“Oh wow!” said Dennys, sarcastically. “Thank you soooo much. A truce? That is such a big help in our war against the undead.”
Cervix, who didn’t understand sarcasm, was flattered. “Why of course. Any good queen would do the same.”
“Oh yes,” continued Dennys, sarcastically. “You are a great and mighty queen. It’s soooo helpful that you won’t be actively trying to kill us while we fight undead soldiers to save the human race.” She nudged Jon to join in with her.
Jon, who also did not understand sarcasm, tried his best to replicate what it seemed like Dennys was doing. In the most high-pitched voice he could muster, Jon said, “While I am not as pleased with your decision as Dennys seems to be, I am at least glad that you have called a truce, although I would have preferred that you helped us fight the zombos and the White Wieners.”
Well, Jon and Cervix are just great at sarcasm, thought Dennys. Not! She smiled the whole way back to Wintersmells, feeling pretty great about herself.
The Nighty Night King
Dawn broke as the Nighty Night King finished kissing each of his zombos goodnight. He replayed the moment when he had killed Dennys’s dragon in his head. He rewound and fast-forwarded the part where the spear shot through the dragon’s chest, and it really grossed him out. Then he replayed the same thing in slow motion, then a few times really fast; then he added in some special effects; then he inserted a killer soundtrack and then some funny sound effects. Ewww, thought the Nighty Night King. The spear ripping through the dragon was really nasty, but he noticed a certain beauty in the dragon as it fell out of the sky in a flurry of air horns, Wilhelm screams, studio audience laughter, sick flames, and green-screen shots of outer space and the Bahamas. Boy, I wish I had one of those dragons, thought the Nighty Night King.
A White Wiener burst through the tent flaps, interrupting the Nighty Night King’s tea party with the action figures who were too scared to sleep. “Mr. Nighty Night King, sir—there’s something at the frozen lake you need to see now!”
The Nighty Night King grew worried. Who would stir Percival the Polar Bear’s three sugars just the way he liked it, with the pink flower spoon? The White Wiener dragged the Nighty Night King out of his tent as he cried and reached for his action figures. When they reached the lake the Nighty Night King was fuming, his mascara smeared all over his face. “Someone better be dying, or you guys better have pulled the dragon out of the lake so I can revive it, or so help me…”
The White Wiener led the Nighty Night King to the frozen lake, where the dragon was laying in pieces. The Nighty Night King stared at the “dragon,” which looked like several piles of torn-up flesh covered in barnacles.
“Myself and some of the zombos pulled the dragon out of the lake, sir. We thought maybe you could use your magic to revive…”
“This pile of dragon parts? How did this happen?”
“Well, sir, the zombos had a lot of trouble attaching their hooks to it. They pulled a piece of it off, then they got mad at each other for doing that, then they pulled even harder and tore off more pieces, and, well…”
“Nothing a little elbow grease can’t fix,” said the Nighty Night King. He walked around the piles of dragon parts until he found the dragon’s head. It was beautiful: no eyes, skull exposed, eels living in its nose, scales being actively eaten by hordes of seagulls. Just like in the stories, thought the Nighty Night King, a tear in his eye.
Wasting no time, the Nighty Night King ran to his tent and slept so he could deal with the dragon in the morning. When he woke up, he returned to the dragon head and stood before it, warming his arms up for the resurrection spell. The Nighty Night King then lifted his hands in the “raise the roof” motion that had become so familiar to him. He waited expectantly for the dragon to wake up. Annoyed, he raised the roof again. Still nothing. He raised it again, and again, and again. He was raising it harder and faster than he ever had before. If there had been a roof above his head, it surely would have been on fire.
But still nothing happened. Dejected, the Nighty Night King fell on the ground and applied his mascara, knowing that he was about to cry. He looked up at the dragon head, admiring how beautiful the seagull eggs in its mouth looked in the sunlight, and his eyes caught its lips. The Nighty Night King wailed and wailed. He cried as hard as he had that time when a zombo made fun of his braces and stole his lunch money, mere seconds ago. He looked at the dragon head once more and brought his face in close to give it one last kiss good-bye. When his puckered lips were just one chest hair away, the dragon sprung to life.
The piles of rotting dragon flesh rolled toward one another and combined in a wet mass. The flesh moved toward the head and attached itself to it, and the dragon’s body took form. It looked like a massive, veiny penis with a dragon head on top. The flesh realized this couldn’t be right, so it tried again. This time it correctly made the shape of a dragon, but it was inside an absolutely massive, throbbing penis—somehow bigger than before. The flesh kept trying to make a dragon body and succeeded only in making increasingly intricate penises. Finally, after dozens of tries, it managed to make a vagina—a vagina that looked like a penis. The flesh decided to give it one more shot. It tried its hardest to remember what it was like when it was alive—what it felt like to breathe fire, to soar through the skies, to make quiet love to its brothers. As the memories of being a dragon flooded it, the flesh slowly began to take form, to sprout and grow into its former—nope, it was a penis again. This looked like if Leonardo da Vinci drew a penis. This was the Mona Lisa of penises.
The Nighty Night King, still standing with his lips puckered and unsure of what to do, ran up to the dragon flesh and kissed it and then ran away. It would probably sort itself out by the time his army had to march on the Trench.
“Trench, ho!” shouted one of the White Wieners, practicing what he would say if he saw the Trench. The zombo army followed the Nighty Night King as he flew atop the reanimated Draggin, which now somewhat resembled a dragon. As they crested a small hill, the army spotted an enormous hole in the distance. It was absolutely terrifying—a gash across the earth with no bottom in sight, a mile wide, cliffs covered in sharp, gnarled rocks. Next to this hole was the Trench, which was much less scary.
“Zombos!” shouted the Nighty Night King as he landed the dragon before the Trench. “Before you lies the Trench. A massive, magical hole created by the First Men to keep us out of the realms of men. Countless beings have died trying to cross it by pole vaulting or attaching balloons to themselves or running at it really fast and jumping. But no more. Today, with the help of our dragon, we will cross the Trench and be one step closer to plunging the world into eternal darkness. Can I get a ‘hell yeah’?!”
The zombos were still about a mile away. The Nighty Night King really had flown quite fast. Flustered, he set about trying to figure out how in the world they were going to cross the Trench. He hadn’t planned this far ahead.
Maybe Draggin can fly us across one at a time, he thought. No, no, we’re all too fat. I don’t want to put a strain on Draggin. The Nighty Night King plopped onto the edge of the Trench and thought. Then it came to him. His devilish smile returned.
The Nighty Night King stood up and called Draggin over to him. The dragon walked up to the edge—where the Nighty Night King stuck his foot out and tripped it, causing it to fall in. The dragon managed to plug the gap and make a bridge across the Trench. The Nighty Night King was delighted that the plan had worked. Maybe Penelope Peanut would finally forgive him for burning down her doll house because he thought it was a spider the night before.
The zombo army reached the Trench, and the Nighty Night King raised his sword toward the south. “Onward to Westopolis!” he shouted, taking the first steps across the dragon bridge. Almost immediately he tripped and broke his nose. He got up and scrambled across the bridge as the zombos followed, laughing. The Nighty Night King reached the other side and then tripped on nothing and tore his pants. The zombos laughed e
ven harder, and hundreds of them fell off the bridge, their laughter echoing off the cliffs of the Trench and filling the northern air. When this is over, I’m going to kill myself, thought the Nighty Night King. Ow, ow, ow, thought the dragon as the army stomped across all the penises on its back.
Jon
The castle at Wintersmells finally appeared on the horizon. Jon was relieved to be home. Riding on horseback alongside Dennys—her hair flowing in the wind, his hair assuredly flowing more majestically than hers—things began to feel comfortable again. Maybe this war against an incalculably massive undead army led by the most formidable adversary we could imagine won’t be so bad after all, Jon thought, smiling. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks at the sight of his little sister, Malarya. How many years had it been, he wondered. Three? Ten? This was pointless. His grasp on the concept of time was weaker than ever. Malarya’s eyes glistened when she saw him. Jon jumped down from his horse, and the long-lost siblings embraced.
“You used to be taller,” Malarya jokingly remarked.
Jon immediately stopped hugging her. “Um… What?” he said, reaching for his sword.
“I was only remarking jokingly,” Malarya said nervously.
After a tense few moments, Jon sighed and gave Malarya a smile. “And you used to be shorter,” Jon let out and then scolded himself for sinking to dad jokes. He looked Malarya up and down and was relieved to see she was the same as ever, despite the fact that puberty had kicked in hard. He wondered if she had begun to menstruate. Would it be too weird to ask her? he thought. Yeah. Noticing her sword, he instead said, “You still have it! That fine Ovarian steel.”
“Noodle. Its name is Noodle.”
“Have you ever used it?”
“Too many times to remember. I’ve developed a new hobby of killing—it passes the time.”
Jon chuckled and ruffled her hair. “I could have used you to protect me. I don’t know if you heard, but I died and then was resurrected. Some people are calling me the new Jesus, but, honestly, I’m just happy to be known as ‘Jesus.’”
“Um, okay. Well, it is so nice to see you alive. Say, have you reunited with Bland yet?”
“Have you reunited with Bland yet,” Jon said, staring at her blankly.
“No, that’s not what I meant. That’s why I used a comma and a question mark.”
“What are you—what? I’m confused.”
“Forget it. Let’s find him.” Malarya shook her head.
The two siblings ventured over to the forest where Bland was staring at a tree. His muscles were bulging out of his shirt, and his face was deadpan.
“I’ve missed you, Jon,” Bland blandly proclaimed while still locking eyes with the tree.
“Brother”—Jon trotted up to Bland and embraced him—“it has been far too long. I have much to tell you of the world!”
“No, you don’t. I already know everything,” Bland said, this time with even less emotion.
“Okay, great catch-up sesh. You look well. In fact… my Seven Gods, how did your upper body get to be so strong?”
Without batting an eye Bland recited a workout regimen that took forty-five minutes just to describe. He took no pauses and meticulously demonstrated each exercise with proper form as he went through the workout description.
“Jon, are you listening to me?” he said as he finished the last exercise. “You have to keep your arms bent at a right angle or else you won’t activate your core properly.”
“Mhm, mhm. Well, I have ridden on the back of a dragon, but I suppose that is not interesting to—” Jon’s muttering was cut off by Bland.
“I knew you did that. Now, as I was saying, lateral deltoid raises are best accomplished by—Jon, are you listening to me?”
Jon gave him two insincere thumbs-ups, and he and Malarya headed back toward the castle to gossip about how strange Bland was now that he had contracted Pink-Eyed Raven. Meanwhile, Bland wheeled off to a meeting he had scheduled with his new friend Ham, whom he deemed his closest match in brain power. He estimated that Ham was about one-bazillionth as knowledgeable as himself, which far outpaced the one-gazillionth level that the average Wintersmellian possessed. The two nerds had been meeting in the crypt every day for a few weeks now. When they saw each other, they did their new secret handshake, which was just a head bump to signify their brainpower. It would need to be changed soon because they both complained of migraines following their meet-ups.
“He needs to know the truth. Jon isn’t really my father’s son,” Bland announced to Ham. “He’s the son of RayRay Grandslam and my aunt, Yomomma Snark. His real name is Eggie Grandslam, and he’s the heir to the Pointy Chair.”
Ham nodded in agreement. “And we need to tell him before he goes too far with Dennys—they might engage in sexual relations soo—well, actually, in the scheme of things, that’s relatively appropriate behavior around here.”
“Clap. Clap. Clap,” Jon said, his hands full, holding two torches. “Having a secret meeting without me, are you?”
“Jon! It is so great to see you!” Ham bolted up and gave Jon a warm bear hug, making Jon drop the torches into a pool of oil, sending that corner of the crypt up into flames. Hours later in the Wintersmells ICU Burn Ward, they continued their conversation.
“Jon, I knew you’d come find us sooner or later. It’s time to have the talk,” Bland announced in a fatherly voice.
“I’ve had sex before—I know how it works. I know what a penis is, okay? It’s like a sword between your legs. Also, you’re younger than me and much weirder now.”
“Jonathan, this talk isn’t about you having sex. It’s about your parents having sex. I need to tell you who your parents are. Deaddard ‘Iron Neck’ Snark raised you as his bastard, but your mama is actually Yomomma and your daddy is RayRay Grandslam. You are the rightful Protector of the Realm.”
“Did you just call me Jonathan? Is that my real name? If that’s true… Are you saying… No. No, that can’t be. I’m my own dad?!” Jon shouted in disbelief.
“No. That’s an impossible conclusion to draw from what I literally just said.” Bland grew impatient.
“But if I’m my own dad, then who are you?!” Jon had never been more confused in his life.
“Again, your dad is RayRay Grandslam. That’s the last time I will say it.”
“I’m a Grandslam? Ew, that’s disgusting because that means I had sex with my cousin!” Jon cried. He began to run around Wintersmells yelling “ewwwww” and shaking his hands everywhere. Bland and Ham chased after him, trying not to cause a scene. Nurse Ronnette, on her smoke break, looked up unamused. By the time they made a loop back to the Burn Ward, they were able to catch up to Jon, who was frantically asking people if they knew of virginity-restoration methods.
“Jon, you didn’t have sex with your cousin,” Ham declared to relieve him of his distress.
“Uh, yeah, I did, Ham. I know how to have sex. And Dennys and I had the sex.”
“Wow, congrats man. That’s awesome. But what I’m trying to tell you is that you didn’t have sex with your cousin because Dennys isn’t your cousin—she’s your aunt. RayRay, your father, is Dennys’s wise older brother, the one who didn’t die via molten gold helmet.” Ham looked at Jon, who was trying to follow along, as if he were doing mental math. After a few minutes, something clicked in Jon’s brain.
“I get it now. Dennys is my aunt. Oh my god! I had sex with my aunt! That’s so cool!” Jon took off again for a lap around Wintersmells, this time giving passersby high fives and fist-pumping into the air every few feet as if he were expecting a freeze frame.
“Jon! Dough! Jon Dough!” Jon chanted as people gave him confused looks. One person, Rickety Snark, joined in, but Jon could care less because he didn’t know who that was.
“Wanna know something cool?” Jon asked a man shoveling coal.
“Yes, my lord,” the man responded automatically.
“I HAD SEX WITH MY AUNT!!”
“Very cool, indeed, my l
ord.”
Jon spent the rest of the afternoon skipping around, reveling in the news of his amazing feat. After a few hours, he began to understand the gravity of the new information. It’s really, really cool that I had sex with my aunt, Jon thought to himself. He also realized that this meant he was the rightful heir to the Pointy Chair. Hmm, that thought of mine rhymed, Jon chuckled to himself.
He stumbled upon a pond in the forest and saw his reflection in the shiny water. No longer did the face that greeted him belong to a bastard. He saw himself for the first time as a Grandslam, a true highborn. But he regarded himself as so much more than that: he was also the coolest guy around because he fucked his aunt!
Later that day, Dennys led Jon to the field where Dragun and Jragon were feeding on cattle. The two creatures were surrounded by hundreds of pig skeletons and horse carcasses. Beside these skeletons stood hundreds and hundreds of live pigs, horses, goats, elephants, and chickens, all waiting in tow to be eaten. Jon couldn’t even make out any grass due to the carpet of feeding scraps.
“They’ve hardly had anything to eat!” Dennys exclaimed. “I hope they’ll survive!”
Jon gave another look around to see if he had confused the immense supply of food for something else. No, he had seen correctly the first time. The dragons then turned to stare right at Jon and began growling.
Dennys motioned to Jon and said, “Give it to them.”
He looked down. She was pointing at the small turkey leg in his hand. “They have so many live, very large animals here. Why do they need my small piece of meat?” Jon pleaded. Dennys crossed her arms and furled her brow at Jon. “Okay! Okay, just one second.” He went to take one last bite, but Dragun darted at him and snatched the turkey leg from his hand. “I am so hungry,” Jon said quietly.
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