The Beeches

The dark trunks of mighty neldoreth silently loom about you in the chill winter night. Lights twinkle in the limbs high above, and the faint sound of singing and merry laughter waft faintly down towards the forest floor. Beneath your feet, the earth of the path is is hard and slick with a coating of icy snow.

To the south you can hear the rushing of the Taurduin as it flows on its course through the forest, and a slight lessening of darkness towards the west indicates that the path continues that way as well.

Icy flakes drift through the night amongst the mighty trees, and the only sound to be heard is the rush of wind and the clatter of storm-swept branches as the snowstorm rages through the nighttime hours.

Contents:

Frozen Squirrel Corpse

Frozen Squirrel Corpse crawls... slowly... across... the path... one of its paws shatters as it attempts to crawl over the mountain that is Khillaure's boot.

Khillaure throws up all over the place, chunks of fruit and half eaten nuts easily recognizable in the mess that now covers Frozen Squirrel Corpse.

The frozen liquids quickly congeal into a viscous goo, and finally form a hard shell over the squirrel, leaving it unrecognizable to anyone.

Khillaure kicks the sickening hunk of twisted and defiled squirrel away from her, launching it into a tree where it quickly shatters into a million pieces.

Khillaure shakes uncontrollably at the sight of the sickening mass still trying to crawl away.... taking pity on the poor creature, she decides to put it out of it's misery and wields her spear. She takes careful aim and begins to bash it unmercifully until it finally stops moving.

Shattered Frozen Squirrel Chunks And Khil's Lost Lunch whines miserably, and takes the initiative, launching a shattered piece of skull, and a wee bit of brain straight for Khillaure's knee!

Khillaure vomits again... or should I say dry heaves since she lost most (if not all) of what was in her stomach a few minutes before. Finally pulling herself together, she wipes away a tear *sniff* at the loss of her little horney, bushey tailed friend and thinks back on all of the good memories she has of his short life....... In a touching memorial, Khillaure begins to sing "The Way We Were".

Shattered Frozen Squirrel Chunks And Khil's Lost Lunch begins to melt slightly, and is back in gelatenous form, it wiggles back and forth slowly in time with the music, and, much like a dog, its tongue, now attached to the bark of a tree, lols up and down merrily, and its tail quivers excitedly on the ground not far from Khillaure's most recent attempt at emptying her stomach.

Khillaure swoons as it is all just too much to handle. Feeling faint, she stumbles and catches herself on the trunk of a nearby tree.... only to place her hand in the congealed and oozing remains of SFSCAKLL's little bowels. She heaves again, then falls over in a dead faint.

Shattered Frozen Squirrel Chunks And Khil's Lost Lunch in confused concern, the chunks of the dead creature circle around Khillaure's fallen form, and quiver in unison. Some of the smaller pieces refreeze as the warmth of the song fades from them, and a few of the larger chunks cuddle against one another (or Khillaure) for warmth. Their silent, touching, and rather foul vigil is upheld for sometime, until the body parts realize that they are indeed dead, and simply stop their former motion.

As she slowly comes too, a layer of snow on her clothing and the ground around her tells Khillaure that she has been out for some time, the sudden realization of what has occured here hits her full on. Sobbing, she collects the once again frozen remains of SFSCAKLL and stares at them for a long moment. A light goes on in her little elfie brain..... maybe with a little bit of string, a needle, and, some of his favorite, dried fruit, he could live again!!! She shoves the remains in her pocket for safe keeping and prepares to go off in search of a nice place to set up her laboratory. Now where did she put that hunchback?