The Stone Breakers1

Sending opens her mouth to speak, looks down, and sees Sligo has sewn a heart to her poncho.  She stares a moment, then
SEN: Master, what is this?
SLI: *with an enormous, stupid grin* WHAT'S WHAT, SENDING?
SEN: …
SEN: Okay.
Sending pulls out a newspaper.  Over the top are the words WHY YOU SHOULD BE AFRAID- TODAY!! And a number of pictures from the tournament.
SEN: I have been looking at the news, ever since we saw the, um, the fight Puck broadcasted, and well, they are making stuff up…
SLI: Yes, Sending.  That's what news it.  Continue.
SEN: *points to a picture of herself, with a stoat speared on her ripper* Well, it said a bunch of stuff about us, and it was not true, so I think the rest is also made up.  But it did list everyone who is left over.
SLI: Oh, neat!  …They have my rattail on the wrong side.  Philistines.  Did that trippy rhino make it?
SEN: Er, no, he is not actually an opponent; this one is.  *touches a picture of battle desecrated Moscorn*
SLI: Aw.  Well, vegetable-animals are still fun.
SEN: Yes.  So… uh… I was thinking about the last round, when you said I should make history by killing an opponent.  And, uh, I thought maybe instead of just trying to win, from now on I should try to… well, to make a show of it, you know?  So the Otter King will have a saga about it when he gets the wish.
SLI: Glory to the King.
SEN: Yes.  Now, it looks like this one is really attatched to the child who recently showed up.  If that is true, well…
SLI: Oh, you ARE my most favorite puppet.
Sending: Now, if we were to-
Sending almost walks into one of Moscorn's legs.  She and Sligo crane their necks back, mouths open in fish-like awe, and stare at the monsterous vegetable.  Sending runs around him, staring up, to see him from all sides, pokes his leg, runs around the other side, all the time her neck craned waaaay back, since she comes up to like, his knee.  Moscorn looks more and more disconcerted by this silent, wall-eyed attention, and when Sending just stands there looking sappily up at him, he walks off, his one eye hooded in a very perturbed, slightly worried expression.  Sending watches him go.
Sending: …WOOOOOW.
Sending recovers, and turns to Sligo.
Sending: Where was I?
SLI: *eyebrows up, a sheepish but exhilarated smile in place* Ffft, hell if I remember, that was the more awesome thing I've ever seen!
SEN: Heh, yeah… oh, the plan though…
Fade out with a lovely backed out panel or something equally cheap.

OBERON'S GARDEN, CHAPTER FOUR
THE STONE BREAKERS

I'd have to think of some really fun way to skip ahead without feeling like I skipped ahead.  If I had time I might do a scene in which Frost and Rhiannon split up to look for Collin.  Frost, obviously, is very distraught, and Rhi, while not as SPAZTICALLY NUTS, is very concerned and level headed.
Anyhow.
Collin wakes up on the floor of a shallow cave.  He sits up, looking confised but not afraid.  Sending and Sligo are sitting with their backs to him, talking in low voices.  Sligo's ear twitches, and he looks back and sees Collin is awake.  
SLI: Sending… he's waking up…
His characteristic unpleasantly pleasant smile pops up at once, while Sending looks a little more reserved, as she thinks so highly of children.
SLI: Well, hello, little one!  You're name's Collin, yes?
COL: Yeah…  Who are…
SLI: *grabs Sending's shoulder and jerks her in close* I'm Sligo and this is Sending.  She's yer brother's opponent this round!  Isn't that cute?
Sending looks unsettled by getting jerked around and the brutal honesty.
COL: *innocently* My… brother?
SLI: Yes, the other guy with the upturned nose who's freakin' skinny.
SEN: Master!  D:
SLI: Anyhow, we're just tucked away here until Frost shows up.  Nothing to worry about ^--^  
COL: Why?
SLI: *looks down his nose with an air of superiority* That's not important right now.  You play with Sending.
He unceremoniously shoves Sending forward, making her emit a startled sort of "Nnngh!" since she's scared of him.  
COL: Sending?
SEN: *itty bitty sissy voice* Yes.
COL: *stares at her in unveiled interest, making her squirm.  She's not used to the attention.* Are you a marionette?
SEN: Um… yeah….
COL: How do you move??
SEN: Uh… magic…
COL: *takes Sending's unbroken hand and flips it over, examining the joints.  Meanwhile, the jewel stoats are creeping eeeeever cloooooooser*  What kind of magic?  I can do some magic….
7.8234 SECONDS INTO THE FUTURE
This page is set up as a grid, and in each panel another jewel stoat is added on or around Collin.
COL: *freezing water* What's this sound like?
COL: Can you walk through fire?
COL: *holding a stoat* How do they move?
COL: Your hair is like Frost's <3
COL: *holding her broken hand* How'd you get the bolt through?
COL: Do you need light to see?
COL: What's the slip made of?
COL: Are your eyes just regular glass?
COL: Why purple?
COL: *HUMONGOUS GASP PANEL*
COL: IS THAT A BOOK?  CAN I READ IT? 8D
SEN: *crammed into the last panel, utterly overwhelmed, glances at the Psuedovivicide* Uh….
A long panel spans the top of the next page, in which Sen and Collin have their backs to the audience, knelt over the book.
SEN: This one is one of my favorites, you have to banish it with a Nebelung flute…
Sligo slips away quietly, smirking to himself.  He is framed in the doorway, and then we cut to a charmingly lovely meadow, complete with chirping birds and a monoceros munching grass with a retarded looking deer.  Sligo arrives at the water's edge and sips daintily, since he is curst with an eternal thirst, being a ghost.  We see him from behind and then…
SRA: Sligo.
Sligo looks up, eyes hooded, and clearly this is someone important, because he suddenly stand up on his hind legs.
SLI: …Hey.
The camera pivots, and standing opposite is another shade; this one a black otter with a deathwound on her side, and a deflated, slashed open abdomen.  She is black with silver tearlines.
SLI: …Sraheen.
SRA: Did you miss me, my darling?
SLI: *quietly* Every day.  It's been… a while.
SRA: May I tell you a story?
SKIP THIS PART IF YA WANT IT'S LOADS OF SLIGO BACKSTORY AND SHIZ
SRA: *white text on a black horizontal panel* Once upon a time, there were three otters.
SRA:  A black one.
Simplistic image of Sraheen.
SRA: A brown one.
Simplistic image of the otter king.
SRA: And a white one who could not feel.
Simplistic image of Sligo.
SRA: now when the black one was young, she was alienated from her family by leprosy, and lived with rats.  She didn't like her people very much.
Simplistic images of Sraheen and Wincheshire, whose shoulders are twice Sraheen's height.
SRA: One day, the brown otter came along with his court and promised to find a cure for her disease.
Simplistic image of Dhobar gently touching Sraheen's spear, while Nofeet (another rat) looks on.
SRA: While they were searching, the brown otter killed a sea monster who had attacked his court.
Simplistic image of Dhobar plunging his spear into the Charybda.
SRA: But not before she put a curse on him.
Charybda: May you be the greatest of monarchs, otter king… may you live for years and years and gather wealth and glory.  May you find true love and befriend all you meet.  And may everyone you come to care about die years before you can.
SRA: They cured the black otter of her affliction, and he told her of his curse.
The otter king holding the less diseased looking Sraheen, looking sad.
SRA: But she told him she didn't care.
Same image, with Sraheen hugging him.
SRA: They heard of a labyrinth, where the center held a wish.  They entered together to break the curse, as he had lifted her own illness.
Sligo and Sraheen stand at the opening of the thorny, high walled labyrinth.
SRA: Worlds away, the white otter who could not feel was dismissed from his grisly gore club.
Sligo pulls off his hide armor and in a field of snow.
SRA: He moved south, where he befriended an urchin with a brown splotch on her neck, and together they preyed upon travelers in the area.
Sligo stands, grinning and almost fatherly, over a smaller tan otter with the mark- Mudslap.
SRA: He punished her severely when she got cold feet.
Sligo, with blood on his arms and throat, kneels and holds an eye in one hand, the panel cropped so Mudslap is not visible besides her splayed claws.
SRA: But his time with Mudslap had taught him something.
Sligo sits on a log, eating something messy.
SRA: Being alone is boring.
Sligo looks unhappy.
SRA: He heard of the same labyrinth and pressured a sea witch into blessing his endeavors.
Sligo stands over a reluctant-looking North Sage, a little seal in a puffy coat.  There are some walruses around.
SRA: In the labyrinth, the black otter realized she knew the white otter from her childhood.  She had told him he would make friends if only he would ever smile.
Sligo and Sraheen face each other in the hedges.
SRA: Their reunion was unpleasant.
Sligo and Sraheen are at each other's throats in the hedges.
SRA: But as he could use magic, he conquered the labyrinth, and made his wish at once…
Sligo: I wish… that Sraheen and I may feel undying love for each other the rest of our lives.
SRA: It was so.
In the foreground, Sraheen and Sligo touch hands, to the onlooking otter king's horror.
SRA: The brown otter cared too greatly for the black otter to harm her loved one, but he could not bear to watch her love another, and banished them both from his kingdom.
He looks on while Sligo and Sraheen leave, on four legs.
SRA: Years passed.
Sligo and Sraheen are by a lake, presumably in the human kingdom.
SRA: But the brown otter's love never waned.
The otter king looks wistfully out the window.
SRA: And finally, the curse stretched its hand to him, and the white otter rose to the surface of his lake, and watched a common human woman as she washed her clothes by the shore.
In the distance, a woman washes clothes.  Sligo's head is just at the surface, like a crocodile, facing her.
SRA: For the first time since he had cast his wish the bloodlust stirred in his heart and he rose up and slaughtered the woman.
Sligo's eyes are wild, his grin stretched and radiant, strings of blood stretching between his jaws.
SRA: Insane as he was, he curled himself on her corpse and drank deeply from the wound on her neck, intoxicated until her husband, missing her, arrived to witness the scene.
SRA: The man killed the white otter with a cut to the belly as it slaughtered his horse by going through it.
Sligo twists his body through the side of the horse as the man drives a spear into his chest, his jaws open in a silent roar.
SRA: In death he emitted a piercing shriek that brought his mate to the surface.
Sraheen erupts out of the roiling surface of the lake.
SRA: Blinded with the passionate fury of grief she pursued the man into a forest, until he laid a trap for her and killed her as she past his hiding place.
Sraheen stabbed.
SRA: Back in the kingdom of otters the word of their deaths reached the ears of the king.
The otter king looks out from a high chamber over his land.
SRA: As he collected their bodies he felt movement within the abdomen of his beloved, and cut from her a living infant, shielded from death by his twin.
The otter kind cradles a gore encrusted infant.
SRA: He made the child heir to the throne, as the black otter's offspring should have been his.  Convinced his mother's death was a result of his curse, he remained aloof and disconnected from his court as they wandered with little purpose over the land, until one day beijng approached by an envoy of men.  Anticipating attack, they were surprised when the monarch extended a proposal…
The otters on their elk face off to some people on horsies.
SLI: *chuckles* Why are you telling me this?
SRA:  *looks a little taken aback*
SLI: Come on, my love.  You know me better than that.  I screwed over you, Dhobey and the entire kingdom?  I mutilated lil'l Mudslap and the otter king's still miserable and heartache without me?  You know I don't care.  You know the only other creature I've ever been </i>able</i> to pity is you.
SRA: *through her teeth, though maintaining an icy smile* And so it seems death has claimed even that.
SLI: Death's a bitch, yeah.  *though he does look a little crestfallen at this prospect*
SRA: *grim smile* Well, as you remember so well, I'm sure you also remember just months ago, when the otter king was just eaten up with guilt over poor little catfish girl, and went groveling to the North Sage to send a reliable old friend to watch over her?
SLI: Sounds familiar.
SRA: And since old Nillatucci didn't realize that Whugaroo's father wasn't the king she didn't bother to specify which parent was summoned, and lo and behold!  Your unwelcome face rises out of her hearth.
SLI: *smiles* She had the funniest look on her face.
SRA: Well.  She let you waste enough of Sending's time, sweetheart.  I'm here now.  You can leave; she's corrected her mistake.
SLI: *looks a little shocked.* I can go?
SRA: *gestures dramatically* Right on back to the Ninth Layer of Hell.
SLI: *stares at her, an unknown expression on his face*  *composes himself* Haha, okidoke.  Sounds fair enough.
SRA: *laughs* You haven't changed at all, have you?
SLI: *charismatic smile* *he seems to think that over, and his visage changes, becoming sly and more intense* Oh, no, dear heart, I've changed quite a bit since that labyrinth…  But you… no, you're the one who's just as I remember.
He's drawing close to her, and with a guarded expression she lets him take her hands.
SLI: Bitingly sarcastic… *she grins* …beautiful… intelligent and cunning and so very… very passionate… my love…
He breathes the next word right into her ear.
SLI: My Sraheen….
Sligo hauls off and hook punches her with all his emaciated strength.  An unpleasant crack and her lopsided jaw indicates he just broke it.
SRA: *shocked, hurt, and scared* Sl- Sligo!
Sligo pulls her up, close, and looks into her eyes, an unreadable and unencouraging, passionate emotion on his face, and then he darts his head forth like a serpent and bites a deep, visceral wound into her throat, ripping his neck back and forth until he dislodges a graphic segment of esophagus.  He shoves her back and she staggers, but he moves with her and kicks her in the gut, doubling her over.  Silver ectoplasm dribbles down his throat and over his lips, gumming up between his teeth.  He looks exhilarated, and at the same time deathly calm, as he brutally desecrates the shade of his wife.
SRA: *kneeling, barely recognizable and shivering* Sligo… Sligo please…. *tears ooze out of her eyes and she looks afraid, but also so innocent and hurt.  She raises a shaking hand, reaching for him.* Sligo, you used to love me…
Sligo bats her hand away carelessly.  He wipes his mouth, smearing blood over the back of one hand.
SLI: You're nothing like Sraheen.
Sraheen: *gasping on the ground*
Sligo: One, Sraheen would not come here and torment me.  Whatever she lost, she WAS happy to be with me.  Neither of us had a choice in that.  Two, the North Sage wouldn't send two shades.  She screwed up the first time and she lives with that.
And three... well, you contradict yourself, don't you?  I feel nothing when I look at you, not a drop of the passion I harbored for her all those twenty seven years.
Sraheen: *bitterly* Your wish, Sligo.  'That we may love each other with undying strength until death separates us.'  Guess what, it DID!  Your fault, we're both dead!!
Sligo: No no no no, love.  Weren't you listening to what you said to me?  You died because a passionate fury drove you to pursue my killer, yes?  Yes.  Now, if that was all in the magic, why would you have KEPT RUNNING after I was DEAD?
Sraheen looks at him in horror, stricken silent.
SLI: *looks very pleased with himself, smiling benignly down at the broken figure.
Clap
Sligo looks up.  Sraheen's eyes close and she begins to fade from sight.
Clap
Sligo looks here and there, and his eyes light up as they focus on someone.
A small, brown otter leans casually against a tree.  She claps a final time, an amused, pleased expression on her face, gore dribbling from her empty eye sockets.  A panel shows a quick close up of the roughly paw-shaped tan marking on her neck.
SLI: *seemingly delighted to see her* Mudslap!!  …I thought I killed you.
MUD: ^--^ *laughs girlishly and strolls up to him* Nope, I didn't end up bleeding to death after the attack.  Though you did leave me badly disfigured.  
SLI: *ruffles Mud's hair* You did do your research, didn't you?  But you've honored me enough for one day… who are you, and why are you bombarding me with dead girlfriends?
MUD: *with a laugh* Damn, I thought you might see through that but you ripped her throat out!
SLI: It's what I'm here for.  *bows*
MUD: Well, since you figured it out I suppose there's no harm in tellin' ya the truth.  You can call me Puck.