Thad and his four women sat down together in the pew opposite Brother Barrelmender. Two women were to each side of Thad, snuggling up with him and each other. The vixen on Thad’s right began gently massaging his crotch. Thad’s head rolled back and he gave a blissful sigh as the young woman kissed and nibbled his neck and ear, her hand squeezing and pulling on his obvious erection.
Still standing, Barrelmender grunted. He looked to Peep and pointed to a spot just in front and a little to the right of Thad. He pointed Choke to a corresponding spot to Thad’s left. Knuckle, he directed behind Thad’s pew. Once all three were on their marks, Barrelmender took his seat. He sat on the front of the seat, his feet under him, with his longsword arranged carefully on his left hip and his staff upright in his right hand. There was about two and a half meters between Barrelmender and Thad.
“Alright, then. Let us hear this important message of yours, Thad,” Barrelmender said, his tone almost bored.
Thad smiled as his head rolled forward, blinking as he looked around blearily.
“Oh. Woah! Okay!” he said as he beheld Peep and Choke looming over him. “Heavy man! This is, what? Meant to be intimidation? Very square, man. Very uncool. Alright? Shouldn’t we all sit down together? You know, maybe with some lovely refreshments? Alright? Yeah!”
“No,” Barrelmender said.
“Oh, no doubt? Brother dood, this is not the way to start a collaboration, my man. This is not the friendly atmosphere that I feel would facilitate a productive dialogue between our two, you know, vibrational poles. Alright?”
“Yes, exactly,” Barrelmender said with a cold smile. “Now, what is this message you have for us?”
“Woah. Alright. Yeah. So much for lubrication, right? My dood, this very vibrationally harsh. How are you thinking that we can come together productively when I’m sitting here under the implicit threat of violence, man? Harshness abounds! Am I right? Dood!”
“Implicit? No, I really must apologize if you have taken our posture here as an implicit threat. It is not implicit,” Barrelmender corrected.
“Woah. No doubt? Alright,” Thad said, looking deeply saddened as he gently removed the vixen’s hand from his cock and leaned forward in his seat.
“Yeah, about all that, Brother,” Peep interjected. “Now might be a good time for ye to see his gift. I think it could help clear up where we’re going next with this. Ye know: remove all doubt.”
“Yeah! Alright!” Thad brightened up. “The gift! It’s for you, brother dood! Isn’t it? I think so, right?” Thad drifted off, deeply puzzled.
“Yes, actually, I think it is, Thad,” Peep said. She moved closer to Barrelmender and flipped the box open, holding it out for him to look into.
Barrelmender’s eyes and nostrils flared wide as he beheld the spectacle in the box.
“Yeah, see?” Peep said cheerfully. She reached into the box and extracted the cock from the moon pussy. She turned the cock around so that its beatific, smiling sun face beamed at Barrelmender.
Barrelmender closed his eyes as he inhaled sharply through his nose.
“The fuck?” Knuckle said from where he was standing behind Thad’s pew.
Peep grinned at him as she turned the cock his way.
“Oh, just you wait, dood. Yar gonna love this the most!” she exclaimed
“No doubt! Yeah!” Thad exclaimed cheerfully, turning around to give Knuckle a thumbs-up.
“Okay. I see,” Barrelmender said, his eyes still tightly closed. “Take it away. Put it away.”
Peep nodded and turned away from him. She slid the cock back into the pussy and was about to close the box. She hesitated. Peep reached back in and grabbed the cock by its balls. She slid it in and out.
“Oh, you like that, don’t you, you moon slut,” Peep said quietly.
“Peep! Please! Honestly!” Choke snapped.
“Alright, alright.” Peep shut the box and set it on the floor. She gave it a gentle kick to slide it under Barrelmender’s pew.
“Is it gone?” Barrelmender asked, his eyes yet still shut.
“Yes, Brother,” Peep said.
“Woah, my brother dood. So hung up! That surprises me, my friend. From what I’ve heard about how you do your thing here, I’d have thought—”
“Shut up!” Barrelmender snapped.
“Alright. Yeah. Sensitive nerve, I see. So, I think we should all respect the brother dood’s boundaries and move on. You are probably all wondering why I asked you here today.”
Everyone except one of the vixens stared at Thad in disbelief.
“Thad,” Peep said. “This aint yar church. Ye aint the host here.”
“Oh. Right? Far out!”
“Yeah. Ye came here to deliver us a message from Diya. D’ye remember? Do ye even remember the message?”
“Yeah! Alright!”
Everyone stared at Thad for a while more.
“So… can we hear the message, please, Thad?” Peep asked.
“No doubt. Just let me align my energies into that heavy facts and details place.”
Thad closed his eyes and breathed for a moment. When he opened his eyes, there was a pronounced difference in his manner.
“Right. So, Diya wanted me to tell you that she’s sorry, but she missed that heavy dood and his three men that she was going to tell you about. They got by her somehow and they’re back. That’s right, yeah?” Thad looked over at Lisbet, who nodded.
Choke, Peep, and Knuckle all tensed in alarm.
“Woah,” Peep said. “Sneed? Yar talking about Sneed.”
“No doubt! That’s the dood. Yeah, him and his three guys showed up in Bristlenook yesterday. They were going around talking to everyone. Spreading coin money around. Asking questions about you and what you are doing over here in your place. Diya said they came down the trail from Gorefield. She says she’s not sure how they got back to Gorefield without her critters noticing them, but they’re here now and you should watch out.”
It was quiet for a while as everyone processed this development. Peep was the first to proceed:
“It’s just Sneed and his three guys, right? There wasn’t some big gang with them?”
“Ahhhh… no. Just those four doods. Now, I didn’t see them myself. Diya came by our place in the afternoon and told us about it. Then we dropped buttons and worked out our tensions together. Got so buttery and toasted! Alright!”
“Yes, I understand that,” Peep said. “So, is that it for Diya’s message to us? Sneed and his three men came to Bristlenook from Gorefield yesterday and spread coin around asking everyone about us. That’s the whole message.”
“Yeah! No doubt. Alright! We did it, right?” Thad said, again looking to Lisbet for confirmation.
Lisbet nodded.
“Alright! Yeah!” Thad exclaimed.
“Yeah. Alright,” Peep said, her voice grim. “That was a bracing dip in an icy crick.” She met Choke’s eye and then looked to Barrelmender. “So, that’s it, right? We can get on with this.”
Choke thought carefully before nodding.
“Yeah! No doubt! Let’s get on with the harmonic healing, my Stronian people. Alright? Alright! Yeah!” Thad shouted.
“Yeah, Thad!” the first vixen on his left piped up. “You’re our savior, Thad! Thad! Thaaaaaaaad!”
“Right. You said it, sister,” Peep said. “But just to settle down and let Brother Barrelmender understand exactly what I think is going on here, I just wanna go over a couple of things again with you Thad. Okay?”
“Far out.”
“You came here on a mission to save everyone from the goblins, right? And this whole idea is something you came up with yesterday after Diya came to you and gave you a bunch of hallucinogenic cactus buttons. Whatever those are. Right?” Peep asked.
“Right on. Yeah!”
“And you took them drugs, but she didn’t. And then, the two of ye worked out yar troubles and ye figured out what ye need to do about the goblins. And when ye first came to town, ye told us about this in just the right way. What was it that ye said about coming here, Thad?” asked Peep.
“Yeah! Alright! I’ve come here to Brother Barrelmender as a gesture of goodwill so that we can put things right between us. Because, you see, this rift between our two different ways of worshiping and living is creating a disharmony that’s—”
“Yeah, we got all that, Thad,” Peep interrupted. “I just wanna make sure Brother Barrelmender understands why yar here.”
“But that is why I’m here, Little Wolf. I am the key to healing our two communities. I’m going to—”
“Yeah, we got that, Thad. We’ll get to it right away. I just need a quick word with Brother Barrelmender before we do. To make sure we’re all resonating in the same place of understanding. Alright? Alright!”
“Yeah! Alright!”
Peep returned Thad’s double thumbs-ups before turning back to Barrelmender. He was staring at Thad intently as though he were a particularly unique and displeasing insect.
“Brother,” Peep said. “I just wanna make sure we all understand this. When I met with Diya, she agreed to help us. She said she would let us know when Sneed was heading back this way, along with a gesture of goodwill for you. She was specific about it. She was also short with him when she left him with the boys as a hostage. And she told me that he was getting disruptive to their community over there.
Lisbet, who was sitting to Thad’s right with the handjob vixen between them, groaned in despair.
“Hush, buttercup,” Thad said, reaching across the vixen to stroke Lisbet’s thigh. “No, Little Wolf. You’re making it sound like this is all something weird and twisted that Diya is pulling. That’s not it. Yes, we had some harshness festering between us. But I told you, we had a luscious healing session on the buttons, and I’m the one who had the vision of saving us all by healing the adversarial resonances between our communities. This is all about me. Alright? Yeah!”
“Yeah, I got that, Thad. It sure is. Thank ye,” Peep said wearily. “Just like I know that it was all yar idea to bring that moon and sun carving as a gift. And that’s it’s probably been a good sixteen hours since she dosed ye, and yar still higher than a hawk on the wing on a hot summer’s day.”
Lisbet began whimpering.
“No, look, Little Wolf, you’re upsetting everyone here,” Thad said, his brow furrowed in displeasure. “I think we need to get ourselves back on the path to resolution. Okay? There’s a place inside me where I feel where we are going to be. It’s that place I found with Diya deep in the darkness last night. When we went into the goblin fantasies together and banished them. And I need to resonate that energy out of myself and into the brother dood. I need to fix him so that we both can work together to get our communities resonating on that same frequency. That is what is going to happen here. I saw that. I felt that. And I will now manifest it. And that, Little Wolf, will put the light and love out into the world that will stop all of you from manifesting this great evil that everyone thinks is coming. Alright? So I’m sorry that I have to dish you some harshness now, but I have to insist, Little Wolf, that you stop disrupting my resonance with your cold and heavy darkness. You’re like a sword blade in winter sometimes, Little Wolf. Alright? Alright!”
“Yeah. Alright. I’ll take that,” Peep said with a cold smile.
“Yes. Alright. Let’s do this thing now,” Barrelmender said, leaning forward towards Thad just a little.
Lisbet yelped in terror.
“That’s right, brother dood. It’s time,” Thad said with a beaming smile. “Can you feel what’s inside me, reaching out to you?” Thad leaned forward, pressing his right hand over his heart before stretching it out towards Barrelmender.
“I do not feel it, Thad. But I want to understand where you are coming from. So please explain how you see yourself fixing me. What is the process by which you bring me into alignment with you?” Barrelmender asked, his voice calm and reasonable.
“Alright, my Stronian friend. Alright. This is a start. It’s all about the resonance of opposites, right? Just because things are opposites does not mean that they have to be in opposition. They can resonate in harmony through their differences. Like light and dark. Day and night.”
“The Sun and the moon,” Barrelmender said.
“Yes! Exactly, brother dood! Exactly. Alright! Yeah!”
“This is nonsense. I reject it. It does not explain how you will bring me into harmony with you. How will you do this? Specifically,” Barrelmender asked sharply, as though a teacher to an errant pupil.
“I’m getting to that, my friend. It’s the way like recognizes like. How one soul recognizes its counterpart in another. When you open yourself to the possibility of seeing the rightness and beauty of what is inside of me, that recognition will create that same vibration within you. We will resonate, and you will be healed, brother. Take my hand. Heal yourself. It’s okay, brother. We are one. We need to come home together.”
Thad leaned forward even more, stretching his hand out a little more towards Barrelmender.
“Not just yet, I think,” Barrelmender said, leaning back into his pew.
Thad sighed and did likewise.
“Okay, my friend. Take your time. I feel you. But I know that the nuts with the toughest shell have the yummiest treats inside.”
“I think I see where this is going. I suppose that all of my hangups and tension are blocking me from receiving this resonance with you. Next, you no doubt have some relaxation process in mind for me. Massage, perhaps?”
“Well, if that’s what it takes to get you loosened up, my friend, then that sounds like you’re working with me now. Alright? Yeah! Alright! And I know your type of man is going to be hung up about another man touching them. So, of course, my honey treasures here are more than capable of guiding you into a place of deep relaxation and reception. Whatever you need, man.” Thad smiled at Barrelmender as he ran his fingers over the three vixens at his sides.
“Yes. I see. Before we proceed with that, though, I would like to understand just a little more about your philosophy. You are a priest, yes?”
“Sure. Alright. Yeah!”
“You speak of Altas with reverence.”
“Altas! Yeah! Our heavenly Father! The Sun! The giver of all that is good! Buttery smooth sunlight bathing down on us from above! Alright! Yeah!”
“Yes. On that we can agree. I suppose that it is upon this shared faith that you expect to foundation our reconciliation,” Barrelmender said, almost pleasantly.
“Yeah! Alright! You see? I knew you could be an alright dood! Alright! Yeah!”
“I am curious, though, Thad: why is it that you assume I should want the same outcome as you?”
“Because I want peace and love and harmony. What is there not to love about that, my friend?”
“I wouldn’t know where to start. So let us leave that aside for a moment. I concede that we both revere the sun. You have no argument from me on that front.”
“Far out, man! Yeah!”
“But what of the moon?” Barrelmender asked mildly.
Thad frowned. “Now, look, my friend, I don’t think right now we need to be focused on things that we disagree about. The key to resonating with our counterpart is to embrace our differences without focusing on them. Alright? Alright! Yeah!”
“Ah. So you acknowledge that we disagree about the moon. Let me ask you, Thad, one man of faith to another: that carving you brought as gift, the sun and moon in coitus; what does it mean to you?”
“Well, that’s what it is all about, man. The harmony of two very different beings coming together. The physical act of love represents a deeper union. One of soul and psyche.”
“And the sun and the moon.”
“Yeah! Alright!”
“Good,” Barrelmender said with a cold smile, leaning forward again. “I am now ready to proceed with our resolution, Thad. I had to be sure that you are not simply a druid’s terminally confused dupe. Before we move on, though, I am curious. You have had training as an Altarian priest, have you not? You have been to seminary. In Strana itself, I would guess.”
“Yeah, well, my dood, that’s a whole chapter of my life that I’ve closed the book on, alright? It’s not who I am, who we are, anymore,” Thad said, gesturing to the women to each side of him.
“I understand. One more question, though. Swallowtail is your real name?”
Thad sighed, looking deeply bored. “Yes, my dood, I’m a Swallowtail. But it’s not a thing, alright? My older brother, he’s got the title, and I went to seminary, and blah, blah, blah. I don’t have anything to do with them anymore, and they are not in my life. I’ve made a new life for myself out here. With them,” he stroked his women before reaching out towards Barrelmender, “and now with you. Alright? Yeah! Alright!”
“Yes, you surely have. And now we may proceed,” Barrelmender said.
Brother Barrelmender’s feet were already under him, with his weight forward on his seat in the pew. As he finished speaking, Barrelmender came out of his seat into a lunge with his staff held like a spear. With all his power, he drove the staff’s thicker, knobby head straight into Thad’s groin. Thad began to crumple forward, and Barrelmender twirled his staff, bringing the head across Thad’s face, smashing his nose open. Thad’s head snapped to the side, spraying blood across both the handjob vixen and Lisbet seated to his right.
Barrelmender dropped his staff and drew his longsword as he stepped up to Thad, who collapsed on the handjob vixen. Barrelmender lunged in with his left hand and grabbed Thad by the throat, sitting him up and shoving him straight back into the pew.
“Stron, eat his heart!” bellowed Barrelmender.
He drove his longsword through Thad’s chest and into the pew behind him. As it pierced Thad’s breast, Barrelmender’s blade burst into bright flame. Stron’s Holy Fire roiled up Thad’s chest and back, immolating his hair and beard. Thad gave one strangled gasp as he inhaled the same fire that was roasting his skewered heart inside him. Then he died.
Lisbet screamed in rage and threw herself at Barrelmender with a dagger in hand. He was just able to flinch away and raise his left arm to block her stab at his neck. She sunk the dagger to its hilt into Barrelmender’s upper arm, just behind the elbow.
Barrelmender stumbled back and flailed his arms towards Lisbet, wrenching the dagger from her hand. As he let go of his sword in Thad, its Holy Fire immediately extinguished.
As Barrelmender separated from Lisbet, Choke stepped into a hard punch into the side of her head, hitting her square and dropping her. Behind the pew, Knuckle leaned in and wrapped up both the vixens to Thad’s left in headlocks, one in the crook of each arm. He dragged them over the back of the pew and down to the ground behind. They put up no struggle.
The one remaining vixen on Thad’s right, the handjob one, was sitting slack jawed in shock. Her face was spattered with Thad’s blood, and the front of her dress was stained in it from where he had collapsed upon her.
Barrelmender yelled in pain and rage and fell into a swoon at Peep’s feet. Seeing everything was under control, she crouched down over him and pulled Lisbet’s dagger from his triceps. He yelled again.
“Stron, heal our Brother,” Peep said as she laid hands upon his wound to heal it.
Choke was standing overtop of Lisbet with his sword now drawn. The bloody vixen seated on the pew next to him had managed to close her mouth. Knuckle was sitting on the floor behind the pew, his arms still around his two young women.
Pinch had moved over from the kitchen door to stand near Peep and Barrelmender. His eyes were wide as he stared at Thad’s remains.
Thad Swallowtail, the Solluna Union heretic of Bristlenook was sitting back in the pew as though lounging in sleep. His arms and legs were thrown wide and his head was back with his mouth wide open. His beard and hair were almost all burned off, and his face and scalp were scorched and smoldering, as was the breast of his jacket. Blood from Thad’s smashed nose began to drip from his head to the floor behind the pew. Barrelmender’s longsword’s hilt was a good meter out in front of Thad’s chest, angled upwards like a signpost, with its point well stuck into the pew behind him.
The church was quiet, the only sound being Lisbet’s ragged breathing as she slowly came around.
“Well, that’s that, then. He sure aint pretty no more,” Peep said.
Muse Vassal 