Corgatha's writing Corner. Last update 5/02/10

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

And I'm starting one up again. I seem to recall I had an old thread out there somewhere, but I don't think I got too far. If I get a spare minute I'll look it up and find the old stories on it and link to them, in case anyone wants to bother to read them. The first few are "literary" which means they use clever tricks of narration to make up for a paucity of plot and character


Anyway, this first post is given over to administrivia, for links and the like. I hope this thread has better contents in it than the last one


One last note. I'll be putting in setting information, if it's something that isn't immediately obvious and the reader ought to know before reading, but otherwise, I probably won't comment on the stories until there's been at least some discussion, (here's hoping they're good enough to warrant discussion.) I'm not sure myself as to how important the author's interpretation of a work is, but I've noticed that it tends to silence discussion on theme, and I'd really rather not do that. I'm likely to keep comments cryptic too, but that's more because I'm a jerk.


Best wishes to my victims readers,
Corgatha Taldorthar.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

The Bake Sale

The auditorium was cold, and Taylor was glad his mama had made him wear his jacket, although his hands were still icy. But the smells coming off from the tray in front of him were scrumptious, and he had to force himself not to filch a warm cookie or a brownie. Instead, he glanced around, although none of his friends were visible from his stall, he could see the festoons of green and orange that were hung up all around the space for the school sale, and when he turned his head quickly, they almost seemed to dance around him in a blur, and their silliness made him smile.

A shape loomed up in front of his stall, and he knew he had seen the graying, somewhat portly man before, but he just couldn't place it. He had on this interesting looking set of clothes, like his dad always wore on weekdays, with a gray coat like thing over a white shirt. There was just a faint hint of chalk dust running down the left side, and he wanted to reach out and touch it, but instead turned his head up to address the man, like his mama told him was polite "Would you like a cookie?" he said, but the man just winced slightly and covered one ear, as if something had pained him. But after a second, he smiled again, and motioned towards a brownie, saying he'd like four.

Taylor counted them out carefully, and then put them into a bag. Holding the brownies was nice, they put a bit of warmth into his hands and said "Three dollars" with a smile. The man pulled out a wallet, wincing again, and put down a bill with the picture of Abraham Lincoln on it. He remembered his teacher told him that was worth five, and that meant he needed to give back something. He stared at the pile of change he was given, and tried to remember.

Mrs Ethelridge reflected that not doing her hair today wasn't such a huge sacrifice. It gave her a frazzled, half-intentioned look, but it was entirely fitting for this task of running a bake sale with the kindergarteners. How she let the other teachers talk her into voting for this she wasn't sure, and it had been insanely hectic, almost from the start.

She glanced at the clock, which showed  five minutes to ten, and groaned at the thought of being here another hour and a half. She had already lost count of how many kids she had to keep from sticking their fingers in their noses and mouths, and then putting them on the food. God knows how many she didn't catch in time.

A glance out from her left showed another crisis brewing, and she was glad she didn't teach in her mother's time. Running to and fro in a skirt would have simply been impossible, but then again, her mother was a woman with more fire in her than anyone she knew. She was only slightly out of breath when she entered into Taylor's stall, a tight fit with Principal Conley in there. A quick survey told her the problem, and patting her student's arm, she softly said "You need to give him back two dollars Taylor. Five minus three is two."

Taylor grinned, and handed two dollars to the principal, who ambled away. "Thank you Mrs Ethelridge!" he bellowed, smiling. Although Taylor certainly was a cute kid, with cheeks that still held a fair amount of baby fat, and sandy brown hair with a good deal of curl in it, Mrs Ethelridge's return smile was frozen on her face. Keeping her voice smooth, she said "Now now Taylor, do you remember what we said about indoor voices?"

Taylor was certainly abashed at the rebuke, and covered his open mouth with both hands as he looked down, and mumbled out a barely audible apology. To show no hurt was intended, Mrs Ethelrdige smiled, told him what a good kid he was, and glided off, looking for the next hotspot. She knew that no matter how embarrassed Taylor was now, in three minutes he'd be back to shouting.

Desperate for a bit of peace, she went over to Jennifer's stall. The child was certainly sharp, sharp enough to make her uneasy at times, but at least she could count on her stall being quiet and well run.


Jennifer Heather (but she never used her middle name) Bryant glanced down at the purple dress she had selected out. An old book on Roman history had said that purple was a color associated with wealth, nobility, a characteristic that still held in some places today, and she hoped it encouraged her visitors to spend more, as she thought it just kind of looked like she was covered in plums.

Still, she hadn't been doing too badly. They were about a third of the way through the event, with almost half of her baked stock, mostly oatmeal cookies, already gone, and she knew that the second graders would be getting out of their own classes soon. A lot of them were old enough to be entrusted to some money, and if she couldn't convince some of them to buy cookies, she was a toad.

Hmm, Mrs Ethelridge was creaking over towards her. Tall, but of course, all the adults looked tall, but very tall for a woman, brown hair down around her shoulders, looking frayed, but maybe that was just the tight strain evident in her forehead and eyes coloring her judgment, which in turn colored her perception of other things.... No, she was definitely under stress. Her gray slacks had a piece of jam, probably from Moshe's jelly things that she couldn't pronounce, although how it got onto her leg Jenny couldn't imagine. Still, that she hadn't noticed the stain spoke volumes.

She could almost hear the gears in her head start to spin, as she thought of how best to get her to buy something. She had made a private bet with herself that she'd make twice as much money as any of the other dribbling fools in her grade, and she wouldn't get there without a bit of salesmanship. Now, her teacher was almost certainly coming to her stall for a bit of peace and quiet, which meant a deferential, but insistent approach, something that left her with an easily clear option to take, but without overly agitating her.

She took in a deep breath as her teacher's shadow darkened the little counter she was selling from, and put on a smile, once again thankful that she dimpled naturally. It seemed to make adults think her ingenuous, which made them all the more easy to do what she wanted. "Hello Mrs Ethelridge, it's nice to see you. I wanted to thank you actually, for putting all this work into the bake sale, it's so much fun." That last part wasn't a lie. The classes were so boring, slowly plodding along, repeating the same material time and time again, only to still have the drool-buckets surrounding her bleat out non-comprehension. And the fingerpainting! She hated fingerpainting and how messy it always got her and her clothes.  But two out of every three days, out would come the pigment and water and the sheets that were firmer than paper but not as thick as cardboard.

Still, she schooled her features to a saccharine smile, and tried to keep her eyes clear and hopeful. "I wanted to say how much I appreciate it all, and how much work you're still doing." She let out a short laugh "I at least get to sit". An instant later, she felt a sinking feeling. She went to far, and she could see that unease rising in her teacher's eyes. She wasn't quite sure why she made adults nervous, when she tried to imitate how they acted towards each other, but she knew that she did. But on the other hand, if she acted like the little twerps in her grade, she got condescended to, and walking that tightrope was tough.

"Why don't you buy some cookies? My Auntie Muriel showed me how to make them." That wasn't technically a lie, as her aunt really had baked the cookies, and she really had watched her, figured out the ingredients and the way to mix them, although she doubted she'd be able to reach the oven controls without some fairly exotic ladder building, but she let the implication slide that she had made them herself. That seemed to impact some of the last few customers.

She could almost feel her teacher wavering. She had overheard her speaking to someone else in the break room once, worrying about her figure, and a hunch told Jennifer that her teacher was vacillating on reason of her weight. And if she wasn't, well, her next push couldn't hurt.

"You could give them to your husband, or to Douglas, I'll wrap them up so they'll stay pretty warm." Her teacher didn't often mention her son, but she got the impression the boy wasn't much older than she was. "I'm sure they must miss you, we have so much fun when you're around, Mrs Ethelridge, they must too." She considered laying the bait out a bit more obviously, but then decided against it.

A minute later, a quantity was agreed upon, and money changed hands. She was up to fifty three dollars now, and smiled at the little green pile.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

That's one calculating little girl.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Sorry guys. (If anyone is actually reading this) Getting ready for the tournament, playing in the tournament, and recovering from the tournament took a lot out of me, and it interrupted my writing schedule. I'm one of those who need a lot of momentum to write. I've got two other pieces (not counting my CCC stuff, which I'll upload to this thread when I get around to it) half finished, but I went for something simple, easy, light, to get me back in motion. Still dialogue heavy, which is something I want to work on.

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Poorly Kept Secrets

   "How on earth did this happen to you Alfred?" were the first words out of Doctor Jethlin's mouth when his most frequent customer darkened his doorstep. Clucking softly and not waiting for a reply, he hustled the bulky, red-headed man of perhaps thirty five into one of his treatment rooms, appraising the gashes that were on his right cheek, disturbingly close to the eye. Analgesic, stitches, several antidotes if there were any deliberate toxins, but when he moved to gather up the latter, the secret policeman (everyone knew) waved him away.

   Instead, he almost laughed out, "You know Jenine, right?", and hearing the physician snort in affirmation, he continued. "Well, she's not the sort of woman that you turn down easily. She wanted to go out, see one of the music shows in town, and I thought it would be an empty day. No plots against His Excellency today. Stupid of me, really. I don't believe in God, job requirement, but sometimes I think that there's some spirit that makes sure plots are generated at precisely the wrong time for agents like me. Well, here I was, buying a pair of tickets, and word trickles in that some kid, noble ancestry, working to blow up a public statue. No idea why, don't care. Get paid the same way as long as he doesn't actually succeed."

   "Hustled up about half a dozen lads, stormed the place. Real tight, nifty private security, don't see those sorts of things on the open market, although technically legal. Jonhson got burned when he prodded one of the vases, but he'll live, which is lucky. If he'd been just a bit shorter, it would have hit his groin or abdomen instead of just his legs. Well, we find the kid, in his bedroom of all places, playing some sort of video game. Hypo him, bag, and me and Gelf get ready to haul him out, with Eddy and that new guy providing cover. Do you have to be so rough with the stitches? I'm an agent of His Excellency, not a piece of fabric dammit!"

   "Where was I? Oh, right, So we're bringing him back. And, I'm sure the fuel shortages are hurting you even worse than they're hurting us, but the wagon sent to bring us back is dry. We have to hoof it, and it's close to two miles to the nearest station. Well, whaddaya know, we run smack into a small crowd of malcontents. Seemed to be a conglomerate of some sort, anti-war protesters and out of work folks, judging by the way they're cursing. Well, two of us are holding a high value target, so we can't fight, and it's just two against maybe twenty of them, armed with rocks and empty beer cans. It's looking real nasty, the leader has this knife of a design I've never seen before, I simply have to get one to study. Eddy fires off a gas capsule, and the two of us run for it, and although it's illegal to use them, well, nobody's gonna care, right? And it really saved both our necks and theirs.

   "Rock hit me in the back of the leg as we flee, but we got the suspect back to a station, and me to a phone. Jenine somehow found out that I'd been away, and guessed that I'd have to interrogate our little fish. I swear, she's not only a looker, but if her background was good enough to work in the service? Well, for His Excellency, I'd say it'd be the greatest thing for the government, the way she ferrets out secrets. Me? I'd be out of a job. Anyway, she's mad, and I have to talk very fast to both her and the commissioner at the station at once to get me out of interrogation duty, and to get her to believe it."

   "I dash out, get the tickets, and head over to Marzaran's where she said she'd wait for me. She's almost swallowed up by the chair she's sitting in, but the way she was fingering the knife, I thought she might have taken a stab at me, even if I am twice her size. Manage to sweet talk her into calming down, although she managed to get me to pay for her bill. And if we hurried, we'd even make it in time for the show. Well, what do you know? We're walking down Vine street, on the way to the theater, and BAM. Bump right into my wife. And she was all a-joyful at getting this great price on these new steak knives"

[Sprocketsdance]

XD Nice. Clumsiness can lead to the best of stories

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

hehehehe

Love it. Beautifully managed.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

New piece. This one isn't completely my idea.  I was chatting with Aisha DeCabre earlier, and in the meanders of conversation, she made a crack about making a story about someone picking up the mail. Well, Here's my shot at it. Hope you enjoy.

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Liberation

   Herbert sat at his living room table, still in his pajamas while the late morning sun lanced through his window, across the room, to a scintillating display of stained glass figurines that caught the light and danced with it, brightening up the otherwise drab room. A newspaper with no picture on the front page, dark tan sofa, dull wooden cabinets holding a silent television, they all seemed to be eminent trappings for the pale, thin tinkerer, with his dark hair streaked with gray and neutral eyes.

   He looked out the window, holding a much-used lemon scented handkerchief to his nose. He was glad that he worked from home, although he hadn't gotten around to his latest projects. Instead he sat spying, waiting for the imposing lady who carried the post for the development to make her stop. Tall, slightly taller than he himself was, with a lush figure. Twice, he tried to lurk near the grid that held the mail for everyone in the development, but the first time he couldn't pierce her air of determination, and the second time he noticed the  band of pale gold on her finger.  He retched, sat cursing at thought that his shipment had already been twice delayed. He let his focus drift, and for a moment could hear his mother, joyous over an unprompted  sharing of the dessert plate, beam to their neighbor Mrs Hutchinson "He's such a considerate, considerate darling boy."

   In a sense, he supposed he agreed with his memory. He thought back even further, to a time when he was in third grade, some trivial question scratched in chalk on the board. He knew the answer, of course, he had always had a way with numbers, but the children to both his left and his right; there were no longer names, or even personalities left in the fragments he h ad of that day, but he could recall their jumping, their frantic moaning, the one on the left had bright red hair, and the one on the right shouted "seventeen!" over and over again, even though that answer was far from correct. The teacher was an oft flustered woman, maybe in her early twenties, although his eight year old former self had a very tough time determining ages of adults, and finally called on a kid named Sean, who answered it wrong as well, and took that as an opportunity to sit and lecture about subtraction.

   No sign yet of the mail, and Herbert thought of taking another shower, although he knew that wouldn't really help. He had tried fasting for the past two days, drinking only water, but the hunger itself was making him nauseous, and he had trouble measuring the smell by any other way. He was certain that he was rank. Anxious to do something, he strode over to his room, searched his clothes closet for a bottle of talcum powder he kept somewhere. The search wasn't something that took up conscious effort, and as he pulled open doors and looked around, another tide of nostalgia swept him away.

   He was fourteen then, in the cold sterile whiteness that all doctor's offices seemed to have by a pure ideological inertia.  His mother was talking to the physician, whose name did not come back with the vision. He was mature enough to not go fiddling in the medicinal cabinets while the two conversed, but he was still old enough to feel the temptation, and he clutched his hands tightly enough behind his back that he could feel the blood being squeezed out of his knuckles. They were talking about him, what his mother called his "condition" and what the face popping out of the white coat called Trimethylaminuria. If it had been anyone else saying it, he would have been certain the man was making up words, but even young and stupid as he was then, he knew better than to cast aspersion on doctors and their projections.

   It wasn't too bad, most of the time, he reflected. He'd take his medication, and he wouldn't stink. His insurance covered neomycin, and as long as he took a low dose, enough to thin out the bacteria in his stomach, he smelled just as fresh as anyone else. He found the green plastic bottle of the powder, and unceremoniously sprayed a blast of the white powder down his open pajama collar. It was a Pinaud, and a moment he stared furiously at the dandy on the bottle, before roaring at the top of his lungs and hurling the bottle across the room, snarling at the dandy on the front. He stormed across the room, thankful that there was nobody to see him in apoplectic rage, before the absurdity of him taking his frustrations out on an icon struck him.

   He leaned against the closet door, laughing softly at himself. He built things, he brought abstract ideas into a concrete, material framework. He was getting mad at a symbol, and he should know better than that. Quickly, he started across the room, scooped up the bottle, staring at the dandy's image. Dandy. Of course. He replaced the bottle back in its shelf, only stopping to squeeze more powder onto his abdomen, before it could make him lose his temper again.

   Herbert thought of going into his workshop then, but the thought of work soured his already aggravated stomach.  Officially, on his file that his boss kept, it said that he "Had special talents and disadvantages that enable him to be more productive in a non-standard work environment." And while he enjoyed the freedom, the quiet, the lack of that omnipresent hum that cubicles always generated, that he got eternal telecommuting privileges rankled. Co-workers, he mused, were every bit as shallow as dates, even ones found on websites. It doesn't matter if they've never sniffed a whiff, it doesn't matter that if you never told, they'd never notice anything out of the ordinary, as soon as they knew you were sick, and as soon as they knew being sick could make you smell, suddenly, every little malodorous event was brought right up to your doorstep.

   And his neomycin shipment was delayed, and he was out of even the dosage he kept in reserve. He wondered idly if he had an old-fashioned clothespin lying around somewhere, but he was honest enough with himself that any search would be more of a way to kill time and hope that his delivery would arrive. Instead, he forced himself back to his living room, sat on the sofa, and picked up the newspaper, and in a fit of spite, read the obituaries.

   He was roughly a third of the way through the section when he heard the distinctive squeal of the mail truck. A flash of honey hair exited out of the left of the vehicle, which he saw over the rim of the paper, and Herbert peered intently. She brought a bag out, and as she approached the man high grid that held tiny mail slots for the thirty two people who shared that box, he spotted a manilla envelope, with a pair of cylindrical bulges in them. He'd seen their like enough times in the past twenty years, and crowed in exultation.

   He hurried back to his bedroom, and quickly tossed on a collared shirt, black slacks, a sports jacket. He reflected that something similar happened about six years previous, but that time he had waited till after midnight to raid his own mailbox, like a penitent ghost. Now though, his brain was afire, and he couldn't stand his own stench. He had to have relief, and he needed it as quickly as possible. It would already take too long, several hours, for the medicine to kick in. He would be re-entering the company of his fellow human beings, and if that was not a formal occasion, what was? He rolled on thin socks and kicked himself into his lace-less shoes, and considered a tie before dropping the idea. The stupid, choking things were one concession to formality too many.  Instead, he jogged to the door, snatching up the key to his mailbox on the way to the door.

   The sun truly was lovely, and he heard a bird of some sort warbling. There she was, still holding the  envelope with his medication, but filing away smaller letters into the other boxes.  He approached her circuitously, meandering into the roadway, before coming up behind her, a little to the left, and tapping her softly on the shoulder. "Excuse me ma'am, I believe that that envelope you've got, the one with the cylinders, I believe that is for me."

   She half turned, and looked  at the heading on the envelope, before proffering it with a sneer. "Mister, you really need to learn what a shower is. No wonder you're not at work."
   
   Herbert's brow furrowed, and as he snatched the medicine away from the clutching hands. He could hear his mother protesting in the back of his mind, but he stamped down that sound, built a wall of unrelenting spite against it. Tearing at the envelope he pulled out one of the medicine bottles, brandished it in her face.  He snarled into her face "My condition is medical. You, I am quite certain, are simply an asshole. Good-day."

He went back in a direct line back to his home, and swallowed a pair of tablets dry. For the first time in a long time, he wore a grin from ear to ear.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Heh. Is that an actual medical condition, there?

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimethylaminuria

Although to be honest, I don't know much more besides the wiki article. I was looking for some sort of disease that would leave the patient ambulatory, but foul-smelling. To be honest, I have no idea how quickly the symptoms build up, or if his dosage is anything close to being correct, or anything really. But I figure the thing is obscure enough that nobody's going to be able to call me on it either.

[Aisha deCabre]

Heheh, well that is indeed an interesting way to make something mundane as checking the mail a bit more interesting; hence the challenge was met.    Nice work with the condition, too.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trimethylaminuria

Although to be honest, I don't know much more besides the wiki article. I was looking for some sort of disease that would leave the patient ambulatory, but foul-smelling. To be honest, I have no idea how quickly the symptoms build up, or if his dosage is anything close to being correct, or anything really. But I figure the thing is obscure enough that nobody's going to be able to call me on it either.

I certainly wasn't calling you on it. ;-] If anything, artistic licence covers any mistakes, IMHO. ;-]

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Our Tiniest Victims
Ron Lee

   We, the people of the planet earth, have long lived profiting from an oppressive system of brutal exploitation of life forms unable to defend themselves from human depredation. Humans hunt animals for meat, they harvest them for fur, they pollute environments until they are uninhabitable for any other species to live in. Our numbers are rapidly approaching seven billions, with no end in sight to this unconstrained expansion. As humanity continues to infest this world, the number of resources spent on our own maintenance will continue to skew even more unfavorably against the fair creatures of this world.
   Now, I'm sure everyone reading this is familiar with some of the more popular efforts to limit human waste and greed. Anti-fur, anti-whaling, save the pandas, and the like. These methods that humans use in pitiful attempts to assuage guilt over their marauding tendencies generally focus on animals that are "Cute" or "nice", trying to pry into noble parental instincts to be extended over a subset of animals, to bring them into the steel shelters that we hide away from nature in.  These efforts are trash, and any claims to be truly existing to save life forms weaker than our species are merely self-serving garbage.
   Logically, if all life is equal, than whichever group of life that is the largest by number, is the one most in need of rescue, is the one most harmed by wanton human rapine of our biosphere. Thus it is not the mighty pandas, who number about 1,600 in the hinterlands of China and Tibet, or the noble  Orcas, of whom perhaps 2,500 exist in the rapidly befouled ranges of the Pacific, that most require our help.
   No, it is the uncountable billions of anaerobic prokaryotic bacteria that are cruelly exiled to the most hostile environs of earth, steam vents, antarctic wastes with ozone holes, deep subterranean vents, often in radioactive surroundings of natural uranium deposits. Yet, even in these most hostile conditions, the hardy anaerobic prokaryotes thrive in a situation that no other form of life on earth would be able to last more than a few minutes.
   Clearly, these noble anaerobic creatures are victims of systemic persecution, not only from Humankind, but from a wide collection of primates and other closely related animals. It is grossly unfair to turn against a privileged, nay, gifted set of species, and to cast them to the dark corners of the earth. What we are seeing, is a horrific, inter-species conspiracy to enforce a brutal form of apartheid, perhaps out of feelings of inadequacy over an inability. As anaerobic bacteria  constantly try to spread to new homes, the fact that they are very rarely to be found outside of their restricted zones clearly indicates the willingness to use lethal force to keep them in their little ghettos.
   Obviously, the force of this brutish union has so far sufficed to keep the anaerobes in check, but while the power of gun barrels and bombs can be effective in constraining behavior, it offers no moral authority. It stands in the interest of every honest and upright person in this fair world to denounce and cast down this bitter conspiracy.
   In pursuit on this goal,  I have outlined a simple plan for bringing atmospheric equality and fairness. Now, these glorious anaerobes, are not likely to trust us aerobic creatures, and all attempts to directly communicate with them, have, regretfully, proven unsuccessful thus far. Therefore, we must set up null atmosphere zones in our planet. Perhaps 2 percent of the earth's surface could be set aside for such uses, which would be enough to easily accommodate an order of magnitude of ten to the thirteenth number of organisms. This can be accomplished by enclosing said surfaces with airtight plastic domes, leaving them a hair open, and then detonating thermonuclear devices inside. Once the air is blasted out, the domes would be quickly sealed to prevent it from re-entering, at which point the anaerobic bacteria would be free to thrive. (Another positive of this plan is the noted resistance of many strains of anaerobic bacteria to nuclear radiation.)
After these hostels are established, efforts can begin to establish contact with these noble creatures, reaching some provision for peaceful co-existence. Perhaps some sort of wide atmospheric alteration would be possible, to put both cultures, aerobic, and anaerobic, on an equal footing.  However, if such peaceful solutions fail, it is obvious who is more fit to survive, those without the necessity of an oxygen crutch. While I would regret the sacrifice of my own life, it is obviously the morally correct alternative, since it is aerobic organisms that have caused the overwhelming majority of environmental damage on this planet and oppression of their fellow life.


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I need to stop writing things whose inspiration source are stupid ideas that get bandied about in chat. Anyway, here it is, the argument against "Air is good"

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Oh, that's wonderfully written. Much applause.

[WhiteFox]

 

Whoa whoa whoa.... vaccume sealed environmental domes? Are you sure that's viable?

The only adequate solution may be orbital or lunar habitats. Let's get NASA working on something practical for once.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Keaton gave me permission to put up her birthday story on the thread. It doesn't have a title. WARNING: foul language present, as well as some graphic violence and sexualized imagery. If that sort of thing offends you, don't read it.

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The ale had a muddy brown color, which matched its consistency perfectly, sending a clear warning to anyone brave enough to drink the brew that this was no mere beverage, but rather a test of fortitude and courage. Keaton suspected that as part of that test, they drowned rats in the brewery. The rest of the tavern, which had no name, its only means of identification being a tattered wooden sign with a beer mug device off center, was as shabby as the foul drinks served in dented and filthy pewter mugs, and she had already been forced to enact a simple spell to keep the smoke from the cheap torches illuminating the place from sending her into coughing fits.

   She had been in this shithole for how many days? Three? Four? Pushing a memory through the melange of dark alley wandering, endless filth and stink, and ale fumes. She sighed, torture of her informant lead to talking, and a little serum she had swiped off an alchemist ensured truthfulness, but at this rate, she was wondering if the being swearing that  a healer of Natweist's talents would reside in a flyspeck hamlet like this was simply mistaken.  Hell, quadrupedal mythos of a riotous yellow and red coloration should be easy enough to find, even if they weren't supposed to be the best magical healer in leagues.

   But she didn't really have any other leads at the moment, so this was as good a place to stay as any. And the ale did seem to get better as she drank more of it. She ordered one more, resolving to get searching again after she drained the bespotted mug. It was thick, almost a stew in consistency. Laboring types probably needed the extra substance.

   A pat on her ass. She had endured the wolf whistles since she got in, but most who saw her glower or Catastrophe at her side had enough sense to keep their hands to themselves. Still, there were a few, but she thought the last example she had made would have carried. Snarling, she whirled around and sprang off the stool she was on. Tall, gray, wolf, no wings in evidence.

   Right foot came down first, so she stamped on his toes with his left, and then brought up her knee into his crotch with her right. The being bent over from the assault, and she bit him on the face,to the side of his ugly, overlong nose. A shove away completed the brawl, and she spat on his supine form. Stupid thing. She considered going over to him and crushing a few of his ribs, but it wasn't worth the effort, and the last time she tossed the bouncers out as well, the bar closed for the night.

   She had already paid, so she simply, turned around and stalked out of the bar, after collecting up her weapon. As she took to the streets to begin her search anew, she smiled at the outcome. Magic would have been overkill, and Keaton felt a certain... relish, in doing things in a more mundane fashion once in a while. Dusk was already past, and the only illumination were more torches and lanterns. Plenty of shadows to work with, which made gave her a modicum of safety.

   As she tramped over the cobblestones, hands in her voluminous black coat and her eyes on the cracks between the laying, she reviewed what she knew about the situation.  Natweist, odd quadruped mythos,some sort of cross between a non-sapient horse and some monstrosity with fangs and claws, supposedly lived in this shithole of a town. He was a master class omnidisciplinary healer, supposedly able to fix anything short of death.  No obvious reason why someone of that stature would stay in a place like this. The town, on its surface seemed to be a little place, mostly involved in smelting iron brought in from somewhere. Owned by a being, a noble family of some sort. She spat on the ground. She knew she had heard the name, everyone in town seemed to have an opinion of them, but, Beings. There were so many of them, and they were hard to tell apart, really.
   
   She was sure they were smuggling something through though, or up to some various kind of misconduct. She hadn't been looking for it precisely, but one couldn't miss that frenzied hum of furtive thoughts, whirling around wherever she went. There was something going on under the table, and most, if not all of the town was in on it.

   Wrapped up in trivia, she almost didn't notice colliding into someone walking down the street in the other direction. "Watch where you're going, you fucking troglodyte" she howled, although she was almost entirely certain the accident was more her fault, than anything. Looking up, she noticed he was almost six feet tall, broad, avian specied, although she couldn't pick out exactly what type. Dull brown feather covering, with patches of bright orange spotched around his face, giving him a diseased, almost overripe, appearance. He had on a very tight, black coat, which showed off his musculature, and wore a slim sword at his hip, and something about his stride indicated that he was more than proficient in its usage. Two feathery wings sprouted from his back, alabaster in color, and she estimated that if spread, they'd cover the entire narrow street.

   The bastard didn't even answer her, just stared into her eyes for a second, before making a quick sidestep and heading down in a rather mechanical stride. Keaton's curiosity got the better of her irritation, and she went probing for thoughts, only to react in disgust as she felt an almost palpable hardness to his mind, sending her probe skittering away. Catastrophe had a comforting weightlessness that beckoned a violent answer to his insult, but something about that stare... Keaton forced herself to stop shivering.

   Guile, guile was the key. Plenty of shadows to cloak herself in, and her pupils contracted almost into nothingness as she wrapped herself in invisibility, and dashed ahead of the ugly Angelspawn. Rudiments of a plan started to coalesce, and she smiled at where they took her. Someplace private was necessary. Keaton dashed ahead, and started assembling a quick, simple spell. It only took a few seconds, and when she was done, she projected a quick, overwhelming sensory urge at the ugly bird, and smiled as he dashed into an alley a second later to relieve a bladder that his body was suddenly reporting as overfull.

   She leisurely followed him, unhooking Catastrophe from its resting place. He really didn't look brightly colored enough to be an Angel, perhaps a half breed of some sort. Still, his pants were down, and his blade was on the alley floor, and she almost laughed at the sight of him trying to crap out nothing at all. She dropped her invisibility as she swung at his right knee, splintering bone and spraying  blood all over the alleyway. It got all over her coat too, and she had just had it cleaned from last night's expedition.

   "Yeah, ignore me you free-flying son of a bitch. Think you're so perfect, walking around with your nose up some invisible being's ass" He tried to say something, she stamped him in the ribs a few times, and then she kicked him in the face, twice, and had to yank out a tooth that got stuck on her boot for the second. Catching her breath, she saw his penis, out flapping for all to see. A wall of red mist descended on her vision, and she brought Catastrophe down on the prick, coating it in fluid that spurted all over her weapon and transfixed her gaze and eradicated all thought as she pounded with her weapon two handed into the pulsating mass of flesh.

   She came to, some indeterminate amount of time later. It was still dark, and she was outside the town's limits. The air was clearer, illumination coming from the stars and a gibbous moon rather than burning wood and tallow. Off to her right, she heard the gentle slap of running water on loose gravel. To her right, she was facing south. Something in the air smelled foul.  Another quick spell dilated her pupils, allowed them to suck in far more of the starlight, letting her see like a lesser being on an overcast day.

   Off in the distance, she could see the lights of the town. She was never good at estimating travel times, but it was a bit of a hike, and Keaton was glad at the sturdiness of her boots. The rushing water was peaceful, calming, and her soles crunched pleasantly on underbrush as she strode through a lightly wooded region. She felt oddly energetic, almost uncomfortably so, and strode quickly, trying to leave behind the foul air.

   As she made her way back towards civilization, she heard a rustle in the underbrush, snapped her head around to discern what made the noise. It had to have been low to the ground, but her search didn't reveal.... ha! A little rabbit, she wasn't sure what breed, crouching in the brush. She peered closer, was able to see that its left forepaw was twisted at an unnatural angle, and that the lagomorph was standing in an unsteady, wary posture on its other three limbs.

   She fished around in her pouches, got out a little wafer she liked to snack on, held it out in front of her. Speaking in a low, soft voice, she whispered "Come on, little guy, mama will feed you." She wasn't sure if it would do any good, but she tried to broadcast an emotional sense of calm,soothing, warmth to the little animal, while approaching slowly and steadily, hands holding the offering.

   Ten feet, five, three; she was almost close enough to place the small cracker in the little bunny's mouth.  She smiled, as softly as she could manage, as she knelt by the little tuft of fur and bone. The rabbit, she could see, was clearly not yet full grown, and it let out a frightened squeal as she approached, and tried awkwardly to flee on its three good legs. Hurt, it couldn't hobble far, and Keaton ambled after it, and picked the rabbit up by the scruff of the neck, tried to push the wafer into its mouth. A shooting pain in her finger was her only answer, and she dropped both the rabbit and the food somewhere, as she stared down her forearm and saw her blood mingle with the caked ichor from the angelspawn she killed earlier that night.

   It was a simple bit of shapeshifting to force the wound closed. Vision locked rigidly in the middle distance, Keaton hunched her shoulders like a strangler, strode mechanically off towards the direction of the stream bank. Perhaps she couldn't gain true amnesty, but if she wanted to be able to function, she needed to sluice the grime and the guts and the death from her fur. She was at the streambank, and she shrugged off her clothing, almost fell into the water.

   The chill of the water was easily corrected by magic, but the waters sluggish, almost languid current lacked the necessary violence to bring true cleansing, and only small flakes of dried blood  were scoured off. Scowling, she scooped up some loose gravel from the bottom of the stream, scratched and abraded at her skin with it, tearing small chunks of her fur out as she used the rocks to fake a claim as to some sort of innocence. When her hands were rasping raw, the closed her eyes and drifted, knowing in a vague, almost philosophical sense she should think about today, but simply lacking the energy, or the inclination to do so. Numb, she drifted slightly.

   When she heard the stealth spells drop, combat reflexes took the place of conscious thought. Shadow armor was hastily applied, her weapon willed into her hands, and she hurled herself  out of the water, using shapeshifting to shrink her breasts to a more manageable size. Eyes darting around as spells danced at her fingertips, she counted four, six, nine, unless more were hidden somehow, arrayed in a loose semicircle around her. Mindshields on all of them, no wings evident. She birthed a set of claws and fangs to a patch of shadow, hurled it at the adventurers in a pair, whirled off to her left, to confront the trio.
   
   Flickers of yellow and purple light enveloped her, but the effects were weak, bounced off of her shadow armor. The shadow would at the very least keep the ones behind her busy, but that meant she had to take down the trio in front of her quickly; before their comrades could enter the fray. Two had blades, and a third behind them was mixing some sort of powder. Tentacles arced out towards the bladeswoman on the right, as Keaton stamped forward and then swung Catastrophe in a lateral arc designed to crush the skull of the squat being to her fore. Almost simultaenously, she felt the twin jarring as her weapon was parried, and her tentacles grip found home.

   No time for finesse, she simple crushed the being in her grip, as the other blade wielder turned the parry into a thrust that cut into her right forearm. Snarling away the pain, she pulled her weapon back, gave a short stop-thrust with the spiked head, and the fool dodged by leaning forward. Keaton dropped her weapon, gripped him by his ugly tufts of ears that were on the side of his head, and forced his face down onto her knee, as she shifted a gnarly spike onto the cap. She charged at the magus, preparing more hostile shadows to cover her rear, when she felt an almost palpable wave of disorientation hit her, and as she windmilled her hands in an effort to keep balance, she loosed her malevolence into the empty sky.

"Well fu-" was the only thing she had time to utter before they pounced on her. Blades and spells couldn't pierce through her byrnie of shadow, but she still felt impact, and the barrage went on and on, for what seemed like days. She was only aware it had stopped when she felt a pressure of a rigid boot on her neck. Her head was ground into the dirt, and she felt something pry open her jaws, a claw scour the inside of her cheek. She tried to bite at the invading digit, but the pressure on her neck prevented her from mastication.

She tried to crane her head up, see who was treading on her. One of the blows would have taken her right eye, if she weren't cover, but the impact still made it swell almost completely shut. Off to her blinded side, she could feel the gathering of arcane energy, a formidable amount, and heard the low chant mnasna na, misli li, before the almost growls of the one standing on her resolved themselves.

"You took five, FIVE of my people you damn Creature. We've tolerated your presence, the fights you've started, the disruption you've caused, but once you touch our armsmen, our patience is at an END. Do you have any idea who I am? Who my family is? Your kind isn't the only one with familial ties, you know. Shut your filthy mouth." A blow to her teeth, she thought she felt a canine give. "Listen, I'm not dumb. I know Lianmar sent you, after the quicksilver operation. He's not getting a single speck of copper or a stick of bread from us, you hear."

Rough hands hauled her up into a sitting position, and Keaton realized that her light amplification spell had expired, she couldn't see who was holding her. "Get this through your head. The only reason you're living right now is because I don't know what kind of ties you have, who would come and avenge you if we slit your filthy creature throat. But you're going to go back to Lianmar, and you're going to send him a message, in blood, that his extortionate demands will not continue. You got that stupid? Cameron, hit her with the spell."

   She felt a chill, as a greasy feeling entered in through her ear, spread out downward from her head, leaving a sensation of slime on her bones.  She retched, and brought sour fluid that oozed out of her mouth down her front, and she felt a short lived thrill of victory when she heard cursing of the being in front of her. Three more blows rained on her back and shoulders, and she felt wetness spread out from somewhere near her left shoulder-blade.
   "I suppose a new vest is a small price next to what you've already cost me. And it doesn't matter, we've got you now. It's amazing, you know, what can be done to a soul. But you're a four wing, I'm sure you know all about devouring them, but you can do quite a few tricks when you've got a grip on a soul even when it's still inside it's container. Now you don't really want to know all the pain we can run you through before we finally make you spill your worthless life out. You're a delicate female." Derisive hooting broke out around her at that last remark. "You go up to one of Lianmar's strongholds, cause him some trouble. Keep him too busy with the marauding creature to bother us. You do that, you keep your soul. The spell will dissolve in a month or so, but until it does, we'll have a rough idea of where you are, what you're doing. You really don't want to disappoint us."

A sharp shove pushed her back by the stream bed, and flailing arms touched across her clothing, now trampled and somewhat torn. In the east, she could see dawn break, and Keaton the Black Jackal tried to gather enough energy to rise and meet it.

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

Interesting.

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Enough to warrant a multi-word response?

[llearch n'n'daCorna]

No. ;-]



*cough*

More seriously, I found it interesting, but still left me waiting to see what happens next. It didn't stand alone, as it were, and that seems strange to me, in a birthday gift.

Other than that - interesting interaction, and I found myself trying to figure out what moves she'd done, and what they were doing in response, during the fight scenes (loved the reaction in the bar, though a little excessive - Keaton all over, mind) and the hunt scenes. Wondering what was going on where, and who the Angel she killed really was, even.

... Oh, and that spell? Really useful. Should use that more often...

[Corgatha Taldorthar]

Generally, when writing fanfiction, (and if the protagonist is someone else's avatar character, it's definitely a fanfic) I have a dilemma. I don't really like to go and take someone else's character, and provide them with personality shifts/development, or huge plot encumbrances, be they new abilities, romantic interests, or even a large regional displacement.


So generally I wind up writing in a circle, which, yeah, sometimes leaves me, (and probably you, dear readers) wondering what the point of it all is.


But isn't fanfiction pointless anyway?