It had been billed as the funeral of the decade, which would
have thrilled Athelan Wynnslett wildly had it not been her own. A ravenous crowd had gathered in and around
the Green Glade, desperate fans and fellow thespians alike, eager to snatch one
last glimpse of the faded starlet as she left the limelight forever. The cream of the Ivy Wood A-listers were
forced to grudgingly rub shoulders with the likes of autograph hunters,
professional stalkers and vacuous celebrities, right down to members of the great unwashed public who
simply seemed to be there because they were wondering what the fuss was all
about and didn’t really have anything better to do on a Thursday afternoon. Even a few Blood Bowl teams had turned up,
but most suspected they were more interested in the post-interment buffet.
There was barely room to move, and everybody stood – even
the nWo, despite their enquiries about the availabilities of folding metal
chairs. In fact, every team that the
Green Glade Travelling Theatrical Players had ever faced had turned up, if only
to gloat - even Astun Killa. Robbin da
Pursey was given a wide berth by most of Athelan’s friends and colleagues,
which was unsurprising as he’d been the one who’d killed her.
The game against the orcs had started off better than they
had hoped for. In fact, it started off
perfectly. The elves had elected to
receive the ball and from the very start the orcs had seemed little more than
lumbering oafs. One thing nobody had
failed to notice however was that they were lumbering oafs with muscle. Lots
of muscle. Their philosophy seemed to be
that if you could beat the elves hard enough with your fists, beating them at
Blood Bowl would take care of itself.
Luckily, the shadow of the Araak-Frizko 69ers still loomed large (well,
sort of...) in the elves’ memories and they knew that it was best to avoid
things like fists in the face and studded boots to the groin – and they were very good at avoiding most
things. Peregrine Pine-Cone and
Hare-Foot Hoffman owned the field when they were on the attack, able to evade the attention of most of their opponents
thanks to Kelm the Witless, who seemed to be attracting most of the orcs’ ire.
Despite being 1-0 up within the first few minutes of play,
the match took a dire turn when Robbin da Pursey, tired of chasing Athelan
around the pitch as she darted rings around him, asked her for an autograph
instead. Never one to turn down her
fans, or indeed any sliver of attention whatsoever, Athelan whipped out her quill
and a flattering engraved portrait which just
so happened to be on her person. She
signed it with a flourish and a coy smile, giggling that the orc should be
careful not to lose it.
“You couldn’t get a more valuable autograph!” she grinned, giving him a flash of those big,
blue eyes that she had been so famous for.
“’Cept if you woz ded,” da Pursey chuckled, “Den it’d make
me even richer dan you are!”
She gave an awkward laugh which was followed by an even more
awkward silence, marked only by her frozen grin and what could just barely be described as thoughts gathering
inside the Black Orc’s head. Somewhere
across the pitch, Peregrine Pine-Cone twisted his way through the opposition to
claim his second touchdown of the match.
As the crowd erupted, the roar pushed da Persey’s thoughts into action and
he quickly snatched the quill from Athelan’s fingers and plunged it deep into
the socket of one of those dazzling blue eyes.
He’d sold the autograph to a wealthy collector from
Skavenblight that very evening and now he had turned up to the funeral garbed
in the finest furs and mails that money could buy. As he’d swaggered into the Green Glade, his
grin was a mouth full of golden teeth.
For the Wood Elves, the rest of the game was a blur but for
almost losing Kelm the Witless to a vicious blow from Wio Furdunand. Only the frantic patching-up of the team’s
apothecary, Nurse Ratchytt, elevated her from being ‘dead’ to the rather more
enviable status of ‘not being dead’.
The orcs made several drives forward, but their lust for a
fight often left them forgetting to actually take the ball with them and it was
Hare-Foot Hoffman who sealed the Wood Elf victory, scoring the team’s fourth
touchdown after Pine-Cone had danced home for a hat-trick. Still, the orcs seemed to have learned a lot from
the game (if ‘learned’ is indeed a term which can be applied to creatures such as
orcs), and they were looking far more
dangerous for it when they came to face their next opponent. But for the elves, who should have been
celebrating a glorious victory, it had become a melancholy affair as they beheld
Ivy Wood’s most lauded actress, gowned
in white upon her funeral pyre.
“Couldn’t someone have taken the feather out?” Clew-Neith whispered to Tarquin Rickman as
the jutting quill quivered in the breeze.
There was a loud CRACK! from the back of the Glade and the congregation turned to see nWo star Hollywood
Hogan go rigid and drop to the floor before convulsing like a dying fish. His teammate Randy Savage stood over him, clutching a metal chair.
“Oooooh yeaaaaaaaaaaaah!” he crowed, helping Hogan to his
feet. “You gotta try this, man!”
He handed Hogan the chair and turned his back,
expectantly. The rest of the congregation
left them to it.
A robed Elder slowly climbed the dais and addressed the
gathered crowd:
“And now, fellow mourners, sorrowful friends and celebrity
hangers-on, we will hear about the wonderful life of our dearly departed
Athelan from the one who knew her better than most - the Green Glade Travelling
Theatrical Players’ very own Head Coach...”
There was silence, a long pause, and then an uncertain
murmuring from the crowd.
The Elder scratched his beard, waiting. He gazed across the gathered mass, his rheumy
eyes expectantly hunting for movement, but the sea of people stood motionless.
The Elder leaned over the dais. “Do you have
a Head Coach?” he whispered urgently to Glorfindel of the East Wood, whose face
had begun to redden awkwardly.
“When you say Head Coach...?” he replied.
“I mean, Head Coach,” the Elder hissed through his
teeth.
“Oh. No. Never had one of those,” Glorfindel
shrugged. “Is it important?”
“Of course it’s imp –“
he wheezed. “It’s
in the rules! You have to have one!”
“Well, I can’t
just pull one out of my ar –“
The crowd suddenly squealed with delight as fireworks
erupted around the edge of the Glade, sending up rockets which lit the sky and
rained down fire in the team’s own colours.
“Who the hell set
those off?” Glorfindel frantically looked around for some clue as to what
was going on, but he heard the voice before he saw the face, and recognised it
immediately:
“GOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOD EVENING, SPORTS FANS!!!”
And, leaving no cliché unturned, it started to rain.
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