The air was filled with excitement, festivities and revelry up and down the streets of the Fallow Shale. It had finally come, the 47th Annual Harvest Time Festival. And best of all was the showdown of facial follicles, the best of the bearded, the upper lip ruler of all. It was time for the annual Best Beard, Chops, Mustache and More Competition! Who would be crowned the King of Mustache Mountain!
The 47th Annual Harvest Time Festival
Every year, during the second week of Tevrous in the gorgeous city of Fallow Shale, tucked in the southwestern tip of Casarei is held the Harvest Time Festival. It is an annual celebration of fair weather, good fortune, and a, hopefully, bountiful harvest. Each year a bevy of stalls, games, and entertainments are held to the delight of the residents of the city.
One of the most popular of the festivities during The Harvest Time Festival is the
Best Beard, Chops, Mustache and More Competition. You see, one of the most long-standing past times amongst men in the city of Fallow Shale is the grooming, displaying, and celebration of all shapes and sizes of facial hair. And this event is what drives that fad year after year.
During the Best Beard, Chops, Mustache and More Competition, the greats of the well-whiskered community battle for beard supremacy and to see who will be crowned the best of the best in beardom and the King of Mustache Mountain. It is a fierce and scruffy competition, but one that has been ruled by two bombastic and beautifully groomed gentleman for the past four years.
Sir Florian Delannoy, a well-primmed and exquisitely manicured knight, and
Asier Castillero a local and not so humble barkeep. These two fierce facial follicle warriors have battled each other for supremacy for the past four years, each trading victories and being crowned the King of Mustache Mountain back and forth. And in the year of 708 EoC, they sat at two wins apiece, and the competition was hotter than coals after a long burn.
The Argument and Disaster
It was the night of the 8th of Tevrous, one more night of festivities and celebration before the highly anticipated finals of the Best Beard, Chops, Mustache and More Competition of 708. The whole town was abuzz with who would become the King of Mustache Mountain that year, and much like the last four years, it came down to just two competitors. Sir Florian Delannoy and Asier Castillero. No surprise there, but what made it so tantalizing was that each competitor was vying to break the tie that they had held since last year's contest. They were two apiece, and as everyone knew once you passed your fifth year of competition it was downhill from there. It was likely that this may be the last year that these two mustachioed men would compete at this high a level. The tie had to be broken, but who would come out on top and be crowned the grand victor of all beardom and that year's King of Mustache Mountain.
That night, Asier Castillero was tending to his bar,
The Lip Weasel, a busy night that he couldn't afford to take off regardless of the competition tomorrow afternoon. Everything was going swimmingly until he walked in, his upper lip arch-enemy himself, Sir Florian Delannoy, with his foppish copy cat mustachioed posse in tow. They pushed and caroused their way into his already packed bar and took up residents at a corner table. He paid them no mind, if they paid their bill and didn't cause issues he wouldn't push any buttons. He would beat that poser's lame whiskers right off that pompous lip of his tomorrow anyways.
Or that is what he hoped had happened, within moments of Delannoy's posse settling in Castillero heard a raucous argument between several bar-goers coming from their corner. It was obvious that Delannoy's party had engaged in a heated argument with a group of Castillero's fans. And it looked to be coming to blows soon, so Castillero went against his better judgement and entered the fray to break up the argument.
Castillero managed to quell the argument, at least momentarily, sending each of the parties to their respective corners. With Delannoy's supporters congregating in his corner, and Castillero's fans gathering behind him. The rest of the bar quickly saw the tense standoff and stopped to watch. Castillero requested that Delannoy and his posse leave his bar, stating that their presence was riling up his patrons. It seemed as if Delannoy was in agreeance, stating that they had entered the first bar they had seen, unaware that its barkeep and owner was Castillero.
Delannoy began to stand, but just then, a soaring bottle from behind Castillero's back smashed directly into the face of the prim knight. Screaming in pain he reeled, his hands clutching at his face, as those in attendance gasped in horror. In a moment of true shock, Delannoy lowered his shaking hands to reveal that his perfectly trimmed mustache had been gruesomely torn straight off his lip from the shattering of the bottle upon his head. Even Castillero's eyes widened in horror, no man should have to withstand that kind of trauma he thought. But before he could act or even attempt to lend a hand to his ailing rival, Delannoy's posse pounced in rage, plummeting into Castillero's supporters shouting insults and accusations of sabotage. In response Castillero's fans began to fight back, throwing punches, breaking bottles, and worst of all, pulling at each other's beards.
How heinous!
Castillero did all he could but he soon found himself swept off his feet and thrown into the corner, bashing his head off the side of a table and falling unconscious.
The Riot
When he woke, it was already the
next morning, his bar had been torn asunder. Windows had been busted, floorboards were torn up, the bar smashed in and bottles cracked, broken and left bleeding their precious liquids out. He rubbed his head and stood, just in time to see two local guards enter the bar. They spotted him immediately and rushed over, but instead of checking to see if he was alright they cuffed him and hauled him to the local jail.
Castillero was thrown into a
dirty prison cell in a heap and was told that his and Delannoy's actions had caused a bar fight so extreme and heated, that the whole bar got into a tizzy and eventually poured out into the streets causing a
full-blown riot in the city. The participants in the riot continued to fight each other in the streets causing damage to storefronts, destroying signs, breaking in doors, smashing windows, and causing all sorts of chaos in their extreme lust to prove which camp had the superior mustachioed champion. It had only been quelled in the early hours of the morning dawn.
Castillero was appalled at these events and pleaded with the guards to let him go so he could make amends, and hopefully still attend the competition, though they denied him and said he would sit here until an appropriate punishment could be brought upon them both. He slumped to the ground distraught at his fate and realized that he wasn't alone in his cell. Sitting next to him, with a bandaged upper lip, was Dellanoy himself, a scowl written across his face. He admonished Castillero, saying he was intending to leave his bar once things had gotten tense, and then one of Castillero's goons had to go and destroy his well-manicured lip mane. Castillero wanted to defend his innocence and prove he knew nothing of the individual who had thrown the bottle or why the had done so, but before he could the guards burst back into the room. And shortly behind them, was the head judge and officiant of the Beast Beard, Chops, Mustache and More Competition.
Disqualification and End of an Era
It was then and there that the worst possible outcome for the two rivals in the
court of best beardom occurred. They had both been disqualified from the finals of the competition and barred from reentering for life as punishment for their roles in the riot that would soon become known as The Great Mustache Fracas of 708. It was a harsh blow to the prickly egos of both men, who now knew they would never again have a chance to truly crown the superior mustached man. Having been given the harshest punishment available the two were granted their freedom and they went their separate ways without saying another word to one another.
To this day the two have not spoken, Castillero now lives on a small farm outside of the city limits and rarely speaks with anyone, living in shame for his part in the riots. As for Delannoy, he returned to the capital of Casarei, and continued his duties as a knight of the realm, to this day he has never regrown his mustache. And most mysterious of all is the identity of the bottle thrower, as no one ever came forward as the perpetrator. It is a commonly debated topic in the bars and pubs of Casarei as to if this individual meant to start such a raucous fracas or if they had intended to end the reigns of the two kings all along.
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