Marbles: The Hawk Who Refused to Die a Virgin

Chapter 17. Centipede Dream

It had been another embarrassing day in the cave for Opal. In the morning, or it might not even be the morning anymore, it was just when they woke up and started walking, a gust of wind blew the hat from Opal's head as they were walking to the right of a deep ravine. Last night his strap had broken from the side of his hat, and Opal, in typical Opal fashion, had neglected to mend it. He just plopped it on his head like he was some twelve year old gnome toddler and wandered off after Languin and Lucy, who now tended to walk side by side when they could.

This wind from God knows where blew the hat right off of Opal's head and down into the ravine.

"Oh no my hat!" screamed Opal as if he was just remembering that he had left his triplets baking in the back of his Honda Odyssey.

Opal's scarlet hat and his lightly wilted moonflower crown began to fall together, then drifted apart as the crown slipped off the point of the hat. The hat became a dimly lit, crippled blood- red moth circling forlornly around the crown as they tumbled into the abyss.

Languin, knowing how deeply gnomes are attached to their hats, brushed past Lucy and stood beside Opal. He spread his hand lightly over Opal's chest to keep him from doing something rash like jumping after his hat and to his death. Languin looked down at at the falling hat.

"Opal could you hand me your fishing line?" asked Languin.

"Yeah, sure," said Opal, jamming his hand into his pack and then handing Languin a small spool of silk line.

Languin tied one end of the line around the haft of an arrow and the other end around his wrist. He nocked the arrow in his bow. He drew the arrow back with his right hand and stared down at the flower and hat, who were orbiting each other in the darkness halfway down the ravine.

"What are you waiting for dude!?" shouted Opal, panicked. "Shoot! Dude that's my hat!" "Hush now please Opal," said Languin. "If I time this right I can get them both."

The party waited for a few more breathless seconds until Languin let his arrow fly, a silken sine wave of fishing line streaming after it. The arrow flew through the center of the moonflower crown and speared Opal's hat.

"Goddamn that was awesome," said Opal as Languin began hauling up the hat and crown hand over hand. When the hat arrived, Languin carefully extricated the arrow, slipped the crown back over the hat, and handed it to Opal to put back on his head himself, which a surprising number of larger humanoids neglect to do. They loved to put errant hats back on gnomes' heads, which in gnome protocol is a full notch above getting a condom rolled onto you.

"Oh thank you so much dude," said Opal, overwhelmed with relief. But he still felt like a little baby who couldn't do anything for himself. Languin was just... too cool. And like, gnome or orc or whatever, if another dude full on tells you to hush, even if you do need to hush, you can't help but get a little salty about it.

That night was even worse. They had just set up camp and Languin had gone off meditating when the giant cave centipede had attacked. Skittering out of the darkness, twelve feet long but lighter than a small dog, a dancing Chinese lion of endless death. Lucy stood to face it and it went straight for her, rearing up and trying to stab both sides of her neck between its clattering black forcipules. Snow-globe-sized drops of neurotoxin were already hanging from the end of these chunky scythe-like legs like the devil's own precum.

Lucy wedged her quarterstaff between the forcipules and pushed them away from her face while kicking the centipede in its midsection. The sound of cracking chitin filled the chamber. It sounded like Lucy was administering CPR to someone 90 years old with her foot.

Jezebel fluttered around the centipede's head, uselessly, her talons desperately trying to find purchase on the arthropod's slick carapace. Marbles was on the back of the centipede, flapping his wings and trying to pull it away from Lucy. Opal had sliced apart the webbing between his left thumb and pointer finger trying to get the battle hatchet out of the sheath and was holding his hand against his chest while he thought about whether he should bandage his hand or run and flail that hatchet uselessly against the centipede. To his credit, he had decided on the latter when Lucy killed the thing.

Lucy put her right hand overhand, her left hand underhand, about two feet apart on her quarterstaff and spun it like she was trying to shut the door on a flooding submarine. This ripped both forcipules out from the sides of the centipede's face and it fell to the ground beside Lucy, leaking...whatever centipedes bleed (juice?) in luke warm torrents of bug blood onto the cold stone ground. Its feathery legs reflexively swept some pebbles into the fire, then it died.

"Is everyone unhurt?!" shouted Languin as he ran into the chamber.

"We're fine," said Lucy, walking to her bedroll for her healing kit. "Well, Opal cut himself."

"How fared the birds in combat?" asked Languin. "Did you use what I taught you about fighting

larger animals? Did you work together and go for the eyes or genitals?"

"Sad to say I neglected the centipede's genitals," said Marbles, still sucking wind.

It was the next morning, while Languin was off foraging, when Opal transitioned from being merely incompetent to being a slimy piece of shit.

"Is everyone unhurt?!" said Opal, mocking Languin as he and Lucy packed up the campsite. "Dude where was that guy? Meditating? You could have died."

"Everyone needs some space to themselves on a quest," said Lucy, patiently. "Especially since we're all scrunched up in this cave."

"Has anyone perchance incurred some harm to their person?!" continued Opal. I guess he was trying to make Lucy laugh at Languin's expense? I don't know. He was just on the warpath against a guy who had done nothing but help them out.

"Why are you shitting on Languin?" asked Lucy. "He saved your hat yesterday? Don't you owe him a gnome life-debt or something?"

"Ugh it's just like, the stilted way he talks, and how he takes it upon himself to explain everything to us," said Opal.

"Because he's got to explain everything to us," said Lucy. "We don't know shit about surviving down here."

"He's just showing off his knowledge to try and impress you. He goes off on these huge tangents about how to survive stuff that you'll never see in this cave, like quicksand, or avalanches," said Opal. "Fucking half hour about how to survive an avalanche. Avalanche of bullshit is more like it."

"Opal of all the people in the world we could have gotten trapped down here with, Languin's the one person who could get us out?" said Lucy, squinting at Opal, puzzled at his outburst.

"You're just defending him because he worships you like some queen down here," said Opal. "He's given us some secondhand weapons and now he's in charge? Now he's latching on to you? Carrying your pack, composing songs for you on his survival sitar?"

"Oh," said Lucy. "I get it."

"Meditating," said Opal, making the quote-unquote gesture. "It wouldn't surprise me if Marbles wasn't the only virgin in this party. You know what they say. Elf love is self love."

"Opal," said Lucy. "This kind of talk is really counterproductive down here. We're already in mortal danger every day, and just because you're jealous of how Languin and I really like each other, that doesn't mean you can just assassinate his character in order to...to what? Make me like you?"

Opal stood there in silence. His bullshit? Totally called out.

"And don't say you were just joking," said Lucy. "We all know how you feel. We all see how you roll your eyes when Languin and I interact."

Opal glared at Jezebel. Jezebel glared right the fuck back. Like she gave a fuck. Punk ass gnome. Bring it on.

"Languin and I already talked about this together," said Lucy. "He feels this jealousy, anger, whatever it is, from you too. We may be down here months. We may all die down here. But we're not taking another step until you and Languin hash this out."

"Hello everyone!" said Languin, entering with a string of expertly filleted cave bream flung over his shoulder. "Who would like some breakfast?"