Legends of Belariath

Fortinbras

Lilly's Ditty

This little ditty was sung once at the Lonely Inn by a seldom seen halfling elf ... the performance was recorded and placed here for your enjoyment ...

Fortinbras sits on the stool, looks out at the crowd and smiles, as he intones:

“There once was a nixie who loved his dear pixie,

But the pixie she loved another…

She met a young halfling, a strapping young sapling,

Who lay by a brook in clover.

Buzzing through treetops and scaring the squirrels,

The pixie, named Lilly, did grin…

As she looked on young Tobin, the tempting young halfling,

His voice sang praises to the wind.

Fortinbras slides off the stool, smiling broadly walks out among the crowd, taking slow and measured steps to the rhythm of the song…

The song was alluring, of sunlight and musing,

Of flowers and whispers and love…

Lilly felt silly, but couldn’t stop really,

Her heart was a quivering dove.

The Sun shone down brightly, caressed his skin lightly,

The clover were emer’lds a’fire….

The brook was a’glimmer , taking joy in the summer,

Its song like a gentle church choir.

His eyes go wide as he turns to the left and sings,

Like bronze in a furnace, his flesh shone with promise,

Tobin stood up singing his song …

He fin’ly took notice, a small voice in chorus,

Was trying to follow a long.

He turns to the left and puts his hands to his cheeks in mock shame,

Blushing, she flew round the wide oak-tree’s middle,

And poked her head over the bough…

He glanced at her smiling, and called her down singing,

“Come sing by the brook with me, now!”

Red-berries and sunsets colored the fair pixie,

From crown to the tip of her toe …

Fort takes a hop as he sings,

He jumped in the brook, toward the clothes he forsook,

But slipped back and was laid out low.

The bard waved his arms flailing back, then, closed his eyes, feigning to pass out …then suddenly opens them and rushes about singing …

Lilly in a hurry flew out, her form blurry

As she grew to the size of her beau …

Legs, back and arms strain, she pulls, ignorin’ pain,

With a strength she never did know.

She fell back on the clover, arms round her lover,

she crawled up, and cradled his head …

She relaxed as she saw how his chest rose and fell

She wished they were back in her bed.

He hugs himself firmly, and eyes close as if dreaming …and closes his mouth with a smile.

The bard looks up, after a brief pause, looks around at the crowd, trying to engage each eye, “ Please try to make it back tomorrow around this time for the conclusion of my yarn…”

Fortinbras bows, taking his hat in hand, offering it to the crowd suggestively, then turns and walks back to the bar.

Part two…

Fortinbras clears his throat with a drought of his ale, which he places onthe bar, without turning his back to the crowd. He gestures to all, “Come closer, dear hearts, and listen to the end of my tale…

We last left our lovers, alone nak’d in clover,

The sun basking brightly in love,

But where is the Nixie, the stalker of our pixie,

Who’s heart is a fluttering dove?

He pauses, and as an aside to the audience says, “ I’m sure he’s not long to appear, but lets get back to the waking Tobin …”and winks as he sings,

“His eyes slowly opened, his lips parted slightly

He looked like he wanted to speak,

Her eyes didn’t let him as she leaned in to kiss him,

Tenderness she’d gone out to seek.

Soon they were swallowed by passions unbridled

The clover the one thing they wore …

The sun was now sinking, beneath leaves a-winking

But their passions wanted still more.

He stops for a moment and looks out at the crowd, a fury coming across his face … the next lines he sings slowly and deliberately, taking steps forward as if walking toward some hideous thing he sees on the floor …

“And so the Dark Nixie, found his dear Pixie

Like a whore on a clover bed …

The nixie name Larry, his eyes black and fiery,

Black thoughts circled his head …”

“With each halfling thrust,” sings the last word loudly, mimicking the thrust with hips and arms, “his heart grew closer to burst,”

But his mind drew an evil chill . . .

He looks down with an evil squint, fingers curl into claws, slowly reaching before him ….

From fisting to strangling and torching their bodies

No torture was ever enough.

As their passions relent and the two lovers spent,

Larry grinned, but lacking all joy …

He saw his time had come, his manhood like a stone,

His anger to spend on the boy.

Young Tobin did cry out, his muscles were tired out,

No strength left to stop the attack …

But Larry the Nixie, forgot the dear Pixie,

Her outrage obsidian black.

Fortinbras begins to bellow out these lines, voice full of anger and rage,

She hated this Larry, always asking her to marry,

And the dam did finally burst!

With magic she threw him, into the branches above them,

From her mouth she horribly cursed!

Poor Tobin just laid their, ass bleeding in the air,

His eyes glazed over with pain …

While Lilly stood raging, fists on Larry waling

And Larry was caught by his mane.

Poor Larry just wept, as he tried to make his escape,

From the pain in body and heart. . .

Finally Lilly stopped, just exhausted and spent,

From the punching her fists did smart.

Fortinbras pauses, body imitating the deep rapid breaths of a runner at the end of a race, but he keeps an angry face as he sings the next lines slowly, mimicking the pixie’s actions…

From the ground she took a fallen branch with a crook,

With bark that was rough and spiny …

Her anger unabated, staff in hand, she grinned.

A banshee screamed out of Larry.

And so I end this song, to some a bit too long,

With all of the naughty bits gone …

The moral escapes me, but think who you could be,

Larry or Lilly or Tobin?

Fortinbras bows deeply, hat in hand again, waiting for applause and reward.

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