The Music Meme Challenge
Blame it on Miss Yetigoosecreature. She may not have invented it, but the idea is catching and I still haven't got the hang of short dribbles.
The rules: I'm over forty and still live in the Stone Age. I've got the hang of one of those new-fangled PC thingies but I do not own an ipod or an MP3 or whatever.
Here are the official rules:-
oo1. Pick a character, pairing, or fandom you like.
oo2. Turn on your music player and put it on random/shuffle.
oo3. Write a drabble related to each song that plays. You only have the time frame of the song to finish the drabble; you start when the song starts, and stop when it's over. No lingering afterwards!
oo4. Do ten of these, then post them.
My music player is either a CD player on random select, or else the one bundled as standard on a CD.
There may well be a reliance on one favourite band. (This is canonical: look at the way, in Hogfather, Terry Pratchett himself returns to the lyrics and meaning of one particular song throughout the book, as if he is brainstorming its relevance to both Death and Susan Sto Helit. I may or may not do this one, although I have a sneaking feeling Don't Fear The Reaper by the Blue Öyster Cult is a little too obvious in this context, and in any case has already been drabbled by the Master.)
Elsewhere in my fanfic, I have already done Jefferson Airplane's White Rabbit, in the context of a chemistry lesson at the Assassins' Guild School going slightly wrong. I have also done the Blue Öyster Cult's Black Blade, in tribute to the accursed devil-sword Kring, the one with the little nick in the blade about two thirds of the way down, look, where that Pasha wasn't playing fair and was wearing an iron collar… if interested, look them up…
Side one, track one:-
Group: The Blue Öyster Cult – I love the Night
Ever since his kiss, Agnes Nitt had a sneaking feeling it wasn't anything like over with Vlad de Magpyr. She had tied sneaking out alone into the dark, but he had caught up with her. And now they were standing, weightless, above the Lancre Gorge. A long way above.
"I'm indebted to my father" Vlad said, standing on thin air. "He has taught me that the day can be okay, and there is even fun to be found in sunlight. But you know, Agnes, I live to see those days slip away. There is nothing like the night. I love it! And if you accept this kiss from me, you will come to see what no mere mortal ever sees."
"That's the point!" she said, crossly. "I'm mortal! I'm not meant to see that sort of wonder! And I want to be able to see my reflection when I look into a mirror!"
"A lot less reflection can only be an improvement!" she heard Lachrimosa hiss, cattily.
One day… thought Agnes.
Side one, track two:-
Halls of The Mountain King, by Grieg (music for the theatrical performance of the Adventures of the Hero, Peer Gynt)
The Dwarf Peirs Squint knew he was in deep trouble. Headfirst. He'd broken through that last foot or so of rock into a new cavern and got through the hole for a quick recce. What he had seen had made the lads brick up the hole in double-quick time.
He was in the middle of a cavern full of sleeping trolls. Somewhere at the other end he could see a glimmer of daylight. He reasoned, hating the thought, that the only way was forwards. If that doorway over there was big enough to let a troll in, it could let a Dwarf out.
But to get there, he'd have to step over an unguessable number of sleeping trolls.
He just hoped they were heavy sleepers.
Tiptoing slowly and gently and wishing Dwarfs were better shaped for stealth, he picked his way over and around still and snoring trolls. His every nerve was janging,. He'd have words when he got back to the mine. With those craven bastards who'd started filling in the hole when they realised what was on the other side. And hadn't waited for him to get back in first, the bastards. I bet by now that tunnel's being flooded with quick-setting liquid cement and they're putting up the mine-sign for "Reopen this one and risk being pounded by a bunch of insane trolls".
He stumbled. A troll rolled over and mumbled "Who dat dere kicking me onna leg?". Piers froze. Then the troll slumbered off again, and he quickened his pace.
He was two-thirds of the way to the distant door when the piping noise – well, the bass chanters on the bagpipes, if you wanted to split hairs – rose up.
"Can't get to sleep, daddy!"
"Dere a monster in der cave, Mummy!"
Bloody kids, thought Piers, as a couple of the smaller pebbles, Troll-young, looked up at him, wiped sleep out of their eyes, and screamed.
"Der Monster! Dere am a Dwarf in der cave!"
"Mummy! Daddy! Dwarf!"
Piers sprinted towards the door, pursued by several of the more agile troll-children. By now adult trolls were waking up and looking on in disbelief. He sprinted, ducked, dodged, leapt, spun, using an agility hitherto unthought of in dwarfs to make it towards the door, evading fists and feet, two of the pebbles holding on for grim life, eager to capture and eat their first Dwarf…
And then he was out into blessed sunlight, hearing a Troll-mother scream as her children turned into lifeless rock in the sunlight.
They'll learn, he thought, shaking them off with as much care as he could muster, and placing them as near the door of the cave as he dared, bowing to the trolls inside.
Must talk to Grag Greg, he thought. The Grag writes dwarf opera in his spare time. That escape's got to be worth a saga. Or even a bloody opera.
(OK, so I wrote this at a rate of knots during a ten minute classical piece and tidied it up afterwards.)
Side one, track three:-
Rolf Harris: Two Little Boys
Ronald Rust was in his element. Temporarily relieved of his command – not that there was much of it left to be relieved from – he had been attached to a cavalry regiment which was in the thick of the battle, showin' cold steel to those wretched Zlobenian peasants, no fight in 'em.
He galloped forward, shouting and cursing exultantly, hacking at a Zlobenian Cossack who was riding past, no doubt tryin' to retreat, damn the man.
"Ronald!" a pleading voice cried. He looked down, imperiously. It was Daniel Omnius. They were of an age, having been through prep school, big school and Sto Helit together. Daniel was as near as a Rust ever got to having a friend.
"What the demn' hells happened to your horse, Omnius?" Rust brayed.
"Got stabbed from under me. Zlobenian Lancer." Daniel explained. "Look, I'm on foot. I'm easy meat. Is there any chance of a lift back to our lines? You know, on your horse?"
Rust showed him a disdainful nostril.
"This horse only takes one! You shouldn't hev been so dem' careless with yours! And anyway there's a battle to fight!"
Rust spurred his horse on, heedless to the cry of "You bastard!" from behind him.
Well, on the Discworld, how else did you think it would play out? I did play with the idea of Nobby Nobbs in a similar situation negotiating for his gold teeth and boots before rescuing a stranded friend… (we do know Nobby can ride, as he has to ride a white horse to play the King as part of the Peeled Nuts re-enactors).
Side one, track four:-
Group: The Carpenters; song, Calling Occupants of Interplanetary Craft
"Eddie, what in Zarquon's name is that?" demanded Ford Prefect, glaring up at the screen. It showed the mind-mangling sight of a massive, a truly immense, turtle swimming through space. Not only was the concept of a turtle swimming through space an mind-boggling one for the untrained eye to take in, it was what was on the turtle's back that truly stupefied the mind.
Two, three… no four elephants, evenly spaced, more or less. And on their backs…
"A flat Earth? Good God!" said Arthur Dent.
"Holy Zarquon's Singing Fish!" breathed Zaphod Beeblebrox's left-hand head.
"It's alright, guys!" Eddie the Shipboard Computer merrily burbled. "Everything's cool. Zaphod asked me to find somewhere really far-out weird to visit. And in an infinitely improbable universe, everything has to exist somewhere. This is the far end of the improbability curve, guys!"
"And you have to admit, in a universe where you get things like the Mutant Interstellar Star-Goat, a turtle with elephants on its back shouldn't raise an eyebrow." Trillian observed. "The Heart of Gold does tend to home in on these things."
They watched the turtle's head stretch out on a far longer neck than they had thought possible, and its beak opened and closed to snatch an inoffensive small comet out of space and into its digestive tract.
"Ouch" said Zaphod. "That's a bad place to be a comet. Eddie, keep us clear of that beak or we're next week's turtle-shit!"
"Better stay clear of underneath its tail, as well." said Ford, thoughtfully. "Remember the bird-people of Brontitall?"
"That would be adding insult to injury." Marvin the Paranoid Android said, in his usual dull monotone. "Although being eaten and excreted by a heedless star-turtle would be of a piece with my general luck so far. Could I be surprised?"
"Shut up, Marvin!" said Ford and Zaphod together.
"We're going in!" Zaphod decided. "Eddie, find us a good place to get a drink down there!"
"Computing!" said Eddie.
After a while, he said
"The most disreputable, low-down, seedy, dives on this world are to be found in the city of Ankh-Morpork. The Mended Drum is flagged as the most dangerous dive this side of Canes Venatici, and it is rumoured that the locally distilled malic-acid based alcohol called scumble could give the Pan-Galactic Gargleblaster a run for its money…"
"Sounds cool!" said Zaphod. "Let's get in there, get a few drinks in, start a Guide entry on this place. Maybe teach the locals how to mix a Pangalactic Gargleblaster, or nearest local equivalent of!"
"Sound perfectly vile." said Marvin. "Are there any robots down there I could talk to?"
Meanwhile, the Ankh-Morpork Unidentified Flying Object Association were gathered on the Tump and watching the sky. Deep in the anoraks of their souls, the gathered members were watching the night sky and wondering, and hoping, Will this be the night? When the Higher Space Intelligence descends in its starcraft to guide us with their superior wisdom and knowledge?
And then they saw the new star, slowly getting closer as it descended through the Disc's night sky….
(OK, so I cheated here too – when the Carpenters ended, I programmed You Tube to deliver the Blue Öyster Cult's "Extra-terrestrial intelligence" and then Peter Gabriel's "Solsbury Hill". So this really dribbles over three related songs…)
Side one, track five:-
Group:- Marillion. Song: Assassin
"Look, this is getting embarrassing!" Alice Band pointed out, in her best schoolroom "look, we've all had a hard day and I am trying very hard to be patient here" voice. Her assistant Jocasta Wiggs, who, as a former pupil of Alice's, recognised the harmonics, shivered involuntarily. She was pleased to note that at least one of the others was a recent Guild graduate who also winced.
What had looked like being a fairly straightforward inhumation and twenty thousand dollars in the bank had become a farce.
The Assassins' Guild of Ankh-Morpork was not the only player on the Disc and did not have a monopoly on removing life's little obstructions. Nor indeed on removing life from little obstructions. But it liked to stay on good terms with its sister organisations around the Disc, and politeness decreed that if more than one Assassin from competing Guilds and societies was on the case of the same client, they discreetly identified themselves and peacefully worked out, as between professional equals, who should have first go.
But this client had gone out of their way to make enemies and fail to influence people, it seemed.
The beturbanned member of the Klatchian Hashishim bowed his head slightly to Alice, a woman known in fairly select circles as something only slightly less lethal than a basilisk.
"I agree, offendi." he said. "Although this client gravely insulted the person of the Caliph, it is Offler's will."
The black-clad ninja adjusted the set of her fugi knot on her identifying headband.
"While I cannot say who is sponsoring my mission, I can reveal that this person gravely disturbed the equanimity of mind of the great lord Fang." she said. "Such insult to one of the Great may not go unpunished."
"Miss Starehawk, you have an observation to make?" Alice snapped.
The coppery red-skinned Howondalandian Plains Indian, who was Ankh-Morpork trained, and who had sweated in Alice's classes, looked on with as much impassivity as she could muster.
"Chief Redbone was also greatly irritated." she said, knowing that while she had learnt everything she knew from Alice and the other Guild teachers, they had made sure not to teach her everything they knew. This redoubled her determination to get back Home safely and in one piece, thank you very much. "Sources close to the Chief" (this was always a good bet) "say he wishes for an example to be made."
"So we're all tripping up over each other after the same person." Alice summed up. "How the Hells do we decide who gets the job?"
"And what do we call Assassins who accuse Assassins anyway? My friend!"
I may come back with Side Two at some later point. Watch this fiction!