Disclaimer: I've run out of original and sarcastic disclaimers. Lets just pretend that this would stand up in court on the odd chance that someone didn't read my other three disclaimers and decided to sue me for stealing Eoin Colfer's idea. Which everyone knows was his idea anyway, so there's not really a big risk of someone getting confused and thinking I'm a famous Irish author. Sure. Big, HUGE risk…
And such a good idea it was, too.
Anyway, I don't own Artemis Fowl and related…you know, whatever else…(insert legally acceptable words here)
If This Isn't Love
Chapter Four: Cupid's Karma
Cupid squirmed uncomfortably in his seat at the hairdressing salon.
'Hold still, Cupid!' Rosie scolded. Cupid winced again, and resisted the urge to wriggle in his seat like a three-year-old. But honestly, how was he supposed to keep still when he felt like he had a wedgie the size of Jupiter? He hadn't had his Love-Karma this bad since Elizabeth Bennet and Mr Darcy. And people thought it was fun to be him…just shoot people and watch them fall in love.
Yeah, he wished. There was a whole set of rules about how to be Cupid. All written just for him. For example, he couldn't shoot people who knew how they felt but were ignoring it. His arrows could magnify suppressed feelings of love or help people realise that they loved someone, but they didn't create love. And magnifying love that the people already knew was there was a bad idea. A very bad idea.
Generally upset love-karma caused nausea, localised heartburn, and headache for Cupid. It was caused by the close proximity of two soul-mates to each other. Although that wasn't normally all of it. Not even half of it, actually. The severity of the nausea depended on the feelings the happy lovebirds had for each other. For example, if they knew how they felt and were doing something about it, the ache became more of a fluttery feeling. That Cupid didn'tmind.But if they were ignoring it, or, say, if they thought they hated each other, the ache got extremely painful. It was rather like having a veryextreme wedgie, or an itch he couldn't scratch. And in cases like this, the persons involved knew that they liked each other but refused to admit it, and as such Cupid was forbidden to use his arrows. In cases like this, Cupid needed to handle it personally.
Great.
Cupid hadn't actually handled a case personally in over fifty years. What with all the romantic films coming out nowadays, people tended to recognise love much more easily. They also mistook other things for love much more easily, but that didn't bother Cupid at all. As long as they deluded themselves, they were happy, and he was happy. Since it wasn't really love most of the time, he didn't even get affected when they fell apart. It made his job much easier.
So this particular heartburn was an unexpected and unpleasant shock to him.
As soon as Cupid arrived home from Rosie's Hair Salon he switched on his personalised television set and tuned it to external source. Then he plugged in a thin pink wire to a special, one-of-a-kind socket in the side, and gripped the other end - a small goldglobule of glass- tightly. This television was the work of a whole team of brilliant scientists.Previously Cupid had used a pale pink, translucent crystal ball to find out about his more difficult clientele, but it was difficult to pick up detail in a sphere that was only fifteen centimetres across. So the Council had agreed to make him a device that worked in a similar way to the crystal ball, but that was considerably larger. It was an added bonus that he got a television set as well.
Cupid still kept the crystal ball around, but it was mostly for show. It was easier now that all he had to do when he wanted to observe his troublesome clients was hold onto the end of a piece of wire.Then he could just sit in an armchair andwatch them for as long as he liked. Theoretically this was an invasion of privacy, but the Council decided that Cupid could be trusted.
Although it wasn't really a reluctance to lose the Council's trust that kept Cupid from abusing the privilege of the television. The fact was that he had more interesting things to do that watch people's boring, pointless lives all day. How desperate did you need to be?
In this case, all Cupid was trying to find out who was the cause of his disruptive love-nausea. And hopefully where they were. After that he could figure out why they didn't like each other and how to make them admit their feelings.
Making them admit their feelings was the hard part. It could be tricky, because people responded to being confronted about their feelings in different ways. Sometimes it was just enough to reassure them that the feeling was requited, but sometimes Cupid needed to be a little cleverer. He'd never forget the time he'd toldfifteen-year-old PrincessMary that her crush felt the same about her and the young teen had responded by throwing a chair at him. Not that you could really blame her. She'd been having a bad year, what with her mother being poisoned and her father trying to make her desert her religion. But it was still no excuse to throw furniture. Especially at the messenger. Cupid had fumed for days after that incident.
As the love fairy gripped the end of the pink wire in his hand, an image formed on the screen. It was an overhead view of a complicated-looking room full of screens, keyboards, and other technical gadgets. Inside were two large figures. Either they were really fat and elongated gnomes, or they were centaurs. Cupid decided to go with the second guess. As he watched, the slightly larger centaur reached out and picked something up off the table next to him.
'Zoom in and lower,' Cupid muttered. The detail on the screen grew larger and the view moved smoothly from overhead to a shot on the same level as the centaur's eyes. From this view he could see that yes, they definitely were centaurs. He could also sense the tension in the room. Tension that felt like it could be cut with a knife. The larger centaur, presumably the male, was eating a carrot loudly, the only noise in the otherwise silent room. The other centaur, a blonde female, was working on one of the wide-screen computers. With every new, noisy bite of his carrot that the male took, she would stiffen, then hold her breath and close her eyes. Eventually – as she was about to turn blue – she would release her breath and continue working as though she hadn't paused. This continued, as Cupid watched, for around ten minutes, until the male exhausted his carrot supply. Following was total silence for around a minute. Cupid yawned. Just as he was about to give up completely and justsee if he could find a warlock to fixthe pain, the male centaur started to sigh and grunt in what must have been an extremely irritating way. Especially for the girl, who was trying to work. Cupid sympathised. No matter his nausea was so bad. This situation was all wrong. The male continued to fidgetm making as much noise moving as possible.
'D'arvit Foaly, will you be quiet! I'm trying to work,' the female growled.
Ah. So the male was called Foaly. Cupid made a mental note. He had heard of Foaly. The supposed genius of the LEP, he had headed the team that had created the special love television.
Didn't realise he was so moody though, Cupid mused as the famous inventor stood up and stormed out of the room, slamming the door behind him. Inside, the female put her face in her hands and groaned. After a few seconds she sat up straight again and idly opened a new window on her computer, typing something carefully.
'Zoom.' Cupid ordered. The view zoomed in on the computer screen. In tiny, elaborate font were the words 'Equette And Foaly Forever.' Cupid just managed to read it before the girl – Equette – sighed deeply and deleted the text in three swift keystrokes.
Smiling in triumph, Cupid turned off the television. Fifteen minutes of watching had told him everything he needed to know. He had a time, a place, a situation, and a plan.
He could start tomorrow.
Okay, I know I haven't replied to everyone's reviews like I normally do, but I've been busy with rearranging my exam timetable and I ran out of time. So I'll do it here. :mutters: Hate exams…
Brizo: Well, I guess I sort of explained it in this chapter (trying not to give anything away) but it's a pivotal point of the story that Equette realises how she feels, so Cupid can't shoot her, and he has to come up with another way to get them together.
Multiturtle: you'll have to wait until Chapter Five is up to see what happens with Holly, but I promise it'll be up really soon, due to my sudden need to get away from school work and do something fun, like, say, writing fan fiction? Okay, long sentence…sorry.
xstarlightx: Thankyou! I hope you liked this chapter too.
Hollybridgetpeppermint: very soon, I promise.
Opal: absolutely :D
LandUnderWave: mmmm…there will be, but not in this chapter (obviously) and not in the next. (Sorry) However the next one will contain some romance, if not AH, so be prepared for absolute insanity.
SILLY YOU: I fixed it...That is very embarrassing, thank you for pointing it out. Pride and Prejudice is one of favourite books, so I testify that I read properly, just didn't check my writing properly. :P
