Sorry, sorry! Me is forget-ded to say the sacred disclaimer junk in my
first chapter *gasp!*. So, here it is in this one:
None of the characters belong to me except. er. alright, until further
notice, no characters belong to me. Tortall does not belong to me. The
underworld doesn't belong to me. but, then again, it doesn't really belong
to anyone (mortal and living). The Tortall series does not belong to me.
The cockapoo that lives across the street does not belong to me. Many other
things do not, despite the fact that I have neglected to list them here,
belong to me. The only thing that is mine is the plot (plot? There's a
plot?) and characterization itself, as I'm sure Tamora Pierce has much
better things to do than fiddle around with such a ludicrous abomination
that mars the fair (or no longer so fair) face of literature. The poem
about the rabbit belongs to one Charles Causley.
I thank my reviewers, esp. those of you who told me exactly what you did or did not like (constructive criticism! save the inchworm! yay!), and do not mind that many of you (Roger: Many? There weren't that many! Hah! See, your readers are punishing you for making me a *censored* crackpot!) called it weird. Weird is good. I think I've called it weird multiple times myself. Weird is "special." Yes, that is a good word. "Special."
BTW, please do not take it personally if I mock something that offends you (your favorite chara, Tortall's religion, death.). I mock anything and everything that has any reason to be mocked, and some things that don't, and, if I care to invite thunder to suddenly drop from a clear sky and leave me a nice, sizzling black spot on the pavement, that is my business and my business alone. (No one's going to notice one less wanna-be writer, insomniac student in this world, after all.)
My friend, mistress-of-the-mile-long-author's-notes, is getting to me. So, on to the fic!
~~~~
Chapter Two: The Waiting Room
Cheap, scratched-up benches. Cheap, stone-hard carpeting. Cheap, dry cookies. Cheap kool-aid punch mix. Cheap elevator music. Cheap, century-out- of-date magazines. (None of which, of course, had been invented yet.)
"...um... cheap," commented Alanna, rather redundantly, as she took a seat in one of the benches. Which, by the way, stretched on as far as the eye could see, each seated with the souls of the dead-some of them chatting, some trying to stomach the "refreshments," some of them reading the magazines. The guy three people ahead of the lady knight was reciting poetry, apparently from memory. Alanna was not, in fact, quite all that certain of how she and Thom had gotten there-one minute, standing out in next to the well-chute, the next, here, which could have been its own dimension, filled with benches and benches and benches beyond imagining without anyone the wiser. And exactly WHERE was Roger?
"I'll be right back," Thom informed her, before disappearing.
Alanna picked up one of the magazines and tried to read. The first page she opened to was titled "Fashion Today: How to Style Your Hair in a Way that's You!" She put that down and picked up another. "Furniture for the Finicky." "How to Keep House (And Your Mind) as a Single Mom in Today's World." "Forerunners of the_ Homo Sapiens:_ An Advanced Study of the Australopithecus and Other Primordial Humans."
She gave up on the magazines when she found the last one, just as Thom returned with two people.
"...hunter jolly head / Over heels gone," recited the would-be poet next to her. "Jolly old safety catch / Not jolly on. / Bang went the jolly gun, / Hunter jolly dead, / Jolly hare got clean away. / Jolly good, I said."
"Reminds me of someone," muttered a dry, vaguely familiar voice from one of the two people behind Thom.
"Gee, I don't know who you're talking about," replied the other (also vaguely familiar, but more.vaguely.so) as they sat down, "But I like it!"
"You would."
And then, it hit her.
"Neal of Queenscove! You're dead! And.you, too." She'd forgotten the other boy's name.
"Owen," supplied Owen. "Hey, you're dead too! Great! Isn't it jolly? We can all be dead together!"
"Yay!" cheered Thom, earning a stare from Alanna and Neal. "What?"
Neal and Alanna decided not to comment.
"How'd you get here?" asked Neal.
"Fighting a regiment of soldiers. You?"
"I was lynched."
Alanna was not surprised.
"I was lynched, too! It was jolly!" (Guess who?)
"He said 'jolly' one too many times. The villagers we were supposed to protect couldn't take it any more. And Yuki's going to kill me when she finds out I'm dead."
"How can she kill you when you're already dead?" asked Thom dryly.
"She'll find a way."
THWACK!
"AAHH! YUKI! HOW DID YOU GET HERE?"
"Astral projection," replied the shade of Yuki, before vanishing. Stunned silence.
"Did I know she could do that?" asked Neal. "Did I know MY WIFE could do that?"
"That was jolly!" (Ooh! That must have been.Thom! Not.)
"Is everything jolly to him?" asked Alanna, frowning at the grinning boy.
"Yes."
Pause.
".Hey, why does everyone look like they're in their twenties, anyway?" asked Alanna, randomly choosing a subject to drown out the sound of the cheesy elevator music.
"Ah. convenience, really," Thom told her. "It's just easier this way. They."
"But what about skewed perception?" interrupted Neal. "Evildeadguyus clearly states in his 'book of the dead' that the perception of the dead is skewed in such a way that."
Uh-oh. Wrong subject. Neal and Thom both stood to tower over Alanna's head, apparently deciding to argue their points from there.
"Evildeadguyus also clearly states that there are little blue men who wear white hats, live in mushrooms, and abduct souls to join their clan in their plan to take over the world with their nauseating singing and happy-go- lucky-ness, and I have never, in my forty years of working here, encountered a one!"
"But."
The two of them went back, and forth, and back, and forth... eventually, almost everyone around them was watching the argument intently, their eyes swiveling from person to person, as though watching a ping-pong match.
(Insert fave passage of time indicator)
"THE TOMATO IS A FRUIT, BY BIOLOGICAL DEFINITION!" Thom insisted, the first one to break down and yell. By this time, Alanna had quietly begun to shred magazines, trying to keep herself from exploding.
"WELL, IT'S A VEGITABLE, BY CULINARY DEFINITION!"
"IT'S..."
"AAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGH!" screamed Alanna with the grace and tranquility of a charging rhinoceros as she jumped up and throttled both academics at the same time. "I CAN'T *censored* TAKE IT ANY *censored* MORE, *censored*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
FWACK!
All those present stared at the BIG OL' GIANT SCYTHE embedded in the bench between Alanna, Neal, and Thom.
Grin. Smile. Nod, nod. Guess who?
"No infighting, please," monotone-d the black god, yanking out the scythe and sticking it (against all rules of physics) in his pocket, before cheerfully stalking off to.wherever.
"That was jolly!" exclaimed someone who was not Owen, who had just appeared out of nowhere.
"It WAS jolly!" agreed Owen.
"It was very jolly!" cried Duke Roger.
"It WAS very jolly!" agreed Owen.
"That was very, VERY."
"SHADDAP!!" screamed Alanna, panting heavily. Roger peered solemnly into her face for a moment, before taking out a bright pink permanent marker and drawing little hearts and stars all over her face.
"AAAUUUUUGHHH!" Alanna shrieked, grabbing the Conté duke's head and throttling him. "DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!"
She dropped Roger onto the ground before stomping on him several times, as one might try to squish a virtually immortal bug.
"DIEDIEDIE!!!!!!!!!"
"I think she's killed him," commented Neal, glancing at the prone form of the Duke.
"Really?" asked Owen enthusiastically. "Wow, that's j-"
Owen was pounced on by half a dozen bystanders.
"No, he's already dead," replied Thom, pretending that neither Owen nor his half-dozen antagonists existed. "He-Alanna, there's a minor spirit at your knee."
"What?"
"There's a minor spirit at your knee. Go with him.her.it," Thom told her as the spirit rose upwards to look Alanna in the face. "It'll take you to be."
"AUUUGH! PERVERT!!" Alanna snarled, swatting at the little fluffball of light.
".they're all like that," Thom sighed, shaking his head. "But, oh, well. Follow it. It's going to take you from here, to be atago-er, judged in the Court of Minos. Good luck, you'll need it. And, oh, make sure you cooperate. I'll warn you-if there's one god who hangs around here that you don't want to hang around with all day long, it's Minos."
~~~~
Ugh. Me no like this one as much as the other chapter. But, if you like, you can feel free to tell me what you think, anyway! Really! Go right on ahead! Click the H186 S253 L199 (the approximate computer definition of the color; I'm not even going to bother to try to get a color-name for it) button!
I thank my reviewers, esp. those of you who told me exactly what you did or did not like (constructive criticism! save the inchworm! yay!), and do not mind that many of you (Roger: Many? There weren't that many! Hah! See, your readers are punishing you for making me a *censored* crackpot!) called it weird. Weird is good. I think I've called it weird multiple times myself. Weird is "special." Yes, that is a good word. "Special."
BTW, please do not take it personally if I mock something that offends you (your favorite chara, Tortall's religion, death.). I mock anything and everything that has any reason to be mocked, and some things that don't, and, if I care to invite thunder to suddenly drop from a clear sky and leave me a nice, sizzling black spot on the pavement, that is my business and my business alone. (No one's going to notice one less wanna-be writer, insomniac student in this world, after all.)
My friend, mistress-of-the-mile-long-author's-notes, is getting to me. So, on to the fic!
~~~~
Chapter Two: The Waiting Room
Cheap, scratched-up benches. Cheap, stone-hard carpeting. Cheap, dry cookies. Cheap kool-aid punch mix. Cheap elevator music. Cheap, century-out- of-date magazines. (None of which, of course, had been invented yet.)
"...um... cheap," commented Alanna, rather redundantly, as she took a seat in one of the benches. Which, by the way, stretched on as far as the eye could see, each seated with the souls of the dead-some of them chatting, some trying to stomach the "refreshments," some of them reading the magazines. The guy three people ahead of the lady knight was reciting poetry, apparently from memory. Alanna was not, in fact, quite all that certain of how she and Thom had gotten there-one minute, standing out in next to the well-chute, the next, here, which could have been its own dimension, filled with benches and benches and benches beyond imagining without anyone the wiser. And exactly WHERE was Roger?
"I'll be right back," Thom informed her, before disappearing.
Alanna picked up one of the magazines and tried to read. The first page she opened to was titled "Fashion Today: How to Style Your Hair in a Way that's You!" She put that down and picked up another. "Furniture for the Finicky." "How to Keep House (And Your Mind) as a Single Mom in Today's World." "Forerunners of the_ Homo Sapiens:_ An Advanced Study of the Australopithecus and Other Primordial Humans."
She gave up on the magazines when she found the last one, just as Thom returned with two people.
"...hunter jolly head / Over heels gone," recited the would-be poet next to her. "Jolly old safety catch / Not jolly on. / Bang went the jolly gun, / Hunter jolly dead, / Jolly hare got clean away. / Jolly good, I said."
"Reminds me of someone," muttered a dry, vaguely familiar voice from one of the two people behind Thom.
"Gee, I don't know who you're talking about," replied the other (also vaguely familiar, but more.vaguely.so) as they sat down, "But I like it!"
"You would."
And then, it hit her.
"Neal of Queenscove! You're dead! And.you, too." She'd forgotten the other boy's name.
"Owen," supplied Owen. "Hey, you're dead too! Great! Isn't it jolly? We can all be dead together!"
"Yay!" cheered Thom, earning a stare from Alanna and Neal. "What?"
Neal and Alanna decided not to comment.
"How'd you get here?" asked Neal.
"Fighting a regiment of soldiers. You?"
"I was lynched."
Alanna was not surprised.
"I was lynched, too! It was jolly!" (Guess who?)
"He said 'jolly' one too many times. The villagers we were supposed to protect couldn't take it any more. And Yuki's going to kill me when she finds out I'm dead."
"How can she kill you when you're already dead?" asked Thom dryly.
"She'll find a way."
THWACK!
"AAHH! YUKI! HOW DID YOU GET HERE?"
"Astral projection," replied the shade of Yuki, before vanishing. Stunned silence.
"Did I know she could do that?" asked Neal. "Did I know MY WIFE could do that?"
"That was jolly!" (Ooh! That must have been.Thom! Not.)
"Is everything jolly to him?" asked Alanna, frowning at the grinning boy.
"Yes."
Pause.
".Hey, why does everyone look like they're in their twenties, anyway?" asked Alanna, randomly choosing a subject to drown out the sound of the cheesy elevator music.
"Ah. convenience, really," Thom told her. "It's just easier this way. They."
"But what about skewed perception?" interrupted Neal. "Evildeadguyus clearly states in his 'book of the dead' that the perception of the dead is skewed in such a way that."
Uh-oh. Wrong subject. Neal and Thom both stood to tower over Alanna's head, apparently deciding to argue their points from there.
"Evildeadguyus also clearly states that there are little blue men who wear white hats, live in mushrooms, and abduct souls to join their clan in their plan to take over the world with their nauseating singing and happy-go- lucky-ness, and I have never, in my forty years of working here, encountered a one!"
"But."
The two of them went back, and forth, and back, and forth... eventually, almost everyone around them was watching the argument intently, their eyes swiveling from person to person, as though watching a ping-pong match.
(Insert fave passage of time indicator)
"THE TOMATO IS A FRUIT, BY BIOLOGICAL DEFINITION!" Thom insisted, the first one to break down and yell. By this time, Alanna had quietly begun to shred magazines, trying to keep herself from exploding.
"WELL, IT'S A VEGITABLE, BY CULINARY DEFINITION!"
"IT'S..."
"AAAAUUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGH!" screamed Alanna with the grace and tranquility of a charging rhinoceros as she jumped up and throttled both academics at the same time. "I CAN'T *censored* TAKE IT ANY *censored* MORE, *censored*!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"
FWACK!
All those present stared at the BIG OL' GIANT SCYTHE embedded in the bench between Alanna, Neal, and Thom.
Grin. Smile. Nod, nod. Guess who?
"No infighting, please," monotone-d the black god, yanking out the scythe and sticking it (against all rules of physics) in his pocket, before cheerfully stalking off to.wherever.
"That was jolly!" exclaimed someone who was not Owen, who had just appeared out of nowhere.
"It WAS jolly!" agreed Owen.
"It was very jolly!" cried Duke Roger.
"It WAS very jolly!" agreed Owen.
"That was very, VERY."
"SHADDAP!!" screamed Alanna, panting heavily. Roger peered solemnly into her face for a moment, before taking out a bright pink permanent marker and drawing little hearts and stars all over her face.
"AAAUUUUUGHHH!" Alanna shrieked, grabbing the Conté duke's head and throttling him. "DIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIEDIE!"
She dropped Roger onto the ground before stomping on him several times, as one might try to squish a virtually immortal bug.
"DIEDIEDIE!!!!!!!!!"
"I think she's killed him," commented Neal, glancing at the prone form of the Duke.
"Really?" asked Owen enthusiastically. "Wow, that's j-"
Owen was pounced on by half a dozen bystanders.
"No, he's already dead," replied Thom, pretending that neither Owen nor his half-dozen antagonists existed. "He-Alanna, there's a minor spirit at your knee."
"What?"
"There's a minor spirit at your knee. Go with him.her.it," Thom told her as the spirit rose upwards to look Alanna in the face. "It'll take you to be."
"AUUUGH! PERVERT!!" Alanna snarled, swatting at the little fluffball of light.
".they're all like that," Thom sighed, shaking his head. "But, oh, well. Follow it. It's going to take you from here, to be atago-er, judged in the Court of Minos. Good luck, you'll need it. And, oh, make sure you cooperate. I'll warn you-if there's one god who hangs around here that you don't want to hang around with all day long, it's Minos."
~~~~
Ugh. Me no like this one as much as the other chapter. But, if you like, you can feel free to tell me what you think, anyway! Really! Go right on ahead! Click the H186 S253 L199 (the approximate computer definition of the color; I'm not even going to bother to try to get a color-name for it) button!