It was a hut-like shack on the corner by a river down from the hill in the woods. The size of the hut-like shack got bigger or smaller depending on how many people drank the witch’s brew. Because magic is a wild and unpredictable thing. She was a cool witch. She concocted the brew in the basement using the river water which was polluted by the castle’s alchemy lab. Every broken-down farmer whose back blistered from the fields and every soldier missing an eye or arm or hand drank there. Sailors, thieves, knights, and strange sales folk, always trying to sell some junk they claimed was from a far away land to any sucker drunk enough to buy it. A real melting pot of all walks of life.
And way in the back of the hut-like shack on the corner by a river down from the hill in the woods, sat a jester. He ordered the brew, quite a few, and began humming a song. A nearby bard took ear and got super pissed. “That’s my thing buddy!” He aggressively strummed his lute.
“Don’t gatekeep singing,” the one-eyed soldier lady drunkenly muttered.
“He’s humming my god damn song. Where’d you hear it, asshole?”
“Some crap hole across the river down that way.” Pointed the jester.
The bard demanded compensation. “If you are singing my song, you gotta pay royalties.”
The jester shrugged his shoulders then pretended to pull out money but flicked him off instead. That got a laugh out of the soldier lady. Her hearty laugh got the large knight to start laughing and so on - a chain event of the ever-growing hut-like shack from the weird brew, which also made everything hazy.
In the haze of the high of the hut-like shack on the corner by a river down from the hill in the woods, they all kept laughing. Until a farmer tossed a potato and a coin at the bard’s feet.
“‘Ell, go on! Lemme hear the little ditty!”
The bard strummed the lute then hummed, tuned it, and strummed it again. This was the doing of the jester. Once the bard strummed his lute, the jester seemingly disappeared - an inception into his own twisted game, for this jester only jests for himself.
He opened his soft, quivering lips while the melody quieted the laughter of everyone. The potato was still on the floor.
“Beauty queen of only thirteen, she had some quarrels with a shelf… He was always there to be handy while belonging to someone else. I rode a horse many meters north and wound up at your door...”
Sir Gregory Charles of Poppycock exclaimed, “I do say I have heard this before and I believe you are mistaken in the lyrics!”
The Bard’s face flushed red. The sheer handsomeness that shined from Charles of Poppycock was enough to cause any man or woman to faint. “But…I wrote this song…” said the bard.
Then, from Poppycock’s glory and stunning good looks, was the soft baritone voice of an angel singing.
“Beauty queen of only seventeen, had some trouble with an elf…he pretended to be nice while belonging to someone else. A knight rode for kilometers out west and wound up at her place.”
A hideous voice suddenly smacked everyone with its crude tone and instantly killed the sexual fantasy running through the bard’s mind about Charles of Poppycock.
“Oy! That ain’t be the song! Be hearin’ the song in the Harbor of Maroon! Where a man covered in meaningless symbols be singin’ that!”
The voice matched the appearance. It was a man donning scars and stains on his face with a frilly shirt and water boots. “Yarrrrr!” He bellowed so everyone knew he was a pirate. But the pirate years were long gone, as was the sobriety of everyone at the hut-like shack, so only the bard was left to question the pirate who was really just the jester in disguise.
The bard, being an expert on voices, hated everything he heard. “You sound like a disgusting pirate.” He then pulled out a map of the world. Searching for this so-called Harbor of Maroon.
“Ye want to know the real lyrics?” A farmer tossed a potato at the jester.
In his insufferable, raspy voice he sang.
“Beauty queen of only eighteen, she had some trouble with themself… He was always there to help her steal while belonging to someone else. They sailed for days and days and wound up on my shore!”
It seemed everyone enjoyed this rendition the most. Chiming in and pretending like they too knew the words to the song, which only further infuriated the bard. Yelling over their singing voices, feeling as though they were butchering his work, he stood up on the bar, holding his map and pointing at the jester dressed like a pirate. “LIAR!”
“There are no Harbors of Maroon! I demand you all pay royalties this instant for stealing my work! The king will hear about this!”
The farmer threw a potato at the bard’s crotch, which rendered him powerless for a moment. Then, in his fury, he grabbed his lute and smashed it over the farmer’s head. This began a brawl of sorts. The farmers jumped the bard who kept grabbing mugs from the bar and throwing them. Then the knights stepped in, then the thieves stole the potatoes and loose coins that flew all over the place. It was a complete and chaotic mess.
The jester, still dressed like a pirate, sat in the back next to the witch who owned the place, laughing at his marvelous work. Then the witch sighed and asked, “Why do you always fuck with bards?”
“Because they wear those stupid looking pants and think they own music but really they just steal most of their work. I heard that song years ago when King Goober was in power.”
“Goober was pretty cool. Never taxed me on the brew.”
They both watched soldiers toss the bard out of the hut-like shack with his broken lute in tow. “I’ll be back! The king will have your heads!”
A night passed and the bard, with a small army of the king’s knights, rode together. They rode to the hut-like shack on the corner by a river down from the hill in the woods. It was a shack big enough for one squirrel with a small note attached next to it.
It read “That song sucked.”
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