Challenge #00746 - B015: Unlikely Meetings
Kurt Wagner meets Francoeur. How do Todd and Emile get on?
It was the first show that the audience ran out on. But, to be completely fair, it was the first one that included the surprise appearance of a blue, fuzzy demon and some kind of humanoid amphibian thing.
Carlotta was ticked, of course. Especially at the fact that both creatures could stick to walls and ceilings, far out of reach of the diminutive cabaret hostess. There was something of a flap about what to do.
Then it turned out that the fuzzy demon spoke French. And German, Swiss, Dutch, a smattering of Italian, and enough Russian and Spanish to cuss in.
Most of which he rattled through as Francoeur approached, bare-handed and bare-footed so he, too, could cling to nonstandard surfaces.
“We’re mostly harmless, I promise!”
Francoeur startled with a dovelike coo.
The froggy one, now hiding behind the demon, rattled off something that could have been English in a kind light, but was simply unintelligible to everyone else in the room. The demon could understand him and immediately snapped, “Clappe!”
There were intense, topsy-turvy negotiations by the chandelier, and then Francoeur set them up at a table.
“Yofuzzywhattheheck?” mumbled the frog.
The blue demon - named Kurt - explained in two languages that he and his associate - named Todd - were temporarily temporal refugees. They came from the very far distant future of 2012. One hundred years in the future. And possibly another dimension, as a seven-foot-tall singing flea would definitely have caught a Professor Xavier’s attention.
Which lead to the question of how to house them until such time as whatever brought them there decided to take them back.
Neither of the mutants were at all musical. Kurt had physical limitations and Todd had more affinity with mechanical things than anything that made music. But they were acrobatic and, after a few training sessions, came up with something that sort of fit in with the rest of the cabaret.
Which lead to the problems of lodging.
Kurt shed. Todd was sticky, and allergic to anything that would help him be clean. Emile came to the rescue and offered his projection room as emergency quarters.
*
“What did you do to my projector?” Emile wailed.
“Uh…” said Todd. “[Got bored an’ fixed it.]”
Kurt, of course, provided translations.
“IT WASN’T BROKEN!”
“[Could'a fooled me, yo. That thing was whack. It works way better, now.]” He gave a demonstration, which caused some uproar in the Parisiennes who had wandered in.
The world in general and Paris in particular was not ready for three-dimensional, full hologram technology with surround sound.
Emile, at least, was rather glad to see them return to the realm they started from.
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Challenge #00745 - B014: Baldie
B’rka, the adventures of a
gooseNumidid with no feathers (For the prompt inspiration, see Borka)
The chick had been left in her nest. It was weak and cold and hungry. Serka knew that she didn’t have the time to call emergency services. And, since it was night, there was a high likelihood that they wouldn’t turn up until morning. By which time it would be far too late for the newly-hatched keet.
She could see why her mother had abandoned her. There was no down on the tiny keet. No indication of any part of her skin that was meant to grow feathers. Not even a hint of down.
Serka loaned the trembling infant her warmth and regurgitated some of her dinner. She knew what the officials would do for this poor child. For the good of the flock. Serka could not bring herself to do that to a baby.
There was only one place that would welcome such an unusual keet. Which lead to the utterly sane decision to emigrate to Toxic Island, the definitive insane destination for a single mother with a child.
*
B'rka knew she was different. When others fledged, her human friends worked on improvements for her artificial wings.
For summer and winter, she chose clothes. And not just the typical Numidid vest and leg-wraps. She had clothes that covered all the areas where other keets had feathers. Some were bright and happy, while others were dull or matched the pattern of her Mama.
There was another difference. Other keets had as many as seven mothers. B'rka just had one. And no father. It was a lonely house in the middle of the Human city, Huatthehell, but they shared it with a dog and they had friendly neighbours and everyone knew her.
When she was smaller, B'rka would ride their dog, Harg, but now he was strictly for pulling her cart. Harg was a lot faster than even the fastest of her age-mates. And the cart was made specially to avoid any kind of accident.
But as time went by, B'rka could see, more and more, how she was different to the other Numidid. Her own name was an accidental syllable away from the word for ‘bald’, and some of the meaner keets risked expulsion from school for continuing to use it.
B'rka never let the names stop her. With the help of human intervention, she could glide just as well as any normal keet. She could glide so well that others accused her of cheating when she reached a race-point ahead of one of her feathered age-mates. And she could certainly climb faster than anyone she knew.
But her real passion was science. No other field would take her in just for the love of it. No other field welcomed her under its metaphorical wing like science did.
And, when it came down to the barest of essentials, B'rka wanted to understand why she had been born without feathers.
But her personal anomaly lead to so much other information. How heat retention worked, the genes behind hyper-plumage, how and why follicles appeared at all, the essential role of the body mite in immunity procedures… it went on an on.
Science loved her back. She learned as the humans had learned, that by studying the unusual, one gained understanding of the normal.
And because of her accomplishments, she was among the first to campaign for an end to mutation-related infanticide.
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Challenge #00741 - B010: Not Quite MST3K
“Guys! Guys! I have a loaded machine pistol in my hand and I have no idea what I’m doing!”
Shayde giggled. “Awright. That one had a point. The goal is tae make fun of the movie, not the common hollywood tropes, ye ken.”
“It’s still fun,” argued a SPOEn who called herself Molly Ringwald.
“Aye, it is tha’.” She pointed at the screen. “BOOM! Take a shot!” She took a shot of mini M&M’s and cackled as the fight scene began to unroll.
“They’re wrestling. Do we sing Blue Danube?”
“Oh aye! Da dum, da dum, da daaaaa…”
Rael observed it all from a safe distance. The uneasy peace between Shayde and the SPOEns largely depended on an MST3K night at the Retro Cinema. As long as anyone didn’t launch into their spiel… things might actually settle down for a change.
Rael began to wish he knew of any deities that did spec work.
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[And now I’ve used over 100% of my firkin data. This is going to be SUCH fun :P]
Challenge #00740 - B009: Fighting Against the Stereotype
http://boundlessinspiration.tumblr.com/post/106944373313/hurryupmerlin-thegirlwithgoldeyes-imagine-a
“Bolin! Hey,” Sasha smiled for her. “It’s so rare to see you off night shift.”
“Yeah. Tell me about it.” Safely indoors and out of direct sunlight, Bolin shed her hood and took off her sunglasses.
Sasha burst out laughing. “What’s with the war paint?”
“Zinc oxide is the only sunblock I can wear. It comes in teeny-tiny pots and a range of colours. None of which match. So… Kabuki dragon.” She gestured at her own face. “I need complete coverage if I’m to get through the day without blisters.”
“Damn,” Sasha shook her head. “I keep forgetting about your sensitivities. I mean, apart from the monthly trip to the ER because of your garlic bread binge.”
“Still. Totally. Worth it,” Bolin laughed. She had a careful smile. Never wide or open. Always guarded. It had to be. Smiling too much might make people realise something. “Now… What’s this about all hands on deck?”
“The Closet Monster Ripper sent in a note saying that the next victim was already staked out.”
“If that’s a real letter. I told the Chief it didn’t smell right.”
“Your nose is never wrong…”
“Correction, my nose is wrong one day in the month, and that day is the day after Garlic Bread Day. Which I have to miss out on thanks to this city search. Let me guess. We have a BOLO out on any parked vans with someone inside, outside of residential areas.”
“Yyyyyup.” Sasha finished her paperwork with a flourish. “We’re out in five. Any of your famous inspirations?”
“The ripper’s too smart to be visible. If I were to guess, I’d say the perp scopes out the houses from more than one invisible sources. We’re not looking for a parked van. We’re looking for suspicious joggers or hidden webcams where nobody would look.” Bolin toured in front of the boards. One was full of kidnapped children. “And the next victim is going to be on the lower East side.”
“What? How can you tell?”
Bolin lined up the children on the timeline. Hispanic, Native American, Black, Asian, White. Hispanic, Black, Asian, white. Black, Black, Black White. “Our perp picks at least three lower-class families before going after a more affluent white family. He’s just hit a gated community last week. If we’re going to find him, we’re going to find him in a low-rent area that the police either avoid, or go in like they’re going to war.”
Sasha boggled at the timeline. “That fucking shit… he’s using our own racism against us…”
The hunt was on. And, if she was really lucky, she could drain this bastard and get away with it. Something about pedo blood made them extra tasty…
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Challenge #00739 - B008: Havenworlders V Humans
Hypothetically, a universe where keratin (our hair and fingernails) is a rare and valuable resource. Accounting for the sugar walls from a previous story it would potentially be considered a strong, nonreactive material.
Seeing humans with it on must be like watching someone walk around with steel-tipped claws and spun-titanium jewellery. Yeah it’s a small fortune but a) the person it’s attached to must be scary as all get-out and b) it’s practically a weapon in its own right, you’re not going to mess with them even if they are carrying enough to finance a small spaceship crew.
Space was dangerous. Just going up there was an exercise requiring years of training, conditioning, and a certain amount of armour. Srisi knew this, because she was obsessed with space. And this… thing… that had landed in her Uncle’s fallow paddock had come from space.
Srisi had gone to check the fire, with the special anti-fire suit in her pack and a couple of barrels of fire retardant on the saddles of her mount, Bleerh. But none of that proved necessary, because something by the fire was already putting it out.
She watched from hiding, of course. This creature was immense. Taller than a building, and the craft, half-buried in the soil at the end of a very long furrow, appeared to be made out of metal.
Metal! One of the few substances that could cut pure sucrose, once it had set! The most precious of substances, in a structure big enough to be a city for her fellow Ariaseans. Srisi watched in amazement as it pulled up entire Stonehide trees and ripped them to pieces with its hands.
It took four strong males and special tools to down a Stonehide tree.
This was a monster.
But, instead of going on a rampage, the giant creature built a controlled fire and started talking to itself.
As the light faded, Srisi realised that it was inside metal armour. That did not make it any less terrifying.
She turned tail and ran for her Uncle.
*
Once inside the sterile environment, a converted hangar for immense blimp-ships, the Hoomin female was only too glad to shed her metal suit.
Srisi found herself the next best thing to an expert on the Hoomin despite avoiding contact with her. Srisi stayed on the other side of a re-enforced Plex barrier while she and the Hoomin took turns trying to write to each other. Backwards.
So far, they were up to numbers.
Dot was one. Line was two. Triangle, three… and so on. After four, the Hoomin made stars with five and six, but seven was a square and a triangle, one inside the other.
They were obviously limited by their artistic skills.
Words came through, of course. Some were easier than others. Hoomins could eat sucrose. She said it was sweet. Hoomins grew keratin. Naturally! So far, the Ariaseans had only manufactured keratin in labs, and there was a certain amount of stunned amazement to watch the Hoomin casually clip her fingers, toes and hair into the special basket before it went through a rigorous cleansing process.
A small fortune in keratin on a weekly basis.
Srisi’s nation of Yarine went from an also-ran to a major contender in the space of a season. All because the Hoomin clipped her nails.
Her name was Lyn. Srisi spent as much time learning to say it as Lyn did trying to pronounce hers. They became friends, of a sort. Even though they could never touch.
The bacteria that inhabited Lyn’s skin was deadly to Ariaseans. As were the enzymes in Lyn’s saliva. Srisi learned a new word. Deathworlder. Someone who had undergone evolution on a planet that was actively trying to kill them.
Srisi encouraged the efforts to replicate Lyn’s hair growing capabilities in the lab. Cheered when they had nailed down the keratin nails. But when she found out they were trying to weaponise Lyn’s bacteria and enzymes…
That’s when she hatched the escape plan.
Lyn could do weird things with her body. Including making it appear as if she could detach her thumb from her hand. It was that trick that had the guards in panic attacks, and allowed them to make it all the way to Lyn’s restored ship.
It was for the best that Srisi stayed behind.
Space was dangerous, and Lyn was proof.
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Challenge #00738 - B007: Draco Concilium
Dragon Convention, Not just European please, there are Chinese, Pernese, Cartoon dragons, Reluctant and Mu Shu, Better stick to the Mythical and Literary type. Have Fun.
The place was huge. It had to be. Some attendees needed to break the rules of physics just to exist[1]. And even a relatively small number of attendees managed to make a crowd.
Neg’ret waited patiently behind a Rainbow Serpent making out with a Quetzalcoatl and tried to pay more attention to the singing Luck Dragon dancing in the darkening sky. Luck Dragons had the best voices. Mortals frequently likened it to the ringing of a gold bell. But mortals didn’t have the sensitivity of Dragons.
His personal sense of pitch and tone that made him perfectly suited for his day job in the mortal world. But today was not a day for mortal things.
“Squishy,” rumbled a voice behind him. A claw poked the small of his back. “What are you doing here, two-leg? Are you in the buffet?”
He checked over his shoulder. One of the greater dragons of Europe. A snub-nosed one. And, judging by the dull appearance of hir scales, one of the inevitable ones about to start the traditional convention plague. This was a Dragon who couldn’t smell what was right in front of hir.
“I’m a dragon just like you, hombre,” said Neg’ret. “I just find this form more convenient.” He had been amongst mortals almost too long. While it was still an effort to maintain his human guise, it was starting to be an effort just to become himself. “There’s other shapeshifters in the queue. Go bother them.”
“What are you gonna do about it, Squishy?” Poke, poke, poke. “I could eat you for a snack.”
That did it. Neg’ret relaxed into his true form. Twenty times his mortal size, red of scale and claw, and thoroughly more flexible. And, incidentally, just a smidgen smaller than the infectious European Dragon. “You might want to think twice about snacking on me.”
“Ahem,” said a rather ordinary-looking man in a suit.
Neg’ret waved. “Hey, Oolong. Sorry about that. Every year, it’s the same thing.” He absently signed the book and paid his fees. Gold coin, of course. Nothing less would do for dragons.
Oolong checked the signature. “Er. Who is Steve Negrete?”
“Whoops. Mortal name.” He crossed it out and signed his true sigil. “I should get out more. The squishies are getting to me.”
“It’s not entirely unpleasant,” murmured Oolong.
Neg’ret waved him a farewell and strode out onto the convention floor. Someone was hawking collectable craw stones. So funny.
[1] I’m looking at you, J.R.R. Tolkein.
Challenge #00732 - B001: The Better Part of Valour
Person #1: A ‘strategic withdrawal’ is running away. But with dignity.
Person #2: So lay in a course and let’s get the dignified hell out of here.
Human ships. A fleet’s worth. Just hanging around in space, as one of their own authors was wont to say, in precisely the way that bricks don’t.
The crew of the Expendable Question could instantly tell that these vessels had been made by humans. They showed a deathworlder’s evident disregard for basic safety.
“Sir?” said science officer K'cops. “Might I recommend a strategic withdrawal?”
Captain Mij was busy staring, transfixed, at the view screen. “Very carefully, if you please.” Her hands were shaking. “Passive scanners only, gas thrusters only. Do not do a single thing to earn their attention.”
“Aye, Sir,” said Ulus, at the helm. She even moved to manipulate her controls carefully.
It was as if the entire bridge crew were.
Lieutenant Aruhu, the only male on the bridge, focussed his attention on the ear-bud that was near-permanent equipment as a comms officer. “I’m monitoring their communications, Sir. There’s no signal whatsoever. No radiation… nothing.”
“Best to be safe and certain, Lieutenant,” said Captain Mij. “Let’s be sure we’re out of scanner range before we engage the big engines.”
“Aye, Sir.”
Probes, sent much later, would verify that this particular patch of space was a dumping ground for decommissioned terran space vessels.
Captain Mij refused to feel silly about it. Those were deathworlder ships. For all she knew, they were rigged to explode.
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Challenge #00730 - A365: Strange Nest-Fellows
Imagine a life-preserving pod being picked up by a human vessel. Imagine it contains a Numidid keet (and possibly a dead parent or message from them). Imagine that keet raised by humans with no contact or knowledge of the Numidid people besides the pod remains. Imagine that keet as a young adult meeting other Numidid for the first time with no idea of Numidid society.
[AN: I know this is hellishly late, but I was hoping our internets would have returned by the time I was done faffing about today. Alas. No such luck]
You pick up all kinds of weird things in the Greater Sargasso. There’s gravitational eddies where debris winds up and this one? Well, it it was pretty damn huge. All kinds of things wound up in there.
Including a survival pod.
There were two inside. Birds. Cogniscent birds. One adult. One little. The adult had clearly sacrificed itself for the little one. It had left a note. A recording.
“Stranger, should you find my little Pippit alive, I beg you to care for her as you would your own. If we are both gone by the time you find us… I bear you no ill will. My people may be looking for me… for us… but I suspect we have been declared as ‘lost’. I beg you, be kind… and cherish my Pippit.”
Pippit was dehydrated and hungry. And cold. Three things I could fix, at least. And the data from the pod. The medical analyser on board declared her species to be super-fragile. At least, compared to human kids. A broken bone could mean death by shock.
I’d never even thought of being a parental, let alone a parental to a super-fragile birdlike critter.
“I can’t promise you I’ll get your name right,” I said to the poor little kid. And she was a really little kid. Less than a quarter the size of the adult. “I’ll call you ‘Pip’, and log your genetic parental’s message. I’ll teach you everything I got about your kind which, sadly, ain’t much. And I’ll do all I can to keep you safe.”
Pip just plain didn’t talk for a Standard Week. I could grok. She’d just lost her entire world. I did what I could for ‘mama’. I guessed it was a mama. Comp said she was a female, so I made her neat and plastered the pod with every known memorial sign while I copied every last scrape of data from the pod.
Then I asked the Powers That Be to care for Mama Bird’s soul. And sent the pod back into the Sargasso from whence it had come.
Poor tiny Pip followed me around, ever after that. Always at my heels. Huddling close.
I almost had heart failure every time I nearly stepped on her. Poor fragile little creature. I found out that a hoodie or a pouch had her feeling safe and me not fretting about breaking her.
Making her own bed-slot was a hassle. I fudged Mama Bird’s dimensions and cleared out a closet that seemed about right. Pip had a soft place to sleep, warm food, and a caring parental. All she needed was an education.
And -hell- when you’re a scavenger, what you got is either what you find or what you bring with you, so Pip learned her ABC’s from the Spacer’s Manual of Useful Knowledge, and lots of my personal library.
Which included Great Expectations. Don’t look at me like that. I read it to fall asleep. Pip was so excited to hear her name that I read it to her. Of course I told her how much society had changed in between the writing and the reader. And how some of the characters were just plain unobservant about what was clearly in front of them.
I kept talking, of course. Little by little, Pip opened up. Called me ‘tall-mama’, and generally took an interest in everything and anything.
Any answers I didn’t have, I showed her how to look up.
When we finally hit Cashport Station, Pip had almost finished getting her adult feathers. Her clothing was lacking. Fabricated things that sort-of-fit, made from recycled blankets. Clothing said ‘cogniscent’ better than clothing, and Pip needed better clothing than his fabricator could provide.
She rode on my shoulder, of course. Muttering to herself about this species and that species. What was good manners and bad manners. She even waved to a pack of Meeyahndans and said, “Hello! I am not prey! I am not threat! Good hunting!”
Bless her heart.
Admin gave us trouble. I had no paperwork but the stuff Mama Bird had recorded. Therefore she was registered as Pip Foundling, and I got a whole bunch of free educational material for our next long haul.
Getting her a life suit, ship skins and all the other stuff was expensive. I didn’t mind. She deserved to have some of the pretty things. And a set of serviceable work boots so her feet weren’t in danger. And by serviceable… I mean that she could also grip with them. The end result was ceramisteel armour with carbon-fibre and kevlar blend under-cloth.
And somewhere between the Sargasso and Rest Stop, our next port of call, Pip became my Pip. I didn’t have to look after her. I wanted to.
But Rest Stop was where we found her kind.
They stayed in the big trees, and hooted and whistled. Not cat-calls. Bird talk. Mama Bird had spoken a variant of GalStand in her message. I’d had no idea Pip had her own language.
Should have guessed, but there you go.
Pip swapped to GalStand Simple. The streamlined version of the unholy mess that is GalStand Entire. “No me knowledge, bird talk,” she shouted up. “You come teach?”
The ‘dangerous human’ -me- had to go and sit far away while Pip discussed her origins. She was excited and eager, but her fellow feathered friends were far more cautious and spooked by her.
One of the elder Birds came to roost on my table. “You raised this keet?”
“Pip? Yeah. I found her in a life pod in the Greater Sargasso. It was that or let her die, and I’m not the mean kind.”
“She will not have a good life among her own kind. She is only suited to be a scientist.” That last word was pronounced like something a body would scrape off a shoe.
"Not good amongst your kind, eh?”
“No[1].”
“Well, if you don’t want her, I’ll take her in. That’s how we started. Family is more to me than just genes in a matrix. And maybe it’ll be more to her and her kin.”
I passed him a copy of Mama Bird’s last message. So the family would know. But Pip? She was almost doomed to be that weird estranged relative to her gene-family.
Screw ‘em. She has all the family she needs with me and my tribe of scavengers. We do whatever we can to help her be happy.
[1] Of course, these events happen within days of Amity’s rediscovery by the Galactic Community
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Dragons need better PR agents.
“Hmrph… but that’s how it always is, isn’t it? Just because they have so many prolific bards and scholars in their employ, they think they get the rights to dictate how everyone else is seen by the future generations - they don’t even TRY to ask my opinion… I’ve got scales on my butt older than their eldest king, and they still think they know more about my kind than I do… Humans are utter idiots.”
Catlike, the great elder dragon stretched and yawned, settling back in place before resuming his remarks to his one-woman audience.
"Er, that is to say, present company excluded, of course. But honestly, it just is aggravating, how things get twisted. I invest in the region by keeping my finances local, and they call it ‘hoarding wealth’. I defend my property from attackers, they cheer on the ‘heroes’ who ‘assaulted the monster in its own den’. I can’t even go out for a bite to eat without some peasant who barely has enough wits in him to play in the dirt-patch he calls a farm screaming that ‘the dread beast is pillaging his prized cattle’… Prized? You mean the weak and elderly of an already-pathetic herd? Which I only took because the royal huntsmen already claimed all the best boar and deer in the Grand Wood for His Majesty’s table? Bah. And I didn’t burn down that orphanage intentionally - a moth flew up my nose and I sneezed when passing over it on my way to the Southlands. Could’ve happened to anyone, really.”
He shrugged, gently passing the delicate satchel back to the royally-garbed woman.
“Feh… they’ll probably even find some way to spin this little meeting of ours into some ‘villainous machination of the demon wyrm’, I imagine. Probably claim I kidnapped you to eat you or something. Ridiculous.”
(#00723 - A358)
“Well I am a princess,” said the bard. “I just happen to be temporarily out of the princessing business.”
“I know,” said the dragon. “I could smell it on you. Something about the royal inbreeding.”
“Excuse me?” said the Princess Bard.
“Well you do tend to mate with your cousins a lot. Knights errant who are promised your hand don’t happen that often, do they?”
“Uhm…” she blushed. “Yeah. I was going to marry my second cousin twice removed? He’s thirty-five. I’m not even almost fifteen. So… I ran away.”
"Thirty five,” rumbled the dragon. “Since we are chatting, I suppose introductions are in order. The long form of my proper name is… a little unpronounceable for you… you may call me Gort.”
“I’m Ivy,” said the Princess Bard.
“The same plant, but a different name. Interesting. Is thirty-five so terrible? I understand it’s more than twice your age.”
“…i’m… closer to thirteen…” Ivy mumbled. “I don’t even have my moon time yet and they were trying to put me out to stud and I’m not sure if I ever want a man with me like that. Let alone him. I’d rather be a bard and sing for my supper.”
"Good for you,” said Gort. “I shall hire you to be my bard. I don’t suppose dragon-roasted meat is your thing.”
“Er. No. Sorry.”
“To each their own,” enormous talons gently plucked what seemed to be a small urn from the pile and filled it with gems and coin. When Gort put it next to Ivy, however, it turned out to be an urn well above her own height and half again as wide as she was. “Is this sufficient payment? I know little of human furnishings, so I trust this will be sufficient for the alcove?”
“More than sufficient for my entire life!” Ivy had to stand on a rock just to reach into the top and pluck out an emerald the size of a warrior’s fist. “What do you want me to do?”
“Simply tell the truth about me,” said Gort.
Ivy sighed and picked up her instrument. A simple traveller’s harp. “Do you know the name for this?”
“A lyre,” said the dragon. “Yes. An appropriate instrument for a bard. I see. Very well. Gild the truth about me. You will fly with me when I fly. See the world from the clouds. Share in the Dragonsong. And, in general, know about me.”
This was more than Ivy had ever expected. It beat the living hell out of huddling under trees and getting kicked into the gutter. “Thank you, sir dragon! I’ll do my best, I promise!”
Gort chuckled. “Dear little princess bard,” a head big enough to dwarf four horses swivelled around on a huge neck so the gigantic lizard could whisper, “Ivy is ever a girl’s name. In all its forms.”
“Oh. Lady dragon…” Ivy curtseyed. “My apologies, m’m. I was always taught that dragons were male.”
"Humans,” Gort rolled her gemlike eyes. “How do they expect little dragons to be made, hm?”
“I suppose we never thought of it,” allowed Ivy. She was staring at the emerald. A King’s ransom. Certainly enough to hire workers to cut a stair up and into the alcove. And craftsmen to make what furnishings she liked. She remembered her mother telling the craftsmen what she wanted. Ivy could certainly do it with a little more grace. And spin the tale of the generous dragon who just wanted people to understand.
…and maybe even have some spare coin for a better lyre. Yes. Maybe even get a dragon put on its body, somewhere. In honour of her sponsor.
And she’d have to think of something a little more poetic than ‘Gort’. It just didn’t sound very lyrical.
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Challenge #00722 - A357: Food That Sings
http://callmegallifreya.tumblr.com/post/104613467865/the-magical-crawdad-mmolio-funkocide
“asexual sirens getting real fuckin pissed about all these sailors interrupting choir rehearsal”
“sirens are already asexual they dont have sex with the men they kill them”
“well no wonder they kill them they keep interrupting choir rehearsal”
“Asexual mermaids being really pleased when an asexual sailor begins singing baritone counterpoint.”
They usually didn’t pay attention to the wooden things that floated on top of their world. It would have been rather like constantly paying attention to birds or flotsam.
They sang. It was what they did. They sang their histories, or the tunes of lonely whales, and sometimes, songs they overheard from swimming close to the rare wooden things that did who-knew-what on the open waves.
They were sometimes beautiful, those Otherworld songs, and the Mer would often gather on sharp rocks or sandy bars to sing them in the air.
And that was when the trouble happened.
The floating things would float nearer and meaty treat food would come and try to have sex with them. Disgusting. But it was a way to catch food if the pod was hungry, so they just accepted it as a fact of life.
Shiriiiea was there when a miracle happened. She and her pod-sisters were singing one of the Otherworld songs when a wooden thing floated by. But this time, no meaty treat food came to have sex with them. This time, the food sang back.
Siiyer said it. “The food sings!”
“What a nice voice,” Shiriiea blurted. They sang some more, watching as the food dropped a heavy thing on a rope to keep his floating thing stable.
He bought out an instrument and played for them. Sometimes with words, sometimes with melody. Always in tune with the pod.
This was food they would not eat.
The pod swam out to sing with him. Picked up a few words of the language he called Griik. They took care to note how this one was different from all the other food. He taught them a song they would know him by. They caught him some fish to eat, and decorated his boat with jewellery of seaweed and shells.
He came back to them, to sing again. The pod loved him and his voice. He became their ‘pet’. A Griik word for an animal you feed and enjoy the company of and never, ever eat.
Otherworlders were strange.
When the storm came, his floating thing became another wreck, but the pod knew him, and fed him the Sacred Fish, the one reserved for the drowned and betrayed, who became Mer, like them.
His fins were beautiful, and the Sacred Fish made him young and beautiful, and turned his teeth sharp for the need to eat meat.
The Pod had never had a more beautiful chorus, in or out of the water.
*
They tell a tale in some areas of Greece, of a humble fisherman who was immune to the charms of the Sirens, who would go out and sing with them, in return for them helping him with his catch. They say he was lost at sea and the Sirens ate him for his hubris.
But if you go to his home village, the story changes. They say they saw him swimming with the pod, and heard his voice for many, many years after that terrible storm.
Those villagers know to only sing along when they hear a Siren. Because if you dare interrupt their song, they will kill you and eat you, and decorate their gardens with your bones.
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