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Updated 09-20-99
Nimue looked at him. “You mean you’ve never heard a Filipino girl sing?”
“If she sings as pretty as you look, I’ll take you word for it.”
Ribbs was trying his very hardest not to completely flip his biscuit. “May I be excused now?”
“No, shut up,” Chief snapped. Nimue’s eyes went round.
“Don’t you snap at him!” she scolded.
“Okay then you snap at him, he’s your kid—”
“NOONE SAID HE WAS MY BLOODY BABY!!” Nimue howled, and every head on the beach turned in their direction. Ribbs looked like he wanted to melt into the sand. Chief looked completely fascinated.
“Uh—” Ribbs invited two fierce looks in his direction. “Do either of you know where my Dad is?”
“Halfway between here and China by now, wouldn’t you say—?” Chief began, and yelped as his feet were barreled out from beneath him. He landed on top of a sandy Quarty and Salty pile with a delightful thud. Salty heaved him off and sent him rolling into the tide. “Thanks a lot, Salty!” he shouted, knocking water out of his ears. Salty checked his sense of direction, sniffed his tee shirt and took an indifferent swig from his bottle. Quarty yawned.
“Your kid is cute,” Quarty grinned at Nimue. The British princess huffed and delivered a solid kick to the side of his head.
“It doesn’t bother you,” Al began, sitting in the center of the raft as the ferryman leaned against the push pole, “that you left your girlfriend behind with your brother?”
Merlin smiled. “I have faith in my brother. We must learned to trust our family, my king.”
Al threw him a wry look, cradling the golden sword Excalibur on his lap. “Yeah unless your brother is under the guidance of an egotistical maniac who’s trying to kill you.”
Merlin frowned. “That’s true.”
“But come on, Merlin,” Al said, looking at his wizard curiously. “You know Chief is in love with her.”
Merlin glanced back, towards the distant shore of Quacker County. “I know.”
The hooded ferryman pushed against his pole, taking them further from home. To their east they could just barely make out the coast of the deserted Neo-Dream Valley. Merlin had been there once. It was a barren, quiet place.
The ferryman slipped on the pole a little, rocking the raft. “Are you all right?” Merlin asked kindly, rising to his feet to offer some assistance. “Would you like me to push for a while?”
“Oh, that won’t be necessary,” the ferryman hissed, and pulled back his hood.
“MAB!!” Merlin cried, and Al leapt to his feet, sword ready in hand.
“How’d that old hag get on the boat?!” Al shouted.
“Not as important a question,” Mab sneered, in her rasping, gravelly voice, as she rose aloft from the raft, “as how you will get home again.” She gathered a powerful spell and discharged it, sending the raft they were on flying to pieces. She hovered above the gently rolling waves of the lake as Al and Merlin plunged beneath their depths. She glanced up to see Excalibur spinning through the sky. It reflected the light of the sun once before landing firmly in her grasp. “Excalibur is MINE!” she screamed as their heads broke the surface.
Al’s eyes went big. “Oops.”
“MAB!” Merlin shouted, gasping for breath and treading water. “You’re not meant to have that sword! You know it belongs to the once and future king!”
Mab smiled sweetly down at them. “Of course. And you know, my silly boy, that Mordred is the king of which you speak.”
“Mordred will never be king!” Merlin spat, flinging strings of wet hair out of his eyes. “That’s not the way it is fated.”
Mab rubbed her chin thoughtfully, her long, shiny hair whipping in a fierce breeze. “Ah yes, fate. But—” she offered a cruel, triumphant smirk at the wizard, “isn't it also his fate to fight and die in the name of the sword?”
Al’s head whipped around. “Oh, no no no!!” he shouted. “You didn’t ever say nothin’ about dying for that thing!”
“As only for the good of civilization, my lord—” Merlin stammered.
“Oh, I see!” Mab crowed. “You didn’t tell your young king the whole story!” The fey Queen howled with a laughter that raced across the waves.
“You sure as hell didn’t,” Al hissed in Merlin’s ear.
“Ah yes but time does funny things with fate, my young friend,” Merlin whispered, smiling, and struggling to keep the waves from dragging him under. “And that’s what Queen Mab doesn’t yet understand.” He swallowed water and gagged, coughing it out again. Al ducked an arm under his shoulder, concerned.
“Dude, you all right?”
“Wizards and water don’t mix, do they, Merlin?” Mab called down to them, drawing winds from off the coast to torment them.
“No they don’t, Mab.” And with that, a huge wave crashed over their heads and plunged them far beneath the surface.
Chief was the first to notice the breeze. He glanced out across the lake and frowned at the tumbling thunderheads that seemed to have appeared from thin air. “Hey, guys? Anyone know anything about a hurricane about to hit?”
Quarty and Salty glanced up and grimaced. Nimue’s face took on a look of deep concern, and Chief picked it up immediately.
“Don’t worry, honey,” he told her, picking himself up out of the water. “Merlin’s a big boy. He can take care of himself.”
She didn’t look convinced. “I certainly hope so,” she whispered. Chief took a step forward to comfort her and suddenly both of them were propelled backwards.
“SHIT!!” Chief shouted, resurfacing out of the Waterway. Queen Mab was standing where they had been, an awful smile stretched from ear to ear and a gold sword in hand. “Oh—” Chief gasped. “DOUBLE shit!”
Quarty and Salty backed away slowly, looking uncertain. Quarty glanced at Chief with a “what-the-hell-do-we-do-now?” look on his face. Ribbs just stood there, frozen in the sand, and staring up at what had to be the most evil-looking thing he had ever seen. Mab angled a manic eye at him and sized him up. “Puny little thing,” she growled, and took a good, long sniff. “He stinks.”
“That’s what I said,” Salty agreed. Quarty ripped his bottle out of his hand, smacked him with it, and handed it back.
“He must be Merlin’s son,” Mab grinned, and snatched him up out of the sand. She shot like an arrow into the sky, taking both Ribbs and the sword Excalibur with her.
“Noooo!” Nimue screamed, lunging out of the sand and leaping vainly into the air.
Chief watched the Queen land on her perch high above the police station, and frowned.
Troy wandered out of his house and onto the beach. “Hey!” he shouted. “It’s windy as hell out here!”
Chief bolted out of the water and grabbed Troy by the chain. “Hey gay-boy, come on!” Troy squealed as Chief yanked him toward the open-faced building.
“Chief, what are you doing?” Nimue cried as the two began to climb the tall, narrow ladder that would take them straight up to the police station.
“Yeah,” Quarty drawled. “The police ain't gonna do you no good.”
Chief pounced on Wiggy’s table, soaking all of his legal documents, and Troy clamped his hands over his mouth as the Dick was about to let go with a blood-chilling scream. “Shhhh,” Chief warned, and cocked a thumb at the ceiling. Wiggy’s eyes rolled up and stared for a second. Troy let him go and hopped onto the table as Wiggy backed away. They each took two fistfuls of Mab’s long, pink tail, which was hanging innocently down off the face of the building. “Hey guys!” Chief shouted to his friends watching on the beach. “CATCH!!”
With one solid yank the Fairy Queen went tumbling off the open-faced building. She landed square on the group of them, scattering ponies like leaves.
“Come on,” Chief said, and he and Troy pulled themselves onto the next level. Mordred and Morgan le Fey stared at them, struck too stone cold stupid to even scream, as Troy evaluated the lock on the little prison. Being a football player, it didn’t mean much to him, so he spun around and kicked the door clean off its strike.
“Damn,” Chief said, impressed. “Pretty good for a gay boy.”
“Dammit I’m NOT GAY!”
The two ponies peered inside the dark little prison. Ribbs was staring big-eyed at them in one corner, and Baby Surprise was staring big-eyed in the other. Chief glanced at Ribbs, then at Baby Surprise, then at Ribbs again, then grabbed Ribbs and shouted: “Let’s go!”
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