Fish was experiencing an unfamiliar feeling. She looked up, expectancy and
paranoia suddenly rampaging through her. Her feet were propped on the
console; there was a bag of Doritos on her stomach; her fingers were curled
protectively around an ancient copy of The Hitch-Hiker's guide to the
Galaxy (she shouldn't have even been reading it, because it wasn't her
continuum). For the first time in a long time, Fish actually felt calm...
peaceful... lazy...
And yet, all was silent. She was tensed, waiting for the shrill, hideous BEEEEEEEEEP to rent through the still air, and yet it did not. Something was very wrong. The laws of narrative causality hadn't kicked in yet. She must be missing something...
On cue, a knock sounded on the door to her office... workspace... thing. Shortly thereafter, there was a distant squeal. Sighing, she tossed away her restful paraphernalia and crossed the nondescript room to the bleached wooden door, and opened it.
There was no-one there.
It is said that the Gods play games with the fates of men, but first they have to gather all the pieces, and look all over the place for the dice. Just one piece of Pratchett wisdom that had stayed with her because of its truth. Fish had the distinct feeling that a game of cosmic Trivial Persuit was about to start, but everyone was still trying to extricate the Pie Points that had gotten wedged in the playing Dishes. She looked about furiously, finally resorting to yelling "Who goes there?" at the top of her voice.
There was a whimpering noise from down the hall.
Feeling incensed, Fish stomped out into the corridor, which was an eye- watering shade of grey. More than a few new recruits had been known to concuss themselves after mistaking the distance from point A to point B.
"He-hello?" came a hesitant voice from the ceiling.
Fish looked up. Plastered there by what appeared to be an incredible amount of pink bubble-gum was a small figure with a round, frightened face and hair that could only be described as 'fluffy'.
"Are you... Fish?" the girl on the ceiling asked.
"Yeeeeeesss?" said Fish. She could practically hear the Gods squabbling over the rule-book.
"W-well... I'm your new partner, I think," said ceiling-girl in a hopelessly cheerful voice. "My name's Tatharnim."
Fish scrutinised the so-called Tatharnim with new eyes. "Don't tell me," she said at last. "It's Elvish for 'White Willow'? I may also point out that you look rather remarkably like a hobbit."
"I'm an OFUM graduate," said the hobbit-girl miserably. "Miss Cam recommended me for this job."
In the face of her obvious discomfit Fish felt her ill mood ebb, despite herself. She said, "wait here," (in hindsight this was rather unnecessary, but Fish was not one for split-second logic) and stomped back to her office. She returned a minute later with a large sword. 'Tatharnim' gasped and cowered as Fish raised the blade over her head...
... And brought it sweeping around in a practised arc that cut right through the pink goo and released the little hobbit, who yelped and landed on her backside with a graceless bump.
"I have questions," Fish said, nothing if not to the point. The hobbit-girl got clumsily to her feet. "One, how did you end up on the ceiling?"
"Well, I don't really know," 'Tatharnim' answered, confusion showing in her little face. "I knocked on your door, and just then there was this shuffling noise and the last thing I saw was this plant... thing... and then you found me."
"Ah, I'd forgotten," Fish said, nodding sagely. "It's the Triffids' annual gum-spitting marathon." Her new partner looked at her blankly. "They try to dispose of the biggest amount of gum in the most novel way," she explained. "It's very popular. A very serious thing for a Triffid, is spitting; it's the first thing they look for in a mate."
"How do they chew it?"
"It's best not to ask," Fish said delicately, and then, as she was wont to do, abruptly changed the subject. "Question two: if you are an OFUM graduate, where is your mini-balrog?"
"Oh!" 'Tatharnim' put her hand over mouth, eyes widening. "I forgot him! Elhrond! Elhrond! Where are you?" And she charged off down the hall again in search of her guardian. Fish, her ire rising again, chased after her.
She eventually found the hobbit-girl three corridors away, patting a mini- balrog with an oven glove and making soothing noises. She looked up when she saw Fish approaching, and looked fearful. "I'm sorry! It's just... Elhrond can get tetchy sometimes, and when he does he always feels really claustrophobic inside. It won't happen again," she promised.
Fish tried her best to look soothing, or, at the very least, non- threatening. "What were you doing before you got assigned to me? I thought only the real basket-cases had to have partners these days, what with everyone being stretched so thin." She reviewed that statement, and then narrowed her eyes. "Be careful how you answer that," she added.
'Tatharnim', however, was so worried about her mini (Fish noticed that she seemed unusually attached to hers, since most OFUM graduates feared the things) that she didn't seem to notice the possibility of a threat. "I had one assignment, and then I got transferred here," she said sadly. "They said I had too many lust-objects in Middle-Earth, and that it was affecting my judgement too much to go it alone anymore."
"Yes?"
"Well, the 'Sue I got? I-it went after Elrond. I sort of nailed her to a tree."
"Yes?"
"By her head."
"Ah..."
"With an iron shaft support."
There was a pause.
"Well, you sound perfect for the job, at least," Fish said in a relentlessly cheerful tone. "I was a little worried about your stomach for Mary-Sue assassination, but I see that it won't be a problem. Elrond, hmm?"
"Yes. Among others."
"Interesting. Me, too. Most odd. It's like the entire Hugo Weaving Appreciation Society works here, sometimes."
"Yes, I heard about Jay and the rape-y one."
Fish grinned; the tales that had spread about those two had made them something approaching idols in the Mary-Sue department. "There's a shrine in the showers, did you know? It's full of 'Priscilla' stills."
"Yes. It can be very hard to concentrate on the council when you keep hearing 'I don't care if the sun don't shine' in your head. They tend to notice you if you start giggling. Or humming. Both have happened..."
Fish smiled at this. Then she bit her lip, and, for the third time that evening, scrutinised her new partner. Some time soon she would get around to just looking at her, but right now there was something that needed sorting out. Finally, she wrinkled her nose, sighed, and said, "Look, um, 'Tatharnim'..."
"Yes?"
Another sigh, this one slightly more worried and heartfelt. "I applaud you having an at least rudimentary knowledge of Sindarin names, I mean, it's more than regular fangirls usually have, but... I keep thinking of your name with quotation marks around it. I can't help it. And it's not really a title that invites a good nickname, so... look, what was your real name? Pre-OFUM?"
The hobbit-girl slumped, and now looked so worried and so miserable that Fish couldn't help but feel like a real heel for bringing it up. (It was perhaps a mark of Fish's character that her vernacular actually used the word in anything but an anatomical sense, really.) "That's just it!" 'Tatharnim' wailed. "I can't remember! I put down Tatharnim as my name and now I'm stuck with it!" And she broke down in sobs so wretched that Fish felt she absolutely deserved it when Elhrond put his smoky wings around his charge and shot a look at Fish so reminiscent of the real Elrond that she felt herself repeating the Naturally Nine mantra under her breath. Needless to say, she felt about an inch tall.
"Look," she said awkwardly, "would you like a new name? I mean, I could give you one! And you could register it with the SO, and everything."
"Like what?" 'Tatharnim' sniffled.
"Well... how about Cheery? You look almost exactly like I always imagined her to. Sans beard, obviously..."
"Cheery? But... I'm a Hobbit... Cheery was a feminist Dwarf!"
"Ah, so you're familiar with the Discworld continuum!"
Cheery (so much did it suit her that the quotation marks were not even an issue) gave her a watery smile. "Yeah... all he staff read it, too. They always said, 'keep the lessons of Pratchett in your head, and the lessons of Tolkien in your heart.'" The smile disappeared, followed by a look of worry. "... 'And the lessons we teach you in your typing fingers, or Miss Cam will come by and break them with her paddle of canon accuracy, never mind what your mini will do.'"
Fish winced sympathetically. "Yes. However do the students survive the year?"
"We learn to run away very fast."
****
Fish unlocked the door and led Cheery in, trailing Elhrond. "This is the office," Fish said. "It is, as you can see, not quite as decorated as some of the others'. I've just never had an opportunity to collect decent souvenirs."
"Ooh, I'm good at those," said Cheery. "I like taking photos, too. I've got a bet going with Jay to see how many photographs of Elrond we can get before Christmas."
"Yes? Who's winning?"
"Well, Jay, at the moment, but I'm catching up. Acacia's got quite a cache of Boromir photos, too. Not to mention the unicorn pelt, the swords, the magical Deus-Ex Machina necklace of Mary-Sue-ness..."
"We could make a Polaroid collage on that wall," Fish suggested. "It'd be a great aid to the documentation, too. 'Sues through the ages'... We could use them as target practice!"
"Hah! Yes..." Cheery looked like she wasn't quite sure whether to still be frightened of Fish or to be friendly, and was therefore making up for both by being as madly and politely cheerful as she could. Fish sensed this and rather wished she wasn't quite so scary. But all the people in the PPC were so half-crazed by the consistent bad grammar and ruination of their beloved authors' works that she herself was quite normal...
"Cheery?"
"Y-yes?"
Buggeration. She was stuttering again. "Look, just how much contact did you have with the other Protectors before you were assigned to me?"
"Well, I've only been here a few days, I mean, I saw people in the refec..."
"So... really not much."
"No." Cheery blushed.
"Well, don't worry. I'm quite normal, compared to some of the people here. You know Luxury in the Department of Bad Slash?" Cheery shook her head. "Good. Keep it that way." Fish paused. "I take it you've heard about the flamethrower bloke?" Another shake. "Ah. Hmm. Well, let us just say that while it is not a common occurrence, people like the flamethrower bloke do happen. The typos can get to you in the end."
Cheery did not look reassured.
"It's alright. Considering what you told me about the Elrond 'Sue, I think you'll really not have a problem. Here, take a look around. That's the bookshelf (including the entire published works of the good Professor, who we will worship and adore or else), there's the CD pile (music being a necessary part of this job, trust me), and yonder is the weapons cabinet."
"Precisely how big is this room? One minute it seems like a broom-cupboard, the next it's like a warehouse!"
"Yeeesss. That might be the paint job. Or the rooms here could actually, in fact, be specially designed to shift in size depending on the mood of the inhabitants. We do get a lot of visits from OFUM and OHFA."
"OHFA?"
"Official Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy? What, you didn't think OFUM was the only one, did you? Well, I suppose it was originally, but the others caught on pretty quickly. Good thing, too; it's certainly put a dent in our workload. It used to be ridiculous. Now it's just impossible."
Cheery, meanwhile, was perusing the shelves, cabinet, and pile in turn. She squeaked in joy at the complete Pratchett collection ("The Unadulterated Cat! Good Omens! Truckers! Diggers! Wings! Nyahah!"), nodded in approval at the Harry Potter ("Well, they said 'know thine enemy', but I think it's more a case of how to do plagiarism right,"), and the Falco, and the Cadfael, and the Rumpole. She smiled happily at all the Far Side, the Calvin & Hobbes, and the Dilbert; the Shakespeare, the Dickens, the Adams, the Wilde ("Ooh, The Fisherman And His Soul always made me cry," "Really? It was always The Selfish Giant that did it for me..."), the Carroll, the Asimov, the Spike Milligan, the Lewis -
"Wait a minute," Cheery said. "You only have The Horse And His Boy?"
"'Twas the only one I liked," growled Fish. "'Twas the only one that didn't bash the Bible at every opportunity. It merely tapped it wherever possible."
"You didn't like the others? What about The Last Battle?"
"I couldn't stand The Last Battle! The end seemed so damn contrived. And it was horrible! It was like he'd been saving up all the angst and violence for the last one. And then it was like, 'La la la, never mind that Narnia has suffered whatever equivalent to Dagor Dagorath that it has (though I doubt that Lewis had the wit to make up a language or history for it, I mean, he couldn't even write a poem worth a damn), let's just be happy friends and skip around with the incredible revelation that Aslan is God, which we in no way saw six novels ago, no way!' Grrr! It's just that. it was so flippant! 'Never mind that Edmund betrayed us to the White Witch, he's all sorry now so it's okay!' It's so damn unrealistic! That sort of childishness suited The Horse And His Boy, and The Magician's Nephew, and maybe The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, but... The Silver Chair? The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader? And especially The Last Battle! They all could have been so much better!"
There was a long silence.
"Well. some people say that it's comparable to Lord of the Rings..." That was met by a glare that had Elhrond cowering. "Maybe it was needed so it could be appreciated by a child audience...?" Cheery ventured awkwardly.
"Hah! I've heard that old chestnut before! If he'd been truly writing it purely for the little 'uns he wouldn't have had people dying trapped as dragons, or a chair that was used to control your mind, or unicorns," she prodded Cheery in the chest to emphasise her point, "unicorns being shot down mid-charge by dwarves who didn't want to take anyone's side but their own! You want to write stuff like that, then you write it like it actually matters, you write it like the terrible horrible thing that it is!"
Fish then deflated, ranted out, and at last noticed the tremulous expression on her partner's face. She winced, and averted her finger, feeling the beginnings of shame. "Sorry," she said. "'S just. you know Tolkien and Lewis wrote their books at the same time? They even had drinks in the same pub," she added miserably. "There's an old story that they were comparing what they'd written that day and Lewis was heard to mutter 'not another -ing elf' into his pint. I mean, Lewis's works are... very good, and very original... but he was nothing compared to Tolkien, Cheery, nothing! Lewis's religious lessons are blatant. Tolkien's are very subtle. Lewis teaches Christianity; Tolkien teaches the values that all religions hold dear, and just some that are plain common sense. Remember the past, but don't live in it; embrace the future, but don't let in overrun what is there already; it teaches the value of love and friendship - not just friendship, but all different aspects of it. Legolas and Gimlis' families hate each other, and have every right to after the events of The Hobbit. But they end up such great friends that when Legolas has to make a choice between Gimli and Middle-Earth, and the other elves and Valinor, he just takes the best of both worlds. Frodo and Sam wouldn't have gotten anywhere on their own, but together they got their job done, even though the cost was so very high. It teaches redemption, acceptance, and all the hard, horrible lessons that come with it. It teaches pacifism, but it also teaches that if you have no other choice, then, well, you have no other choice. It doesn't soften the blows, and it doesn't play down the greatness. It is bittersweet without ever having to contrive a means to be bittersweet. Now how can The Chronicles of Narnia compare to that?"
There was another pause. Cheery, at least, did not look scared. She merely seemed to be looking for the nearest exit. But in as polite a way as possible. She looked at the shining conviction in Fish's eyes and said, "You've been holding that in for a while, haven't you?"
"Probably," Fish mumbled.
"What CDs have you got?"
"Your trying to change the subject, aren't you?"
"Before you start breaking things, yes."
Fish had never suffered so many instances of shame in one day before. The die just weren't rolling in her favour today. "Well... there's, er, lots of Barenaked Ladies... and there's all my Warran Zevon, some Queen, some Bowie, and some early Genesis, and Marillion (d'you know that's after The Silmarillion? Good, hey?), and some Pink Floyd, and Radiohead, and some Scorpions, and Transatlantic, and Flower Kings..." Valar help her, she was being apologetic! What the hell was wrong with today?
"Right. What weapons have you got?"
"Okay, well, there's a couple of bows and some arrow bundles, and those're very good for orc disguises; and there's my sword. There's a fair few daggers, too. We should be fine. You know how to use the thingy? The Character Analysis thingy?"
"Yes, but mine melted."
"A not unusual event. How about the portal thingy? And the flashy thing?"
"We have neutralisers?"
"Yep. Borrowed 'em from the MiB continuum. They were very willing to help, as one secret protect-y thing to another."
"What happened to your vocabulary?"
"I'm not sure, it tends to desert me when I'm like this."
"Okay. Well, I'd best get settled in..."
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
"Thar she blows," sighed Fish. Things, it seemed, were back on track.
[A/N. Hem. Well, that was the start of the adventure... did ye enjoy? I'm very sorry if I offended anyone with the Great Lewis vs. Tolkien Debate, but I suppose that really has been waiting to get out for some time, and it just spilled over. You've really never seen your fingers fly until they have had a good long rant come rippling from them. Tell me if you want more; feedback makes the world go 'round, children, and there's some damnable Mary Sues just waiting for an enraged hobbit-girl and her wild and hairy partner to hack and slash 'em. Jay and Acacia need all the help they can get...]
And yet, all was silent. She was tensed, waiting for the shrill, hideous BEEEEEEEEEP to rent through the still air, and yet it did not. Something was very wrong. The laws of narrative causality hadn't kicked in yet. She must be missing something...
On cue, a knock sounded on the door to her office... workspace... thing. Shortly thereafter, there was a distant squeal. Sighing, she tossed away her restful paraphernalia and crossed the nondescript room to the bleached wooden door, and opened it.
There was no-one there.
It is said that the Gods play games with the fates of men, but first they have to gather all the pieces, and look all over the place for the dice. Just one piece of Pratchett wisdom that had stayed with her because of its truth. Fish had the distinct feeling that a game of cosmic Trivial Persuit was about to start, but everyone was still trying to extricate the Pie Points that had gotten wedged in the playing Dishes. She looked about furiously, finally resorting to yelling "Who goes there?" at the top of her voice.
There was a whimpering noise from down the hall.
Feeling incensed, Fish stomped out into the corridor, which was an eye- watering shade of grey. More than a few new recruits had been known to concuss themselves after mistaking the distance from point A to point B.
"He-hello?" came a hesitant voice from the ceiling.
Fish looked up. Plastered there by what appeared to be an incredible amount of pink bubble-gum was a small figure with a round, frightened face and hair that could only be described as 'fluffy'.
"Are you... Fish?" the girl on the ceiling asked.
"Yeeeeeesss?" said Fish. She could practically hear the Gods squabbling over the rule-book.
"W-well... I'm your new partner, I think," said ceiling-girl in a hopelessly cheerful voice. "My name's Tatharnim."
Fish scrutinised the so-called Tatharnim with new eyes. "Don't tell me," she said at last. "It's Elvish for 'White Willow'? I may also point out that you look rather remarkably like a hobbit."
"I'm an OFUM graduate," said the hobbit-girl miserably. "Miss Cam recommended me for this job."
In the face of her obvious discomfit Fish felt her ill mood ebb, despite herself. She said, "wait here," (in hindsight this was rather unnecessary, but Fish was not one for split-second logic) and stomped back to her office. She returned a minute later with a large sword. 'Tatharnim' gasped and cowered as Fish raised the blade over her head...
... And brought it sweeping around in a practised arc that cut right through the pink goo and released the little hobbit, who yelped and landed on her backside with a graceless bump.
"I have questions," Fish said, nothing if not to the point. The hobbit-girl got clumsily to her feet. "One, how did you end up on the ceiling?"
"Well, I don't really know," 'Tatharnim' answered, confusion showing in her little face. "I knocked on your door, and just then there was this shuffling noise and the last thing I saw was this plant... thing... and then you found me."
"Ah, I'd forgotten," Fish said, nodding sagely. "It's the Triffids' annual gum-spitting marathon." Her new partner looked at her blankly. "They try to dispose of the biggest amount of gum in the most novel way," she explained. "It's very popular. A very serious thing for a Triffid, is spitting; it's the first thing they look for in a mate."
"How do they chew it?"
"It's best not to ask," Fish said delicately, and then, as she was wont to do, abruptly changed the subject. "Question two: if you are an OFUM graduate, where is your mini-balrog?"
"Oh!" 'Tatharnim' put her hand over mouth, eyes widening. "I forgot him! Elhrond! Elhrond! Where are you?" And she charged off down the hall again in search of her guardian. Fish, her ire rising again, chased after her.
She eventually found the hobbit-girl three corridors away, patting a mini- balrog with an oven glove and making soothing noises. She looked up when she saw Fish approaching, and looked fearful. "I'm sorry! It's just... Elhrond can get tetchy sometimes, and when he does he always feels really claustrophobic inside. It won't happen again," she promised.
Fish tried her best to look soothing, or, at the very least, non- threatening. "What were you doing before you got assigned to me? I thought only the real basket-cases had to have partners these days, what with everyone being stretched so thin." She reviewed that statement, and then narrowed her eyes. "Be careful how you answer that," she added.
'Tatharnim', however, was so worried about her mini (Fish noticed that she seemed unusually attached to hers, since most OFUM graduates feared the things) that she didn't seem to notice the possibility of a threat. "I had one assignment, and then I got transferred here," she said sadly. "They said I had too many lust-objects in Middle-Earth, and that it was affecting my judgement too much to go it alone anymore."
"Yes?"
"Well, the 'Sue I got? I-it went after Elrond. I sort of nailed her to a tree."
"Yes?"
"By her head."
"Ah..."
"With an iron shaft support."
There was a pause.
"Well, you sound perfect for the job, at least," Fish said in a relentlessly cheerful tone. "I was a little worried about your stomach for Mary-Sue assassination, but I see that it won't be a problem. Elrond, hmm?"
"Yes. Among others."
"Interesting. Me, too. Most odd. It's like the entire Hugo Weaving Appreciation Society works here, sometimes."
"Yes, I heard about Jay and the rape-y one."
Fish grinned; the tales that had spread about those two had made them something approaching idols in the Mary-Sue department. "There's a shrine in the showers, did you know? It's full of 'Priscilla' stills."
"Yes. It can be very hard to concentrate on the council when you keep hearing 'I don't care if the sun don't shine' in your head. They tend to notice you if you start giggling. Or humming. Both have happened..."
Fish smiled at this. Then she bit her lip, and, for the third time that evening, scrutinised her new partner. Some time soon she would get around to just looking at her, but right now there was something that needed sorting out. Finally, she wrinkled her nose, sighed, and said, "Look, um, 'Tatharnim'..."
"Yes?"
Another sigh, this one slightly more worried and heartfelt. "I applaud you having an at least rudimentary knowledge of Sindarin names, I mean, it's more than regular fangirls usually have, but... I keep thinking of your name with quotation marks around it. I can't help it. And it's not really a title that invites a good nickname, so... look, what was your real name? Pre-OFUM?"
The hobbit-girl slumped, and now looked so worried and so miserable that Fish couldn't help but feel like a real heel for bringing it up. (It was perhaps a mark of Fish's character that her vernacular actually used the word in anything but an anatomical sense, really.) "That's just it!" 'Tatharnim' wailed. "I can't remember! I put down Tatharnim as my name and now I'm stuck with it!" And she broke down in sobs so wretched that Fish felt she absolutely deserved it when Elhrond put his smoky wings around his charge and shot a look at Fish so reminiscent of the real Elrond that she felt herself repeating the Naturally Nine mantra under her breath. Needless to say, she felt about an inch tall.
"Look," she said awkwardly, "would you like a new name? I mean, I could give you one! And you could register it with the SO, and everything."
"Like what?" 'Tatharnim' sniffled.
"Well... how about Cheery? You look almost exactly like I always imagined her to. Sans beard, obviously..."
"Cheery? But... I'm a Hobbit... Cheery was a feminist Dwarf!"
"Ah, so you're familiar with the Discworld continuum!"
Cheery (so much did it suit her that the quotation marks were not even an issue) gave her a watery smile. "Yeah... all he staff read it, too. They always said, 'keep the lessons of Pratchett in your head, and the lessons of Tolkien in your heart.'" The smile disappeared, followed by a look of worry. "... 'And the lessons we teach you in your typing fingers, or Miss Cam will come by and break them with her paddle of canon accuracy, never mind what your mini will do.'"
Fish winced sympathetically. "Yes. However do the students survive the year?"
"We learn to run away very fast."
****
Fish unlocked the door and led Cheery in, trailing Elhrond. "This is the office," Fish said. "It is, as you can see, not quite as decorated as some of the others'. I've just never had an opportunity to collect decent souvenirs."
"Ooh, I'm good at those," said Cheery. "I like taking photos, too. I've got a bet going with Jay to see how many photographs of Elrond we can get before Christmas."
"Yes? Who's winning?"
"Well, Jay, at the moment, but I'm catching up. Acacia's got quite a cache of Boromir photos, too. Not to mention the unicorn pelt, the swords, the magical Deus-Ex Machina necklace of Mary-Sue-ness..."
"We could make a Polaroid collage on that wall," Fish suggested. "It'd be a great aid to the documentation, too. 'Sues through the ages'... We could use them as target practice!"
"Hah! Yes..." Cheery looked like she wasn't quite sure whether to still be frightened of Fish or to be friendly, and was therefore making up for both by being as madly and politely cheerful as she could. Fish sensed this and rather wished she wasn't quite so scary. But all the people in the PPC were so half-crazed by the consistent bad grammar and ruination of their beloved authors' works that she herself was quite normal...
"Cheery?"
"Y-yes?"
Buggeration. She was stuttering again. "Look, just how much contact did you have with the other Protectors before you were assigned to me?"
"Well, I've only been here a few days, I mean, I saw people in the refec..."
"So... really not much."
"No." Cheery blushed.
"Well, don't worry. I'm quite normal, compared to some of the people here. You know Luxury in the Department of Bad Slash?" Cheery shook her head. "Good. Keep it that way." Fish paused. "I take it you've heard about the flamethrower bloke?" Another shake. "Ah. Hmm. Well, let us just say that while it is not a common occurrence, people like the flamethrower bloke do happen. The typos can get to you in the end."
Cheery did not look reassured.
"It's alright. Considering what you told me about the Elrond 'Sue, I think you'll really not have a problem. Here, take a look around. That's the bookshelf (including the entire published works of the good Professor, who we will worship and adore or else), there's the CD pile (music being a necessary part of this job, trust me), and yonder is the weapons cabinet."
"Precisely how big is this room? One minute it seems like a broom-cupboard, the next it's like a warehouse!"
"Yeeesss. That might be the paint job. Or the rooms here could actually, in fact, be specially designed to shift in size depending on the mood of the inhabitants. We do get a lot of visits from OFUM and OHFA."
"OHFA?"
"Official Hogwarts Fanfiction Academy? What, you didn't think OFUM was the only one, did you? Well, I suppose it was originally, but the others caught on pretty quickly. Good thing, too; it's certainly put a dent in our workload. It used to be ridiculous. Now it's just impossible."
Cheery, meanwhile, was perusing the shelves, cabinet, and pile in turn. She squeaked in joy at the complete Pratchett collection ("The Unadulterated Cat! Good Omens! Truckers! Diggers! Wings! Nyahah!"), nodded in approval at the Harry Potter ("Well, they said 'know thine enemy', but I think it's more a case of how to do plagiarism right,"), and the Falco, and the Cadfael, and the Rumpole. She smiled happily at all the Far Side, the Calvin & Hobbes, and the Dilbert; the Shakespeare, the Dickens, the Adams, the Wilde ("Ooh, The Fisherman And His Soul always made me cry," "Really? It was always The Selfish Giant that did it for me..."), the Carroll, the Asimov, the Spike Milligan, the Lewis -
"Wait a minute," Cheery said. "You only have The Horse And His Boy?"
"'Twas the only one I liked," growled Fish. "'Twas the only one that didn't bash the Bible at every opportunity. It merely tapped it wherever possible."
"You didn't like the others? What about The Last Battle?"
"I couldn't stand The Last Battle! The end seemed so damn contrived. And it was horrible! It was like he'd been saving up all the angst and violence for the last one. And then it was like, 'La la la, never mind that Narnia has suffered whatever equivalent to Dagor Dagorath that it has (though I doubt that Lewis had the wit to make up a language or history for it, I mean, he couldn't even write a poem worth a damn), let's just be happy friends and skip around with the incredible revelation that Aslan is God, which we in no way saw six novels ago, no way!' Grrr! It's just that. it was so flippant! 'Never mind that Edmund betrayed us to the White Witch, he's all sorry now so it's okay!' It's so damn unrealistic! That sort of childishness suited The Horse And His Boy, and The Magician's Nephew, and maybe The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe, but... The Silver Chair? The Voyage Of The Dawn Treader? And especially The Last Battle! They all could have been so much better!"
There was a long silence.
"Well. some people say that it's comparable to Lord of the Rings..." That was met by a glare that had Elhrond cowering. "Maybe it was needed so it could be appreciated by a child audience...?" Cheery ventured awkwardly.
"Hah! I've heard that old chestnut before! If he'd been truly writing it purely for the little 'uns he wouldn't have had people dying trapped as dragons, or a chair that was used to control your mind, or unicorns," she prodded Cheery in the chest to emphasise her point, "unicorns being shot down mid-charge by dwarves who didn't want to take anyone's side but their own! You want to write stuff like that, then you write it like it actually matters, you write it like the terrible horrible thing that it is!"
Fish then deflated, ranted out, and at last noticed the tremulous expression on her partner's face. She winced, and averted her finger, feeling the beginnings of shame. "Sorry," she said. "'S just. you know Tolkien and Lewis wrote their books at the same time? They even had drinks in the same pub," she added miserably. "There's an old story that they were comparing what they'd written that day and Lewis was heard to mutter 'not another -ing elf' into his pint. I mean, Lewis's works are... very good, and very original... but he was nothing compared to Tolkien, Cheery, nothing! Lewis's religious lessons are blatant. Tolkien's are very subtle. Lewis teaches Christianity; Tolkien teaches the values that all religions hold dear, and just some that are plain common sense. Remember the past, but don't live in it; embrace the future, but don't let in overrun what is there already; it teaches the value of love and friendship - not just friendship, but all different aspects of it. Legolas and Gimlis' families hate each other, and have every right to after the events of The Hobbit. But they end up such great friends that when Legolas has to make a choice between Gimli and Middle-Earth, and the other elves and Valinor, he just takes the best of both worlds. Frodo and Sam wouldn't have gotten anywhere on their own, but together they got their job done, even though the cost was so very high. It teaches redemption, acceptance, and all the hard, horrible lessons that come with it. It teaches pacifism, but it also teaches that if you have no other choice, then, well, you have no other choice. It doesn't soften the blows, and it doesn't play down the greatness. It is bittersweet without ever having to contrive a means to be bittersweet. Now how can The Chronicles of Narnia compare to that?"
There was another pause. Cheery, at least, did not look scared. She merely seemed to be looking for the nearest exit. But in as polite a way as possible. She looked at the shining conviction in Fish's eyes and said, "You've been holding that in for a while, haven't you?"
"Probably," Fish mumbled.
"What CDs have you got?"
"Your trying to change the subject, aren't you?"
"Before you start breaking things, yes."
Fish had never suffered so many instances of shame in one day before. The die just weren't rolling in her favour today. "Well... there's, er, lots of Barenaked Ladies... and there's all my Warran Zevon, some Queen, some Bowie, and some early Genesis, and Marillion (d'you know that's after The Silmarillion? Good, hey?), and some Pink Floyd, and Radiohead, and some Scorpions, and Transatlantic, and Flower Kings..." Valar help her, she was being apologetic! What the hell was wrong with today?
"Right. What weapons have you got?"
"Okay, well, there's a couple of bows and some arrow bundles, and those're very good for orc disguises; and there's my sword. There's a fair few daggers, too. We should be fine. You know how to use the thingy? The Character Analysis thingy?"
"Yes, but mine melted."
"A not unusual event. How about the portal thingy? And the flashy thing?"
"We have neutralisers?"
"Yep. Borrowed 'em from the MiB continuum. They were very willing to help, as one secret protect-y thing to another."
"What happened to your vocabulary?"
"I'm not sure, it tends to desert me when I'm like this."
"Okay. Well, I'd best get settled in..."
[BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP!]
"Thar she blows," sighed Fish. Things, it seemed, were back on track.
[A/N. Hem. Well, that was the start of the adventure... did ye enjoy? I'm very sorry if I offended anyone with the Great Lewis vs. Tolkien Debate, but I suppose that really has been waiting to get out for some time, and it just spilled over. You've really never seen your fingers fly until they have had a good long rant come rippling from them. Tell me if you want more; feedback makes the world go 'round, children, and there's some damnable Mary Sues just waiting for an enraged hobbit-girl and her wild and hairy partner to hack and slash 'em. Jay and Acacia need all the help they can get...]