Malky-Grand 131121125 [Round 1: Jelly Citadel]

Sara Brooks was understandably a little freaked out when a giant cactus owl with a vaguely ominous black coffin strapped to his back and wings made from a patchwork of noisy ducks suddenly appeared in her living room. Less understandable were her reasons; she had not freaked out about the nature of this unwanted visitor, after all she was living in the wreck of an old submarine lodged somewhere in the body of a titanic jellyfish. There was very little so peculiar in the world that it could cause her to so much as raise an eyebrow. No she was more concerned about how dreadfully impolite it was to teleport straight into someone’s house unannounced. For all this cactus owl knew she could have been in the nude and that would have just been embarrassing all around. She was so mad she nearly shouted a profanity at her unexpected visitor.

Sara took a moment, closed her eyes and thought of proper etiquette.

“Hello there dear,” she said, determined to demonstrate proper rules of decorum to this interloper, “my name is Sara Brooks…” She trailed off, waiting for Cacta to reciprocate the gesture and introduce himself.

There was an entire minute of awkward silence. In this time Cacta looked around the room he found himself in. The curved steel walls and the porthole were the best clues to what this room really was underneath all the pink frilly doilies, framed photographs of cats and china decorations. Though that said Cacta had no idea what a submarine was. It seemed unlikely that he had ever even heard of the ocean. This was well outside his frame of reference. Sara frowned at the cactus owl.

“Was there something you wanted?” she asked. It came out a little blunter than she had anticipated and she clasped a hand to her mouth as if she had accidentally told him to go fuck himself. “I mean, how can I help you?” In response she received a blank stare for a minute or so, and then slowly, Cacta got to work. There was something he felt when someone was about to die, the best he could describe it was a wicked tingling at the back of his brain; the influence of the death god Lanmò. That was how it normally felt; today, now, his brain was throbbing. Lanmò must have been positively ecstatic. There was to be lots of death, and Cacta was going to have to build lots of coffins. After a moment he became aware of Sara Brooks hitting him with her handbag.

“You hooligan!” she cried, all pretences of politeness long since forgotten. “Coming into my house and making coffins out of my furniture! I ought to call the police on you.” Cacta struggled for a moment with Lanmò’s wordless whispers, with what felt like his desire to end the life of the old woman that stood before him. He held himself back, and slowly, under an assault which continued even after he began to move, he waddled off in the direction that looked like the most likely exit from the submarine house.