AUTHOR'S NOTE: Sorry it's taken me so long to get these chapters done. I had to go to Ft. Worth on business. You could argue that I could have written on the plane…but unfortunately, I drove. So thanks for your patience, thanks a ton for your reviews, and here are a couple of chapters for ya.
PS Don't let the title of Chapter 8 fool you (yeah, I know this is Chapter 7, but this note's written in my notebook here)—this story arc is just getting warmed up. AE
Chapter 7: Dos Tequilas and an Empty Glass
"Bollocks," Mortimer fumed. "She's stolen my thunder by making it a chapter title!"
The house elf had had quite the time of it tracking down the elusive Ancalimë Erendis. She had set out a number of false leads in her writing, sending him first to London, then to New England, and finally to Denver, Colorado, where he arrived just in time to discover that she had left on a road trip to Omaha. By the time he made it across Nebraska, she had left again, but he managed to locate her writing collaborator, with whom he had an interesting conversation regarding knives and other sharp, pointy objects, as well as the best place to find spiked bondage straps in house elf sizes. He parted on good terms with Snarky Sneak (having neglected to mention that he might have to assassinate her best friend) and returned to Denver, where he at last found his quarry eating grilled cheese and writing this very paragraph.
He gauged her through the window of her third-floor flat and decided that she didn't look overly threatening (unlike Snarky, who wore all black, numerous chains and spikes, and lots of black makeup). He judged her for about five feet tall, perhaps a bit more, and if she weighed 120 dripping wet, he'd be surprised. Her expression was open, perhaps even shy, and her curly hair kept falling in front of her glasses, requiring her to shove it aside in order to see her notebook (which looked like it had recently dried out after a long swim).
What gave him pause, though, was the devious narrowing of her eyes as she smirked at whatever it was that she was writing at that moment.
She raised her head and looked him squarely in the eye, then stood and crossed to the front door.
"Hey, Mortimer," she said, opening the door and gesturing for him to enter. "Or Trigger, or whatever. Come on in."
Mortimer proceeded cautiously, his senses alert for any traps. The most threatening thing he saw, however, was a ginger-colored cat that looked like it had just stepped out of the clothes dryer to flop down in the middle of the sage-green carpeted living room.
"Like a drink?" Ancalimë Erendis offered. "We've got Brita water, tap water, skim milk, and cranberry juice." She furrowed her brow. "And lemonade, but that's Bet's, so you'll have to take it up with her."
"Bet?" Mortimer echoed.
Ancalimë consulted her watch. "Yup. That'd be my roommate. She's due back from work in about half an hour or so." She smirked. "Kinda funny, huh, how I know everything about you and you don't know jack about me."
"You don't know everything about me," Mortimer scoffed.
"Do so," she retorted. "You were dating Lavinia, who works in the kitchens at Snape Manor, but she left you for Alfred because she prefers the smell of silver polish to shoe polish."
Mortimer's mouth fell open. "None of that was true three paragraphs ago!" he sputtered.
Ancalimë grinned. "Such is the power of the writer," she said philosophically.
The house elf narrowed his eyes. "Ah, yes," he murmured. "The power of the writer. Funny you should mention that. You and I need to talk."
Ancalimë shrugged. "So talk already," she told him. "I know what it is that you're here to say—I wrote the bloody chapter, after all—so out with it so I can get on with the plot advancement."
"I prefer to talk over a friendly drink," Mortimer countered. "I don't suppose you know of a nearby pub or restaurant that serves decent tequila?"
She snorted. "And make way for another gratuitous Dogma allusion?" she said. "Yeah, right. Besides," she added, making a face, "I hate tequila. So how 'bout we go to the Chipotle up at Dry Creek, where you can have a Dos Equis or a margarita, and I can have a Coke?"
Mortimer sighed. "Fine with me."
"Good. Give me ten minutes to get out of my grubbies, then we'll go."
---
She was ready in eight minutes, and Mortimer was forced to reevaluate his opinion of her. When he'd first arrived, Ancalimë had been wearing sweats, no jewelry, and no makeup; she now wore shiny black cargoes, black boots, a spiked leather dog collar, and a large quantity of black makeup. Her T-shirt was white, with the seams at the bottom and the sleeves cut off and re-sewn, and it fell about an inch above the low waist on her cargoes. The front said, in red lettering, "Frodo lives, but Éowyn kicks arse!", and on the back were emblazoned the words, "I fear neither death nor pain. I am no man!" The final effect of this full ensemble was that she looked a little threatening after all.
"So," she said conversationally, "are you driving, or am I?"
Mortimer met her eye and arched an eyebrow, but it required more effort than he allowed her to see—except that, judging by the smirk on her face, she knew it anyway. "I will, of course," he answered, and a snap of his fingers delivered them to the Chipotle at University and Dry Creek.
Once they had food, drinks, and a table, Mortimer regarded the writer with narrowed eyes.
"You, being the writer, can have no reasonable doubt as to why I'm here," he told her.
"Veh twoo," she replied around a mouthful of burrito.
"So what do you have to say?" he asked.
She shrugged unconcernedly. "Si' ahm d' wah uh—"
Mortimer winced and held up a hand. "Please empty your mouth before answering," he said.
Ancalimë smirked, then blithely spit out a half-chewed glob of black beans, rice, and guacamole. It landed with a heavy plop in the serving basket and made a very interesting splatter pattern (according to the writer, at any rate; Mortimer's aesthetics did not extend to food art).
"I said," she told him as he swallowed a dry heave, "that since I'm the writer, it doesn't matter what I have to say. You can't kill me if I don't write it in."
"You're not a very good student of Jasper Fforde, then," the house elf countered. "According to him—"
"According to him, the composition of a story is an interactive process between the author, characters and Text Grand Central," Ancalimë interjected in a bored tone as she absentmindedly wiped black lipstick off of her tortilla. "However, there are two flaws with your using that to support your view. First, Fforde's assertions comprise one theory of the way things work, and secondly"—she grinned wickedly—"even if he's right, the fact that I've written myself into the story indicates that I, the person sitting across from you, am a character in it. Thus, a cooperation between me and the real Ancalimë who's physically placing words on the page in the real world still puts you on the wrong side of the bargaining table." She picked up a fork and started playing with the spat-out burrito. "And killing me won't end the story, because in the end I'm a fictional rendering of the author and not the author herself."
"Then we appear to be at a stalemate," Mortimer observed coldly. "I can still kill you, whether it does my cause any good or not."
"Ooh." Ancalimë raised unimpressed eyebrows. "That is what is commonly known as an empty threat. I would be dead, but you would have pissed off my real-world counterpart, who might just let Hufflepuff win as revenge. And what do you think Snape would think of that one, mmm?"
Mortimer glared at her. "Are you then suggesting that all of this is for nothing?" he demanded.
She smiled thinly. "Not at all," she answered. "I am quite capable of telling you what you want to know—provided that you ask nicely."
The house elf was grinding his teeth by now. "Will you be so kind, please, to tell me what your intentions are regarding this story," he growled.
Ancalimë shoveled the masticated bite of burrito back onto her fork, popped it back in her mouth, and eyed Mortimer thoughtfully while she finished chewing it and swallowed. "Well," she sighed at last, "given that even well-written, twisted, and complex fanfic ultimately follows a formula—and, by the way, I don't place this story in that exalted category—I guess I can tell you." She leaned forward conspiratorially. "At some point, sooner than later, Voldemort will bite the big one, and at some point, later than sooner, Hufflepuff will be defeated, crushed, and returned to its proper place in the order of things." She raised her eyebrows fractionally. "You know—somewhere in between pond scum and toaster ovens."
This statement was followed by a shrieking cry of rage, and both Mortimer and Ancalimë spun around as a house elf in what looked suspiciously like a ninja suit vaulted over a nearby table and threw itself at the writer. Mortimer reacted quickly, whipping out a wicked-looking knife and flinging it at the attacker. Ancalimë, by contrast, arched an eyebrow, smirked, and calmly returned to her burrito.
The knife caught the pint-sized ninja square in the throat, sending him/her/it to the floor to bleed out. Mortimer got up to retrieve his blade and saw that about twenty people had turned to stare.
"What?!" he demanded. "He attacked us!" When that didn't appear to mollify everyone, he sighed, dug a fifty-dollar bill out of one of his many pockets, folded it into an origami swan, and tossed it to the manager, who stood gaping at him from behind the counter. "Sorry about the mess," he added, quite unrepentantly.
He heard a snort from Ancalimë and returned to their table to find her rewrapping her food. "Let's go," she said. "I can't eat with a full audience staring at me."
Mortimer added his own stare to the lot. "Are you always this calm about things?" he asked.
She arched an eyebrow. "Only when I write them myself," she answered. "And sometimes not even then. Take the flaying scene in the second 'Contented Wi' Little' story, for example—"
"I'd prefer not to," Mortimer interrupted acidly. The stares were beginning to get on his nerves, too.
Ancalimë shrugged. "All right, then."
The house elf snapped his fingers, and they appeared once more in her flat. The cat came strolling out from the kitchen, pondered Mortimer for a moment, then flopped down into a reclining position at his feet, while Ancalimë unwrapped her burrito again and took another bite.
"So who was he?" Mortimer asked.
"Hmm?"
He sighed impatiently. "The ninja?"
"Oh!" She shrugged. "See das tah denay wic ata—"
"Will you please, for the sake of Merlin, swallow your damn food!" Mortimer practically screamed.
Ancalimë glared at him but, thankfully, did as bidden. "Don't try to carry on a conversation with me while my mouth is full, and you won't have that problem," she told him coolly. "As I was saying, before I was so rudely interrupted, that was Trixie, codenamed Fuji, a generic Hufflepuff house elf assassin. She ranks as a B-5—not quite as elite as Dobby, who's an A-2, but almost as dangerous. Knives slow her down a bit, but I'm afraid you'll be seeing more of her."
Mortimer snorted. "Unless I'm much mistaken, Ms. Erendis—"
"Miss," she corrected. "I'm not into all that politically correct crap, so spare yourself some wasted time and my nasty temper, and get it right."
"—Miss Erendis," he continued, as if she hadn't spoken, "Fuji is dead."
"For the moment, yes," she allowed. "But alas, not forever."
Mortimer narrowed his eyes. "Just how much do you know?" he demanded in a suddenly threatening voice.
"I'm the writer," she countered with an evil grin. "How much do you think I know?"
"I think you'd better come back with me," the house elf told her. "Professor Snape will most definitely want to hear what you have to say."
She shrugged. "Can I bring my burrito?"
"No!"
Now she looked hurt. "Okay, fine!"
"OUCH!" Mortimer screamed. "Damn it to the bloody bowels of Hell!" He kicked at the cat, who ducked the blow by a mile and shot off in the direction of the bathroom.
Ancalimë smirked. "Sorry," she said. "Did I neglect to mention that Marzipan thinks she's a vampire and has a particular taste for ankles?"
Before Mortimer could do more than glare, however, he discovered the hard way that he was standing too close to the front door, which now swung inward to clock him soundly in the head.
"Marz!" said an irritated voice (which Mortimer theorized would sound identical to Ancalimë's over the phone). "Get outta the way!"
"It's not Marz," Ancalimë said helpfully as Mortimer stumbled away, a hand covering the lump that was rapidly appearing on his head. "It's a disgruntled house elf."
Her roommate entered, closed the door, and tilted her head to look at Mortimer in utter mystification.
"You haven't gone and written us into another story, have you?" she asked.
Ancalimë shrugged. "'Fraid so," she replied. "But this chapter's starting to drag and get on my nerves, so I think I'm going to cap it off and write us into the next one."
"Please," Mortimer groaned.
FURTHER AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am much indebted to Jasper Fforde for the theory of how stories are put together, which is explained far better in his books Lost in a Good Book and The Well of Lost Plots. Oh, and for anyone who cares, Bet and I got Something Rotten from the library, and it frackin' rocked our faces off. If you haven't read Fforde, I highly recommend him (but do yourself a favor and start with The Eyre Affair, or you'll be lost). End of commercial, on to Chapter 8.
