The Riding of Margoroth and Jimm Boyy

The Riding of Margoroth and Jimm Boyy

The tether they removed they used as reins. Lenkurt was as willing as anyone would wish a bovine would with two humans of average body weight sitting on her back. The two humans, Il Pastro’s Margoroth the Pretty, and her redeemer Jimm Boyy the Shirtless, rode her with utmost consideration of the fact that she was not an animal meant for riding, but for milking.

As a matter of fact, whenever the circumstances could afford them, the riders would stop, milk Lenkurt, and drink to the success of their journey. Lenkurt, glad to have lightened her udder, would graze on a rich, grassy spot, or sometimes just lie on the ground ruminating on some pre-chewed cud.

These occasions were the favorite of the journey for the two humans. Once out of the cow’s watch, they could do human things without fear of offending their companion.

Over Lenkurt’s warm milk they enjoyed pleasant conversation. Through these, they eventually got to know each other a little better.

Margoroth found out the following things about Jimm Boyy:

favorite food : adobo
favorite drink : warm milk
favorite place to hang out in : UVLO Knolls before it was hidden by the Powers unknown to this world
favorite color : blue
favorite letter of the alphabet : P
given a choice between having a pet dog or a pet cat he would choose : dog
given a choice between vanilla or chocolate, what flavor does he want for his ice cream : chocolate
most embarassing childhood memory : when he went to class with his fly open
most embarassing adolescent memory : when he went to class with his fly open
most embarassing recent memory : when he first went job hunting with his fly open

(Upon that particular time, to Jimm Boyy’s consternation, he realized that the entire time he was travelling with Margoroth, he not only had his shirt off, he also had his fly open.)

As for Margoroth, it was the following pieces of information that she confided to Jimm Boyy:

favorite artist : Seafood Monkeys (now The Seafood Monkeys)
favorite song : Silent Velcro’s cover of “It’s Easy to Meet People“
favorite subject : Psychoagriculture
favorite color : yellow-orange
favorite The Simpsons character : Principal Skinner
the food she’d never eat, even under the pain of death : okra
the first stuff she bought with her own money : a dozen coat hangers
childhood fact unknown to most who know her : she didn’t grow hair until she was two years old.
dream date : in an expensive outdoor café in the Fake Paris lane in the Money District, in view of the fake lighted Eiffel Tower
where she would meet her true love : in the ruins of a GREDS headquarters after every single one of them had been eliminated off the face of the planet.

“I may well be that person!” declared Jimm Boyy the Shirtless. “For the moment I saw your beauty I pledged to never rest—indeed, never wear another shirt of whatever cut or design—until I have vanquished every single GREDS off the face of this planet, and heal you of the curse that afflicts you.”

At this, Margoroth the Pretty shed tears both of sadness and hope. She was sad for all the things that had to perish and change for the curse to be lifted from her, and yet hopeful for if this man Jimm Boyy the Shirtless proved to be the one who could destroy all the GREDS and free her from the curse, then he indeed truly might be the one true love that was for her.

Tears flowed out of Margoroth’s eyes like milk from Lenkurt’s teats. At the sight of her sorrow, Jimm Boyy longed to ease her pain, wanted at least to have a shirt to use to wipe the tears off that beautiful face… except that he had none.

“Oh, don’t cry, my poor, poor Dairy Braids,” he simply said, and held the lovely milk maiden of Il Pastro in his arms.

The journey was long and perilous. Due to the vastness of Il Pastro’s territory, it took them a day and a half to be out of Il Pastro proper. As the Spire of Thama disappeared from sight, Lenkurt reminded them that it was going to be thicker woods from that point on, as they were entering an ancient forest.

“You mean the one they call the Enchanted Forest at the Exit of Il Pastro?” asked Jimm Boyy.

It was Margoroth who replied for the cow. “Yes. But don’t worry. It is only rumored in the world outside that the forest on our town’s exit is haunted by spirits, but I know for a fact that this is untrue.”

“Are you certain of that?” interrupted Lenkurt. Her two human companions were sure that if it were possible to look they would have seen an expression on the talking animal’s face similar to the raising of an eyebrow among humans.

“But of course,” she continued. “You are human. We animals know more things about this world than you do.”

“You mean the Enchanted Forest at the Exit of Il Pastro is really enchanted? That all of the things said about it is true?”

Lenkurt nodded. At least it was a human expression/action she could do that the humans on her back could see without having to look at her face.

“But it can’t be…”

But at that precise moment, a powerful wind blew from the direction of the entrance of the ancient forest ahead of them. Lenkurt stopped walking and positioned her head so that her snout would be like a bird’s beak in flight, cutting air friction. Then, for all her previous talking, she mooed in a voice that was distinctly unlike the sound made by an ordinary cow. It was deeper, more full, and definitely louder than how cows usually produced that noise. It took Margoroth and Jimm Boyy a while to realize that perhaps she was talking to the spirits guarding the forest just as she was talking to them, creatures of a different species.

The wind blew harder, almost knocking Margoroth and Jimm Boyy off her back. But still Lenkurt conversed with the spirits of the forest.

The conversation took only about a minute, and then everything went still. The wind stopped, and Lenkurt returned to her usual head position. She coughed to clear her throat, before saying in human speech, “I have just asked permission to pass the enchanted forest. It agreed to let me, but refused humans, especially humans riding on my back.”

“Oh, so we can’t get on with the journey then?”

“Oh, sure we can,” said Lenkurt brightly. “Sure the spirits of the forest, like all the spirits of this world, detest the contemporary humans and their contemporary lifestyle, but not for all their contempt will they not tolerate the humans if their objective is ridding the world of them GREDS. For they hate the GREDS about twenty-five times as much as they do the humans.”

At that, Lenkurt, Margoroth the Pretty, and Jimm Boyy the Shirtless, entered the Enchanted Forest at the Exit of Il Pastro.