Author's notes: None of the Discworld stuff belongs to me (woe! woe!) although I wish it did. Don't sue me, all you'll get is a film canister full of Canadian change anyway.
Whee! I've been working on this for a bit, and I think I've gotten it to the point where I can just leave it as a one-shot, no problem, but if somebody R&Rs, asking for more, I'll most likely stick on some more chapters.
Chapter 1: Instant Sunlight
It was a normal enough day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the author was choking on an overdose of cliches. Such things are normal in the course of the world, while other things... are not.
As it was, things seemed to run pretty smoothly, excepting the fact that what some people liked to call "Magic" bounced up and down on the world as if it were one giant trampoline, and "Magic Creatures" took to running amok across the morbidly fascinating landscape. This changed the working order of some things, so while Tab A USED to be inserted in Slot B, it was NOW inserted into Little Glowy Slit #235X0774. And vice versa. Happily enough, this isn't any sort of story about tabs and slots and little glowy slits. That would be a very boring and very short story, not to mention the fact that the author would most likely run off a cliff screaming before she got through the first page (this would probably be an event of much celebration, but that's not important). So instead she's going to play with your minds and see how far she can warp your Mind's Eye.
Hopefully, not very far.
Once upon a time, far far away, the universe, as it was being created, was thrown for a loop. The Creator had meant for it to be nice and normal and for things to happily develop over time, lots and lots of time, but instead something fell out of whack and so did the rest of the universe.
The sun rose over the Discworld, and, suddenly, the world was thrust into morning. Farmers blinked and roosters crowed softly to themselves, trying to figure out what was going on, and in Ankh-Morpork, in the highest tower, Mustrum Ridcully, Archancellor of Unseen University, slept. This is what he normally did in the mornings, usually until about noon, but lots of other people in Ankh-Morpork did too. That was because the sunlight never got there until noon.
But today it did.
Ridcully mumbled something like "Wsflgl," rolled over, and smacked his lips as his muddled subconcious waded through the mists of sleep and began banging on his concious with a large hammer. Someone started banging on his door and yelling. "What is it?" Ridcully grumbled, prying his sleep-encrusted eyes open and swinging his legs out of bed. He sent a spell flying towards the door, the special one he used to open doors when he was too tired or lazy.
Nothing happened, but Ridcully didn't notice.
"Archancellor! Open the door! It's important!" came Ponder Stibbon's voice from outside.
"I did open the door," the Archancellor yelled hoarsely back, shoving his head underneath his pillow. There was silence from outside.
"You... didn't use a spell, did you?" came the wavering question.
"Of course I did! I'm in bed! I don't want to get up just to open the door," Mustrum growled back in answer.
*I told you he'd go spare.*
*Be quiet, Dean!*
*Whoops! The sofa needs some strawberry jello pie! Which of you fine rutabagas will help me?*
*Chair, could you please escort the Bursar to the dining hall and tie him down?*
*Dean...*
*What?*
"Archancellor, we're having a bit of a problem..."
Ridcully sighed and got out of bed, throwing his bathrobe on. It was covered in sequins and occult symbols, in the style (or lack of) of all Wizards Disc-wide. He turned toward the door, and stopped. It wasn't open. "The door isn't open!" he bellowed.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you, Archancellor," came Ponder's patient tones.
Mustrum strode forward, grasped the handle, and threw open the door with a large crash. "What," he growled, turning red, "is going on here?!?"
"It all started when Adrian noticed that Hex had stopped working," Stibbons explained, jogging a bit to keep up with the Archancellor. "The ants were just milling around willy-nilly and the parp ball had stopped parping."
"Parping," Ridcully echoed back, his eyebrows knit into a complicated (and frightening) mess of lines and bulges.
"And so then we tried a few spells on him-"
"Him?"
"Hex."
"Oh."
"Anyway, yes, they didn't... work." Ponder slowed down at this point, turning pink around the ears.
"Didn't work?" Ridcully was dangerously close to trying to understand what Ponder was talking about.
"Well, it wasn't that they didn't work; I'm sure they would've worked normally; it's just that they... didn't happen. There's no magic, Archancellor."
"No magic?" Ridcully asked himself thoughtfully, coming to a full halt. Ponder jogged a few more steps before he realized what had happened and jogged back. "Is it something to do with waves? Or maybe some kind of wiggly little animal sucking it all up?"
"Little animal..." Ponder gave Ridcully a helpless look. "No, I don't think that any sort of animal is responsible for-" Ponder stopped, choking and turning an interesting shade of purple. "Oh, Gods... The Librarian!" he moaned.
"Ah, it's his fault, is it?"
"No! No! The Librarian hasn't woken up yet! Who knows whether he's still an orangutan or not!"
"Oh dear!" the Bursar giggled. "Out of cheese error! Bring on the cucumbers!"
Commander Vimes stood on the corner and swore in the morning sun. The sun wasn't supposed to be up for hours. What business did it have intruding on his smoke?
Captain Carrot jogged up behind him. "Sir!"
"Yes, I know, Carrot, I'm not blind!" Vimes yelled, throwing his cigar on the ground and jumping up and down on it in his rage, his tarnished breastplate clanging and bouncing loosely on his chest.
"The sun, sir! It... well... -you- know, sir..." Carrot trailed off, scratching his bright red hair and staring at his commanding officer.
Vimes glared down at his flattened cigar. It had been his last. He would have to buy more. "Damn." He scratched his chin and felt stubble there, trying to ignore Carrot standing there like an expectant... an expectant Carrot. He felt obligated to say something, anything. "Has that idiot reporter gotten news of this?"
"Reporter, sir?" Carrot blinked.
"De Worde," Vimes said, scrabbling for a time and place to help himself remember. "Y'know, the one who kept getting under our feet in the whole Vetinari mess." He'd just lighted it. It was still sweet.
"With the golems, sir?"
"No no, that was when we swore in Corporal Dorfl," Vimes mumbled, musing on the expensive Klatchian cigar that lay defiled at his feet. "After that. When de Worde started that -wonderful- newspaper."
"Ah, yes!" Carrot brightened in recognition. "The Ankh-Morpork Times! A joy of a read for the whole Watch house, sir."
Vimes looked up at Carrot, and was struck by the Dwarf's complete inability to grasp sarcasm, though not for the first (or last) time. "Every day?"
Carrot nodded. "Yes, sir! Although it's something of a job to read it before Nobby gets it, sir. That's always a task."
Vimes stared at Carrot. "I never thought that Nobby would be the reading type."
"No, not really, sir," Carrot said, leaning forward as though he knew a big and embarrassing secret. "I think he may hoard it for use in the privy, sir."
"Nobby uses paper in the privy?" Vimes didn't know why this surprised him. It just didn't seem like a Nobby thing to do. But the poor cigar...
"I'm sure he does, sir," Carrot answered, a tad reproachfully. "I mean... doesn't everyone, sir?"
Vimes stopped. "How did we manage to travel from the sun to Nobby's privy habits, Carrot?"
Looooong pause.
"My, the sun sure is early today, isn't it, sir?" Carrot said a tad squeakily, turning toward the aforementioned sun, which continued to rise quite stubbornly.
"Yes," Vimes said. He had really wanted that cigar.
"Librarian? Are you in here?"
The shelves were eerily quiet. The air, normally filled with the rustling of restless pages and the clanking of chains, was still and quiet, dust floating on the air. The wizards shivered as they opened the door wide enough to admit them.
"I think I hear something!" Ponder hissed, cocking his head.
"Sorry about that," the Lecturer in Recent Runes whispered. The other wizards shuffled away from him.
The compact body of wizards (with the Lecturer in Recent Runes lagging behind a bit, looking embarrassed) moved through the silent library, kicking up dust and coughing in the sun that streamed through high, streaked windows. The Librarian's ropes and tires swung lazily in the rafters, a creaking reminder of their inhabitant.
"Oh dear," the Archchancellor muttered, as the wizards slowed to a halt. The Lecturer in Recent Runes skidded into the Bursar, knocking a few dried frog pills on the floor.
They stared at the Librarian's desk with its confusing tangle of fuzzy blankets and old banana peels underneath. Something was moving in the nest.
"Librarian?" the Dean ventured in tremulous tones.
A whispered "Oook" came from the trembling, fuzzy, slimy mass. The wizards relaxed as one body.
"That's taken care of, then," the Archchancellor boomed, turning back to the other wizards and clapping his hands. "Let's check on Hex, eh?"
The faculty left the library, closing the old wooden doors behind them and restoring the library's fragile peace. A hand reached up to the top of the desk, grabbed a banana, and disappeared. Inside his nest, the Librarian tried to peel the banana with his feet, wondered why it wouldn't work, and crooned to himself.
Somewhere in the Ramtop Mountains, in the small, backwards country called Lancre, someone let out a howl of rage.
Granny Weatherwax literally bristled, her silvery eyebrows trembling and twitching and her black-shawled shoulders shaking with contained fury. The fact that she was sitting on her rear end on the cold stone hearth did not help in the slightest. She grabbed the mantelpiece with white knuckles and swung herself up without bending a joint. The stone squeaked and crumbled underneath her fingers.
She had been in the middle of a flight. Someone somewhere was going to pay dearly for this.
Ponder Stibbons watched helplessly as the Archchancellor yelled, red-faced, down Hex's ear trumpet. This was so embarrassing. The ants were scurrying around catching falling dirt, the beach ball was vibrating, and the plate of cheese was bouncing on the table.
"I SAY, BE A GOOD OCCULT CONTRAPTION AND WAKE UP, HEY?"
"What's he doing?" Adrian whispered, his mop of hair bristled and standing up like a privy brush. "Doesn't he know Hex doesn't sleep?"
"Shh," Stibbons hissed back, rubbing his temples with a hand. "Archancellor, I don't think that's going to work very-"
"Nonsense!" Ridcully interrupted, waving an enormous hand at the younger wizard. "ISN'T THAT RIGHT, HEX? YOU'LL BE UP AND ABOUT ANY MINUTE NOW!" He mopped at his forehead with a stained handkerchief and turned to Stibbons again. "What's the matter with it, anyway?"
Ponder jogged nervously from foot to foot, sweat beading on his face and fogging up his glasses. "Like you said, Archancellor, it's an 'occult contraption'; it can't run without magic. And there isn't any magic."
The country-side was silent. Trolls were frozen on the hillsides, mere strangely-shaped rocks. Gnomes could be found on the ground, not dead, but certainly not alive. They were like stones, they gave a sense of never having had the chance to die, because they had never had a chance to live.
Forests with well-known high-magic levels whispered normally in the wind, the talking trees silenced to their annual heartbeat. The swamp dragons in the Ankh-Morpork Sunshine Sanctuary slumped against the walls of their pens, those that hadn't exploded in a sheer burst of existential uncertainty. Old Tom, the Unseen University's bell, shuddered and fell from his tower, hitting the ground with a resounding clang, the only sound he had made since he was made (Old Tom's clapper had fallen out soon after he was put up; he was famous for ringing the hour with echoing silences).
The Gods, on their mountain, gasped as though for air, slowly realizing that Belief, while powerful, was a magic all it's own... and in a black garden on the edge of time, Death died.
There are few things stronger than magic on the Discworld. Bravery is weak; too many brave fools have met their ends facing mad wizards. Love is powerless; people die whether you love them or not. Courage is merely bravery under another name. Common sense has no hold over magic; just because it has no logic doesn't mean it doesn't exist. These are things that jump to mind when one thinks of things stronger than magic, but none of them have power to do much else but make you feel either good or dead (or just good AND dead).
Fear is a different story. Fear is a different book. Fear, alone, is a different library.
The Librarian had never had many problems, when it came right down to it. Give him enough books, enough bananas, and the respect to call him an ape instead of a monkey, and he was content. He suddenly found himself pressed with a few very hard existential dillemas.
1) Why did his feet stop working?
2) Why didn't he still like bananas?
And 3) Why did he not like the idea of being called an ape?
The Librarian stood decidedly (after a brief interlude of holding his head and moaning; he then moved out from under his desk) and brushed himself off. He took a few steps, swinging his arms like pendulums, then, reaching the door, turned the handle, opened the heavy wooden door, and stared out at a small quivering student.
The Librarian removed his pointy hat and scratched his head, staring after the fleeing, screaming student. He hadn't meant for that to happen. He shrugged, replaced his hat, and turned down the corridor, his Wizard's robe sweeping behind him.
In the darkness of space, an enormous turtle swam languidly, the world balanced on his back rotating slowly. (Well, actually, no one knew whether the turtle was a he or a she, but for the sake of sanity we'll call it a him.) The great Star-turle A'Tuin snuffled a bit, and one of the enormous, planet-sized elephants that supported the discworld handed down (yes, yes, TRUNKED down, geez) a large, white, flat, smooth... thing.
The great A'Tuin blew his nose.
Whee! I've been working on this for a bit, and I think I've gotten it to the point where I can just leave it as a one-shot, no problem, but if somebody R&Rs, asking for more, I'll most likely stick on some more chapters.
Chapter 1: Instant Sunlight
It was a normal enough day. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and the author was choking on an overdose of cliches. Such things are normal in the course of the world, while other things... are not.
As it was, things seemed to run pretty smoothly, excepting the fact that what some people liked to call "Magic" bounced up and down on the world as if it were one giant trampoline, and "Magic Creatures" took to running amok across the morbidly fascinating landscape. This changed the working order of some things, so while Tab A USED to be inserted in Slot B, it was NOW inserted into Little Glowy Slit #235X0774. And vice versa. Happily enough, this isn't any sort of story about tabs and slots and little glowy slits. That would be a very boring and very short story, not to mention the fact that the author would most likely run off a cliff screaming before she got through the first page (this would probably be an event of much celebration, but that's not important). So instead she's going to play with your minds and see how far she can warp your Mind's Eye.
Hopefully, not very far.
Once upon a time, far far away, the universe, as it was being created, was thrown for a loop. The Creator had meant for it to be nice and normal and for things to happily develop over time, lots and lots of time, but instead something fell out of whack and so did the rest of the universe.
The sun rose over the Discworld, and, suddenly, the world was thrust into morning. Farmers blinked and roosters crowed softly to themselves, trying to figure out what was going on, and in Ankh-Morpork, in the highest tower, Mustrum Ridcully, Archancellor of Unseen University, slept. This is what he normally did in the mornings, usually until about noon, but lots of other people in Ankh-Morpork did too. That was because the sunlight never got there until noon.
But today it did.
Ridcully mumbled something like "Wsflgl," rolled over, and smacked his lips as his muddled subconcious waded through the mists of sleep and began banging on his concious with a large hammer. Someone started banging on his door and yelling. "What is it?" Ridcully grumbled, prying his sleep-encrusted eyes open and swinging his legs out of bed. He sent a spell flying towards the door, the special one he used to open doors when he was too tired or lazy.
Nothing happened, but Ridcully didn't notice.
"Archancellor! Open the door! It's important!" came Ponder Stibbon's voice from outside.
"I did open the door," the Archancellor yelled hoarsely back, shoving his head underneath his pillow. There was silence from outside.
"You... didn't use a spell, did you?" came the wavering question.
"Of course I did! I'm in bed! I don't want to get up just to open the door," Mustrum growled back in answer.
*I told you he'd go spare.*
*Be quiet, Dean!*
*Whoops! The sofa needs some strawberry jello pie! Which of you fine rutabagas will help me?*
*Chair, could you please escort the Bursar to the dining hall and tie him down?*
*Dean...*
*What?*
"Archancellor, we're having a bit of a problem..."
Ridcully sighed and got out of bed, throwing his bathrobe on. It was covered in sequins and occult symbols, in the style (or lack of) of all Wizards Disc-wide. He turned toward the door, and stopped. It wasn't open. "The door isn't open!" he bellowed.
"That's what I've been trying to tell you, Archancellor," came Ponder's patient tones.
Mustrum strode forward, grasped the handle, and threw open the door with a large crash. "What," he growled, turning red, "is going on here?!?"
"It all started when Adrian noticed that Hex had stopped working," Stibbons explained, jogging a bit to keep up with the Archancellor. "The ants were just milling around willy-nilly and the parp ball had stopped parping."
"Parping," Ridcully echoed back, his eyebrows knit into a complicated (and frightening) mess of lines and bulges.
"And so then we tried a few spells on him-"
"Him?"
"Hex."
"Oh."
"Anyway, yes, they didn't... work." Ponder slowed down at this point, turning pink around the ears.
"Didn't work?" Ridcully was dangerously close to trying to understand what Ponder was talking about.
"Well, it wasn't that they didn't work; I'm sure they would've worked normally; it's just that they... didn't happen. There's no magic, Archancellor."
"No magic?" Ridcully asked himself thoughtfully, coming to a full halt. Ponder jogged a few more steps before he realized what had happened and jogged back. "Is it something to do with waves? Or maybe some kind of wiggly little animal sucking it all up?"
"Little animal..." Ponder gave Ridcully a helpless look. "No, I don't think that any sort of animal is responsible for-" Ponder stopped, choking and turning an interesting shade of purple. "Oh, Gods... The Librarian!" he moaned.
"Ah, it's his fault, is it?"
"No! No! The Librarian hasn't woken up yet! Who knows whether he's still an orangutan or not!"
"Oh dear!" the Bursar giggled. "Out of cheese error! Bring on the cucumbers!"
Commander Vimes stood on the corner and swore in the morning sun. The sun wasn't supposed to be up for hours. What business did it have intruding on his smoke?
Captain Carrot jogged up behind him. "Sir!"
"Yes, I know, Carrot, I'm not blind!" Vimes yelled, throwing his cigar on the ground and jumping up and down on it in his rage, his tarnished breastplate clanging and bouncing loosely on his chest.
"The sun, sir! It... well... -you- know, sir..." Carrot trailed off, scratching his bright red hair and staring at his commanding officer.
Vimes glared down at his flattened cigar. It had been his last. He would have to buy more. "Damn." He scratched his chin and felt stubble there, trying to ignore Carrot standing there like an expectant... an expectant Carrot. He felt obligated to say something, anything. "Has that idiot reporter gotten news of this?"
"Reporter, sir?" Carrot blinked.
"De Worde," Vimes said, scrabbling for a time and place to help himself remember. "Y'know, the one who kept getting under our feet in the whole Vetinari mess." He'd just lighted it. It was still sweet.
"With the golems, sir?"
"No no, that was when we swore in Corporal Dorfl," Vimes mumbled, musing on the expensive Klatchian cigar that lay defiled at his feet. "After that. When de Worde started that -wonderful- newspaper."
"Ah, yes!" Carrot brightened in recognition. "The Ankh-Morpork Times! A joy of a read for the whole Watch house, sir."
Vimes looked up at Carrot, and was struck by the Dwarf's complete inability to grasp sarcasm, though not for the first (or last) time. "Every day?"
Carrot nodded. "Yes, sir! Although it's something of a job to read it before Nobby gets it, sir. That's always a task."
Vimes stared at Carrot. "I never thought that Nobby would be the reading type."
"No, not really, sir," Carrot said, leaning forward as though he knew a big and embarrassing secret. "I think he may hoard it for use in the privy, sir."
"Nobby uses paper in the privy?" Vimes didn't know why this surprised him. It just didn't seem like a Nobby thing to do. But the poor cigar...
"I'm sure he does, sir," Carrot answered, a tad reproachfully. "I mean... doesn't everyone, sir?"
Vimes stopped. "How did we manage to travel from the sun to Nobby's privy habits, Carrot?"
Looooong pause.
"My, the sun sure is early today, isn't it, sir?" Carrot said a tad squeakily, turning toward the aforementioned sun, which continued to rise quite stubbornly.
"Yes," Vimes said. He had really wanted that cigar.
"Librarian? Are you in here?"
The shelves were eerily quiet. The air, normally filled with the rustling of restless pages and the clanking of chains, was still and quiet, dust floating on the air. The wizards shivered as they opened the door wide enough to admit them.
"I think I hear something!" Ponder hissed, cocking his head.
"Sorry about that," the Lecturer in Recent Runes whispered. The other wizards shuffled away from him.
The compact body of wizards (with the Lecturer in Recent Runes lagging behind a bit, looking embarrassed) moved through the silent library, kicking up dust and coughing in the sun that streamed through high, streaked windows. The Librarian's ropes and tires swung lazily in the rafters, a creaking reminder of their inhabitant.
"Oh dear," the Archchancellor muttered, as the wizards slowed to a halt. The Lecturer in Recent Runes skidded into the Bursar, knocking a few dried frog pills on the floor.
They stared at the Librarian's desk with its confusing tangle of fuzzy blankets and old banana peels underneath. Something was moving in the nest.
"Librarian?" the Dean ventured in tremulous tones.
A whispered "Oook" came from the trembling, fuzzy, slimy mass. The wizards relaxed as one body.
"That's taken care of, then," the Archchancellor boomed, turning back to the other wizards and clapping his hands. "Let's check on Hex, eh?"
The faculty left the library, closing the old wooden doors behind them and restoring the library's fragile peace. A hand reached up to the top of the desk, grabbed a banana, and disappeared. Inside his nest, the Librarian tried to peel the banana with his feet, wondered why it wouldn't work, and crooned to himself.
Somewhere in the Ramtop Mountains, in the small, backwards country called Lancre, someone let out a howl of rage.
Granny Weatherwax literally bristled, her silvery eyebrows trembling and twitching and her black-shawled shoulders shaking with contained fury. The fact that she was sitting on her rear end on the cold stone hearth did not help in the slightest. She grabbed the mantelpiece with white knuckles and swung herself up without bending a joint. The stone squeaked and crumbled underneath her fingers.
She had been in the middle of a flight. Someone somewhere was going to pay dearly for this.
Ponder Stibbons watched helplessly as the Archchancellor yelled, red-faced, down Hex's ear trumpet. This was so embarrassing. The ants were scurrying around catching falling dirt, the beach ball was vibrating, and the plate of cheese was bouncing on the table.
"I SAY, BE A GOOD OCCULT CONTRAPTION AND WAKE UP, HEY?"
"What's he doing?" Adrian whispered, his mop of hair bristled and standing up like a privy brush. "Doesn't he know Hex doesn't sleep?"
"Shh," Stibbons hissed back, rubbing his temples with a hand. "Archancellor, I don't think that's going to work very-"
"Nonsense!" Ridcully interrupted, waving an enormous hand at the younger wizard. "ISN'T THAT RIGHT, HEX? YOU'LL BE UP AND ABOUT ANY MINUTE NOW!" He mopped at his forehead with a stained handkerchief and turned to Stibbons again. "What's the matter with it, anyway?"
Ponder jogged nervously from foot to foot, sweat beading on his face and fogging up his glasses. "Like you said, Archancellor, it's an 'occult contraption'; it can't run without magic. And there isn't any magic."
The country-side was silent. Trolls were frozen on the hillsides, mere strangely-shaped rocks. Gnomes could be found on the ground, not dead, but certainly not alive. They were like stones, they gave a sense of never having had the chance to die, because they had never had a chance to live.
Forests with well-known high-magic levels whispered normally in the wind, the talking trees silenced to their annual heartbeat. The swamp dragons in the Ankh-Morpork Sunshine Sanctuary slumped against the walls of their pens, those that hadn't exploded in a sheer burst of existential uncertainty. Old Tom, the Unseen University's bell, shuddered and fell from his tower, hitting the ground with a resounding clang, the only sound he had made since he was made (Old Tom's clapper had fallen out soon after he was put up; he was famous for ringing the hour with echoing silences).
The Gods, on their mountain, gasped as though for air, slowly realizing that Belief, while powerful, was a magic all it's own... and in a black garden on the edge of time, Death died.
There are few things stronger than magic on the Discworld. Bravery is weak; too many brave fools have met their ends facing mad wizards. Love is powerless; people die whether you love them or not. Courage is merely bravery under another name. Common sense has no hold over magic; just because it has no logic doesn't mean it doesn't exist. These are things that jump to mind when one thinks of things stronger than magic, but none of them have power to do much else but make you feel either good or dead (or just good AND dead).
Fear is a different story. Fear is a different book. Fear, alone, is a different library.
The Librarian had never had many problems, when it came right down to it. Give him enough books, enough bananas, and the respect to call him an ape instead of a monkey, and he was content. He suddenly found himself pressed with a few very hard existential dillemas.
1) Why did his feet stop working?
2) Why didn't he still like bananas?
And 3) Why did he not like the idea of being called an ape?
The Librarian stood decidedly (after a brief interlude of holding his head and moaning; he then moved out from under his desk) and brushed himself off. He took a few steps, swinging his arms like pendulums, then, reaching the door, turned the handle, opened the heavy wooden door, and stared out at a small quivering student.
The Librarian removed his pointy hat and scratched his head, staring after the fleeing, screaming student. He hadn't meant for that to happen. He shrugged, replaced his hat, and turned down the corridor, his Wizard's robe sweeping behind him.
In the darkness of space, an enormous turtle swam languidly, the world balanced on his back rotating slowly. (Well, actually, no one knew whether the turtle was a he or a she, but for the sake of sanity we'll call it a him.) The great Star-turle A'Tuin snuffled a bit, and one of the enormous, planet-sized elephants that supported the discworld handed down (yes, yes, TRUNKED down, geez) a large, white, flat, smooth... thing.
The great A'Tuin blew his nose.