started bootin' those guys around. And just when I was beginning to feel oh-so-heroic, some scary, scrawny, pasty white butt-munch tried to kick my ass. Started doing a pretty good job, too. Until I got ahold of his stick-figure self and started breaking walls with him. Sometimes it's cool to be Dad's kid. Got out of it without too much damage. To me, that is. Got a visual on some parts of my hand that just weren't meant to see the light of day, though. Ouch. Doc, will I ever play the piano again? Oh, yeah, I didn't play the piano before.
So the guys I was sent to rescue busted through and got away, the creepy bad guy types retreated again (good thing, 'cause I was in a *mood*, now, boy) and I dragged my butt back to find Brean with her face busted. Ouch. Hey, no big deal, happens to me all the time. Got my hand bandaged and sissied the whole time. Hey, it keeps people entertained...
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
"I'm a few bricks short of a load
But a full load always hurts my back
I flew over the cuckoo's nest and
I'm never ever coming back."
--Barenaked Ladies "Crazy"
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So there I was.....not the beginning of a good story, folks, I just always wanted to say that. Actually I was teaching the guys how to play rugby and waiting for another job and doubtless more facial contact with sports equipment to go with it when Dad called me.
Thinking fast (despite popular opinion) I put the ball behind me and hoped he just wouldn't bother to ask. I think he's stopped wondering about what it is I'm doing at any particular moment as long as I don't break anything he likes. He asked what was going on and so I told him what had happened. Didn't ask about the gimungous bandage on my hand. Figures, I finally get myself a cool-ass war wound and the Dadster doesn't notice.
Hung up with dad and started learning how to play some crazy-ass stick game. I *had* thought about teaching the dudes Aussie rules football, but I always end up with a headache after I play. Maybe after the next jolly journey to who-knows-where.
Not too long after I talked to Dad, Quinn called me. 'Scuse me as I fall over from the shock of a member of the Amber Family Brain Trust(tm) wanting to talk to me. Oh no, thought I, they must be in dire need of the One True Do-Boy. Crap, too late to duck.
He told me to pull him through and take him to Uncle Ben. So I took him, figuring I'd drop him off and dip. Why I didn't I'm not too sure. We went in, and oh, yeah, I kinda forgot to mention Uncle Ben's arm (or lack thereof) to Quinn before we got there. After he picked his jaw up off the floor, they talked as I zoned them out and considered an escape attempt. Of course, Ben could waste me with the pen he was holding, so I kept saying to myself "stand here and look interested stand here and look interested...". I caught something about there being some kind of family meeting later on. Whew, now I *know* they're not gonna want me *there*.
Wrong-o, dude. Ended up sitting at the dining room table back in Amber with the rest of the goobers. Gripe, gripe, gripe. I kept my mouth shut unless they asked me something. They talked about the whole Big Black Splotch (tm) thing. No thanks, I"m full. I don't care what it is, I just wish somebody would make it go away...I don't wanna *deal* with it no more.
Then Deirdre (that's "Mister" to you, buddy!) said she was going to call Finndo. Who? Oh yeah, the dead uncle that Quinn said was still around. See, that's why I do the stuff I do and don't stress. Nobody ever actually *dies* in this family. I mean, they thought *Corwin* was dead for awhile, too, now, didn't they? He sure as hell in *now*, though, idn't he?
So she called him. Her end of the conversation sounded pretty friendly. 'Fya ask me, she was sucking up to the guy. "Hi, long dead relative! Come here? Sure! We all love and trust the folks we've been hanging out with for centuries so much, why not bend over for the guy who's been creeping around somewhere else? C'mon over!!!!" Then she drags his kid through the card. "Babysit you're kid? Sure! We're already so keen on the ones we've got!" What I said awhile ago, about Deirdre basically being okay. I take it back. Let's just say that I was not astounded by her brainitude at that moment.
"Osric is behind it all", the guy says. "I can't come through on a trump because he's done something to make that impossible." Let's try, "I can't come through on a trump because my army won't fit in your frigging dining room." So she lets his kid in without even arguing. Correction. His creepy kid. Add to that the fact that Brea found a way to make it obvious that she thought the guy was chunkage despite the fact that her jaw was wired shut. Then Theseus hands Ben this note. He reads it and says they have to talk. No sir, I don't like it.
Usually I wouldn't even be paying attention to what was going on. And have an opinion? Hells nah. Family politics are waaaay out of ole Sander's league. Don't understand 'em, don't think I want to. But since wasting each other has become slightly more socially acceptable behavior than it used to be, I guess it would be cool to pay attention once in awhile. I'm not nosy, no way. I mean, I'm not like Theseus, or anything -- curiosity didn't just kill his cat, it ran it over with a semi, dragged it for a couple miles, then drove on with fur between the treads.
Then this guy walks up and introduces himself as Ander, Deirdre's son. Crap, I didn't even know she had one. Motherly love at its best, ladies and gents! Note to self: hug Dad, he's pretty cool. The weird thing was that we looked alot alike. We were bookends. We talked a little. Decided it would be killer to go raise some hell together. Ander and Sander, the masters of disaster. Yeah.
It was Quinn that asked the question that made me totally space on the rest of the goings on, though. Get this, he actually *asked* me if I wanted to take Morgenstern out for a spin. Didn't need to do it twice, either, I was out the door before you can say, "hey Sander, wait just a damn minute!"
Oh Dude! She's Your DAUGHTER??!!
-or-
Sander Learns Another Good Reason To Keep It In His Pants
I had this dream that I was getting married. It would have been super traumatic, but the bride was a total babe, so I halted the kinyption fit when I saw her. Whoa. Yeah, so there's better things than sex every night with an incredibly hot female, like...sex every night with two or three of them. But hey, if you gotta get stuck with one, she might as well look like that. Hubba hubba.
I woke up to some heinous goober knocking on my door. Correction, I woke up to Deirdre knocking on my door. She wanted to know if I had anything to say at the funeral service for Puddle-boy and Mr. Big Dead Wannabe King. Yeah, sure, nothing I can say in front of everybody.
Finally comes time for the funeral, and I put on those damn itchy, crawlin' up your buttcrack clothes and stood around listening to people say things they probably didn't mean. 'Cept Dad, of course, he's generally honest (there are lots of time he said he was gonna smack me if I kept doing something, and damn straight, he did) and maybe Theseus. I think he actually might have liked his dad okay.
We managed to get through all that without anyone nailing Robo-Quinn from the tower. Damn he looked silly. Somehow I ended up with his helmet when we went back inside. Which was cool, 'cause he'd told me that if something hit it real hard this spell would go off making it look like blood was spurting all over him and stuff. And just as I was about to slam it into a wall real good...Captain Timing showed up again with yet another job for the One True Do-Boy.
Some Golden Circle shadow was b & m-ing about some invasion or something and he wanted me to go see if they needed our help or they were just being bed-wetters about the whole thing. I called Dad to tell him where I was off to and boogied before a) anything else came flying out of the friggin' Twilight Zone and b) somebody else had a job for me.
Rode for awhile. It was a major downer after hauling ass around on Morgenstern. Felt like I was going freakin' *backwards*. I eventually ran into what I guess was my escort. They were all "sir" this, and "my lord" that. Coulda had all kinds of fun with them, but I've never been good at faking like I actually fit in with the rest of the family.
We spent the night at this inn full of snockered people. Guess there was some mondo celebration going on. This completely babelicious female attached herself to me pronto, so you know *I* was havin' a good time. We danced for awhile, and then she dragged me upstairs and totally jumped my bones. Repeatedly. I say, many times. She was wild, man. She did this thing with her....well, she was really, really good, I'll just leave it there.
Oh boy.
Woke up in the morning 'cause some dork was yelling. She got dressed real quick and ran off in a hurry. I only listened long enough to make sure there was no pissed-off husband coming up the stairs. I didn't even know her name, which was okay, I guess, 'cause she didn't know mine, either.
Then some other dork starting yelling -- actually, it almost sounded like the same dork -- that it was time to go. Didn't want to piss off Mr. King Guy, who was waiting for me, so I tossed the clothes back on and...damn, girl tore my pants off literally, whoa...ran down the stairs. There was this royal-type entourage parked in front of the place, I mean besides the guys that I was with. And there was my babe. Oh, bad feeling...they sort of pointed me out to her and we just looked at each other for a second before her jaw fell open.
YES, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, SANDER BOINKED THE CROWN PRINCESS (NINE TIMES)!!!
Oh boy.
Hoping to get out of this with Mr. Wiggly intact, I followed them the rest of the way. The king was busy, so I spent a couple hours wandering around the castle and wandering what you say to a king after doing the nasty not once, but NINE TIMES with his daughter. In one night. Damn, I'm good...
Anyhow, I finally got in to see the guy, praying for the salvation of my 'nads, and ya know what?...heh heh...they TOLD him. Great. Forget about being invaded, no, he didn't want to talk about that. It seems that the party those guys had dumped me at was for residents only, and that the princess was supposed to represent a goddess and jump one of her own people, instead, to choose her husband to be. (C'mon, NINE TIMES...?!). Since she didn't know who I was at the time, and had picked me to help her do her civic duty, I had to marry her to avoid a civil incident.
Oh boy.
So I called Dad. "Dad," I said. "I'm getting married."
This, he was not expecting. I explained the situation, and I think he took it well. I got up after he decked me and pulled him through so he could try and talk them out of it. I don't know, she's kinda cute...she's an animal in bed...she's a PRINcess, man, how much better am I ever gonna do..?
Her name's Daelyn, by the way. Had to find out from some castle schmuck.
I don't think Dad talked 'em out of it. Even worse is I'm not as freaked out about it as I thought I'd be. It's better than getting hung, or worse, no longer being hung. Hey, am I The Man when it comes to inter-shadow relations or what?
(or)
So there I was....standing at the front of this gi-mungous chapel, waiting half an hour for *each* person to walk down the damn aisle. Finally, my babe shows up at the end of the parade, looking like indoor honeymoon material for sure.
Just as things are finally about to get started, Dad up and dips on me. Trouble at home. Imagine my surprise. After much crowd mumbling and staring and pointing and head shaking and all that other great embarassing stuff, the ceremony started again.
Whew. Gettin' married, and nobody that really matters to me is here. Not even Dad. You'd think they could quit screwing around long enough for this. Bet I don't even get to go on a honeymoon. Bet I won't even have time to talk to my wife before there is yet another mission for the Cosmic Do-Boy (tm). I looked across at her. Guess she's happy. Not too many babes actually bag a member of Amber's royal family. Even if it is me, it must be worth something.
The guy doing the ceremony -- I don't know what they call 'em, here -- got around to the whole "if there's anyone who has a reason why these two people should not be married...." thing, and some dork hopped up, lawyer in tow and started flapping his jaws. He said something about being the guy she was supposed to marry and he and the king and a whole bunch of confused old guys ran off and locked themselves in some chamber somewhere.
Well, that was awkward, huh? Daelyn looked at me. "Do something." Do something? Well, about the only thing I *can* do...I found out what room they were in, wasn't hard, there was alot of yelling, and "opened" the door.
Prince "whatever-the-hell-his-name-was" must not have known where I was from because he started mouthing off. I guess it's the one thing I have in common with my relatives -- being insulted, especially by guys I can break with one hand, really pisses me off. So I did the only thing I could think of to shut the guy up. I asked him to step outside. I was mondo surpirsed that he agreed.
I was expecting him to pull a sword, but imagine my overwhelming joyitude when he put up his dukes. Oh, I thought we were gonna *fight*, or something. He hauled back to hit me, leaving his big old pointy chin right out there, so I clocked him. Not hard. Okay, not hard enough to knock his head off. I know it was immature, but hey, he agreed, didn't he?
Then Daelyn yells at me for hitting the guy and storms off to her room. Gah? I went after her, of course. Started to knock, realized the door was open. Then I heard the patented Girlie Scream and busted into the room to find a pasty white guy making off with my babe. Feeling a burning desire to show him his liver, I dove across the room, but they were gone before I could get ahold of him. Left a note, though. Asshair.
Said to call Ander. Seeing as how that would be a bitch without a trump, I called Dad. Maybe their trouble had something to do with mine. I ended up on a trump party line with a whole bunch of other people, one of them being Ander, who was...where the hell was he, anyway? I didn't really care because the dweeb that made off with my girl was there. I was starting to ask if there was a way for him to pull me through, and somebody was saying that that probably wasn't a good idea when all of a sudden I was there. Works for me. Ander was sitting on Morgenstern. Guess Julian's renting him out these days or somethin'.
The rest of the party line spent a few minutes trying to figure out what to do, didn't, and me and Ander said to hell with it, the time has come to hand out a heapin' helpin' of hurtin'. I jumped up behind him, Theseus picked a choice time to hand me my most groovy wedding present, and I guess everyone else, realizing that there was no talking us out of it, decided to join in the fray. We rode straight up to pasty, ugly, white guy and gave him a somewhat less than precise lobotomy and grabbed Daelyn.
Then the truly uncool fireworks began. And let me say that magic and fighting do NOT mix. A great big mondo (did I mention it was large?) ball o' fire came flying at us and we all hid behind Morgenstern, who didn't really seem to care a whole lot. Thinking that perhaps my wife-to-be didn't beLONG in the middle of a battlefield, I put her on the big gray stomping machine and told him to go home.
And then, everything went ka-BOOM! When I could see again, I was only wearing half a tux and Ander was not too far away, stuck to a rock. I felt like one of those little pieces of the burger that fell through the grill, but at least the bad guys were gone.
We went back to Amber, got there about the same time as Morgenstern showed up with Daelyn, who looked like...well, somebody that's been riding Morgenstern. I took her to the infirmary, screwed up wedding dress and all. And after that? Nothing to do but kick back and watch everybody mill around trying to figure out what the hell just happened.