MacPetty- the Scottish Play. A Forumshire Tragedy.

The cries of death were in the air, air filled with swirling carrion birds. Among the groans, the screams and the squeals there was the splash of blood, the sloosh of blood and the gloopy sound you get when lots of people are fighting whilst standing in other peoples innards. A bitter dark rain hammered down on all and clouds of heavy grey covered the sky.

On a bleak cliff top of bitten short yellow grasses three twisted figures stood.
It took a lot of practise in front of a mirror and a major traffic accident to pull off such haggard and croaked poses but these three had lots of practise.

They looked down on the gore, the mayhem, the futility and the death below them with a silent satisfaction.

One of them had brought a bag of chocolate raisins.

“When shall we three meet again? In thunder, lightning, or in rain?” the tallest of them whose name was Azriel questioned in a hiss from beneath the wide brim of a pointy black hat.

“Why does it always have to be in shit weather?” the shortest yet most evil of the three said, her name was Norc.

“We should meet when the hurly burly is done,” the third one said, nodding towards the battle, her name was Amarie, “when the battles lost and won and we can compare score sheets and see who got the most kills in the sweepstake, and it gives me time to nip home for a couple of hours whilst Finrods in Port,” she added with a wink and Azriel tutted disapprovingly but only said, “Where the place?”

“Upon the heath?” Amarie suggested.

“Will it still be fucking raining?” Norc asked water dripping from the brim of her pointy hat and trickling down her hooked and warty nose.

“There to meet with Petty” Azriel said triumphantly ignoring Norc.

Norc peered down at the distant battle, “Which of those fuckers is he again?”


The rain fell not only upon the bloody battle but several miles back from the front lines, in fact several, several miles back from the front line where there was no chance at all of any actual fighting occurring, there were a row of pavilions, and in the largest most lavishly appointed of them of them was Admin Eldo upon his mobile throne of gold. Attendants stood either side of him.

Through the pavilions entrance came three men, two of them were bearing up the third, they were Lance and Halfwise the heirs of the Admin, the third man had a very nasty looking gash upon his face and an arm that was not so much broken as mashed.

“What bloody man is that? “ Eldo asked.

“This is the sergeant,” Lance replied, “He can report the latest news from the battle.”

“Oh good,” Eldo said brightening up, “I can't seem to get CNN out here.”

“Doubtful it stood,” the sergeant suddenly croaked spitting blood everywhere and making everyone jump, “as two spent swimmers trying to tug each others bathing shorts off. The merciless Macdonald from the western isles came upon the field, but drunk and crabbit Petty- well he deserves those names – disdaining sobriety, with his arse showing, carved out his passage till he faced the slave; and unseam'd him from the belly to the face and stole all his buckie.”

Eldo clapped his hands at this news, “Excellent so the Forum is safe from the Fjordian take over?”

The sergeant coughed a dollop of blood up onto the floor and then struggled on, “Mark, Admin of Forumshire, mark; but the Fjordian Lord surveying the vantage, with new supplies of men, began a fresh assault.”

“Dismayed not this our Captains, Petty and Odo?” Eldo asked anxiously fearing he may have been celebrating to soon and wondering if exiled Admins still had access to their holiday islands.

The sergeant croaked, and laughed, spitting up more blood in the process, “As alcoholics the pub doors opening, or like a man getting a chance to boot PJ up the arse. They redoubled their strokes upon the foe with increased crabbit,” the sergeant croaked some more and more dollops of red spattered the pavilion floor, “But I am faint, my gashes cry for help.”

“Oh yes, whatever,” Eldo said waving a hand dismissively whilst he pondered this good news.

As the sergeant was half carried from the pavilion by the attendants another man passed through the doorway and entered.

“Eru save the Admin!” the man said bowing to Eldo.

“Whence camest thou Bungo?” Eldo asked sharply.

“From Needlehole, great King; where the Fjordian banners flouted the sky. Assisted by the Thane of Needlehole, RA. But to conclude, the victory fell upon us.”

“Great happiness!” Eldo exclaimed overjoyed no one would discover his tax figures now, “Once to often has RA, Thane of Needlehole said things which can get you killed in Forumshire, he has gone astray;  pronounce his death, and with his former title greet Petty.”

Several miles away, between pavilion and the battle field there was a blasted heath, mists swirled over it, strange winds blew on it and rattled dead heathers and bracken. Rain fell in intermittent violent busts and thunder rolled overhead.

“I knew it, fucking lousy weather, again,” Norc exclaimed as she arrived on the heath at the appointed time and saw her two sister witches approaching.

“Where have you been sister?” Azriel asked Norc.

“Killing shit,” Norc replied with a shrug and a flash of a wicked black toothed grin.

Amarie turned to Azriel, “Sister, where thou?”

Azriel grinned evilly, “Disposing of husbands. A husband goes to sea, but will not come back.”

“I'll give you a wind,” Amarie cackled.

“I'll give you this,” Norc put in and held up a bloodied thumb.

Azriel stared at the stump of a thumb which had been crudely hacked from its owners hand, “And what am I supposed to do with that?” she asked in an annoyed tone.

Norc shrugged, “Stick it up his arse?” she suggested.

There was a moments silence in response to this then all three broke into a round of cackling hysteria.

“Petty doth come!” Azriel cried, and the wicked laughter stopped as suddenly as it had started, they all looked into the mist and rain.

Quietly they began to chant : "Fair is crabbit, and crabbit is fair, to hover through the buckie fumed air."


Not far away two figures coalesced out of the mist from dark shadows into men, well close to men.

One of them was Petty, resplendent in his war kilt, beside him strode Odo looking miserably at the weather.

“Such a crabbit and yet fair a day I have not seen,” Petty observed.

“How far is it?” Odo asked wearily, “my feet are killing me and I have a batch of jelly on the go I want to get back to.”

But just then they were startled by the sudden arrival of the three witches before them, seeming to appear out of the air itself to accompanying cackles.

“What are these?” Odo asked in wide eyed amazement as Azriel stamped out a soggy roll-up, “they don’t look at all respectable,” he arched a disapproving eyebrow,  “Are you aught a man may question?” he asked peering disdainfully at them, “you should be women, and yet your beards forbid me to interpret that you are so,” he observed dryly.

“Fuck you big head,” one of the gnarled apparitions said fiercely.

“What are you?” demanded Petty crabbtley, not much pleased at being delayed and therefore kept longer from his celebratory buckie bath.

“All hail Petty!” Azriel declared waving her arms in the air, “Hail to thee, thane of Buckie!”

“All hail, Petty!” Norc cried, “Hail to thee, thane of Needlehole.”

“All Hail, Petty!” Amarie wailed, “thou shalt be Admin hereafter!”

Petty's face creased into a crabbit scowl at this but he said nothing.

“Why the crabbit face?” Odo asked him, “at things that sound so respectable?” he turned to the three witches his mind whirring, “Petty you greet with great prediction, to me you speak not and I'm the truly respectable one here. If you can look into the seeds of time and see which business opportunities will grow and which shares will go up and down, tell me, I do not  fear the trading laws.”

“Hail!” Azriel croaked at him.

“Fuck yeah hail!” Norc added.

“Hail!” Amarie finished.

“Lesser than Petty,” Azriel said in a low voice.

“Are you sure about that? I mean, really sure?” Odo asked worriedly, looking at Petty.

“And greater,” Azriel added in contradiction.

“Ah right, that’s good then,” Odo said with a puzzled frown.

“Not so fucking crabbit,” Norc declared.

“Well no one is,” Odo observed.

“Yet much fucking happier,” Norc added and threw him a smile that made him wish he was far away.

“Though shalt get Admins,” Amarie said prophetically.

“Oh, that's interesting, so I must be Admin too then and pass it on do I?”

“Though shalt be none,” Amarie replied in a doom laden voice.

“Damn it,” Odo cursed under his breath.

“So all hail Petty and Odo!” Amarie said with a wail.

“Odo and Petty, all hail!” Azriel chorused and they began to fade away into the mist before Petty and Odo's very eyes.

“Stay!” Petty cried leaping forward, “Tell me more. I know I am Thane of Buckie, but how of Needlehole? RA lives, a fine chap even f he does tend to say the sort of things that can get you killed in Forumshire. It doesn't stand within the prospect of belief, no more than to be Admin. Say how you know all this? Speak I charge you,” he cried.

“No chance,” Azrel replied as she dissolved before his eyes, “I'm dying to get me feet up and have a cuppa and a smoke.”

He heard a parting, fading cry of “Later fuckers,” and they were gone.

And then Petty was alone in a pool of white mist which Odo stepped forwards into.

“Wither are they vanished?” he asked Petty.

“Into the air,” Petty replied simply.

“Were such things here?” Odo asked doubtfully, “or did you spike me with buckie again?”

“Your children shall be Admins,” Petty said with a forced smile.

“You shall be Admin,” Odo countered with an equally forced smile.

“And Thane of Needlhole,” Petty added.

Just then they heard the clip of horses, muffled in the cold misty air, huddled shapes loomed and resolved into Bungo leading his hose by the halter and beside him, likewise leading his steed was Malick.

“The Admin hath happily received Petty news of thy success,” Bungo declared when he saw them.

“We are sent to give thee from our Admin thanks; only to herald thee into his sight, not pay thee,” Malick added with what he hoped was a disarming laugh.

“Well,” muttered Petty under his breath, “if that's not typical of bloody Eldo.”

“And for an earnest of a greater honour,” Bungo added seeing the look on Petty's face at the no pay situation, “Admin bade me, from him, call thee Thane of Needlehole.”

“What?” Odo declared, “really? Him. Did those devils speak true?”

“RA lives; why do you dress me in borrowed robes?” Petty demanded.

“Who was RA lives yet; but under heavy judgement of saying things that can get you killed in Forumshire, and now he stands accused of doing things that can get you killed in Forumshire as well by joining with Fjordian ranks and receiving herring from their coffers.”

Petty mulled this over in his head, “Buckie, and Thane of Needlehole! The greatest is behind. This cannot be good,” he thought about the promise of being Admin, “cannot be evil,” he countered in his mind, “if chance will have me Admin, why chance may make me Admin, without my stir.”

“Petty!” Odo said, but got no response, Petty was deep in thought, evident by the extra depth of the frown on his always frowning face, “Petty!” Odo yelled again and gave him a shake, “we stay upon you leisure.”

“Give me your favour,” Petty said apologetically coming out of his thoughts slowly, as was his wont, unaccustomed to deep thought as he was, “my buckied brain was wrought with things buckied. Let us towards our Admin.”

And together they all trooped off into the mist which closed behind them in a white wall.

A gharish gangrel tale, methinks...  And too funny whilst imbibing a hot beverage upon the reading of and to my peril...  

It seemed a suitable tale to tell for Halloween.

This is a really cool story petty.
Can't wait for the next part  

The trouble with Petty is that firstly he gets your hopes up, whether it's making music videos, or partly writing stories, then he goes off hunting grouse or something.

I like the slow reveal. Even if Shakespeare did it first it works exceedingly well here. I don't remember the weird sisters appearing in the opening scene, but shall now go back and reacquaint myself.

There will be more of this I promise, hopefully later tonight, but I have a certain parody to get going again before then, so it should be up later.

''He heard a parting, fading cry of “Later fuckers,” and they were gone''.

 

Pettytyrant101 wrote:There will be more of this I promise, hopefully later tonight, but I have a certain parody to get going again before then, so it should be up later.

Promises! Promises! You and your promises!  

Back at his pavilion Admin Eldo was standing before a full length mirror which was being held by two attendants whilst he tried on a variety of fancy hats, currently he was resplendently swamped by a magnificent one made entirely of swan, whole swans.

Just at that moment Lance entered and bowed.

“Is execution done on RA?” Eldo asked trying on another hat, this one with a full spread of peacock feathers at the back and the neck and head of the peacock at the front, it bore a suitably indignant expression.

“I have spoken with one who saw him die,” Lance informed him, “he reported that frankly RA confessed he had said and done things which could get you killed in Forumshire, he died as one who was studied in saying things which could get you killed in Forumshire and threw away the most precious thing he owned as if it were a mere rasberry trifle with jelly.”

“There is no art can understand the mind that says and does things which can get one killed in Forumshire,” Eldo replied sadly and then instantly cheered himself up by placing a purple beret with a polka dot design onto his head, he adjusted it to a rakish angle and posed at himself in the mirror.

Just then there was a flurry of trumpets outside the pavilion and Petty and Odo swept in flanked by Malick and Bungo.

They all bowed before the Admin.

Eldo spun round from his mirror and clawed the beret off his head, “Em, its for the Admins Ball,” he said apologetically then seizing the initiative as good Admins do he stepped forward and embraced Odo, and then began to embrace Petty, thought better of it and opted in the end for warily patting him on the shoulders, “Worthy friends!” he cried, “In-between trying on hats the sins of my ingratitude were weighing heavily on me, though not as heavily as that hat with the clock in it. Whose idea was that?” he mused, then collected himself and went on, “More you should have than all I have to say, and more is your due than all I can pay.”

Petty frowned at this, tried to work it out and then sensed that yet again actual pay was going to be a lost less forthcoming from Eldo than fancy words, and hats for that matter. But he gritted his teeth and stepped forward and said, “The service and loyalty I owe, so long as there is a buckie in it, pays itself. Admins part is to receive our duties and keep the buckie flowing.”

“And jelly,” Odo put in politely.

Eldo smiled at them, happy that he was again going to get away with not paying these two for their services and was already planning on how to use the money saved for a nice little summer house extension on his secret tax-haven island getaway.

“I have begun to plant you, and I will make you full of growing,” Eldo said warmly, reckoning there were years of free service in this at no more cost than some buckie and a ready supply of jelly if he played it carefully.

“And Odo,” he said turning to the obelisk headed Odo who bristled with class pride at being directly addressed by the Admin and stood to his full rigid attention in barely suppressed smugness, “No less have you done and done so respectfully.”

“There if I grow,” Odo replied loftily, “the jelly harvest is your own.”

“Excellent!” Eldo declared, “Now to matters of Forum State, let is be known we will establish the position of Deputy-Admin upon Lance, whom we name now Prince of Bree,”

Everyone applauded Lance, some more enthusiastically than others. Petty smiled warmly at Lance as Eldo went on speaking, “From here we will to Buckieshire, and to Buckie castle!” he declared.

“I will ride ahead,” Petty said bowing, “and make my wife joyful with the news of your approach.”

Petty bowed again and left the pavilion but Eldo had already turned back to his mirror, “Now, tell me, which hat should I wear for the journey?”

Outside Petty stalked through the drizzle filled air, his fists clenching and unclenching. Suddenly he stopped, “The Prince of Bree!” he snarled, “There is a step on which I must fall down,” he paused for dramatic effect,  “or over leap it, for in my way it stands!” he arrived at his horse and pulled himself up into the saddle, saying as he did so, “I cannot be thinking such thoughts of fire, this is not a square go. I need buckie to hide my deep and dark desire.”

He mounted his horse and road from the field at a furious gallop.

Behind him Eldo emerged from his pavilion with his attendants, complete with mirror behind him,  he had on a splendid turquoise turban, Odo stood by his side still basking in the prestige of being among those closest to the Admin.

“Petty, he is so, useful,” Eldo mused, and turning to Odo added,  “and in his uses I am drunk, it is an all night session in the Duck n' Muck to me. Let us go after him to Buckie Castle, he is a great friend of Forumshire,” he declared and added privately, “and tax deductible too.”

And they went off to where the esquires where preparing their steeds for riding.


Over heather covered glens and beyond lochs where mysterious shapes swam for tourists and across moorlands where the haggis plaintively called, there stood a castle upon a rocky promontory. Ravens crowded its turreted walls and circled overhead. Below it the sea pounded at the cliffs base in continuous crabbit rage.

The castle itself was built in a unique style, with four stone turrets each in the bulging shape of an elongated buckie barrel, and the walls of its battlement were protected by millions of glinting shards of buckie bottle embedded in the stonework, so that as the sun set it blazed in reflected splintered greens.

It was also the only castle in existence to have a bustle.

Upon the battlement Lady Figg, wife of Petty, walked. She had long thick hair, a vibrant red, that she had bound strictly back in a bun, and wore a fine red dress with a simply enormous bustle of many layers all topped off with fetching pale pink ribbons and a massive bow. She was reading a buckie stained letter, squinting every now and again to make out the unsteady hand that wrote it.

Around her ankles a ginger tom wound and purred

She reached the end of the letter and stopped walking, considering the contents and the promise of the three witches which Petty had conveyed to her in it. Here was the potential to be Queen of Forumshire, for if Petty were Admin he could do as he pleased and replace Tinuviel with someone more appropriate, a professional lady with wrangling skills, and a proper bustle who didn't spend all her time playing golf. No, she, Lady Figg would be Queen of Forumshire, and she would have the most wondrous, beautiful bustle any had ever beheld, and her nose would be the best in the land, and she would hold Balls, proper ones, with all the men in proper stiffly starched clothes and where everyone knew their place, which was beneath her, and were properly polite. Not like that Eldo who was a cheeky whipper-snapper and besides she had a sneaky suspicion he not only might look better in a bustle than her, but that he might have tried already too.

But this chance, these prophetic words enticed her now, in her head she saw a future of genteel perfection and Edwardian manners and herself at the centre of it all.

And then her dreams came up with a jolt against the flaw in all this, it depended upon Petty.

“Buckie you are, and Needlehole,” she said to the air, “and you will be what you are promised: but I fear your drunken nature, you are to full of alcohol to catch the nearest way: you could be great; you are not without ambition, if there is a drink in it, but you will not play false, you would rather stand before him and claim him like a child in the school yard, or demand a square go as if you contested only a stool in a buckie house,” she sighed in annoyance and strode to the battlement and looked out over the wind swept land before her full of fading greens and muted browns, “Hurry to me Petty, that I may work you as surely as any eel and pour spirits down your throat, and chastise with my wrangling tongue all that impedes you from the Admin's Tower, which fate and three suspicious women on a moor do seem to promise you.”

Just then a door in the nearest turret opened and a servant came out bowing so low his chin nearly scraped the flagstones.

“Well?” Lady Figg demanded, “what are your tidings?”

“The Admin comes here, tonight,” the servant squealed.

“You better be fucking shitting me!” Lady Figg said angrily betraying her working class northern roots in her surprise and annoyance, “Is not Petty with him? And if he were would not Petty be too terrified of how angry I would be not to be given proper time to prepare? I mean we only have forty barrels of buckie, and that was for just for him,” she said panicking now at the thought of everything that needed done around the castle for a State visit.

“It is true,” the servant risked, “One of my fellows met Petty in a pub not more than half a mile down the road.”

“Go,” Lady Figg ordered the servant, “and order more buckie,” she called after the retreating bowing figure. When the turret door had firmly slammed shut she turned again to look out over the battlements.

She seemed to be waiting on something.

Overheard the castle ravens wheeled and one let out a timely croak.

“The raven himself is hoarse that croaks the fatal entrance of Eldo under my bustle,” she said  grateful she had not had to wait long for a raven with a sore throat  to come along. She stepped forward and cried to the wind, “Come, you spirits of the buckie bottle that confound mortal thoughts, fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of buckie violence! Clot up my blood, eat my liver, stop up the access and passage to all emotions, get me right oot o' it and aff ma heid pure mental wi' it, so that nothing will sake my fell purpose.”

The turret door opened again and Petty strode out onto the battlements with only a slight stagger.

“My dear Figg, I have something to..”

“Great Buckie!” Lady Figg interrupted in greeting turning to him, “Worthy Needlehole! And Greater than both,” she held up his barely literate letter, “your drunken ramblings have transported me out of the present and into a bustle filled future,” she told him with a huge smile on her face.

“My dearest Figg,” Petty said trying to get a word in edgeways, “Eldo comes here tonight,” he said managing to at least get in the important point.

“And when does he leave?” Figg asked with a sly smile building on her face.

“Tomorrow is his plan, I think he might have another holiday booked,” Petty replied.

“No holiday sun will Eldo ever see!” Figg came closer to Petty and laid a gentle hand upon his craggy and pockmarked face, “your face is a book,” she ran her finger over the crags, “a quite suspect book mind, where men, gypsies and strange ladies on moorlands may read strange matters. Bear buckie in your hand, let your tongue flow with happy drunken nonsense: look like the drunkard, but be the hangover under it,” she draped her arms about him and purred at him, “he that is coming must be provided for with buckie, and you shall put this nights great business into my dispatch whose wrangling skills are well suited to that purpose.”

Petty pulled himself away from Figg and pulled the turret door open, he half turned as he left and stopped, “We will speak further of this over a buckie.”

“Leave it all to me,” Lady Figg assured him with a smile.

Overhead the clouds gathered in thickening greys and the ravens circled, and in the distance the straining eye could just make out the banner of Forumshire leading Admin Eldo ever closer to the sharp and perilous walls of Buckie Castle.

Lady Figg watched their approach with a keen and calculating eye and dreamt of a bustle for every day of the week and two on weekends.

Um, I have rather a lot more of this I was going to post if anyone is interested.

Oh, yesterday's post had somehow gotten buried. Good of you to bump it back up. Ripping good stuff, keep posting! But keep it to one installment a day at most, or the poor besotten masses will fall behind.

My favorite parts:
---
"Admins part is to receive our duties and keep the buckie flowing.”

“And jelly,” Odo put in politely."
---
"No, she, Lady Figg would be Queen of Forumshire, and she would have the most wondrous, beautiful bustle any had ever beheld, and her nose would be the best in the land, and she would hold Balls, proper ones, with all the men in proper stiffly starched clothes and where everyone knew their place, which was beneath her, and were properly polite. Not like that Eldo who was a cheeky whipper-snapper and besides she had a sneaky suspicion he not only might look better in a bustle than her, but that he might have tried already too."

Sometimes I wonder if your talent may be too big for Forumshire, Petty.

We would, of course, invite you to come and live in Little Forumshire, where we encourage great talent, but we don't like Scotshobbits and that's a sticking point.

One thing though, I'm not sure Odo will be all too pleased with your depiction of him. He seems to be such a suck-up in his dealings with that Rich, Famous,  Good Looking and (possibly) pompous, Eldo, son of Baldo. Surely that's you just using creative licence?

waaaait.... how did i miss this?! i'm even in this.. O_O

No Forumshire Tale would be complete without you, Norc.   {{{ }}}

aw, you.

"keep it to one installment a day at most, or the poor besotten masses will fall behind."- Halfwise

I shall hold off putting up the next part until tomorrow.

"I'm not sure Odo will be all too pleased with your depiction of him. He seems to be such a suck-up in his dealings with that Rich, Famous, Good Looking and (possibly) pompous, Eldo, son of Baldo. Surely that's you just using creative licence?"- Orwell

Well I see it as Odo and Petty in the days before the Great Rift. Before Odo turned to Eru, when he used to partake in the occasional all night drinking session and bawdy song contests in the Duck n' Muck. You know, before he became a self righteous stuck up prig.  

It just seemed suitable to the parts being played.

"No Forumshire Tale would be complete without you, Norc."- Orwell

What Orwell said. Besides if you weren't in it I'd have had no one to say "fuck you big head," to Odo and that's my favourite line so far.  

 

fie on thine misrepresentation of yonder Ladys character, parentage and eel wheedling . fie!

 

Dont complain, I gave you the best, most coveted female role in theatre history, well the very Scottish version which is more of a study of the perils of buckie and crabbit misuse than Shakeys version.

And you get to wear a lot of different bustles through out so when we do the film version you can nick the costumes

well thats alrighty then  

petty wrote:"No Forumshire Tale would be complete without you, Norc."- Orwell

What Orwell said. Besides if you weren't in it I'd have had no one to say "fuck you big head," to Odo and that's my favourite line so far.  

gotta read this now

Isn't it like 4 AM over there?

I kept putting this off but it's brilliant stuff, Petty. Your Midsummer Night's Dream parody was hilarious and this is shaping up to be if anything even better. Thanks for writing and posting it!