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Loudmouth’s totally accurate account of how he became the most bad-buttocked Hoig ever
🕑 Added 2023-10-27 08:16:30 +0000 UTCCHAPTER 1 The Birth of a Hero Before Loudmouth was born, nothing interesting or noteworthy ever happened in the village, so the Hoig who liv
CHAPTER 1
The Birth of a Hero
Before Loudmouth was born, nothing interesting or noteworthy ever happened in the village, so the Hoig who lived there were probably very bored.
Though we’ll never know for sure, because they’re all dead, and Friend Alec says ghosts don’t really exist.
Anyway, the assumed dreadful monotony of their lives was finally shattered, when the cutest, tiniest—ehr, I mean—toughest, strongest, heroicest Hoig ever was born, and called out to the very heavens with his mighty voice.
They named him Loudmouth. For his mouth... was loud.
As Loudmouth grew up, he quickly learned he was different from the other Hoig. He could tell by the way they respectfully vacated his path as he approached, cringing as he greeted them, clearly afraid their presence would distract him or hinder his progress in any way.
While he appreciated their humility and courtesy, he quickly found himself to be—like so many tragic heroes—a little lonely.
It didn’t help that people in the village seemed unable to tell him who had actually given birth to him. In fact, most of them didn’t really seem to know each other all that well, as if they’d all just been thrown together onto this island within the Great Six Walls by some mysterious power.
As he grew up, Loudmouth often reflected that being special was... actually not always so fun. But he always found solace in the fact that he had a very important job to fulfil.
For Loudmouth was the favoured messenger of Chief Deathglare herself. It seemed not a day would go by that Loudmouth wasn’t sent out of the village on a perilous journey through the Hydrum, to deliver her messages to her lover, the Grand Chief!
Being a great hero, Loudmouth was naturally never terrified that he would be sprayed with horrible acid and ripped apart by the sharp teeth of a long-necked dirak, or that one of the shells under-Hydrum would pop up to reveal a halid that would freeze him up and cut him to pieces with its razor-sharp claws, or that a krah would come out and stun him with its dreadful pistol-claw and then—
Anyway, Loudmouth was definitely never relieved when he hopped up on the beach of the grand island and saw the parapets of the majestic castle in the distance.
As Loudmouth usually made this trip at least once a day, he naturally came to be known and loved by all of the guards. Especially the Yin—if you know what Loudmouth means.
One of them was a lovely Hoig lady named Bulging-Eyes. And she did her name justice, for she truly had the roundest, juiciest, bulgiest pair of eyes Loudmouth had ever seen, and he could’ve stared at them all day.
In a respectful, consensual way, of course.
She always fawned over Loudmouth when he visited, and they would do fun activities together when he could spare the time, sliding down stairs on shields, leaping into the Hydrum from high ledges down in the caves below the castle, and having contests to grab thrown Birberries out of the sky with their tongues. Loudmouth was the best at this, of course, but sometimes he would let others win, as he is a Gentlehoig.
Not all the guards were as pleasing to the eye, however. For example, that dull flat-cheek Strongleap. He was a real dick too—though not to Loudmouth of course, everyone loved Loudmouth. Strongleap just gave off that vibe.
Anyway, they were naturally all jealous of how often Loudmouth got to personally see the Grand Chief, and rightfully so! Grand Chief was a majestic mountain of a Hoig, who lived like a god. Through his many visits to the Grand Chief—during which he would relay the totally not embarrassing things Chief Deathglare wanted to relay—Loudmouth became close friends with the mighty ruler of all that fell within the Six Great Walls.
Until one day, everything changed.
One day, when Loudmouth was on the way to go see Grand Chief, and totally not stopping for a snack, a massive dark-blue hole opened up in the sky, enveloping everything. For a brief moment, everything got really dark and cold, and Loudmouth felt like he was floating. Then, all of a sudden, everything returned to normal, and Loudmouth totally did a cool flip and landed on his feet, definitely not ending up with a mouthful of sand in the process.
Except, not all was normal, not really. The Six Great Walls that enclosed all of reality were still there, but the Twinstar was suddenly in a different part of the sky. Thankfully, Loudmouth noticed this immediately, and definitely not after somehow ending up on the Yang side of the Hub and being assaulted by Astreum-spewing jetrays, with their nasty sharp tails.
That was not the biggest change, however. When Loudmouth finally—ehm, I mean quickly—arrived at the castle, their was something different about the Grand Chief. There was a dark-blue crystal lodged in his throat, and a cold gleam in his eyes.
As usual, Loudmouth started smoothly reciting the poem Chief Deathglare had written on a big leaf, without any confusion about the contents. “Would that Deathglare were Grand Chief’s dinner bowl,” he croaked loudly, puffing himself up. “So Grand Chief could lick her clean every night! Would that Deathglare were Grand Chief’s throne, so—”
“Enough!” Grand Chief thundered, cutting him off.
“Aack!” Loudmouth exclaimed in fri—
“Of course, Grand Chief,” Loudmouth croaked respectfully, bowing before his mighty ruler, completely unperturbed.
“Tell Deathglare to stop bothering me with this drivel,” Grand Chief croaked. “Now get out.”
To hear his close friend Grand Chief suddenly say such shocking things, and treat Loudmouth so callously—which he normally never did—should really have tipped Loudmouth off right then and there that something was very, very wrong. Alas, our hero was still young and inexperienced, not yet the wise, venerated Gentlehoig he is today. And thus, he turned around and went off to deliver this news.
To say Chief Deathglare did not take the break-up well would be an understatement. It was only Loudmouth’s superior reflexes—and definitely not that he tripped as he was hopping away backwards in fear—that saved him from being roasted by her deathly glare.
Loudmouth fled her cabin—now with a fresh, still-smouldering hole next to the door—post-haste.
The next morning, he bravely answered her summons, and armed with a new message, returned to the castle.
Except this time, the guards wouldn’t let him in.
Loudmouth was perplexed by this new development, and considered returning to Chief Deathglare to let her know he wasn’t able to deliver her message.
He did not consider it for long.
Faced with this seemingly insurmountable challenge, Loudmouth did what any hero would have done. He persevered, and overcame.
Grand Chief may not have allowed Loudmouth to see him, but Loudmouth didn’t need to see him to deliver his message.
Standing in front of the gate, he lifted the leaf covered in powerful scrawls before him, leant back to look up at the tower, and took a deep breath.
“GRAND CHIEF,” he croaked as loudly as he could. “WHAT IS MEANING OF THIS? WHY DO YOU HATE DEATHGLARE? WHAT HAS DEATHGLARE DONE TO—”
“BEGONE, PEST!” Grand Chief thundered from his balcony, sending down a bolt of lightning that landed to Loudmouth’s right.
He totally didn’t wet himself.
After a swift tactical retreat, Loudmouth continued narrating his message from behind a tree.
Judging from the angry croaking, Grand Chief did not appreciate it, but Loudmouth persevered and delivered the whole message. He waited patiently for a response, but none was forthcoming. Defeated, he returned to Chief Deathglare.
The next morning, he was once more forced to hide behind the trees as he delivered his message. This went on for some time, until one day, to his surprise, Loudmouth was once more let in through the gate.
This time, Grand Chief sat on his throne and listened to Loudmouth’s message passively. And when Loudmouth was finished, he sent him back with a simple, short message.
‘I am very busy. Please do not disturb me. Love, the Grand Chief.’
Chief Deathglare grew listless after that, and Loudmouth’s life changed as a result. The messages he had to deliver became incidental, sporadic, leaving him much more time to hang around the village and try to make contact with the overly humble, respectful folk. Before he could make much progress in this endeavour, however, Chief Deathglare had a new, important job for him.
Loudmouth was to guard the sacred cave! While he had never heard of the place before, it was apparently very important, and thus he set out to guard it full of vigour.
He was given an actual blowpipe with purple darts, which he totally knew were Toxic from the start, and definitely never licked.
At the start, he practised his shooting every day, leaping in and out of bushes and pretending he was fighting the ‘humans’ he had been told about.
Apparently they were extremely dangerous creatures from outside of the Great Six Walls, and they would be coming for the sacred cave.
Loudmouth’s excitement about his new main job did not last very long. Chief Deathglare had such faith in Loudmouth, that she never scheduled anyone else to guard with him, so things got quite boring after a while.
There was a point at which Loudmouth started to doubt such things as humans could actually exist. After all, was there even anything beyond the Great Six Walls? He’d never heard of it, at least.
Then, one fateful day, two humans came walking through the forest, right where he was guarding the cave.
Author's note:
Thanks for sticking around, and I hope you enjoy this short story! ^^
