. The future was heading its way very fast, it pondered the alternatives. It could gently levitate and reveal its magickal powers. But now was not the time. Not quite yet. It relaxed, in the way swords relax, and waited for the drop, a tune humming along its full length. Tension just a distant memory. Its point tipped over the edge. It fell, in the manner of magickal swords. Gracefully.
The waterfall felt the ripple of enchantment as the iron thing crested its … crest, and failed to plummet. That disappointed the waterfall. It also felt the girl, in the swirling flow on the edge, fail to catch it before it fell. It 'heard' the naughty words and the scream …
… she had screamed as she lunged for the sword and missed, the Poet had been unceremoniously ejected from her pocket and disappeared over the edge. So Jerrica screamed. She didn't know what else to do.
Kelm was stalking fish. They hadn't been hiding in the river so they must be in the trees. He had his catapult ready and maggots to fire at the fish. Then he heard a scream so he started off towards it. He saw the girl staring in horror and then she bolted off. Down the side of the waterfall. “What the hell are girls for?” he wondered as he wandered off. He decided to go and hector Bruce.
They had abandoned ship. Well, jumped barrel. And now they had gone awol. But the author didn't care about a couple of slap dash bit parts. He hoped the Troll had got them.
The sword floated serenely. Mattering not in the slightest that the water was vertical and flowed quicker in that direction. Then it felt a jolt, a ripple in its pond of calm. It was slightly amused as something grabbed its hilt. And held on. It felt the panic, it felt the relief. Then it felt … a connection. Something tingled along its length.
As his tiny arms clutched the sword a wave of dread passed by, waving at him with a sharp smile. A wave waving in waves. The Poet considered the images and clutched harder as nausea also comes in waves. Instead he thought about physics. How could it be he fell faster than an iron sword? And how was it possible to slow descent to a mere saunter? Most of all he asked “What does this all over tingling feeling mean?” A barrel plummeted by too fast and too **** close.
Kelm was exploring and had found the tiny bridge upstream from the excitement and was poking about, as is the want of curious little boys. Thats when he found the clay doll. Ugly in a crude kind of way. He wondered if dolls could swim and attached it to his fishing rod. He dunked it. Like a biscuit in tea. The result was a sticky mess so he threw it in the river. He made a decision and wandered off, he was going to look for fish nests.
The Troll was confused. He had accidentally discovered Hide and Seek. But didn't understand the rules. Morfine and Choklut were hiding and he was out of ideas. A fairly normal state of mind for a Troll. And now his body was dissolving. He remembered his doll familiar. It must have got wet. And he was fading out of the story. “Goodbye reader. Thankyou for knowing me” he says with a regretful voice.
The astonishing thing about light is it stops you bumping into things. And the sword was very light, as the tingling pulsed through it. It did not bump into the boulder at the bottom of the waterfall. Rather, it slid gently into the middle of the large stone.