Snapshot of a quiet moment at the Ogre & Elf, Autumn 1999

A breeze blowing in through one of the many wide and open windows of
the large building on a quiet evening might see something like this...

Along the wall just to the left of the entrance stretches the bar, wood
gleaming with care and brass rails polished, with numerous padded stools,
with and without backs, lined up before it.  The wall behind the bar is
lined with shelves, which are themselves stuffed with bottles, jars, small
boxes and the occasional pouch.  Should a mundane traveler seek an
ordinary whiskey or vodka on those shelves, they would be disappointed.  
(Though, of course, the back room has some.)  Instead the bottles are full
of colorful liquids, or powders, or gases, that swirl or glitter or simply
sit innocuously until consumed.  The labels, written in flowing script,
are frequently stained or half-peeled, for the authors the drinks
encapsulate are well-loved, and frequently admired, and the contact with
many hands prevents the bottles from staying perfectly labeled.  It does
not matter, for the bartender knows what each bottle contains and never
consults the labels anyway. None of the bottles are empty, nor will they
ever be, but not all of them are full, either.

At the far end of the bar there is a door in the wall of the Ogre & Elf,
with scripted lettering around the edge.  On the stool nearest this door
sits the Ogre & Elf's elf, petite and animated, slender and graceful -
though perhaps not quite as slender as she was a few months ago.  She is
talking with the very large ogre, the bartender, leaning on the bar near
her and absentmindedly shifting a bowl of chocolate candies away from her
hand, which she as absentmindedly moves back near her whenever his
attention gets distracted.  The bar occasionally groans with the weight on
it, but does not give.  Also at the bar sits a short, grey hair and
bearded, elfish creature, savoring a very large tankard of beer. Collapsed
face down on the bar is a woman in a white dress, with long hair spilling
over her back and arms.  There is a glass of some red and blue drink on
the bar before her.

In one wall there is fireplace, with a fire.  In the place of honor on the
mantel are lined more than thirty books with colorful bindings.  Some are
frayed at the edges from frequent reading, but more than half a dozen of
them have never been read, for until they are published no one here knows
the spell to take them off the mantel.

Leaning by the mantel, contemplating the fire, stands a tall, lordly
being, with horns sweeping from his forehead and a cloak draping elegantly
from shoulders to floor.  Above his head a squirrel races along the inn
wall, clinging to the wall or occasional window frame, sometimes leaping
to one of the carpeted cat-shelves some walls boast. No one minds the
squirrel but the cats who have their rest disturbed.

Scattered throughout the inn are tables of animated conversationalists.
Here a table boasts a carpeted center, with a large cat whose long fur is
the most amazingly eye-catching shade of green crouched on the carpet.  
The conversation there features longer speeches than most, with thoughtful
pauses by the speakers before they speak.

Over at that table a few conversationalists - a woman, and a cat on one of
the benches with Hands above his head - are building with their words
illusory hillsides on the tabletop, and fuzzy dots move over the phantom
hillsides and tumble down them, waving legs of uneven length wildly as
they fall.  At another table the comments are short, and speakers grin
whenever they manage to provoke groans or winces from their audience. A
small, purple dragon coiled on a cat-shelf above their heads is tossing
peanut shells at the folks at that table, then smacking her paw down over
the pile of peanuts and looking innosently at the ceiling whenever any of
them turn a suspicious glance in her direction.

The darkness under many tables is enlivened by furry bodies, wolves and
dogs and other, less ordinary creatures.  For instance, there seem to be
several red-furred, white tipped tails originating from one spot under
that bench over there.  But there are plenty of interesting creatures
around the tables for a breeze to observe without needing to look under.

Over at that table - just there, under the big, black owl with glints of
blue on its feathers, in the rafters - sits a dragon-gryphon mix.  
Sneaking up behind the grygon is a skeleton armed with a very large
feather.  But the grygon, without looking up from her conversation, slowly
sweeps out a large wing and pushes the skeleton further away, warned by
the soft clicking of bone on bone of its approach.  The skeleton swiftly
tucks feather behind spine - a useless gesture, since the feather fronds
are perfectly visible, waving behind the rib cage - and saunters casually
away.

Over there sits a dragon or three.  By rights, in fact, they ought to be
bigger than the inn can hold, but somehow they fit, and interact with the
other inhabitants very smoothly.  It is only that anyone who looks at them
for too long, or at one of the the other creatures who ought to be bigger
than the room, that an observer might feel a bit dizzy, trying to
reconcile what is with what they think ought to be.  The wise observer
simply accepts, and saves themselves the confusion.

There, you see, the squirrel has no problems, for she leaps from the
rafters to the silver shoulder of a dragon and slides down its back quite
gaily, flying off the dragon tail to land, splat, all paws splayed on the
back of an armchair.  One of the older women in the room reclines in the
chair.  A satin smooth, knobby stick leans on a nearby wall, but she does
not need to use it.  Whenever she wishes to move, she simply waves over an
orangutan or two to carry the chair over to the conversation she wishes to
join.  More than one person here, because of honorable age or injury,
makes use of the orangutans thus, on the rare occasions other people do
not do the job themselves first.

The orangutans clean and serve drinks.  They are momentarily concentrated
in one corner, mopping and hosing the remains of a bakery gone berserk off
of the walls, rafters, tables, ceiling and floor.  They ignore a pile of
what appears to be extraordinarily dusty rags in one corner, but the rags
occasionally twitch or snore, so perhaps the orangutans are afraid of
them.

Over in that corner (there are an indeterminate number of corners in this
room.  However many corners any other inn has, this one has one more.  A
point of pride in fact.  Look it up, it is listed so in all the tourbooks)
a peculiar lesson is going on. A young man sits on a stool, wearing full
armor with his helm on the floor by his foot, listening intently to
several older men around him. "No, no," a gentleman in an armchair says,
"here is how the men Down Under leer at women," and he demonstrates on a
passing swordswoman. "You need more twinkle in your eye," he says to the
young man, who nods thoughtfully.

Some parts of the inn room are well-lit by windows looking out on sunny
fields, or wintery forests.  Others are dimmer, lit by windows that look
out on moon-lit nights.  Frequently heads appear at the windows. Sometimes
they lean, and look in, and even join the conversations. Other times they
just pass by... look!  There!  A moon-white horse just looked through that
window.  With such beautiful blue eyes, too.  But you were distracted by
the viking who popped up at the table by the hearth, bandana on his head,
armed with a purple lollipop.  Pity.

Perhaps you would like to join in?


-------------------------
by Megan Thomas, 1999