Matthew knew from experience that waking up with a hangover never was fun, even less so if one woke up hungover surrounded by a bunch eviscerated corpse.
But that was how they celebrated a man’s coming of age amongst the Norfii; that, and devouring a lion fetus drenched in wine.
That last bite of lion must have been bad, he decided.
As he got to his feet, he realized they were covered in boots made of human flesh – at least he’d gotten some use out of those corpses.
Kicking in his new treads by kicking the flopping entrails out of his way, he strode out of the cave.
It was night, always and everlastingly, fucking night.
Unless it wasn't fucking night, which boiled down to some 5 days in a moon.
Well, Matthew had work to do, grim work.
Having new boots was but one of the perks of becoming an adult in the eyes of the elders.
And, speaking of eyes, he had a jar full at home that were only missing a blue pair.
Blue eyes were rare, a bitch to find, and people kept them for both sentimental value and working magic -- he just wanted his collection complete.
Where to find, them, though?
Down south and west, the day-dwellers were said to have blue eyes, but they were sex maniacs, so finding virgin blue eyes was a bitch.
Coincidentally, his own mother was also a bitch, but she didn't have blue eyes.
In addition, father did not like mutilating family members, unless he did it -- selfish bastard.
Fortunately, Matthew knew of an orphanage nearby that might have an blue-eyed virgin or two.
The moon hung low on its gallows, damn fucker deserved no less.
Making his way to the orphanage, Matthew passed an ancient pair of vagabonds rutting in the street like rats; well, new vagabonds had to come from somewhere, didn't they?
It was only when he had passed them, he noticed the audience of real rats preparing what looked like score cards.
He considered stomping the life out of the little vermin, but didn't want to scuff his new flesh boots.
Still, he decided he'd settle the score with these rats, eventually.
He was getting distracted; eyes on the prize, Matthew, eyes on the prize!
In this case the prize was eyes, but eyes on the eyes sounded rather silly, even without saying it out loud.
Soon, he spied the orphanage and began to fish the ocular trauma device -- his spork -- out of his pocket.
His people had a few traditions, eviscerated corpses when one came of age, virgins’ scalps on a bad hair day, and a spork on the day they were born -- they wore the spork until receiving the first set of baby teeth on a necklace, then it went into the pocket.
So, the spork wasn't the problem, it was the damned pocket, which, like the pockets of all other Norfii, was magically linked to the those of everyone else in the community, making it fiendishly hard to find what one was looking for, but also to resist the temptation of examining others' possessions, like the dried kitten he was currently fondling.
Pocket communication was rather muffled, and in a night such as this, slipping out of one's pants left one rather dangling in the wind, so he continued to fish around.
Suddenly, something -- or someone -- grabbed his arm, and he felt a violent tug, yanking him into his own pocket, through a universe of unspeakable objects and trash out back out into the semi-fetid air of...where, exactly?
The light shining at him made identification of the place difficult-- a moment later, as his eyes adjusted, he realized the glaring blaze was nothing more than a big candle, flickering off a sword's polished blade.
In a panic, all he could think to do was blurt out, "I didn't do it!"
"Do what?" a voice said, and then added, "Stupid bag of holding, got cross-wired again with the little folk."
Squinting into the gloom, Matthew realized that he was one of the "little folk" in question, as the figure in front of him was easily twice his size.
Twice his size, and that was just the leg... he tilted his head back and saw somewhere in the distance, about as high as his lord's keep walls, the head of... the fucking big folk.
For some odd reason, all Matthew could think was that he was smaller than this giant's penis.
Now he thought about how it was to be fucking a big folk woman.
He'd get even more lost in her than he had in that so-called "bag-of-holding."
Maybe not all was lost, he had heard about this tale where one would have to squeeze eyes real hard and tap one's heels and say "Get me the fuck out of here" magic would take one back home, only he had to sacrifice all the eyes in his IBag.
With hope in whatever passed for his heart, he performed said ritual, only to discover that "home" was his mother's house, and he was a pimply, red-headed fat kid with a mouth full of dental hardware.
And a bed which harbored way too many BDSM magazines underneath the mattress.