Challenge #00471 - A096: Behind the Mask
A Monster in Paris! (posted fairly soon after you saw it, but there’s 40 prompts queued up before this one)
I love that movie, and there isn’t enough fanfiction of it. Therefore today’s prompt is Francouer and Carlotta (the lady that runs the Rare Bird, last seen dancing with Pate)
I’m sure she’ll find out at some point what her new star is hiding under that mysterious mask, no matter how shy and retiring he is.
[AN: This pretty much has to happen between the official happy ending and the sunflowers-in-the-Sienne tag scene]
Carlotta rarely crept. She always made her presence known to everyone around her because, though she was a faded rose, show business was forever in her blood.
But this time… this time she needed to sneak.
Because their new massive maestro Francoeur was never seen without his mask. Why he even needed a mask quickly became a mystery she had to solve.
He was in Lucille’s dressing room again. There solely for the piano. He’d shed his hat and was deep into his latest composition. Genius. Always genius… But she couldn’t let the music interfere. She was this close to seeing his true face.
Carlotta snatched his mask of. The ‘aha’ died on her lips as she saw that the face of the genius Francoeur was also the face of the monster. She froze. Breathless. Terrified of what he might do.
Francoeur the monster maestro looked… just as terrified. He trilled a startlingly dovelike coo and carefully plucked the mask from her fingers. As gently and delicately as any human would extract a single blossom from a bouquet.
“…excuse me…” he managed and shrank in on himself as he fit the mask back on his face. His eyes were darting around between watching her and looking for a means of escape.
“You… you’re…”
An eight-foot tall monster cringed and shook like a leaf.
“You’re scared of me?”
Nervous chittering. A frightened nod.
Carlotta almost wondered why out loud, but then she remembered what people like her did when they thought monsters were around. He had good reason to be afraid. “Oh… I’m so sorry I frightened you,” she offered her hand. If she could accept Lucille going out with that eccentric vagabond Raoul, she could accept an eight-foot tall singing flea. “Are you all right?”
Nod. The very beginnings of a smile. He had such a sweet smile.
“You don’t need to be afraid with us,” she soothed. “We’re practically family.”
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Challenge #00470 - A095: Not Dangerous - But…
T’reka’s work on Toxic Island was to look for potential new compounds or cures in the dangers of the jungle, but humans have been working with flora and fauna of those levels of toxicity and higher for centuries, including some of the species only encountered by the other cogniscients on Toxic Island since they seeded from Earth
It follows that a) humans have already discovered medical applications using these things
b) humans are probably going to have a lot easier time working with new “highly toxic” substances than most other cogniscients
Medical science might take a bit of a speed boost once they arrive.
or they might set everything back years while everything has to get tested on non-insane species, I mean humans still do that organ transplant thing without batting an eye.
This was accelerating too quickly for T'reka’s liking. The humans built things far too rapidly for her dazed mind to handle. They installed a functional door for her village Hide Unit literally overnight and supplied her with a ‘welcome basket’ of alarmingly accurate favourite foods.
Including cricket fritters.
The Co-operative Research Institute sprang up in a matter of days, using the mid-path sky-raker tree as a base. Stairs wound around the massive trunk and a perplexingly-named 'elevator’ took those unwilling or unable to climb up to the lower branches.
What surprised T'reka the most was the engineering. Humans were capable of taking a basic concept like the construction of her tree-borne domicile unit, mix it liberally with their own knowledge, and produce the increasingly-massive structure with harm to neither tree, wildlife, or any assisting Numidid. They were a shockingly adaptive species.
The smaller children were the best at picking up Ulu, and even the adults learned how to swear in it relatively fluently. There were some words or phrases that came out mangled, of course. T'reka had similar trouble with some human words and phrases. Forgiveness on both sides was vital.
T'reka found herself holding the adaptive classes for the medical technicians who were bold enough to venture out to Toxic Island. Trying to teach them how to be open-minded and adaptive enough to work with an assumed-dangerous species on potential medical breakthroughs. Lessons that included lies-to-children levels of walking the medics through the increasingly bizarre things that humans did to heal each other.
“They cut open their companions?”
“First, they assure that the companion is sleeping and unaware,” repeated T'reka. “Then they cut. I have survived a similar procedure when they set my leg.”
“Set?”
“Humans break bones and live to tell the tale,” she said. “The process called 'setting a bone’ is that of aligning the broken pieces so that they heal relatively straight.” Of course, she offered her healed leg for inspection. The scar from the original injury was still visible, but the work from their 'surgery’ was almost imperceptible. Those bold enough to feel her leg would detect the subtle lump where the bone had mended itself.
T'reka bought up the surviving documentation of the event. “In a way, I was lucky the humans were prepared. Seconds after the injury, Su-syn injected the injury site with an anaesthetic chemical, and administered other medicines to prevent me from going into fatal shock. She kept me warm with her body and rushed me to their medical facilities. I am told, after I arrived, they administered full anaesthesia and worked their hardest to ensure I survived.” A wan smile. “I do not remember much after the rushing.”
One of the more observant students pointed to the files visible on the main screen. “The humans let you access video footage of their… O-pir-a-shon?”
“Yes. I find it personally disturbing. I have made this file public access with suitable warnings for the content. The humans do far more on each other. Cutting out cancerous tumours, tailoring their skins, and…” she had to swallow and breathe to stop herself from retching. “Organ transplants.”
“Pardons, learned teacher, but those last two words make it sound like they swap around their internal organs like a mechanic would switch out engine parts.”
“Almost. They print a frame for a replacement organ and grow the remainder in laboratory conditions, then they take out the old, defective organ and replace it with the newer model. All under anaesthesia, of course.”
Gasps and murmurs and -yes- some hoots of alarm. T'reka let them settle their feathers before the next truth bomb.
“In their ancient history, they used dead humans for those replacement parts.”
Three fainted.
T'reka let the others assist in their revival. How would they react when she got on to subjects like 'caesarians’ or 'chemotherapy’?
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Challenge #00468 - A093: The Sensible Thing
https://24.media.tumblr.com/951e6f6801beb56088b28b2101775ac9/tumblr_n0j7ciNC5G1r7llf5o3_1280.jpg
:) - Svetoslav Petrov
“We have found her,” said the lackey.
“The foretold one,” clarified his companion.
“Already?” said the Vampire. And, since vampires have very complicated and extended names, let’s call him Vladimir.
“Er. My ancestors and I have been searching for the chosen one for three hundred years,” said the lackey.
“Hm. Really.” Vladimir stretched and yawned. “And you’re absolutely certain that this is the chosen one who shall be my undoing?”
“Yes, master.”
He clambered out of his coffin. “Then I must do the only sensible thing,” he announced, “and meet her as soon as humanly possible.”
He expected a maiden of about sixteen or so. Chosen one prophecies tended to result in maidens with hidden gifts. A spark in the eye. The strength of an arm. A sanctified amulet. That sort of thing.
What he got was a perfectly ordinary girl of six. Clad in a pink, frilly dress and rumpled socks. Her gift, if there was any, was a complete and utter fearlessness combined with her eager smile.
He still gifted her the red rose, though he did teach her to grasp the stem between the thorns. “You may call me Vladimir,” he said. “And I am forever at your service.
He meant it. He became a benefactor to her family - all of it - since he had more than enough money to do so. Vladimir never needed to feed on them at all. No vampire had had to do so since the discovery of coconuts.
Though there were always a very bizarre few who were creepily too eager to volunteer…
In her formative years, she was Uncle Vlad. Whom you could set your clocks by. Reliable. Dependable. And more than a touch adorkable. He would attend her recitals. Her games - with a wide and gloomy parasol to protect him from the sun. He would cheer her on in all her efforts.
When teenager hood came, his home was her sanctuary from the cruel world. His immense library her usual retreat. His ear was hers to talk off whenever she had the need to rant.
Her name was Leela, and for ninety years, she unconsciously ran his life.
He and his minions protected her. Watched over her. Made certain that, whenever possible, Leela was kept from harm. Abusive boyfriends were warned twice… and never seen again. Muggers never touched her. Criminals never stole her things.
He made certain that she had a long and happy life. All the way to the end.
Vlad held her hand as she lay in the hospital bed. Watching her breathe. Ninety years was a blink to a vampire. Nothing. But it had been the most intense blink he had ever experienced.
“I could have turned you,” he offered. “Any time you asked.”
“…never needed to,” Leela crackled. “I already had everything.” gasp. “Wouldn’t change any day. Not for…” gasp “anything.”
“Thank you,” he whispered.
“No. Thank you.” And, without much in the way of fuss, she breathed her last.
Vladimir couldn’t move. Couldn’t make himself rise and leave her. Couldn’t abandon her to the cold and clinical hands of the medical technicians.
…didn’t notice the sun rising through the open window beside them both.
Didn’t protect himself when he started to burn.
When the hospital staff came to check on Mrs Foreman, she found a mysterious drift of ash over both her body and the sole visitors’ chair by her bed. And never thought about what it might mean.
Prophecies have a knack of coming true. Regardless of what the prophesied do about them.
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Challenge #00468 - A093: Or Are They Wearing You?
“I consume giants and crush cities with a push of my thumb and you challenge me with shoes?”
“They’re fancy shoes, you brute.”
The Mighty Magniscience glared down at her. “They’re still shoes. And only shoes. The rest of your -ha- wardrobe is not in the slightest bit battle appropriate.”
“Who said I challenge you to a battle?” scoffed Malela. “I challenge you to a dance-off!”
It only took five rounds for the impartial judges to recognise that, not only had the Mighty Magniscience never danced a step in his life, but that he also had all the rhythm and music of a comical bear.
For the first time in centuries, the Mighty Magniscience lost a challenge. According to the rules, he had to forfeit his crown and vanish into obscurity. Malela got the crown, which allowed her to rule over the assembled kingdoms formerly under Magniscience’s iron fist.
She also got the dubious privilege of defending her crown from anyone who thought that her reign was even the slightest bit authoritarian.
…but that’s crowns for you…
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Challenge #00467 - A092: Bad Day at the Office
Aelki rejected or signed off on proposals pending their explanation to Ambassador O'Ranges. He would never hear about the rejected proposals. They were the ones that, like candy in the back of the legendary van, were too good to be true and very obviously dangerous.
She was not exactly an administrative assistant. More like a human filter. In combination with adoptive mother, nursemaid, therapist, dietician, transit authority, private tutor… Either she had to sew herself a JOAT coat or change her official title to ‘Mum’.
Currently, both were looking like a valid option. Simultaneously.
And here came the migraine.
Aelki murmured a groan and checked the reject pile counter. Almost there. Five hundred rejected proposals, and she could go home. Home. Ha. She’d never had a home since she packed her towel and put on the pin to go hitchhiking. She still didn’t have an official home. Not yet. O'Ranges insisted that all the other 'fur-people’ got homes before he did.
Thus, her home was anywhere with O'Ranges. Just like his home was with her. Which meant that it was an extremely good thing that her Ambassadorial Staff wages thoroughly covered whatever accommodation she chose for the both of them.
Her pinch-Second Hitchhiker soul was satisfied with the mid-level suite with the obligatory garden. It was the cheapest set of rooms that allowed O'Ranges room to move. The bonus selling point was that all the plants in the suite were not toxic to humans or dogs. She’d run a covert check to be absolutely positive that they wouldn’t be toxic to O'Ranges, and when that green light occurred, she’d signed off on the contract.
Four hundred and ninety-nine rejects. This was not the time to turn unprofessional and go looking for something to reject. Rule Seventeen: Always act professionally - except during Silly Season. Therefore, she ploughed through proposals, flagging them according to her evaluation, until she found the metaphorical golden ticket.
Ugh. That one was almost so thoroughly candy-van that she couldn’t make it all the way through. Rejected so hard she had to sanitise her hands and wished she could sanitise her eyes. Time to go home.
The live entertainment on the tram was painful to listen to. Some beginner in the painful range of tone-deaf who accompanied themselves via percussion. Aelki was too polite to put on her headphones or move away, and even faced away from them so that the 'artist’ wouldn’t see her wince. She did manage to exchange a few pitiful looks with other citizens who were also similarly trapped.
Home again, home again. Slouchity slouch.
Only to find that O'Ranges had decided once again that clothing wasn’t really worth getting used to and was currently sitting on the floor, skyclad, with his game machine in his massive hands.
She must have winced out loud.
O'Ranges looked up from his game and his tail started wagging. “Hi miss! Hi miss!” His tongue began to lol out. “Hug times!” He threw his massively muscled arms wide.
She almost fell into his soft, warm, barbecue-scented fur. It was still slightly damp.
He’d taken a bath. All by himself. Just so he could smell nice for her when she came home. He wasn’t naked because he hated clothes. He was naked because he was still air-drying.
She fell asleep in his lap to the melodious beeping of his game.
Totally. Worth. Everything.
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Challenge #00466 - A091: Here There be Dragons
Got another one for you
It’s a well-established fact that humans normally do not get along with other cogniscent species.
The Dragons know this. They teach their hatchlings.
Beware the humans. They have made extinct almost every other creature larger than them. The ones that they don’t make useful. And becoming useful to a human means that they will make you and your kin docile and stupid.
Dragons are proud and independent creatures. This much is true about them. They tend to be vain, but not all are so. The thing about hoarding gold is strictly a fable that many a Dragon has died for.
Gold is a soft metal. Dragons much prefer harder things to nest in, but they do have a penchant for shiny things.
But, by and large, Dragons to not meddle in the affairs of humans. They’ve learned that humans frequently come with pointy things.
Yes, the one about dragon hide being especially tough is a complete fabrication. It’s just fireproof and dragon-claw resistant. That’s about it.
So it was beyond a shock for Quickwing the Puny to discover a maiden literally under his wing when he awoke from slumber. And that she’d evidently had the time to furnish the cavern and make it… prettier.
Quickwing the Puny carefully moved himself away from the tiny human. She did not seem to have any pointy objects.
“Uhm,” he rumbled. “Hello?”
She jumped and backed away, but only enough to make movement convenient to him. “Oh. Ah. Hi there. I’m Rosemary. Uh… Listen. I’m sorry about taking over in here, but… I needed to escape.”
“So you came here?” said Quickwing. “Don’t humans try to escape from dragons?”
Rosemary sighed. “I wanted to escape from humanity,” she began. She climbed up to a platform she’d made. So she could look him in the eye. “Being a maiden is not what I’m cut out for, but everyone’s always the same about it.”
“Really?”
“Really. All the poets go on and on about ‘golden hair and tresses fair’, or 'locks as dark as ebony’ or -and this is a rare one- 'her darling sunset locks’. That’s it! Blonde, brunette or redheads get all the glory. Nobody sings songs about hair the colour of mud, but I still have to wash it in the morning dew and do one thousand strokes. Do you know how long that takes?”
“Uh. I don’t–”
“Four hours! Washing your hair in the morning dew seems poetic and lovely, but all it gets you is grass seeds and bits in your hair! And then you have to pick them all out again before you can even think of doing the thousand strokes, and let me tell you that half the brushes they have available are absolute rubbish at getting the knots out. I mean look at this! Look at it!” She waved a thick plait in the air. It reached the middle of her thighs when it hung down her back. “They tell me it’s my crowning glory and I should be proud of it, but it weighs a ton and it gives me headaches in more ways than one and I’d much rather be rid of it, thank you very much! And don’t get me started on the 'skin white as snow’ nonsense. Do you know what you get for having skin as white as snow?”
“Er.”
“Rickets! You have to stay out of the sun your entire life and that wreaks hob with your bones. And just look at these feet!”
Quickwing did. “They -uh- seem like very serviceable feet…”
“They’re huge. They say a proper maiden’s foot should be dainty enough to fit in a man’s hand. Well excuse them! I like to walk. I like the sunshine. I adore climbing trees and I only ever washed my hair in the morning dew because they made me and my hair’s so thick that I need to make a special brush every month or I wind up with these horrible mats under the surface and I’m sick of people telling me who I should be and what I should be doing and the second I find a decent set of shears, I’m cutting my hair and you can’t stop me!”
That seemed to be all she had to say. She remained, panting and flushed, in her place on her platform. Seemingly waiting for judgement.
Quickwing moved so that he could inspect Rosemary. Which required closing one eye to gain proper focus. Her face was wet and her eyes spilled more water down her face. “You… Do you do that all the time?”
“…what?”
“The water on your face.”
She bought out a cloth to mop it up. “It’s called crying. It happens whenever I get over-emotional about things. Maidens are s'posed to weep. I cry.”
Quickwing did not understand the difference. “So you are escaping all of that?”
“Yes. And if you don’t want me here, you may as well eat me. Because I’m not going back to being a maiden.”
“What? Dragons don’t eat humans. We merely chew in self-defence.”
“And I noticed that you don’t have any gold.”
“That one’s a complete lie. Gold’s too soft to be useful. It sticks in our scales and makes any itches worse.”
“I settled here because nobody messes with a dragon,” said Rosemary. “At least… nobody with any sense.”
“All right. I understand,” said Quickwing. “But you must understand that I’m the smallest of the Dragons. They call me Quickwing the Puny.”
“You? You seem immense to me.”
“And you seem to be an extraordinary human to me.”
Together, they said, “That’s the nicest thing anyone’s ever said to me!”
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Challenge #00465 - A090: The Importance of Love
http://anastasiyacemetery.tumblr.com/post/76249084163/not-sorry-for-my-english
Text reads: “Don’t forget to give a little love to beings which nobody loves”
[AN: Sorry about the brief one. I can’t brain today]
It was perfect love. But, physically speaking, they never went further than hugs and kisses.
Temptrotica never stopped being amazed at the feeling of it. Love. It was new and amazing and almost overwhelming. And every time she tried to explain it to Mythologics Anonymous, she got the same thing.
“You’re a succubus! You get people loving you every day.”
It was hard, indeed, to explain the difference between making love… and receiving it.
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Challenge #00464 - A089: The Trouble With ELFs
It sounds like Uplifts have a bit of a stigma attached to them- their origins were illegal, so they themselves are considered sort of dodgy. Some further exploration of that, please? After this long, they can’t be the only people to have experienced origins/modification for the use of others and had to fight their way up to ‘people’ status afterwards (super-soldier attempts, etc). Perhaps there’s a ‘Lab-breds of the Galaxy Unite!’ sort of club for mutual support.
From the Wikipedia Galactica: ELF/E.L.F.: Engineered Life Form. A creature or being engineered to specifications and produced as merchandise. Examples include Skitties™, Cleaners, and antiseptic phage virii. Some cogniscent entities are also ELFs, such as the Faiize, Uplifts, and numerous attempts at the Enlisted Man.
Uplift: A domesticated animal uplifted to the level of cognisance, usually by means of genetic engineering. Uplifting, the practice of making an Uplift, is illegal in the Galactic Alliance. Uplifted beings, the products of uplifting, are not.
Shayde watched Rael land on his seat at the bar of Unsuitable Food and order a deep-fried platter -beignet style- with a side of chocolate sauce.
“Bad day at the office?” she guessed.
“Literally,” he grumped. “I made the mistake of offering my services to the Cogniscent Rights Committee.”
She winced. “Eeee. Ge’ him a hot chocolate on me. All th’ trimmins.”
“Four Hours. Four hours in a booth, sorting paperwork. There’s an entire planet where five sixths of the population are Uplifts. An entire world of Uplifted slaves. Do you know how many of them are called Spot?”
“At an uneducated guess?” Shayde propped herself up on the counter in the manner of all cogniscents prepared to be there a long time. “A full metric fookton.”
“HA! Twice that and then some.”
“Extra marshmallows,” said Shayde to the Gyiik serving at the bar.
“Thanks.” He sighed. “And there was a two-hour conference about what to do in the case of duplicate names. Not a lot of those poor animals can handle change…” a soft sound into his hands that was almost a sob. “…we had to use numbers. Numbers! They’ll never escape being things and I had a hand in it…”
“D'ye need a hug?”
“…‘nkoo…”
She wrapped her arms around him and soothed his simulated hair. “There na… I dinnae think any of 'em would blame ye. Desperate times and all…”
“Some of them were designed… to have just enough intelligence to read directions and take orders…” A definite sob. “I don’t think I could look any of them in the eye…”
The Galactic Alliance doesn’t hate Uplifts. It hates what it has to do because Uplifts exist.
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Challenge #00463 - A088: The Death of Gendered Clothing
http://beltaguise.tumblr.com/post/76801104188/fantasy-lizard-people-where-the-females-dont-have
Found another one
Tom Katt sidled up to the lizard lady at the bar. He thought he could tell by her buxom figure and elegantly-styled dress in Botanic Greens.
“Hey, there, beautiful,” he smoothed. “Can I buy a lovely lady such as yourself a drink? What’s your pleasure?”
The lizard, towering over him by some five inches, glared down at him. “I’m a male,” he iced.
“But… you.. uh…” Tom gestured at his own chest. Miming invisible mammaries.
The lizard sighed and opened his robe to reveal G-cup sized heating pads inside a healthily-fortified brassiere. “Not every species adheres to your own sexual dimorphism, human. And for your education, males have six crest-ridges–” they passed for eyebrows “–not four.”
Tom paid for the gentleman’s time. “Thanks for the information.”
“Thanks for the absence of slurs.”
Tom, as well as many other humans in bars all over the Galactic Alliance, was quickly learning to assume nothing.
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Challenge #00462 - A087: Portents of Doom
“I’ve got an idea! It’s crazy, it defies all logic, it’s illegal in 16 solar systems and my mother would most assuredly not approve, but it just might work!”
Ax'and'l froze, fighting the primitive desire to burrow under a layer of dirt and conceal himself from predators that no longer existed. Humans had Fight or Flight. His kind had Dig and Ditch. “Hwell,” he murmured in a calm and soothing tone that most definitely did not match his new-found inner turmoil. “What did we agree about what to do when you have that kind of idea?”
“Warn you first,” Hwell intoned. He looked bored. And there is nothing in the universe as dangerous as a bored human. “This is me. Warning you about it. Look. I know we’re blockaded in and all that, but have you checked the scanners? We wouldn’t exactly be running a blockade. Just… slipping through the planet-sized hole they obviously left there for anyone who doesn’t want to be involved. Like us.”
“It would also involve deceiving a planetary population new to space travel, defying local laws, and a certain amount of fraud. Tell me, just how were you planning to gain access to our ship?”
Hwell grinned that nervous grin of his. “Ah. Heh. That’s where the ‘crazy’ and 'defies all logic’ part comes in. With a side order of my mother not approving.”
“No.” Ax'and'l waved the digit of authority at him. “Absolutely not. We do not want a repeat of the Argo Incident. Do you understand?”
Mumbled, “That planet’s stick up its anus has a stick up its anus with a stick up its anus…”
“Do you understand?”
Hwell took the sort of deep breath and sigh that incorporated almost all parts of his body. “Fine. Yes. I understand. I’ll stay on my leash like a good mammal.”
“Good mammal,” Ax'and'l cooed.
“…woof…” Hwell muttered.
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