“You have to go!” shouted the wizened old Wizard. His long BLACK beard trembled and shook like the collapsing Tower of D’Rye’eh’th’e’a’t’hh’erst. “You have been summoned! You must come with me.”

“Out. Out of my home,” Kep repeated in his stern way. “I told you before, old friend, these adventures are not for me.” He dismissed the Wizard Krathanduil with a frustrated flick of his hand. He turned to his coffee table and began buttering the muffins.

Krathanduil eyed Kep’s ridiculous buttering of the muffins. He was incredulous! NOBODY butters muffins, and NOBODY refuses the call of the Council! The Oracle had named Kep. She had named him on the eve of Departure under the yellow light of the second moon. The omens were sung. The Wizard’s perilous journey to the Valley of Morthergrust was in vain if he could not convince Kep to come with him!

“Muffin before you go?” Kep offered a glistening buttered muffin to the stuttering Wizard.

Krathanduil slapped the tasty pastry out of Kep’s hand with an angry grunt. It smushed into the floor with a satisfying bbblssshashh. “D’Rye’eh’th’e’a’t’hh’erst has fallen, and you sit here in your luxury!”

“I am not interested, Krathanduil.” Kep did not make eye contact.

“The Oracle foretold your involvement, Kep. She screamed your name — YOUR REAL NAME!! — in between the fountains of blood that poured out of her mouth. She named you with her dying breath before the Darkness penetrated her and you have the LUXURY of saying NO!” Krathanduil summoned a blast of thunder that shattered the nearby glassware and split Kep’s coffee table in two. With an infuriated roar, he spun away and barged out of the home and down the moonlit path into a pile of thorny bushes. Cursing, he pried himself free and stomped away into the light of the receding sun. Disturbed neighbors peered meekly out of their windows, interested in the commotion but unwilling to participate in it.

Kep stood in the quiet living room, watching his friend depart. Things were suddenly silent and he wondered how much of their argument had interrupted the sleeping village of Wellia. An electric cloud of yellow bolts trailed Krathanduil closely. He did not realize how intensely angry the Wizard had made him until he was alone with his thoughts. He walked slowly to the doorway and gazed out into the fields. The bristling blinking yellow light twinkled in the distance and became fainter: the enraged march of Wizard Krathanduil. The light of the second moon cast a sinister glow on the otherwise bucolic Valley. He should write Mea. She would know what to say.

Mea

Keppy Kep Kepsten the Kepperstein!

He loved writing letters. And he loved having people to whom he could write them. This was the stuff that mattered. The Tower of D’Rye’eh’th’e’a’t’hh’erst could collapse every week for all he cared. It did not affect him anymore. A decade ago he would have rushed out with Krathanduil without even snuffing the living room candle! Kep glanced at the sword mounted on the wall. Still sharp. He stared at it a long time, absorbing its memories. He wondered what his father would say.