[a/n: Okay, the reason I wrote this was simple: I thought that if we like reading about the Discworld so much, maybe residents of the Disc would like reading about here

[a/n: Okay, the reason I wrote this was simple: I thought that if we like reading about the Discworld so much, maybe residents of the Disc would like reading about here. Alent, if you couldn't tell, is modeled after me. Tell me if you like it and I'll write more. Also tell me what you'd like to see happen to Alent.]

ROUNDWORLD

Chapter 1: Alent

Imagine a turtle bigger than a planet. Imagine an elephant, larger than any elephant has in fact ever dreamed of being. While you're at it, imagine four of them. Imagine that these elephants, for reasons best known to themselves, are standing on the turtle. Now imagine that atop the backs of these elephants is something a bit like a pizza, except for the minor details like mountains and forests and seas and such.

Imagine all this, because I don't feel like drawing it.

* * *

The Quirm College for Young Ladies was where Alent was busily getting an Education. She detested it. Grades were based (she considered) on how much you could remember. Someone with the intelligence of a box of raisins but an iconographic memory could do better than, say, Alent, who was so bright she tended to blind herself but never remembered anything she didn't care about, such as people's names and faces, the locations of her classes, and just about anything involved with what passed for reality on the Discworld.

What she did care about was her books.

Novels were not widespread on the Disc, since people generally considered there were better things to spend their money on than reading about things that never actually happened. And most people didn't approve of reading nearly as much as Alent did, her not stopping reading even while walking around (this was a problem in Sport) but somehow never walking into things. Besides, the books Alent read more or less constantly were absolutely ridiculous, being about a bunch of people who lived on a ball, even on the underside, and didn't fall off even though there wasn't any magic to hold them on. This was clearly ridiculous, and Alent was hard put to it to explain the point of the books; i.e., that there didn't need to be one.

It's a well-known fact that inspirations are caused by the tiny particles that sleet through the universe all the time. These particles can only take root if the mind they strike is the right sort. The person who invented the light bulb, for example, was deathly afraid of the dark.

Alent did not have the kind of mind that attracts inspirations. She had the kind of mind that reaches out and snatches inspirations whether they want to go or not. She could make inspirations. She didn't need to wait for them to come, she could find them. She had been known to find an inspiration in what is commonly known as "writer's block," which is the lack of inspiration.

Alent is going to do something New And Different.

You could tell, right?