<\/div>“Pervince is talking to the team again,” says an assistant coach. “He’s giving the pre-speech.”<\/p>\n
“That’s fine.”<\/p>\n
“It is? I was just…”<\/p>\n
“So for a few days now I’ve had this mental image–more like a dream, honestly–where I’m going into the locker room in the dead of night to get the schedule for the next few matches. And then I hear this gentle scuffle, like a mouse, and when I turn I see a tuft of hair flash by along the bench, and some lockers behind me creak open, I hear the door shut, lock<\/em>, and suddenly a candle bursts alight by the basin and when my eyes adjust there’s just this wall of silent halfling faces staring at me, and Pervince is standing behind them with a barbecue fork and carving knife, scraping, scraping, and a dozen little flashes sting my eyes and all of my players are holding forks too. Then I hear a scream–mine. Then the dream ends. So, just to run this by you–just to get an outside opinion–would you say this is likely <\/em>to happen?”<\/p>\n “…no?”<\/p>\n “So yes. There’s no problem with Pervince giving the team speeches.” I turn back to the high elves and their butler-assisted calisthenics. “That’s a load off my mind, actually.”<\/p>\n <\/p>\n A few minutes later and the players are staged, and the Seahawks deliver a tooth-grindingly graceful kickoff that pounces right into the center of my field, directly <\/em>between Pervince’s eager palms. It’s his best catch of the season and he takes the skin of a second to admire it–and then him, and all of his designated lunchboxers, are loping up against the back of my treeman wall seconds before the elves have taken time out of their schedules to join in for a bash-up. Pervince hops right into the waiting hand of a treeman, swings out over the blue heavens…I know it’s going wrong before he does. Call it crosswinds–call it treeman joint fatigue–call it the caprices of the halfling-hating gods, which is all of them, especially <\/em>the ones the halflings worship. Or call it the only sane and logical conclusion of a sausage skin full of blubber and pique flying fifty yards out and ten down in three seconds. Call it whatever you want. Pervince isn’t listening to semantics right now, because his ears are full of soil on account of his head just broke the pitch.<\/p>\n The high elves don’t seem to notice or acknowledge the small miracle of aerodynamics that got Pervince even this far. His thrower picks up the ball like it was practice, lobs it easily to a guy midfield–and I take this time to go have a bathroom break next to the bleachers, because once elves start passing in any rational timeline you know you’ve got a touchdown on your hands. I’m not wrong. 1-0,<\/em> their favor. Pervince is knocking the dirt out of his helmet and glaring out from behind the muck and blood on his face like he’s going to kill somebody–coaches and treemen would be a nice start, but elves would be favorite.<\/p>\n Alright then. Blow the whistle, ref.<\/p>\n A hatefully elegant kickoff from the Seahawks streaks off–Pervince streaks on. The ball almost bounces out of his hands but he readjusts without losing a step, and he and his cronies are right up by the treemen again. Two elves hammer the outer ring as usual, bloodying noses and burying cleats in balletic fashion, but Pervince doesn’t even notice–he’s readying himself to fly again with a determination I have to admire. What would it be like to be that <\/em>charmingly insensible to pain and danger? I couldn’t guess. Pervince swings up clutched by those branchy fingers, glides…hits the dirt…rolls. Lurches to his feet. Stumbles.<\/p>\n Scores.<\/p>\n 1-1.<\/p>\n Our fans in the crowd, gods bless each one of their inscrutable heads, are kicking up a storm. The really hardcore Seahawks fans aren’t the sort to boo; they prefer to bear indignity in silence, then send their chosen coaches fruitbaskets and polite requests to have errant players horsewhipped. The result is that if I close my eyes, forget the scoreboard, and concuss myself badly enough to discard a lifetime of accumulated wisdom, I can tell myself things are going alright. Maybe this <\/i>is how Pervince does it. I catch the little bastard’s eye as he returns to his whooping teammates–he’s not smiling. And now that I look at him, I really doubt he’s forgotten the scoreboard.<\/p>\n Now that we’re kicking off, the notion is to put it as close to the center as possible, because–this team’s elves. They don’t care if we send it far back. Their ideal scenario would be if the ball was shipped by cart forty leagues out of town so they could run out to get it in twelve seconds, lob it between three players who have meanwhile strategically placed themselves so that no halfling can possibly reach them, and score a touchdown that is mathematically unstoppable. I have traded a lot of halfling sweat, blood, and tears for the following strategic intel, so heed it well: put the ball close to the middle line if you value victory. Your only hope of stopping an elf touchdown is to put it in the hands of a player who can be physically prevented from letting loose the elven pain train. So when our kickoff sails over the line of blockers and past that desired area–lands instead practically in his thrower’s lap back at his end zone–I know it’s…<\/p>\n Whiz whiz whiz<\/em><\/p>\n …<\/em>over.<\/p>\n 2-1.<\/p>\n There’s an uncomfortable little hiccup between now and halftime, and in theory–oh boy, do I love theories–it is enough time for either of us to score a goal. This consensus knowledge has spread like off mayo over the stands, and the anticipation is gaggingly palpable. I take a long pull of water–water? <\/em>Who filled this thing? This team is coming apart on me, I swear it.<\/p>\n A smugly nimble kickoff from the Seahawks arcs over the line–over a handful of very briefly hopeful halfling faces–and lands on its tip, on its actual tip<\/em>, an inch from out-of-bounds, before falling right inbounds. It’s the gavel on our execution warrant. The crowd, the players, and the chorus line of demon-possessed ulcers holding cackling court in my misused gut know keenly what this means, and it’s two things: firstly, that this ball is going to travel up the field to get lobbed by treemen at neatly half <\/em>the standard halfling hustle rate, which is about one half the bipedal average, which, if you haven’t got your abacus yet, means that ball’s in for a real leisurely ride. Secondly, it means that elves are going to reach our treemen before any halfling does. And this isn’t a grim worst-case scenario, either. This is if I’m lucky and one of my boys actually manages to pick up the damn thing.<\/p>\n Milo does, already out of breath from having jogged over from center field. He shoots a glance at the crowd, knowing as we all do it might be his last, and runs–his boys at his front, pushing just a few yards ahead, ready to meet the high elf invading army that’s broken around the treemen with a bitter vengeance. Dudo Heathertoe takes point and digs his cleats in. Then an elf, flying up over his brothers’ shoulders, springs around to do the same. If Dudo’s not dead, he’s rehearsing for it; Milo takes stock of all the elves who are two breaths and zero halflings away from ending his ass and makes a split-second decision. He hands the ball off to Pervince, and Pervince tucks it under his chin–and then, before I can yell a warning, before anyone can react–both chin and ball are in the dirt. Elf feet work glib magic as Pervince spits blood like a fucked-up fountain cherub.<\/p>\n 3-1. Half time.<\/p>\n “Everyone settle down,” I say to my players. They’re ragged, bloodstained, filthy–what else is new? Nothing has happened today that hasn’t happened a hundred times before. “You’re fighting like hell out there and don’t think we don’t know it. But this is what I’m talking about. When they beat you back like this, you got to realize, they’re elves. You’re halflings. You’re not built for this kind of…”<\/p>\n “We’re going to win,” says Pervince.<\/p>\n “Yeah? Alright. Maybe. But…”<\/p>\n “But what?” Pervince throws his helmet down. “That’s what we tell ourselves: we’re going to win.”<\/p>\n “Well, you do what you have to, but I’m saying if you don’t that’s…”<\/p>\n “If that’s our attitude, we’re going to lose every damn time.<\/em>“<\/p>\n The whistle blows. Pervince doesn’t look back on his way off the field.<\/p>\n Our kickoff vanishes behind the Seahawk wall of elven gltiz, and his thrower bears it up right where we put it–near the middle line. This is more like it. Treemen block out huge quantities of elven graveyard with their fists, but their thrower’s keeping his grip on the ball, keeping a wary eye out, and it looks like he’s going to slip the net–and that’s when three or four halflings pop up through the gap and surround him. Pervince is going for it–he’s really going for it. The only trouble is, they’re going for him too. The last he sees of the match is an elbow-guard dropping from the heavens, and then it’s a nice cool lie-down in the shower\/infirmary for the rest of the evening.<\/p>\n I’ll spare you the blow-by-blow, because that description’s about a hundred blows short. They do not score again; the ball is mired in a morass of blood and broken helmets and may still be there for all I know. We don’t score either. We lose. Surprising–at a guess, one halfling.<\/p>\n It’s a good thing Pervince hasn’t woken up yet, because I don’t think I want to talk to him right now.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I get the sense that whomever named the Arnheim Seahawks has never watched two seabirds buffet and flap each other’s brains out over a piece of hot dog a third vomited up, or else is accustomed to a nobler breed of bird than I. I also get the sense that none of their high elf […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[242],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30170","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lets-play"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30170","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=30170"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30170\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=30170"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=30170"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.shamusyoung.com\/twentysidedtale\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=30170"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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