Bently McQuinn Saves Literature

It was a few minutes before Bently could wrap his head around the idea of actually winning the fight. He felt totally exhausted, like he could keel over any second, so after he had opened the doors back up and gotten rid of the thick curtains over the windows, he sat on the stone floor and closed his eyes. With every breath, he felt as if he could fall asleep, and he almost did, but then he pulled himself back up to examine the dust. It was being shifted gently around by the wind, sparkling in the sunlight. Bently wondered if each vampire was made of a different coloured dust, since Emmett’s was black while Edward’s had been rainbow.

Bently sighed a pleased sigh and collected the light, the sword, and his wand before walking out of the throne room and back out into the sweet sunlight. The air felt cleaner, more pure somehow. He walked back out on the walkway, looking out over Middle Earth. He didn’t hear the sounds of fighting anymore. Bently looked down, and instead, he thought he could see people helping each other. And maybe that was a cheer of victory in the wind.

“I did it,” Bently said, swelling with pride. “I freaking saved Middle Earth!”

-

“We thank you, Bently McQuinn.”

Bently couldn’t help but grin as he bowed his head. Aragorn had been restored to his rightful place on the throne of Gondor, and he now stood before Bently and his companions, in full king regalia.

“You have saved Middle Earth, and purged the land of the evil vampires which had poisoned it,” the King went on, and Bently looked up. “We offer you this elvish blade to aid you on your future endeavors to rid the worlds of these leeches.”

Bently accepted the curved blade and bowed even deeper. “Thank you Aragorn, King of Gondor.” He was getting rather good at these titles.

Aragorn moved on to Meggie. “Meggie, Portal Jumper, we can not give a gift greater than what you already possess, but we can give you this.” He handed Meggie a thin, battered book. The title read, The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. “The Kings and Queens of Narnia have requested your aid, and this is your key.”

Meggie’s mouth opened into a small O as she took the book gingerly in her hands. “Thank you, King.”

He moved on to Pansy now. “And you, Pansy Parkinson. You have powers I and my fellows have only ever dreamed of. We give you the Elf Star. You will know what to do with it.”

Pansy’s jaw dropped as she accepted the white light. She merely closed her mouth and nodded solemnly.

“Stephen King.” King looked up with a mysterious smile on his face. “Welcome back. We only wish you could stay longer.”

“As do I, Aragorn,” King replied. “But we both know that can’t happen. You need to rebuild, and we need to free more worlds from the likes of Meyer.”

“Indeed,” said Aragorn. “Now go. But know that if you should ever need us, we can be called upon. The people of Middle Earth are forever in your debt.”

There was cheering all around, and Bently’s face hurt from grinning too much. But he felt a tugging on his sleeve, and found Meggie looking up at him. “Let’s go, Bently.”

The four of them walked into the throne room, which was empty. Meggie opened the Narnia book carefully, scanning its pages for a suitable passage. Finally, she found one, and began to read.

“She began to walk forward, crunch-crunch over the snow and through the wood toward the other light. In about ten minutes she reached it and found it was a lamp-post. As she stood looking at it, wondering why there was a lamp-post in the middle of a wood and wondering what to do next, she heard a pitter patter of feet coming toward her.”

-

The next thing Bently knew, he was freezing cold. It was also quite dark except for the area right around him. When he looked up, he found a lamp-post in the middle of some woods, and that it was snowing lightly. Pansy, Meggie, and King were all standing with him, and everything was silent. Even their breath was muffled.

“Wow…” Meggie was the first to speak. She gazed around in wonder. “So this is Narnia.”

“Yeah, big deal. It’s cold, and we need shelter,” said Pansy grumpily. She picked the nearest tree and waved her wand, creating a large tent. “Well? Are you going to get in or what?” And the other three followed her inside. The tent was spacious and warm.

‘Pansy sure knows her stuff,’ Bently commented as he climbed into a bunk. He was very, very tired. He had gotten no sleep since they had set out that morning to go conquer Minas Tirith. Although, by this time, it was probably more like yesterday morning. ‘Whatever,’ Bently thought. ‘I can sleep now.’ He was soon fast asleep, as King had taken the first watch.

-

“Awoooo!”

“Bently! Bently, get up now!”

Meggie’s panicked voice filled his ear, and Bently woke almost immediately. Something was already going wrong.

“Whais it?” he asked, his speech slurring from exhaustion.

“Wolves,” said Meggie, terror in her voice. “We need to go now!”

She dragged him out of the tent, where King and Pansy were. King had one of the knives in his hand, the notebook tucked firmly inside his coat, and Pansy had her wand lit and at the ready. Bently lit his own wand, and they ran off, hopefully in the direction away from the howls.

But they just seemed to be everywhere now. Every few seconds, a new howl would start up. It seemed to Bently that they were surrounded. As his wand light flashed around him, he caught the sight of glowing eyes in front of him. He skidded to a halt, making everyone else stop. And as they did, more and more eyes appeared.

“Dammit,” he heard Pansy swear, and she made her wand light as bright as it could be. The wolves bodies started to take shape, and Bently saw that they were enormous, much too large to be normal wolves.

“Wanna bet that flee-bag Jacob took over this book?” Bently muttered, flashing his wand light around, trying to get the beasts back. They were all now pressed back to back, ready to fight or die.

Then suddenly, one of the beasts lunged. But it wasn’t at Meggie or King, the weakest, or Bently, the one they should have been after. It went for Pansy, and it caught her by surprise. Its powerful jaws closed over her left arm that she had rose to defend herself, and Bently heard a snap as her arm broke. Pansy screamed and went down to the ground, wrestling with the wolf.

Now the rest of the pack lunged. Bently shot one that had come after Meggie away with a blast of Flipendo, and King had slashed one’s eye out with his knife. But Bently knew they needed a quick solution fast, and with a wolf trying to rip Pansy’s arm off, he knew it had to be him.

“Incendio!” he roared, and fire whipped out of his wand. At first, it just snapped at a wolf then went out, but when he tried it again, he managed to create a sufficient stream of fire. The wolves snarled at it, and dodged away. So Bently made a ring of fire all around them, and shot fire after the remaining wolves.

“Sectumsempra!”

Bently heard a yelp and a lot of grunting, and he saw in the firelight Pansy and her wolf, both bleeding in the melting snow. Pansy was alive, and the wolf wasn’t. But her arm was torn to pieces.

Meggie dropped to her knees in the snow next to Pansy, fear plastered on her young face. “Pansy! Pansy, you’re alive, right?”

Pansy merely grunted in response. She had dropped her wand and was now using that hand to press down on what she could of her wound. It was bleeding profusely, and Bently thought he could see a little bone poking through the grizzled flesh. Now Bently and King were both around Pansy too, and Bently waved his wand over her, muttering all the spells he could ever remember that could heal someone. But nothing was working, and he only made himself tired from trying to use magic.

“King! King, write something!” Meggie said tearfully, trying to tie up Pansy’s wound with shredded cloth. King fumbled for the notebook and pen, and then sat in the snow (more like slush) as close to the fire as he dared, and began scribbling furiously.

It seemed to be an agonizingly long time before King finally handed Meggie the notebook. Bently and Meggie had gotten Pansy fairly bandaged up, but the wound was still bleeding like mad, and Meggie had started crying. She got some blood and tears on the notebook as she took it with shaking hands, trying to steady her voice.

“Pansy lay in the snow, her friends surrounding her, fire dancing in the night to keep the beastly wolves away. Her arm was broken, gashed, and bleeding furiously, seeming to be beyond all repair. But as Pansy rested and her friends tended to her wounds, they began to heal, seemingly of their own accord. It sent jolts of pain up her arm, but the bones moved back together, the muscles re-knotted themselves, and the skin stretched back over everything until there wasn’t anything left but a pale scar of the wolf’s jaws.”

Meggie looked over the top of the notebook to see that nothing had changed. A fresh wave of tears ran down her face. “King! Nothing’s wo-working!” she sobbed, setting the notebook down in her lap.

“Give it time, Meggie,” said King gravely. “It may still work yet. But for now, all we can do is wait until morning.”

Bently offered to take the watch so that he could keep the fire going. No matter how exhausted he was, he wasn’t going to let those wolves come back for seconds.

-

In the pale morning light, Pansy’s arm looked… well, disgusting.

Everything about it was green, like some kind of mold was growing in her skin. The congealed blood was a sickly dark green, like a dark grass stain. Even the bandages had been turned green. When Bently first saw it, he honestly had to hold back some bile in his throat. He was completely disgusted by fungus.

“You just keep your damn mouth shut,” Pansy grumbled. “I know it looks like crap, but dammit…”

“Yeah, okay,” said Bently, turning away from her. He would let Meggie deal with her.

“Do you have any idea what it is?” he asked King in a soft voice as they packed everything away.

“I’ve never seen, heard, or written anything like it,” said King, frowning. “I have no idea what it is, but I’m hoping that we can find someone or something that can heal her.”

“I guess,” Bently said, and he slung his backpack over his shoulder. It was already starting the get worn.

“Alright, let’s head out,” said Pansy wearily, and they all set off, weapons out in case of another attack.

“Um, weren’t we supposed to meet someone? You know, like how we met up with Elrond and Faramir?”

“Yes,” said Meggie, sounding extremely stressed. “We’re supposed to meet up with Lucy, Eustace, and Jill at Beaver Dam. But I do not know when, or if they’re still alive, or—”

“Meggie, please,” Pansy said, irritated a bit. “They’ll be fine, it’s us we need to worry about.”

And so they walked, and walked, and walked, through the snow, the trees, and the silence. Bently’s fingertips and feet were starting to get numbingly cold. He didn’t want to bother Pansy with asking her to transfigure him some more cloths, so he tried to do it himself. It took several tries, but he finally managed to make his jacket and cloak a lot thicker. He didn’t want to try making gloves, so he stuck his hands in his pockets and hoped for the best.

And then, once they got out of the woods, it started snowing again. Hard. It was the really dense, wet kind too, the stuff that was perfect for snowballs, but really bad to travel in. “Dammit, we haven’t gotten anywhere today,” Bently swore, and he started trying to make a tent.

“Let me do it,” Pansy said, her eyes half closed, stumbling slightly. Meggie caught her and steadied her.

“Pansy, just let Bently do it.”

“He’s hopeless. We’ll be eaten by the wolves by the time he gets it set up and protected.”

And with a wave of her wand, there was a new tent, this one made of thick material. “Nothing’s getting though this,” she muttered before she practically fell down inside the tent, eyes closing swiftly.

Bently wondered what in the world they were doing. It seemed like they had only walked for a few hours, but it was now night again. Could it be possible that Narnia was so screwed up that its time was even being altered? Bently had no idea, but he intended to find out. Right after Pansy’s arm didn’t look like the forest floor and Jacob the Mutt had been taken out.

Bently awoke the next morning to the sound of soft chatter. He rolled over and yawned, wondering what time it was. It was light outside, and it looked like it had stopped snowing. ‘Well, that’s an improvement,’ he thought, and sat up. Pansy was still asleep, and she looked worse today. Now there were parts going black or yellow, making the wound even gristly-er than before.

Bently rolled away and out of the tent. King and Meggie were outside in the morning sunlight, talking to a boy and girl about Meggie’s age. Bently assumed that these were two of the people they were supposed to meet. “Isn’t there supposed to be another one of you?” Bently asked bluntly. ‘Gah, I’m picking up Pansy’s slack,’ he thought bitterly.

The girl nodded, fear in her eyes. Fear was in everyone’s eyes he met these days, and it was starting to bother Bently. He didn’t feel particularly fearful, that is until he had to go fight a crazy vampire, but other than that… he sort of felt guilty that he wasn’t as scared as everyone else was.

“Yes,” she said slowly. “But… he kidnapped Lucy. And he’s holding her for ransom.”

“How much?” Bently asked, expecting some kind of large amount of gold.

“Complete control of Narnia for Lucy back,” said the boy. “But she told us not to give in to him.”

“But I just know he’ll hurt her,” said the girl. “What do we do?”

Everyone looked at Bently, expectant. “Well, we fight of course. We get Lucy back, and we take out Jacob,” he said, feeling that thrilling fire in his veins again.

The girl beamed. “Really?”

“Hell yes. What’s your names?”

“I’m Jill, and this is Eustace,” said Jill, bowing her head.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Bently, and is Meggie and King. Pansy’s inside,” said Bently, jerking his thumb over his shoulder to the tent. “Now where’s Lucy and Jacob?”

“They’re both at Cair Paraval, down by the sea,” said Eustace. “We just need to follow the river south.”

“Then let’s do it!”

It was what felt like half an hour to get Pansy up and everything packed away, but judging by how the sun moved, it was more like two hours.

“Why does time pass so fast here?” Bently asked Jill as they started off down the riverbank.

“It’s been really weird ever since Jacob came here,” she said. “Sometimes it will run really fast, like it is now, and sometimes it’ll run really, really slow. It’s very irregular, too.”

“Well, isn’t that just peachy.”

-

For several days of straight blizzards and sped up time, they traveled through Narnia, along the river. They only had one more encounter with a pack of wolves, and Bently drove them off in a rage. He was still very, very angry about Pansy’s arm, which just got worse and worse. The fungus was spreading up her arm, and she got weaker by the day. When he asked Jill and Eustace if they knew anything that could cure it, they said no, but Lucy might have some potion that could.

“She’d better,” Bently growled. “We can’t lose her.”

Finally, they reached the outskirts of Cair Paraval. They decided to hunker down for the night while they made some final plans. Bently sat at the edge of their camp, watching the castle during the first clear night they had had since they had arrived in Narnia. There was light in a few of the windows, and he watched and heard the wolves guarding the castle. There must have been over two hundred of them.

Bently felt a hand on his shoulder, and he gave a start. But it was only Meggie, kneeling down beside him.

“Hey Bently, are you okay? You’ve been really angry these past few days.” Concern showed bright in her brown eyes.

“I’m just… I don’t think I could do this without Pansy,” he said finally. “She knows way more magic than I do, and when we get into books where we can’t use magic—”

“Only writing will save you there.” Meggie reached out and made him look at her. “Look Bently, you both have your strengths. Pansy’s good at magic, but you’re the new master. Anything she can do with magic, you can do with writing. It’ll just take a little more time maybe.” Bently sighed and looked back out at Cair Paraval. “She’ll be fine, Bently. Jill said that Lucy would be able to heal her. So all we need to do is break Lucy out, defeat Jacob, and everything will be fine.”

“I wish I could be that optimistic, Meggie,” said Bently.

“You will be, eventually,” Meggie assured him. “Now rest. We attack in the morning.”