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After receiving an update about the state of the Third Age, and after Mr Elf impresses upon us the necessity of not letting the ring fall into the wrong hands, he gives it to Mitya and off we go, with a pony and as much white spirits as we can carry. Of course, the elves have to make theirs out of potatoes more beautiful than all supermodels put together, and the resultant vodka sparkles gayly.
“This is goooood…”
It's so good that it even gets the Medvedev Twins to speak, although all they will say is that the vodka is good.
“Vodka is vodka. It all tastes like liquid fire.” I say, just after everyone crests a hill very aesthetically, with me behind Krum ( >_< ) and Krum behind Yuri (who has no idea where he is going).
“Ah!”
Gasps of dismay and shock resound down the line, with everyone stopping to give me silent Looks expressing various amounts of disgust and contempt.
“What? Let's keep trudging! The evil mountain of doom is a bijillion miles away.”
“Are you attempting to sabotage this Fellowship, Katya? You can't say things like ‘vodka is vodka’.” Designated traitor, Vasily Sergeyevich, grumbles. I don't know why Yuri Igorevich singled him out to be shot full of arrows. I presume he mustn't like him. Or else he owes him money.
“I like rose flavoured vodka…” Krum flashes his wild eyebrows at me over a glass of Bulgarian brandy (or some shit), the extremity of seduction filling his features. None of us women are capable of pulling off the femme fatale expressions he pulls off…Too bad he's wearing a stained ‘Triwizard Champion’ t-shirt, Adidas short shorts, and flip flops.
INCREDIBLY TOO BAD as we promptly walk up a snow mountain like something out of Siberia.
“Are there mountains like this in Siberia?!!?” I scream, my puny vocal vibrations doing battle with the evil voices in the wind and Krum's savagely chattering teeth. At least he's not stuck waist deep in the snow like everyone else, but shivers on top of it. The power of Celebrity.
Yuri tosses his, currently tied up, hair over his shoulder, and flushes, casually stepping out of the way of a building sized piece of ice as it crashes past. “W-why do you ask?!”
“Cause you live in Siberia!” I may as well be a little bolder than usual, since I'll no doubt be dead in the next five minutes.
“But what have the mountains there got to do with it?!”
“Maybe I want to walk up mountains with you, moron! And I don't want to die!”
“...They're not as possessed as the Urals! But why-”
Olga throws snowballs at me and our demi-boss, but they hit Viktor instead, nearly knocking him off the wicked peak. “Stop bungling! We need to get off this mountain or I'll kill all of you!”
So after trekking all the way up the mountain, we trek all the way back down, ending up in some godforsaken gully between the roots of it. Very dark, very dank, with a wretched black pool taking up half of it. Also, night falls.
“Knock knock, open up.” Mikhail Mikhailovich, pretending like he knows what's going on, taps on a granite wall of rock with his walking stick. Why do people use walking sticks when they don't need to? Poseurs.
For lack of anything better to do, my colleagues begin stapling their ears to the stone, like there's something on the other side.
“If Harry Potter were here, something would happen.” Muses Krum, who is no longer shivering and shaking but who is still rather blue. You'd think his bestie would offer him his superwarm coat, but no. I guess that's a male -> female-only bit of kindness…Maybe I should begin shivering…
“If Harry Potter were here, we'd all, minus Viktor and Yuri, be eaten by some monster or other.”
“Hey! You might consider yourself expendable, but I don't. Speak for yourself.”
“If he vere here it is more likely dat someone vould end up under de effects of a love potion…” For no conceivable reason (expect Elvish vodka) Krum begins speaking Russian with a Russian accent, and staring at me in a way that bodes ill for my childhood dreams of marrying his best friend.
Mikhail turns away from the slab of rock. “Moon Runes. Dwarvish wig-wam. Yuri Igorevich, you're the wizard. Say something magical.”
But Yuri Igorevich is busy sitting on a rock by the black pool, where he combs his sodden hair with a coral comb. His hair is very long, thick, and curly, and I suddenly want to commit loving homicide. Why can't my hair be so nice?! Why is my hair straight, thin, and nondescript brown?! Man, I'll never get his attention, not when he has so many Pretty Points on me. Krum begins to look more tempting. I guess that's one way to be together forever with my crush. It's either that or die of love sickness.
“We're all wizards here.” Yuri says, superciliously.
“Moon stuff seems way too romantic for dwarves, if you ask me.” Adds Anna, who is also using the pond for matters of beauty - using it to reapply her black lipstick, smacking her lips as she stares into its inky depths.
“No one's asking you.”
Olga raises her wand, pointing it at Vasily Sergeyevich. “Hey! Don't take that tone of voice with Anya.”
Oh oh. I sense a fight arriving like a bad case of cold sores.
Meanwhile, Mitya, who wears the VIP ring around his neck, approaches the immensity of inaccessible rock, his innocent eyes probing it for sights unseen.
“Calamari.” he says.
All at once the grinding of stone begins raping our ears, shocking Yuri and Anna into the water and almost into the mouth of a colossal beast which promptly rises out of it, tentacles thrashing.
“Pendosi!”
“Amerikosi!!”
“NOOOOOOOOO!!!!”
Someone is yelling, but all I can hear is my own breathing as my body makes a dash for the pond, and specifically my love, who is struggling to his feet, wand drawn and extremely enraged, but unable to see shit because his beautiful goth princess hair covers his face in waves of ebony. He almost hits me with an Avada, but I wasn't the Academy’s best gymnast for nothing.
My tongue makes crazy words appear in the air as my left arm gets him in a chokehold, the monster spraying thick spit at us as it prepares to lunge. I hit it in the face with a gout of fire and drag my boss backwards. “Do not use lightning, you bastard!!”
“Do you think I'm an idiot, Katya?!” He gasps, immediately using lightning on the thing. Thank God I have just managed to yank us from the water. Screeches accompany the wonderful smell of sizzling calamari as we stagger into the mountain.
🧝🏻♂️💍🧝🏻♂️
“I just realised. It's still your birthday, boss.”
All of us sit around on outcrops of damp rock and stone scattered within the damp dark of the mine we find ourselves in, delicious, delicious calamari being washed down our throats with delicious, delicious vodka.
“Mmm.” Says Yuri, still somewhat upset about being dumped in the water, his hair care routine being this deranged and requiring redoing.
“We haven't yet performed the customary dance in celebration.”
“Mmm.”
“Come on. Cheer up. Long pretty hair is idiotic on a warrior to begin with.” Nikolai Alexandrovich is really playing with fire in the way he is speaking to our leader. If he's not careful, he'll find he has an appointment with HR when we return home. Either that or Yuri Igorevich will orchestrate the fall of his dynasty for the second time.
Yuri, surprisingly, does not react to these words with murderous rage. “Mmm, all we have to decide is what to do with the time given to us. And I have decided to spend my time looking beautiful.”
“Yaaaah!” Mikhail Mikhailovich surges to his feet, shot glass raised to the ceiling. The Medvedev Twins follow and copy him, without making a sound, followed by Mitya, who begins clapping the required rhythm, and chanting.
“Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!-”
Oh no.
Vasily Sergeyevich ceremoniously removes his coat and pushes his sleeves up to his elbows, the lumos light catching in the deep gouges in his face. We three girls cannot dance the Kazachok, which is extremely boyish in its move set and also requires extremely boyish strength, so we huddle together and giggle. There's nothing more marvelous than watching men perform it, Mines of Moria or no Mines of Moria. Dear Lord, please let Yuri Igorevich participate, but also don't, because I will perish.
“Oh, God. Eeeeee!!!” Olga and Anna become extremely excited when our colleagues line up and begin the best dance ever, their arms laid across each other's shoulders as they skip from side to side across the jumbled rock floor of the cave, crossing their legs gracefully and floating like extremely athletic butterflies with extremely painful stings. Mikhail and Vasily lead it, because of course Nikolai (and presumably Krum) is going to hog the spotlight later. The Medvedev Twins play the balalaikas they always have on their persons, men whirling about the cave, leaping like deer and laughing like children.
Yuri looks up from his Thinking Pose. Oh no.
Krum yanks him up by the arm. OH NO.
“Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!-”
Oh no, Yuri’s dancing. Oh no, why are men so beautiful?! Oh no, he’s bowing to meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
'There lived a certain man in Russia long ago
He was big and strong, in his eyes, a flaming glow
Most people look at him with terror and with fear
But to Moscow chicks, he was such a lovely dear
Ra-Ra-Rasputin, lover of the Russian Queen
There was a cat that really was gone
Ra-Ra-Rasputin, Russia's greatest love machine
It was a shame how he carried on'
Nikolai Alexandrovich breaks out an accordion from somewhere. Oh, these Russians.
🧝🏻♂️💍🧝🏻♂️
But I’m not allowed to pass away peacefully, borne to heaven on the ecstasy of the greatest dance in the world. After all the fun and games, we discover that there's only one bed i.e there's only one really nice piece of rock, and my beloved and my boyfriend are dueling over it via their eyes. They then whip out their wands and begin to duel for real.
“Mors fulminea!”
“Expelliarmus!”
“Stop copying the Naglosaksy!!”
To no one's surprise, casting expelliarmus against a champion duelist does nothing, but Yuri, having descended into Russian slang and thus cut down Nikolai Alexandrovich’s accusations regarding his bloodline, retreats in disgust regardless, going over to brood in the dark somewhere where he can offer profound advice to Mitya in peace. Sadly, his unique mix of bad temper and patriotism means he has betrayed me, and I shall not forgive him.
“I'm very cold, kote.” Viktor whispers, looking at me like I'm a soft toy he desperately wants to cuddle.