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October 22nd, 2009: Negotiations

Before we get started, just as a side note: there are new Ellowynes (halp!), and Overpriced Goth Girl Doll Heaven has a few new items as well. Not to mention yet ANOTHER Tonner Edward, plus Whiny Prom Tonner Bella. (Yes, that's a leg cast. Which I do think is hilarious.)

So The Littlest Romance continued apace. I remembered the Twilight conversation hearts that nearly killed me and decided this would definitely be a better use for them than ingesting any more, so The Littlest Edward left Bella a sprig from a recently-dried flower arrangement and a carefully-chosen confectionery message.




The Littlest Bella wanted to respond in kind, so I let her sort through the bag (seeing as how I was never, ever going to eat one of those godforsaken things again). Her own sentiments were... rather more straightforward. 




This sent The Littlest Edward into something of a panic, and so when Helm's Deep Aragorn--a former Ranch Hand of Gondor--came downstairs to check on the Sparklerosa, just to see how the ponies were settling in, Little Edward wrung (wrang?) his hands and poured out his prissy troubles, which were, namely, that the girl he was in love with couldn't keep her hands off him. Aragorn stared at him a moment. (Of course, Aragorn had not only been claimed by a brazen Purple Arwen thirty seconds out of the box, but had completely taken it in stride.) "So... this is a problem for you because..." He rubbed his temple in some incredulity. "Eru give me strength...Son, we need to have a talk."

So they had another man to manpire talk, in which Aragorn explained that Edward need to stop running away from Bella, that she was so aggressive because he was playing so hard to get, and that these were all perfectly normal teenage feelings on her part and, indeed, his, if he would just unclench a little--if he could just give in a little bit (you know, the whole happy medium thing), he would be at less risk of (un)life and limb. "I mean, youwant to be with her, don't you? You were the one pining after her?"

So Edward decided to embrace compromise (literally). He even brought his little journal and sat Bella down to come up with a list of ground rules: 

1) No means no. 

2) NO MEANS NO. (For her own safety, he assured her, given his strength and his uncontrollability and his dangerosity omg.) 

3) No touching below the shoulders. (Bella, who had missed her calling as a contract lawyer, then pointed out that one's arms can be, technically, at or above the level of one's shoulders. Edward allowed this--touching his arms? Well, if she just wanted to--not realizing the potential for pinning someone down therein.) 

4) The integrity of clothing is never to be breached. (This one really burned her. "Not even jackets?" "NOT EVEN JACKETS.") 

5) Light human-on-vampire nibbling permitted, so long as precious human does not break teeth on unfortunate vampire marble-hardness. (Which was a nice compromise, rather than a complete ban after "SHE BIT ME!," I thought.)

Despite his best efforts, however, poor Little Edward was so innocent that there were a number of rules he had to go back and add later--his antique Edwardian (literally) sensibilities had no idea what a twenty-first century girl would be capable of. They went out under the bleachers behind the tableshelf and he sat down, composed himself, and reached out to take her hands in his. She pounced. The new rules were scribbled in rather hastily:

6) Never horizontal

7) Keep your legs to yourself 

8) No rubbing technically it's not rubbing or whatever that is you're doing then try to stop me this is my pencil, I am the one writing down the rules if I write it down does that mean it's a rule no it does not rubbing is permitted it's a rule now! it's a rule now! I AM THE ONLY ONE WRITING DOWN RULES _
: (_
well _
: )_
maybe we can discuss it later

As evidenced, Edward was committed to the spirit of compromise--he had to give in sometimes, after all--and Bella had a few demands of her own. ("The French do this?! Well, they WOULD.") After a while, in fact, he realized that making out with one's attractive teenage girlfriend is not that horrific a burden and actually it was kind of pleasant and furthermore he was kind of pretty good at it and you know really it might be THE BEST THING IN THE WORLD. By the end of the week you'd have thought he'd invented it (although I swore that if Bella ever uttered the words "Ward-Ward" I would get out the hose). And so every evening he would go skipping back over fields of flowered carpet, back to the Sparklerosa to feed the ponies again, staring dreamily up at the ceiling, utterly blissed out, as they munched. And then while Clarice told the babies bedtime stories about how Little Brown Riding Hood got eaten by the Big Bad Werewolf and the woodcutter gave up the cutting of wood forever and became a shepherd, Edward would return to give Bella her goodnight kiss. Eventually the sorrow of parting got to be so sweet that I had to impose a curfew; that investment in the Jaws of Life looked to be more urgent with every passing day. 

Tonner Edward was, of course, in hell. He had always had the strongest mental connection with Little Edward--because, you know, Little Edward was another him--and he especially had trouble shutting him out now because of the weird triple-plus-ungood migraine he now had going on, not to mention the increasing agony of his chest pains, and nothing White Arwen could think to do helped. 




And what was left of his heart broke when he heard that Little Bella was having nightmares (or "nightmares") about him, which of course had led to many tiny, smug assurances on Little Edward's part to Bella that he, thegood vampire, would protect her from the big bad creepy one. And Tonner Edward heard them all. It was not good. So I'm trying to deal with rampant tiny PDA on one side and massive sparklepire heartbreak on the other and I'm still worried that Serafina is trying to poison Faramir Two with my birdbath and then Galadriel comes in and announces that we're going to have a war council.

"A war council!"

So all the Middle-earthians and the His-dark-materialists gathered on my bed (I tucked poor Tonner Edward away in the sweater drawer in my closet) and Faramir Two explained that the squirrels had been congregating in unusually shifty-looking scurries--

"Scurries?"

 He sighed impatiently. "Ten scurries to a dray, five drays to a squad. You know, like a flock of pigeons, or a ubiquity of sparrows." 

"What?"

 --and his best scout had overheard some of their covert whispering. "We're just fortunate he was able to understand them." And then, because I guess I looked a bit slow on the uptake, Faramir added, "Legolas speaks squirrel."

Legolas then threw back his head and let out the most horrific chittering shriek ("CHI-CHI-CHITCHITCHIT-CHI-CHA-CHA-CHAAAAA") that I have ever heard. It was a little too Xena: Sciurine Princess for my comfort, to be honest. "WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT?"

 "That was totally squirrel," he informed me. "I also speak chipmunk, rabbit, raccoon, groundhog, gopher, woodchuck--"

 "Legolas, groundhogs and woodchucks are the same thing."

 "Yeah, well, hello, that is why I speak both of them. They are dialects."

 "AND WHAT HE HEARD THEM SAY was that one of their own must be avenged, and to that purpose, they are summoning their brethren from the far reaches of the cul-de-sac." 

Ah: Squirrelly McArrowtail. "Well, you did say you feared they were mobilizing."

 "Yes. And now I fear that my... fears... have come to pass." And even then, there seemed to be something that he was not telling us. But I let him keep his own counsel for the moment. 

Despite the forebodings that would furrow his brow whenever he stopped to muse upon them, Faramir Two showed himself to be an effective captain. He decided that Faramir One and Eowyn should patrol the far left of the woods, which led to a good hour of Eowyn trying to decide which of her weapons she wanted to use. She had her black sword-and-shield set, after all, as well as the Narnia weapons set. Faramir Two finally recommended that she take the bow, quiver and sword, leaving the shield behind; that was pretty much what the Faramirs carried, so her arms would be on par with theirs. Serafina quickly volunteered to take the right side of the woods--which would include the Asservilles' yard; Faramir Two and I exchanged concerned glances. Meanwhile, Legolas--elf-quick and green-camouflaged--was posted in the trees to eavesdrop on the squirrels. Lyra was resolutely told to stay inside with Iorek, which led to a lot of stamping and grumbling, but eventually she consoled herself to go play with Anna and Elizabeth who... seemed to be up to something again. Well, Anna seemed to be, and Elizabeth seemed to be concerned about it. Great. Always a three-ring circus around here, I swear.

 Legolas bounced over to me then, struck by a sudden idea: "Hey, go ask Little Bit over there if she can cook us up some lembas. We gotta start stockpiling for the war effort." I nearly asked him if he wanted to plant a Victory Garden too, and then I realized that maybe I didn't want to find out what his idea of a cash crop was. Of course, the knowledge of the lembas-baking is held by the Breadgiver in an elven community, a position of great honor, but I felt sure that Galadriel would be more than happy to hand those secrets over to Little Bella so that at least she wouldn't have to do it herself--she's still pretty preoccupied with divination at the moment--and this is what was on my mind when I approached the printerbook tableshelf, but no one was in the kitchen. Unfortunately, sound carries from under-behind the tableshelf. 

"Stop that!" "I trust you!" "Well, I don't trust me, so get off!" "I'm trying!" 

I decided to put in the order for lembas later.

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