Disclaimer: I do not own any of the characters mentioned in this story, except for Lyra. I don't want to make money out of this. This story is not to be taken seriously, it's just a sample of the author's insanity.

Have fun reading!

******o*****

Nothing happened, yet again. Afterlife really was boring. It was nothing like the Hell he had imagined. For instance, instead of people bathing in bloodpits, some lost souls had to sit on a patch of strange white floor while a demon was showing them pictures of its family on holiday.

The late Jonathan Teatime was awfully bored. He felt he had been there for ages (that didn't really make any sense, since there was no Time in Hell), and stabbing souls just wasn't any fun. Didn't even earn him any money.

He hadn't been assigned a torment yet. He was currently in a « Waiting Room » (or so said the little silver plaque on the door). The only furniture was a dozen of chairs that didn't even creak ominously when you tried sitting on them. Plus, there was that silly music playing all the time, and those horrible potted plants were an outrage to anyone of the chlorophyllian conviction. Not to mention the... things he was compelled to share the room with.

The heap of blood and guts nearest to the Assassin tried to utter a sound. Between some of its gargling sounds, Teatime had ended up understanding that the creature was the result of the sudden reunion of a bodyguard, a way too fragile rope and a huge sacrificial altar that was to be replaced in Klatch.

Besides that inelegant concentration of gore and the recently deceased young man, the only other soul in the room was a tiny, scrawny old lady who was busy being terrified.

The trio had been respectively oozing, sitting and pacing (Teatime still wondered how come he had kept his boots, along with all his clothes) for quite a while now. One single demon had come in at some point, telling them that the bloodyguard puree (that had made the Assassin giggle for a few seconds) would be called next, and please have a good time while you wait it won't be long at all.

************o*****

« Meow. Meeow. Mraaoww. MEEEOOOOWWW!

- Alright, sweetie, I'm getting up. The neighbours' attic will never hold enough mice to top off one good ol' bit of fish fresh out of the Ankh, aye?

- Purr.

- Just as I thought. »

Lyra reluctantly made her way out of the queen sized bed she had « found » in a couple of victims' bedroom.

This might be the right moment to introduce young Lyra. As a matter of fact, she happened to be a member of the Assassins' Guild. Not to mention one of its best students ; oh, she was monstrously intelligent, but that sharpness of mind came with raging madness, a far too dangerous interest in dark magic, sadism beyond recognition as well as some sort of manic love for her job... to top it off, she was rather pleasing to the eye.

Women like her are the reason why ginger-haired ladies are way too often mistaken as witches. Her white complexion was hardly altered by a few freckles on her cheek, and her small crimson mouth, which seemed to have been copied right off a porcelain doll, hardly ever smiled. Except when she was happy. Which meant that someone had just been cruelly inhumed to bits and you could reassemble the corpse with a teaspoon.

She could be described as petite and very thin, yet she loathed being pitied for her size (1,60 meter high is perfectly suitable for a lady, mind you); most of her colleagues recognized her from a distance (hardly anyone was suicidal enough to come near her) with her flaming red hair. You could make out a few black streaks if you were close enough, but that would mean encountering a very well known fellow way too soon.

HELLO THERE.

Oh dear.

Anyway, she was currently nineteen or twenty, she didn't know herself for sure. She had been born in very strange circumstances and was abandoned a few minutes after coming out of her mother's womb, mostly because her mother hadn't been there. We'll come back to that later. All she remembered was that when she was three years old, a very good friend of hers (lovely chap, although a bit gloomy) took her to the great city of Ankh-Morpork, all the way to the Assassins' Guild and left her under its porch with a note after banging a bony fist against the gate.

Lady T'malia had let her in, read the parchment after thoroughly examining it (you can never, ever be sure, even when facing a cute 3 year old girl), then taken her to Dr Cruces, the late head of the Guild, whose successor was to be Lord Downey.

The couple of minutes Lyra had spent waiting outside the doctor's office were to stay engraved in her mind for the rest of her life.

********o******

Well, that's it for the first chapter I ever posted on fanfiction! :)

should I keep going?

Please r&r!