A/N: (Time to show of all the big words I know again…) Erm, I mean, time for another exciting episode of Magorian! If you think it’s funny, chime in on the review board and tell me what you think should happen next.
Magorian could handle the icy-cold and harsh winds as he climbed up the mountain. He could withstand the rocky and painful terrain. He could even endure the occasional mudslide that would take him back a few hours’ progress. What he couldn’t stand was the song that was stuck in his head.
Do you believe in life after love, after love, after love”Dammit! Get out of my head, Cher!
Magorian had learned the song at his stay in the Eskimo village before he had taken on the mountain. The extremely hospitable tribe had provided him food, clothes and shelter after his long and hard journey (he had to walk for three and a half days- without any mushrooms to tie him over!). Magorian was almost about to feel bad for burning down their village and defacing their sacred walrus-god ice-sculptures on a whim until the insidious tune they taught him kept replaying over and over in whatever was left of his mind. Now he couldn’t care less whether all the Inuit sank into the frigid depths of the sea or not.
There were a few things Magorian was thankful for, however. The fact that he had four legs made it that much easier to ascend the steep slope of the peak. Also, he was glad he had gotten rid of those wheels he had once worn- it would’ve made climbing the mountain infinitely more difficult. And now he was glad that he had finally reached the summit.
Immediately, the weather became nice, sunny, and cheery. Birds could be heard chirping in the background and all the snow was replaced by lush verdure. The floor became smooth and flat. It was almost as if the author didn’t want the setting to be a mountain peak anymore, but rather a green clearing on top of a plateau. Anyway, Magorian was now looking for the one person he had trekked to find. After a few minutes of searching, he found him, and he eagerly trotted to be in front of him.
It wasn’t Santa Clause. It wasn’t the Oracle at Delphi. It wasn’t even Newt Ginrich. It was the mystical, the fabled, the all-powerful…
The Man on the Mountain™.
He was… well, you’d just have to see him to believe him. Suffice it to say that it looked like the only thing he hadn’t ever inhaled was Valium. He looked like a California surfer dude, but inexplicably talked in a thick Japanese accent.
“What can I do for you, young Grasshopper?” said the wise old man, using a term long over-used since a certain timeless movie.
“I came to ask a question,” replied Magorian, “a question that has haunted me ever since it came across my mind. A question that the greatest philosophers and scientists have tried to solve since the beginning of recorded history. The question that precedes all others. The one, singular question that has caused sentient beings to waste away their lives in an obsessive search to find the answer. I am hoping you can answer this question, o Wise Man of the Mountain.”
The Man on the Mountain continually nodded as Magorian had spoken, convinced he knew what the question the centaur was so desperate to be answered was. He’d just have to tell him the same thing he’d told everyone else who had expected an answer from him…
“Speak, young one. What is the question you seek to answer?” said he, knowing full well what it was going to be.
“Do I look good in leotards?”
The Man on the Mountain was extremely taken aback. That question was obviously not the one he had been anticipating. Thus, the answer he gave was a feeble one.
“Um… yes?”
It apparently didn’t appear to concern the recipient of the answer how weak it was, for Magorian seemed positively thrilled. He pulled out his pair of leotards, and, with the moderate amount of difficulty associated with being a quadruped, put them on.
“Thank you, Man on the Mountain” said Magorian gratefully. “I’ve always wanted to wear leotards. Well, since three and a half days ago, really, but you get the picture.” After a long pause, Magorian added, “Well… I’ll be off now. Bye.”
He began to trot off, new leotards in tow. However, the Man on the Mountain called him back. “Wait, young Grasshopper!” Magorian turned around and listened.
“You are a strange one. I could use your services. Would you like to be my bushi?”
“Bushi?”
“Sorry, I mean ‘apprentice’. I have a bad habit of using Japanese words when I could just as easily use English ones. By the way, call me Motm.”
When Magorian replied in the affirmative, Motm was ecstatic. He finally had someone who could go out and get him Bayer while he meditated. And some Lipitor. (Motm had quite the encyclopedic memory for prescription drugs.) He loved that stuff. It made him high. (Erm, I mean “enlightened”.) It was always a pain to go down the mountain, drive to the pharmacy
and pick up a couple of buckets of Nexium ( the healing purple pill? More like the seriously psychedelic nirvana enabler!)
Unfortunately for him, he had been saying all this without realizing that he had been thinking aloud and Magorian was instantly turned off. He wasn’t going to be any old has-been geezer’s lackey!
Unfortunately for the centaur, he had been saying that aloud too, and Motm got extremely angry. He quickly metamorphosed from a benign hippy into an UNSTOPPABLE FORCE OF NATURE.
“RARGJPPZLCTLEFJNSFSNSFEFZRBYXOKNDEZOQNFOE!” the demonic deity roared unintelligibly as he threw bolts of lightning and fire at the helpless centaur. The serene scenario described before disappeared and a desolate wasteland took its place, dotted by brimstone and fire omens. The tidings of destruction and woe resounded through time and space, making the poor Eskimos even more doomed than they already were. Winds whipped up at razor-sharp speeds and boulders fell from the very blackened sky.
Luckily, Magorian’s new leotards made such a hideous contrast with the color of his hair that it created a force field of repulsiveness, and rebounded the entire natural phenomenon that Motm was pointing at him. The immortal djinn reverted back into the old man at once. The author conjured a stretcher into the story for him just to symbolize his weakness.
Magorian knelt down on Motm’s deathbed. He could hear the faint last words of the dying man.
“Grasshopper (cough)… Forgive me… (hack)… I knew not what I was doing… (wheeze)… I let my rage consume me… please (gasp)… pass down my teachings and (another colorful expression for trying to breathe with difficulty)… bury me under the yew tree down yonder…” Then the old man heaved, convulsed, and expired.
Magorian was faced with an interesting moral dilemma. Should I do what Motm asked me to do? he thought.
After a few minutes, he reached a conclusion.
Screw that. I’m going home.
A/N: A sudden stroke of brilliance was given to me by my muse, so I just had to give up all the important stuff I had to do and write this. I hope you liked this one, because I had to give up my job, my car, my house, my entire family, and about seven I.Q. points to make it.