Origins of the Diablo Swing Orchestra Part 2: The Butcher's Ballroom

by Psychoflop

You know the band, you know their sound, but you don't know how the letters travelled

p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Chapter 1: Balrog Boogie/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;"Nearly every great work of fiction needs at least the most superficial of outlines, J.R.R. Tolkien had known that for decades. It was in his private office in his home in North Oxford, England where he sat at his large, white painted wooden desk with a brass fountain pen in his right hand, staring at a stack of blank pieces of white paper, for 45 minutes./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="text-decoration: none;""So, they want a sequel to /spanemspan style="text-decoration: none;"The Hobbit, /span/emspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"do they?" he asked to no one /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"in particular/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". He then briefly looked over to a copy of the Daily Post he had picked up not half an hour prior, it was dated August 29/span/spansupspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"th/span/span/supspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", 1937 /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"along the front page/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". He nodded and began making the most general notes that he could, knowing that they would be elaborated on for the next several weeks, if not months. He had already written several pages of notes in under 1 hour, as his mind's eye was keen as it had become quite adept at showing Mr. Tolkien what he wanted to write about. Another, much more extensive trip to middle-earth was obvious, but the shift in focus from dwarves and hobbits to men and hobbits was quite risky. Still, Mr. Tolkien knew it was a gamble that a lot of readers would take with him.../span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"...if they wanted one of, if not the longest, reads of their lives. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"It was only at the beginning of page 15 of his notes, did he feel stuck /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"for the first time/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"./span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;""What creature should I have the fellowship face in the Moria?" he once again asked no one but himself. The word Moria was actually drowned out by what could be best described as a clunking sound coming from outside. J.R.R. Tolkien stood up, made sure to tuck his simple white dress shirt into his brown wool pants. He briefly stared at both a pair of black dress shoes and very well-worn brown boots, but opted to put on neither to go outside./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="text-decoration: none;""span style="font-style: normal;"Too warm outside, when I'm only going to be out there for a few seconds" he whispered as he ventured out the front door. The mailbox (a black rectangular one made out of local iron) /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"was not empty, but it only had a single letter /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"inside of it/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", an abnormality for Mr. Tolkien as he was both a writer and a professor (he was used to receiving dozens of letters a day, if not hundreds)./span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="text-decoration: none;""span style="font-style: normal;"Must be either a special delivery from Royal Mail, Pembroke College, or both" he said as he reached inside the mailbox and pulled it out. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"He looked off to the west and saw a young girl in plain clothes running away as fast as she could (and from the back and from that far away, the Professor did not recognize her, much to his frustration) /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"Whatever this letter was, it was "at least 400 years old" J.R.R. Tolkien said softly to himself as he stared at it. He presumed that the letter "I" was in fact the Roman number for "1", but the rest of the writing on the front of the letter was strange to him. He took a guess that it was either very late medieval Swedish or the earliest of modern Swedish. As he touched the writing on the envelope, he began to hear melodies in his head /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"that he at first recognized as somewhat modern American Jazz music that some of his students were known to listen to. But if this letter was as old as Professor Tolkien was dating it, that would have been impossible /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"for them to have created/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". He then began to see a screen at what he believed to be a movie theatre. But it was one that was in the distant future ("A film in colour? That's impossible" thought the professor), showing moving images of what he believed to be a Balrog /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"(Complete with what the Professor believed to be fiery horns generated by a machine designed to perform commanded tasks... "a computer?" the Professor asked himself)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". These images were followed by an older British gentleman screaming "YOU...SHALL...NOT...PASS!" and J.R.R. Tolkien knew that the piece of the puzzle that was the creature encounter at Moria had just fallen into place /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"for his book/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;".../span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"...also, he knew what the envelope had written on it. "Do not open" the professor stated, which he immediately dismissed to be vulgar. What was the point of giving someone a letter if they weren't allowed to open it. Then a gust of wind opened his mailbox, showing that there was in fact, a second letter. J.R.R. Tolkien grabbed it out of the box, and not only was it more modern, it had the words "You can open this one, don't worry" written on the envelope in /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"a version of the elven scripture that the Professor himself had been working on since the First World War/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"J.R.R. Tolkien smiled /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"at the gesture/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;", then opened the letter. There was a brief moment of temptation to open the ancient letter, but he fought it off (and briefly thought that he was a modern day Frodo Baggins, /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"tempted to put on the "one ring to rule them all")/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". He was actually mildly disappointed at the brief length of the note inside, but he read it thoughtfully:/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;"emHello Professor Tolkien,/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"emspan style="text-decoration: none;"I can't reveal who I am, but I am one of your students. I was made a trustee of this ancient letter a couple of years ago, after I found it as part of a strange Christmas party game (don't ask if you figure out who I am). I bestow upon you, the privilege and responsibility of being the newest trustee until you find someone special to take your place. I don't think that I've been in any direct danger, but this is one of 6 letters forged in the early 16/spansupspan style="text-decoration: none;"th/span/supspan style="text-decoration: none;" century by people who knew of "evil music" being created in Sweden. The Catholic church killed the original musicians /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"by burning them all at the stake/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;", and now they want to destroy these letters as they would expose an error made by them, long ago. And so now, I bid you farewell and godspeed, as I have already graduated, and you will never see me again./span/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;"emRegards,/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;"emX/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"J.R.R. Tolkien began listening to the melody that the letter gave him. He even tried to synchronize it to the images in his head (he had even now deduced that the old man in his mind was an actor who ha/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"dn't been born yet playing his Gandalf the Grey), but they didn't quite work. It was just as well, as they were from 2 very different times, which actually scared the professor a little, and excited him./span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;""/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"My time holding onto this must be brief, as I'm sure it's been for most who have been appointed trustees. I only hope whom that I've chosen guards it half as well I have."/span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"It was something of a low-end mumble that the professor now spoke, as he drafted his own modern letter with instructions for the next person on the journey. He had chosen to give it a different student than the one who gave him, an intellectual chap who was studying Ancient Greek and Latin /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"at Wellington College (trusting it back to someone at Pembroke would draw too much unwanted attention, the Professor deduced)/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;". It was not a younger version of the one he saw play Gandalf the Grey, but he knew that this trustee would interact /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"with him on screen in the film that he saw play in his mind upon touching the letter for the first time. Based on how old the Professor assumed this young man would be in that distant future (a future that J.R.R. Tolkien knew that he would not be alive long enough to see), he guessed that the next trustee of the letter would go on to play Sauron the White./span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Mr. Christopher Lee. May this letter give you as much of an adventure as the one I know that you'll be taking as soon as you get to Hollywood."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm;" align="LEFT"span style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"The professor's door then began knocking, which startled him. Tolkien did not hire a courier to take the letter (he kept getting the impression that local couriers here were not to be trusted and that whoever had given him the letter had been the trustee themselves and not a third party). He very slowly walked towards the front door, and with each step the Professor saw more and more /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"of a vision inside his own head/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" of several large men claiming to be from the Vatican church, beating and torturing him to death, acquiring the letter, then sabotaging the final goal that these letters /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"were made to do/span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;" (which would come to pass approximately 30 years after the professor left this earth). The professor then turned around and tiptoed towards the back door in his kitchen, and he saw more and more of a future wherein the letter made it safely and the goal was realized. /span/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"span style="text-decoration: none;"He thought back to his writing of the hobbit, specifically to the scene where Bilbo Baggins was "hired" to help find the treasure that was guarded by Smaug the Dragon. Professor Tolkien then began to feel a rush of energy, followed by a sense of youth that he had not felt since before he fought in the first world war./span/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I'm going on an adventure" he whispered as he climbed over his fence, onto the street. He ran even faster when he heard someone break into his house behind him./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Chapter 2: Heroines/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"From the first letter's travels in 1937, and in England, to four score and 4 years earlier, the second letter's travels had landed it in New England. The New England region of the United States of America may have been colonized decades prior, but most of the original 13 colonies were still very rural, maybe even still Puritan./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"Massachusetts had Boston, of course. /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"And several textile mills had brought the state, even all of New England into the Industrial Revolution /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"not far behind Europe/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". For one Louisa May Alcott, she longed for her father to gain employment in one of them (as she had several other relatives either working in them already or had business ties to them in some manner). It was a heavy thought to have in one's head at approximately 21 years old, but she had taken a teaching job to help her family with money. /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"It was a welcome change from that of a seamstress, but her main passion was writing. She was chastised for it, on account of her gender, but when one counts Emerson and Hawthorne as family friends, one could get around that issue regardless of any social order./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"Concord, /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"Massachusetts/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" was a simple town, even by Mid-19/spansupspan style="text-decoration: none;"th/span/supspan style="text-decoration: none;" century standards. And one that Louisa May Alcott had been forced to get used to on account of her aforementioned father being...perpetually in-between jobs. She longed for the day where she could see her own name in print on a book inside a bookstore in Boston, all of New England even. /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"For now, she would have to settle for ensuring that the generation behind her was more prepared for the world /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"than she was/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". Especially, a world ruled by men (unless you were rich or noble) that her writings were desperate to subvert in some way./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"The walk home was several miles of the most minimal of dirt roads that existed along the New England countryside. A carriage would've been ideal /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"for her to travel under these circumstances/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;", but Louisa knew that even if they could afford one, it would likely be to transport the potential buyers of the current family home to and from their own house /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"and not for her own personal use/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". She didn't mind the walk, as it was at least one of the milder winters /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"in recent years/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" (February 1/spansupspan style="text-decoration: none;"st/span/supspan style="text-decoration: none;" was the date that she had overheard /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"as being today's date/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" as she walked by Concord's post office/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"). Still, she had a slight longing for /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"the /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"spring/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"time to arrive soon/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;", as she had a penchant for any kind of /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"the /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"local flowers that grew along the roads./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"When she reached her home, she noticed a red, white and blue carriage was at the front of the house. She knew of only one person who used those exact colours: Nathaniel Hawthorne, her mentor. It made him feel more American (an effect that rubbed off on her slightly). She began walking faster, both happy to see him again and sad that another home would soon be a distant memory. She went inside just as Nathaniel reached the study./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Hello Miss Alcott" he said in a soothing baritone voice./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Hello Mr. Hawthorne, it's good to see you again." she replied softly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""The feeling is mutual, madam. Your mother and sisters are preparing supper so I thought I would take one final tour of the place. Your father I believe, is still in town begging and pleading with creditors. But it will be for nothing, as I do plan on buying the place." he said with a smile. Louisa briefly studied the smile (as many women did at the time) to see if there were intentions of malice or lechery behind it./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"To Louisa's delight, there was none./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I'm pleased to hear that. I must confess to you in the strictest of confidence that I was fearing that we were all heading for the poorhouse. I know that we are in no position to negotiate, but I trust that you will give us time to vacate the premises." Louisa phrased ever so slightly in the form of a question./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Oh of course, 90 days should be sufficient, yes?" he asked. She nodded with enthusiasm./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"It was about 45 days later, and to the credit of the Alcott estate, they were well ahead of schedule in the packing to vacate their premises. In fact, all of the small items were packed, now it was just a matter of which large items they absolutely needed. Nathaniel was actually in the house, as he had a rare day off. His attention was focused on an old bookcase. It went nearly all the way from the floor to the ceiling, and was old enough where the beige paint was cracked along slightly more than half the surface./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Were you planning on taking this with you?" asked Nathaniel as he stared whimsically at the empty shelves./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""No sir. Between you and I, it was here when we moved in and I don't even think that the entire family combined could lift it, much less move it out of the house and onto a buck board."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Do you think that we could move it closer to the front window, at least?" asked Nathaniel./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Louisa quickly measured the distance needed, which totalled only about 5 feet or so. Anna, Elizabeth and Abigail then emerged, wearing assorted rags that they didn't care get if they got damaged, as it was just another move for them. Each girl took a corner, with Nathaniel supplementing Abigail (as she was the youngest). The move was relatively easy, in that they actually got it off of the ground by 1 inch and quickly got it to the window with relative ease. They just hadn't counted on such a thick layer of dust permeating the top of it. It was obvious that this bookcase hadn't moved in years, if not decades and everyone was coughing or sneezing for the better part of a minute because of it. It was Louisa who noticed the envelope that was on the floor first. She didn't recognize the type of paper it was made of (and she likely saw every type of paper forged in the state), only the Roman numeral "II"./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Hmmm, if I were to venture a guess, I'd say it was about 350 years old, give or take a generation" mused Nathaniel. All 4 girls were now intrigued, but it was Anna who stated "Keep it, you bought the place"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The other 3 girls nodded in agreement./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;""Well, aren't you all...amazing little women." he whispered, fond of all 4 girls in different ways./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Nathaniel Hawthorne kept that letter for over 4 years, and treasured it as much as he treasured his own family (His wife, Sophia Peabody as well as his 13 year old daughter Una, 11 year old son Julian and 6 year old daughter Rose). He knew at 53 years of age that there were fewer days in front of him than there were behind him, but he kept it in the back of his mind quite well as he and his family travelled throughout Europe./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Paris was magical to Nathaniel Hawthorne, as it was to nearly everyone who had been to it. Una pointed to a large section of grass and said "That would be a great place for a tower" while smiling. The locals who heard stared at the Hawthorne family with a measure of disgust, as they hated tourists to the point of xenophobia, but Nathaniel didn't care, making sure that an envelope bestowed to him over 4 years prior and in addition to the strange music he kept hearing ("An Opera singer singing to a tango? And what on that Earth was all that noise in between?" he thought to himself everyday for 4 years), he also saw a large, metal tower used as the town's centrepiece for a world's fair. Aside from how vulgar he thought something that...phallic looking would be, he was comforted by the fact that his eldest daughter predicted a small piece of the future. Still, Nathaniel knew that his time with the envelope was nearing its' conclusion, and while his children were probably too young for the role of the next trustee, his wife seemed completely disinterested on the few occasions where it was discussed./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"And then came a mugger. Thankfully he (a young man around 18 years old based on the half a second that Nathaniel saw him) just got a small money bag out of his front pocket and not the envelope in his inner pocket./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Somebody stop that thief" screamed Sophia. Most of the Parisian townspeople ignored her and went about their day. A few even laughed at them (mugging tourists was something of a game in Central Europe)./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Un moment, madam" said a boy of about 12 years old as he picked up a broken piece of cobblestone off of the road (a street Nathaniel couldn't even pronounce). The boy didn't even bother to compensate for wind as he threw the rock. It hit the mugger in the back of the head, knocking him out cold. It didn't take long for the Hawthorne family and their new best friend to reach the body of the mugger. Nathaniel could hear him still breathing as the boy fetched the money bag, handing it to Nathaniel. Nathaniel then saw visions of the boy (specifically his past of always doing the right thing), as if the letter was telling him that he was to be the new trustee. Nathaniel then handed the boy a 5 franc note, and the letter. The boy was...bewildered and in awe of the letter, as if he understood its' importance. He smiled, hugged the entire Hawthorne family (one member at a time), then left./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""That'll feed that boy for at least a week, or two" guessed Julian. Rose just waved goodbye to their savior, with a smile that suggested a childhood crush./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Chapter 3: Poetic Pitbull Revolutions/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"Before the 1800's, dates for the travelling letters and where they travelled have mostly been lost in time unless they were in the vicinity of a major historical event or person /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"at the right time/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". If the letters were in fact, sentient, then maybe letter #3 appreciated its' stop in /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"the /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"rural /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"Kingdom of Great Britain/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" in the middle /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"of the /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"18/spansupspan style="text-decoration: none;"th/span/supspan style="text-decoration: none;" century. There was no real way to know an exact location of this letter, except to say that it was nowhere near Glasgow or Edinburgh, except for a carriage ride that would last several hours to either one./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"Instead, we focus on a small farm, that didn't grow crops of any kind. /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"Instead, they were one of the first farms to breed animals away from any major city. Specifically, this was a family breeding pitbulls to sell. Except, as boys often do, the only child of the family was not tending to his daily chores, but was rebelling against the system by...writing poetry?/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emMy constant in life, is these fields of green/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emSupposing to promote peace and nature/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emBut for me, isolation and time at a standstill/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emBreeding animals for profit, not even for food/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emAnd then watching them being lead to slaughter like lambs/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emWhat have we become in these fields of green/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emTo make money off the murder of a different species/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emTo not even keep one aside as a companion/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emWhich I need in a land with no friends/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emAnd a family that only sees me as its' farm boy, and not a son/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emHow I long to leave, these fields of green/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"It may have been prose and not poetry, depending on who was reading it. But for this boy nearing the end of schooling age, it was his passion, /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"much to the chagrin of of his father. His father, known only in anything close to a history /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"book/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" as a man named John, hated it, and tried to suppress it in any that he could as he saw it as more than a simple act of rebellion, but a slap in the face to the entire family...and maybe a sign that his boy was queer, and he couldn't have that. /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"He wishes he could say that he did not have to beat some masculinity into his own son, but he would be lying. /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"Maybe if the family were more well to do, than maybe John could look the other way regarding his son writing in a manner normally seen in girls (and even then, not many, as men were educated longer), /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"but the boy having more...feminine traits was something that he couldn't just ignore. While carnal relations with animals was more common /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"(unfortunately)/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;", sodomy /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"between two humans/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" was punishable by death throughout the Kingdom of Great Britain, maybe even all of Europe. The last thing that he wanted was to see his only child being sent to the gallows /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"to hang/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". This was not only the family livelihood, but a last ditch effort to avoid the entire family being sent to the workhouse. There was not even a guarantee that the boy would even remain with his parents in the same workhouse, as he was old enough to work on his own in the eyes of the Kingdom./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;""/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"Oh laddie, /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"it was /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"a good day today. 3 pits successfully born this morning, and 1 has reached of age to /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"go into the clubs/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"" said his father as the boy stuffed his poetry into his pants (as he couldn't even afford /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"any /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"clothes with pockets /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"in them/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"). The boy then gulped in dread, as he didn't like seeing anything suffer, person or animal alike. And the boy knew where every pit bull went to: To the underground fights that permeated the big cities of the Kingdom of Great Britain that happened between dogs. It horrified the boy to no end, as he had seen the fights first hand. The "arena" where they fought was just a barn with a large wooden circle placed around the 2 (or sometimes more, as many as 10 in the larger "fight clubs") pit bulls. The fights went to the death, and they were /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"almost /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"always long, drawn out and gruesome. The owner of the fight club took 20% of the winning bets and all of the losing ones. The owner would keep /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"half, give 30% to the winner and 20% to the loser. The boy struggled to hide his moral objections to his family's last ditch effort to save their house, and also to pretend that he was interested in anything that either one of his parents had to say to him. /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"He had become a master of this trick./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Where are we taking this one to? Glasgow? Edinburgh?" asked the boy./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""No laddie, those got pinched by their local police. We're going to have to go to Leeds. It's the only one that's close enough to not need an overnight trip. Cuts down on expenses. We leave in 30 minutes." replied his father, already distracted by the potential cash flow in his imagination./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"No one really knew how a carriage was arranged to take the family to Leeds so quickly (especially as it was well over a century before the telephone was invented, much less anything faster in the way of communication). The boy surmised that his father told one of his neighbours several days ahead of time that he was close to having another pit bull of age, who then told two people, who themselves told two people each and so on until a carriage rental overheard, then they probably contacted the father in person in order to narrow down specific times and the like (as best that they could). The journey was several hours to Leeds, and if the boy (who for some reason, carved his name along one of the wooden poles of the carriage, that being "Sebastian") did not have his mother and the soon to be mangled (or killed) pit bull to contend with, he likely would have snuck some paper and ink or lead onto the carriage in order to work on something beautiful. Instead, he attempted the next best thing to him: sleeping. It was a bit of a struggle (as roads even by contemporary standards were not adequately put down in a manner that resembled a flat terrain), but he eventually did sleep, and even had a dream./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"It was a dream of a figure in black approaching him, Sebastian knew (as if on instinct) not to run or avoid him in any way./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emSomething is coming to you that will change your life twice in less than 5 minutes, not now, but later on this evening. You're a good boy Sebastian, no matter what your father says or thinks./em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Sebastian woke up to the shaking of his mother, but was relieved that someone, something, cared about him and saw him as a good person (even if the figure in his dream probably wasn't a person). As he was stronger than his mom, it was his duty to get out of the carriage first. As he would then have the leverage to lift the pit bull cage (a crude homemade job that used scraps of chicken wire and wood plied together) off of the carriage to the ground. From there, he and his father would each take a side and lift the cage into the barn or wherever the fight was to take place. They were greeted by a gruff individual who looked like he last saw clean clothes about a month ago. Sebastian could tell that this was the owner/fight promoter here, even though (to his knowledge), this was the first time taking a dog here./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""You're looking for trouble with the clouds coming" spoke the promoter. Sebastian knew that to be a variant of a secret code that every venue had in order to test those who brought dogs to put in for fights and who were just lost and looking for directions. He could only wonder how tight the security would be with the venues closer to him getting into trouble with the local police. Sebastian wishes that he were actually a couple of years older, that way the police would take him seriously and he could snitch on his dad for his illegal activities. Granted, it would probably mean that the rest of his life would be spent in the workhouses (or homeless and starving, or even dead), but Sebastian had reached the point where he simply didn't care anymore./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""My carriage is well covered, and I could use the rain for my crops" Sebastian's father replied. The promoter nodded and opened the barn. There was no one inside, as it was still several hours before the fights. Having said that, there was already a large wooden circle on the ground on the south half of the barn, with the north half having several horses of a breed that Sebastian couldn't recognize. It was an interesting study in contrast: Having one half of a barn devoted to what is essentially a blood sport for one type of animal and the other half being devoted to the raising of another type of animal. Sebastian never understood the selective valuing of life, as he believed that all lives matter. He focused on the horses as his father negotiated where his new dog would go on the fight card. Sebastian knew that they wouldn't be in the last fight (usually reserved for dogs with more than 5 wins), but his father had not-so secretly hoped that he wasn't going first either, as opening fights tended to make the least amount of money (especially if you were getting the loser's share)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Sebastian, help your mom get the dog out of the carriage. We're fighting 3suprd/sup." shouted his dad. Sebastian switched gears, in an effort to show his dad that he cared (which he didn't)./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""How many fights are there altogether, father?" he asked, making sure to not sound sarcastic, as he didn't feel like getting a beating over his thinly veiled disinterested./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""11 so far, but there's enough time for more people like us to bring in their own dogs from far away." his father offered. Sebastian nodded, doing everything in his power to not burst out in tears. The worst night of his life was the night where the fight card was 27 fights, and 30 dogs died. 3 of the fights were ruled no contests as both dogs died at more or less the same time. His father had never experienced the pain of seeing even his own dogs die (at least, not in the pit, as the mangled ones were often executed if their injuries were beyond repair and they couldn't fight again), and that may have horrified his son most of all: That he was probably the only one horrified by this way of life, as even his own mother was shown to be following her husband's lead (either by love or by fear, Sebastian could never tell)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The fight card grew to 18 fights altogether by the time of opening announcements, and the crowd inside the barn had grown to over 100 people. Some had even brought their own children to the event, putting them on their shoulders so that they could watch and in some cases, cheer on their respective dogs. The fact that these children were actively encouraging loss of life made Sebastian fear for the future of not only the Kingdom of Great Britain, but all of mankind. He began writing to distract himself, trying his hand at the Japanese poetic style he once saw a wealthy dog owner spout out during a fight in Glasgow: Haiku./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emPit bulls fighting hard/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emNeedlessly for owner's to/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emCollect pocket change/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Gimme that" screamed Sebastian's father. His father only read it in the briefest of moments, but for his narrow mind. It was all that he needed./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Do I have to beat the woman out of you, son?" shouted the father as he raised his right hand, clenching his fist. It didn't land on Sebastian's face, or anywhere else on Sebastian at all for that all, for it was grabbed by the promoter./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""How dare you raise your hand to your own child." said the promoter in a voice that was just loud enough to be assertive, but not loud enough to attract the attention of those who spectating the dog fights./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""He writes poetry like a little girl. If I wanted a daughter, I would have prayed to God for a daughter" he said as he pulled his hand away, trying to punch him again. The promoter then stood between him and his own son. The promoter then twisted a part of his body to look Sebastian straight in the eyes and ask "Is this a regular thing?"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Yes sir, and 1 of your collectors is collecting for himself." replied Sebastian as he pointed to someone wearing a long brown coat in the crowd, who was taking bets like normal./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Are you sure?" the promoter asked./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Yes sir, he seems to be taking 10% of the bets and putting them in his other pocket. If that's standard for you I'll keep my mouth shut, of course" he replied, still trying to process that someone in this world might care about him more than his parents claim to./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""No, they collect everything and then I settle it between fights. Come on"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The promoter dragged John by his left arm, and let Sebastian come of his own accord. The promoter then pointed at one of his collectors, signalling him to come to him. Sebastian recognized that the pit bull that he and his family brought over was in fact, the one who just won the fight. And aside from some claw marks across the face, he seemed in excellent shape./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Empty the pockets" said the promoter. The collector handed him the money out of his front right pocket. Sebastian pointed at his left pocket, the promoter nodded and after some resistance, found more money in the other pocket, just like Sebastian had told him./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I can explain..." the collector started./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""...You don't have to. Get out of my sight and don't ever come back." the promoter stated firmly as he took back the stolen money. The collector walked away with a look of fear on his face./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""He's not going to get killed later for stealing is he?" asked Sebastian./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""No, but word will spread and no one will ever employ him again. You're good, kid. It actually was 10% that he was skimming. And you were about to hurt him for being different? What kind of father are you?" asked the promoter as he finished sorting through the money./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Someone who was forced to marry a lady of ill repute for getting her pregnant. I'm not even completely sure if he's mine. Since you care so much about him, take him, he's yours, the dog too. 1 less mouth to feed as far as I'm concerned."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Sebastian wasn't shocked at all about his (now former) father's revelations about his paternity as his father left (in fact, it might actually explain why they didn't see eye to eye on anything or even look alike). The promoter was shocked for a few moments, but then a thought came into his head./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Want to earn your keep as new collector?" the promoter./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Sure, but I've never been comfortable promoting violence between animals. Couldn't you just have them race each other around the barn or something?"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The promoter actually took a moment to think about it. "That's a great idea. If nothing else, it'll drastically reduce my expenses regarding acquiring new dogs all the time. OK kid, after tonight, we race them."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Very well, My name is Sebastian." he said as he stuck his hand out, knowing that this is the best offer he could possibly hope for./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Connor Porch" replied the promoter as they sealed the deal. Then an envelope fell out of Connor's jacket. Sebastian switched from waving goodbye to his mother (who seemingly felt nothing for him either, as she didn't even wave back to him) to staring at the envelope. The paper alone looked old and out of place, as did the Roman numeral "III" That was stamped on it./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Stupid coat pockets, I gotta get this coat fixed." said Connor./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""It's an interesting thing to be carrying." replied Sebastian./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Only the truly honest and incorruptible may handle this. Take it, consider it your signing bonus. You can even write all the poetry you wish...during your downtime"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Sebastian smiled, then realized that he probably wouldn't have much in the way of that./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Chapter 4: Ragdoll Physics/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"The lines and boundaries of the dark continent (Present Day Africa), seemingly changed from moment /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"to moment/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;". If you're reading this at any point from the middle of the 20/spansupspan style="text-decoration: none;"th/span/supspan style="text-decoration: none;" century onward, this is a story set within /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"what will become/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;" Tunisia. But this is Tunisia that pre-dates its' occupation by the French or even the Ottoman empire by about 2 centuries, when most of its' inhabitants were nomads, mostly living along the Mediterranean coastline./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;"A few miles inland, were a family resourceful enough to have not only dug a hole /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"in the sand/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;", but have built a well around it as well, using what few stones were available. Even in a society that pre-dated the industrial revolution, word of mouth spread throughout the land. With that, came the upside of this family suddenly being able to trade for everything that they needed to survive, even thrive. As a downside however, came the father (and guardian) of the family being forced to sleep through the daylight hours, as he defended the well at night while his wife and surviving children slept. We wish we could say that /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"he didn't any incidents of violence, even murder, but I wish to be a reliable narrator, and not lie to you, constant reader old chum./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Records of the family's names have been lost in the foam (or, if you prefer, fabric) of time, as were the lives of 5 of the 7 children that the mother gave birth to. The 2 that lived beyond childbirth (1 boy of about 10 years of age, 1 girl of about 7) were assisting their mother in pulling up buckets of water to trade. They were able to make 12 large buckets with scraps of wood from a rare forest to the south, the trick being to keep out as much sand as possible, as that depreciates the value of the water./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;""Is that enough for today?" asked the /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"girl/spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: none;""1 more bucket would be nice, the more we have to trade." replied his mother. Both of the children took deep sighs, then detached a rope (made from scrap clothing from previous barters) from the current bucket and onto the last empty bucket /spanspan style="text-decoration: none;"that they had. Lowering an empty bucket into the family well was the easy part, it was pulling it back up with the fresh (ish) batch of water again afterwards that was the hard part./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Is it just me, or is this bucket lighter than the others?" asked the boy./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Maybe we caught a couple of fish to cook as well" replied the mom. Both children accepted that as a reasonable answer, as it had happened to them before (and they liked the change and taste of fish). When the bucket was pulled back up, there was no water in it, at all. But there was something in it, all the same./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""What is that? Folded paper?" asked the girl./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Yes. I saw this when a few sailors from the other side of the sea crashed on the shore, they call this an envelope. It's paper folded in such a way as to protect other paper with writings on it. Strange, it's not wet, but it looks like it's been down there for a long time." said the mother./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"It fascinated the young girl to no end. Not just because it survived being in her well without getting wet, but how the envelope felt in her fingertips was a texture that was completely foreign to her, so were the letters "IV" written across it. That alphabet was as foreign to her as the paper itself. What few pieces of paper she had seen at the local marketplace, tended to be much thinner and not so...completely neat and tidy, and whatever was keeping the folds...folded was an adhesive that she had deduced was stronger than any tree sap that she had encountered./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""She seems to like it more than we do, I say we let her keep it" said the boy. He and his mother agreed, she smiled./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""How much water are we keeping? How much are we dumping back in the well?" asked the boy./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Then came a rumbling from a nearby hut, which was theirs./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We'll let your father decide that, as he's already awake" replied the mother./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"It turned out after scooping some sand onto the ground, the last 2 buckets of water got consolidated into 1, making the total number of buckets of water for trade at 11. By the time they reached the marketplace, it was already midday and they guessed that they had (at most) an hour before all of their "goods" evaporated. After 9 buckets were traded, they've gotten everything they need (Meat, Vegetables, Eggs, Clothing for the father) and quickly debated as to what to do with the last 2 buckets./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We could always just drink it ourselves" suggested the son./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""But we always drink the water we get from the well at night" replied the daughter, softly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""She's right. But we don't have long to trade the last 2 buckets as it's only getting hotter." added the father./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Maybe some clothing, but for us?" asked the mother. The father nodded./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""emYOU THERE!"/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Who was that?" asked the daughter./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Looks like the merchant 3 carts down the street, to the left" said the son as he put his right hand to his forehead in a manner designed to block out the sun and assist in him seeing things around him at the same time./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I agree, and he was pointing to you, sweetheart" added the dad./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""What could he want with our daughter?" asked the mother nervously./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"span style="font-style: normal;"The family's anxiety only increased when the merchant left his cart to approach them. While there were no written rules for this marketplace, it was generally understood that merchants did not leave their carts to approach potential customers, as it was considered impolite at best and harassment /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"at worst. The other merchants actually took notice of this, with half of them merely staring at him in shock and the other half shaking their heads in dismay, /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"looking to possibly "confront" the rogue merchant/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""That envelope in your hand, it plays music in your head doesn't it?" asked the merchant./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""What a silly question to ask. You sir, are crazy. Come on everyone, let's ignore him" declared the father./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Actually, it does. I don't recognize it, but it's very playful and nice" replied the daughter. The entire family stopped dead in their tracks. Their daughter may have been precocious, but she was never a liar./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"There's going to be a lot of people coming after you for that letter, you know that don't you?" asked the merchant to the youngest family member. /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"The daughter nodded, adding "The letter...shows me things. I know I'm not supposed to keep this letter long in order to keep my family safe, but I also know that if I pass it off to the wrong person, this letter and what it represents is lost forever."/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The merchant nodded, offering his hand, whispering "Touch me with one hand, and touch the envelope with the other hand. The letter will tell you to trust me."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"span style="font-style: normal;"The family merely stared at her, wondering if she would actually do this. She did, and her head raised to the sky as she saw visions of the future of the letter if she entrusted it to him. There were things she saw in these visions that were advanced to her by several hundred years, but ultimately, the envelope and a handful of others like it, would reach their final destination. She now knew that the letter was better off with this merchant, than it would be with her. Still, she did want some kind of compensation for her brief role as a trustee to a legacy that she did not understand. Then she came to, with her family at ease that she wasn't going crazy./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"Whatever you decide to do with that letter, we will support you." /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"said the mother softly, with her husband and son agreeing in the form of nodding./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Give me the rag doll that you got from a European trader 2 years ago that you keep at the top shelf of your cart." she said with a slight grin./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"I think we can arrange that." /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"said the merchant, who returned the smile. Within 2 minutes, the letter, and the rag doll had changed hands./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""emHow...did...you...know...about...the magic of the letters?"/emspan style="font-style: normal;" shouted someone as they alternated punches to the merchant/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"'s face/spanspan style="font-style: normal;", several hours after he acquired the letter. The merchant couldn't make out much in the way of details as to what his gang of assailants looked like, but based upon the high end crosses draped around everyone's necks, the merchant knew that all 6 of them were employees of the Vatican /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"in some form or another/spanspan style="font-style: normal;". Accepting that he was probably dead either way, he decided to go out with a smile./span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""You wouldn't believe me if I told you." he replied, giggling slightly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Try us" said the largest built of the 6, who was also the main one hitting him./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I carried #6 for a while. I'm actually acquainted with the letters almost as much as the original band that wrote them." said the merchant, who genuinely believed that this was a situation where honesty would piss his assailants off even more, he was right./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"I see, and where are #4 and #6 now?" asked the /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Vatican "employee" as he cocked back his right hand, fist clenched./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Lost #6 moving here, and I think that the sandstorm is gonna blow #4 out of what passes for a window in these parts." he said, now in full-on laughter./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""What sandstorm?" asked 1 Vatican officer./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""What window?" asked another. But it was too late, the sandstorm had formed mere feet away from the merchant's house. The noise (which resembled a woman shrieking to the ears of everyone in the vicinity) was so loud that no one noticed that the envelope had already been swept away outside. 1 motioned for 2 others to go outside, as he saw the envelope flying in the air, but only a few feet off the ground. They ran out to chase it, but were almost immediately buried alive in a newly formed sand dune that stood 50 feet tall. The merchant grabbed a nearby dagger (brass, nondescript in appearance) and just started maniacally stabbing everyone else still in his house. With the element of surprise, he killed the remaining 4 goons, but then collapsed. One of the punches during his torture was sufficient to break at least 2 ribs and puncture his right lung. A figure in black then approached him by walking through a wall of his house, as he was dying./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""You did good sir. Time to go home." the figure said. The merchant did in fact, die smiling./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal;" align="LEFT"span style="text-decoration: underline;"Chapter 5: D'Angelo/Velvet Embracer/span/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"This tale takes place not long after the original band was martyred to the church, all 6 of the trustees who originally were given the letters were still alive, living secluded lives knowing that it was the only way to prevent all of them from being executed themselves (and likely not in as public a forum as what their former employers and friends were subjected to). This tale is (at most), 10 years after that particular day of capital punishment gone wrong./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Spain was one of the more thriving European nations during the late renaissance period, especially as it came to exploration and colonization (don't worry constant reader old chum, this is not a tale detailing genocide or disease). Our focus is on a man in the history of Spain known only as "D'Angelo" or the "Velvet Embracer" (and even then, not by much). He was until recently, an "associate" of the Spanish Monarchy (in that he was not living in the castle, but was welcome to visit more or less as he pleased as long as there wasn't anything important going on at the time). It has been lost to time as to what his royal duty was to the throne, but he was recently relieved of his privileges after he was caught for...enjoying the company of another man in a bedroom. He was actually relieved to only be exiled instead of jailed or executed for the crime of sodomy (basically the standard across the continent) and was even given some money which he used to convert a piece of his lodgings into a private dance school. The lodgings themselves would qualify as a decent sized 2 bedroom apartment in modern times, so the aforementioned piece that he converted was actually his guest bedroom. People in town even gossiped that he was crazy, changing to a high-gloss wooden floor as opposed to low-gloss or stone ("People will slip everywhere" was the main sentence he heard behind his back, only in Spanish). The last piece of furniture in the room was a large mirror that took up almost a fifth of one wall (so that students could watch their teacher's feet, or their own feet, in order to learn faster). He actually was able to move it to the middle of the wall with little struggle, seeing an envelope on top, collecting a little dust but the roman numeral "V" was still visible./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I knew I left it somewhere, I should really be more careful with this" he said as he stared at it briefly. He recalled the night he got it, it was a fight at a local tavern, defending a whore who was being abused. She offered to take him home for a night of "free fun" but he respectfully declined. She gave him the letter instead, and he oddly appreciated the gesture (especially when the music began to play inside his head, it made him dance). Though in retrospect, that might have been what lead to him being investigated for liking men, as the gossip was rampant. Then again, he might have suffered the same exile if he had slept with her as engaging with commoners was looked down upon. One of the many contradictory sets of rules in any form of noble hierarchy, and the one that bothered D'angelo the most./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"A knock was heard at his door. It sounded dull and somewhat muffled, to which D'angelo surmised that the wood of the door was moist in some way. He opened it to find a woman who was probably just barely an adult. Based on the red and gold dress she was wearing, she was probably someone from a fairly rich family. D'angelo non-verbally gestured for her to come in, and she walked while looking at each side of the hallway, as if she was expecting to be followed./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""What would you like your lesson in today?" asked D'angelo, somewhat formulaically. The young woman pauses for a moment, seeming nervous, then answers "Are you willing to teach the foreign dance...where the faces meet?" she asked. D'angelo thought for a moment, then replied "I am, but I only have the most superficial of information about it. I think you would need to travel to Austria to learn anything more than the basics of this particular dance. In fact, I'll only charge you half my normal rate as it's not a major dance in my repertoire"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"She nodded in agreement to the fee and she handed him 15 pieces of silver out of a very nice looking purple velvet bag. The dance they were discussing, constant reader old chum, was in fact the Viennese waltz. They moved to the centre of the room (as it minimized the chance of a student or teacher bumping into a wall and injuring themselves) and D'angelo began humming something that he believed to be a song that would be playing in a large ballroom in Vienna. If one were to be objective, he was actually fairly close. They began moving around the room in 3/4 time. D'angelo was actually impressed that this student caught on so quickly without anything in the way of verbal instruction (or even physical cues while they were dancing). But, she seemed a little distracted...by the envelope./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Is something the matter?" asked D'angelo./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""That envelope. It's...foreign and enchanting." she replied. D'Angelo then realized that it was a distraction and walked over to move it to another room in the house. He was expecting the music to be played in his mind when he touched it. Instead, he only heard what could be best described as loud, baritone-voiced shouting:/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""emShe is not to be trusted with this. Do not give it to her"/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I'm sorry. It shouldn't have been in here." He said, hoping to change the subject immediately./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I'll pay you the full fee if I can have that envelope" she replied./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""It's not for sale." D'angelo stated politely, but firmly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Very well." she said./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""emShe is plotting to steal the letter tonight with help from local authorities"/em span style="font-style: normal;"spoke the letter./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I'm afraid that's all I know about the face touching dance." stated D'angelo./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""That's...more than I knew an hour ago. I'll...show myself out" stated the student. D'angelo never asked for her name, but with her fascination with the letter, he now knew that was for the best. After she left, D'Angelo turned to you, constant reader old chum:/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""This isn't the first time I've had a close call with someone that the envelope told me would try to steal it, or failing that, kill me. Part of me is even grateful that I was cast out from the royalty of this monarchy. I could tell that even before I was found out to be a homosexual, that I was being watched by people in the castle, as if I was being monitored by them. I've heard rumour of the Vatican spying on its' enemies...and own followers, but I never believed the rumours to be true until now."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"D'Angelo then walked over to a nearby window where he saw the woman talking to a man in black and white religious attire across the street. He assumed that she was talking to a priest or some other type of low-middle level servant to the Catholic cloth./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""It's long overdue for me to find a successor to carry this letter." he said softly. And even though he wasn't touching the letter, he could hear the letter agreeing with him inside his mind as a young boy was nailing a sign to a nearby lamp post, to the south of his window. He could just make out enough words to determine that it was an advertisement for a ball to honour the 10supth/sup anniversary of the passing of Christopher Columbus./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""It's a shame that he died. He would've been perfect to have been a trustee to the letter, in that he could at least get the letter far away from here. Wait, Ferdinand Columbus, his second son, is still alive. And he runs one of the better libraries of Europe, he would be just as good a trustee as his father. I'll go to him tomorrow"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"It was rare for any town in Europe in any time period to have a library more extensive and larger than the local church, but this town in Spain was a very noteworthy exception. Ferdinand actually tried to keep his name off of his own creation as much as he could, as he was well aware that he would always be compared to his father Christopher, the great explorer. Historians of the middle ages would eventually come to recognize Ferdinand as a success in his own right, but not until long after Ferdinand had left this earth./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"On this day, he was about 15 or 20 minutes from closing his library for the day, perfectly happy to run out the day processing returned books in the back and let someone else on his payroll handle out the checking out of books (among any other tasks). But when he heard his name be called by someone he used to like, he knew that he had to address one particular customer personally./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""D'angelo! What are you doing here? Do you want me exiled from the castle too?" he asked in a state of terror, implying that he might even be killed for associating with "The Velvet Embracer"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""emYes, you can indeed trust this one...for a price of some more exile."/em/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"D'angelo knew what to say immediately: "Become the trustee of this letter for the foreseeable future, and you will never see me again. I may be heretical to the church, but you know I am not a liar"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Ferdinand thought of all of their interactions (and dance lessons) inside the castle, and conceded that D'angelo was nothing if not an honest man, and that briefly made Ferdinand question what the church did to him. Then he thought of his loyalty to the Vatican and how this would likely shatter it forever. On the third hand, he knew that never seeing "The Velvet Embracer" again would vastly improve his life, assuming that this visit was never mentioned to anyone ever again./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Fine, I'll take the letter. But you're also never speaking about me again either" stated Ferdinand as a counter-offer./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"D'angelo nodded, and handed Ferdinand the letter with his right hand while shaking Ferdinand's left./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Farewell old friend" they both said at the same time./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Chapter 6: Gunpowder Chant/Infralove/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"No continent is immune from the journeys of the 6 envelopes, even the land down under. Australia was not far removed from being a penal colony for the British empire when the sixth and final envelope paid a visit here. Unlike most places in these envelopes journeys, this island, country and continent had yet to be visited by the Catholic church or really any other enemy of the Diablo Swing Orchestra. But that doesn't mean that land down under wasn't entirely free from adventure for the envelopes./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"There were many Dutch settlers in Australia in the mid 1600's, with pretty much every name lost to time. One in particular, actually enjoyed observing the day to lives of what would become known as "Aboriginal Culture" centuries later. They were semi-nomadic, so one person that you were watching one day would be in another part of the territory as soon as 2 or 3 days later. But this Dutch settler was perfectly happy for the scenery to change, and he respected them enough to not meddle in the day-to-day affairs of the locals.../p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"...until one fell, a woman who was probably just 20 years of age, at most. While the Dutch settler was not a doctor by any means, he knew a broken wrist when he saw one (as he's had each of his broken at least twice). He immediately took her by the right hand (specifically, the uninjured one) to his ship. He grabbed 2 pieces of wood and white linen that was leftover from a makeshift bedsheet that he had made and tied them very tightly around her left forearm. She then took him across a dune that measured over a mile and a half, culminating in the sight of about a dozen mud huts and makeshift tents. The Dutchman came to assume that this was her home village, and a man in his early 40's came to greet the young woman. He wore several modifications to his body that were made of a crude type of metal that the Dutchman couldn't determine. And based on the reality of some but not excessive amount of physical affection shared between them (namely, a hug but no kiss), the Dutchman concluded that this was her father, not lover or husband. She then pointed at her injured wrist, then pointed at the Dutchman. He then smiled, paused for a moment in some confusion, then pointed to his own mouth, then stomach./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Ahh, he's inviting me to a meal" he thought. "I would be rude to not accept his invitation" he said softly, he then acknowledged the invitation by nodding, then pointed to his own mouth and stomach in kind. The man then pointed at the sun, then in an entirely different direction./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I'll guess it's a dinner invite at sunset" he thought silently. He then then nodded at what was now everyone in the tribe, who had gathered to stare at the makeshift splint that he had made. They then applauded in the joy of the Dutchman's acceptance. The Dutchman then realized he would have to eat everything they offer him, and he had no idea about what aboriginal cuisine entails./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"There was an unseasonal period of cold throughout all of Northern Australia during the middle period of the 17supth/sup century, and this was especially true at night. The Dutchman didn't need to overcome a language barrier to understand that his hosts were struggling to create fire in order to start the preparations and cooking of such a large meal. Instead, he needed to communicate that he needed to excuse himself to get something that would help them. After much deliberation, he determined that it was best to keep his non-verbal gestures simple and unambiguous. He maintained eye contact with as many people as he could (hoping that at least 1 of them would understand that he was only leaving briefly in an effort to actually help them). He pointed at himself, made a walking gesture with left index and middle fingers, alternating which one was out in front. From that one, he elected to put both of his hands together, shaped together to form a bowl. He then put his hands, briefly into a black cloth bag that he carried on him on the right side of his body, connected to his left shoulder via a large strap. He resumed the finger-walking gesture (only in the opposite direction, making sure it was done that way to inform him that he would return as soon as he could). Briefly unsure as to how to gesture that he could make the fire bigger, he simply pointed at the fire, turned his hands so that his palms faced the sky, then lifted them. The chief nodded, understanding perfectly. The Dutchman nodded back at him, then effectively ran back to his boat./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"It didn't take the Dutchman long to get back to what was effectively his home, and even less time to find the gunpowder. What did take some time, was him not expecting the woman whose wrist he fixed standing behind him. He smiled politely, then resumed the finger-walking gesture. She shook her head and smiled, which confused the Dutchman more.../p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"...and then she began to take her clothes off in front of him. He was terrified, as he did find her quite attractive, but did not know how his countrymen back home would accept him taking a woman of a different skin colour, much less how the locals would handle it. Still, her exotic body did arouse him, and she knew it. As if on instinct, she began caressing his lower extremities, bulging through his clothes. After their first kiss, taking this young woman felt right to the Dutchman, and he gave into the temptation of the offering laid before him. She felt pure to him, especially as she shed a single tear as he gently tore her hymen. He felt moderately experienced to her, and enjoyed a euphoric bliss she had never experienced before as he screamed and ejaculated inside of her. Neither one of them cared that their shared experience was brief, they both enjoyed each other as few others in history ever could./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Without a single word spoken, they returned to the village at different times and different places. It was to not arouse the suspicions of their peers. The Dutchman then very carefully distributed a handful of gunpowder both on top of and in the gaps of whatever wood that was found by the tribe. From there, he took a match out of his pocket (which confused the tribe to no end) and struck it against his left forearm (where the skin was sufficiently dry) creating a small flame (triggering oooooh's and aaaaah's from the entire tribe). After a moment, he threw the match at the gunpowder which caused a loud "BANG!" that startled the tribe, then caused cheering to erupt as the fire maintained itself./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The Dutchman could not understand the words that the tribe were using, and he didn't need to. He realized that they were chanting for him out of respect and awe. He appreciated it, but didn't think that it was necessary. The feast went on without any incident, which at first surprised the Dutchman. He thought the young girl he had just been intimate with would want further encounters, but she didn't even look at him. Which was probably just as well, as even that might raise a lot of unwanted attention within the tribe./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"9 months later, screams could be heard (both male and female) across the entire Australian territory. The Dutchman had heard cries of outrage before (even from this tribe starting about 2 months after their fire of fellowship), but this was something entirely different. Namely, the entire tribe came to within a few metres of him and his ship. The Dutchman scrambled inside his ship for a moment, then decided to meet the angry mob outside in an effort to end this potential conflict peacefully. The head of the tribe shouted a bunch of grunts to the Dutchman (who did not begin to comprehend a single one of them) then pushed a woman forward. The Dutchman knew her all too well, well enough to know the bump in her stomach. On a surface level, the Dutchman knew that there were cultures wherein the women were required to remain virgins until they were at least a certain age or married, and the Dutchman suddenly understood the error in his ways. Worse yet, he knew that he had no chance of ever properly explaining that it was she who proposed the intimate act in the first place. Then again, would they have accepted his answer even if they understood what he was trying to tell them?/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"None of that seemed to matter as the girl punched her father in the stomach (at least, the Dutchman guessed it was the stomach) and ran towards the Dutchman. He took her by her right hand, then they ran as fast as they could through the shore water's. He then pushed the boat (which signalled the rest of the people on the ship to begin preparations to depart from the lower galley as they heard and saw pretty much everything). The whistling sounds made by the passing darts blown by the tribe (presumably poisonous) was no longer of any concern to the Dutchman or his new travelling companion. It actually impressed him that he seen a sack attached to her bag with a few assorted belongings. The Dutchman came to realize that she had been planning her escape with them for at least some time (maybe since the night they had been intimate). The Dutchman knew where his crew were travelling to: The Dutch East Asia company (modern day Indonesia). Amongst her belongings (which were scattered across the floor now, as she had begun unpacking) was an envelope that the Dutchman knew that she had no business having. He didn't even have to touch it to learn that the letter was forged somewhere on his home continent at some point in the past (although the roman numeral "VI" looked like it had been touched up fairly recently, as in within the last decade or so), and he was curious as to how she had acquired it. But it didn't matter much to the Dutchman, who then walked over towards her, put his giant hand on her stomach, then kissed her on the lips./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Chapter 7: Wedding March of a Bullet/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Emperor Momozono stood for little if any tomfoolery during his brief rule over Japan, nor did any Emperor of Japan really. But today marked an event made in order to avoid at least a national incident, if not an international one: He was being forced to marry his Court Lady, Ichijo Tomiko as she was the mother of at least 2 of his children under the threat of throwing all of Japan into social anarchy, as royal blood lines were often challenged. He was only 21 years of age by our modern system, but he had more on his shoulders than many human beings of any time period 3 times his age./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"As this was a last minute wedding, only the most minimal of legal details were adhered to. Basically once the proper paperwork was filled out in order to update their home (in this case, a palace), they were legally married. With 2 sons already a part of the world (and with their accompanying titles already assigned to them), there was no need to adopt any children outside of the bloodline (although there were many offers anyway). Momozono's mother, Lady-in waiting Sadako, served as the legal witness to the paperwork, but knew it would change little about her son and his lifestyle. For men in Japan during this period, sexual gratification was almost entirely different than procreation, so courtesans and prostitution were not only common, but somewhat respected professions. Having said all of this, there is little to no way for all illegitimate children of Japanese emperors to be documented. In fact, 90 percent of them or more have been lost to time, constant reader old chum./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Emperor Momozono could still feel something resembling a gun being pointed at him, as he felt he was being forced to marry well before he was ready to settle down. Then he went on a tangent in his own mind in an effort to distract himself from the reality that was going on around him. Specifically, that the cultures that had guns (namely the Europeans as well as their respective colonies, namely a large colony that he heard stories of that exists a couple of thousand miles to the east of his own land) were uncivilized, even barbaric. Emperor Momozono was a purist, he preferred to visualize that his kingdom was gently pointing a sword under his chin as opposed to a gun. He actually believed that he was giving his kingdom a gift by getting married. Pragmatically though, he knew the consequences if he did not get married now: Eventually, his entire Kingdom would be thrown into anarchy, and Japan would end around what historians would call the "Edo" period of Japanese history. And as previously stated, this civil union would not stop him from pursuing other women on the side. The concept of spreading his seed incited him so much, that he actually believed more courtesans and prostitutes would offer their sacred parts to him after he was married. He did some quick calculations, and he suspected that his 2 children with the woman he was about to marry were actually 2 out of the 5 children, maybe even 6./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"He looked over at his soon to be bride, and noticed a dejected look on her face, alternating between it and a fake smile, as if she didn't really want to get married either. The elevation in her social stature alone should have been sufficient for her to enjoy this ceremony, but even Emperor Momozono could see that it was not enough for her to put on a fake smile for the whole day. His best guess was that she wanted to marry out of love, not out of necessity. For that, he could not blame her in the least. He even walked over to comfort her./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""It'll all be over shortly" he said softly, even making a gesture to play with her hair. To his credit, he did not abuse her in any way (which she knew was somewhat against the cultural norm) and on some level, she did appreciate it. She began looking up at the ceiling of the first floor of a 5 floor pagoda, as if she was searching for the right question to ask her almost husband./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Would you like to march to the judge's desk like we're in our Kingdom's military?" she asked with what could only be described as a smirk on her face. He was taken aback by her desire to display such mockery against his Kingdom of Japan. On the other hand, if anyone could get away with it, it would be him. And he actually found it quite appropriate given the circumstances, it was as close to flat out telling everyone in the kingdom that this marriage was a sham as they could probably get without destroying the social order of the Kingdom almost overnight./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"There were a few other couples with loose ties to the Japanese royal family that were also on hand to get married themselves, but they didn't understand as to why their Emperor and his lady were walking towards the judge in a manner that seemed to mock their Samurais. Emperor Momozono didn't care, as he was happy to just submit the finished paperwork. Actually, he was amused by the reality of his subjects being too confused by what he was doing to chastise him. Whether it was his inner child or the pressure of ruling Japan, it didn't seem to matter./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"And a different kind of chaos then entered Imperial Japan's collective mainframe. The sound of one bullet being fired and striking the Emperor, followed by a cloaked figure running out into what those reading this in the 21supst/sup century would call downtown Tokyo. Based upon his appearance, the eye witnesses would identify him as some kind of assassin, likely from Mongolia (although his dress was definitely closer to European, and he was wearing a metal cross around his necklace). But for now, their Emperor, their king lay on his stomach in a pool of his own blood. The bullet was a small calibre one, fired into the Emperor's lower back on the left side. Thankfully, it missed the spine by at least 3 inches, but where it hit caused it's own problems: Namely, it his left kidney. His new bride assisted in getting him into a carriage with the help of 4 large, good Samaritans./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Anaesthetic and pain killers weren't really heard of in this period in Japan's history. So it was with a sad Irony that the alcohol being used to keep the Emperor comfortable was probably killing him faster (as one of the kidneys that would normally filter the alcohol had a hole in it)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""The bullet's too deep, I can't get it out." declared the physician (wearing black on his right side and white on his left for reasons no one knew). He then mumbled something about how barbaric it was to kill someone with a bullet, and to not even hit him in a place that would kill him instantly. "A katana or even a star would've been a more merciful death for our Emperor" he was almost heard saying. His new wife, knowing that this would be one of her duties, sat down next to her ailing husband, prepared to take down his last will and testament. Emperor Momozono was delirious, partly from the alcohol, partly from the pain, partly because the surgeon's hands weren't clean. He envisioned that he had married correctly, as his new wife was someone that he could trust. Their children were much too young to be trusted with one particular personal effect of the Emperor's./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""My kingdom is yours to control until our eldest son reaches age. All of my personal items, save one, are under the same terms. The one that is yours indefinitely is an envelope a courtesan gave me in exchange for safe passage out of Japan. The envelope will tell you who to give it to next. I shall see you on the other side."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"He then died shortly after, with the rest of his words being complete nonsense./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"4 Days later, the empress and widow was still confused as to why her now former new husband said what he said in his last will and testament. And as he died only a few minutes after that, no clarification was possible. The envelope was actually one of the last items to be processed (what was this "VI"?), and upon touching it, Empress Momozono began seeing visions of her eldest son about 7 or 8 years from now handing it off to another youth in a royal bloodline (Russia perhaps?) accepting it with a smile./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Chapter 8: Qualms of Conscience/Zodiac Virtues/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Karl Schwarzenegger had made a reputation across the entire Austro-Hungarian empire as being the most professional delivery boy in the kingdom, and he was barely a teenager. The Schwarzenegger family name had always been known as very hard working (though the rest of the world would only realize this when Karl's yet to exist grandson, Arnold, would win 7 Mr. Universe titles among many, many, many other accolades), so Karl was happy to have this level of respect in his field of employment, even this early in his life./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Still, there were occasional jobs given to him that he considered strange, and the first job of this day (April 19supth/sup, 1883 based on his trip to a nearby church at dawn). He was hired to deliver a strange envelope (an off-yellowish colour with an almost colourless letter "V" glued onto the front, likely to age, which Karl correctly guessed as being over 3 centuries old). That in and of itself wasn't the strange part of this delivery job, nor was being paid in advance (that was actually an unofficial standard). But the promise of being paid double if he got the letter to the intended address (a small house on the northern outskirts of what is now Salzburg, Austria) in less than 30 minutes was the strange part, as his clients had a tendency of being stingy in regards to "additional payment". Tips were even something of a rarity in this line of work, but he didn't mind. He mapped out the journey in his imagination, which was easy as he had to know Salzburg and all of its' shortcuts from memory for his reputation to be upheld by the Kingdom./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Even on my bicycle, I don't have much time to mess around. That's actually perfect for me, I can squeeze in more deliveries per day that way"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Karl was about 6 streets into his journey, all of them were cobblestone. The envelope was tucked safely into an inside jacket pocket (that he had sewn himself not long after he started the job) so he could pedal his bicycle freely with both of his hands. It was such a fine balance, the speed he had to travel in order to complete his job and the concentration he needed in order to navigate through the town./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Speed was the easy part. He had discovered that more emphasis on the leg muscles made one pedal harder, leading to a faster ride. The concentration was the harder part. The city of Salzburg was abnormally busy for a Thursday morning, meaning that Karl had to be careful not to hit anyone along the sides of the streets. Secondly, his touching of the envelope (however briefly) lead to him seeing someone he thought was the intended pickup: a farm girl in her early twenties with the lightest of brown hair (without it being called dirty blonde), struggling to adjust to life as the lady of the house due to the recent death of her father. Karl was startled by how vivid the pictures in his head were, but not as startled as noticing that several men, dressed in red and black were pursuing him on horseback. Karl actually thought that travelling by horseback was a little bit vulgar. They required feeding and training and were too bulky to go through some of the more narrow streets, much less the alleyways of Salzburg. Karl then smiled and decided to use that to his advantage. He made a sharp right turn into an alleyway, then began rewriting the route inside his head./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""OK, this may work out in my favour. I may actually get there 5 minutes earlier this way, so long as there are no other...complications along the way."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"But there was. Namely, another set of men (6 in total) in black and red waiting at the other end of the alleyway. They were not on horseback, but were standing there with various weapons (namely large pieces of wood but there was an axe and a knife amongst them as well). Karl panicked, and turned into the first open door that he saw, knowing that he would likely get cited, fined and possibly jailed for at least trespassing on private property (with a bike indoors no less). As he rode down the hallway, he guessed that he was in a high end restaurant or perhaps a ballroom, as the hallway was painted gold. When he turned into what he thought was the main dancing room or dining, he realized to his horror that he had actually turned into the local synagogue. Karl was not Jewish, but had no issue with anyone in the Jewish community (in fact, they represented about half of his clients). 4 things went through Karl's mind as he continued riding his bike towards an open door on the left side./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"1) Gold seemed to be a popular colour in the Jewish faith, as it represented nearly all of the decor in the entire synagogue/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"2) If word got out across the town, how many clients would he lose?/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"3) If there's another group of men dressed in red and black waiting for him, he would really be screwed/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"4) Why was he hearing German and Yiddish being yelled at him, but not Hungarian (German was his first language, he knew enough Hungarian to get by thanks to his job, but Yiddish was almost completely foreign to him)/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"He understood why they were yelling at him (as he was infringing on their property without established consent), but was pedalling too fast and in too much of a hurry to apologize to any of the Rabbis. The door he came in was far too narrow for the horses to trot through, and as he reached his exit, Karl was relieved to find out that there were no other horses (or people for that matter) waiting for him as he left the synagogue. For the briefest of moments, he heard a series of noises that suggested to his imagination that the people who were after him ditched their horse and began tearing the synagogue apart looking for him, thinking they would hide him somewhere inside. Karl felt more than a little remorse for the Jews he had ridden past, as he had no quarrel with them and understood why they had a quarrel with him. He continued heading north, estimating that he now had a considerable lead on his opposition that was chasing him. And he desperately wanted to maintain that lead./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Salzburg was not a big city (especially by 19supth/sup century standards) so Karl was out of town limits not long after his ride through the synagogue. It was somewhat uncommon for Karl to have a job that took him out of Salzburg in any capacity, and in light of the stress that Karl was suffering through, he took it upon himself to enjoy the Austro-Hungarian countryside for the end portion of his journey. Everything was very lush and green, there were even a few cows and horses for Karl to appreciate. When he made it to his destination, he was perplexed by the front of the house. It was normal for a house to be painted all one colour (in this case, white). But there were so many stairs leading to the front door that Karl had briefly envisioned some of the new apartments that were in the city where there were stairs attached to every balcony. It was practical in the case of a fire, but everyone who was scared of heights would be terrified at the concept./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"As he didn't know how far the men in black and red (which he now just assumed was some sort of fundamentalist offshoot of a branch of Christianity, likely the Catholics, which alarmed Karl, as he was Catholic himself), he elected to stash his bike at the back of the house in order to conceal it from anyone potentially following him. Karl knew he might be receiving a strange look from someone living in the window, but he wouldn't be at the house long enough for that to be much of an issue. Knowing that he was still on the clock, he ran frantically, envelope in right hand. The steps were actually pretty shallow, which relieved Karl as he did not want to trip and lose any of his teeth. He reached the front door and did a frantic, but polite, knock. The young girl who came to greet him was exactly as Karl envisioned every time he touched the letter, although she was at least 3 years older than the vision that the envelope gave him./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""You're here, and with 2 minutes to spare, very nicely done Mr. Schwarzenegger. You terminated that delivery" she said with a smile, handing him a black velvet pouch with what he new to be at least 40 forint coins. He would likely out-earn his parents weekly wages in just a day or 2. But he didn't really think about that too much. "That's the most beautiful woman I've ever seen in my life. Between her dirty blonde hair, smile, and her height. I hope that letter is right in telling me that I'll marry her someday."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"There was an energy inside of him that he had never felt before as he went back down the stairs. Like he could fly over the entire Austro-Hungarian Empire with a smile across his entire face. He actually got back into Salzburg faster than when he entered it./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Where did you deliver it, boy?" yelled one man dressed in black and red./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""You think we're afraid to kill a little delivery boy like you in public?" shouted another, in between punches. Karl's nose had already been broken, his eyes blackened and nearly swollen shut, his lip bleeding in 3 different places, his belly in such pain from being punched repeatedly in the stomach that Karl wanted to throw up all over his beaters, knowing full well it would anger them enough to kill him./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Don't tell them anything. They'll be back to help you out, I promise." came a voice inside Karl's head. It sounded like it came from another part of this world, another time even. He was briefly tempted to give up the location of the envelop, but stopped when he realized he would never see the letter's new trustee ever again. And he only knew that because of what...this voice showed him inside his head. The voice did not sound remotely Austrian, and spoke only perfect English. If Karl was correct in his beliefs, the voice was not only from another continent, but from another time period (at least 125 years in the future by his guess). Still, how he was able to focus on anything other than his own physical pain was a mystery that eluded him. His best guess? He knew that the letter was more important than his own life./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Hey? What are you doing to that kid?" screamed someone half a block to the east. Karl looked to his left and saw that that voice was merely 1 voice in a group of 6 or 7 people...all rabbis./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""You gentlemen hid this heretic in your synagogue. We are merely settling unfinished business with him. Go away and we may compensate you for the damages we did to your temple of blasphemy" replied one of the Vatican Knights (whom Karl knew was lying)./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""So that's why you rode your bike through our temple? To get away from these guys?" asked a rabbi as they came to within speaking distance of Karl. Karl meekly nodded and replied "Yes sir" while avoiding eye contact/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""No child should ever be tortured for any reason, especially by a religious faction." whispered one of the other rabbis. That was the last thing Karl heard before he saw all of the Rabbis take cricket bats out of their robes. Karl, on instinct, stepped backwards towards a fence and watched the brawl unfold before his eyes. For every hit that the Vatican Knights landed on the Rabbis, the Rabbis seemed to land at least 3./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The Vatican Knights shouted between themselves. Karl could only make out that they had reasoned that the letter once again, evaded them. They ran away to regroup, then the Rabbis stared at Karl. Karl knew what to say immediately/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Once again gentlemen, you have my deepest apologies for trespassing on your sacred ground. It was the only way to avoid being killed by the men you just, well, beat to a bloody pulp."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We figured that out when we saw them near the synagogue earlier added with seeing them beating you here on the street. Any enemy of our enemy...is our friend, even young package boys who ride their bicycles through our synagogues."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Karl smiled, then decided to push his boundaries, as all boys do "Got any packages for me to deliver?"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The Rabbis laughed, then pulled out a zodiac chart, Karl listened intently./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Chapter 9: Porcelain Judas/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Well, after 336 years and the repeated intervention of outside (and metaphysical) forces, the Catholic church finally gained custody of 1 of the 6 Diablo Swing envelopes. It was located at approximately 2:00 in the morning on September 1supst/sup, 1939 in the metropolitan area of Warsaw, Poland./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"In the days leading up to this location, the Catholic Church had received word that the letter with the Roman numeral "IV" written across the front had been in one of the smaller towns of France (possibly not it's first time in that country, according to Catholic intelligence) where after being entrusted to someone for a few months, was smuggled in a shipping crate of porcelain dolls to Warsaw. This presented a major international complication for the Catholic Church. They knew that a Nazi invasion of Poland was due any day now, and the Vatican would have to maintain neutral status (at least publicly) if a war broke out in Europe (which would effectively culminate in the arrival of a second world war). So the objective was to lie to Adolf Hitler and say that a ring belonging to the recently appointed Pope Pius XII had fallen into a shipping crate and that was their only interest in Poland. Adolf Hitler personally sent them a telegram wishing them well in their search of the lost piece of jewelery. This lead to 2 points of speculation in the Catholic Church:/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"A) If Hitler blindly accepted this lie as truth (as Pope Pius XII wasn't in France at any point in the year, to the best of the Vatican's knowledge), what else was slipping through his mind and fingers with him focused on conquering Europe?/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"B) Given that the Vatican was well aware of Hitler's penchant for archaeology, if their cover was blown, would the Nazi's show interest in obtaining all 6 of the letters for themselves? And if they did, how fast could they acquire them with their resources and lack of regard for terminating the lives of all who stand in their way?/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Despite Warsaw being a population of over 1.3 million people, not many of them could afford to buy a doll from another country, much less a country as luxurious and well-reputed as France. In the end, they only had to focus on 1 crate dated August 13supth/sup with the crate serial number "000666" (an irony that greatly amused the more...socially moderate members of the Vatican). That relieved the majority of the Vatican Knights that were dispatched to Poland, as most of them didn't know how to read French. They were also under direct orders from Pope Pius XII to be as quiet about this mission as possible (which lead to jokes among the more hardline members of the Vatican that Pope Pius XII was more of a diplomat than an actual pope). After an hour or so of going through the night's shipments at what passed for a post office (it was little more than a concrete bunker left over from the first world war that was converted into a makeshift warehouse at some point in the 1920's), they obtained it. It only cost them a few blessings given to the staff (mostly for successful lives, births and protection from the Nazis slaughtering them)./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Do we have orders from the Vatican as to what to do with this, now that we have it?" one of the Vatican Knights asked./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We haven't gotten the telegram yet. As you no doubt understand, it's kind of hard for outside communications to get into Poland even when the Fuhrer isn't planning to conquer your country any hour now." replied another./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I can't wait for a decade or 2 from now when every town should have at least one telephone." whispered a third./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""How the hell can you possibly know that?" asked a fourth./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Observation in the evolution of society. Besides, telephones are not heretical. The people using them probably are, though" said a fifth, trying to defend the third./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""I say that the safest course of action is to destroy it right away." declared a sixth./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""At this point, a communication from a cardinal would suffice. I suggest we wait 30 minutes. If we haven't heard anything, then we destroy it. What's so special about this letter anyway?" asked the seventh, and last./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"That was just it, wasn't it? The Vatican Knights never bothered to ask once as to why they were charged with the task of destroying a simple envelope. They didn't even know that by destroying this letter, it would just prevent 1 descendant of a musical act from long ago from meeting up with 5 others in Stockholm on a very non-descript day several decades from now. They probably won't even know precisely when to open each letter until their benefactor in black appears./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Sirs, sirs, a telegram has arrived for you" declared a secretary known only to the Vatican Knights as Agata. She arrived with a man in a dark green uniform which the Knights knew to be the local post office. One of them smiled and signed for the telegram quickly, and Agata lead the postman away. The Knights knew this to be a private telegram as the paper had a tear away section on each side measuring approximately 1 cm wide. After ripping off the tear away sections, the paper (and subsequently, the message) became very easy to read:/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"em-BEGIN MESSAGE-/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emI have taken secret trains and automobiles to reach you -STOP- I won't be far behind this message -STOP- Wait for my arrival/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"em-Pope Pius XII/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"em-END MESSAGE-/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER"*/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="CENTER" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"span style="font-style: normal;"The message was in fact, telling the truth, as less than half an hour later, the pope had arrived, dressed in casual street clothing to show his Vatican Knights that he was taking a very big risk /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"just by/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" even being here, as this job was so far off the books, it was doubtful at best that most of the world's cardinals even knew /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"that he was anywhere near Poland/spanspan style="font-style: normal;". Still, the Vatican Knights bowed in reverence of their boss (second only to God himself in their eyes). His excellency did a non-verbal wave, indicating that the rest of their tribute to him was not required. He even joined in the opening the crate of dolls in front of them, grabbing a /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"nearby crowbar /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"from against a wall/spanspan style="font-style: normal;". The crate came open quite easily with /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"all /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"8 of them working on it./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"So, how do we do this?" asked one of the Vatican Knights, making sure to stare directly at the Pope while asking./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"Dolls that are made in France tend to be very hollow. It's a reflection as to how fragile life can be /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"for them/spanspan style="font-style: normal;". So, we shake each doll one at a time and the one where we hear a light rattle is the one with the letter inside." decreed the Pope. Each knight and the pope himself took out 1 doll each and began shaking it. The fifth one had the slight rattle, and it was immediately smashed on the ground. Sure enough, there was a letter inside /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"amidst the broken pieces of porcelain/spanspan style="font-style: normal;". /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"It was the Pope himself who picked it up and showed it to his minions./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"This is a proud day for all of the Vatican /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Church/spanspan style="font-style: normal;", /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"the one, true, religion of /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Catholicism /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"and /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"all of/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" Christianity itself. We will finally rid the world of this act of heresy, /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"set in motion centuries ago/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"." the Pope declared./span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Not so fast, this isn't the real letter" interjected one of the knights./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""He's right. The letter that we're looking for is a few hundred years old, right?" asked another. The majority of the men in the room nodded./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"The paper making the envelope is too modern. We've been /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"tricked/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" by whoever's acting as the trustees to hide the real letters"/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"Shall we open up the fake?" asked one of the other Vatican knights. The Pope nodded, and the envelope was ripped to shreds by more than one Vatican knight. The Pope took the letter and announced: "Oh how appropriate, it's written in Latin."/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Well, what does it say in English?" asked 2 or 3 of the Vatican Knights./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"It says /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"'/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Silly Catholics, Hell don't mean a thing if you ain't got that Diablo Swing/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"'"/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Agata came running back inside, her exhaustion was only overshadowed by the look of dread in her eyes./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""The Nazis have just invaded. All of you may want to leave quickly and quietly" she said in between breaths of desperation./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"They did./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Chapter 10: Pink Noise Waltz/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emWe go to a temporary broadcast booth set up at a small stadium in Helsinki, Finland for the ESPN network. It's red and white with the ESPN logo front and centre. Seated at it are 2 Americans (1 Male, 1 Female), the male with a Black Stetson 10-gallon cowboy hat, the female is not wearing a hat at all, allowing her well-groomed long blonde hair to be shown. They are otherwise dressed in all black (dress shirts, pants and shoes) that fit to within 1 cm, as a professional courtesy to the network./em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""span style="font-style: normal;"Good afternoon everyone, I'm /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Lisa Niemi/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" and with me is /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Patrick Swayze/spanspan style="font-style: normal;", who is for once NOT /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"on a movie set/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"."/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"span style="font-style: normal;"Patrick Swayze/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" chuckles slightly /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"at /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Lisa/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"'s comment/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" and adjusts the /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"cowboy hat/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" before replying with "This isn't just a /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"danc/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"ing event, this is /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"the European Professional Ballroom Dance Championships"/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emShown on every TV screen in America is a montage of Ballroom Dance footage shown in chronological order beginning with the World Championships from the late 1970's. The footage culminates in Karen and Marcus Hilton of Great Britain winning the 1989 Championships rather easily/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""The Hiltons are the reigning champions and have been on a roll, securing either titles or top 3 finishes in nearly every event that they're eligible for." explained Lisa Niemi./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""But now that the rest of the Ballroom Dancing world knows who they are, the pressure has been mounting on them in recent months as their competition has adapted, doing faster dancing routines and focusing less on their technical prowess." explained Patrick Swayze./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Lisa could see that the topic had run its' course./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emThe TV screens cut to a display of the breakdown of the couples, ranking in descending order from top to bottom. They are only listed by the country that they represent, not by name"/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Lisa Niemi began "OK, let's go to the breakdown: After the short program, the Hiltons are in a close second, 1 point behind the local Finnish team"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emThe screens then changes to showing the Hiltons stretching backstage./em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Patrick Swayze continues "Team USA is in third place, followed in order by Spain, Belgium, Japan, East Germany, Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, West Germany, Canada, Australia, Italy, Scotland, Hungary and finally, Romania"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emThe screens then change to a graphic of 2 stick figures holding each other, with the word "Waltz" highlighted underneath them/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"span style="font-style: normal;"Lisa Niemi/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" began talking on cue "/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"That's right everyone, the Waltz will be the dance for everyone during the long program. Due to a rules ambiguity, the dancing couples can actually choose between the /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"English/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" Waltz, or the Viennese /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"Waltz, which was actually first/spanspan style="font-style: normal;""/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"span style="font-style: normal;"P/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"atrick Swayze nodded in agreement, adding "That's right Lisa. The Viennese Waltz is twice as fast as the English version, which came later, then became so popular it is commonly viewed as having been invented first, which it wasn't. For those of you watching who are keen on music theory, The English Waltz is done at around 90 beats per minute, while the Viennese is done at 180. And /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"b/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"oth /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"dance styles/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" are /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"usually conducted/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" in /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"the /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"3/4 time /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"signature/spanspan style="font-style: normal;""/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""emThe TV screen changes to a graphic listing the rules of the dance."/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"span style="font-style: normal;"Patrick Swayze/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" continues talking "/spanspan style="font-style: normal;"For the long program, /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"80% of the dance must be the actual dance itself, unlike the 90% mandatory minimum /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"that we had/spanspan style="font-style: normal;" in the short program. I personally think half of the teams will try to push it to 90 or even 95% as the judges tend to prefer the technical side /spanspan style="font-style: normal;"of dancing/spanspan style="font-style: normal;""/span/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Lisa nodded and began "5 Neutral Judges from Brazil, Sweden, Greece, South Korea and Argentina will assign each couple scores from 1 to 10. these scores will be combined with the short program to form a combined total. Highest combined total wins"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emThe TV then cuts to alternating shots of all 16 teams going over strategies and techniques. Their is no audio of their conversations, only stock orchestra music./em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Patrick took his turn, announcing "The defending champions are going to have to score at least a 42.5 and hope the Finnish and the American teams stumble"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"emAn announcement is heard over the PA system "Attention, will the team that drew #1 please make their way to the court"/em/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Here comes Romania" said Lisa./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Here we go." replied Patrick./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Which one do you want to do?" asked Marcus./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Traditional. It'll be easier to get the technical score if we're not dancing twice as fast as the other half of the teams" replied Karen. Marcus nodded and continued stretching his legs on the side of the stage as Czechoslovakia began their routine. They were either lucky or unlucky to have drawn #16 (meaning that they were going to dance last), depending on perspective. Neither one of them were overly concerned, just making sure that their matching outfits (a suit and an evening dress, each made to look like the British union jack). An official approached them and asked "Fast or Slow?" in a heavy Finnish accent. Marcus quickly surmised that the official's English wasn't very good and that was the best he could do to ask if they were going to do the Traditional or Viennese waltz in a way that they could understand. Karen replied "Slow" followed by a nod from the official, who then walked over to the panel of judges./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""How long do you think it'll be before he comes back asking us to provide music?" asked Marcus./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""A minute, maybe 2 if we're lucky" answered Karen with dread. Neither one of them spoke the languages of any the judges, so they had no idea how to tell them that their choice of music was actually destroyed due to an overzealous baggage handler either in London's or Helsinki's airports. And it was something that both of them had been procrastinating about since the moment they arrived for the competition./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Excuse me, may I please have your autograph?"/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Marcus and Karen both turned around to see a young girl standing behind them, approximately 6 years old and presumably Finnish. They were mildly annoyed at the venue's security to have not caught the girl before she approached them, but calmed down upon realizing that a 6 year old girl probably was not a threat to either one of them. Then Marcus noticed what appeared to be a cassette sticking out of her sweater pocket (a navy blue cardigan, suggesting to Karen that this was a school uniform as this little girl was also wearing very well kept black pants, socks and shoes). Marcus then took a knee to address the child directly./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Speak a lot of English?" he asked. The girl nodded./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We don't have a song to dance to, can we please borrow your tape for our long program?" asked Marcus. The girl seemed a bit nervous at the idea, then Karen stepped in. "We could give you and whoever you came with backstage passes to see us after the show" she offered. The little girl took a moment to think about it, then handed them the tape while holding up 4 fingers. Marcus and Karen (understanding that she meant she was in a group of 4 people, counting herself) nodded and quickly signed a photo that she had in her right hand. It was a picture of them in an amateur competition (it eluded them as to which one that it was, but the photo itself was from no later than 1985). Karen then handed an official the tape, then held up 4 fingers and pointed to the backstage area with the other hands. The official then took 4 pieces of laminated plastic out of his back pocket, then handed them to Karen who quickly returned and handed them to this little girl, who weakly smiled, whispered "good luck" then returned to her seat./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We're idiots. We didn't even ask what kind of music it was" stated Marcus./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""We're not in a position to ask her what kind of music it is. I personally found the band name and the album name to be quite vulgar. Why would one need a 'Pretty Hate Machine' if you have 'Nine Inch Nails'?"/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""emPerforming last, are our defending champions, Marcus and Karen Hilton of the United Kingdom"/em was heard over the P.A. system. They took their positions on the middle of the dance floor, hoping that no matter what kind of music came on, it would be in the 3/4 time signature and somewhere around 90 beats per minute for them to dance to./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"Not even close./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"What music (and Karen didn't even think that it actually was music, neither did almost everyone in the arena by the looks on their faces) came out was almost distorted noise, samples that were beyond comprehension and vocals about...someone bowing down before the one you serve. Marcus determined (as they were still waltzing) that this music might be suitable at an underground goth club, but that was really as far as it goes. Normally, a crowd in a major dance competition would make reserved applause for the big spots in a routine (as with figure skating or skateboarding or the like), but this crowd was nearly complete silence (though Karen noted that the little girl who gave them the tape was dancing along, singing in her seat and had a smile on her face that she probably wasn't used to making). When they were finished dancing, there were maybe 5 claps heard between 3 people in the crowd, except for the little girl, who applauded raucously as the dance concluded./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; font-weight: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT" /p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""As much as it's not our cup of tea, I think that the ballroom dancing world needed a little shaking up with music choices that are a little bit more...contemporary, even subversive." whispered Karen as both she and Marcus took their bows to a near-completely shocked crowd. Marcus looked at her, smiled, then nodded in agreement. They then moved back over to the side of the floor./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""How's it looking over there?" asked Karen as she motioned over to the panel of judges. Marcus looked over with some interest before replying "The South Korean is pissed, talking about having us disqualified. The Brazilian is reminding him that not only can we not be disqualified for our choice of music, but we can't even have points deducted as we did in fact, dance to the beat. We have to score in at least the mid 40's in order to defend our titles, and that's assuming that they don't just hand the trophy to the local Finnish team. I think that it could go either way."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"It took the better part of 60 seconds for the judges to submit their scores. Everyone could tell that this competition was done under a very low budget on account of them using a basketball scoreboard to announce the score. Despite their last minute use of Nine Inch Nails, they were awarded a 48 out of a possible 50, retaining their titles by a 2 point lead over the Finns, and a 5.5 point lead over the Americans./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"True to their word, they took the little girl and her group who supplied them with the tape backstage. Only the changing room was off-limits (as they didn't want to risk subjecting a small child to a bunch of naked people). The Hiltons both silently guessed that this girl was privately schooled, as her entire group consisted of her, 2 other students and a chaperone that Marcus and Karen deemed to be a parent of 1 of the other students. They then noticed a large white plastic bag with both of their names on it, and they nodded at each other as Marcus walked over to get it./p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""So, thank you for your tape. We'd like to give you this bag as our way of showing you our very sincere gratitude. It has a bar of soap, some cheeses and stuff in it."/p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The little girl was actually almost in tears as she took the bag into her tiny hands, she then took an envelope from inside her sweater and said, "Then I want you to have this as well. It's some kind of historical document, and I'd like you to have it. But please, do not open it, as it is not our place to open it."/p
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p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT"The Hiltons stared at it strangely, but eventually agreed. They then both moved to hug her, but she withdrew, which caused both Marcus and Karen to stop. They then offered a hand to her each, to which the little girl shook after a moment's hesitation./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""You never told us your name" said Marcus./p
p style="margin-bottom: 0cm; font-style: normal; text-decoration: none;" align="LEFT""Suominen, Veera Suominen"/p