"So now what?"
Jerked out of her detached musings, Whisper utilized her ability to come up with a quick and snappy response. "Huh?"
"Um... we're in cages. The man with no hair just finished yelling at us for exactly twenty minues and fourteen seconds. I'm in a different world in the name of Zeus. Now what?"
"Twenty minutes and fourteen seconds?"
"I had nothing better to do than count seconds while he was yelling."
He actually startled a laugh out of her. No! Moron! You do not get attached to the immortal shrimp! She wouldn't do something as self destructive as that. Though he was cute in a rather pathetic way... Whisper cut off that disturbing train of thought in the quickest way possible. She screamed. High and wordless and incredibly loud.
When she was done the god was just looking at her. With the best- and therefore the inherently most annoying- puppy eyes she had seen yet. Damn. Better even than when- No. Whisper. Her name was Whisper. She lived in San Fransisco and had lived there ever since she was orphaned. Yes.
...
At the front deck of the police station, the officer winced as he heard screaming. Then yelling. That girl. Ugh. Just- ugh. Groaning, he slammed his head backward into the wall. And again. By the end of the morning the gun safety poster behind him was rather the worse for the beating.
...
There was only one alternative to this situation. God, she'd been inteligent more than was healthy in the past few hours. Not smart. There was nothing wrong with being smart. It's when you start being intelligent that things get all buggered- no, screwed- up.
...
I am currently more confused than I've ever been. I mean, I had just answered a question. A simple question. Then the murderer starts screaming and now she's swearing. I wish I hadn't learned French. And German. And Gaelic. And Portugese. And Korean. Or English for that matter. At the moment multilingual fluency was enough to make me blush. If I could cover my ears while writing I would. Not like it hadn't come in useful over a few decades of travel. Okay, maybe a century. Running. As always. Oh good. She's going to be done screaming soon. Don't ask how I know, I just do. For some reason I don't want her to know about this. But that makes no sense... I've already trusted her with my biggest secret. So why don't I trust her? I'm just being paranoid. Not going to listen to the uneasiness anymore. It's time to stop running.
...
Hmmm. So the shrimp has something he's not sharing. He was probably hoping I'd ignore my glimpse of something he was fiddling with. He made it disappear quick enough, I need to remember that speed if I'm going to use this and come out on top. Maybe the godling thought I'd forget he's powerful because he's little and sweet. Not a chance. I need to know him inside and out before I pull my biggest stunt yet. And I'm going to trust my instinct that it was some sort of book he was looking at. In places like this, you either learn to trust your instincts or you fall farther than his little Greek version of Hell. "Right. I've got a plan to get us out of here."
"Really?"
Roll of the eyes. He was so stupid and annoying sometimes. "Duh. Now, can you shift the appearance of things other than yourself like you did with that bird trick?"
"I don't know. I've never tried it before."
My eyes are going to get tired if I keep rolling them so often. "Why not? Oh never mind. Then try it."
"...uh... What should I turn you into?"
"Something small. And turn yourself into one too."
(five minutes later)
That's funny, I thought I heard a kinda splatting noise. Then again, maybe I've been banging my head on the wall too much.
...
Oh my god I am going to kill him. God or no, as soon as I get my body back I am going to shoot him. Screw the plans. He is going to wish that he was never born. I'll show him true hell.... as soon as I get my body back.
Oh shut up! I wish that little voice would stop telling me that at least we're out of the jail. I should be grateful. God, that voice is intolerably like Cass... ugh. Not thinking about that. They're all dead and by god they're staying that way.
Why should I be grateful to him?
The shrimp turned us into bloody FROGS. I hate frogs. Moreover, frogs definitely don't belong in San Fransisco. We've been hopping- and it is undignified for a thief to HOP- all around to find somewhere where we won't give someone a heart attack by turning back into humans. There are too many damn people in this friggin' city. Normally it makes pickpocketing easier, but now it's really, really inconvienent.
AAAH! Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. This is where thinking gets you. I've been lost in thought and following the godling around and now he's led us into traffic! We're gonna die. We're gonna die and I'm going to be squashed by a car and become a green- GREEN! smear in the road. And Laney will starve to death back home and I'm gonna die.
...
The two frogs were stranded on the yellow line in the middle. Around them buses and cars and the occasional motorcycle zoomed. All quite capable of squashing both in an instant. And why not? They were just two insignificant lives. Nobody would really miss them. And there are plenty of problems more important than those belonging to two frogs in a city.
But as chance would have it they made it safely to the last hurdle. The trolley tracks right by an alley. They had both regained a bit of the confidence severely torn by a score of near deaths. Then, again quite by chance, there was a trolley came around that corner just as the last frog was hopping towards the other who was already in the alley. The trolley, filled to bursting with tourists and commuters and all manner of people, very effectively squashed half of the last frog. A little girl on the back of the trolley gasped at the rather disgusting sight. She turned to her brother and blurted something about the "poo' wog! Ftop and hep it!" He said there was nothing they could do about it. He turned back to the infinitely more interesting cd he was listening to. Just before the trolley went over a hill the girl saw the frog turn into two people. And she gasped, but kept this latest wonder to herself. It was just like a fairy tale.
Only in fairy tales there is no gore. In fairy tales there are no hopeless tears. In fairy tales there is no smell of death.
This is no fairy tale.
Jerked out of her detached musings, Whisper utilized her ability to come up with a quick and snappy response. "Huh?"
"Um... we're in cages. The man with no hair just finished yelling at us for exactly twenty minues and fourteen seconds. I'm in a different world in the name of Zeus. Now what?"
"Twenty minutes and fourteen seconds?"
"I had nothing better to do than count seconds while he was yelling."
He actually startled a laugh out of her. No! Moron! You do not get attached to the immortal shrimp! She wouldn't do something as self destructive as that. Though he was cute in a rather pathetic way... Whisper cut off that disturbing train of thought in the quickest way possible. She screamed. High and wordless and incredibly loud.
When she was done the god was just looking at her. With the best- and therefore the inherently most annoying- puppy eyes she had seen yet. Damn. Better even than when- No. Whisper. Her name was Whisper. She lived in San Fransisco and had lived there ever since she was orphaned. Yes.
...
At the front deck of the police station, the officer winced as he heard screaming. Then yelling. That girl. Ugh. Just- ugh. Groaning, he slammed his head backward into the wall. And again. By the end of the morning the gun safety poster behind him was rather the worse for the beating.
...
There was only one alternative to this situation. God, she'd been inteligent more than was healthy in the past few hours. Not smart. There was nothing wrong with being smart. It's when you start being intelligent that things get all buggered- no, screwed- up.
...
I am currently more confused than I've ever been. I mean, I had just answered a question. A simple question. Then the murderer starts screaming and now she's swearing. I wish I hadn't learned French. And German. And Gaelic. And Portugese. And Korean. Or English for that matter. At the moment multilingual fluency was enough to make me blush. If I could cover my ears while writing I would. Not like it hadn't come in useful over a few decades of travel. Okay, maybe a century. Running. As always. Oh good. She's going to be done screaming soon. Don't ask how I know, I just do. For some reason I don't want her to know about this. But that makes no sense... I've already trusted her with my biggest secret. So why don't I trust her? I'm just being paranoid. Not going to listen to the uneasiness anymore. It's time to stop running.
...
Hmmm. So the shrimp has something he's not sharing. He was probably hoping I'd ignore my glimpse of something he was fiddling with. He made it disappear quick enough, I need to remember that speed if I'm going to use this and come out on top. Maybe the godling thought I'd forget he's powerful because he's little and sweet. Not a chance. I need to know him inside and out before I pull my biggest stunt yet. And I'm going to trust my instinct that it was some sort of book he was looking at. In places like this, you either learn to trust your instincts or you fall farther than his little Greek version of Hell. "Right. I've got a plan to get us out of here."
"Really?"
Roll of the eyes. He was so stupid and annoying sometimes. "Duh. Now, can you shift the appearance of things other than yourself like you did with that bird trick?"
"I don't know. I've never tried it before."
My eyes are going to get tired if I keep rolling them so often. "Why not? Oh never mind. Then try it."
"...uh... What should I turn you into?"
"Something small. And turn yourself into one too."
(five minutes later)
That's funny, I thought I heard a kinda splatting noise. Then again, maybe I've been banging my head on the wall too much.
...
Oh my god I am going to kill him. God or no, as soon as I get my body back I am going to shoot him. Screw the plans. He is going to wish that he was never born. I'll show him true hell.... as soon as I get my body back.
Oh shut up! I wish that little voice would stop telling me that at least we're out of the jail. I should be grateful. God, that voice is intolerably like Cass... ugh. Not thinking about that. They're all dead and by god they're staying that way.
Why should I be grateful to him?
The shrimp turned us into bloody FROGS. I hate frogs. Moreover, frogs definitely don't belong in San Fransisco. We've been hopping- and it is undignified for a thief to HOP- all around to find somewhere where we won't give someone a heart attack by turning back into humans. There are too many damn people in this friggin' city. Normally it makes pickpocketing easier, but now it's really, really inconvienent.
AAAH! Oh my god. Oh my god. Oh my god. This is where thinking gets you. I've been lost in thought and following the godling around and now he's led us into traffic! We're gonna die. We're gonna die and I'm going to be squashed by a car and become a green- GREEN! smear in the road. And Laney will starve to death back home and I'm gonna die.
...
The two frogs were stranded on the yellow line in the middle. Around them buses and cars and the occasional motorcycle zoomed. All quite capable of squashing both in an instant. And why not? They were just two insignificant lives. Nobody would really miss them. And there are plenty of problems more important than those belonging to two frogs in a city.
But as chance would have it they made it safely to the last hurdle. The trolley tracks right by an alley. They had both regained a bit of the confidence severely torn by a score of near deaths. Then, again quite by chance, there was a trolley came around that corner just as the last frog was hopping towards the other who was already in the alley. The trolley, filled to bursting with tourists and commuters and all manner of people, very effectively squashed half of the last frog. A little girl on the back of the trolley gasped at the rather disgusting sight. She turned to her brother and blurted something about the "poo' wog! Ftop and hep it!" He said there was nothing they could do about it. He turned back to the infinitely more interesting cd he was listening to. Just before the trolley went over a hill the girl saw the frog turn into two people. And she gasped, but kept this latest wonder to herself. It was just like a fairy tale.
Only in fairy tales there is no gore. In fairy tales there are no hopeless tears. In fairy tales there is no smell of death.
This is no fairy tale.