Challenge #00172: One Fine Afternoon in the Halls of Higher Education
“When I said that it was nice that you could recite the same dirty limerick in 5 different languages and have it rhyme, I was not asking for a demonstration.”
“Aaaw… but I’m almost up to Pharsi. Do you know how hard it is to rhyme ‘Calcutta’ in Pharsi?”
“No, and I don’t particularly care. We’re supposed to be working on theoretical math, not filthy poetry.”
“…aaaaawwww…”
“Fo-cusss…”
“But this isn’t as much fun.”
“Ai! Focus.”
Sara pouted. “…the Pharsi one was fun…”
“Math. Now.”
[Muse food remaining: 4 (fic war prompts, 0). Submit a prompt! Ask a question! Buy my stories!]
Non Compos Mentis
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
The things I come up with when a blackout hits…
It's... It's Green
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Girl Genius AU with added Sara :)
Broken Minds
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Comicverse crackfic circa Winding Way.
Flotsam
An Archive of Our Own, a project of the Organization for Transformative Works
Flotsam in it’s loquacious entirety. Up on AO3.
(#00154)
The entire nerd portion of the school moaned in disappointment. They all knew what it meant. The next talent show would be stripped, pasteurized, sanitized and otherwise made dull, bland, and completely boring.
“And I was going to juggle a chainsaw, a bowling ball, and a fresh egg,” whined Kurt.
Only one was cackling.
“Sara, no-o-o-o-o-o…” said Todd, possibly on automatic.
“But I was going to give them exactly what they wanted, and nothing of what they asked for,” protested Sara. “It’s the ultimate serving of kharma.”
“Not th’ way you do kharma, sweetums. You want ‘em to shut down the talent show altogether?”
Sara grumped. “They would, too. Straight-boxed mundanes…” She fell silent and still, but it was still evident that she was thinking too hard about it all. “You know… there *is* that theatre for rent, just down the road…”
It became Cirque du Bayville, and boasted “all the talent the school board was scared to display!”
And it made a fortune.
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(#00152)
They had called themselves the League of Justice. Ordinary folks who used sparky inventions to foil, imprison, or otherwise stop other sparks. And they caught Sara.
She, and her clank storage trunk, were the only things to come out of the resulting crater.
“I see you rescued yourself,” said Gil.
“I told them not to mess with my luggage. They should have taken me seriously.”
“What were they doing?”
“Changing the course of history, they believed,” Sara looked back. “They finished up changing the course of the river, alas.”
“Making a new lake,” Gil noted.
“I begged them to come into the box with me… they didn’t understand.”
“Some people never do.”
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(#00150)
[AN: Since I have a fic in progress with Sara turning up in the GG universe, I can get away with both!]
She really should not have followed master Gilgamesh. But she had and, having followed master Gilgamesh, found an adventure. This, though, was a lull-point. Fixing and repairing and building and, strangely enough, taking a well-deserved rest.
Which was how she met Mama/Jaegergeneral Gkika. She was all sharp smiles and, for a Jaeger, cunning.
They conversed for a while about recipes and this or that, and then she said it. “Und how iss der liddle one?”
Sara did her best to hide the frisson of terror that almost stopped her heart. “I’m sure I don’t know what you mean,” she said, cool and frosty. Outside, nothing had changed. Inside, it was shrieking panic and tempest in progress.
“Der liddle one hyu keeps in dat big-liddle movink box of yours.”
Islands shattered. Stars exploded. Civilizations fell in rains of fire. This Jaeger had found Jane!
Sara very calmly gave her a generous portion of mutton and clootie dumplings. She’d overdone the nutmeg, but that was the point. She needed this nosy Jaeger napping while she checked on everything.
Someone - possibly Gkika - had turned her tent upside-down. Contents and all. And without Sparky intervention.
Jane was fine. Thank the forces of Kismet. And it was a relatively minor matter to turn everything to rights. But Gkika knew. Jaegergeneral or not, everyone knew that the best way to get a Jaegermonster to keep a secret was to sew it into their severed head and bury it under half a mountain.
Ergo, in order to protect Jane, Sara had to keep Gkika… distracted.
Master Gilgamesh would notice if his best Jaeger suddenly lost her head.
Sara began by doping her dinner with Flattus Beans. Gkika retaliated by aiming her fart flares in Sara’s general direction. Sara concocted a fang paste that encapsulated any attempted vocalization in fuchsia bubbles. Gkika somehow painted Sara’s travelling box with unicorns and flowers.
But everyone agreed it was the trio of singing mimmoths that did the trick.
They were in a little cage, singing _Blue Moon_.
Gkika, gently sizzling from her last attempt on Sara, said, “Them vuns, hyu don’t want to eat all at vunce.”
“Please, I spent hours on their little tuxedoes.”
“How…?” said Gil.
“Well, the bow ties were a bit bothersome, but once you have the correct magnification, you just miniaturize a 37 Gargantuan. They’re a surprising match to the humanoid frame.”
“How do you get them to stop?”
“Oh.” Sara faced the cage and bowed slightly. “That will do, gentlemen.”
The mimmoths trumpeted a final ‘ta-dah!’ with their trunks and began to graze on their bedding.
“And now,” said Gil, in the manner of all men battling an incipient migraine. “WHY?”
“She iz very goot mama,” said Gkika. “Hy don’ mind at all. She’s schtopped me tellink you about der liddle vun so often, hy almost forget she’s dere.”
“I knew I should have arranged a more permanent accident,” muttered Sara.
“Little… one…” Gil boggled. “I would know if there was a baby in the camp. And Miss Adrien is far too young to have birthed an older child. Just… stop this nonsense and stay focussed on our primary task, if you please.”
Oceans of relief almost drowned her. Sara breathed out. “Yes, sir. Of course, sir.” She watched him leave to fix the latest incipient disaster and laughter bubbled up out of her. “How about that,” said Sara. “An improbable truth is invisible! I needn’t have worried so hard.”
“Hy just vanted to help make der liddle dresses. Und put der liddle bows in her hair.”
Sara reluctantly offered her hand. “Pax puero?”
“Ja!”
Ever afterwards, Gil would only ever glancingly worry about the tea parties in Sara’s tent…
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(#00149)
Sara really should not have sung. That had been the ultimate bone of contention. Especially since it was _Anything You Can Do, I Can Do Better_.
Amara would not back down. Neither would Sara.
So now the danger room had been set up as two identical kitchens, and a black neutral zone between them. Randomizers were set to pick random ingredients from anywhere in the world, and raise them up into the neutral zone for the competitors to use.
The dias rose. The containment fell away to reveal…
Thousands of live crickets. They spilled like water from the device and spread like a cloud into the danger room.
Sara, all calm and logic, said, “You forgot to program in the tank, Doctor McCoy…”
Amara shrieked and fled for the ceiling.
And that was how Sara won a cooking contest without having to cook.
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