The Tragedy is the lesson.

 "Sometimes the truth hurts, and sometimes it feels real good." - Henry Rollins.

 

 1

 

Seven Dwarves riding a cart pulled by two striped giant hamsters ride in the grim dark towards the mountains known as Autumn Highlands, 

 In the heavy contrast shadows, the dwarves sit in silence. 

Cedar Cricketwhistle is the youngest of the group. Sitting under the canvas at the back end looking with a headache at the shallow light from the dying sun. He is smoking (heavy Puffs from his pipe). 

A box of skull shrooms sitting next to him. These are his unborn brothers he thinks.

His beard is greying but not white as the others. Though they all have midnight black skin. Their clothes warn down mud-caked colors tired with age.

 

He blows the cherry vanilla smoke out the back so they don't smother.

 

Dead trees reach outward toward the madness of the universe.

 

Daregrotir Redmaker is huddled under a hood and cloak. His snow-white beard is clean and soft. He has eyes like blue sapphires and they are glowing in the grey of the day. He has a couple of hand grenades strapped to his belt.

 

The rain patient and deliberate has yet to slow them down. The mud of the grassless lands makes churning noises as they are rolling over it.

 

The front left wheel falls off and Daregrotir is flung head forward into the ground.

 

When he wakes there is a fire going and he rapped in an unnecessary blanket in the crooked cart that's leaning into the missing wheel. He sits up with a hand on his head. He looks around feeling drunk but needing some honey wine.

 

Stamping shambolic towards the fire wrapped in a pale green blanket.

 

"Here! have a sip of Bread," says Vacug Snowaxe.

 

Daregrotir drowns in the mug happily. Long slow gulps of honey wine. With the rain hitting his closed eyes.

 

"We all make it out alright other than me?"

 

Vacug Responds "pleasantly so!"

 

The old friends pass the flask back and forth while Cedar smokes his pipe. The other Dwarves sleep or sharpen blades.

 

2

 

The next day the striped giant hamsters under the instructions of some kind of sign language-style hand gestures begin burrowing.

 

The Dwarves unload the cart, the rain is now more of a sprinkling of mist

 

Heavy shuffling stumbling in the mud with loose patches of dead grass.

 

Thrakreeg Brightfinger drive the spore ship down a ramp. How the machine was made is long lost to the passage of time.

 

It has two sets of caterpillar treads one underneath and the other overhead. and a large spiraling swordfish-style drill protruding from the front of it. It can barely hold Thrakreeg (too much honey wine?). Yet he forces his way in through force and practice.

 

It is quiet. No sound of an engine. His worst fear is that one day it will freeze and then he will be trapped. But still, he lays on his round belly elongated in the machine.

 

Daregrotir Redmaker whistles and the striped hamsters pop a head out of the burrow. Than single file (all wet and muddy) they come over to Daregrotir. He gives them each a skull-shaped black and purple mushroom. They greedily stuff it into their cheeks running up the ramp into the cart to ride out the trip.

 

They lay there with dreams and visions till the shrooms take root growing one of the dwarves inside each one. They will be both a sacrifice and mother the food for a parasite growing and gnawing to take its place.

 

Wide-eyed and terrified (though somehow joyfully so).

 

All the while the spore ship is descending, churning, spitting, and breaking dirt and stone.

 

By the end of the day, the dwarves are pulling bags of debris up to be dumped like some kind of wall, reminding one of an ant hill.

 

They use these bags to carry down their supplies of wine and mushrooms.

 

 

Noldrure Bottlemaker, Strostina Snowriver, and Yadock Greybrewer are cutting down the treacherous trees. Mangled black wood. Their axes are busy each blow reminds them they have bones in their hands.

 

At last, it breaks and cracks: collapsing to the earth.

 

The Sunken eye and heavy white eyebrows. They have oversized hairy ears and wear strange hats.

 

There is an explosion.

 

and a scream it sounds like? is that? yes, I think it's Thrakreeg Brightfinger screaming.

 

Out flies the spore ship, on fire. in a slow ark being defeated by gravity in its ascent, it lands on the cart with a squish and splattering of red waves. like a tomato crushed in an angry hand.

 

It sits burning for a moment. Thrakreeg is screaming from inside being cooked alive. blistering and maiming him. Noldrure Bottlemaker, Strostina Snowriver, and Yadock Greybrewer run to his aid and with their hands burning meat cooking blisters, try to force open the hatch.

 

"Get the Fuck away!" screams Thrakreeg barely alive.

 

Now is the explosion.

 

Fire and strangely electricity pulsed out and around the burning ground then faded. A circular wave of pulse and light.

 

"what the hell is going on?" Cedar Cricketwhistle. His bird-shaped hat bobs as he runs back to the camp. Its peacock colors lose feathers in the tripping exhausting run.

 

Then he saw it striped black and white. A horse-like head with a mohawk mane. It's a muscular body with claws on the tips of its human-like hands.

 

"I am Gothmog! I will have what will, and what I will is mine!" screamed the creature its voice a deep echo with a rasp on the fringes.

 

Vacug took out his family's axe for which they were named. throwing it confidently it spins flipping whump whump whump till it is caught in the hand of Gothmog.

 

The brow of Vacug lowers. His white eyebrows lined the rim of his green and blue toboggan. The patterns jagged and chased each other.

 

Now the creature is in the sky descending with a blade in hand. Even the creature descending with the axe coming down.

 

A skull shatters. Cut from his forehead down to his belly button. Split open and red. Now there are only two. Now there is cedar and Daregrotir.

 

A dry thump, what is it now? where is it? looking for the next head to split he doesn't see it until the grenade goes off. Disintegration. Loose fragments... a rib bone pierces Cedar in the gut. He holding it tight. Fingertips numb but slippery with his blood and that of Gothmog.

 

But then he is fine. Healing, wounds close and he feels no pain pulling out the rib and throwing it on the ground. light and lifeless the bone sits there taunting him somehow.

 

"You all right?" says Daregrotir.

 

"Same as I ever was..." Says Cedar.

 

He sits on the ground without hesitation and roughly, lovingly stuffs his pipe. holding a steel light over he tastes the fuel with each rapid succession of puffs. finally getting it going he sees the red in the bowl. burning like some eye to hell. So he stokes it some more.

 

3

 

Early in the soft orange of the rising sun, the two dwarves sit. Drinking the last of their mead.

 

They pass the bottle back and forth. From hand to hand. Cedar takes a long gulp. His tung burning with the alcohol.

 

"Only thing I don't like about my pipe" saying it softly "is the tung bite."

 

"then don't smoke it. Or, better yet don't drink and smoke all you want!" Daregroter voice is merry but his face is grim with angst.

 

Cedar packs his pipe and starts his pipe. The fragrance is that of some kind of nightmare carnival. The steel lighter clicks shut like punctuation to the end of the conversation.

 

Getting up (hands on knees for stability). Then looking around over the near wasteland of the world. Daregroter runs his hand through his beard.

 

"I am leaving." He says.

 

"where you going"

 

"somewhere else I suspect..."

 

Cedar is listening to this puffing away.

 

The quiet settles on the two with a pang of defeat.

 

He rolls over pushing against the ground on one side to lift himself. the mud sticking to his palm. They give each other a look of "not only you are left alive." and they walk together.

 

It was two days of quiet before they met someone else.

 

A repeater rifle aimed at them and the two stopped.

 

The three stood by for the cosmic comedy.

 

"What are you two doing out here?"

 

Daregrotir gave cedar a look of you should let me do the talking. A quiet nod from Cedar and Daregrotir spoke.

 

"We've been lost don't know where we are?"

 

"You're on my land."

 

"Who are you?"

 

"My name is Thim Darem. As I said this is my land."

 

He started to speak but she aimed and pulled the trigger to the ground in front of the two. a tiny explosion and a piece of mud spattered on the two dwarves.

 

They turn slowly towards the other a meaningful if ambiguous look.

 

"We are Dwarves, the last that we know of. we have no drink, we will die soon without help."

 

"You can come with me but you will have to wear these," saying it while reaching down to a bag with four or five pairs of handcuffs in it.

 

The dwarves nodded.

 

"Well," she said, "go on and turn around."

 

It was an awkward compliance but compliance nonetheless.

 

The cuffs fit tightly, a solid bar instead of a chain. They walked in front of her side by side, at her request. They both would learn to regret it.

 

4

 

They knew they screwed up when they saw the cage. Cedar walked in and sat down on the fowl-smelling floor.

 

A sign hung over the entrance to the cage it was a loose caustic scrawl "of abandon all hope ye who enter."

 

"Go on get in," said Thim.

 

Daregorter with anger in his voice screamed "I am an old man and I am getting tired of this kind of crap."

 

There was no hesitation she pulled the trigger spreading his brains across the wall. A thin spackle of red landed on Cedar's face contrasting with his dark complexion.

 

Kicking his still-warm corpse firmly while walking past it to close the cell.

 

She smiled at Cedar and said, "welcome to the house that pain built!"

 

He did the chores. She would watch him like a bloodthirsty hawk, with one hand on a revolver at her hip. Saying things like "you make me feel like a fairytale princess.

 

Making him scrub the floor with a hand brush at gunpoint.

 

She sat in the room with him drinking wine. telling him about all the people she killed. Him in his cell thinking but wanting to say "I have finally reached a point of no return."

 

Thim would clench Cedar's pipe in her teeth even though she never smoked it. It was wearing at him with thirst "I will be dead soon." he is thinking on repeat.

 

The room was wooden planks and rusty fencing. with two-by-fours for the frame of his cage. But strangely he was not tired, only emotionally defeated.

 

It had been seven days since the rib bone pierced his chest. He felt strong that night. "I am going to escape." The thought is now a mantra.

 

He felt light-headed as white and black striped fur began to grow from his hands. he heard the handcuffs break from the growing size of his wrists.

 

The change was painful. But he did change.

 

5

 

she heard a deep voice screaming madness. Then the shed collapsed as she saw a black and white zebra-headed creature fly up out of the roof. then landing in front of her. Even the madness rising and descending.

 

"who are you," said Thim.

 

"oh, beloved women of liberty, come to me." Said, Cedar.

 

This life is wounded. through the holes in time there he haunts the buried burrows, the tragedy is the lesson.