There She Goes
I know, I know, I said I wouldn't write any more filks for a while, but my other fic's caught in a lull and it's an easy substitute to fall back on. Just in case you couldn't tell, the original version of this song was written by Lee Mavers, frontman for the La's, a Liverpool band famous for being crack whores and making an album which inspired about half of the modern British music scene. Oh, and a little ditty entitled 'There She Goes'. And just so you know, the words of this song are quite different from the original lyrics – they're closer to how I first heard them (and those of the cover version by Sixpence None The Richer (I didn't plan this, seriously)).
Shout-Outs! That is, if there's anyone left to read 'em:
Ozodrac: But of course the trombone's a great instrument – I play it, don't I? Seriously though, glad you like it.
Frosteh: You don't really freak me out. It was just a result of when Ozodrac threatened to stop writing.
Jess: Yes, Edward is most definitely straight – that's something me and him definitely share…
Mcjack: Why thank you sir!
Mcjack: Weren't you here a moment ago?
DYRWTKA: Thanks! Always glad to get new fans. And yes, the filks are (for now) just about the Watch, but I am planning to write other fics about other characters in the Discworld universe.
Jennifer Jolie: Not yet, love. I'll only marry them off if 1) Pterry does it in canon or 2) Pterry dies without marrying them off (God forbid…). I'm afraid I'm kind of a canon whore when it comes to non-OC relationships…
Aaanyways… On with the filk!
THERE SHE GOES
Pseudopolis Yard wasn't quiet at the best of times. Any building used daily by upwards of a hundred people spread out round the clock will have a noise level that never falls below 'loud murmur', and Pseudopolis Yard had seen more than it's fair share of No. 32's 1). If you have to sleep there, you either get used to it or go insane 2).
Even so, you do have to draw the line somewhere.
"Turston!" bellowed Edward Blankwall, hammering on the bedroom door. "Get your good-for-nothing backside out here now!"
"What's the problem?" said Constable Verity Brown, coming up the corridor. "What's he done now?"
"Woken me up," muttered Edward darkly, mistaking her condescending tone for something approaching his own fury. He thumped the door again. "TURSTON!"
The person on the other side of the door called out "Oh, goh bea' up a granneh, yeh lobser!" 3)
Edward thumped the door much harder than before. "Yer wanna cum ou' 'ere an' say that ter me face, yer soddin' Fenc!" 4) 5)
"Edward…" said Verity, quietly.
"Wha- oh…" Edward went a whiter shade of pale.6) "Sorry, Verity, I keep on forgetting you're from Sto Femmin…"
"It's alright, Edward."
"I mean, you don't exactly sound like one…"
"We're not all like Turston, you know!"
"Ah mean, I don' sound like a Lobser tha' much, so I can' talk…"5)
"Just let me go in there, Edward. Maybe I can get him to calm down a bit."
"Oh… er… sorry…"
Edward slunk back into his room, and Verity knocked and went into the one next door. The figure sat hunched at the end of the bed turned and gave her a look that would have led to the disbandment of gurning competitions the universe over had it been made public. 7)
"You orkey?" she said.
"Do ah luk it?" he replied, sardonically.
"Nor, yer dorn't," she said. "Wat's up?" (Author's note: I'm getting tired of writing in dialect all the time, just pretend I've put on some kind of translator thing so I can write in English).
"It's just…" Turston sighed and began pacing around the room. "I keep on trying to get my music to sound how I want it to, but I can't! It's driving me mad!"
"Is that why Edward was so mad? Because your music woke him up?"
"No, Edward's mad because me throwing my guitar against the wall knocked the shelf off his wall and onto his head. And woke him up."
Verity stifled a giggle. "But your music sounds great! Everyone says so…"
Turston laughed sarcastically. "Oh, it's good, I'll give you that," he said, "but it's not great."
"Well, how do you define greatness?"
"Interesting question, but I-"
"No, I mean how do you, James Turston, define greatness? What do you think makes something great?"
Turston sighed. "Well… you know about five years ago? When they started running the stage from Sto Femmin to Barrerpool regularly again?" 8)
"Oh, yeah," said Verity, in the voice of someone who is 'reminiscing'. "My dad kicked up a fuss about that… he hated 'bloody lobsers'."
"Who didn't?" said Turston. "Anyway, I was bored, and all my mates were busy, so one evening I just got the coach to Barrerpool. Thought I'd get beaten up soon as I opened my mouth – I thought Lobsers were all violent scumbags who'd kill you for a bag of chips – but I lived long enough to make it to a club in the city centre. The Canvas Club, it was called – dingy, sweaty, full of young lads off the ships – Lobsers call that part of town the Canvas Quarter, it's just down the road from the docks, y'see – and I just got myself a drink and sat in the corner."
"And that's it? That's greatness? Sitting in the corner with a drink?"
"Let me finish!"
"I was only saying…" said Verity, sulkily.
"Yeah, well…" said Turston. "As I was saying, I got a drink and sat in the corner and no-one hit me, which as far as I was concerned was a miracle, and then this band called The Ey's came onstage. Well, fair enough, I thought, might as well check out the music scene while I'm here. And then they started playing this song…"
"And?"
"Can't really remember that much of the gig itself, but I can remember I was sitting on the coach back home that night and this music was just running round and round inside my head. It was life-changing – I mean, I'd heard music-with-rocks-in before now, I'd learnt to play guitar a year or so before, but that…" he stopped and sighed. "It was like having the top of my head opened and someone dropping ice cubes on my brain. Nothing I'd written could even think of sounding as good as that!"
"Did you ever go to see them again?" said Verity.
Turston Frowned. "No," he sighed. "I told my mates about them, and they went and saw them themselves, but I went back a few months later – back to the Canvas – and I asked the guy behind the bar and he said they'd broken up the month before. Big fight, apparently." He stared out of the window. "I wonder what happened to them…"
Verity glanced at her watch. "Oh blimey, I've got to go," she said. "I'm on duty in half an hour."
"See you later," said Turston.
"See you," said Verity, closing the door behind her.
1. No. 32: Being Naughtily Drunk And Singing Out Of Tune During The Opera – they insist on serving unlimited sweet sherry during the interval.
2. This misleadingly implies that getting used to it and going insane are mutually exclusive at Pseudopolis Yard.
3. Lobser – person from Barrerpool. If used by a fellow Lobser, it's a term of endearment. If used by a Fenc 4), it's an incitement to violence.
4. Fenc – person from Sto Femmin (see 3)).
5. Edward tended to slip into a Lobse accent when he got excited. He tried explaining why, but people tended to get lost about halfway through his twenty-minute lecture.
6. If there are any Procol Harum fans out there – Sorry.
7. Gurning – professional face-pulling.
8. Barrerpool and Sto Femmin are neighbouring cities on the Sto Plains. Their relationship for most of the past 2000 years is best described as 'literally, don't even go there – but they're better than those … from …'. It is similar to all common love-hate relationships between two rival cities (c.f. Liverpool and Manchester, Glasgow and Edinburgh, Central New York and Suburban New York, London and everywhere, Birmingham and Birmingham etc.).
It was several hours later.
"So," said Angua, "did you find out about what Turston's problem was?"
"Oh, you know," said Verity, sipping her pint, "music things. He found a band that was better than his."
The two watchmen had retreated into a pub not far from the Shades to escape a sudden downpour, which had escaped from the university and was wandering around the city of its own accord 1).
"Which band?"
"The Ey's, I think. Lobsers."
"Who?"
Verity had to double-take to stop her from giving her friend a rather unpleasant look. She reminded herself that Angua was from Uberwald, and they didn't bother with diminutives on the whole – you were generally too busy running from something to nickname the place you were running from. "Barrerpuldians," she replied.
"Ah," said Angua, in the tone of voice that suggested she just didn't get the whole concept. The two sat in silence for a while.
"Verity?" said Angua after a while.
"Yeah?"
"Remind me why you originally joined the Watch again?"
Verity looked shocked. "What's that got to do with anything?" she said, irritably.
"Just wondering, that's all," said Angua non-committally, not looking her friend in the eye.
"Why?"
"Just tell me, Constable…"
"How is it relevant?"
"Just answer the question, Verity!"
Verity looked sullenly at the table and muttered something.
"I didn't hear that…" said Angua in a sing-song voice.
"… Because…"
"Yes?"
"… I fancied Edward Blankwall…" Verity looked up. "There! I admitted it! Again! Even though you plainly hadn't forgotten! Now what purpose does this discussion serve?"
Angua's expression of shock lasted all of a moment; it was immediately replaced with one of careful intrigue. "Just wondering if you found it difficult trying to keep the middle ground between those two."
Verity rolled her eyes. "Believe me, it'd be so much easier if those two didn't insist on winding each other up." She sighed. "But Edward loses his temper too easily, and James seems to positively revel in seeing how far he can push him. And the worst thing is, I know neither of them mean it, but they each think the other does."
"I was surprised you didn't take Turston's side," said Angua. "I mean, you do come from the same city, after all…"
"But that's just it – we don't! I'm from Screwdon, not Sto Femmin! Okay, in terms of nationality we're both Femnian, but it's the difference between you and Cheery – yes, you're both from Uberwald, but you're from Bonk and Cheery's from near Lipwig, right?"
"That sounds about right," said Angua. "As far as anyone can tell, anyway. Dwarfs tend to describe the location of their homes in relation to the nearest coal seam."
"But you aren't from the same place, are you?"
"No, of course not-"
"You see?"
"So basically, you're a citizen of Sto Femmin, but you aren't from Sto Femmin itself?"
"Yeah, that sounds about right." Verity looked out of the window. "Rain's gone off," she said. "Shall we go back?"
Angua checked her watch. "Might as well, shift's almost over."
"Really?"
"No, but we'd probably better tell Mister Vimes about that rogue cloudburst."
"Surely he'll already know?"
"Probably, but it can't hurt to make sure. Besides, it's bloody freezing out in the wind."
1) Attempts to teach the students weather control usually had this effect.
2) Unlikely, I know, but Verity hadn't been feeling quite right that day. She must've been ill, to fancy Edward.
It was half an hour later.
Verity walked along the corridor from Vimes' office towards her room. It was quite quiet – everyone else was on duty, obviously. Then someone, started singing, and she nearly jumped out of her skin. Her yelp of shock must have been quite loud, as the singing cut off abruptly and Edward's face appeared round the door of his room.
"Are you okay?" he said, sounding slightly guilty.
"What are you doing here?" she snapped. "I thought everyone was out on duty now…"
"Unusual circumstances," said Edward. "Got a call-out to an All Officers in the Plaza of Broken Moons. Bloody wizards…" he muttered.
"Didn't get that," said Verity, feeling guilty herself. Edward didn't seem to notice.
"Yeah, well, by the time we'd finished there was only half an hour left on my shift, so Vimesy let me go off shift and dry off before I caught a cold. He made Turston go out early, too," he added, smiling slightly. "Er… d'you… want to come in?" he said, nervously. 1)
"Yeah, sure." Verity went in, and Edward shut the door behind her. "What song was that you were singing?" she asked.
"Oh, just something I used to play when I was in my band back in Barrerpool," Edward replied. "My mate wrote it, in fact."
"It sounds great," enthused Verity. "Who's it about?"
"Well," said Edward, "since you asked…"
Flashback
The young man looked up as a shadow fell across his book. Or, rather, two shadows.
"Hey Thom," he said, "Sean."
"A'right, Eddie," said Thom.
"'Right, Ed," said Sean. "Listen, we need a favour-'
"Looking for another guitarist?" said Edward.
"Who told you?"
"No-one," said Edward. "I worked it out. You two change band members more often than Thom changes his socks-"
"Hey!"
"- I can play guitar a bit, and there's two of you standing there holding what I can only assume is meant as a bribe."
"It's a bar of chocolate!"
"A tube of Chocolate Round Things, actually, probably the NoThingfjord recipe version which just so happens to be my favourite kind? You just bought that, entirely by coincidence?" Edward leaned back. "Just 'cos I'm a copper doesn't mean you can pull the wool over my eyes, lads. Come on, I've known you for years! You only had to ask!"
"So… you'll do it, then?" said Thom. Edward sighed, and tried to hit him across the back of the head, but Thom was too quick for him and ducked.
"So is that a 'yes' then?" he said mischievously, while Edward just sighed and rolled his eyes.
"Hey, guess what!"
It was a month since Edward had joined the band, and quite a bit had happened. Sean and Thom had decided to rent a practice room, and had instead found a quite nice premises in Dead Duck which served as both practice space for the band and a home for Sean, Thom and whichever of their friends wanted a bed for the night. It wasn't far from the Watch House on Side Lane, where Edward and indeed the entire Barrerpool Watch was based.
"Yes, Sean?" said Edward, who was sitting on the moth-eaten sofa, aimlessly strumming his guitar. "Have you written another classic song?"
"Oh no," said Sean, smiling. "This one isn't a classic."
"Really?"
"This one's legendary."
"Oh."
"Anyway, just play me a G-D-C9 sequence under this tune when I tell you, okay?"
"Sure…"
It took several attempts, none of which were anything near right, before Sean gave up.
"Look, just shut up and listen, will yer? Holy Saint Nick…"
Sean sat down and played the short opening line he'd tried to play before, before dropping into the chords. Then, he began to sing.
"There she goes,
There she goes again,
Racin' through my brain,
And I just can't contain,
This feelin' that remains."
Edward, completely of his own accord, now began dropping in backing vocals.
"There she goes," "There she goes again"
"There she goes again,""There she goes again"
"Waltzin' through my brain,
And I just can't contain,
This feelin' that remains,
There she goes,
There she goes again,
She calls my name,
Calls my name,
No-one else can feel my pain,
And I just can't contain,
This feelin' that remains."
"There she goes," "There she goes again"
"There she goes again,""There she goes again"
"Chasin' down my lane,
And I just can't contain,
This feelin' that remains,
"There she goes," "There she goes again"
"There she goes," "There she goes again"
"There she goes." "There she goes again."
"Wow", said Edward.
"Well, whaddaya think?" said Sean.
"Wow," repeated Edward. "I'm amazed. That's bloody brilliant!"
"Yeah, I know," said Sean. "I've got a good feeling abou- hey, whaddaya mean, 'I'm amazed'?"
Unfortunately, Sean's good feeling didn't last.
"Gods, that was a good gig," said Edward, putting his guitar down and throwing his jacket into a corner.
"Yeah, it was alright," said Sean. His voice took on a sneer. "Woulda bin even better if someone could play the bloody bass…"
Thom looked up at him. "What - the ---- - are you on about," he said, steel glinting in his voice and in his eye.
"You, you bloody muppet," snarled Sean. "I have never heard that bass-line on 'Feelin'' played worse. My granddad could play it better and he lost his fingers in the Royal Geoffery disaster!"
Edward caught the drummer's eye. He and Peter Surgick had been friends for years, and they knew, almost instinctively, when to leave their bandmates to it.
"T'Ovoid?"
"Yeah."
"Guys, we're going to the Ovoid. Catch us up when you've finished killing each other," called Edward. Sean and Thom apparently didn't hear him over their slanging match.
"How long d'you reckon they'll be?" said Peter, as the two of them walked down the corridor.
"Dunno," replied Edward. "If it's anything like last time then-"
His answer was cut off by a loud crash from the room behind them. The two boys shared a look, then dashed back to the room.
Peter put his head round the door, and narrowly missed being decapitated by a flying snare drum. Edward had his cheek grazed by a passing drum-stick.
Sean and Thom were going all-out in an attempt to wipe each other off the face of the planet. Anything that wasn't nailed down was a weapon, but the physical projectiles were nothing compared to the insults the two were flinging at each other. And Edward could see, there and then, that he'd lost his band. The feud between his friends had reached the point of no return.
"Come on," he said, shaking his head sadly, "let's go to the Ovoid."
End Flashback"Wow," said Verity, wide-eyed. "So that's why you constantly go on about 'not having a band'?"
"Yeah."
"And why you keep on belting Sean over the head?"
"That's part of it, I suppose-"
"And why you two seem to be locked in some kind of war of attrition?"
"Don't be daft!" Edward put his guitar back on the stand. "I'm like that with all my friends."
"What was your band called?"
"The Ey's, why?"
There was no reply for several seconds.
"Verity?"
"That's the band James was talking about!" exclaimed the girl. "Edward – go and tell him now!"
An expression of sheer horror flitted across Edward's face. "Wha- NO!" he yelled, slamming the door shut and turning to face Verity, panting and eyes wide.
"Edward?" said Verity, taken aback. "What's the problem?"
Edward stared at her for several seconds, while his mind ran around in a loop saying don'tletherfindoutdon'tletherfindoutmakeupanexcusemakeupanexcuse!
"Edward, what is the problem?" Verity glared at him, which seemingly cleared his mental block.
"Er… I… don't like people finding out because… er… I don't like the attention it brings," he stuttered. "Yeah, er, I try not to tell people in case I get besieged by 'em. Hate the attention, y'know…"
"Ri-ight," said Verity, making it clear she didn't believe a word of it, but couldn't think of any other conceivable reason why her friend would lie to her.
"So, y'know… let's just keep it between us, okay?"
Verity sighed. "Alright," she said. "For you." She walked out and closed the door behind her.
Edward sagged, and collapsed onto the bed.
Well, you're hardly lying to her, are you? You always hated the attention, said his thoughts.
"So why does it feel like a lie?" murmured Edward to himself.
1.
This wasn't because Edward knew Verity had fancied him. He was fine with that. He was just the kind of person who was nervous about asking a girl to come into his room. Hell, he was nervous enough about asking a girl her name.
Whew. Doesn't really feel like a filk, does it? There's a lot of character development going on here, along with more original characters. A lot of this is left up in the air, I'll admit, but I'm hopefully going to get into some serious writing now (as in 'major projects' rather than 'no humour'), which will hopefully bring all these questions to a conclusion (and explain where the hell all these OC's are coming from, too). Don't worry though - I've got plenty of filks stockpiled, and all kinds of side-projects, so I'll be here for a while yet. And that's before we get started on that joint fic…
Ned, up to his eyeballs in catarrh – bloody colds…