Trinala's Bracelets

[Jake]

"ACHEY!”

“No, the ale isn’t ready, it needs time …” Mumbled as the half-orc was dragged towards wakefulness.

“HELP ME ACHEY!”

The orc fell out of bed, his head slamming against a table as he reached for his sword. “Ow, OW! What!?! Ow!” With bleary, blinking eyes, Jake looked up. His fingers still flailed about looking for the hilt of his weapon. A tiny silhouette of a figure appeared over the side of his bed peering down at him. A large piece of paper precariously waved at him. Trinala flew down with the paper in hand and poked him with a pink crayon.

“Achey! Help me pick my bracelets!”

Pulling himself up so that he could see the paper better, the orc eyed the Madness matchups where only one name had been circled, Trinala’s, in pink crayon. Then he looked to the pixie. “I’m gonna need ale for this.”

“BOOZE!”

That much agreed upon, the orc and the pixie relocated to the kitchen and provisioned themselves with ale. The orc was careful to keep his mug covered so Trinala did not drink it as well.

“So who else do ya’ think is gonna win?”

The pixie popped out from a freshly emptied mug. “You are Achey!” From the mug the pixie fluttered over to her crayon and bracket sheet, circling Jake’s names and then beaming up to him.

The orc chuckled at her. “I hope so. I’d hate to get knocked out in the first round.” The first names on the list were Rakeesh and Devon Goral. Devon was a surprise. “There’s a name I haven’t seen much of.” Then to the pixie, who probably did not know him, “what do you think, pixie? Is Rakeesh gonna win?”

The pixie stared at him.

The orc, unsure how to describe him, started pantomiming. “You know him. Big guy. Lion head, four legs, and arms.” He waved his arms about and made grrrring noises.

Slowly eyes widened. “THAT’S A CAT! NO! CATS ARE EVIL! THEY WORK FOR THE BELLS!” Rakeesh’s name quickly gets scribbled out.

More chuckling. “Ok then, Devon to advance it is!”

The orc realized this was going to be more challenging than he thought. “Explaining the other entrants in charades-like manner is going to require a lot more ale,” Jake mused. Then again, as he glanced through the names, some of them might be fun. Describing Anubis with a big head made him chuckle.

“Are there more cats?” The pixie glared at the brackets.

“No...” running through the names, “I think he’s the only cat. But there is a rat, and a lunchbox!” Jake pointed out the two and Trinala circled them.

“Cat lovers? Bell supporters? Cheesecake eaters? Their kind cannot succeed! Oh! That is Kala Man! He will win!” A pink circle went around Kalamere’s name. “Then he fights the lunchrat!”

“Lunchrat?” The orc pondered. “Well, he does love treats. Snackrat maybe.” Checks the brackets. “Would be funny to see Napoleon try to raid the Lunchbox.” Working through the names and matchups, “Oh! There is Kattria, but she’s not really a cat. She just sneaks around like one.”

“Why would someone sneak around like a dirty cat?” The pixie scratched out Kattria’s name. “She’s not invited to the wedding!”

The orc chuckled, “I think she’d be insulted if you invited her. She prefers to sneak in.” Then the orc realized the pixie was talking about weddings again and changed the subject. “Um, so, King should win, yes? You know her.”

“King Beat Down?”

“Yeah, that one!”

“Okay! She can be my milkmaid.” Terry King’s name is circled.

“It’s too bad that Kal’s in the same div as King.” The orc finished off his ale and moved to refill their mugs while debating between Teagan and Elijah.

“King Beat Down!” The pixie declared loudly before turning the words into a song. “King Beat Down, King Beat Down!”

Trinala’s pink crayon slashed and circled through names in a manner that seemed suspiciously random to the orc. He watched her zip through names of duelers he was sure she could not know. “Pixie, are you choosing names based on anything?” Jake could not determine from watching whether she chose by which name fit a pattern, like it included the letter A, or if one name was longer or shorter than the other, or which name she was pointing at as she reached the end of a refrain in her song.

“I’m picking the winners!”

Her zeal removed any further need for explanation. Jake peered at the list to what was left to resolve. The pixie had worked her way down to Falon division.

“Oh, look, in the third round you’ll have to fight G. You’ve probably seen him too. He’s the one with the big hammer. He hates gettin’ slashed, so you should probably beat him with one of those. So we can see his head explode.” Circles that match-up and annotates it with a red crayon drawing of G, with hammer, and an exploding head spraying crayon blood all over the brackets.

The pixie slashed around with her pink crayon. “I will slay him like a bell! And then hang him in my tree!”

“And ask him about his ex-wife. That might get him on a rant so that he stops paying attention to the duel.”

“Ex-wife!”

“I think he traded her in for some magic beans.”

“I want magic beans!”

“If you win, you can have magic beans,” the orc promised as he refilled the mugs.

It was only a momentary distraction for the pixie. “Tassman! He’s a dragon. He’ll win! He can turn into a dragon and breathe fire! BOOOOOSHHH” The circling of more names cut off momentarily by her mime of breathing fire. There was probably a rule about not burning your opponents to death in the rings.

“We’ll have to have to watch Rena fight. She’s a pirate.”

The orc eyed the competition that he was going to have to beat in his own division. The Jedi had that funny magic sword, but he had seen Marric duel, so that was a toss-up. Nayun would probably advance, as would Jay. Too bad they could not eliminate each other.

Once Trinala got past G, Matt looked like a good candidate for her next opponent given his obsession for winning. G would be the more entertaining duel. Especially if his head exploded.

“Ok, so final four! I’m gonna win Ganderfald, and you’re gonna win Falon by beatin’ up Matt. And King can win Karnafexx, cuz Team Beat Down. We just have to figure out who’s gonna win Oakenshield.” The orc eyed the name of Xanth. “I dunno...he’s kinda dark and magicky...do you think we should let him advance to the end?”

“Does he like cats?”

Scratches his chin while thinking about Xanth, “He doesn’t like Jesse, and there are always cats near Jesse, so I am pretty sure he doesn’t like cats.”

“Cat’s are evil!” Circles Xanth’s name. “Are you going to beat Xanth, Achey?”

“If you beat King Beat Down, I guess I have to beat Xanth if we’re gonna be in the final. But if you lose, and I lose, we can watch and guzzle ale and eat popcorn.”

“Booze! And plan the wedding!” Xanth and Terry King went to the finals while Trinala started drawing slayed wedding bells on her bracket sheet. “You will wear your special Effaloop trunks. I made them for you!”

“Right!” Agreeing and pretending he did not hear the rest. “Booze!”

“King Beat Down Wins! And I get tequila! LET’S DO SHOTS!” Trinala started doing her booze dance, abandoning the sheet of paper and crayon. “SHOTS!”

The orc chuckled and shook his head. “Well...so much for gettin’ any more work done tonight.” He grabbed his sword belt and ambled towards the door. “Alright, pixie, but no more stealin’ other people’s drinks. Drunk people always want to fight about it.”

“I get first sip!” First just happened to always be last as well.

Jake paused in mid-step and changed his mind with a grin. “Nevermind, pixie. You can take all the drinks you want. I even know a bar I wanna visit.”