Crabbit Faery Tales and Folk Tales of Forumshire

Ah, good. It didn't mean what I thought it meant then..

OH I think I can !

Bluebottle wrote:Ah, good. It didn't mean what I thought it meant then..

....well actually..

Love the pace, the different moods, the constellations in the sky and how realistic it all feels.

Here, Petty, have a herring shot. My treat.

have a herring shot. My treat. - Amarie

Um, thanks (I think!) Amarie

(To everything, really.)

You know how this was a trilogy, then a four parter, then became a five parter? And how I assured you it would be a 6 parter?
Well...you may have spotted a trend here. One that it seems has not in fact ended after all- but I have an excuse this time!
I have a horrible work schedule ahead of me- 8 days on, 1 day off, 4 days on, 1 off, 3 on and I realised there was no way I was getting to the end tonight, so rather than make everyone wait Eru knows how long for the final part I split it into two parts (not that I've written the second part yet-so um yeah, it is possible that might not be the last bit either   - but I aim for it to be at least   )


It was mid-morning by the time that the Three Little Ambassadors crested the hill, somewhat footsore, upon which sat Petty's barrel.

The sky was grey and where it wasn't grey it was cloudy. A stiff breeze was blowing in from Fjordia, harsh and cold from the sea.

Amarie shivered as a gust buffeted her and was thankful of her travelling cloak of troll fur.

Figg however, whose usual response to the slightest hint of cooler climes was to all but bury herself beneath layers of clothing and to do so with the sort of determination a bear might go about hibernating for the winter, was instead beginning to feel hot.

She had even taken the audacious step of unbuttoning the very topmost button on her outermost blouse.

But she successfully dismissed the hot flushes from her mind, putting it comfortably down to nothing more than the steep walk up the hillside and eating foreign food.

She was in that half right at least.

There could not see or hear Petty as they approached his barrel.

Old newspapers blew in spiralling swirls and discarded rolling buckie bottles clinked gently and randomly against each other in the breeze. But it had the feel of being abandoned and empty.

And indeed of Petty himself there was no sign.


In fact at this precise moment Petty was gently snoring, partially upside down and squelching regularly in the wet mud with each heavy breath he took. He was in an irrigation ditch which ran alongside Dave's field of the Old Peculiar Variety of Cucumber.

Petty often found himself stopping, or at least falling, about here on his way home from the Duck n Muck pub on the outskirts of Needlehole.

It was more than two hours by the road from Needlehole to his barrel.

But by Forumshire's odd geography there was a shortcut which could get him to the pub much quicker- but only by cutting across Farmer Dave's fields. Assuming Dave didn't catch him in the act.

It took Petty only twenty minutes sober to get home at closing time by this shortcut (although this was admittedly an estimate as he had never actually walked home from a pub sober in his entire life) and it could take him anything up to two and  half weeks drunk, on a spectacular night.

Last night had not been a spectacular night. It had been only an average night. An upside down in a ditch sort of a night. And so with every chance he might wake up at some point this very day.

And with one hell of a hangover.

But when he realises he has fallen down onto his last bottle of buckie, smashing it, and its Eru sent contents have hours since sunk into the soil of Dave's field, making Dave's cucumbers just that little bit more peculiar but removing Petty's own fail-safe hangover cure: get drunk again as soon as possible - his crabbit rage will be explosive and ready to go off at the slightest provocation.


Figg eyed up Petty's stained barrel, and its round, battered front door. All around the keyhole the wood was badly scratched as Petty, repeatedly, drunkenly sought the coordination to solve the three-dimensional mystery of key meets lock. Judging on the evidence maths was not one of his strong points. Nor sobriety,

“Maybe we should break in and steal all his buckie,” Figg mused with an evil glint in her eye and a flush of heat up her spine.

“Whatever for?!” Leelee said shocked.

“Japes? Just to provoke the bugger.”

“We are Ambassadors, we do not break into buckie barrels, government records yes, barrels no,” Amarie replied sternly, but with worried glances in Figg's direction who was currently dabbing a large handkerchief to her glistening forehead, “and I think coming home to find we are his new neighbours will be provocation enough.” She was beginning to have serious reservations now about not standing her ground for building their Embassies in Needlehole. But it was too late to regret now. And Figg was full of fisk hotpot. She proceeded on towards the first mound of rock on the hillside biting her lower lip in worried thought.

Petty might not have been around but Biffo was there.

They found he had set down each pile of stone about fifty metres apart along the hillside and then, seemingly exhausted, had passed out on the grass.

Figg picked up a fallen branch from a nearby tree and prodded the hairy heap of masculinity that was Biffo.

Beneath the branch's tip as Figg poked at Biffo muscles rippled across his chest and he grunted releasing a sea of ancient powerful pheromones.

Figg came over all peculiar and was only stopped from leaping upon the recumbent Biffo by Amarie, who had seen the look and flush on Figgs face and rugby tackled her to the ground.  

There was a muffled wail of a pussy somewhere deep in Figg's bustle.

Biffo grunted and sat bolt upright, sniffing the air. He looked about himself, took in the sight of Amarie rolling in the grass with Figg who appeared to be squalling like a cat caught in a milk churn, glanced at Leelee and quickly said, “ure's yur ruck fur yer hussies,” he glanced at the struggling Ambassadors, “nut moor poltticoos!”

And with that he turned, and carefully giving Figg and Amarie's tussle a wide berth fled for the safety of his Big Black Hole.

“Get orf!” Figg yelled, “yer're hurting me pussy!”

Amarie cautiously loosened her grip on Figg.

“I just had a wee turn, its this bloody heat,” Figg grumbled getting up and delving into her bustle to stroke her pussy and calm him down.“There, there now puss,” she crooned into the depths of her bustle.

“Maybe we should just start building our residences now, while Petty is away,” Leelee suggested.

“But I wanted to do it when Petty was here to see his face,” Figg grumbled emerging from her bustle, pussy in hand.

“I for one would rather have four solid walls of stone already built before Petty comes back and explodes in a crabbit rage.”

“Agreed,” nodded Amarie, “and besides Figg, think of the look on his face when he sees our Three Little Ambassadors residences already here, his new neighbours, on his hill, finished and all made of solid stone. And there will be nothing he can do about it. His crabbit cannot knock stone down.”

“You're right,” Figg conceded, “But before we start I couldn't half do with a drink,” she fanned her face with one delicate artistic hand, “you wouldn't happen to have any of that fisk wine with you would you?”

“NO!” Amarie cried, “most definitely not,” she went on in a more controlled tone and pulled her robe close about her neck against the biting of the breeze and frowned at Figg, who incredibly was  undoing the second button down on her blouse,”let's just get started.”

Quickly the Three Little Ambassadors went about building their new residences until the morning had worn away and afternoon was upon them.

Whereupon Figg stopped in the middle of completing her baroque spiral staircase to have a spot of lunch. Grateful, as she had not yet finished the kitchen with its huge iron range, that she did not have to cook anything.

Instead she had thoughtfully got herself a lovely fisk hotpot takeaway that morning before leaving the Viking Bar. She tucked in.

Even Ginger Meg slunk away at the aroma and full of feline forebodings hid under a 17th century blanket.

Two hours after lunch Figg took the unprecedented steps of shedding first her shawl and then her top three outer layers one by one whilst Ginger Meg, not at all happy with this change of habit on open display from his mistress, prowled around the edges of the room growling lowly to himself.

When Amarie and Leelee popped by mid-afternoon to see how Figg was doing she was, shockingly for Figg, in only her bottom four layers of undergarments and her pussy, sensing trouble coming had finally gone and hidden up the chimney.

Figg had worked up a sweat and her face was glowing and her eyes sparkled with fisk hotpot.

Amarie was just thinking of the diplomatic thing to say when all thought of conversation was driven from her mind by a most horrible and terrible cry of passion and anguish.

Far off it seemed, yet the sheer horror in it was clear to perceive and penetrated even the thick walls of Figg's near complete residence.

And then the wail altered; mournful no longer. Rising up now in an ending cry of pure, furious crabbit rage.

Petty had woken from his slumber with hangover and no buckie to cure it.

The Three little Ambassadors stared at each other pale faced, well save Figg who was still pink faced and sweating.

But it was clear to them all. Petty was coming home.

An odd unwanted tingle ran up Figg's spine.

Oh yes by all means stop there and keep us waiting. Cause that's not cruel at all!

I'm also a little scared...

Is there the merest hint of something ill boding in the air? Or is it just a premonition at this stage?

Still loving it

“Japes? Just to provoke the bugger.”

Um,ok I'm giving up numbering these- but rather than make you wait longer for more, here's um, more...



Quickly the Three Little Ambassadors set to work- shoring up here, repairing there, adding an extra wall where needed and doing some rather nifty interior decorating given the time constraints.

But in the end they decided it was best to await the arrival of Petty to his home, and his new neighbours, in Figgs residency.

This was because it was the only one with a medieval turret complete with crenellations which provided an excellent view of the approach- Figg had set up a telescope and a reclining chair with a bottle of wine on a nearby table so she could fully enjoy in close up the look on Petty's face when he arrived. She even had nibbles.

Amarie and Leelee peered over the parapet as Figg reclined in her chair and vigorously fanned herself.

“Is that a fire?” Leelee queried, peering down the hillside in the direction of Dave's fields.

For a moment Figg had thought Leelee was referring to her own internal temperature. Right now she felt like one big hot flush from toe to top. She took another slug of wine from the glass and Amarie winced.

Figg sat up and span her telescope round towards the red glow on the horizon. The light was dimming as late afternoon began to creep subtly into dusk and she took a moment to focus. Though that might have been the wine, or the hotpot, or the growing combustible combination of the two within her, not that she knew this yet.

Eventually she said, “Noooo, it's not a fire. It's the red of Petty's face as he comes up the path. I must say it gives him a healthy glow, and the way the sweat sticks to his snarling pitted forehead....” she flushed, “damn its unseasonably warm of late,” she complained turning from the telescope and taking a further swig of wine from her glass, “don't you think?”

“I hadn't noticed,” Amarie said innocently noting both the chill breeze which still blew and was even chiller up here on the top of the turret, and the fact that of the three of them Leelee and Amarie were wrapped against the elements and Figg seemed to have thought it a good idea to wear an off the shoulder gown with a cleavage which had probably been quite daring in its day, granted its day being somewhere in the 1700's. It had a bustle so big you could have stabled a pony in it.

“It has been warm,” Figg said firmly, “unseasonably so. My pussy was so hot today it took a queer turn and went up my new chimney. Can't coax him back out.”

“Light a fire and smoke him out,” Amarie suggested, with the practicality of a Dark Planet Council Member solving a problem.

“What?” Figg said shocked, “No-one is smoking my pussy!” she said firmly and peered back into the telescope as Petty crested the hill aglow with crabbit. He filled the image, a scowl and a fury of thunder. She let out a long sigh for no reason she could discern, which worried her.

But not half as much as it worried Amarie who could see the beads of sweat forming on Figg''s brow. Nor could she help but notice that the wine bottle was half empty.

“You know,” Figg said slowly still peering into the telescope at the image of Petty, “the way he is so stubbornly determined, so crabbit and certain of himself..”

Amarie and Leelee glanced at each other in growing consternation.

“..and the way the shadows of the trees fall upon him, covering his worst features, that strong bandy hairy legged walk that makes his kilt flap up and down as he walks....” she trailed off and sighed again.

Amarie and Leelee's consternation moved into outright horror.

Somewhere deep in the dark of the chimney Ginger Megg sensing his mistresss's fisk and wine induced alterations beagn to howl. He really didn't like change.

The melancholy sound of Figg's pussy echoed from the chimney and drifted down the hill where they met the cauliflower ears of Petty.

If Petty had a scale of crabbit the discovery he was not in fact home in his barrel but upside in a muddy ditch with a tremendous hangover would have been mild irritation, after all it was how he woke up at least fifty percent of the time.

The discovery that he had lost the last of his available buckie was a serious shift up in his crabbit rage demanding screaming, yelling, swearing and making gestures to an invisible audience before beating the muddy ground in a fit of black hungover despair.

But to cap that with a fumbled search for his tobacco, and the discovery that his precious buckie, on its passage into Dave cucumbers, had gone via the tobacco pouch, leaving his some times decades old collection of dog-ends a conjoined soggy mess at the bottom of the bag and nothing to smoke on the remaining walk home with thumping head. And his crabbit had gone through the roof.

Although it had fallen again just very slightly when he sucked the buckie out from the soggy dog-ends.

Now, just as he was about to reach the safety and more importantly buckie and tobacco of his barrel home some bloody stupid cat was howling. It screeched through his hangover and made him shudder almost as badly as someone suggesting it was his round.

He clamped his hoary hands to his equally hoary ears and looked up towards the source of the sound and stopped dead.

Where his hill had stood, with his barrel upon it, alone, in perfect isolation and from where he could see Admin's tax men coming for miles all around, there stood three palatial Ambassadorial residencies. The nearest of which had two things in particular which drove his crabbit rage on any previous scale he had out the top and into the stratosphere.

The first was a gaudy medieval style turret built onto the side facing him and decorated with what appeared to be large embroidered and frilly drapes, the second thing was Figg atop it with her Ambassador friends peering at him through a telescope and laughing so hard at the look on his face she was in danger of wetting herself.

Th red mist of crabbit engulfed Petty and without thought or self regard he broke into a charging run, straight at the base of the turret, head bowed.

The Three Little Ambassadors leapt to the battlements and stared down as Petty, now a blur of flapping tartan and crabbit red ploughed towards them.

Figg ceased laughing. “Oh bugger! Brace yourselves!” she gasped then had another flush, “mind you, look at those thighs go.”

Excellent!

she gasped then had another flush, “mind you, look at those thighs go.”

That cracks me up

You can pull a face Figgles Its you he's writing about !

I know. shudder to think whats coming next.

So do I.

Mrs Figg wrote:I know.  shudder to think whats coming next.

Probably nothing's coming next. Petty is one of your more lazy writers, methinks. He is NotP all over.

Cheeky bugger. Not like Ol Anon is exactly speedy either you know!

Last (next-no last!) part of this will be finished and up by Saturday night, or on Saturday night (its my next day off) I hope. Or at least plan. Buckie allowing.

Oh that will be just spiffy, Petty!



{{{Yeah suuuure... won't be holding my breath this time....}}}

Spiffy? I do hope so Orwell, for here it is- the actual final part!!!





The Three Little Ambassadors stared down from the top of the turret in fixed horror, or two of them did at least.

Figg stared down from out of a hotpot induced fugue, a world tinged with a pulsating throbbing red haze, a world of pounding in her chest and quivering in her bustle and far of in the distant recesses of her subconscious someone was playing a smoky saxophone solo.

“He's going to hit the wall!” Leelee cried in alarm.

Petty, knobbly hairy knees driving him on like pistons suddenly disappeared from their sight with a cry of “Oooh ya bastard!” straight down into a dark hole about thirty yards from the wall. There was a yell and a sound like a startled wet cow hitting a wall at speed.

“What just happened?” Amarie enquired peering down from the turret into the growing evening air.

“Oh, I forgot about that!” Figg exclaimed, “I dug a moat, but I didn't have time to sort the plumbing out so I covered it with a nice green carpet King Louie the Third gave me on the occasion of wrangling his prize eel. Betsie. Oooh it was a handful that one let me tell you! I nearly couldn't manage it. Ruined a perfectly good bustle in the process too.”

“How deep is this moat?” Amarie asked peering worriedly down into the pitch black trench below from which now muttered curses were emerging.

“About twenty feet.”

There were grunts from the pit below and the muttered curses grew slightly louder.

“What's he doing now?” Leelee said trying to see through the darkening night and seeing next to nothing.

Figg grabbed the telescope and swung it down over the edge of the turret and put her eye to it.

“Bugger! He's climbing up the sides using his bare hands...my that's strong,” she remarked and wiped her brow with a handkerchief.

Amarie looked at her worried again. She glanced sidewise at Leelee and gave a short anxious pre-arranged nod, Leelee confirmed it with her eyes.

“Now he is pulling himself up over the edge, he's covered in mud, it's glistening on his hairy gnarled chest where his plaid is torn off, my oh my, he's quite muscly in a wiry, knobbly hairy sort of a way. And the way the light of the first stars catches the buckie sweating out from his face...” she flustered.

“Maybe you should stop looking now,” Amarie cautioned.

There was a cry and a yell of , “Help ma boab!”

“Oh, he's slipped back in, and, yes, fallen all the way back to the bottom. But no, he's trying again. You do have to sort of admire how he just keeps going,” Figg suddenly breathed heavily and shallowly, “the way he just keeps pounding on up that wall, driving on, never tiring. Just doing it...”

Amarie snatched the telescope from Figg's eye, “I think you've seen enough.”

“Oi!” Figg cried, “I was enjoying that!” she realised what she had just said and hastily added, “I mean seeing Petty making an arse of himself.”

“More like seeing Petty's arse,” Amarie muttered under her breath and fiddled with something in her hand.

Beneath them Petty was once more trying to haul himself over the slippery lip of the moat.

“What are we going to do when he gets out of that hole?” Leelee demanded worriedly.

“In the name o' the wee man!” came the sudden cry from below as once more Petty slithered and fell back into the dark of the moat.

“If he gets out,” Amarie commented dryly.

Hotpot flashed in Figg's head in sparks of libido and inflamed desires. It met with the wine Figg had been drinking and together they decided to have an impromptu party.

She suddenly leapt for the spiral stairwell at the centre of the turret crying, “I know what we do! We let him in!”

And before the other two little Ambassadors could stop her Figg's bustle was already descending in a corkscrew down out of sight.  They gave chase.

Below them Petty finally crawled from the moat, got angrily to his feet, pulled a bottle of buckie from beneath his splattered kilt and drank a long hard slug, eyeing up the wall of Figg's residence  the entire time in an unblinking stare of impending crabbit.

He wiped a muddy hoary hand across his even muddier mouth and succeeded only in smearing even more mud in a long brown scar across his face like a drunk northern lass trying to put her make up on in the back of cab after 22 bacardi breezers.

With a snarl he said “Right then!” and resumed his charge.

Deep in the dark of the chimney stack a cat yowled in anger and concern.

Petty was ten feet from the wall when the door in it flew open.

Ambassador Figg was standing there in a rather fetching if elaborate gown which seemed to consist of a lot of dark fabrics of which the designer had slowly run out of as you the eye progressed upwards.

By the time Petty's eyes met Figg's there was a lot of pink in view. Some of it even heaved.

Behind her Amarie and Leelee came breathlessly down the last steps of the baroque spiral staircase but not before Figg had slammed the door closed and turned her key in its lock, leaving their desperate worried faces pressed up against the small reinforced glass panel in its centre.


“Whi huve you done woman! Petty demanded in crabbit rage, screeching to a halt in a flurry of mud, “yi think yi cun jist build yer hoose here? Oan ma Hill?”

“Yes,” Figg said disarmingly and with an unsettling for Petty smile, he wasn't sure what she had just said yes to.

“Yes whit?”

“Yes, I am a woman,” Figg said and sashed a few steps towards him. Behind her Amarie pounded on the door.

Petty floundered for a moment, his crabbit wavering in confusion, he tried to think of something to say, “aye, um, well done?” he ventured finally.

“I am sure, “ Figg said undulating closer, as the banging on the door got louder and more desperate, “we could share.”

“Whit?” Petty frowned as if she had just offered him a vegetarian meal, “share? As in I dinnae get ma oan way?”

“We could, accommodate one another, “Figg said almost dreamily her bustle wiggling side to side as she got closer and closer, “co-habitat,” she finished breathlessly an inch from his mud streaked calloused face.

“Um,” Petty managed again staring into her large blue eyes, trying to remember why he was here and what he was so crabbit about.

Silence seemed to envelop them, the banging on the door had ceased

“Yi dinnae need yon big muckle hooses though lass, yi cun huve a barrel maebbaes?” Petty uncharacteristically compromised, so off balance was he now.

“I have no idea what you just said, and I don't care,” Figg smiled and he felt her breath brushing against his face, it smelt of fish and unmistakably alcohol.

It was that last thing above all else, above the words, above the way Figg moved with all the practised ease of a many times courtier and artists muse, above even the dress which seemed every moment in his eyes to be less dress and more pink Figg. No, not even that was enough to finally move Petty. It was the distinct, beautiful, aromatic, intoxicating smell of alcohol that saw the final crumbling of his crabbit. In that moment he would have conceded her almost anything.

So it was a great pity that at that moment the door, which for the last few seconds unnoticed had become covered in a tangle of sparkling black threads which now, liquid like, disappeared into the keyhole, flew open and Amarie and Leelee, two little ambassadors from the Dark Planet leapt forth and their arms were covered in a network of the flowing black magic of their world.

Ever since atop the turret and Amaries first concerns for Figg they had been preparing their magic, their cure. The door had taken a bit of time but was not difficult, getting through doors and into or out of locked rooms was a speciality of the Dark Planet. But preparing a magical cure for hotpot had taken their joint efforts and longer.

They dove at Figg from behind who went down with a cry of “Bugger it!” and the dark tendrils unravelled from the arms of Amarie and Leelee and engulfed Figg and poured away into her throat.

Figg coughed and gagged.

Petty felt his crabbit rising again now the spell of Figgs presence was wearing away on him. “Hoad oan a meenite!” he said looking up at the monstrosities destroying his hillside and his view of the buckie brewery beyond and returning to his normal state of crabbit rage.

Figg sat bolt upright. Her stomach growled and she opened her mouth and belched loud and long. Black particles sparkled and swam from her mouth and dissipated.

“Better out than in,” she remarked. She took in her surroundings, looked with growing horror on her clothing and their distinct lack of layers of undergarments, preferably woollen, and then with considerably more horror on her recent memory. She got up and stormed towards Petty.

“Did you drug me you Scots cross-dressing pervert?” she demanded

“Whit?” Petty said, “if yi wir oan drugs hows oanywan supposed tae ken the difference?”

“I should think anyone animal, vegetable or mineral fancying you would be proof enough” Figg snapped back.

“A'm warning yi lass!” Petty said pointing a crooked finger at Figg, one of several he had the option of.

“Don't you dare lass me you chauvinist pig!” Figg roared.

“Get aff ma bloody hill!” Petty roared back.

“No. I will not,” she turned and linking arms with her fellow Ambassadors began to walk back towards her residence, “And there is nothing you can do about it?”

“Oh isn't there. Wull see aboot that lass! I will huff up ma crabbit, and I'll puff up ma crabbit, and blew yer bloody hooose doon!” he declared.

The three Little Ambassadors went through the door and slammed it shut behind them.

Petty, charging behind was only feet away. He hit the door with  a perfect head butt and a rage of crabbit so great that his explosion was one of the finest Forumshire had ever seen.

The Ambassadorial residence shook. Ornaments clanged and jangled and Figg's pussy wailed and it echoed through the residence.

But finally all fell still.

Figg eased herself up to the front door and peered carefully out the reinforced window pane set into it.

Petty was about fifteen feet back from the door, landing where he had seemingly rebounded off the wall. All around him the ground was black and furrowed and in the sky above a cloud of black crabbit rose blocking out the stars.

Petty sat up shaking his head and cursed as he saw the ambassadors residence was perfectly intact. But his crabbit was only given further fuel by the sight of Figg peering back at him and laughing.

“You can't blow down a stone house with your crabbit, you stupid Scotshobbit,” Figg cried.

Petty raged, he threw himself at the door and walls,. He clawed at them, he screamed at them, he punched them until his fists bled, he head butted them until he had nearly knocked himself unconscious and clouds of crabbit filled the night above and hung about the turret.

“Do you know what we are going to do?” Figg said in a chatty tone, “we are going to go and sit down with a nice bottle of wine and watch the entire box set of 10 and Rose.”

Petty cursed some more and hurled himself at the door hammering his head futilely against the glass window pane until he was to exhausted to continue yet his crabbit was undiminished.

“And,” Figg went on in her amicable tone when he had finished, “we are going to turn the volume up so loud that you will be able to hear the Doctor fall in love from inside your barrel.”

She smiled at him as he raged, “A'll get yi fir this, A'll blew this place tae pieces wi ma craabbit yi sick minded wee bissum!”

“How?” Figg laughed through the door, “you cant destroy a stone house with crabbit.” And with that she turned and left Petty to fume outside.

And fume he did. But slowly thought filtered through the crabbit. She was right,. Crabbit was not going to blow up this house of stone. Not from the outside anyway.

His eye turned upwards, following the lines of the building and identifying sticking out one end of the residence the large Georgian style chimney stack. And, good he thought, there was no smoke issuing from it.
Figg was right. He couldn't do it from outside, but what about from inside?


It was nearly twenty minutes later. Inside Figg's residence the Three Little Ambassadors were just settling into their 10 and Rose marathon aided by a selection of delectable foods and nibbles, the sort which mysteriously turn up in ambassadorial residence everywhere with seemingly no source or cost, and a bottle of fine wine Figg had been keeping for a special occasion, such as when she fancied drinking it. In short they were three happy Little Ambassadors.

However not everyone in the residence was happy.

In the dark of the chimney Figg's pussy was not happy at all.
There were many reasons for this. Ginger Meg naturally detested any change of any sort, particularly where it seemed to Meg it might affect his food, attention (when he wanted it of course) and his sleeping arrangements in the variety of splendid bustles Figg had adapted for his uses and travelling comfort. Figg was in short a good mistress for a cat like Ginger Meg. And he could sense she was out of sorts, and so therefore was he.

He was also growing very sick of this dark hole, mostly  because in his scrabbling he had kicked some sort of metal grating which had fallen across the chimney shaft below and blocked his exit. Now he was squeezed into a side hole in the shaft and a stone was digging into his behind. His crabbit, even for a cat one of natures natural crabbit creatures, was extraordinarily high.

By his reckoning he had missed at least one meal, the chance of nibbles if the tantalizing aroma from below making his nose twitch was right, and at least one petting and one unsolicited mauling of a random Ambassador.

These were all things Ginger Meg liked. A lot.

Being stuck in a chimney shaft with nowhere to go was not.

It was quite possibly the worst thing to have happened to him in his otherwise comfortable life. And to make matters worse there was not so much as a squeaking mouse or a even a bat up here to take his feline frustrations and severe levels of cat crabbit out on.

He was therefore a very fortunate cat when an unsolicited Scotshobbit slipped at the top of the chimney and landed which a cry of “Crivvens!”on the grating partially smashing it through and giving Ginger Meg the opportunity of escape and more importantly the golden opportunity to take his frustrations out on the round, hairy glistening spotty thing and soft dangling accessories which protruded irresistibly before him from beneath a now tattered kilt.

Cat crabbit met Scotshobbit crabbit in the dark and confined space. And something was going to have to give.

The chimney trembled.

Anyone walking by, and as it happened Nagual was on his way to see a play in Needlehole by the Forumshire Amateur Dramatic Queens (where the entire cast dress as Her Majesty Tinuviel) and which Nagual thought he could probably be quite sarcastic about, would have noted how the stack wavered in the air. And indeed Nagual did notice and stopped to observe as the stone, almost in slow motion, began to billow outwards and downwards.

It was accompanied by the unmistakable cursing cries of a Scotshobbit in full crabbit rage, and seemingly some occasional pain, and the wailing and yowling of an equally insane and crabbit pussy.

The effect rippled down the whole building which buckled,  folded downwards and collapsed in a massive heap of stone and billowing dust.

The Three Little Ambassadors sat and blinked amid the rubble, the tv crackled and with the words “Run for your lives!” went dark.

They blinked in the dust cloud.

Beneath a pile of nearby rubble a pair of hairy legs stuck out from a kilt and over the top of the rubble pile an immense ginger cat strutted, tail and head held high and proud. He strolled over to the still stunned Figg and leapt up onto her knee and purred contently pressing up against her for attention and food.

“I am definitely moving to Needlehole.” Amarie said.

Outside Nagual shook his head at them and gave his judgement on their tale.

“Meh” he shrugged and walked off into the Forumshire night.


The End.

{{{You are a Scotshobbit after my own heart. }}}