Obnoxious Novelist How-to

Voluptua awakend and turned to collect her new 'His' thoughts. He leaned against the stone balustrade and looked out, over the cliffs at the choppy and storm driven South Atlantic Ocean.

A movement caught his eye. Down on the storm driven beach two haggard, female-ish figures were dragging what was left of a raft onto the beach.

"OH NO!" she exclaimed, clutching a lace handkerchief to his heaving, blushing bosom, ' Huh...wha??? ANYWAY...Fetch me my binoculars, quickly!"

Blake and Celestia came to attention and raced to the antique box. But Randy was there first, and raced the binoculars to Voluptua who had quite forgotten about them and was using the ancient telescope on the battlements to view the storm splattered beach.

"OH NO!" He exclaimed again, and fell to the wet stones in a faint.

Blake snatched the binoculars from Celestia and gazed down on the battered and forlorn women struggling with an inflatable raft to which were attached 48 empty cans of diet soda.

"She's...He's right to be alarmed," Blake said in the gravest and blackest voice heard on this side of a dark and dismal abandoned swamp cemetery.
"Voluptua is right. We must needs flee! For up out of the ocean have come the dreaded Dee Baggia and her twin Dou Baggia."

"OH NO! exclaimed Solemn, "Save me! I don't want to be D.Bagged again!"

Solemn wasn’t putting up with it this time. Locating Bertha’s discarded tommygun, she dove from the balcony. Just when it looked like she would hit the rocky terrain below, she extended a pair of high-tech wings hidden in her Angelic Pretty handbag.

Like dregged from the sea
This new mystery
Like stars flying free
In skies above

Out of nowhere, Solemn dodged bullets ridden by neon silhouettes of Cindy Crawford.

Like the ancient palace grand
And the shores are made of sand
Like waves crashing on dry land
In skies below

Supermodels in sparkling paint and bikinis did back-flips across a bridge made out of rifles over a river of champagne.

When I think I can’t love you
Then Obnoxiously, so Obnoxiously
You show me How-To!

The gunman had Solemn in his sights, but just before he pulled the trigger, she turned and shot him, turning red the view.

“That’s Fervor,” She said. “SOLEMN Fervor.”

"Oh, that is IT!" snapped Celestia, whose pure, white-hot rage overcame the daemon's silence curse. "Nobody's even TRYING to stick to the plot now. Come on, guys, we're going to go home and conjure a real demon -- one without any pretentious 'a'."

"Yeah, I don't want to get turned into a woman," Chet said.

"Me neither," said Brad. "There's way too much gender-switching in this story already."

"Not that there's anything wrong with that," said Chet.

"No, of course not," said Brad.

"Both of you shut UP," Celestia growled. She led the way out of the castle gates and back toward home.

That's when Solemn had an epiphany:she was a true woman to the core, although her poor eyesight could not validate it and she secretly planned a trip to the optometrist.

Matt Damon drove his cute euro-hybrid furiously onto the scene to rescue someone, because clearly someone was in need of rescuing. He found a wayward chihuahua on the side of the road, and decided it was adorbs. He Scooped the chewy into his Fiat and drove away, on a mad and desperate quest to the nearest Pet-Co for doggie treats.


That's when Solemn realized she could never be as appealing as a puppy. This long and arduous life lesson told her that neither heaving bosoms nor enchantments or ghosts who had access to five inch floppy disks could show her the road to happiness.


She swept her shiny raven locks over her shoulder and walked away from the madness. Voluptua, Blake, all of them would be a part of her past. Her future lay ahead of her like a golden diamond, which would be golden and sound like Neil Diamond.


Solemn knew, from that time, she would strive to make things right, and serve Polar Pops at the Circle K, because they only cost 87 cents, and made the world a better place.
"Circle K!" she bellowed into the empty night, "Your dollar hotdogs and cheap carbonated beverages bring happiness to all! I shall follow your example and get a job with you, hoping to one day own my own part of the franchise!!!!"

I gazed at Frankie/Blake and heaved my pectorals. I no longer had flowing titian hair to toss, and my bust line wasn't nearly as impressive as it was a few posts ago, but I still had my blazing emerald green eyes, and my loins still burned.

More to the point, I had only about 6 more hours in which to get engaged and married before I lost Castle Ladeeda. And now Frankie/Blake was a woman, and I was a man, so we could legally get married in Scotland, which, in case you forgot, is where Castle Ladeeda is located, and where, under the terms of the curse, I had to get married -- today, before midnight -- or my family would lose its ancient ancestral home. You might want to sticky this post if you think you're likely to forget any of this, because I really don't have time or patience to repeat it all again, not after the trauma of losing my voluptuous bosom and curling red-gold mane.

"Bla--Frankie. My love." I fell on one knee and took her hand. "I know things have been a little tumultuous lately, but will you marry me by midnight and help me break the curse on Castle Ladeeda? I mean, I think we might still have to flee, what with the platoon of D. Baggias arriving on the shore, but maybe we could do a quick ceremony and head straight out for the honeymoon."

She fluttered her manly eyes and heaved her manly cleavage. "Oh, Voluptua -- er, am I still supposed to call you that?"

I narrowed my emerald eyes and glared. "You have a problem with that?"

"No. No problem. Just checking. Yes. Oh, yes. Yes, my darling, I will marry you."

The assembled ghosts broke into applause.

"Finally," said the hot ghost who'd whisked Solemn and the plot to the tower about 60 posts ago, "Finally, we have some damn resolution to this freaking story."

"Not so fast," said Bertha.

"Then it shall have to be a slower marriage," the ghost said. "Will that satisfy?"
"Yes," the manticore thing that used to be a woman (maybe) nodded enthusiastically, accidentally piercing its lip with a row of teeth.
"We don't have time to be slow!" Voluptua stamped a size 12 foot, wedged into her... his... Voluptua's high heel, no doubt because of the demon-
"Daemon, damn it."
'Daemon' commanded it. Nobody else commented that this large bloke was wedged into women's clothing too small for him, but only the chihuahua, Randy and a few of the ghosts were still the same gender they had started with.
"I shall officiate," Edgar Stumblebutt IV drifted down, having finally finished his speech. "As Lord of the manor until lady... err... the protagonist takes over, it is fitting."
"Didn't we cover that with my law degree?" Voluptua's burning hadn't gone but was joined by a new and rather awkward experience for all concerned.
"And a few posts ago you were a pregnant woman. Shush up. Ladies and gentlemen-"
"What about me?" Bertha asked, applying plasters to every pierce wound.
"I don't classify as either of those, either," 'Daemon' added.
"Just bear with me," Edgar shuffled his notes around. A remarkable feat, considering they were paper. Come to think of it, where did they even come from?
"ROOOOOAAAAAR!!"

The dark darkness descended. It was so dark that no-one could see how dark it was. Dark. Dark dark dark......... Dark like the evil heart of Br...Vol....Sol...... I'm sorry, who's left in this now?

Anyway, it was bloody dark.

..and it was a freaking storming night as you could have well guessed after looking out the window in Scotland and being able to see the crests of the waves in the South Atlantic alllllll the way down off the coast of Brazil.

The entire cast of 'Twilight' had finally arrived, being the only ones to whom the wedding planner had sent any invitations.

Everyone took their seats and the Chihuahua, 'Chico' as we were calling him today, had several spools of heavy surgical thread and a needle - just incase anyone opened their mouths to object.



A smarmy guy attempted to drive up to the castle in a new Toyota, but the vegan vampire gargoyles took care of him immediately.

I couldn't possibly get married in the outfit I was currently wearing, which had torn a la Incredible Hulk when I'd morphed into a man. And I wasn't about to let Blake/Frankie (hereinafter "B/F") do so either. Not to mention the various entities who'd agreed to be in the wedding party. A change of apparel was essential.

So, despite the storm, the dark darkness, the approaching D.Baggias, the looming deadline, the distinct possibility of paranormal intervention, and my fractured ankle, I ran back to the house on my long, slim, elegant, hairy legs with B/F at my side and a train of ghosts, mythical entities, and bedraggled cross-dressers to find something more appropriate.

As soon as I reached my closet, I realized I had a major problem, since although of course I had packed a stunning custom-made wedding gown just in case, I could no longer zip it up. For that matter, not one of my evening frocks would fit my 6'4" frame. B/F faced the reverse problem with his own wardrobe. And forget about the bridesmaids. Bertha wasn't going to fit into the puce bridesmaids gowns I'd picked out when I was twelve and kept in the attic, or anything else, for that matter.

I threw my slim, lovely, somewhat hairy hands over my stubbly face and sobbed my emerald green eyes out. What could we do? I'd watched hundreds of bridal shows and as was perfectly obvious, if we couldn't find the perfect garments, we couldn't possibly get married.

Just then Solemn arrived from the Circle K with a group of sickly-looking teenagers and a couple of boxes.

"Hey, look what I brought as a present?" She opened the boxes and inside was the most scrumptuous assortment of Renee Strauss and Vera Wang wedding clothes ever.

"But who are these people with you?" I asked.

"Oh, this is the Mysterious Undefined Illness Club," Solemn said. "They work with me. In the back is Pale McLashes. She faints whenever the plot gets too intense. Next to her is Uriah Threepointer, who's mysterious undefined illness is threatening his basketball scholarship and straining his relationship with his materialistic girlfriend. So he's been spending more time with Daniella Lemur, right there, who sleepwalks into plot points. Up front is their leader, Jack Soulful. He's studied a lot of philosophy and is wise beyond his years because he never knows when his mysterious undefined illness will strike. Anyway, are these outfits good enough?"

I wanted to ask how she'd managed to afford them on her budget, but if that had been a problem, she couldn't have afforded what she was wearing, either.

I heaved my pectorals. My loins burned as I pulled the gorgeous Renee Strauss wedding gown out of the box. It looked like a perfect fit, extra tall and extra wide in the shoulders. And one of the Vera Wang bridesmaids gowns was tailored for a manticore. I had to admit that Solemn had hit it out of the park this time. But still...

"You can't bring all of these people to my wedding," I snapped. "I don't have place-cards for them, or anything. They'll have to leave, stat."

Solemn stomped his foot. "That's it. I've had it. I pulled a freaking miracle out of a box for you, and all you can do is --"

I smacked him across the face. "And what about flowers? I need flowers."

"You could use the flowers from my engagement party," offered Bertha.

"And the Castle Ladeeda estate is practically lousy with flowers," said B/F. "I mean, weren't you waxing rhapsodic about them in one of your first posts in this thread?"

It was my turn to stomp my foot, and I added in a chest heave for good measure. "Are you all idiots? They don't match the bridesmaids' gowns. I can't possibly use them." I burst into tears. "Oh, god. Life is So. Difficult. Where oh where is David Tutera when I need him?"

Just then, as suddenly as a sudden thing, the clock struck!
Voluptua's head was spinning, for the clock's attack had spun his around. He stumbled, fell towards the moldy planks sealing off one side of the belltower...
Voluptua grabbed the edge, watching one of his fake nails fall away. Above, Solemn was cackling with evil intent.
"My incredibly suspect, possibly-chance plan has succeeded! Now I shall marry B/F and take the estate out from under your shallow, manly nose!"
B/F looked on in horrified horror as Voluptua's grip began to slip, but she was so scared with terrification that she couldn't move to help. In the background, one of Solemn's cronies had swooned.
"I can't die here," Voluptua was deprived of her usual mannerisms, so settled for a military-grade pout. "I'm the main character!"
Solemn disappeared and returned seconds later, brandishing the killer clock.
"It looks like your... time is up!"

I clutched at B/F's heaving bosoms and gasped a gasp that no romantic hero/heroine had ever gasped in the history of gasping and passed out, cold, on the deep sherpa pile rayon blend oriental carpet in front of the makeshift altar in front of the wedding guests.

"But wait," said B/F, freeing Voluptua's hands from his/her intense double D's, " This clock is on BEIJING time!"

"Beijing time?" repeated Solemn. "WTF? Well, does the curse specify any particular time zone?"

The hot ghost spoke up. "No, it just says midnight today. No time zone."

I fluttered my emerald green eyes back to consciousness in time to transcribe the foregoing lines and to pipe up with a legal opinion. "If the curse is silent as to time zone, it's implicit that the agreed-upon time zone is the time zone in which the curse was first cast and/or where the curse will take effect."

The hot ghost nodded. "That makes sense, considering it's legal gibberish. FYI, it's Scotland for both."

"So that means it's only 5 pm, and we still have seven hours to buy flowers!" My pectorals heaved joyfully.

"But that must mean... that the time is Chinese!" B/F gazed intensely into the middle distance, slightly cross-eyed.
"That it is," the ghost said very deeply, causing more loinal burning in Voluptua. "And it doesn't have immigration papers."
"What does that mean, my dear husband/wife-to-be?" Voluptua tried clinging on again, but B/F pushed him/her away.
"It means for this to be perfect, we need to find Scottish time."
"But where would we find such time?"
"I do not know. We shall have to call the best detective in the land to find it. We'll just have to bear with it..."

Sherlock pushed Poirot out of the way. 'He means me, you French buffoon!'

'I am Belgian, you English upper class geek!'

'Whatever!'

"wtf?" said Solemn, reverting to lower-case teenage text speak. "nun uv these posts make sense n they all conflict n i dont no wat 2 say cuz i think if we R in scotland we dont need 2 look 4 scotish time n wtf iz up with those chinese peeps in teh garden n whoz teh french dude --"

"Belgian!" said Poirot, twirling his famous mustache. "I am Belgian! Not French. Why is this so difficult for you English to remember?"

"Because, sir, no one cares," retorted Sherlock. He took a quick snort of cocaine before continuing. "We already have the finest detective in Britain on the case, namely myself."

"Pfffft," said Miss Marple, or Ms. Marple, as she preferred to be called. "My village parables knock the pants off your heroin-muddled delusions about cigarette ashes and half-melted butter. Heaven knows you solved most of your cases by pure luck."

Randy lurched into the room, sans bear costume but still reeking of vomit. "Did someone say..."

"NO!" shouted B/F, knocking Randy unconscious with a single brutal swing of the killer clock. Then she stamped her foot, because it was her turn to do so. "But why do we need detectives at all? I'm happy to stipulate that it is currently --" she consulted her watch -- "5:15 pm Edinburgh time here at Castle Ladeeda. Which means we have 6 hours and 45 minutes to find flowers, get married, save the estate, and end this thing. Is everyone good with that?"

The daemon shrugged. "Fine with me."

The ghosts all nodded. Bertha was smoking a hookah and gazing out the window, so she counted as a yes. Solemn was silently crying in a corner, but everyone ignored him, as usual. Lyle/stepmother had stepped out for a quick botox injection before the ceremony. And everyone else had either marched away in disgust or was wandering around the estate trying to pick up plot points they'd missed.

"Great," said B/F. "So we don't need a detective."

Poirot twirled his mustache. "There I am afraid you are wrong, mon amie. You will need me to find the flowers."

"Pfffft." I heaved my pectorals and rolled my emerald green eyes. "Scotland is filled with flower shops, and they deliver."

Poirot shook his head. "That may once have been true, my friend. But no longer, I fear. For every bud in Scotland has been plucked and shipped to Beijing."

My eyes widened...."What? Who..."

The daemon raced to the fridge. Finding it stocked with his favorite, basic , American brew, he relaxed...

...and that was when the Tardis appeared, displacing the altar and ruining the bunting. An odd gentleman stepped out.

"Dr Who, actually."

"Why is there a blue telephone box in my drawing room?" I stamped my foot and heaved my pectorals. "Get it out of here. It clashes with the bridesmaid's dresses."

The Doctor twiddled his bow tie and looked confused. "Excuse me. I may have landed in the wrong place. Isn't this Amy Pond's wedding?"

"Don't be ridiculous. It's my wedding."

B/F shouted from inside the telephone box. "Voluptua! You have to see this thing! It's bigger on the inside than on the outside!"

"Well, have you by chance seen Amy?" asked the Doctor. "Amelia Pond? Scottish girl, ginger hair, feisty, rather annoying at times, getting married today?'"

"That totally sounds like you, Voluptua," said Bertha. "Or rather, it did sound like you."

I stamped my foot again, because that is what I do when I'm angry. "Look, can we focus here? All the flowers in Scotland are gone, and we've only got six hours left to find them."

Poirot pulled out a pocket watch. "There I am afraid you are mistaken. You have not taken into account the time between posts or the time-space continuum. I'm afraid you have only twelve short minutes in which to find flowers and conduct the ceremony, mes amis."

Poirot and Holmes were still arguing when their arguing was brought to a halt by a strange figure that pushed between them with some kind of produce cart.

"Who was that?" Poirot asked.

"I don't know," Sherlock said, "But in spite of her attractive face and groovy outfit, I felt an odd chill when she walked by. Hmm... this bears investigating!"

***

Solemn walked the lonely shoreline, really bummed. Nobody ever listened to her or appreciated it when she did stuff. Why, even her wicked stepmother had never even thrown her so much as a thank you for all her hard work. She'd only ever found some way her cleaning, cooking, and horse-stall shoveling was imperfect.

"It's not fair!" Solemn yelled.

The D. Baggia's surrounded her. At this point, she didn't care. It was pointless. Everything was pointless. Even those stakes Bertha fired at her were pointless, and that's why she'd survived them so easily... and, even more importantly, so had her outfit.

"Goodbye, cruel world!" Solemn yelled. She remembered Cruel World. It starred Kim Basinger and had been made in the middle ages or something.

Just then, a silhouette appeared between her and the two D.Baggia monsters and with one mighty, epic-level slap the likes of which she'd never seen before, knocked them both clean back into the water.

Standing in front of Solemn was the most stunning woman she'd ever seen. She had amazing long blonde hair, a gorgeous Nanette Lepour leopard-print handbag with matching Jimmy Choo heels, and the absolute grooviest vintage apricot corduroy CoCo Chanel peacoat-dress ever sold on consignment. Secondhand stuff was usually gross, but not when it was that retro and vintage.

Solemn felt an odd chill, but she assumed it was just the wind off the sea. I mean, with an outfit that groovy, how could she possibly be a bad person?

Besides, she had- and Solemn couldn't believe her eyes- a cart full of perfect flowers!

"ZOMG!!" Solemn said. "U have to sell me those. Name ur price. Even with the family fortune in danger and me working at a gas station and nobody else having any kind of visible means of support at all, money is no object!"

"These flowers?" The groovy mystery woman asked, quirking her delicate penciled eyebrow. "You noticed that giant honking biohazard symbol on the side, right?"

"Yeah, but I don't know what it means."

"It means they're extremely poisonous and likely to slaughter everything in a three-mile radius should they be removed from these glass cases." She shrugged. "But hey, if you want them, truth be told I was gonna set them off here anyway."

"NOT SO FAST!"

I shoved Voluptua out of the POV position again and stormed onto the shore alongside that delightfully handsome Mr. Holmes.

"How dare you show your face here again, after everything!" I hissed.

"How dare I?" Said the imperious Ms. Mystery imperiously. "I had to drop everything and make an emergency trip here after my informants disclosed my long-lost missing daughter had finally been located, and when I show up, what do I find? You! Mistreating my poor dear sweet little girl!"

"Me?" I hissed. "I made her clean some stuff and sleep in an uncool bedroom. You threw her in a tank of live great white sharks!"

"I did that out of love! To build character! It is so totally not the same thing!"

Solemn choked. "Y-you mean you're..."

"Yes," I hissed. "She's your real mother."

Dr. Dethmarch was terrified to discover, when he and the band attempted to play another rousing tune, their instruments were incapable of producing anything but disco.

"And that's not all," Sherlock Holmes said. "That tiny bloodstain she hasn't managed to remove from her Jimmy Choo shoes indicates she is that evil spy that has been so relentlessly pursued by MI6, the NSA, Wal-Mart Parking Lot Security, and every country that's on planet Earth and probably some that aren't."

She rolled her eyes. "No shit, Sherlock. I had the last guy who hadn't managed to figure that out executed sometime in 1992."

Said man popped onscreen to say, "No, I survived th-"

Ms. Mystery shot him.

"I'm still not-"

So she shot him six more times.

"Roar!" Said Randy. She shot him, too. Fortunately, the bear suit deflected the blow.

Solemn stamped her foot. "I can't believe you even care about any of this unimportant crap when we're going to lose the family fortune and be cursed if Voluptua can't get married in... eleven and a half minutes! Concentrate on the important part... CAN WE USE THESE FLOWERS OR NOT?"

Solemn's long-lost mother just began to ominously reach for the super-handy flowers when a loud crack of thunderous sound zinged through the air and a boxy grayish car that had seen better days landed on the beach, leaving a trail of fiery tire tracks in its wake.

"Don't, for the totally platonic love of your manly looking sister, take those flowers!"

The rest of the party, having now joined Solemn, Randy the still-breathing but really needs to exit stage left bear, and whoever the heck else is on the beach at this point, gasped in wildly surprised exclamations of shock at the boy in the letter jacket who jumped out of the super unstylish car next to a crazy haired man in a lab coat.

Solemn eyed the boy with faint interest. Something about that raven haired bowl cut was starting to make his/her loins burn with a burning sensation that had nothing whatsoever to do with Voluptua's rampant rash and set his/her heart to pounding wildly and his/her ears buzzing, even more than the shock of finding his/her long lost mother.

"Who are you?" Solemn breathed with a faint flutter of fingertips upon the salty sea air.

"Totally not wicked important right now. Right now, you need to step away from the flowers before - "

"STOP!"

Everyone jumped as yet another young effeminate looking man stepped out next to another wild crazy haired doctor. The sound of the second car crashing into the first one had been woefully lost in the crashing sea waves crashing heavily against the sea shore, drowning out the sounds of Voluptua's wails as time inexorably ticked away towards the final hour when all was lost.

"Who are you?" Solemn breathed again. He/she stared in confusion when Randy handed over a paper bag in concern.

"I'm you, you moron. I'm from the future and I'm here to tell you that you need to get those flowers because otherwise you are about to mess with the space-time continuum in a wicked bad way here."

"But, you have a bowl hair cut and a letter jacket!" Solemn hyperventilated in horror.

"Look, there are totally more important concerns here like - "

"STOP!"

"This is worse than the bear screwing up his lines," Blake/Frank muttered with a heave of his chesticles in disgust.

"Who are y-"

"Oh shut up with the questions, we're all you and we're from the future to tell you that you need to - "

"Wait, I was here from the future first so I should be the one to - "

"Just because you were here first doesn't mean you should - "

"Is ANYONE going to take the darn flowers so I can marry my manly man now woman who is still a very handsome manly woman in time to take the Castle because"

SCREEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEECH!

Everyone turned yet again like a scene from the Exorcist to find the Chihuey, tapping a paw in irritation against the now clawed up god awful future cars pileup. The little pup took another fortifying sip of whisky before growling in adorably cute growls at the crowd.

"I leave you for...however many dozen posts now and look what a mess you've made - the bear is still here, there are doctors running around everywhere, several detective blokes who are twirling mustaches and talking about the Hounds of Baskerville, and I can't even tell who was talking for the last however many lines since there are no dialogue tags!"

"Why did you have to leave, pup?" Voluptua heaved her delectably broad shoulders.

The chihuey sighed. "Never should have trusted that Matt Damon character with his doggie treats. Next thing I know, I'm in Wisconsin in the back of some guy's van with a bunch of boxes and two duct-taped girls. Luckily, I jumped out the conveniently unlocked back door and hitched a ride with this guy."

Everybody turned, AGAIN, to eye the sleek Astin Martin, and the suave, trim man leaning against it with a martini, shaken not stirred, in his hand and a mysterious air about him.

"Who are - "

The pup cut off Solemn mid-question. "Don't ask. Please. Just don't ask." He glared at his/her's gasping little tirade before turning to the unruly crowd. "All right, your undead godfather has arrived. Voluptua, glad to see you're still wearing those uber-stylish but super uncomfortable heels. Click them three times for me, luv."

Voluptua tossed her (is it still titian?) hair over her broad shoulders and clicked her heels. Suddenly, the detectives, car pileup, Doctor Who, vampires and other random extraneous characters who for the love of gold should never appear again disappeared in a poof of smoke. Voluptua gasped, putting a rather hairy hand to her expansive chest. "Haggis, you've outdone yourself!"

The chihuey waggled his brows. "Yeah....yeah, and I even turned the clocks back an hour for you. So, let's get this show on the road and get you married so I can have a dance with the bride!"

Just as they all turned for hopefully the final freaking time to the Castle, a freak storm burst overhead, pelting them with rain pellets and soaking them through to the very bone. As if that weren't bad enough, a teeth-shaking wail of utter despair and spooky foretelling rang throughout the verdant hillsides.

Everyone turned again (please, shoot the narrator now) to the chihuey, the sage of all things. "That, my friends, was the wail of a banshee." He paused ominously. "That means someone really really important to this plot is about to die."

Everyone turned for the last time (better be the last bloody time) to look at Voluptua.

[[seems like there hasn't been another response for awhile, so I'm going to write a terrible ending - hey, it can always just be ignored. Or get a sequel. Or turn into a nightmare where rocks fall and everybody dies.]]

The wedding was a grand affair that lasted in revelry through the night. It went on for pages and pages, and every single cup of champagne, stitch in the tablecloths, and article of clothing was obsessively parsed. There was dancing, presents, and flowers (even though they had to remain under glass). It was magic that described description, and even if it didn't, soon after the banshee wailed, Ms. Mystery got off one last shot and hit the narrator, who turned out to have been the real Lyle Fainting, imprisoned by Solemn's Wicked Stepmother, before that Astin Martin finally caught up with her.

And at last, shortly after the miracle kiss broke the family curse forever, Voluptua woke up and realized it had all been a dream.

Meanwhile in Beijing:

"What are all of these FLOWERS!!!?? I wanted to bake bread! I need FLOUR!!

ALL. THE. FLOUR. IN. SCOTLAND.

....be it wheat, barley or (cue sinister music dah dah dah DAH)


RYE!!!!!