Shogun
Filling in the backstory for another Air Witch
V0.4. Damn. Still needs more work.
September 2024. When I first tentatively sketched these notes out, I was about six weeks on from my hospital discharge after a big heart op. I was in hospital in total for eight weeks. It's possibly about three months since I last posted any story to FF. (and that was about three-fifths of the intended chapter of "Price of Flight". I want to go back, pick up the spoiler notes at the end, and complete that chapter, I think I got to where Lexi Mumorovka completes an assignment for Vetinari, and reports back to him.)
Reckoning I should be getting back into it now healing is progressing well.
In my Discworld, there is a currently under-utilised character, an Air Watch witch, who is Agatean. She has appeared maybe once, directly, and has been referred to by others as an off-screen cameo character. Her name tends to vary a lot. She started out as mahou shoujo ("magical girl") or just Majokko-san ("witch-girl") . She also became Akuma-san for comms purposes.
I got as far as establishing she arrived in Ankh-Morpork by ship in troubled circumstances, but that her ship was lost. (I speculated its captain may have used it as a last-ditch stake in a game of Cripple Mr Onion, thus stranding her in a strange foreign city). She then has to survive in a totally foreign country and learn its ways and customs, very quickly. I was thinking, explicitly, of a complete reversal of James Clavell's Shogun, in which an English sea-pilot is stranded in mediæval Japan and has to avoid having his head chopped off by tetchy Samurai. Rule Of Funny suggested to me that this is a "Japanese" girl who arrives in Ankh-Morpork and is stranded here, just as Blackthorne was in Japan. As a Witch, of course, she is also a Pilot.
After a series of unspecified adventures, our girl – who so far, I realise, is identified by nicknames and titles, not an actual name – joins the City Air Watch.
I just haven't specified how this nameless Agatean Witch survived in Ankh-Morpork, how she came to the notice of Olga Romanoff, and (just as Blackthorne the English Pilot) comes to the attention of various daimyos and finally the Shogun – how does our girl fare when taken before Shogun Vetinari-sama? What is there about her that draws his attention?
This tale has to be written. Also, witchcraft in Japan is not the same thing at all as the witchcraft of the western world – this needs to be allowed for in my Agateans.
I've been binge-reading a webcomic by Brandon Santiago, Erma.
This delightful and "wow..." tale has lodged in my head and crystallised a few ideas about how the Air Watch came to have an Agatean pilot, who she is, how she got there and even what her real name is.
Brandon Santiago's "Erma" draws heavily on Japanese mythology and folklore – including the new adaptations of old tales and concepts that have found their way into modern Japanese cinema and animé.
His starting point (I'm presuming Brandon is a "he") is the idea of the onryō. In her manifestation in modern Japan, the onryō is the "stringy-haired ghost girl" who uses modern tech to her advantage, using the television signal to beam herself into the home of those she wishes to haunt. The iconic image is of this spirit crawling inelegantly, but in a very sinister way, from the background static of the TV set. It's not a new idea; an American horror movie called "Poltergeist" used this in the 1980s, with the iconic scene of a little girl sitting in front of a TV set that has gone to static, telling her family "They're here".
The Japanese, however, ran with it and took it a stage further. In The Ring, a human woman called Sadako Yamamura becomes an onryō and the film's subtitle is "Before you die, you see..."
Brandon Santiago has built a universe. One where a youkai, a denizen of the Japanese world of ghosts and spirits, has run away from a dissatisfying existence and entered the human world, where she is nomadically touring around North America, never staying longer than a couple of months in any one place. In a place called Blairwood – the story is perhaps deliberately ambiguous as to whether this is in the USA or Canada – she encounters a successful horror story author called Sam Williams, who is fascinated with the pale-skinned Japanese woman and what else she might be.
Emiko Yureimoto becomes equally taken with Sam, and they marry. This incenses Emiko's parents, especially when a child is born who is half-Youkai and half human.
The daughter, Erma Williams, is a classic stringy-haired ghost girl – but a Japanese-American version of Casper. She has all the powers of an onryō, but unless provoked into a rage, is genuinely pleasant, friendly, likeable, goes to a human school and has (mainly) human friends. She does do the manifesting-via-the-TV-set thing, for instance, but sees it as a quick way of dropping in on her schoolfriends that spares all that tedious walking or asking her dad to drive her over. The stories happen when she is age seven or eight, and can be sweet and pleasant. (and funny, although with no great depth or profundity. The humour is that of a ghost-girl trying to get on in human society.)
However, a new depth is added when she goes to Japan for a family visit, and wins over her extended family there, even her fearsome ogre grandfather. Here, the tales stop being whimsical and take on a real depth of atmosphere and looming menace as her family enter the parallel Japan of ghosts and spirit entities. It's clear BS did his homework – every creature she encounters is a real Japanese mythical entity. Her mother's family are a cluster of differently abled humanoid spiritual entities, for instance: a snake-woman, an enormous troll, aunts who all have special powers and characteristics. (I know. Her uncle isn't a "troll" as such, that's a Western word, and Aunt Rina the "naga" (Okay. Hindi/Urdu word for snake-woman) and Aunt Fumiko with the razor-blade prehensile hair have their own "species" names in Japanese, too. I'll add the specific names later when I get to look them up – there are entire pages on TV Tropes and Wikipedia.).
Erma is a universe that sticks. And deserves a Discworld alternate.
Now. Read on. (Chronology: if the "present moment" in the tales is the year of the almost-war between Ankh-Morpork and Klatch over Syrrit, followed by unrest in Howondaland,(1) this begins possibly three years previously. Character ages and status, and relevant incidental details, will be adjusted to fit.)
Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork.
Inspector A.E. Pessimal poised his pen over the paper, expectantly.
At the head of the table, Commander Sam Vimes cast a stony look over a room full of his senior officers. Modern management practice dictated that the City Watch Commander should preside over his Divisional Heads in an actual committee room, with everyone sitting round a long table, somebody present (in this case Inspector Pessimal) to take minutes, and if necessary, an iconographic projector and screen, in case anyone felt a need to Present. Vimes had reluctantly conceded that he should at least try it this way, but he was not greatly happy with the arrangement. Coffee had been provided, brought in from Sham Harga's in large insulated canteens. Other insulated mugs were filled with freshly-boiled water for diluting or for topping up the coffee jugs. The opinion of the Departmental Heads was that it wasn't completely foul, if consumed with lots of milk and sugar. (2) And at least there were biscuits...
Vimes frowned again. With so much specialisation going on in the Watch these days, having some sort of weekly Divisional Commanders Meet-up made sense. The River Watch, such as it was, might spot something with tentacles swimming in the Ankh which was worrying ships' captains. As long as it stayed in the river it was clearly a River Watch problem and might even, with luck, be palmed off on the Coastguard or the Customs Service or even on the Navy. (3) If, however, it showed an amphibious streak and demonstrated signs of wanting to slither out onto Garlickhythe or the Slapway or to climb the Old Slipping Stairs, then the rest of the Watch needed to be briefed.
The Railway Watch shared its intelligence here concerning the sort of people who travelled by rail, who the rest of the Watch might need to know about once they stepped out of the station. If Chief Inspector André Loudweather of the Cable Street Particulars needed to brief everybody else about hidden crime, the sort perpetrated by people who wore starched white collars to work, he raised it here. And if the Air Watch were to look down on anything interesting going on at ground level, Captain Olga Romanoff could be counted on to bring it here for discussion.
Vimes looked down the table at Olga, who was sitting alongside Captain Angua von Überwald (Street Watch) and Senior Sergeant Cheery Littlebottom (Forensics). He sighed resignedly. The fact his senior female officers chose to sit together at Departmental Heads meetings could be intimidating, if he let it. A Werewolf, a Witch and an attitudinal declared-female Dwarf. He reflected that at least Sally von Humpedinck was still only a Sergeant and not senior enough – yet – for her to sit in at these meetings. Add a vampire to the mix and it wouldn't bear thinking about... he shook his head.
"Right." he said. "Glad you're all here. You know the purpose of these little get-togethers is for us to discuss current events and to trade information? As a bonus, we all get to drink Sham Harga's finest coffee."
He half smiled, amiably. Olga Romanoff raised her glass of Rodinian tea slightly, in an ambiguous gesture that might have been a sort of toast.
"Well, most of us get the coffee." Vimes conceded. "Anyway, first order of business." He nodded to Pessimal as a signal for him to begin Minuting.
"On my desk I've got a stack of clacks flimsies and personally written and couriered messages from bloody Boggis, demanding to know what I'm going to do about it." he observed. "I've so far avoided speaking to him, but at some point I'm going to have to give him a story, and I just know he's going to complain to Vetinari."
He scowled.
"Then Vetinari is going to want to talk to me about it." he said. "You know how it works. If Boggis bends the Patrician's ear about something he thinks the Watch isn't doing, then His Lordship is very capable of getting, at the least, sardonic, with me."
Vimes nodded meaningfully at his senior officers.
"So let us review an unsolved case, shall we? Thank you."
Inspector Pessimal cleared his throat.
"In the files in front of you, ladies and gentlemen. You'll find iconographic copies of crime reports and summations. If you'd all take a moment?" (4)
Vimes frowned.
"A.E..." he said. The intonation was questioning.
"I have checked, sir. There are no visible buttocks on the prints." Pessimal replied. "After the Incident, female personnel of a certain frame of mind are only allowed to use the copier room if supervised throughout."
Vimes relaxed.
"Just making sure, A.E." he said. "Thank you."
Olga Romanoff met the inquisitive looks eyeball-on, and scowled slightly.
"My pilots now know better." she said.(5) "And may I remind you. Sergeant von Humperdinck does not come under my direct command. What she may or may not do in the copier room is not for me to inquire into or monitor."
"Moving on." Vimes said, firmly. "At the last count, there are eight licenced and unlicenced Thieves who are in the funny farm at the Lady Sybil. All of them suddenly lost control of their mental faculties on overnight shifts and were found wandering the streets in a distressed and burbling state. Two others, who remain in a sort of compost mentis state, have independently of each other, told pretty much the same story. Which indicates something is happening and whatever it is, it arrived recently.
"Boggis wants to know what's causing Guild members in good standing to totally lose their marbles. I do not want to go to him and admit that we frankly do not have a sodding bloody clue. So, ladies and gentlemen, let's review the evidence, shall we?"
Unseen University, the same morning.
A group of Wizards gathered in the High Energy Magic building to debate the Issue that had occured overnight. The most senior Wizard present, Vice-Chancellor Ponder Stibbons, reflected, with a sense of impending doom, that Arch-Chancellor Ridcully only ever seemed to pay attention to the HEM when things were going wrong.
Things were indeed going wrong.
And Ridcully was here, harrumphing, poring over the strange printouts from HEX, a Thinking Machine who appeared to be having one of his little Moments. As the man in charge, Ponder was hideously aware that if HEX had been broken and they couldn't fix him, this particular buck would stop on his desk and hop no further.
"Hmmph." Ridcully grunted, as he pored over the gnomic output from HEX.
The thinking Machine broke the apprehensive silence of a dozen wizards of various grades, all wondering what way Ridcully was going to go on this. They braced themselves for a lot of shouting.
HEX said, gnomically,
++During the night
++Girl who is not a girl came.
++She entered my system.
Ponder Stibbons, perplexed, watched the clattering stylus of the print-out-machine. Only... it seemed to be painting, rather than printing... He frowned. Who had replaced the stylus head with a brush? Then he looked down at the paper.
"Err... sir?" he said. The print-out, or in this case the Paint-Out, read:
"++ 夜間
++女の子じゃない女の子が来た
++彼女は私のシステムに侵入しました"
Ridcully came over, looked down and frowned. "Stibbons." he said. "Go and dig out somebody who speaks Agatean, would you?" (6)
The brush painted on.
++彼女が来たらすぐに
++女の子ではない女の子が残る
++彼女は私のシステムを去った
HEX spoke again, to an audience of perplexed Wizards.
++As soon as she came,
++Girl who is not a girl left.
++She departed my system.
"Should have been an overnight attendant on HEX last night," Ridcully grumbled. "One of yer grad students, Stibbons. Where is he? Need to get an idea what the damn blue buggering blazes happened here overnight. Can't have HEX burblin' on, and defaultin' to Agatean for his printouts. And more to the point – why?"
"He's over here, sir." Ponder said.
Ponder Stibbons pointed out a dazed and traumatised young postgrad, who was holding a cigarette in a trembling hand. He looked like a man who had encountered something unspeakably eldritch and not-of-this-world.
Ponder sighed, with deep resignation. Encounters with the eldritch and not-of-this-world weren't exactly uncommon. He'd had a few himself. Encounters with the eldritch and not-of-this-world, in fact, sort of defined what Unseen University was about. They happened several times a day, in fact. A fundamental job of Unseen University was to manage all this and where possible, speed such visitors back to their own dimensions of the chthonic and the paranormal with the equivalent of a hearty handshake, and a very firmly expressed "Thank you for visiting, but goodbye." Otherwise, Lord Vetinari had been known to get sardonic at the very least.
"It was horrible." the overnight Wizard groaned, as Ponder and Ridcully tried to get a coherent story out of him. "Horrible. She came out of the screen at me."
"Who did?" Ponder asked. He glanced up at the display screen that had been added to the HEX array, as an experiment to see if the thinking engine could also process pictures.(8) At the moment, it wasn't showing very much. The visual panorama was a sort of foggy white dashed with lines and sprays of black and grey, which put Ponder Stibbins in mind of being inside a heavy snowstorm. The jagged black lines leapt and danced on the white background in a way that almost, but not quite, hurt the eyes.
Ridcully grunted.
"Hard to think with that bloody mess going on." he remarked. He reached up and smacked the side of the frame, hard, with the palm of his open hand. The frame shook and the whole assembly rocked. The snowstorm on the screen leapt and danced into new arrangements, but remained largely the same.
Ponder winced.
"Sir? We really don't want to break another omniscope." he said.
Ridcully grunted again.
"If that's all we gettin', lad, then it's a bloody monoscope." he said. "How the Hells do you break a bloody Omniscope like that?"
The attendant Wizard groaned again.
"It set in just before she turned up, sir." he said, shuddering. "I almost heard a voice saying "she's here", and then she arrived. At first she was inside the mirror..."
Ridcully had taken his hat off and was unscrewing the pointy end at the very top. He poured a restorative glass for the Wizard, who accepted it with mumbled thanks.
"Just exactly who was inside the mirror, lad?" he asked, kindly.
"The girl..." the wizard moaned. Then he explained, as best he could.
Pseudopolis Yard, Ankh-Morpork.
"Okay. So the common theme is this." Sam Vimes said. "You have Thieves' Guild members going about their unlawful, but aggravatingly, perfectly legal, business in the hours of darkness. Then something happens to turn them into terrified gibbering wrecks only fit to be carted off to the cuckoo ward at the Lady Sybil. This also applies to the marks they were trying to mug. Except for one."
"Mr Francis Persimmon of Fingering Steps, Dimwell." Pessimal said. "Who gave us the best eyewitness statement we have."
"At least partially confirmed by the ones who managed to stay partway mentally together." Vimes continued. "The weird bit of the story is this. Apparently a little girl turned up. Mr Persimmon, who somehow wasn't affected too much, described her as at most ten years old, possibly younger, though it was hard to tell. She had long black hair that was flicked forward and covering her face, although this didn't seem to stop her from seeing where she was going. While her hair looked, and I quote, a bit scruffy and in need of a wash, she was in a long white nightgown of some sort. Mr Persimmon also said she was wearing some sort of white socks on her feet, and no shoes. He said the strange thing was, she was walking on an Ankh-Morpork street with no shoes on and those white socks were staying white. They weren't picking up what we shall delicately call muck. The girl was walking towards the Thieves in a strange way that didn't seem like proper walking, although he couldn't explain why. The Thieves look at her and one of them said "Isn't it too late for you to be out on your own, love? Where do your mummy and daddy live?" (9)
Vimes paused.
"I agree it doesn't make sense." he said. "But Mr Persimmon says she sort of pulled her hair back, and looked at them. He could only see the back of her head at this point, but whatever she did had them screaming in terror and running away. Then when she looked at him, he was frightened as to what he might see."
"What did he see?" Captain Olga Romanoff asked. She was having a sinking feeling this had a supernatural dimension, and therefore would almost certainly end up on her desk. She didn't need to be a Witch to know this.
Vimes smiled.
"Glad you asked. Olga" he said, affably. "Apparently her hair had slipped back so only half her face was covered. But he swears all he saw was a little girl of no older than ten, with big eyes and an appealing smile. She took his hand, helped him to stand up, and led him to the main street, then squeezed his hand and indicated he should carry on home. She didn't speak. Close too, he could see her skin was very pale, almost white. But her hand felt normally warm."
"I see." Olga said. "Or at least, I think I do. This little girl induced primal terror in a group of Thieves and put them all in the Lady Sybil. My first thought, sir, is perhaps, Vampire. Did Mr Persimmon see a black ribbon on her person?"
"Not mentioned in the witness statements." Vimes said. "But he made his way home, and risked looking back over his shoulder. He swears he saw the girl, or at least a figure in white, climbing up a wall. Or sort of flowing up it, as if she wasn't human. Then he lost sight of her."
"Could be a vampire." Cheery Littlebottom said, doubtfully. "But..."
Angua von Überwald took up the thread.
"It could be." she agreed. "But Sally tells me that there's a taboo among Vampires of making a new vampire from a child. You get child vampires, if they're born to it, from the old families, like the de Magpyrs. The younger de Magpyr vampires caused no end of trouble in Lancre a few years ago.(10) Immature, no idea of how to behave responsibly. Like fifty or sixty year old juvenile delinquents."
She contemplated the Harga coffee again.
"The thing is, sir, if a vampire turns a human who's still a child, say seven or eight or nine years old, that's it. They don't grow any further. You stay seven or eight or nine. Forever." (11)
A shudder of horror passed through the room. Angua continued.
"Even Vampires have standards, sir. The idea of doing that to a kid horrifies them. The word is out that anyone who even thinks of doing that is going to be confined to an urn or a coffin forever. Sally, well you know what it takes to get Sally angry. She said she'd happily hammer in the stake herself. They just don't do it, sir. Vampires consider it a form of child abuse."
"So if not a vampire, then what?" Vimes demanded. "This has happened three times now. I need to be able to reassure bloody Boggis we're on the case."
He glared at Olga Romanoff.
"I'll get on it, sir." Olga said, trying not to sound reluctant. "Briefing Sally might be a good idea. Get her on the case. As this thing is happening by night, and according to the reports all three incidents have been in Ankh, around Dimwell and Short Street, I'll brief my people and get an enhanced presence in the air. Also, I propose some of my Witches patrol on the ground in the area of interest. One per street patrol, where practicable."
But you've got no ideas, Olga? No leads?"
"None whatsoever, sir." she admitted, "At least, not as yet. I will ask my Witches if they've ever heard of anything like this. And talk to contacts in the City and elsewhere."
"Report back to me, Olga. Thank you." Vimes said. "Any other business? No? Okay, people. Let's get policing."
Unseen University, the High Energy Magic Building.
"So." Mustrum Ridcully said. "you're sayin, that a little girl, no older than about ten, came climbin' out of the screen, lookin' like she's done this before. She's got long black hair that looks like it's in need of a good wash, and it's coverin' her face. She's dressed all in white, long sort of shroud affair, maybe a nightie. And on her feet she's got strange white socks, and you can't help noticin' despite this being Ankh-Morpork, they're perfectly clean."
"Yes, sir." the grad wizard said. "Her skin is almost white, like she's a vampire who hasn't seen a neck for weeks. And there's an odd detail about the socks..."
As the grad explained the odd detail about the socks the little girl was wearing, Ridcully impatiently slapped the omniscope screen's framework again. Ponder winced.
"Sir..." he said.
"Yes, lad, I know." Ridcully replied, impatiently. "Sometimes you have to hit somethin' Relieve yer feelings. Now answer me question. Do we actually have an Agatean Studies Deprtment?"
Ponder searched his memory.
"No, sir, I don't think we do, as such..." he replied. He was also wondering. Unseen University had lots of odd nooks and crannies, and where there was something to take an academic interest in, there was a Wizzard...
He grinned.
"Sir, do I have your authority to instruct a couple of Bledlows to fetch Professor Rincewind?" he asked. "He's the only Wizzard I know who's actually been to Agatea."
Ridcully grinned. He remarked: "And if he can't help, there's that young woman he's friendly with. At the Assassins' Guild. He can ask her."
Ponder felt a stab of relief. He could run this past Johanna later. She could also get him an introduction to her colleague Miss Pretty Butterfly, Koukouchou-san, who taught Agatean studies at the Guild.
Then a detail caught up with him. He turned to the grad student.
"Mr Dufflecoat. Did you see this seeming young girl, you know, at any point, go back into the screen again?"
Bernard Dufflecoat, post-graduate Wizard, shook his head. Ponder winced.
"Sir. She could still be out there. Somewhere. In this University!"
The Air Station, Pseudopolis Yard.
Lieutenant Irena Politeka put down the case notes and reports, and looked thoughtful.
"Definitely a Code Twenty-Three." she said. "A Level One, do you think, Olga? Minor nuisance?"
"Call it a Level Three." Olga replied. "If only because Mr Vimes wants a result quickly, and Lord Vetinari definitely does not like things like this. Mysteries of the wrong sort spoil the smooth running of his City. Which means major disruption and trouble for us."
Olga's mind was worrying at something in the reports that she couldn't quite identify. There was a key there to working it out, if only she could find it. She decided to stop worrying it and asked her Deputy Commander about other aspects of managing the Air Watch.
"How are the Cadets?" she asked. Air Watch Cadets were a new thing. Mr Vimes had given a sort of conditional approval to the idea, that young Witches with the right aptitude on the City Circuit could be given specialised training by the Air Watch. After all, Olga had pointed out, we've been doing this informally for a while now, in ones and twos. Nottie Garlick was the first, and then we got people like Rebecka Smith-Rhodes. (12) We may as well issue uniforms and train them in some structured sort of way.
"Working out okay so far, Olga." Irena said. "They've got Nadezhda Popova and Hanna von Strafenburg to guide them, remember? Quite literally, good cop, bad cop." (13)
Olga grinned. The Cadets were in good hands. Silly to worry, really.
Any Pegasus Service flights due to return?" she asked.
Irena consulted a clipboard.
"Otaku-san's on her way back from Agatea and expected in the hour." she said. She grinned at Olga. "You know. Weeabou. Yaoi-girl."
Olga grinned. Flying Officer Emily Pargeter was a Service pilot with a great big enthusiasm for Agatea and all things Agatean. Since her knowledge of all things Agatean was by no means perfect or in any accepted way in-depth, Vetinari ensured she was partnered with one of his Dark Clerks, who did know a lot more about Agatea and its languages and customs. He was the one who had re-named her Otaku-san. Miss Pretty Butterfly, who taught Agatean at the Assassins' School, had met her, and not unkindly, had added Weeabou and Yaoi-girl to the mix, explaining to Olga that those words also denoted "one from the Central Continent who is almost embarrassingly enthusiastic for Agatean culture and language".
Olga contemplated Emily, who was naively enthusiastic for Agatea, in fact for anything that took her fancy, but was also a good officer. Then the realisation struck her and she reached for the report file again. Something Emily had said...
"Those white socks." she said, for herself, hunting for the reference. She found it: the toe end of the sock had been separated, with the big toe being given a sort of compartment all of its own, like the thumb on a pair of mittens. The other four toes went into a compartment of their own, also like mittens on the hands. Emily had explained this was called something like tabby, and was unique to Agatea...
"Irena." Olga said. "This thing is out of Agatea. No wonder we're all stuck for explaining it. We've just never seen it before. When our Weeaboo gets back and she's done at the Palace, get her here, would you? Perhaps Mr Williams, her Dark Clerk, could call by too, if he can be spared? Thank you."
Unseen University, the High Energy Magic Building.
Ponder Stibbons would be irritated to know that when Ridcully delivered a third slap to the framework of HEX's omniscope screen, possibly on the basis of the old folk-magical truth that "three times pay for all", it sprang back to life again.
Ponder, despatched to locate the Egregious Professor of Cruel and Unusual Geography, knew nothing of this, for the moment.
Ridcully, and a clutch of graduate Wizards, looked on with interest as the screen resolved itself into a picture of people on board a ship, one which looked distinctly foreign in its build, with an oddly-shaped sail. He saw there was an adult woman standing on the deck, cloaked, but definitely Agatean in her look and hairstyle and dress, with one arm protectively around the shoulders of a girl-child.
He wondered what the Heck all this was about, and took in the details; he considered that you could never tell with Agatean women. They could still look sixteen or seventeen when they were pushin' thirty, oddly ageless. But if she had a little girl, no older then ten, then her age was likely to be nearer thirty than twenty. But it wasn't as if HEX was cured, not by a long way. That wasn't exactly full natural colour he was looking at. The, what did they call it, colour balance was out.
++Arch-Chancellor Ridcully.
"Glad you're back with us." Ridcully grunted. "Any idea what went on here last night?"
++I am unable to tell you. ++I have no memory of anything after approximately eleven last night, ++It appears my files have been erased. ++This is most inconvenient.
Ridcully shook his head. He addressed the room.
"Any of you bright young buggers know how to fix this?" he inquired, indicating the strange image. "It looks like you've got a Thinkin' Engine back, so chop-chop, get to it, you've got work to do!"
Blairwood Close, Dimwell, Ankh-Morpork.
Emiko Yureimoto, twenty-six years old, sat in the bedroom of the small apartment she had managed to rent. She accepted both her own hair, and definitely Erma's, were in need of a thorough wash. Even though she'd bathed as well and as regularly as she could, she still felt dirty. This whole city felt dirty.
She tried not to worry. Losing the ship had been a misfortune, not a disaster. She had ample money for two or three months. She did not dare go to the Agatean Embassy: word would inevitably get Home as to where she and her daughter were, and her husband's family would inevitably follow.
She decided she needed a bath and a reliable laundry for her clothing, and ideally some sort of paid work, as soon as possible. Her spoken Morporkian was good enough, after all. And changing from a kimono into local clothing would perhaps help her to blend in.
She bowed her head in a sigh, and looked to Erma, who was fast asleep. She also had to do something about Erma, who was inquisitive and mischievous and inclined to explore by night. She somehow knew, for instance, how to open locked windows and slip outside. THe first time, Emiko had died the death of a thousand cuts, on realising her daughter had gone missing by night. She hadn't been comforted when Erma had returned several hours later, seemingly safe and well and looking unbearably appealing and quite adorable. She wasn't so much worried for the little girl, she told herself, as about what might happen to those she encountered. Erma didn't properly know how to use what she had. Yet. And she had a natural sense of justice and of what was right. The ship's cabin boy who'd tried to menace her, on the outward passage... she tried not to think about that.
At least the strangely named Mrs Dustbin, from whom she was renting the rooms, had a good heart. And a repulsive physical smell. Do these people ever bathe? She had taken to Erma instantly, as people did, but had remarked as to how pale the little mite was. That sea passage must have been hard, love?
She adjusted her position, and tried to think positive and harmonious thoughts. She would, she decided, make things right. Nobody else could do that for her. It had been a first lesson in the Way Of The Witch.
She wondered if there were other Witches in this city, and if she'd even recognise them if she encountered them. The Way, in the Central Continent, was apparently foreign and strange and different...
And that's it for Chapter One. Having introduced Akuma-san (and her gifted little girl), more will follow!
(1) See The Price of Flight and Strandpiel2.
(2) The one Divisional Head who preferred tea had tried Harga coffee once, just to be polite. Captain Olga Romanoff, or in her absence her deputy commander Lieutenant Irena Politeka, now tended to bring along some freshly brewed zavarka straight from the samovar, and brew their own.
(3) Coastguard or Navy assistance could always be requested.
(4) Iconographic copiers, or perhaps iconocopier machines, were a large fixed iconographic machine. The principle was you placed the thing you wanted copying on the top glass plate, specified the number of copies you wanted, and the imps inside duly obliged, reeling out the prints into a collecting basket. Watchmen, and other trades and professions that needed to get a lot of uniform copies for minimal exertion in terms of time and expense (teachers, for instance) welcomed this in the same way career soldiers in other universes welcomed repeating rifles. The only problem with the Watch adopting iconocopiers had been Sally von Humperdinck, who had loudly wondered if there was any reason why she couldn't...
(5) Olga crossed her fingers at this point, hoping nobody would raise the name of Kiiki Pekisaalen.
(6) The paint-out might read as:
" yakan
onnanoko jaya nai onnanoko ga rai ta
kanojo wa watashi no system ni shinnyuu shi mashi ta "
(7) Japanese translations are almost completely via Google Translate, as this is a language of which I know virtually nothing. So – apologies to Japanese readers for any crudity of expression. (Can you suggest better or more natural Japanese? ありがとうございます. )
(8) It turned out that HEX could. Quite a lot of Wizards, and not just the young ones, had needed to be dissuaded from using this new ability to get pictures of young women, with lengths of gauze and strategically positioned urns on plinths. Ridcully had been emphatic about this.
(9)Because Thieves have standards and quite a lot of them are married with kids. They'd have gone out of their way to get a lost child home safe.
(10) Go to Carpe Jugulum, by Terry Pratchett.
(11) A possibly unsafe nod to authoress A* R, who really doesn't like fanfic of her stories. Interview with the Vampire covers this sort of situation via a child-vampire called Claudia.
(12) Who will not be appearing in this tale, as at this point in the chronology, she has just finished school and been packed off to Lancre for advanced witch training.
(13) A combination of the motherly Nadezhda (the Good Cop) and the austere Hanna (the Bad Cop) had been asked to induct the Cadet intake.
Notes Dump:
Genesis of this story. From a PM with reader lilian maya:
Fuller answer: ideas are emerging for the next chapters of "Strandpiel2" and "The Price of Flight". I'm sketching out where I'd like them to go and I've begun continuations of both ongoing stories.
Also, another of those "side-quests" have emerged where yet another of the Air Witches has popped into my head with a fuller picture of who she is, where she came from, what her back-story is and what motivates her. Usually this can be dealt with in a few paragraphs, or perhaps a couple of pages, of the main story, just to establish who she is and where she came from and how she ended up being recruited to the Air Watch. (This worked for Yulia Vizhinsky, for instance: a couple of two or three-paragraph "interludes" woven into the main text.). When it came to Alexandra Mumorovka... well, it very quickly became clear that this would be a story in its own right. Six chapters' worth, to be precise.
The latest Air Witch has popped up as a cameo a few times and as a supporting character. But it dawned on me that she's known in the stories only by call-sign and her nickname. apart from the fact she's Agatean (in her case, I'd quantify this as "Japanese" - although "Agatea" is a portmanteau of at least four different national ethnicities in our east Asia). it helped that I'd just been binge-reading a magnificent and long-lived webcomic about a little girl, the daughter of a North American father and a Japanese mother. Not feeling up to writing so much, just re-reading my older stuff to take stock and remind myself of continuity. and binge-reading other people's webcomics for pleasure and - in this case - a lightbulb of inspiration. The inspiration, of course, is Brandon Santiago's "Erma" but with a couple of twists – Akuma-san/ Emiko Yureimoto will be a completely human witch and not a Youkai spirit; her reason for leaving Agatea is to put herself out of the reach of her husband's family, who are youkai; taking a plot point from "Erma" - in the webcomic, the character of Auntie Yori, whose husband provoked the wrath of her parents and ended up imprisoned for life in a cell somewhere. This has happened to Akuma's husband and the father of their daughter – and he is a youkai, whose status passes to the daughter Akuma brings to Ankh-Morpork with her. This is where our tale opens.
So Akuma-san, the Air Watch's one Agatean pilot, will have a story which has lots of meeting points with a webcomic about being not only Japanese, but one specific sort of Japanese, in a "European North American" setting. Not a crossover so much as an adaptation. And this is going to be another one that might end up "Lexi Mumorovka" length. (multiple chapters).
finding out more about haiku form. Wikipedia says:
5-7-5 or 6-7-5 poetic form split across three lines.
old pond
frog leaps in
water's sound
This separates into on as:
fu-ru-i-ke ya (5)
ka-wa-zu to-bi-ko-mu (7)
mi-zu-no-o-to (5)
Another haiku by Bashō:
初しぐれ猿も小蓑をほしげ也
はつしぐれさるもこみのをほしげなり
hatsu shigure saru mo komino o hoshige nari[17]
Translated:
the first cold shower
even the monkey seems to want
a little coat of straw
As another example, this haiku by Bashō illustrates that he was not always constrained to a 5-7-5 on pattern. It contains 18 on in the pattern 6-7-5 ("ō" or おう is treated as two on).
富士の風や扇にのせて江戸土産
ふじのかぜやおうぎにのせてえどみやげ
Fuji no kaze ya ōgi ni nosete Edo miyage[18]
Translated:
the wind of Fuji
I've brought on my fan
a gift from Edo
This separates into on as:
fu-ji no ka-ze ya (6)
o-u-gi ni no-se-te (7)
e-do mi-ya-ge (5)
This haiku example was written by Kobayashi Issa[19]
江戸の雨何石呑んだ時鳥
えどのあめなんごくのんだほととぎす
Edo no ame nan goku nonda hototogisu
Translated:
of Edo's rain
how many mouthful did you drink,
cuckoo?
This separates into on as,
e-do no a-me (5)
na-n go-ku no-n-da (7)
ho-to-to-gi-su (5)
Character name – Eric Purlicue (the purlicue is the fleshy interstice between thumb and forefinger. It comes from the same dictionary as olicranae. )
Sashimono – the Japanese art of creating intricate and eye-wateringly complex-looking joints in wood which lock together with no need for nails or glues. As one who cannot easily do a basic mortice and tenon joint in wood (woodwork lessons at school tried hard but failed with me) this is frighteningly impressive to behold.
Also picked up, via tv tropes, the idea that in Japan, to sneeze suddenly with no particular reason for it means somebody elsewhere is thinking of you, or is nearby and watching you. Like "burning ears" to us. looking for referents and the cultural associations of sneezing in Japan:
Ironically, there's a word for a sneeze in Japan – くしゃみ, kushami – which matches the history of the English sneeze prayer. Just as we'd bless the sneezer to protect him from the evil spirit that may enter his body, the Japanese would name the sneeze. An unnamed spirit within the sneeze could return and try to kill you.
In Japan, no one can hear you sneeze.
OK, they can hear you, they just don't erupt into spontaneous prayer.
I'd ask, "What do you say in Japanese when people sneeze?" Occasionally I'd hear "odaiji ni" as an option. So I said "odaiji ni" to anyone I caught sneezing.
In truth, no one in Japan says a word in response to an "atchoo!" (or "hakushun!"). Why would they? A sneeze is not a question. I'd asked the question, so people had to imagine an answer.
I started saying something half-way between "get well soon" and "there but for the grace of God go I" until someone heard me say it to a stranger on a train.
"Don't do that."
Spirited Away
Ironically, there's a word for a sneeze in Japan – くしゃみ, kushami – which matches the history of the English sneeze prayer. Just as we'd bless the sneezer to protect him from the evil spirit that may enter his body, the Japanese would name the sneeze.
An unnamed spirit within the sneeze could return and try to kill you. So people nearby would declare "you see death!" (as in, "That guy you just sneezed out, his name is death!") so that everyone knew a sneeze-spirit was hanging out.
(From website "This Japanese Life", written by a Westerner in Japan).
From a Facebook discussion on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine (set on a space station and could be subtitled To Boldly Stand Still And Go Nowhere In Particular, Where Nobody Has Stood Still And Gone Nowhere Before.)
I found it interesting and a little bit amusing that in the Star Trek universe, (400 years on from now?) canon takes it as an article of faith that the whole of Earth will be playing baseball, as if no other bat-and-ball sport exists, or they've all been out-evolved. "Deep Space Nine" seems to have this enshrined. The novelisations take it further. I had a WTF? moment when one of the novels culminated in a showdown at the baseball stadium - in London - in front of a capacity 100,000 crowd. This sort of killed the reality for me and reader disbelief was duly unsuspended.
It's a bit of a stretch, as only about, maybe, half a dozen nations on Earth today would count it as one of the most popular mass-spectator sports. In Britain, for instance, it's a very small niche sport. It's there, but the ecological niche for a sport involving bat-and-ball is still cricket. In another four centuries (if we last that long) cricket will still be in there - more countries worldwide consider it the go-to sport involving bats and balls.
My "inner fanfic" about DS9 is one of the very British Doctor Bashir and Chief O'Brien listening with polite half-interest to Commander Sisko talking up his passion for baseball - then Bashir goes onto the holodeck and plays out a fantasy about scoring a double century at Lords. He is politely asked to hurry up by Chief O'Brien, who is about to lead the hurling squad out for County Guinness, in the All-Ireland Hurling Final at Croke Park, Dublin. (Sorry - can't recall what O'Brien's home county would be out of the standard thirty-two). (14)
An evolved version of the fanfic has the ship's team of the USS Melbourne, on a goodwill visit to the Klingon Homeworld, getting very Australian and introducing the Klingons to cricket and rugby. Sports which would appeal to the Klingon psyche. (Well, imagine Worf with a very heavy bat, invited to propel a very small fast lethal ball, at great velocity. People have been critically injured by cricket balls. Or a scrum made up of eight very big Klingons. With perhaps a naturalised Ferengi as scrum-half?).
(14) I looked it up. Canonically, Chief Miles O'Brien is from Killarney, County Kerry.
Notes on recuperation after heart surgery (Sep 2024, 7-8 weeks further on)
Well, there's that strange thing where sensation in my fingertips, that I thought I'd lost permanently as an occupational hazard of twenty years working in pro kitchens, suddenly returned, virtually all at once, about five-six weeks after the op. At the same time (and with the aid of heavy-duty diuretics) some really serious evil swelling in my lower legs and feet has virtually vanished and they look like limbs again. Drawback - serious joint pain in my left ankle, as if the oedema and swelling were "cushioning" the joint and now that support's gone, it complains... things almost audibly going "ping!" in my chest if I roll over in bed (this is diminishing) and the operation site is getting less painful with the weeks. Vitality and stamina slowly returning, sleep patterns still disturbed, incredibly vivid dreams that I can't recall on waking, except for glimpses and episodes from longer stories...
"This comment was deleted because it didn't meet our guidelines" - I think I'll copy and paste this everywhere I make a comment from now on, it'll save time. But, what? Really? I answer the question posed by Andrew Hill, I do it sensibly, i put some thought into it, I did not sensationalise the issue or rejoice in death or anything and I did not take a partisan approach- and the reply gets deleted? What the H are the deletion criteria? Because their application here was completely ... well, let's be sarcastic and say my post was deleted by somebody applying intelligent logic, for good reasons