Jon

The castle at Wintersmells finally appeared on the horizon. Jon was relieved to be home. Riding on horseback alongside Dennys—her hair flowing in the wind, his hair assuredly flowing more majestically than hers—things began to feel comfortable again. Maybe this war against an incalculably massive undead army led by the most formidable adversary we could imagine won’t be so bad after all, Jon thought, smiling. Suddenly, he stopped in his tracks at the sight of his little sister, Malarya. How many years had it been, he wondered. Three? Ten? This was pointless. His grasp on the concept of time was weaker than ever. Malarya’s eyes glistened when she saw him. Jon jumped down from his horse, and the long-lost siblings embraced.

“You used to be taller,” Malarya jokingly remarked.

Jon immediately stopped hugging her. “Um… What?” he said, reaching for his sword.

“I was only remarking jokingly,” Malarya said nervously.

After a tense few moments, Jon sighed and gave Malarya a smile. “And you used to be shorter,” Jon let out and then scolded himself for sinking to dad jokes. He looked Malarya up and down and was relieved to see she was the same as ever, despite the fact that puberty had kicked in hard. He wondered if she had begun to menstruate. Would it be too weird to ask her? he thought. Yeah. Noticing her sword, he instead said, “You still have it! That fine Ovarian steel.”

“Noodle. Its name is Noodle.”

“Have you ever used it?”

“Too many times to remember. I’ve developed a new hobby of killing—it passes the time.”

Jon chuckled and ruffled her hair. “I could have used you to protect me. I don’t know if you heard, but I died and then was resurrected. Some people are calling me the new Jesus, but, honestly, I’m just happy to be known as ‘Jesus.’”

“Um, okay. Well, it is so nice to see you alive. Say, have you reunited with Bland yet?”

“Have you reunited with Bland yet,” Jon said, staring at her blankly.

“No, that’s not what I meant. That’s why I used a comma and a question mark.”

“What are you—what? I’m confused.”

“Forget it. Let’s find him.” Malarya shook her head.

The two siblings ventured over to the forest where Bland was staring at a tree. His muscles were bulging out of his shirt, and his face was deadpan.

“I’ve missed you, Jon,” Bland blandly proclaimed while still locking eyes with the tree.

“Brother”—Jon trotted up to Bland and embraced him—“it has been far too long. I have much to tell you of the world!”

“No, you don’t. I already know everything,” Bland said, this time with even less emotion.

“Okay, great catch-up sesh. You look well. In fact… my Seven Gods, how did your upper body get to be so strong?”

Without batting an eye Bland recited a workout regimen that took forty-five minutes just to describe. He took no pauses and meticulously demonstrated each exercise with proper form as he went through the workout description.

“Jon, are you listening to me?” he said as he finished the last exercise. “You have to keep your arms bent at a right angle or else you won’t activate your core properly.”

“Mhm, mhm. Well, I have ridden on the back of a dragon, but I suppose that is not interesting to—” Jon’s muttering was cut off by Bland.

“I knew you did that. Now, as I was saying, lateral deltoid raises are best accomplished by—Jon, are you listening to me?”

Jon gave him two insincere thumbs-ups, and he and Malarya headed back toward the castle to gossip about how strange Bland was now that he had contracted Pink-Eyed Raven. Meanwhile, Bland wheeled off to a meeting he had scheduled with his new friend Ham, whom he deemed his closest match in brain power. He estimated that Ham was about one-bazillionth as knowledgeable as himself, which far outpaced the one-gazillionth level that the average Wintersmellian possessed. The two nerds had been meeting in the crypt every day for a few weeks now. When they saw each other, they did their new secret handshake, which was just a head bump to signify their brainpower. It would need to be changed soon because they both complained of migraines following their meet-ups.

“He needs to know the truth. Jon isn’t really my father’s son,” Bland announced to Ham. “He’s the son of RayRay Grandslam and my aunt, Yomomma Snark. His real name is Eggie Grandslam, and he’s the heir to the Pointy Chair.”

Ham nodded in agreement. “And we need to tell him before he goes too far with Dennys—they might engage in sexual relations soo—well, actually, in the scheme of things, that’s relatively appropriate behavior around here.”

“Clap. Clap. Clap,” Jon said, his hands full, holding two torches. “Having a secret meeting without me, are you?”

“Jon! It is so great to see you!” Ham bolted up and gave Jon a warm bear hug, making Jon drop the torches into a pool of oil, sending that corner of the crypt up into flames. Hours later in the Wintersmells ICU Burn Ward, they continued their conversation.

“Jon, I knew you’d come find us sooner or later. It’s time to have the talk,” Bland announced in a fatherly voice.

“I’ve had sex before—I know how it works. I know what a penis is, okay? It’s like a sword between your legs. Also, you’re younger than me and much weirder now.”

“Jonathan, this talk isn’t about you having sex. It’s about your parents having sex. I need to tell you who your parents are. Deaddard ‘Iron Neck’ Snark raised you as his bastard, but your mama is actually Yomomma and your daddy is RayRay Grandslam. You are the rightful Protector of the Realm.”

“Did you just call me Jonathan? Is that my real name? If that’s true… Are you saying… No. No, that can’t be. I’m my own dad?!” Jon shouted in disbelief.

“No. That’s an impossible conclusion to draw from what I literally just said.” Bland grew impatient.

“But if I’m my own dad, then who are you?!” Jon had never been more confused in his life.

“Again, your dad is RayRay Grandslam. That’s the last time I will say it.”

“I’m a Grandslam? Ew, that’s disgusting because that means I had sex with my cousin!” Jon cried. He began to run around Wintersmells yelling “ewwwww” and shaking his hands everywhere. Bland and Ham chased after him, trying not to cause a scene. Nurse Ronnette, on her smoke break, looked up unamused. By the time they made a loop back to the Burn Ward, they were able to catch up to Jon, who was frantically asking people if they knew of virginity-restoration methods.

“Jon, you didn’t have sex with your cousin,” Ham declared to relieve him of his distress.

“Uh, yeah, I did, Ham. I know how to have sex. And Dennys and I had the sex.”

“Wow, congrats man. That’s awesome. But what I’m trying to tell you is that you didn’t have sex with your cousin because Dennys isn’t your cousin—she’s your aunt. RayRay, your father, is Dennys’s wise older brother, the one who didn’t die via molten gold helmet.” Ham looked at Jon, who was trying to follow along, as if he were doing mental math. After a few minutes, something clicked in Jon’s brain.

“I get it now. Dennys is my aunt. Oh my god! I had sex with my aunt! That’s so cool!” Jon took off again for a lap around Wintersmells, this time giving passersby high fives and fist-pumping into the air every few feet as if he were expecting a freeze frame.

“Jon! Dough! Jon Dough!” Jon chanted as people gave him confused looks. One person, Rickety Snark, joined in, but Jon could care less because he didn’t know who that was.

“Wanna know something cool?” Jon asked a man shoveling coal.

“Yes, my lord,” the man responded automatically.

“I HAD SEX WITH MY AUNT!!”

“Very cool, indeed, my lord.”

Jon spent the rest of the afternoon skipping around, reveling in the news of his amazing feat. After a few hours, he began to understand the gravity of the new information. It’s really, really cool that I had sex with my aunt, Jon thought to himself. He also realized that this meant he was the rightful heir to the Pointy Chair. Hmm, that thought of mine rhymed, Jon chuckled to himself.

He stumbled upon a pond in the forest and saw his reflection in the shiny water. No longer did the face that greeted him belong to a bastard. He saw himself for the first time as a Grandslam, a true highborn. But he regarded himself as so much more than that: he was also the coolest guy around because he fucked his aunt!

Later that day, Dennys led Jon to the field where Dragun and Jragon were feeding on cattle. The two creatures were surrounded by hundreds of pig skeletons and horse carcasses. Beside these skeletons stood hundreds and hundreds of live pigs, horses, goats, elephants, and chickens, all waiting in tow to be eaten. Jon couldn’t even make out any grass due to the carpet of feeding scraps.

“They’ve hardly had anything to eat!” Dennys exclaimed. “I hope they’ll survive!”

Jon gave another look around to see if he had confused the immense supply of food for something else. No, he had seen correctly the first time. The dragons then turned to stare right at Jon and began growling.

Dennys motioned to Jon and said, “Give it to them.”

He looked down. She was pointing at the small turkey leg in his hand. “They have so many live, very large animals here. Why do they need my small piece of meat?” Jon pleaded. Dennys crossed her arms and furled her brow at Jon. “Okay! Okay, just one second.” He went to take one last bite, but Dragun darted at him and snatched the turkey leg from his hand. “I am so hungry,” Jon said quietly.

Then he remembered the few saltine crackers he had stashed in his pocket from the tavern a few towns ago. He began unwrapping their packaging. The dragons growled louder, and Dennys motioned, this time more dramatically, to his crackers. “No. Please, this is my only food. They have so so so much food. Please.” Dennys crossed her arms again.

Jon put his head down and held the crackers out. Dragun licked them off his hand and then spit them out, not perfectly content with their level of salt.

“Now that they are fed, we ride.” Dennys walked over to them and hopped on Dragun’s back. “Well, go on,” she called out to him. Jon approached Jragon. Never had he been so close to a veritable beast.

“Okay… Here goes nothing,” Jon said timidly. He jumped a few inches in the air and landed in the exact same spot where he was standing.

“You have to mount it!” Dennys cried out annoyed.

“Well, okay… How do I mount it?” As he finished his words, Jragon picked Jon up by the shirt and flung him onto his scaly back. “Oh my god. Oh my god. Okay… Now how do I ride it?”

“Oh Jon, you silly goof. Just watch how I do it.” She yipped Dragun into motion, and they took to the skies majestically.

Jragon took off, catching up to his brother. Jon fell off almost immediately and plummeted back toward earth. Jragon begrudgingly swooped back down and caught him on his back once more.

“What do I hold onto?” Jon cried.

“Um, maybe the dragon,” Dennys laughed, twirling through the air on the back of Dragun.

“Oh, no!” Jon cried as he slid off the dragon’s back during a sharp turn. “The only thing with any grip on this damn beast is his… his—”

To Dennys’s surprise, she turned behind her to see her beloved Jragon wincing in pain as Jon dangled below him, grasping his testicles. She made the executive decision to land right then, and she assumed both Jragon and Jon would be relieved.

They descended into a beautiful stretch of luscious grass, complemented with a booming waterfall that fell into a glistening river.

“Don’t you just love it out here?” asked Dennys, with a twinkle in her eye. She touched Jon’s arm ever so slightly. “The way the crispness of the cool air bites your skin as the scenery fills your mind with epic reminiscences of the beauty of life?”

“To be honest, this type of scenery doesn’t really get my dick that hard.”

“Hm,” Dennys frowned. “You do not need to be so blunt.”

“Nah. That’s what I’m saying. If you would listen, it’s not blunt; it’s, like, just completely flaccid right now.” Jon sighed. He turned toward Dennys in order to avoid the boring scenery and suddenly felt a stirring in his heart. “Dennys, now that I’m looking at you, I must admit you’re so much prettier than all these dogshit trees and rivers around us. Like, much, much prettier.”

Dennys’s frown was replaced by a subtle smirk. “Well, Jon Dough, the feeling is mutual, I assure you.” She stepped to Jon and grabbed the back of his neck, pulling him down for a kiss. It was only a moment until they had made their way to the ground. And the rest, as they say, is sex.

Throughout the entirety of Jon and Dennys’s lovemaking, both dragons locked eyes with Jon while dragging their fingers across their throats, as if to signal that Jon was dead meat. Dragun pounded his fist into his hand, while Jragon mimed ripping a person in half. Dragun mouthed the words “dead man walking.” Steam billowed out of their angry ears.

As for Jon, he was just happy to see the dragons getting into it as much as he was.

Just as they were finishing up, Jon said, “I need to tell you something important.”

“Do you have an STD? Another family? Does your other family have STDs?!”

“No, no, it’s nothing that serious,” he reassured her. “Although you may lose all of your power and claim to the throne,” he mumbled under his breath.

“What was that?”

“Oh, nothing. I just was saying you look very pretty in the light of Jragon’s fire breath.”

Jon suddenly became nervous to tell his beautiful Dennys the news. His palms were sweating, his knees felt especially weak, and his arms were heavy. However, on the surface, he looked calm and ready. He gazed into her eyes as if it were the last time, feeling as though things might never be the same between them. Jon took a deep breath and began.

“I love you too,” Dennys blurted out just as Jon announced he was a Grandslam and had a claim to the Pointy Chair. “Oh, I thought you were gonna say something different,” she despondently uttered.

“I, well… um.”

“But how can you be so sure of all this?”

“Bland and Ham both knew.”

“So your brother and your best friend told you that you’re the rightful heir to the Chair? Checks out!”

“How do you feel about this information?”

“I’m a little weirded out since I’m now learning I just had sex with my cousin… again.”

“No, no we’re nephew and aunt!”

“Oh, okay. Well, that’s still not that cool. That’s, like, just about as bad in my eyes—”

“Hell yeah!” Jon yelled, not paying attention. He went in for the high five.

Dennys turned away and brushed her hand through her long blonde wisps. While she descended deep into thought, Jon began daydreaming about how beautiful their children would be, once he was able to convince her that he’d “had a vasectomy.” And once you were able to look past the genetic deformities. Dennys would have made a wonderful ruling queen, but think of how great she would be as a homemaker, Jon thought chivalrously.

Up in the Great Hall, the battle against the undead was being drawn up on the strategy table, known in Wintersmells as the “Table of Strategy.”

“When I inevitably die, I hope it’s from someone big and strong because it would be so embarrassing to be killed by a little wiener,” the Clown announced, carefully moving some of the figurines an inch to the left to emphasize his point.

“My dream death tomorrow is for someone to cut off my head and then be disappointed to find out it’s already been cut off. And then I’ll just stab myself in the chest to show ’em who’s boss,” Lemme chimed in, adjusting some of the blocks of wood that were supposed to represent one side or the other in the battle.

Beerion had heard enough of this. “If we’re gonna die, let’s do it the right way! I’ve always said it, but I’ll say it again: I hope to die at the age of eighty with a nice bottle of wine and a girl around my cock. You know what? Scratch that. Make it two girls and just one cup of wine. But yeah, since I’m probably dying tomorrow, it will be hard to find two girls who are free, so I’ll just settle for two cock rings and a warm beer to do the trick.” He thought for a moment. “Actually, I’m just going to go masturbate and drink a glass of water.”

Everyone reveled in this particular fantasy except Lord Varysectomy. He had always held a different vision regarding his ultimate demise. He dreamed that he would retire to his quarters for the night, open up the secret trap door in his floor, and pull out the large chest he stored there. He would open the chest and out would stumble a man who had not seen the light of day in years, decades perhaps, if he lived long enough. This was the man who had cut off Varysectomy’s genitals when he was but two years old. He would grab the man by the chin and force him to meet his eye.

“When I was a boy,” Varysectomy would say, “you took my genitals away from me. And now, I’m going to punch you.” He would then punch him. After that, Varysectomy would pass away from cancer many years later. That’s how he wanted to die.

Suddenly, Bland entered the Room of the Table of Strategy and interrupted the conversation. “How can you all think like this? We aren’t going to die! We will fight and beat the White Wieners! The fate of the kingdom depends on it at least,” Bland said, disappointed.

“I have seen a zombo. And I have heard of their numbers. I am sorry, but how can you believe we have a chance?” asked Brian of Fart.

“Because there’s no ‘I’ in ‘team.’ Because hard work beats talent when talent doesn’t work hard. Because it’s not about waiting for the storm to pass—it’s about learning to dance in the rain. Also, I have a plan.”

“Bland, I’m just gonna remind you that there is a ‘me’ in ‘team,’ and there’s also a ‘meat.’ Not sure if that’s helpful but just saying,” Ham chimed in.

Bland began to wonder if Ham was really as smart as he believed him to be. He shook his head and returned to the matter at hand. “As I was saying, I have a plan to lure the Nighty Night King in and well… it’s me. I’m the lure. I’m the Pink-Eyed Raven. He’ll want to get his hands on me more than anything. And in case that doesn’t work, I’m going to use my biggest strength: my sexuality. Look at my arms. Have you ever seen anyone with more perfect muscle tone? No, you haven’t. I just scanned your entire memory bank and can say with certainty that I am the sexiest boy you have ever seen. I’m going to wear my best trench coat with nothing under and spray on a little Chanel #4.”

“Oh, Bland!” Pantsa pleaded. “We can’t leave you alone out there as bait. You’ll be unsafe!”

“I’ll protect him,” Peeon exclaimed as he stood up and saluted. “I too promise to wear a trench coat and go commando in dutiful honor of the living! I swear to stare sexily into that evil king’s eyes and lick my lips in the face of death.”

“Well, then it’s settled!” cried Beerion, wanting to move things along. “There’s no need to stress about it now! There is only one thing that we all must do, however—SHOTS! A drink to our sexy Bland! And a drink to the good land of Fart from which our dear Brian hails!”

“To Fart!” they all shouted and chugged their drinks. To onlookers, it would seem that these northern leaders were in for a wild night before the most important battle of their lives—and those onlookers would be right. One moment they were playing a casual game of “Chug the Bottle,” and the next they were taking body shots off of the Clown. Beerion swung from chandelier to chandelier to brick wall, laughing all the way.

Lord Varysectomy was so drunk he swore his testicles had grown back. Beerion was so drunk he swore he had grown 300 percent taller. As it happened, Beerion had only climbed into Varysectomy’s pocket in order to gain a higher vantage point, dangling like a pair of testicles. Perhaps the most intoxicated person was Lemme. He drank like a mom on her fiftieth birthday turning “thirty-two again.” He spent a good part of the night in a headstand to show off the benefits of having a golden head and nearly convinced Brian to cut hers off in solidarity.

At around 2:00 a.m., Beerion climbed up on the table and made an announcement to the group.

“It’s time to get serious, everyone. We have an imminent battle where we must show the dead that life wins out. You only live once!” Jon ducked his head and hoped nobody was looking at him. “One more drink for good luck!” Beerion shouted as he threw back another. Standing only as tall as your everyday spoon and weighing no more than a few, erm, spoons, Beerion was a remarkable drinker. Yet this moment was his last memory of the night. He awoke to the sound of Jon’s trembling voice.

“The Nighty Night King is coming! And the White Wieners have already arrived! They’re not as cute as I was hoping! They actually look very scary! You guysssss?!”

The crowd in the Great Hall started to get up slowly. What happened last night? everyone collectively wondered. Pantsa was lying in a pool of vomit. Brian was sitting in a pool of vomit. The Clown stood with vomit surrounding his feet in a pool shape. This battle would be the ultimate hungover walk of shame.