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The Domitable Knight Errant
nce, many
years ago, there lived an iquitous knight named Sir Trepid who was most
vincible. Sir Trepid was oft and easily bested in battle, for he carried
a wooden sword, yclept Incalibur; he was not strong of arm, nor yet of wit.
Incalibur, made of pine, was quite wieldy, but this descript weapon, with
its name leted upon its side, was, of course, seldom capable of inflicting
mortal wounds; worst of all, it was both flammable and inflammable.
And yet, Sir Trepid survived many a tilt since his surrection as a knight, for at times his opponents, upon seeing Incalibur, were overcome with mirth, while Sir Trepid remained hinged. Thus he was always whelmed and could discriminately slay his enemies. Many foes learned to be plussed in battle, and woe betide the peccable knight who succumbed to laughter, and evitably became a swerving foe!
But on to the quel of my story. One day Sir Trepid, who oft had bouts of somnia, after a sleep-filled night (and such a description may, indeed, be used of him!), took the opportunity to wind, and seek adventure. He mantled his equipment and mounted his gainly steed, which stepped gingerly through the Endful Forest, avoiding the Bottomful Pit. Our hero heard a terrible cry, and followed its sound until he advertently encountered a fierce battle between a knight dressed expensively in dark, candescent iron and a most nocuous dragon. The pecunious knight, whose pregnable helmet lay upon a branch in the overbrush, was a sightly and figured youth, although his own martial eptitude was deniable. To observe the sufferable sight Sir Trepid stood behind a young oak that, in its thinness, proved to be a pediment to his vision, and waited for an ordinate time to see the knight's eluctable fate.
"Come again!" the ert youth cried in a hibited manner to his fire-snorting foe. "Forsooth, I shall slay thee; for thou art a conquerable enemy, and dost concert me!"
Sir Trepid was gusted by the spectacle. He admired the youth's brave though defatigable mettle; his posture bespoke a noble birth and adjusted mind, while his promptu speech revealed his long training in the courtesies of battle. Yet the dragon was not so impressed by these escapable truths, and lunged at the solent youth. With a souciant cry the daunted youth threw his sword into the air, and made to flee, for he was pervious to pain, but the sword upon descending sliced the dragon's throat, and the dragon, emerging thus scathed from the battle, fell mortally wounded. Thus did the dragon undercome him. Crest- risen after his little hap, the youth carded his sword once more, and ceremoniously cut off the dragon's head, pleased with his exorable fate.
"Thus shall be the fate of all who oppose me!" the youth cried committally, but then twirled to ensure no other dragons or knights stood waiting to oppose him after this controvertible evidence of his courage.
Yet he spoke with punity, for Sir Trepid stepped from behind the tree and, seeking to pone their meeting, said to the youth, "Brave knight! I have seen thy conscionable deed, and heard thy finitesimal challenge!"
"Oh," the flappable youth replied with chalance to the embodied voice, his fears pelled, "be not alarmed, strange knight, for it was not meant for one as disposed as thee."
"Thou art a petuous knight," quoth Sir Trepid, beaming as he admired the ruly youth's pertinence, "and a mitigated braggart. Thy boasts are cessant," he added in an onhand remark, seeking to man him.
"And thou art utterably imical," the traught youth said calmly, murring in response to Sir Trepid's sequitur. As the troverted creant bent to retrieve his dispensible sword, withstanding the fact it had proved to be his doing, he espied the grain upon Sir Trepid's effable weapon. He read its name-- for he was lexic--and was amazed. "May I ask, then, O knight," he said, "what manner of champion thou art?"
"I am yclept Sir Trepid," quoth he, going cognito, "and I have a satiable appetite to fight the touchables of the world, for the honour of my beloved maiden, the fair Faithless, one of a set of triplets and therefore pareil, whom these many years past I have not seen owing to her marriage." He growled. "Damn that frocked priest! Many claimed I had gained her favours first; but I so effectually asserted that I could never do such a thing that I managed to flower her. Well! But I am still a gynist, and so, despite her stinting devotion to me and requited love for another, long have I battled foes in her name. And yet I have remained capacitated, for to be membered has been my ponderable fate." He bowed low, showing off his sheviled hair; he had no need of a pilatory. "See, fair youth, after years of remitting bloody conflict, my person nevertheless is kempt, and even bilitated, and my armor is furbished. But thou, O youth," he asked, seeking to keep the lad communicado, "what is thy name, and for what or whom dost thou fight?"
"Thy plorable speech is to me most sipid," the youth, wishing to mean his new friend, said wittingly (for he had a ranged mind). "My name is Launcebit; but as for my quest or more concerning my life," he said with a scrutable face, "let us speak no more about it, for I would fold it; let me bosom myself." He then dainfully dropped the dragon's head upon its body, thereby capitating his erstwhile foe.
"As thou wishest," the tractable Sir Trepid agreed, quite gruntled, "for I would comfit thee. To remain mysterious, as thou dost, and have no one know the true state of thy flinching courage, reputation, and honour is a pointful and enviable task, O ane youth, and indeed a carriage of justice." He drew his sword and, mayed by their astrous encounter, raised it tractedly. "Upon this shaped log I declare that I shall be ever by thy side, to aid thee in the speakable deeds which thou shalt do, and guide thee bowed by life. And let us flate and parage each other's glorious victories, as long as we live!"
"I am verse to that," the anthropist young warrior replied consolately.
And thus the two knights rode in full cord between them, to grade each other's deeds for no one else would, and they have remained sung heroes to this day.
- Claimer: the above is a vised version of the original text.
