Challenge #00193: Impossible Aftermath

Well, It all started when X fell out of a tree…

He should have known. Having precogs amongst his staff was a matter of course. Every last one of them, including the mad human Lyr Marken, had warned him.

Don’t host an Ambassadorial Meet when Silly Season is due.

Maybe it was because Lyr had warned him first. Maybe it was lingering speciesism on his part -and he would have to work on getting rid of it- that made him not heed a warning given to him by a human.

And now…

Chaos.

Humans got into a ridiculous amount of impossible trouble during Silly Season. Even those of human stock, but altered genetics, got into such trouble.

The giant clydesdale-centaur ambassador to Mythos, Andri Champignon, was still moaning with the after-effects of whatever he had imbibed. The ambassador for B'Nar, Lise Vine, was huddled up in a corner and repeating, “Error, error, error…”

The ambassador for Terra was still attempting to dance the Time Warp whilst wearing a traffic cone on his head.

The instigators, ambassadors Shayde and Johnston, were playing a clapping game in their cell.

“At the risk of my own sanity,” Sherlock began. “What. Happened?”

“It all started when Shayde fell out of a tree,” Johnston began.

“Dibby dobber,” said Shayde. She was chronologically older than Johnston, but it was a matter of debate as to which of the two was more mature.

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I try to limit myself to one story a day (my wrists, they punish me) which is why I asked for one prompt at a time. I know it’s a pain in the arse to fill in the same form three times [The name/email thing should be an option if you don’t have a tumblr account] but it’s a literal pain in my anatomy to do three stories in one day.

(#00189) 

It was another reality bubble. Rael had seen one before, much to Sherlock’s dismay. This one was peculiar to say the least.

Everything looked more or less the same, save that they were the only ones on the Station. There were a few forensic clues, but nothing overt.

“Aw, I hate these ones,” said Shayde. She had ‘borrowed’ Nik the Gyik’s kitchen for some therapeutic cooking and discovered that raw eggs bounced.

“What ones?” said Rael.

“The effect tae cause realities. Ye have to work out everythin’ backwards. Like, ye canna break an omelette without makin’ a few eggs, ye ken.”

“Uh…” said Rael. “No.“

"We have tae clean up by un-doing the forensics. Un-burn the toast, unsmash the vase. All o’ that. Or it won’t let us go.”

“All those half-eaten meals…”

“Have to be un-eaten. Aye.”

“I’m starting to see why you hate these ones.”

(#00190)

“Ee… this is lovely.”

So far, things had been lovely fifteen times, and they were only on the second island. “Isn’t this the one that sank in the twenty-first century?“

"That was almost four hundred years ago ye great nanny,” said Shayde. She was wearing scraps of cloth over her censorable zones, known planet-locally as a bikini. “And I missed it. I only put these islands on our itinerary so you could relax fer a change. Go fer a paddle. Have a hot dog. Get some shaved ice. Have some fun. We only got a million dollars left.“

Shayde would have to grow out of her annoying habit of translating sensible Galactic Time Currency to her ancient fiat ‘dollars’. “There’s a reason your fiat system collapsed, Ambassador.”

“I swear. You aren’t happy unless ye got somethin’ tae be miserable about…”

“Let’s just say I know you happen to be a trouble magnet.”

And that was when the boorish ignoramus from the previous evening’s party tripped and dropped his shaved ice on Shayde’s back.

Quod erat demonstrandum…

(#00191)

She was one of the few ambassadors with a day job. This one was going through the collected archives and sorting everything she recognized.

Rael caught some of it as he bought her some take-out from Unsuitable Food Eat. A man riding a white horse and another man in an obviously unresearched mesh of native american clothing performing a series of increasingly ridiculous stunts in an almost endless action sequence set to the William Tell Overture.

Rael watched, stunned, as it all wound to a crechendo and stopped without any further data points. “Who was that strange masked man?“ he asked in all innocence.

It took Shayde twenty minutes to stop laughing.

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(#00188)

“I’m no’ in the habit of cursin’ folks,” said Shayde. She was educating some younger folk who had made assumptions about magic in her general direction. “With magic, ye tend to get what ye give. Spread evil, get evil come to you. Spread good, luck leads yer path.“

Half of them had made disapproving faces at this. What was the point of magic if you couldn’t curse people who obviously deserved it?

"But,” said Shayde, sensing her waning audience, “when I do curse someone, I not only make sure they earned it, I make sure it’s a one time thing. Fer instance. Feller jus’ last week. You remember ‘im, Rael.“

"Ah yes. He misgendered the both of us, assumed we were in a physical relationship, loudly speculated about our obviously varied fornicating processes and then suggested a threesome.”

The assembled juniors gasped. “And he didn’t have a fan?“

The mirrored fan was an essential part of a Professional Insulters’ basic kit. They proved that -well- it wasn’t personal.

"Na, this guy was strictly freelance. So I put the Eye on ‘im an’ said, ‘May you be three seconds too late, at the worst possible moment’.”

Stunned puzzlement.

“What?”

“What kind of curse is that.”

“Fer want of a nail, me lovelies,” said Shayde. “He missed the last ship home.“

"The Intermittent voyage to Argo,” explained Rael. “Travels only when there’s enough passengers and cargo to make it worthwhile. Our mutual quote-unquote ‘friend’ missed it by three seconds. And the next one is due to set off…?“

"Next sunday week.”

“As a result, he’s been fired from his job, lost his housing, his funds are next to zero and he’ll have to start all over again from scratch.”

It sunk in. Their audience winced, “Oooooohhhh…"

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