# Icy White and the Seven Gully Dwarves



## Dragongirl (Nov 20, 2006)

I originally wrote and posted this in 2003.  Since I am back on ENWorld thought I would post it again and see what people think.

Icy White and the Seven Gully Dwarves
By W. Shade

Icy white was wandering down a forest path, and happened across a run down cabin. She tentatively walks up to the door and knocks. From within she can hear a muffled "run like crazy"
followed by a lot of bumps and crashes. Icy White then tries the doorknob, finding it unlocked she slowly opens the door and steps in. After her eyes adjust to the darkness she can make out three rooms, all filthy and cluttered with all kinds of items.

In the corner of her eye she notices some movement and quickly turns to look. She is just in time to see a squat creature whose eyes go large with fear, cover itself in what once may have been a curtain. Then she notices another similar creature attempting to hide behind a column. She had noticed it before
since it is about twice as wide as the column but mistook it for a pile of refuse.

She slowly walks up to the column and bends over to peer around it coming face to face with the creature and says "hello", but it promptly squeals and runs across the room to try to hide under the bed. Icy White can't help but to giggle as she watches the poor thing try to get under the bed but only succeeding to get its head and shoulders underneath. She then walks over to the bed and says hello again. The creature stops it's struggling but does not respond.

"I can see you there, under the bed" says Icy White.
"Nope" comes the reply.
"Yes I can, you were behind that column and I saw you come over to the bed to hide".
"Nope, no see me, I no see you, you no see me".
"Well, if I can't see you, how can I be talking to you?".
"Lucky guess" comes from under the bed.
With a slight pout to her lips Icy White says "It's not a lucky guess, I saw you come over here to
hide, and most of you is sticking out from under the bed".
"Nope".
"YES YOU ARE!"
"Nope".
"If you are not sticking out, could I do this?" says Icy White as she gives the creature a good poke in the rump. THUMP goes the bed which rises up a couple feet and "YEEEEEOW" goes the creature.

"Why you do that?" asks the aggrieved looking creature, while rubbing it's rear.
"To show you that I could see you, I just wanted to talk to you. My name is Icy White, what is yours?"
"Ugh".
"Ugh? what's wrong?"
"You poke me"
"Yes, I did, and I am sorry. Won't you tell me your name?"
"Ugh".
"Oh get over the poke already, I could not have you poked you that hard! Are you going to tell me your name or not?"
"Ugh, Ugh me name".
"Ugh is your name? What kind of name is that? Oh never mind!"

"So, what kind of creature are you?" asks Icy White "And how many of your are there here?"
"There be two gully dwarves".
"Gully dwarves.....seem to recall that name from children's tales. Two of you eh? Just you and your friend under that curtain then. Why don't you call him, or is it her? out so we can all chat?".
"Alright" says Ugh, "Everybody come out!".

Before she knows what is going on Icy White finds herself surrounded by little blobs of gully dwarf. "My but there are more than two of you". Ugh looks around and says "Nope, two". Another gully dwarf who was paying attention nods her head and says, "Yup, two, that about right.”

"Now let me see" says Icy White as she starts to count the dwarves "Oh please stand still . . . five, six, seven." "There are seven of you.” “Do you all live here?”
“Yup, this This Place.”
“Do you think I could stay here?” asked Icy White “You see I recently ran away from home and have no place to go.”
“Sure, no problem”.
“Oh thank you” replied Icy White “though I think we are going to need to do some cleaning up here” she said as she looked around the cabin. “Come along let’s get busy.”

Several hours later, after doing a tremendous amount of work Icy White looks over the results. “Well, I don’t think we got rid of any of the filth, just moved it” she said as she blew stray hair away from her face. “At least I have a reasonably clean area for me.” “Speaking of which, think I am going to sleep now, I am so tired, good night all.”

The next morning Icy White awakens and sits up in her makeshift bed, yawning.
“Who dat?” asked a dwarf.
“Dunno” said Ugh.
“She tall”
“Tall? Tall here!!! RUN LIKE CRAZY!!” Followed by mayhem as all the dwarves dive for cover. Two dwarves end up getting into a fight as one tries to hide behind the other, just to have the other run and hide behind the first.
Standing up, Icy White exclaims “Oh stop that!!! I am Icy White, I arrived here yesterday, don’t you remember?”
“Oh ya, fergot about you” replied a female dwarf “S’alright she safe.”
Sheepishly the gully dwarves came out from their hiding places and start to go about their business. “Well, why don’t we find out who everyone is” said Icy White. “What are your names?”
“UgJhaFixmTaeillr. . . “ start the dwarves.
“WHOAH, one at a time” exclaimed Icy White. “You, what is your name” she said pointing to the most talkative female.
“Talli.”
“And you?”
“Jammo.” and on down the line until Icy got all their names.

“Ugh, come here I am going to teach you to count.”
“Ok” said Ugh, though he looked less than enthusiastic.
“Now watch me Ugh, one . . . two . . . three” she said as she ticked off her fingers slowly until she got to ten. “Now you do it.”
“Do what?”
“Count to ten silly.”
“Dunno count to ten.”
“Grrrr, ok watch me again, watch carefully” said Icy White as her foot started a slight tapping in irritation. “One...two...” she began again.
“What she doin?” asked Talli to Ugh.
“She naming her fingers.”
“Why?”
“Dunno” said Ugh.
“Huh, that silly, gots enuf names to member already, don’t need names fer fingers” replied Talli.
“I AM NOT NAMING MY FINGERS!!” . . . deep breath. . . “I am showing Ugh how to count to ten.”
“Why?” asked Talli.
Icy gave up on teaching the dwarves to count when one day Ugh came up to her and proudly started to tick off his fingers telling her the names of each of them "grabber, picker, finder . . ."
“Oh never mind” said Icy White in disgust.


“Hmm I am hungry” said Icy White. “Do any of you have any food?”
“Yup, we cooking stew.”
“Stew eh? That sounds great.” Icy White walks over to the other room where the gully dwarves have a fire going. “Ewww that smells horrible! What is in it, and why is it moving?”
“All kinds stuff, mushrooms, leaves, roots, worms . . .”
“WORMS? Yuck!!”
“No like worms? asked Ugh. “They good, not as good as slugs, but good.”
“No, I don’t like worms.” said Icy White. “Though to be fair I have never tried them, and I don’t think I want to.” “I passed some bushes with berries yesterday, I think I will go get some of those.”
“Ok, but you dun know what you missing” said Talli.

And so several months went by with Icy White living with the gully dwarves. Icy White succeeded in getting the dwarves to clean themselves up, and a more limited success with keeping the cabin cleaned. All of which the dwarves found annoying, but did it to please Icy White. Of course things perked up when someone would forget who Icy White was and call out the standard alarm. Icy gave up on teaching the dwarves to count, and thought herself lucky just to keep them clean enough not to smell . . . well, not to smell too badly.

One day while cleaning around outside the cabin Icy White noticed a figure far off in the distance. Icy stood there watching the stranger, and Ugh came over to ask her what she was doing.
“I don’t like the look of that one” said Icy.
“Just nother tall” said Ugh.
“No, I don’t think she is just another tall, I mean person. Something just doesn’t feel right.”
“No feel right? You sick?”
“No no, I can’t explain it, just have an uneasy feeling. Maybe just because she is a stranger, anyway I don’t think we should let her see us.”
“Huh? Feeling sick about tall? What you mean?” said Ugh as she scratched at his nose.
“It means run like crazy” replied Icy. In moments all the dwarves were out of sight and Icy quickly hid behind some bushes. The stranger drew closer and Icy could make out more, the stranger was an old woman, ancient even. She appeared to be carrying a basket of apples, no doubt picked from some
wild apple trees down the path. Still, Icy did not show herself, though she almost went to help when the crone tripped and spilled her apples. Finally the old woman disappeared and Icy White came out of hiding and gave the all clear.

Later that night Icy White was watching the dwarves preparing food, this time one of the dwarves had found a dead crow and so it was crow stew night.
“Pretty tall want some stew?” asked Talli.
“No thanks, I am hungry but not THAT hungry” replied Icy.
“Here you go” said Ugh, holding out an apple.
“Oh thank you Ugh’ said Icy as she gave him a quick peck on the tip of his nose. Icy giggled at the blush blossoming on Ugh’s face and started in on her apple. An hour later Icy suddenly sat down not feeling well at all. “Ugh where did you get that apple?”
“Found it.”
“Found it where?”
“In front of cabin, was just there, dunno why.”
“Oh my” said Icy White as she fell asleep.

Several days went by before the dwarves realized that they were getting rather dirty, and a couple of them wondered why Icy White was not chiding them. Talli went over to Icy and poked her. “Hey, we getting dirty, dat ok?” Talli then tried various ways of trying to wake up Icy White, the other dwarves
joined in thinking it a lot of run. Finally they exhausted all they could think of to revive Icy White, including waving their “magical” dead lizards and birds at her. Ugh and Talli moved Icy onto her bed and covered her as if she were going to bed. And there she remained for several weeks, Talli taking it upon herself to dust Icy once a day, or at least whenever she thought about it.

One day a sharp “RUN LIKE CRAZY” could be heard as one of the dwarves espied a rider coming down the forest path. The rider would have rode right past if at the last moment Ugh had not come out from hiding and start calling out to the rider, which was quite brave for a gully dwarf. It was all the rider could do to stop his horse from trampling the suddenly appearing dwarf. “Well, hello there”
said the rider.
“Ello tall, I got other tall.” said Ugh.
“Other tall? What are you talking about?”
“Other tall in cabin, like I told you!! Come.” commanded Ugh as he started for the door. The bemused rider dismounted and followed the dwarf into the cabin. “See other tall” said Ugh as he
pointed to Icy White laying on her bed.
“She is beautiful” said the rider. “Who is she?”
“She tall.”
“She doesn’t look very tall, certainly not as tall as me, what is her name?” Just at that moment the rider’s horse looked in the cabin scaring Ugh into hiding. The rider finally noticed that the strange little creature had gone and returned his gaze at Icy White. “Forgive me, but I just have to” said the rider, barely a whisper as he leaned over and gave Icy White a gentle kiss.

Then Icy White started to stir and opened her eyes. “Why hello there” she said. “Who are you?”
“My name Rolland my lady, and yours?”
“Icy White” she replied as she began to look around her. There in his favorite hiding place was good ol Ugh behind the column. With a somewhat wistful sigh she asked “Do you think you could get me out of here before they forget why they are hiding?”
“Of course my lady.”
“My hero!”

The End


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## Guilberwood (Nov 23, 2006)

Nice story!

This tale really portraited the "gully dwarf" way of life, and was a lot of fun to read!

Gratz

Guilberwood


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## Dragongirl (Nov 26, 2006)

Guilberwood said:
			
		

> Nice story!
> 
> This tale really portraited the "gully dwarf" way of life, and was a lot of fun to read!
> 
> ...




Thank you very much.


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## Brimshack (Nov 27, 2006)

Okay, that story cracks me up. Thank you for posting it.


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