The Return

Fighting dragons. Tricking thieves. Outsmarting wizards. Finally, discovering the long-lost treasure. Then the return: frozen wastes, burning deserts, jungles of festering corruption, pirates, wars. Ragnar overcame them all.

At last, he arrived home, and strode into the Great Hall of Books.

“I, Ragnar XLVII, have returned! Behold! The Book of the Ekskybalauron of Pandiculatory Awakenings, lost since Ragnar I perished attempting its magic!”

The Librarian examined the volume, then peered severely at Ragnar over her half-moon spectacles. “This is three thousand and twenty-six years, four months, and ten days overdue. I’m afraid there is going to be a rather large fine.”

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This story previously appeared on Crap Mariner’s 100 word weekly challenge.

Image: The Great Jedi Library.

Zaprut

Zaprut is the oldest city of which we have any record.  Only its name survives, for the city was overtaken by a calamity so sudden, and so total, that none survived to say what befell it.

The name became synonymous with disaster, and in Roman times, hearing of some military debacle, senators would angrily declare, “Sic Zaprut!” — “thus was Zaprut!” fearing that Rome itself might pass the same way.

And that is why, nowadays, when a footballer wishes to express the depth of his emotion when his team loses a match, he will profess to being “sick as a parrot.”

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A

I used to work for the Oxford English Dictionary. I got the very first word to define. It’s not just the indefinite article, it has seventy-one distinguishable uses, spread over twelve centuries. “A-gnostic”, “a-new”, “a-bed”, “a-rise”, “a-down-a-down-day”...

You know how, if you say word over and over, the sense goes out of it? After year of research, condensed into four pages of intense scholarship, I couldn’t bear seeing it.

When I retired, they gave me present, old book, “The Perfection of Wisdom In One Letter”. And the letter?  “AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!”

So I emigrated to Russia. They don’t have word for it.

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Orcs

The three orcs sat round the fire, gnawing on the bones of an elf.

“You ever wonder,” began Hrakht.

“Wonderin’s for elves an’ yoomns,” grunted Gnurgle.

“I thought...” said Hrakht.

“Ooh, thinkin’ now, izzee?” jeered Rabjagh.

“You know Hrakht ’ere’s only half an orc?” said Gnurgle. “Yoomn mother. Must have scared her when he came out!”

Hrakht remained silent. How could he tell them that he didn’t feel like an orc at all? That he dreamed of belonging to one of the fair races, like the one they had just eaten.

In his dreams, he—no, she—called herself “Jill.”

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This story previously appeared on Crap Mariner’s 100 Word Challenge