Mackenzie K. Writes

The day dawns gray and quiet. Silver light traces arcs across the sky as down below, a bustle of movement ruffles through the trees. Thick black tents billow out, snapping in the first drops of rain which trickle out from overripe clouds floating lazily by.

It’s not the most beautiful day for a ceremony, but it is a day, nonetheless.

In the house, a shout rattles the ceiling.

“UP! UP! EVERYBODY UP!” A girl–red-headed and horribly tempered–storms through the corridors, battering doors with the butt of a rolling pin. “TODAY’S THE DAY! UP AND AT ‘EM!” From within the rooms there are grunts and groans and–in one particular room–a rather unpleasant scream. Kenzie, decidedly unfazed by this, screams back and continues down the hall.

“Hosting the wizards was less of a mess than this,” she mutters. As she rounds a corner, she comes to the kitchen, where a man in a freshly ironed suit against the kitchen counter, sipping lazily at a steaming mug.

He glances up wryly as she enters the room. “Morning.”

“Athelas.” The girl squints at him. “Did you sneak into my tea pantry again?”

“Sneak? Me? Never.” Athelas takes another sip of tea and ignores the eyeroll the girl throws his way.

“You’re supposed to be outside by now. Aren’t you one of the finalists?”

“I am. Therefore they cannot start until I finish my tea.”

Kenzie groans and presses past him, flinging open the back door to where the chaos has begun to build in her (exceedingly small) backyard.

“We’re all set, ma’am,” one of the construction workers says, separating from the rest of the group. His hat has been tipped to the side and dented–proof of a hard week’s work. Behind him, more men work on the stage construction, the hammering of nails and drilling of screws almost enough to drown out the sound of rolling thunder in the distance. “Just a few more patches and we’ll be good to go.”

“Perfect.” Kenzie eyes the forming crowd nervously, mothers and fathers and children bustling through the gates to get a glimpse of the ceremony for Most Wayward Soul. “I appreciate your dedication to excellence.”

“Of course, ma’am.”

As a boy in a straw hat leaps onto the hastily built bleachers, the stair falls out from underneath him and he’s sent plummeting to the ground in a cloud of dust and wooden splinters.

“We’ll be fixing that, of course.” With a tip of his hat, the man disappears–most likely off to find some duct tape.

“Sure…” Kenzie sighs and takes in a deep breath. “This is fine. Everything’s fine. At least this award isn’t presented by Saruman, right?” Pulling a thick envelope out of her pocket, she adjusts her glasses and rereads the instructions she’d been given. “Bleachers for attendees, stage for awards… Goodness, they didn’t tell me who’s presenting this year. That seems a little odd. I’m sure it’s not anyone horribly bad, though. Maybe we’ll get lucky this year and have someone with some manners…”

As if on cue, a thin, lanky creature slinks his way out of the crowd, crawling across the dewy grass on all fours. His bulbous eyes reduce to slits as he nears her.

“Nasty hobbitses.”

Kenzie frowns, letting the letter drop just enough to see the creature before her. “You have got to be kidding me… Smeagol, this is an awards ceremony. Could you please find somewhere else to creep around?”

“They told us to be here. At this exact spot on this exact day. We are to hand out this trophy to the Most Wayward Soul, precious.” Procuring–from where, no one can actually say–a dazzling award, Smeagol holds it up for Kenzie to see, dangling it like a prized jewel in his bony hands. “It is not our precious, no, but we wouldn’t minds having it for ourselves, precious…”

“What? No, there’s gotta be some sort of mistake. You’re not… you can’t be the awards host…”

“Host! Yes, that is the word the funny man used. A host for the precious.” A brief coughing break follows, in which spittle flew from the creature’s mouth. “I’m supposed to give this to–“

“STOP! Don’t tell me yet!” Kenzie flings her hands over her ears in a panic. “You’re supposed to announce the finalists first!”

“Finalists? Smeagol knows nothing of finalists. Smeagol was only told to give the precious to one person, though Smeagol was not told who. Nasty hobbitses and their tricks… Smeagol knows what happens when they try their useless riddles.”

Releasing a breath, Kenzie ignores the fervent mumbling coming from the creature and pulls a small stack of sealed cards out of her pocket. “Very well, then. If you’re sure you’re supposed to be this year’s host… Here are the names of our finalists. Just… just read what’s on the cards exactly, okay? There’s no need to ad-lib.”

“Smeagol doesn’t know what that means,” Smeagol says, ripping the cards from Kenzie’s grip. Giving each one a distasteful frown, Smeagol makes his way up onto center stage, leaving a bewildered and anxiously-gnawing-at-her-thumb-nail Kenzie behind him.

“This will be fine,” she reassures herself. “I’m sure it can’t be that bad.”

---

After much complaining from Smeagol, pleading from the sound tech, and Kenzie threatening emptily to call Gandalf to set things straight, a microphone is finally fixed to Smeagol’s balloon-ish head. This serves wonders for boosting the impish creature’s voice across the lawn, but it also serves to magnify his grotesque coughing fits, which causes multiple viewers in the hastily-built bleachers to cover their ears and grimace.

“Welcome, precious, to the awards ceremony for Most Wayward Soul,” Smeagol begins. To emphasize this, he gives a particularly gooey gollum into the microphone. Somewhere in the crowd, a man gags. “We are here today to give this–” Smeagol whips the Silmaril Award into the air “–to the most…Wayward Soul…”

Kenzie sighs and pushes her head into her hands as Smeagol continues.

“Unfortunately there is only one precious, which means that many of you will be leaving today without anything in your pocketses. Unless,” Smeagol continues under his breath, which, due to the microphone, is swept across the lawn as though he were shouting, “you decide to kills the lucky hobbit who wins it, precious… Smeagol wouldn’t mind to see that, no…”

“Smeagol…” Kenzie warns.

“Right. Sticking to the cards, precious.” Smeagol grips the first card and coughs loudly. “The first hobbit who lost the precious is Athelas from The City Betweenses.” Smeagol throws the card down, his dark eyes scanning the crowd. “We remember him from last year, yes, precious. Lost that one, too, we thinks.”

“That is correct.” Athelas, appearing on the side of the stage, strides over to Smeagol with his lips pursed around his cup of tea. “Never mind that. Third times the charm, and all that.”

Smeagol wrinkles his nose at the offensive smell rising from Athelas’s cup and turns quickly back to his cards. “Always drinking nasty things,” Smeagol mutters. “No wonder he never wins the precious.” With a gollum, he grabs the next card off the stack.

“In fourth place, precious, Moash from the Stormlight Archive.”

Moash steps onto the platform with a grim expression, his dark eyes scanning the crowd as though searching for an oncoming threat. Athelas acknowledges him with a nod, which Moash does not deign to return.

These men have met before, but they are certainly not friends.

Smeagol seems oblivious to the animosity being thrown by Moash, and continues with a flip of his cards.

“Up, up, up the list we go! In third place, Severus Snape from the Harry Potter serieses.”

Somewhere in the crowd, a series of boos from kids wearing thick, colorful scarves and pointed hats reverberates across the yard. A giant man with a bushy beard smacks a red-headed boy with a gruff reprimand.

A tall, billowing figure sweeps onto the stage, shrouded in black from head to toe. His long, greasy hair is like a shining curtain around his sallow face.

“I despise having my name associated with a child,” he sneers coldly. “Perhaps you could not… mention it.”

“Can’t,” Smeagol says with the air of a host who could not be bothered in the slightest. “Smeagol has to say where you’re from. It says it on the card.”

Snape’s scowl tightens, but Smeagol, already flipping onto the next card, doesn’t seem to notice.

“In second place, Kyle from The Green Emberses!”

There’s a moment of silence, followed by a small grunt somewhere off to the side of the stage. Another grunt, and a rabbit hops up onto the platform. The crowd collectively “awwwwwwww”s, which causes the rabbit to cast a scowl over the whole lot of them.

The awww’s fade rather quickly.

“It’s the rabbitses again, it is,” Smeagol says. “He didn’t win last years either, precious.”

“So help me–if you think to threaten me again, creature,” Kyle quips.

Smeagol looks prepared to risk it, but Kenzie gives a determined cough from the bottom of the platform and it catches him.

“Very well, very well. We have come at last to our final victor, precious. This one is the most wayward of them all, they say, though what that means, Smeagol doesn’t have a clue. The winner of this year’s precious is…….”

“DUSTY FINGERS FROM INKHEARTSES!”

A confused round of applause fills the lawn, and a few quiet “who’s that?”s quickly follow. Kenzie sighs deeply into her hands as a fifth man (er… fourth man? things get confusing when rabbits are involved) steps onto the platform.

“It’s Dustfinger,” the man corrects, passing by the other contestants and coming to stand next to Smeagol. He looks relatively repulsed by the despicable creature beside him, despite the fact that there’s an equally odd, furry creature curled up on one of his slim shoulders, but there’s a gleam in his eyes.

He’s been promised treasure, and that, above anything, is cause for associating with disturbing beings for a moment.

“And I’d very much like my reward so I can be on my way.”

“Why is your finger dusty, precious?” Smeagol asks, looking concerned. “That doesn’t sound right, precious, no not at all.”

“Smeagol,” Kenzie says, heaving herself onto the platform. “It doesn’t matter why he’s got dust on his finger–“

“For heaven’s sake, I didn’t choose this name, you know.”

“–just give him the award already!”

Smeagol reaches hesitantly into his pocket, then pauses.

An empty moment passes.

“Perhaps, precious… perhaps the dusty fingers doesn’t get the precious this year…” Smeagol’s wet eyes squint into slits. “Perhaps we are to have the precious. Yes, we already gave away a precious to that bratty hobbit with the white hair last year. This one is Smeagol’s. This one belongs to us!”

“Smeagol…!” Kenzie warns. “Don’t even think about–!”

One moment, Smeagol’s hand is in his pocketses. The next, he’s vanished completely.

“Blast it! Who let him have the one ring in here again?!” Kenzie shouts.

An eruption of confused chaos ripples through the onlooking crowd as the snickering Smeagol scurries across the platform. In a matter of seconds, he has yanked Athelas’s cup of tea out of his hand and smashed it into the stage, Moash falls backwards as though pushed by an invisible source, and Kyle the rabbit’s sword is yanked from its scabbard and wielded by invisible hands. The sword slices clumsily through the air towards Severus Snape, who jumps backward and raises his wand with a snarl.

“AVADA–!”

“No!” Kenzie moves to jump in the way of Snape’s curse, but a blast of fire from Dustfinger stops everyone–including the wild sword–in their tracks.

“I believe,” Dustfinger says calmly, circling fire around him in an intricate patter, “that award is mine.” The fire bursts forward, scalding the invisible hand which grips the sword, and Smeagol cries out in pain as the sword clatters to the ground at his feet.

Kyle jumps forward to reclaim it as Kenzie yanks both the ring and the Silmaril away from Smeagol’s sneaky fingers. Smeagol reappears with a shiver, looking not at all pleased with the results of his efforts.

“I’ll be taking that,” she says stoutly. Smeagol blows a raspberry at her back and holds his burnt hand accusingly at his chest.

“Dustfinger,” Kenzie continues, handing the Silmaril over to the fire breather, “your award, as promised.”

Smeagol grumbles beneath his breath as Dustfinger accepts his award with a smile.

“Ah. Thank you. I’ll be taking my leave now, and, with any luck, never returning to this strange world of yours again. This place is quite strange, you know.”

With a frown, Kenzie glances down at the now-wriggling Smeagol as the Fantasy Patrol swoops in to tie him up and take him somewhere far, far away.

Mordor, perhaps. Or, at least, somewhere quiet with no rings.

“You have no idea, dusty fingers. No idea at all.”

---

AND THAT’S A WRAP!

Oof! This award ceremony was a tough one to write. (and for once I feel like it didn’t end in dragon fire!) Hopefully I was able to do some of these characters justice, though truth be told, the only finalist I’ve ever read was Snape! Let me know what I got wrong (or right!) in the comments below, and don’t forget to check out Jenelle’s blog tomorrow for the Most Mischievous Imp!

Thank you to everyone who helped provide some insight into these characters! I’ma go add all of these books to my TBR now… mwahahaha…