Or - A tale of Two Princes, A Princess, A Frog, A Toad, One or Two Medium Sized Dragons and a Terrible Truth...
Chapter 1 - The Awakening
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This is the tale of what was before - before the great disaster. This is the tale of the events which invoked the very time paradox that caused all squirrels on Been-There-Done-That Prime to be suddenly and spontaneously replaced with cuckoos.

It was a time of chivalry - a time when great knights roamed the land, fighting their way into power, getting drunk at local inns, conducting medical experiments on small, yellow rodents, and rescuing beautiful monsters in distress from ravenous, ferocious damsels. Perhaps the most famous tale of that time is that of the two medium-sized dragons of Eureka - whom, along with the great (well, sort of) knight Sir Blablahad, embarked on a senseless quest... Erm, sorry, I mean "an epic journey", to slay the two legendary princes of... Erm... Ok, so it's not that great a story, But you'll listen to it anyway, since it's so bloody related to the reason the cuckoo infestation began.

Prince Yorik of Eureka has awakened to another sunny day (for at that time, there still WAS time to speak of).
"Why must I live with this stupid name?" He muttered to himself "I loathe ye, Willyawn Tremblepike!"

This, of course, was the name of a great poet, usually referred to as "The Bird". One of his plays, "Hamlet" (Which, mysteriously, translated to the native language as "The Great Tub of Cement"), had a particularily infamous scene in which the main character mumbles "Alas, Poor Yorik... Yadda-Yadda-Yadda..." under his breath whilst juggling three skulls. This particular Yorik - Not the Tremblepikean one, but the prince - was, as the matter of fact the son of the queen, but not of the king. He has been the son of the king's brother's cousin's former roommate, which the queen was apparantly having an affair with, and this is how the queen was banished and sent to wander endlessly within the Ocean of Soup - A large foggy swamp, a few meters away from the capital. However, this "brother's cousin's former roommate" was in fact the king himself, in disguise, who set the whole ordeal up to give him a convenient excuse to dispose of that blasted woman. However, since the illegal child (which actually WAS a legal child) has been born beforehand, the king decided he wanted to dispose of HIM as well, and so he named him Yorik, after the dead guy, in the hopes the deities would take the hint.

They never did.

And unbeknowst to all parties involved, this has been the first event that caused the tremor of the time sequence.

After this rather senseless and obscure comment was uttered, Prince Yorik of Eureka settled down, stretched, had a nice cup of coffee, and then walked out of the tower his room was in and found himself (to his great surprise) in process of falling into a large pit, inconveniently located where the courtyard once used to be. After falling the few thousands of vertical feet down through layers and layers of ground and eventually crashing on a tall pile of conveniently placed Zeltronian Ultra-Cushions, the sight he saw was nothing short of shocking.

Within the mighty cavernous hole he found himself in, there was nothing but a small, perfectly normal-looking hut. Which naturally indicated that normality itself has been out for lunch for quite a while.

"What in Hell's blazes..." the prince muttered, and as he walked into the hut, he found himself inside a gigantic hall which, according to all sets of laws that may govern physics, could not have fit inside it. A cuckoo clock, which was occupied at that time by a squirrel, was ticking on the wall.
And soon enough, he found himself staring at two immense... No, wait, gigantic... No, actually they were just reasonably large, firebreathing archosaurian lifeforms belonging to the order Draconis Vulgaris. Or, in laymen's terms - two average-to-medium sized dragons. And these two particular Draconis Vulgaris were, at the moment, sitting at a table and playing what appeared to be a friendly game of Neoxian Mega-Chess.

"The Universal Guide of Useless Games" by William C, Backgammon defines "Neoxian Mega-Chess" as "An alternate dimension ripoff of chess, played on three 250x250 square boards situated above each other, with 120 possible types of pieces for each player. A single game of Neoxian Mega Chess is absolutely impossible to win, unless both participants live forever, spend a lifetime playing the game and posess a lot of mind and willpower not to go insane as a result. Quite a frustrating game to play, it is also mysteriously enjoyable, and is, due to its dangerous nature, mainly played as a pastime for either suicidal people who do not wish to kill themselves in a way that will pain them or by taking sleep pills, or by creatures trapped forever in underground caverns guarding silly objects for no apparant reason at all."

"B5 to B-17. Checkmate." Said one of them, who was green and had larger ear-crests than his companion, in an aggravating mock-British accent.
The other Draconis Vulgaris, a blue specimen with a ridge going along its tail and ending in a strange fringe, simply grunted, blowing a whiff of vapor at the mega-chessboard, knocking all the assorted game pieces off of it in the process.
"No need to be so vulgar, Zotzbrue." Said the first one "You've lost fair and square."
"Oh, THAT'S nice to hear." Zotzbrue muttered, in the same aggravating accent (but a different voice) "Do you not know sprinkling salt into other people's wounds is quite an unhounourable thing to do, Byxebyte?"
"I highly doubt dragons count as people, My esteemed colleague." Byxebyte raised a scaly eyeridge.
"Humph." Was all that Zotzbrue had to say.
"Another game, perhaps?" Byxebyte offered.
"No thank you, Byxebyte. I've had enough of this. We've been doomed to be trapped in this confounded underground cavern guarding the blasted squirrel clock, and I've had quite enough of this mad-house game." Zotzbrue muttered "Speaking of which, where are the big, stony walls?"
The two dragons poked their heads out the window and raised their head to the ceiling, to find out that indeed, there wasn't one.
"Hey, there's SKY above us!" Byxebyte gasped "Our jail has been breached! This means we are finally free to finish our great battle with the two evil princes of Fliegnitz!"
"Last time we've tried that, we've gotten ourselves cooped up in here for ALMOST eternity." Zotzbrue muttered "Now, what did that prophet say? 'When your jail shall be breached, the first one whom you shalt meet shalt be of the family Blablahad of Eureka, and it is he that shall be the knight who will help you in your fight against the two princes, if he shall live that long?"
"Quite so, I'm afraid." Byxebyte said in a regretful tone. "With the confounded clock matter, however, I'm not sure how will we ever leave this place... After all, we WERE specifically told to make sure that this squirrel doesn't transform into a cuckoo, because, this being the core of this accursed world, if it goes cuckoo, time will go COMPLETELY mental, I reckon."
"Shush! The readers are not supposed to know that yet!" Zotzbrue exclaimed, effectively shattering the fourth wall, and giving Byxebyte a sharp look.
"Have you read the prologue for this story by any chance? They know all of that rubbish already. And besides, I've already said it, and I do not think the author plans on changing me speech anytime soon." Byxebyte replied nonchalantly, effectively grinding whatever remained of the fourth wall into fine dust.
As Zotzbrue was beginning to say "You may have a point there," he was interrupted by the squirrel leaping out of the clock and squeaking five times before diving back into its chronometric lair.
"Oh dear, tea time." Byxebyte said.
"We're out of tea." Zotzbrue said, and roared frightfully. "AND A DRAGON WITHOUT TEA AT TEA TIME IS A STEAMING, ANGRY ONE!"
Then he blinked, and turned his head to Byxebyte with a questioning gaze. "Oh dear me, have my text colour just changed?" he asked apologetically, effectively reducing the dust that remained of the fourth wall into a whole medley of disoriented sub-atomic particles.
"That seems to be the case, good chap. Seems all better now, but we'd best get some tea before it happens again. That would be most unfortunate. Hey you, human. Mind doing us a favour and getting us any..."
The realization suddenly hit Byxebyte. Human. There was a human in the room, the first one they have seen in a while. And they were just talking about him, too.
He felt like one who has just spoken of the devil, utterly failing to notice that it has been standing in the room for several minutes, and that it was currently tapping a hoof against the floor agitatedly, its arms crossed in front of its chest.
There was a small silence.
"If I may inquire, are you perchance a member of the family Blablahad?" Asked Byxebyte, eventually.

A thousand different thoughts raced through Yorik's mind when the dragon turned to him and asked him a direct question. 300 of them were about running away screaming (in various possible directions and escape routes). An additional 500 were about various methods of death (including incineration by many different forms of flame, being bitten or clawed in many different ways, or just spontaneously dropping dead of the sheer shock of it all). 100 were about cowering in fear, mumbling incoherently and losing concsiousness, 99 were about losing concsiousness without even bothering with mumbling incoherently, and a single one was about a swarm of green pixies wearing nothing but fuzzy party hats, flying across the Ocean of Soup and senselessly chattering in Gaelic.

For you see, when one is confronted by a large creature, the likes of which he has been told never to meddle in the affairs of, "for he is crunchy and tasted well with ketchup", one seldom thinks logically.

For a single second entertaining himself with the notion of the green pixies again, he then chose the only logical course of action he could think of.

He cowered in fear and rapidly blurted out "I... quite am. Prince Yorik Blablahad, sixty-ninth prince of the Royal Kingdom of Eureka, founded 969 BBTDTPCE (Translation - Before Been-There-Done-That-Prime-Common-Era), All rights reserved to Gad Deutsch, 2001-2008."

... And then, he lost concsiousness.

"It is quite amazing, the way a human begins to speak as fast as a speeding bullet when confronted by dragons..." Zotzbrue said, with a semi-yawn.
"Poor thing." Byxebyte said "I believe we should take him to the Prophet."

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