Mercenaries

We've been nesting behind enemy lines for a week now. "The emperor is sick, weakened" says the very confused Pencil Nuts. "We make our move and take him out tomorrow." Sauces tells P.N. to shut up, reminds him that he, P.N., is a fish, that his name is Pencil Nuts for a reason, and that he, Sauces, is the ranking grunt. Moreover, if he, P.N., confuses his role in this hierarchical binary again, he, Sauces, will tear Pencil Nuts a new one, so to speak. I made an abortive attempt to console P.N., assuring him that we'd make our move in good time, that he'd do himself a whole lot of good to try to get some rest in the mean time. He didn't even look at me. To suggest one rest in this morass is to suggest the impossible. He just put his head between his legs, plugged his fingers in his ears, and started humming chromatic scales to himself, laying his consciousness to rest in a cradle of autohypnosis. 

It wasn't so much the constant threat of ambush during our most unguarded and vulnerable moments that kept us awake at night as it was the steady diet of jolt cola and absinthe Vitality Replenishers (or VRs, not to be confused with virtual reality) with which we were equipped before deployment. So, you couldn't really blame P.N. for his mild delusion: Not only was the emperor not sick, he did not need to be assassinated because he didn't actually exist. Perched a meter above the ground, our bodies and minds squatted on a felled stretch of timber, teetering. 

A small rumble emerged from the hollow of my belly. "We need to eat something," I tried to say. Only drool and squeaks came out of my mouth. Fanciful Leprosy grabbed my hand, told me to take it easy, that I shouldn't try to resist it, to expend too much energy, that the near lethal dose of Shmorsels I unknowingly ingested would be expelled in a few hours, and with it, the hallucinatory affects crippling my sense of self and occupational duties. I stood up and executed a back flip off the log, ninja kicking all the while. I did this to demonstrate both my readiness for battle and seriousness of hunger. Nonplussed, my obtuse yet comprehensible tormentor reminded me this was primarily a reconnaissance mission, so I need not ninja kick, and secondly, the terms of our contracts, by which we voluntarily agreed to comply, stipulated we'd be endowed with no rations of substantive sustenance, but that we could forage and pillage as needed or desired. Damnit! he was right. I agreed and deigned to tell him as much, but the Shmorsels, or whatever it was that had taken hold of my productive language faculties, slew my thoughts just shy of cerebellar innervation, rendering my attempts at coherent speech and, by consequence, comportment, shamefully infantile. 

I stood, observing the dragons swirling above my comrades' VR (once again, not to be confused with virtual reality) helmets, carefully considering with which weapon would be most appropriate to cut down these beasts from hell. Swirling. Swirly. I thought, "the broadsword!" But oh, shit: Though it had the advantage of range in closs proximity and high hit/swing ratio, the hand guard was flimsy, so my hand would certainly be taken as a trophy back to the mead hall and gifted as tribute to Dragacornus X, or whoever it is these gremlins bow down to. Damnit! I'll have to use the fucking sling shot. I felt impotent as I reached into my acorn pouch, grabbing a handful of the stupid nuts I thought I had ditched a long time ago when I learned Back Flip Ninja Kick. I obviously couldn't do that, BFNK, here--no, it just wouldn't suit--I'd get incinerated by the fire breath before I'd be close enough to land my deadly blow. Calming down, I took stock of the situation, resolved that I was bad ass with the sling shot, that these unidragon-fairies had nothing against my acorns and general military prowess, and that I was a beautiful animal of the Earth, whether I could verbally articulate my hunger or not. I looked down at the verdant grass and inhaled deeply, observing the ground slowly swallow a sinking world. A smile spread across my face as I remembered that my boots, although now being digested by the soil, were waterproof. 

My feet are warm.

There is a god.