Etwas the Elf

Etwas the Elf
Our heroine, photo by Maia Ycot

Saturday, October 29, 2011

The Elf and the Crawling Chaos

Etwas the Elf was running through the forests of grass, under the canopies of clover and around the stems of tall flowers when she met the crawling chaos, Nyarlathotep, shuffling the other way practicing magic tricks.

"Pick a card, any card," droned the demon from the center of the Earth to the Elf as he lowered a fresh pack to Etwas at the end of a greasy tentacle.

"I'd like the Queen of Hearts, please/"

"Don't tell me what you pick," the dancing malevolence chanted, instructively.  With a single boneless, suckered digit he pushed a single card forward and Etwas took a different one.

"I like this game, thanks!" said Etwas and ducked into a briar patch and over to a grassy hillside where she threw the card onto the ground in front of her, jumped onto it and surfed to the bottom of the hill yelling "wheeeeeeeeeeeeee!"  When she reached the bottom she pinned the playing card onto a twig with pine needles and sailed back upstream on an oak leaf.  The fresh breath of October against her gambler's sail propelled the little Elf and her tiny boat so quickly upstream that at times it seemed she was boating on mist rather than water.

"Was...it...the...four...of...diamonds?" called the infernal magician.

Soon, Etwas, the boat and the playing sail were spinning in the vapors at the bottom of the Seljalandsfoss.  The water on the card had softened and the elf gathered diagonal corners in her hands and the force of the mist rising from the fallen stream lifted her high in the air.  She pulled the bunches of corner apart and glid back to the crafty monster's shoulder.

"Seven of clubs?" the menace asked.

Etwas looked down at her hands which by now held only tatters.

"I didn't check," the elf admitted.

"Give me your soul."

"What?"

"Can I have your soul?"

"If you're hungry I can get you a blueberry."

"That's not what I had in mind."

Etwas balled up what was left of the playing card and placed it in a mound on the deck of cards and hoisted the partially mulched stack onto Nyarlathotep's copy of the forbidden collection, Necronomicon, by the mad Arab Abdul Alhazred.  Then she sprinted back into the weeds to play some more.

"Thanks for the fun!" she called as the frustrated psychophagist's suckered limbs tumbled and shook.

"Drat," muttered the demon.  "Eamon!"

And ever since then, whenever Elves deal with the Devil, they keep their hand busy.

1 comment:

  1. I'll bet the card was the Ace of Spades.

    Also, instead of "whenever Elves deal with the Devil," I think you mean to say "whenever Etwas deals with the Devil."

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