maxfieldjadenfox
First Post
I'm in complete agreement! Still trying to figure out how to smack-talk from the sidelines though...
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I'm in complete agreement! Still trying to figure out how to smack-talk from the sidelines though...
Deuce Traveler
Adventurer
I'm in complete agreement! Still trying to figure out how to smack-talk from the sidelines though...
Try to hit them in the username. Ahem... "Hey Pirate Cat, stop grooming yourself and put out your entry already!" "Hey Rhode Island, knock it out sometime today!"
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
Repo the Seal
Round 2, Match 1: phoamslinger vs. Piratecat vs. UselessTriviaMan
I'd had it up to here with the squonking. I kinda lost it. "No, there's no water. Does it look like there's any water? We're in the middle of the friggin' Mojave!" I think I was spitting. "That's a cactus, moron. This is a yucca. You don't see these in Antarctica. There's no water here. So shut. The hell. Up." I punctuated each period by poking him with my finger. He didn't care. He just looked up at me with these black, adorable blobby eyes.
But obediently the little bastard rolled over, squirmed off the rock and happily flippered around in the sand. He squonked at me. I was ready to squonk him up his squonkhole, but the first rule of the repo man is to never damage the merchandise. That's also why I wasn't sitting on the stone head. That was something I really didn't want to hurt.
We'd gotten both the head and the seal out of the hot van. The head Sheila covered with flowers and made a little Indian headdress out of, tried to make it feel at home, maybe? The seal we let loose to roam around and graze. I think that seals graze. Who the hell knows?
Jimmy Bagatelli turned his head towards me. "Tony, I'm pretty sure the Antarctic is down south. You gotta mean the Arctic. Seals is from the Arctic. Like Canada." He spoke slowly, kinda like he had sunstroke, but Jimmy always spoke like that.
I turned on him, probably with a sneer. "Thank you, Mrs. Carmen Sandiego. You're fulla crap. Canada ain't the Arctic."
He stood up and clenched a big fist, but I just looked at him. Embarrassed, he sat back down. I could smell him from here. That sun was hot, and he smelled like stale beer and warm seal. "No, man, it is. I saw it on TV."
Sheila frowned. Her makeup was running and she was outta coke and she kinda looked like a sunburnt raccoon. That pale skin never does well in the desert sun. "Like Tonto, Jimmy? That's in Canada. They got seals in Tonto?" I didn't bother to correct her.
Jimmy thought about it for a minute. "Yeah, I think so. The Tonto Seals, that's a hockey team. Or maybe Montreal? It's cold there, right? That could be the Arctic."
"Nope." Sheila shook her head, and her long dirty hair fell back into her eyes. "That would make him French. Does he sound French to you?" Sheila rubbed its back and the baby seal squonked. It slapped the stone head with one of its flippers and flopped over in the flowers.
"He kinda does," said Jimmy.
"No he don't, moron." Sheila gave him the stinkeye. "Jimmy, you don't know crap about accents."
It was too much for me. "How the hell can either of you tell? It's a friggin' seal!"
"You can tell," said Jimmy. "You can always tell." He always tried to sound smarter than he was.
Sheila sniffled and then frowned again. She didn't smile much nowadays. I missed it. "I bet seals are from Calgary."
Even I knew better than that. "Calgary? They got that stampede thing there. Some kind of rodeo."
Jimmy squinted his eyes as he tried to think. "Is it a seal rodeo? That'd make sense. People ride seals, right? I think I saw that on YouTube."
Sheila rubbed her nose, sniffing a little. "You're thinking of walruses, dumbass."
"No I'm not. And don't call me a dumbass." Jimmy glared at her. "I'll show you a walrus."
She snorted knowingly. "Only if they come in mini-size." And then the two of them were at it once again, fingers poking chests and voices screaming in each others' faces, and the sun beat down on us. Buzzards circled, insects buzzed, and the Indian head just stared at me accusingly. Dust coated my skin. Our van *pinged* a little as the dead motor cooled. The baby seal rooted around near the cactus while we waited, and from far away I heard the sound of a car. Police? Maybe they were looking for us, but that damn musician was going to find us first.
We should never have tried to repo the seal.
We were so screwed.
-- o --
Yesterday morning had been Sunday, so I'd been to church. A lotta people in my profession don't go to church in Vegas, they're too busy working, but I try to make an exception. My ma raised me religious. I may be a repo guy nowadays, taking away crap that gambling scumbags bought and don't wanna pay for, but that don't mean I ain't got God in my heart. I'll throatpunch anyone who says otherwise. Jimmy and me'd already had a busy morning, getting up at 6am to grab a bright yellow Hummer while the douchebag owner was buying coffee at Taco Feliz. We'd floored it down South Tropicana while the guy ran out, dropped his coffee and fumbled for his cell phone. Way too slow. Jimmy was driving the Hummer, doing all the dirty work. He's younger than I am, and stupider, and stronger, and he likes the excitement. Sheila's with Jimmy most of the time, and she handles our paperwork and all the stealthy work. Just the three of us at Tony's Repo and Repair, and makin' a decent living if you judge by the amount of empty takeout boxes scattered around the office or the amount of cocaine Sheila snorts.
Jimmy loves this life. Sheila loves blow and Jimmy in that order. And me, I'm starting to look for the big score to get the hell out. You can only repossess cars for so long before someone puts a slug in you. And with respect to Jimmy and Sheila, I ain't exactly palling around with a high class of people at work. They're skeezebags. So am I. I just happen to know it.
So there I am at church. It's real fancy for a casino church, you know? They named the casino "Cloud Nine" and their ads say, "Don't gamble on Heaven, gamble IN Heaven!" or somethin' like that, and it worked. They got angels in bikinis lowered down from the ceiling, and hymns in the bathrooms, and religion-themed slot machines, and a nightclub named "Perdition," and they're raking in money hand over friggin' fist. Their chapel is great. The organist learned from Liberace. They got statuary from Rome, icons from some church in Russia that ain't even Catholic but who cares, right? They got a freakin' wall of candles you can light to honor dead folks, and they got really hot nuns.
Right after services I was sitting in front of one of those, and staring at the other.
Sister Katie isn't what you'd call a real nun, but how would you tell? She's a showgirl from Muncie who would make you want to convert pretty damn quick. We used to have a thing going back when she first came into town, at least on my part. I still have a thing for her. The casino puts her in this stripper-themed nun's habit, and gave her a jeweled wimple that makes her look like a piece of art, so yowsa. I saw her standing back there behind the white roses and candelabras, her face barely visible, but I knew she was looking at me. I could feel her eyes on me. I may have preened a little, but it's hard to look sexy when you're saying prayers for the soul of the ex-partner who you think someone whacked.
When I stood up, Sister Katie came on over, click click click. Her heels echoed on the marble and the rhinestones on her wimple really picked up the candle flames. No wonder this church always brings in the tourists. "Tony," she whispered, "we gotta talk."
I grinned at her. "Honey, you're a nun now. That's kinda dirty."
"Not that kind of talk, silly. They call it 'none' for a reason." She punched my arm just hard enough to get my attention. "C'mon." A fat guy in a flowered shirt left the confessional and we both slipped past him into the small dark chamber. Same side. It was sorta awkward.
"Father," said Sister Katie, "this here's Tony the repo guy. The guy I told you about." I could see her wink. She was warm on my lap.
A shadow moved on the other side of the screen. Katie gave me a quick peck on the cheek and slipped back out of the confessional. It was just me and the priest now. Well, and the small slot machine built into the confessional, but that hardly counts.
"Father?" I probably sounded confused.
"My son," said the priest, and you could tell he was one of them Native Americans. He also sounded pissed off at someone. "I've got a special job for you."
-- o --
I got confused when the security cameras turned off. We was watching them, and all at once their little red lights faded away. The power to the walled estate was still on, so someone in building security must have flipped 'em off on purpose. Interesting. The reason became clear about thirty seconds later when a white panel van turned the corner, pulled up to the wrought iron gates, and the gates slowly swung open.
"A delivery at 1am?" asked Sheila.
"They got something they don't want no one else to see," said Jimmy. He swigged his beer and smiled, feeling smart.
"Never complain about good luck," I said, "C'mon. Jimmy, you be ready." Jimmy can't sneak worth a damn. Sheila and me slipped out the van and down the street and ever so carefully through the mansion's gates before they swung shut again. You always turn off the dome light in your surveillance vehicle. It makes getting in and out of cars without being spotted much easier.
We was wearing black. A good repo guy always wears a lot of black. Here in Vegas it makes you look badass, and it's friggin' superb for sneaking onto the estates of rich jackholes in the middle of the night. I'm not saying this was how I'd handle a normal repo job, but this one was special. I kept thinking about our contract.
"Fifty thousand dollars," the casino priest had told me. "And a bonus if there's no damage. Las Vegas performers always think they're above the law. In this case, he stole the head off the statue of an old First Nations shaman. One of my ancestors. An important man."
"First Nations?" I'd asked. "Like Africa?" Inside, I was still gulping about the money. This was my payday.
"No," said the priest. He sounded annoyed. "Like Native Americans. Indians. It's a little bit like someone stealing the head off your Lincoln Memorial. The problem is that our musician friend here has a fantastic reputation, and a lot of mobster associates, and my tribe has no proof. So we're hiring you to go in and steal it back."
"From who?" I asked. He told me. I may have gone a little pale. I ain't gonna tell you, but I'll say this: no audience members were gonna throw their panties at me if I got caught. This fat bastard was famous but mobbed up beyond belief. He had a reputation as a great performer and a sadistic, selfish son of a bitch. But fifty grand is fifty grand, am I right?
So there I was on his estate, in the shadows with Sheila clinging to me, and the sonnavabitch himself comes out of the mansion to meet the van.
"Do you have it?" He sounded eager, and his voice carried. Must be all that singing. He's old but I couldn't see many wrinkles on his face. Then again, the lighting was bad and they say he's had work done.
"Yessir," said the driver. "One baby seal from the San Diego Aquarium, smuggled out this morning." He was young and sounded scared.
The musician giggled. I know you don't believe me, but I swear he did. "Here's your money, young man." I heard the crackling of new bills, and then a muffled "squonk" from the covered cage. He whipped off the cover. I'm not exactly sentimental, but even I had to admit that white seal was pretty damn cute. Beside me I felt Sheila sigh.
The old guy spoke. "Perfect. Perfect!" He turned, carrying the seal cage with difficulty. He finally figured out it rolled. That made it easier for him to move.
"Sir?" The driver had gotten his courage up. "What are you going to do with it? Is it for your private zoo?"
The old guy turned. "Not at all, young man." He smiled that famous gigawatt smile that had opened a thousand legs. "I'm going to eat it."
I think we all gaped. The driver said, "Wha-what?"
"I'm going to eat it. My chef - and he is a very good chef indeed, flown here from Paris after I bought out his restaurant - is going to cook it for me with shallots and a white wine reduction. I eat all sorts of animals, young man. I have eaten mountain gorilla, rhinoceros, giant squid, bald eagle, dolphin, and - on one very memorable occasion in China - giant panda." He was ticking them off on his fingers, smiling, lost in thought. "It was a little fatty, honestly, but better than that place in New Guinea." He refocused. "And now I'm going to eat baby seal. If you want to stay employed and alive, you will now take that large sum of money and drive very far away indeed."
The driver went. The seal squonked plaintively. Mr. Entertainment went up the stairs rolling the cage, step-THUMP-squonk-step-THUMP-squonk. And Sheila and me stood alone in the hot summer darkness.
"Tony." Sheila's voice was loud in my ear. Her breath was sour. "We gotta save that seal."
I gave her a look, not that she could see it in the dark. "You crazy? We're here after an Indian head. C'mon." She came, but I could feel her seething. It took us ten minutes to find the statue's head, stuck on a pillar back by the pool with a baseball cap on top. Sheila hadn't said a thing this whole time. She helped after I friggin' ruptured myself picking it up. We staggered back around through shadow to the front of the house and I put it down by the gate controls. Looks like they'd forgotten to turn the cameras back on. Even better. Then Sheila spoke up.
"We're goin' in for the baby seal."
"No we ain't."
"Yes we is, Tony, or I'm blowing this whole deal."
I looked at her. "You wouldn't." But I know her face. She surely would. She'd scream, we'd have to run, fifty grand out the window, and that would be bye-bye to my dream. She was looking at my face, too. She knew she had me beat.
"Tony, you're gonna have to repo that seal. Just think of it this way. What are you getting for this job, five grand?"
"Right," I said. "Maybe a little bonus." What she don't know won't hurt her.
"I bet the zoo'll pay double that to get the little guy back."
She was right. So I took a few precautions and in we went. The house was quiet and dark and I'm still not sure when we tripped the silent alarm. We'd hit the kitchens by then, big as a hotel kitchen but with nicer gear, and I had the baby seal all covered up and ready to move. "Squonk?" it asked, and I told it to shut up, and we was by the servant's door when all the lights flipped on.
"What do we have here?" I'd heard that voice a thousand times on my radio. He stood in a belted bathrobe with a big-ass pistol pointed at me. "Home invaders? Goodness me. And you've got my seal. Once I shoot you, I'll have to hide him until the detectives leave. You're moderately annoying."
"This ain't your seal, mister," Sheila was saying, "and you ain't gonna eat him!" Her pupils were dilated.
"Oh my dear," he smiled and stepped closer, "you're so very wrong."
That's when Sheila started firing. I never even seen her pull out the gun. And it wasn't a gun, it was a friggin' hand cannon, and the old guy with the perfect hair leaped backward as if someone goosed him. Part of the door frame disintegrated. She'd missed, but it was a hell of a miss. She emptied her clip in his direction as I was running down those stairs with the seal, bump-squonk!-bump-squonk!-bump, and then Jimmy was at the gate, and the lights were going on all over the house, and I smacked the gate button and ran for the van. Sheila was right behind me. Jimmy struggled to carry the statue head.
"What the hell just happened?" asked Jimmy.
"Sheila got us a new mascot," I said, and the baby seal squonked.
"Aww, he's adorable!" said Jimmy. "Let's name him Repo." Then someone shot at us from the house, Jimmy was behind the wheel, and we were the hell out of there, tearing down the road and away from the estate.
"I knifed a few tires," I said, "but they'll have other cars. We get caught on the cameras as we left?"
"Uh huh," said Jimmy, "they got turned back on. Where's the handoff for the head?"
"Little shack in the Mojave down 15 West. I'll call." I glanced back. Sheila was crouching beside the head and playing with her seal through the bars of its cage. It looked happy, not that you can really tell.
"Five grand," mused Jimmy. "Good money. It'll be worth the risk."
"Yup." I kept my mouth shut. They were probably right behind us, and if we got killed Jimmy wouldn't need to know anyway. Then Repo the seal started to squonk, kept squonking, and didn't stop for hours. I think the little jerk gets car sick.
We made it past Nipton and into the Mojave at sunrise, jolting down a dirt road as fast as we dared. A big-ass pothole did something very bad to our transmission. No way to move the oven-hot van. No cell service. Two pissed off and exhausted partners. Not enough beer. A hungry seal. An illegal head. The blazing morning sun. And yup, right on schedule, the people who wanted to kill us.
-- o --
"Who do I have the honor of addressing?" Mr. Entertainment stood there in a tailor-made hunting jacket that had probably cost him three grand. Maybe more; it was monogrammed. He was armed, and so were the three guys with him. It's easy to find goons in Vegas. The hard part is paying them enough to stay loyal.
"Tommy's gonna kick your ass!" said Sheila, and I coulda shot her myself. I'd have used her gun for it, too, only she was outta ammo.
"I hardly think so. You have some property of mine, I think. I'd hate to have to cancel my dinner plans."
"Squonk!"
"Just so, my dear dinner, just so. Tommy, this is how it will go. If you hand over the seal right now, with no fuss, I am going to shoot you in the knee and leave you here. Your employees can get you back to a hospital before you bleed to death. If you do not hand over my seal, we will shoot all three of you and leave you here to rot. What's your preference?" He smiled warmly, like he was talking to Jay Leno.
Jimmy put a big hand on Repo's back, gently lifted the little flippery blob of fat, hugged him, patted him lovingly. "If we give you Repo and you shoot Tommy, do we get to keep the Indian head?"
"The what?" the old guy asked, and then Sheila stepped to the side and he saw the head on the ground. With the plants around it the head almost looked like a warrior come back to life, feathered headdress and everything, and it looked pissed. But not as pissed as the old guy. "My statue!" Now his cultured accent shifted a bit and you could hear the old Virginia in his voice. "You jackasses, I stole that trophy fair and square." He took two steps toward it, angry as hell.
That's when Jimmy hit him with the seal.
He didn't exactly use Repo as a club, although that would have been pretty funny. Instead he threw him, catching the old guy in the middle of the chest with a very surprised "Squonk!" and knocking him down. Then Jimmy and Sheila were in between the goons and it was all fists, kicks, and crotches. I may have gotten a few in myself. It couldn't have been more than 20 seconds before I was putting a final boot in, there were three moaning goons on the ground, and Mr. Entertainment was lying there looking surprised and covered in seal crap. Jimmy reached down to pick up Repo.
"Jimmy!" I said. "First rule of the repo man?"
"Aww, he's fine," said Jimmy. Repo bit him a little. "No harm done." Sheila rushed over to check on the seal as well, and Jimmy and Sheila locked eyes. They both had huge smiles. For today, at least, they were back in love.
I knelt down on the old guy's neck. "Here's how it's gonna go," I said. "We're takin' your Jeep, and we're takin' your wallet, and we're takin' your stone head, and we're takin' your seal. We're leaving you your reputation and your life. You think that's a fair bargain?" He nodded desperately. Bullies. They always break when they're cornered.
I turned and took a good look around. Pretty damn desolate. I figured I'd call someone to go get them once I had a cell signal. "You're a jackhole," I advised. "Quit stealin' stuff and stick to singing."
"I'm going to find you," he said as we walked away to his Jeep. Sheila carried the little squonker, and Jimmy staggered under the weight of the stone head. "I will!"
I turned. "Mister, you sing for a living. We take away the things that other people love. My advice? Don't mess with a repo guy." And then we left.
Repo ended up returned to the zoo, and we got paid for the Indian head. I split it fair and square then blew part of my share on a vacation with Sister Katie. I'm still looking for my big break, but you gotta do what's right, you know? For instance, this thing you're reading? I'm gonna post this on the internet.
I may have lied a bit about leaving him his reputation. What the hell.
Round 2, Match 1: phoamslinger vs. Piratecat vs. UselessTriviaMan
I'd had it up to here with the squonking. I kinda lost it. "No, there's no water. Does it look like there's any water? We're in the middle of the friggin' Mojave!" I think I was spitting. "That's a cactus, moron. This is a yucca. You don't see these in Antarctica. There's no water here. So shut. The hell. Up." I punctuated each period by poking him with my finger. He didn't care. He just looked up at me with these black, adorable blobby eyes.
But obediently the little bastard rolled over, squirmed off the rock and happily flippered around in the sand. He squonked at me. I was ready to squonk him up his squonkhole, but the first rule of the repo man is to never damage the merchandise. That's also why I wasn't sitting on the stone head. That was something I really didn't want to hurt.
We'd gotten both the head and the seal out of the hot van. The head Sheila covered with flowers and made a little Indian headdress out of, tried to make it feel at home, maybe? The seal we let loose to roam around and graze. I think that seals graze. Who the hell knows?
Jimmy Bagatelli turned his head towards me. "Tony, I'm pretty sure the Antarctic is down south. You gotta mean the Arctic. Seals is from the Arctic. Like Canada." He spoke slowly, kinda like he had sunstroke, but Jimmy always spoke like that.
I turned on him, probably with a sneer. "Thank you, Mrs. Carmen Sandiego. You're fulla crap. Canada ain't the Arctic."
He stood up and clenched a big fist, but I just looked at him. Embarrassed, he sat back down. I could smell him from here. That sun was hot, and he smelled like stale beer and warm seal. "No, man, it is. I saw it on TV."
Sheila frowned. Her makeup was running and she was outta coke and she kinda looked like a sunburnt raccoon. That pale skin never does well in the desert sun. "Like Tonto, Jimmy? That's in Canada. They got seals in Tonto?" I didn't bother to correct her.
Jimmy thought about it for a minute. "Yeah, I think so. The Tonto Seals, that's a hockey team. Or maybe Montreal? It's cold there, right? That could be the Arctic."
"Nope." Sheila shook her head, and her long dirty hair fell back into her eyes. "That would make him French. Does he sound French to you?" Sheila rubbed its back and the baby seal squonked. It slapped the stone head with one of its flippers and flopped over in the flowers.
"He kinda does," said Jimmy.
"No he don't, moron." Sheila gave him the stinkeye. "Jimmy, you don't know crap about accents."
It was too much for me. "How the hell can either of you tell? It's a friggin' seal!"
"You can tell," said Jimmy. "You can always tell." He always tried to sound smarter than he was.
Sheila sniffled and then frowned again. She didn't smile much nowadays. I missed it. "I bet seals are from Calgary."
Even I knew better than that. "Calgary? They got that stampede thing there. Some kind of rodeo."
Jimmy squinted his eyes as he tried to think. "Is it a seal rodeo? That'd make sense. People ride seals, right? I think I saw that on YouTube."
Sheila rubbed her nose, sniffing a little. "You're thinking of walruses, dumbass."
"No I'm not. And don't call me a dumbass." Jimmy glared at her. "I'll show you a walrus."
She snorted knowingly. "Only if they come in mini-size." And then the two of them were at it once again, fingers poking chests and voices screaming in each others' faces, and the sun beat down on us. Buzzards circled, insects buzzed, and the Indian head just stared at me accusingly. Dust coated my skin. Our van *pinged* a little as the dead motor cooled. The baby seal rooted around near the cactus while we waited, and from far away I heard the sound of a car. Police? Maybe they were looking for us, but that damn musician was going to find us first.
We should never have tried to repo the seal.
We were so screwed.
-- o --
Yesterday morning had been Sunday, so I'd been to church. A lotta people in my profession don't go to church in Vegas, they're too busy working, but I try to make an exception. My ma raised me religious. I may be a repo guy nowadays, taking away crap that gambling scumbags bought and don't wanna pay for, but that don't mean I ain't got God in my heart. I'll throatpunch anyone who says otherwise. Jimmy and me'd already had a busy morning, getting up at 6am to grab a bright yellow Hummer while the douchebag owner was buying coffee at Taco Feliz. We'd floored it down South Tropicana while the guy ran out, dropped his coffee and fumbled for his cell phone. Way too slow. Jimmy was driving the Hummer, doing all the dirty work. He's younger than I am, and stupider, and stronger, and he likes the excitement. Sheila's with Jimmy most of the time, and she handles our paperwork and all the stealthy work. Just the three of us at Tony's Repo and Repair, and makin' a decent living if you judge by the amount of empty takeout boxes scattered around the office or the amount of cocaine Sheila snorts.
Jimmy loves this life. Sheila loves blow and Jimmy in that order. And me, I'm starting to look for the big score to get the hell out. You can only repossess cars for so long before someone puts a slug in you. And with respect to Jimmy and Sheila, I ain't exactly palling around with a high class of people at work. They're skeezebags. So am I. I just happen to know it.
So there I am at church. It's real fancy for a casino church, you know? They named the casino "Cloud Nine" and their ads say, "Don't gamble on Heaven, gamble IN Heaven!" or somethin' like that, and it worked. They got angels in bikinis lowered down from the ceiling, and hymns in the bathrooms, and religion-themed slot machines, and a nightclub named "Perdition," and they're raking in money hand over friggin' fist. Their chapel is great. The organist learned from Liberace. They got statuary from Rome, icons from some church in Russia that ain't even Catholic but who cares, right? They got a freakin' wall of candles you can light to honor dead folks, and they got really hot nuns.
Right after services I was sitting in front of one of those, and staring at the other.
Sister Katie isn't what you'd call a real nun, but how would you tell? She's a showgirl from Muncie who would make you want to convert pretty damn quick. We used to have a thing going back when she first came into town, at least on my part. I still have a thing for her. The casino puts her in this stripper-themed nun's habit, and gave her a jeweled wimple that makes her look like a piece of art, so yowsa. I saw her standing back there behind the white roses and candelabras, her face barely visible, but I knew she was looking at me. I could feel her eyes on me. I may have preened a little, but it's hard to look sexy when you're saying prayers for the soul of the ex-partner who you think someone whacked.
When I stood up, Sister Katie came on over, click click click. Her heels echoed on the marble and the rhinestones on her wimple really picked up the candle flames. No wonder this church always brings in the tourists. "Tony," she whispered, "we gotta talk."
I grinned at her. "Honey, you're a nun now. That's kinda dirty."
"Not that kind of talk, silly. They call it 'none' for a reason." She punched my arm just hard enough to get my attention. "C'mon." A fat guy in a flowered shirt left the confessional and we both slipped past him into the small dark chamber. Same side. It was sorta awkward.
"Father," said Sister Katie, "this here's Tony the repo guy. The guy I told you about." I could see her wink. She was warm on my lap.
A shadow moved on the other side of the screen. Katie gave me a quick peck on the cheek and slipped back out of the confessional. It was just me and the priest now. Well, and the small slot machine built into the confessional, but that hardly counts.
"Father?" I probably sounded confused.
"My son," said the priest, and you could tell he was one of them Native Americans. He also sounded pissed off at someone. "I've got a special job for you."
-- o --
I got confused when the security cameras turned off. We was watching them, and all at once their little red lights faded away. The power to the walled estate was still on, so someone in building security must have flipped 'em off on purpose. Interesting. The reason became clear about thirty seconds later when a white panel van turned the corner, pulled up to the wrought iron gates, and the gates slowly swung open.
"A delivery at 1am?" asked Sheila.
"They got something they don't want no one else to see," said Jimmy. He swigged his beer and smiled, feeling smart.
"Never complain about good luck," I said, "C'mon. Jimmy, you be ready." Jimmy can't sneak worth a damn. Sheila and me slipped out the van and down the street and ever so carefully through the mansion's gates before they swung shut again. You always turn off the dome light in your surveillance vehicle. It makes getting in and out of cars without being spotted much easier.
We was wearing black. A good repo guy always wears a lot of black. Here in Vegas it makes you look badass, and it's friggin' superb for sneaking onto the estates of rich jackholes in the middle of the night. I'm not saying this was how I'd handle a normal repo job, but this one was special. I kept thinking about our contract.
"Fifty thousand dollars," the casino priest had told me. "And a bonus if there's no damage. Las Vegas performers always think they're above the law. In this case, he stole the head off the statue of an old First Nations shaman. One of my ancestors. An important man."
"First Nations?" I'd asked. "Like Africa?" Inside, I was still gulping about the money. This was my payday.
"No," said the priest. He sounded annoyed. "Like Native Americans. Indians. It's a little bit like someone stealing the head off your Lincoln Memorial. The problem is that our musician friend here has a fantastic reputation, and a lot of mobster associates, and my tribe has no proof. So we're hiring you to go in and steal it back."
"From who?" I asked. He told me. I may have gone a little pale. I ain't gonna tell you, but I'll say this: no audience members were gonna throw their panties at me if I got caught. This fat bastard was famous but mobbed up beyond belief. He had a reputation as a great performer and a sadistic, selfish son of a bitch. But fifty grand is fifty grand, am I right?
So there I was on his estate, in the shadows with Sheila clinging to me, and the sonnavabitch himself comes out of the mansion to meet the van.
"Do you have it?" He sounded eager, and his voice carried. Must be all that singing. He's old but I couldn't see many wrinkles on his face. Then again, the lighting was bad and they say he's had work done.
"Yessir," said the driver. "One baby seal from the San Diego Aquarium, smuggled out this morning." He was young and sounded scared.
The musician giggled. I know you don't believe me, but I swear he did. "Here's your money, young man." I heard the crackling of new bills, and then a muffled "squonk" from the covered cage. He whipped off the cover. I'm not exactly sentimental, but even I had to admit that white seal was pretty damn cute. Beside me I felt Sheila sigh.
The old guy spoke. "Perfect. Perfect!" He turned, carrying the seal cage with difficulty. He finally figured out it rolled. That made it easier for him to move.
"Sir?" The driver had gotten his courage up. "What are you going to do with it? Is it for your private zoo?"
The old guy turned. "Not at all, young man." He smiled that famous gigawatt smile that had opened a thousand legs. "I'm going to eat it."
I think we all gaped. The driver said, "Wha-what?"
"I'm going to eat it. My chef - and he is a very good chef indeed, flown here from Paris after I bought out his restaurant - is going to cook it for me with shallots and a white wine reduction. I eat all sorts of animals, young man. I have eaten mountain gorilla, rhinoceros, giant squid, bald eagle, dolphin, and - on one very memorable occasion in China - giant panda." He was ticking them off on his fingers, smiling, lost in thought. "It was a little fatty, honestly, but better than that place in New Guinea." He refocused. "And now I'm going to eat baby seal. If you want to stay employed and alive, you will now take that large sum of money and drive very far away indeed."
The driver went. The seal squonked plaintively. Mr. Entertainment went up the stairs rolling the cage, step-THUMP-squonk-step-THUMP-squonk. And Sheila and me stood alone in the hot summer darkness.
"Tony." Sheila's voice was loud in my ear. Her breath was sour. "We gotta save that seal."
I gave her a look, not that she could see it in the dark. "You crazy? We're here after an Indian head. C'mon." She came, but I could feel her seething. It took us ten minutes to find the statue's head, stuck on a pillar back by the pool with a baseball cap on top. Sheila hadn't said a thing this whole time. She helped after I friggin' ruptured myself picking it up. We staggered back around through shadow to the front of the house and I put it down by the gate controls. Looks like they'd forgotten to turn the cameras back on. Even better. Then Sheila spoke up.
"We're goin' in for the baby seal."
"No we ain't."
"Yes we is, Tony, or I'm blowing this whole deal."
I looked at her. "You wouldn't." But I know her face. She surely would. She'd scream, we'd have to run, fifty grand out the window, and that would be bye-bye to my dream. She was looking at my face, too. She knew she had me beat.
"Tony, you're gonna have to repo that seal. Just think of it this way. What are you getting for this job, five grand?"
"Right," I said. "Maybe a little bonus." What she don't know won't hurt her.
"I bet the zoo'll pay double that to get the little guy back."
She was right. So I took a few precautions and in we went. The house was quiet and dark and I'm still not sure when we tripped the silent alarm. We'd hit the kitchens by then, big as a hotel kitchen but with nicer gear, and I had the baby seal all covered up and ready to move. "Squonk?" it asked, and I told it to shut up, and we was by the servant's door when all the lights flipped on.
"What do we have here?" I'd heard that voice a thousand times on my radio. He stood in a belted bathrobe with a big-ass pistol pointed at me. "Home invaders? Goodness me. And you've got my seal. Once I shoot you, I'll have to hide him until the detectives leave. You're moderately annoying."
"This ain't your seal, mister," Sheila was saying, "and you ain't gonna eat him!" Her pupils were dilated.
"Oh my dear," he smiled and stepped closer, "you're so very wrong."
That's when Sheila started firing. I never even seen her pull out the gun. And it wasn't a gun, it was a friggin' hand cannon, and the old guy with the perfect hair leaped backward as if someone goosed him. Part of the door frame disintegrated. She'd missed, but it was a hell of a miss. She emptied her clip in his direction as I was running down those stairs with the seal, bump-squonk!-bump-squonk!-bump, and then Jimmy was at the gate, and the lights were going on all over the house, and I smacked the gate button and ran for the van. Sheila was right behind me. Jimmy struggled to carry the statue head.
"What the hell just happened?" asked Jimmy.
"Sheila got us a new mascot," I said, and the baby seal squonked.
"Aww, he's adorable!" said Jimmy. "Let's name him Repo." Then someone shot at us from the house, Jimmy was behind the wheel, and we were the hell out of there, tearing down the road and away from the estate.
"I knifed a few tires," I said, "but they'll have other cars. We get caught on the cameras as we left?"
"Uh huh," said Jimmy, "they got turned back on. Where's the handoff for the head?"
"Little shack in the Mojave down 15 West. I'll call." I glanced back. Sheila was crouching beside the head and playing with her seal through the bars of its cage. It looked happy, not that you can really tell.
"Five grand," mused Jimmy. "Good money. It'll be worth the risk."
"Yup." I kept my mouth shut. They were probably right behind us, and if we got killed Jimmy wouldn't need to know anyway. Then Repo the seal started to squonk, kept squonking, and didn't stop for hours. I think the little jerk gets car sick.
We made it past Nipton and into the Mojave at sunrise, jolting down a dirt road as fast as we dared. A big-ass pothole did something very bad to our transmission. No way to move the oven-hot van. No cell service. Two pissed off and exhausted partners. Not enough beer. A hungry seal. An illegal head. The blazing morning sun. And yup, right on schedule, the people who wanted to kill us.
-- o --
"Who do I have the honor of addressing?" Mr. Entertainment stood there in a tailor-made hunting jacket that had probably cost him three grand. Maybe more; it was monogrammed. He was armed, and so were the three guys with him. It's easy to find goons in Vegas. The hard part is paying them enough to stay loyal.
"Tommy's gonna kick your ass!" said Sheila, and I coulda shot her myself. I'd have used her gun for it, too, only she was outta ammo.
"I hardly think so. You have some property of mine, I think. I'd hate to have to cancel my dinner plans."
"Squonk!"
"Just so, my dear dinner, just so. Tommy, this is how it will go. If you hand over the seal right now, with no fuss, I am going to shoot you in the knee and leave you here. Your employees can get you back to a hospital before you bleed to death. If you do not hand over my seal, we will shoot all three of you and leave you here to rot. What's your preference?" He smiled warmly, like he was talking to Jay Leno.
Jimmy put a big hand on Repo's back, gently lifted the little flippery blob of fat, hugged him, patted him lovingly. "If we give you Repo and you shoot Tommy, do we get to keep the Indian head?"
"The what?" the old guy asked, and then Sheila stepped to the side and he saw the head on the ground. With the plants around it the head almost looked like a warrior come back to life, feathered headdress and everything, and it looked pissed. But not as pissed as the old guy. "My statue!" Now his cultured accent shifted a bit and you could hear the old Virginia in his voice. "You jackasses, I stole that trophy fair and square." He took two steps toward it, angry as hell.
That's when Jimmy hit him with the seal.
He didn't exactly use Repo as a club, although that would have been pretty funny. Instead he threw him, catching the old guy in the middle of the chest with a very surprised "Squonk!" and knocking him down. Then Jimmy and Sheila were in between the goons and it was all fists, kicks, and crotches. I may have gotten a few in myself. It couldn't have been more than 20 seconds before I was putting a final boot in, there were three moaning goons on the ground, and Mr. Entertainment was lying there looking surprised and covered in seal crap. Jimmy reached down to pick up Repo.
"Jimmy!" I said. "First rule of the repo man?"
"Aww, he's fine," said Jimmy. Repo bit him a little. "No harm done." Sheila rushed over to check on the seal as well, and Jimmy and Sheila locked eyes. They both had huge smiles. For today, at least, they were back in love.
I knelt down on the old guy's neck. "Here's how it's gonna go," I said. "We're takin' your Jeep, and we're takin' your wallet, and we're takin' your stone head, and we're takin' your seal. We're leaving you your reputation and your life. You think that's a fair bargain?" He nodded desperately. Bullies. They always break when they're cornered.
I turned and took a good look around. Pretty damn desolate. I figured I'd call someone to go get them once I had a cell signal. "You're a jackhole," I advised. "Quit stealin' stuff and stick to singing."
"I'm going to find you," he said as we walked away to his Jeep. Sheila carried the little squonker, and Jimmy staggered under the weight of the stone head. "I will!"
I turned. "Mister, you sing for a living. We take away the things that other people love. My advice? Don't mess with a repo guy." And then we left.
Repo ended up returned to the zoo, and we got paid for the Indian head. I split it fair and square then blew part of my share on a vacation with Sister Katie. I'm still looking for my big break, but you gotta do what's right, you know? For instance, this thing you're reading? I'm gonna post this on the internet.
I may have lied a bit about leaving him his reputation. What the hell.
Piratecat
Sesquipedalian
3800 words, give or take.
A few thoughts:
[sblock]This is story #2. Story #1 was extremely creepy, a free-running monologue from a serial killer as he took his latest victim out to the desert. But you know what doesn't work with that kind of a story? A cute seal, that's what. Creepy stories usually have a paucity of seals.
Soooo, that got shelved.
Instead, I decided to bite the bullet and put the seal front and center. The candle picture would have been really easy to just use for candles, but I'm fascinated by the female shape in the back left. Icon? Art? Person? Her headdress reminded me of a showgirl's, so the story was suddenly set in Vegas with a hot ersatz nun who hands off the job and returns later to reap the rewards.
"Hot ersatz nun" is now the name of my first album.
Las Vegas worked well for the desert photo, too. That yucca is a Joshua tree, and they don't have a very big range. I've been thinking about con men a lot lately; perhaps a Leverage-style game would be the right tone here, a bunch of (mostly) good-hearted repo men who steal from the wrong guy? I liked it, but based on an old RPG game from Qualidar I made them sleazy Repo men. I figured I'd send them in to repo the seal, and hilarity would ensue.
That led me to the photo of the head. If the story had magical realism it would be an oracle, but I wanted something more realistic and less predictable. What if they're sent in for the head instead, and repossessing the seal is incidental? That works much better. What kind of statue is it? Could be Roman. But it could also be native American, especially with those plants acting as a headdress... once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it.
And after that, it was just a matter of writing folks who would fit in well having drunk smack-talk at any neighborhood bar. I'm not using to writing in dialect, but the banter was a blast to write. I have amused myself, at least, and that makes me happy, even if I wince a tiny bit every time I use improper grammar.
Pre-feedback, there's only one thing I would change. Sheila calls Tony "Tommy" near the end, not wanting to use his real name in front of certainly-not-an-evil-Wayne-Newton-at-all-why-do-you-ask?, and Jimmy picks it up. Problem is, this could also be taken as a name glitch. I should have spelled it out specifically, but I'm okay with whichever way the judges choose to read it.
Thank you guys for letting me write this. I'm glad I did.[/sblock]
A few thoughts:
[sblock]This is story #2. Story #1 was extremely creepy, a free-running monologue from a serial killer as he took his latest victim out to the desert. But you know what doesn't work with that kind of a story? A cute seal, that's what. Creepy stories usually have a paucity of seals.
Soooo, that got shelved.
Instead, I decided to bite the bullet and put the seal front and center. The candle picture would have been really easy to just use for candles, but I'm fascinated by the female shape in the back left. Icon? Art? Person? Her headdress reminded me of a showgirl's, so the story was suddenly set in Vegas with a hot ersatz nun who hands off the job and returns later to reap the rewards.
"Hot ersatz nun" is now the name of my first album.
Las Vegas worked well for the desert photo, too. That yucca is a Joshua tree, and they don't have a very big range. I've been thinking about con men a lot lately; perhaps a Leverage-style game would be the right tone here, a bunch of (mostly) good-hearted repo men who steal from the wrong guy? I liked it, but based on an old RPG game from Qualidar I made them sleazy Repo men. I figured I'd send them in to repo the seal, and hilarity would ensue.
That led me to the photo of the head. If the story had magical realism it would be an oracle, but I wanted something more realistic and less predictable. What if they're sent in for the head instead, and repossessing the seal is incidental? That works much better. What kind of statue is it? Could be Roman. But it could also be native American, especially with those plants acting as a headdress... once I saw that, I couldn't unsee it.
And after that, it was just a matter of writing folks who would fit in well having drunk smack-talk at any neighborhood bar. I'm not using to writing in dialect, but the banter was a blast to write. I have amused myself, at least, and that makes me happy, even if I wince a tiny bit every time I use improper grammar.
Pre-feedback, there's only one thing I would change. Sheila calls Tony "Tommy" near the end, not wanting to use his real name in front of certainly-not-an-evil-Wayne-Newton-at-all-why-do-you-ask?, and Jimmy picks it up. Problem is, this could also be taken as a name glitch. I should have spelled it out specifically, but I'm okay with whichever way the judges choose to read it.
Thank you guys for letting me write this. I'm glad I did.[/sblock]
Last edited:
phoamslinger
Explorer
[sblock]you always forget something. I forgot to mention the sunburst reminicent of a certain deity in the candle picture.[/sblock]
Wild Gazebo
Explorer
Constructive Criticism
[sblock]You are terrible at framing houses[/sblock]
[sblock]You are terrible at framing houses[/sblock]
Last edited:
UselessTriviaMan
Explorer
Royal Pains
Royal Pains
4,047 words
[sblock]
This stupid royal wedding was going to be the death of one extremely overworked court wizard.
Vashka made a valiant – but vain – attempt to hold her robes up above her knees as she waded through the swamp’s foul muck and mire, thankful that none of the princess’ simpering courtiers could see her now.
She could see her destination just ahead – a large mud nest, full of the succulent gatorbear eggs the princess insisted she simply must have for her grand wedding feast.
She briefly imagined herself bursting into her majesty’s audience chamber, covered in reeking, greenish-gray mud, bearing her prize. The mental image of their horrified reactions made her smile, but her daydream was interrupted by a very unhappy voice.
“Do you have ANY idea how long it’s gonna take for this stink to come out of my fur?”
Vashka smiled at her familiar’s complaint. “Yes. It’ll take about five seconds and a snap of my fingers and it’ll be magicked away.” She grimaced as the swamp tried to eat her boot. Again.
Nuki had a slight advantage moving through the swamp; the white seal’s sleek body could slide through the watery mud far more easily than an awkward wizard’s flailing legs. He chuffed in annoyance as he swam past her. “Won’t matter. The smell will be stuck in my nose for weeks.”
Nuki had been her familiar for just over a year; they’d found each other when the adventuring wizard had rescued the seal pup from a hungry ice troll. Nuki’s face was simply too adorable to resist. Now the lovable seal was almost twice as big as when they’d met, weighing almost as much as the wizard herself.
She tuned out his continuing stream of complaints as she worked her foot free of the mud. They needed to collect those eggs and get gone before their mama came home; gatorbears were not known to be friendly in the best of times, let alone if an intruder on their territory happened to be caught stealing eggs from their nests.
With a grunt of effort Vashka finally tugged her boot loose and then promptly stepped into a hole, dunking herself quite thoroughly. Cursing and spluttering, she fought her way back to a standing position while she was serenaded by the soothing sound of barking laughter. Vashka wiped her eyes as best she could and swam the last few yards to the nest.
As she placed the first egg into her satchel, a roar of challenge erupted from somewhere much too close for comfort. The wizard rolled her eyes and sighed. It was going to be another long day...
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“Court wizard” was supposed to be a nice, cushy job, especially in a backwater little kingdom like Galenia. Vashka had been happy to trade crawling through dusty, musty old crypts or frozen cairns for a life in the lap of luxury. And Galenia was an utterly boring place; nothing ever happened there, and its only claim to fame was the palace’s expansive garden. The only people excited to visit the little kingdom were druids and topiary enthusiasts.
Princess Shianna, daughter of King Ulrich, was in line to become the ninety-third hereditary ruler of Galenia. The girl was only fourteen, a bit homely, and rarely set foot anywhere outside the royal gardens, let alone the palace. She didn’t even seem to have any interest in boys yet, so when she publicly announced to the court that she was getting married, it caused an understandable uproar. No one knew how she could have fallen in love when she spent all her time tending her flowers. But when the girl refused to say who she was marrying, the royal court nearly exploded with outraged affront.
To say Ulrich had been furious was... well, actually it would have been generous. The king was something of a pushover, truth be told. Queen Anitra, rest her soul, had run thoroughly roughshod over her husband. The entire court had known who wielded the scepter in that throne room, but after Anitra had passed away the king was forced to make all the decisions on his own. It wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed, or wanted. His was the soul of an accountant, and the king preferred to spend his time in the treasury, keeping tabs on all the kingdom’s finances.
Galenia hadn’t had a strong king in many years; the last had been King Gregan the Bold. He’d been king over a century ago, and legend said he’d vanished while foolishly trying to start a war with the kingdom next door. (According to the histories, the search for the missing king was neither thorough nor extensive. The kingdom had happily slapped a crown on his son’s head, cancelled the war, and called it a day.)
So when Shianna made her mysterious wedding announcement, Ulrich the Wishy-Washy barely batted an eye. And when Shianna produced a ridiculously long and outrageous list of demands for her wedding ceremony, the king had simply handed it to his court wizard and told her to make it happen…
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With a flash of green light a magnificently mud-drenched Vashka appeared in her chamber, the laughing wizard’s knees buckling under the weight of the frightened seal in her arms.
Nuki hopped down indignantly. “I don’t see how that was funny at all. That monster was trying to eat me, you hack!”
Vashka chuckled, “I had to act fast. The only thing I could think to do was make you look like one of her hatchlings. She wasn’t trying to eat you, she was trying to feed you.”
The seal shuddered, sending spatters of mud across the rug. “It tried to puke on me. I feel violated.”
Their banter was interrupted by a quiet cough. Vashka froze, then slowly turned her head to see the castle’s chamberlain sitting daintily in her favorite chair. A look of horrific disgust twisted his face into a ridiculous moue, and she burst into a fresh round of laughter.
“Lady Vashkanika?” he stammered. “I… um, I was sent t-to…”
She grinned and stepped briskly forward with her arms outstretched, sending gobbets of mud flying. “FILLIPE! Come and give us a squinch!”
The primped dandy jumped up with surprising speed and retreated to the relative safety of the doorway before pausing. “I… I just stopped by to check and see if you’d been able to procure the eggs for the princess’ soufflé…” He kept a wary eye on the dripping wizard, ready to take flight if necessary.
“Yep. They’re right here.” Vashka lifted the satchel’s strap from her shoulder and gleefully tossed the bag to the chamberlain. His eyes widened comically as he reflexively caught it, the muddy bag splashing wetly against his chest. His squeal of indignant outrage hung in the air as he huffed away with his eggs.
Vashka sighed. She’d probably have to apologize to the little fellow eventually, but he just made it so easy. And fun.
She laid a hand on Nuki’s head and murmured a brief spell; as promised, the magic caused the caked mud covering them to vanish.
Of course, Nuki still complained.
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For weeks she’d been kept busy teleporting across the globe, gathering exotic ingredients, foods, flowers and fabrics from all over the world, but Vashka had been particularly dreading this last item on her shopping list. Princess Shianna wanted two bouquets of white saguaro lilies to flank the altar, “because they symbolize my purity, beauty, and innocence.” Ugh. It was hard to keep a straight face with such an easy setup line, but somehow Vashka persevered.
The problem was, saguaro lilies were exceedingly rare. As in, only-one-place-in-the-known-world rare. And naturally the mysterious Ch’Quenya tribe of the Govarran Desert, who lived in that-only-one-place, considered their desert flowers to be absolutely sacred. And these savage halflings had a tendency to somehow turn unwelcome intruders to stone. They marked the edges of their sandswept lands with the petrified remains of their victims; this proved to be a very effective deterrent. People stayed away.
Vashka had been wracking her brain for some time, trying to figure out a way to approach the aloof tribesmen without getting herself turned into one of the royal garden’s bird-poop-gathering decorations. Her research into the tribe had turned up surprisingly little information; apparently no scholars had been able to successfully cozy up to these xenophobic halflings. The only thing she’d learned was that Ch’Quenya apparently translated to “Bird People” in the halflings’ language, but she couldn’t find any other reference to birds at all.
Time was running out and it was the only item left on her impossible list. Maybe she’d get lucky…
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As they traveled through rocky canyons dotted with cacti and other desert flora, Nuki whined. It wasn’t a well-known fact to most people, but Vashka had long ago learned the hard way that harp seals love to complain. Since the moment they’d arrived in the Govarran Desert, Nuki had done essentially nothing but gripe. The wind, the heat, the bright sun, the sand, and the hot rocks were all his preferred topics, and when he ran out he would start all over again from the beginning. The fact that she’d cast a minor enchantment to protect them from the blistering heat was irrelevant, of course. He was on his fourth round of complaints about how the hot sand hurt his flippers when they came upon their first statue.
The rough stone figure was buried up to its knees in sand. It had a woman’s features, and she stood in a defensive crouch with the broken-off stub of a stone sword held out in front of her.
“We must be in the right place,” Vashka commented.
Nuki sniffed suspiciously at the statue. “Really? What was your first clue?”
“Quiet, flipperface. We don’t want to announce our presence to the locals just yet.”
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They walked for several hours without encountering another living thing, though they passed by about two dozen petrified people. All of them were worn by the sun and sand, and almost all were all in various action poses – running or fighting seemed most common.
The canyon they were currently walking through had narrowed to the point where they almost had to walk single file, and the sun had just sunk from sight beyond the canyon’s rim when they heard a scream from just ahead.
Vashka moved cautiously forward with Nuki following right on her heels; only heavily armored fools went running blindly into unknown danger. She peeked around a bend and stared for a moment at a bizarre scene.
A statue of a halfling stood a stone’s throw away. Within an arm’s reach of the statue, two living halflings stood back-to-back, their spears poised to attack. The only oddity was that there was nothing else in view. Vashka looked everywhere, but couldn’t see any threats to the halflings at all. The puzzled wizard waited for a few seconds and watched the unmoving warriors; she was a split-second away from calling out a greeting when the attack came.
Even though she’d been looking for it, her eyes had totally missed the viper until it struck. The big snake’s camouflage was even good enough to initially hide it from the halflings, but as its head lashed out to strike, both spears dipped down in a blur to skewer its head before it could sink its fangs into their unprotected flesh.
As the dying snake thrashed, Vashka noticed the halflings’ feet. The thick fur typically seen only on top of a halfling’s foot went all the way around their ankles, almost giving them the appearance of fur-covered boots. Maybe their flesh wasn’t entirely unprotected after all.
As one, the warriors turned to face Vashka. Aside from their furry ankles they appeared to be normal halflings, though quite a bit thinner than average. Both were dressed in cured animal skins. In addition to their spears, both had unstrung bows on their backs and bone-handled blades tucked into their belts. The shorter one wore some kind of bone trinket necklace; it was only then that Vashka realized the shorter warrior was actually a woman with cropped-off hair.
They stared silently at each other for a few moments, until Nuki finally poked his head out from behind the wizard. “What’s happening, boss?”
Both halflings’ eyebrows shot up.
As the seal shuffled forward, Vashka caught the movement of a second rock viper. It struck silently and far too quickly for the wizard to even shout a warning to the male halfling. She could only watch in horror as it buried its fangs into his arm.
It was over in less than a heartbeat. The halfling froze in place, calcifying almost instantaneously, his now-stony eyebrows still raised in surprise.
Vashka spat out an incantation as the rock viper turned its attention toward the other halfling, and her fiery bolt took its head clean off before it could claim another victim.
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The female halfling’s name was Mara. Vashka couldn’t get the entire story from her, but Mara was apparently a personage of some importance in her tribe. When the wizard explained her needs, Mara bared her teeth in what Vashka hoped was a smile. The halfling ordered the wizard to follow her, but then paused. Mara bowed at the waist before each statue with an expression of profound sorrow, then laid a hand on the chest of each stone warrior. Vashka watched with interest, but was startled when Mara pulled her hand away, nodded her head briskly, and ran away down the canyon floor.
Unwilling to lose her opportunity, Vashka quickly followed. She was surprised to see Mara run to a trio of large birds standing in the shade of the canyon wall.
The strange birds were tall, with gangly gray legs and pink, bare-skinned heads and necks. Each bird wore a bridle, and had an odd little saddle cinched to its back. Mara leapt up into a saddle and turned to face the wizard, fierce tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Can you ride, outlander?”
Vashka gulped.
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It turned out that these strange birds – Mara called them something unpronounceable like “orstretch” or something like that with too many consonants – couldn’t fly, but they were surprisingly fast and agile runners. Vashka clung in terror to her mount’s neck for dear life while a smug Nuki glided along behind, perched comfortably on a floating circle of magical energies. She ground her teeth in consternation, but it was the only way to bring the seal along. She just wished he didn’t gloat so much about it. Vashka had long since lost her sense of direction, but apparently her mount knew to follow the halfling’s lead.
The path to the Ch’Quenya took them through more deep, twisting canyons. Both Vashka and her mount were almost worn out when they finally arrived, well after nightfall. A large ring of angry-looking halfling warriors quickly surrounded Vashka and Nuki; up close, the wizard noted with some alarm that the tips of all the spears pointed at her were coated in a tarry white substance. She had a sneaking suspicion it was rock viper venom.
A defiant Mara shouted at the circled warriors. There was a brief but heated exchange, which Mara must have won. The spears went away, and Mara dragged Vashka by the hand to introduce the wizard to her father, the chief.
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After a night of dancing, feasting, and drinking to honor the fallen Ch’Quenyan warriors, Vashka woke to a new morning. She also woke to the overpowering stench of a loudly-snoring Nuki’s fish breath in her face.
She was startled to see Mara sitting quietly at her side in the early morning light. The halfling gave a small smile of welcome, then rose to her feet. Without a word, Vashka followed.
They walked through the camp and up a narrow path that wound through the rocks. Vashka somehow sensed that this was neither a time for wisecracks, nor for words at all. Mara took the wizard to the hidden, sacred vale where the saguaro lilies grew. Mara reached out and plucked a bloom from one of the cacti, then offered it to the wizard. Vashka nodded solemnly and accepted the fragile flower, then tucked it carefully into her magical satchel. The two women continued to silently gather flowers; as they harvested the sacred blooms they moved deep into the heart of the vale.
Vashka was surprised to find a circle of ancient statues at the center of the saguaros, their features nearly entirely erased by time. She watched in respectful silence while Mara repeated her ritual with these halfling-sized statues, bowing reverently and laying a hand in the center of their chests. As before, the halfling nodded as she touched the statues; it almost seemed as if she was agreeing with an unheard voice.
The wizard approached the statues, and Mara looked up at her. The halfling took her by the hand again, and finally spoke.
“They are the Eldest. They are the Wise. They keep the secrets of our Way.” Mara gently placed Vashka’s hand on a statue’s chest. “You are the first outlander to learn of the Way.”
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Knowledge blazed through her every synapse, every capillary, every strand of DNA that made her utterly unique. The Eldest. The combined wisdom and knowledge of the entire halfling race had been gathered within them since the last time they had collectively drawn breath.
Vashka couldn’t hold it. Her mind could barely begin to comprehend the most miniscule of their shared thoughts. She was an outsider. He/she/they recognized the trickle of diluted energy this wizardthingoutsider could wield. What came next was neither derision nor dismissal, but it also was. She did not belong. She was not welcome.
Vashka could see – almost touch – the loving embrace the Eldest shared with all their children. But she was denied. It was the most beautiful pain in all of existence…
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Vashka opened her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath as she pulled her hand away from the ancient stone. Mara stood watching, her eyes shining with pride and love.
Vashka now knew. “In the canyon… He was your brother, wasn’t he?” Mara nodded. “You could have freed him. The sacred lilies can break the enchantment. But he chose to stay with the Eldest.” The halfling’s smile was bittersweet.
Vashka’s tears began to fall. “Thank you. Thank you for letting me see.”
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Upon returning to Galenia, Vashka found the kingdom in an uproar. The king had vanished under suspicious circumstances. No one knew who to blame. Vashka didn’t really care, except it would probably mean she’d be fired for incompetence, but that didn’t really matter anymore. There were things she needed to do.
First things first. She needed to talk to the princess.
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She confronted Shianna in the garden, where the princess seemed to spend almost every single waking moment. If the rumors were true, she even slept out here most nights. It was already well-known through the castle’s gossip channels that Shianna had banished the royal gardeners from the princess’ private garden. The normally-well-manicured garden pool was beginning to show signs of disrepair.
Vashka and Nuki found Shianna busily arranging flowers on and around a stone head jutting from the ground. She noticed that the princess almost constantly kept a hand on the statue, caressing its surface like a lover’s skin. Shianna didn’t seem surprised to see the wizard at all.
“You’re marrying Gregan the Bold, aren’t you?” Vashka didn’t feel like being civil this morning.
Shianna smiled sweetly. “I expected you to figure it out eventually. The saguaro lilies are pretty enough, but I really just need them to free my love.”
Vashka grimaced. “You realize he’s actually your great, great, great-something grandfather, right?”
Shianna’s smile quickly turned to an ugly sneer. “Oh please. I’m related to every single noble in this kingdom. Save me the righteous speeches.”
The wizard glanced down at the mostly-buried statue. “He tried to start a war, so they zapped him with rock viper venom and buried him in the garden. Hell of a way to go.”
She watched the princess’ eyes slip just a little bit further down the path to Crazytown. “He knew he’d find me eventually. It took him years and years, but he finally climbed up out of that hole they’d buried him in. And I found him. He’s my love, my soulmate. And we’re to be married tomorrow morning.”
Vashka sighed. Puppy love was one thing, but this? She didn’t even know where to start. “And where’s your father, princess?”
Shianna’s expression grew darker. “Gregan told me daddy wouldn’t approve. Daddy won’t have to approve now.”
Nuki barked derisively. “I don’t think Shianna’s stairs are going all the way to the top floor anymore, boss.”
Not for the first time, Vashka thanked her lucky stars that no one else could understand what her mouthy familiar said.
Shianna glanced at the barking seal and slyly grinned. “You know Vashka, I always wanted a pet. You could give him to us as a wedding present.”
Nuki promptly jumped into the pond and vanished.
Vashka was suddenly sick of the princess’ banter.
“You’re not going to get away with it, princess.”
Shianna just smiled. “I already have, wizard. My Gregan and I are going to be reunited tomorrow, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to stop us!”
Vashka smiled grimly and stalked away, seething.
Nuki joined her at the far end of the pool. “Boss? I think there’s something you should know…”
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The chapel was filled to overflowing with the brightest and the boldest of the kingdom’s subjects. As the first to appear in the ceremony, Vashka solemnly and slowly walked down the aisle. The opulence of the church decorations was staggering. In her ridiculously ornate costume (the high priest had insisted that that garish silvery-white headdress had been worn by the Royal Wizard in every single Galenian royal wedding), Vashka began lighting the nine-and-ninety candles on the altar one by one. She completed her duties by kneeling reverently at the altar, where she quietly cast a spell while her back was turned to the congregation.
When the princess appeared, the crowd was properly stunned by her dazzling gown. They’d better be, considering the trouble I went through for that silk, thought the wizard. Shianna looked just as radiant as a new bride should, but there was still that hint of crazy around the whites of her eyes. She gave a contemptuous curl of her lip to Vashka, unseen by the rest of the room, before turning to face the crowd.
When the princess had finished her grand entrance, the crowd waited with an almost predatory anticipation. Where was the mysterious groom? Who was he?
Whatever they were hoping for, the blue-blood nobles of Galenia were most definitely not expecting to see a statue wheeled down the aisle. The dirt had been meticulously scrubbed away, but Gregan still wore his crown of white flowers. Harsh whispers erupted throughout the grand chapel. What would the king have said if he were there? Was anyone going to put a stop to this madness?
As a matter of fact someone was, and someone did. Just as Princess Shianna said “I do,” a pristinely white seal popped out from under the cloth-covered altar and touched his nose to the statue. “SHATTER, sucker!” Nuki barked. Poor Gregan-the-statue burst into flying bits of gravel. The audience went a little crazy. The princess shrieked and tried to tackle the seal, but he quickly scooted up the aisle, his barking laughter leading the way. Shianna got tangled up in her grand gown and fell flat on her face.
Vashka stood off to the side in her ridiculous get-up and laughed until she cried.
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The Court Wizard of Galenia stood by, overseeing the removal of the remarkably kingly statue from the depths of the royal garden pond. Her final official duty was going to be administering the antidote to Ulrich, undoing his petrification, after which she was handing in her resignation.
She wondered how Nuki would ever adjust to life in the desert. Maybe she could convince him that “orstretches” taste like fish. That just might do it…
[/sblock]
Royal Pains
4,047 words
[sblock]
This stupid royal wedding was going to be the death of one extremely overworked court wizard.
Vashka made a valiant – but vain – attempt to hold her robes up above her knees as she waded through the swamp’s foul muck and mire, thankful that none of the princess’ simpering courtiers could see her now.
She could see her destination just ahead – a large mud nest, full of the succulent gatorbear eggs the princess insisted she simply must have for her grand wedding feast.
She briefly imagined herself bursting into her majesty’s audience chamber, covered in reeking, greenish-gray mud, bearing her prize. The mental image of their horrified reactions made her smile, but her daydream was interrupted by a very unhappy voice.
“Do you have ANY idea how long it’s gonna take for this stink to come out of my fur?”
Vashka smiled at her familiar’s complaint. “Yes. It’ll take about five seconds and a snap of my fingers and it’ll be magicked away.” She grimaced as the swamp tried to eat her boot. Again.
Nuki had a slight advantage moving through the swamp; the white seal’s sleek body could slide through the watery mud far more easily than an awkward wizard’s flailing legs. He chuffed in annoyance as he swam past her. “Won’t matter. The smell will be stuck in my nose for weeks.”
Nuki had been her familiar for just over a year; they’d found each other when the adventuring wizard had rescued the seal pup from a hungry ice troll. Nuki’s face was simply too adorable to resist. Now the lovable seal was almost twice as big as when they’d met, weighing almost as much as the wizard herself.
She tuned out his continuing stream of complaints as she worked her foot free of the mud. They needed to collect those eggs and get gone before their mama came home; gatorbears were not known to be friendly in the best of times, let alone if an intruder on their territory happened to be caught stealing eggs from their nests.
With a grunt of effort Vashka finally tugged her boot loose and then promptly stepped into a hole, dunking herself quite thoroughly. Cursing and spluttering, she fought her way back to a standing position while she was serenaded by the soothing sound of barking laughter. Vashka wiped her eyes as best she could and swam the last few yards to the nest.
As she placed the first egg into her satchel, a roar of challenge erupted from somewhere much too close for comfort. The wizard rolled her eyes and sighed. It was going to be another long day...
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“Court wizard” was supposed to be a nice, cushy job, especially in a backwater little kingdom like Galenia. Vashka had been happy to trade crawling through dusty, musty old crypts or frozen cairns for a life in the lap of luxury. And Galenia was an utterly boring place; nothing ever happened there, and its only claim to fame was the palace’s expansive garden. The only people excited to visit the little kingdom were druids and topiary enthusiasts.
Princess Shianna, daughter of King Ulrich, was in line to become the ninety-third hereditary ruler of Galenia. The girl was only fourteen, a bit homely, and rarely set foot anywhere outside the royal gardens, let alone the palace. She didn’t even seem to have any interest in boys yet, so when she publicly announced to the court that she was getting married, it caused an understandable uproar. No one knew how she could have fallen in love when she spent all her time tending her flowers. But when the girl refused to say who she was marrying, the royal court nearly exploded with outraged affront.
To say Ulrich had been furious was... well, actually it would have been generous. The king was something of a pushover, truth be told. Queen Anitra, rest her soul, had run thoroughly roughshod over her husband. The entire court had known who wielded the scepter in that throne room, but after Anitra had passed away the king was forced to make all the decisions on his own. It wasn’t something he particularly enjoyed, or wanted. His was the soul of an accountant, and the king preferred to spend his time in the treasury, keeping tabs on all the kingdom’s finances.
Galenia hadn’t had a strong king in many years; the last had been King Gregan the Bold. He’d been king over a century ago, and legend said he’d vanished while foolishly trying to start a war with the kingdom next door. (According to the histories, the search for the missing king was neither thorough nor extensive. The kingdom had happily slapped a crown on his son’s head, cancelled the war, and called it a day.)
So when Shianna made her mysterious wedding announcement, Ulrich the Wishy-Washy barely batted an eye. And when Shianna produced a ridiculously long and outrageous list of demands for her wedding ceremony, the king had simply handed it to his court wizard and told her to make it happen…
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With a flash of green light a magnificently mud-drenched Vashka appeared in her chamber, the laughing wizard’s knees buckling under the weight of the frightened seal in her arms.
Nuki hopped down indignantly. “I don’t see how that was funny at all. That monster was trying to eat me, you hack!”
Vashka chuckled, “I had to act fast. The only thing I could think to do was make you look like one of her hatchlings. She wasn’t trying to eat you, she was trying to feed you.”
The seal shuddered, sending spatters of mud across the rug. “It tried to puke on me. I feel violated.”
Their banter was interrupted by a quiet cough. Vashka froze, then slowly turned her head to see the castle’s chamberlain sitting daintily in her favorite chair. A look of horrific disgust twisted his face into a ridiculous moue, and she burst into a fresh round of laughter.
“Lady Vashkanika?” he stammered. “I… um, I was sent t-to…”
She grinned and stepped briskly forward with her arms outstretched, sending gobbets of mud flying. “FILLIPE! Come and give us a squinch!”
The primped dandy jumped up with surprising speed and retreated to the relative safety of the doorway before pausing. “I… I just stopped by to check and see if you’d been able to procure the eggs for the princess’ soufflé…” He kept a wary eye on the dripping wizard, ready to take flight if necessary.
“Yep. They’re right here.” Vashka lifted the satchel’s strap from her shoulder and gleefully tossed the bag to the chamberlain. His eyes widened comically as he reflexively caught it, the muddy bag splashing wetly against his chest. His squeal of indignant outrage hung in the air as he huffed away with his eggs.
Vashka sighed. She’d probably have to apologize to the little fellow eventually, but he just made it so easy. And fun.
She laid a hand on Nuki’s head and murmured a brief spell; as promised, the magic caused the caked mud covering them to vanish.
Of course, Nuki still complained.
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For weeks she’d been kept busy teleporting across the globe, gathering exotic ingredients, foods, flowers and fabrics from all over the world, but Vashka had been particularly dreading this last item on her shopping list. Princess Shianna wanted two bouquets of white saguaro lilies to flank the altar, “because they symbolize my purity, beauty, and innocence.” Ugh. It was hard to keep a straight face with such an easy setup line, but somehow Vashka persevered.
The problem was, saguaro lilies were exceedingly rare. As in, only-one-place-in-the-known-world rare. And naturally the mysterious Ch’Quenya tribe of the Govarran Desert, who lived in that-only-one-place, considered their desert flowers to be absolutely sacred. And these savage halflings had a tendency to somehow turn unwelcome intruders to stone. They marked the edges of their sandswept lands with the petrified remains of their victims; this proved to be a very effective deterrent. People stayed away.
Vashka had been wracking her brain for some time, trying to figure out a way to approach the aloof tribesmen without getting herself turned into one of the royal garden’s bird-poop-gathering decorations. Her research into the tribe had turned up surprisingly little information; apparently no scholars had been able to successfully cozy up to these xenophobic halflings. The only thing she’d learned was that Ch’Quenya apparently translated to “Bird People” in the halflings’ language, but she couldn’t find any other reference to birds at all.
Time was running out and it was the only item left on her impossible list. Maybe she’d get lucky…
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As they traveled through rocky canyons dotted with cacti and other desert flora, Nuki whined. It wasn’t a well-known fact to most people, but Vashka had long ago learned the hard way that harp seals love to complain. Since the moment they’d arrived in the Govarran Desert, Nuki had done essentially nothing but gripe. The wind, the heat, the bright sun, the sand, and the hot rocks were all his preferred topics, and when he ran out he would start all over again from the beginning. The fact that she’d cast a minor enchantment to protect them from the blistering heat was irrelevant, of course. He was on his fourth round of complaints about how the hot sand hurt his flippers when they came upon their first statue.
The rough stone figure was buried up to its knees in sand. It had a woman’s features, and she stood in a defensive crouch with the broken-off stub of a stone sword held out in front of her.
“We must be in the right place,” Vashka commented.
Nuki sniffed suspiciously at the statue. “Really? What was your first clue?”
“Quiet, flipperface. We don’t want to announce our presence to the locals just yet.”
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They walked for several hours without encountering another living thing, though they passed by about two dozen petrified people. All of them were worn by the sun and sand, and almost all were all in various action poses – running or fighting seemed most common.
The canyon they were currently walking through had narrowed to the point where they almost had to walk single file, and the sun had just sunk from sight beyond the canyon’s rim when they heard a scream from just ahead.
Vashka moved cautiously forward with Nuki following right on her heels; only heavily armored fools went running blindly into unknown danger. She peeked around a bend and stared for a moment at a bizarre scene.
A statue of a halfling stood a stone’s throw away. Within an arm’s reach of the statue, two living halflings stood back-to-back, their spears poised to attack. The only oddity was that there was nothing else in view. Vashka looked everywhere, but couldn’t see any threats to the halflings at all. The puzzled wizard waited for a few seconds and watched the unmoving warriors; she was a split-second away from calling out a greeting when the attack came.
Even though she’d been looking for it, her eyes had totally missed the viper until it struck. The big snake’s camouflage was even good enough to initially hide it from the halflings, but as its head lashed out to strike, both spears dipped down in a blur to skewer its head before it could sink its fangs into their unprotected flesh.
As the dying snake thrashed, Vashka noticed the halflings’ feet. The thick fur typically seen only on top of a halfling’s foot went all the way around their ankles, almost giving them the appearance of fur-covered boots. Maybe their flesh wasn’t entirely unprotected after all.
As one, the warriors turned to face Vashka. Aside from their furry ankles they appeared to be normal halflings, though quite a bit thinner than average. Both were dressed in cured animal skins. In addition to their spears, both had unstrung bows on their backs and bone-handled blades tucked into their belts. The shorter one wore some kind of bone trinket necklace; it was only then that Vashka realized the shorter warrior was actually a woman with cropped-off hair.
They stared silently at each other for a few moments, until Nuki finally poked his head out from behind the wizard. “What’s happening, boss?”
Both halflings’ eyebrows shot up.
As the seal shuffled forward, Vashka caught the movement of a second rock viper. It struck silently and far too quickly for the wizard to even shout a warning to the male halfling. She could only watch in horror as it buried its fangs into his arm.
It was over in less than a heartbeat. The halfling froze in place, calcifying almost instantaneously, his now-stony eyebrows still raised in surprise.
Vashka spat out an incantation as the rock viper turned its attention toward the other halfling, and her fiery bolt took its head clean off before it could claim another victim.
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The female halfling’s name was Mara. Vashka couldn’t get the entire story from her, but Mara was apparently a personage of some importance in her tribe. When the wizard explained her needs, Mara bared her teeth in what Vashka hoped was a smile. The halfling ordered the wizard to follow her, but then paused. Mara bowed at the waist before each statue with an expression of profound sorrow, then laid a hand on the chest of each stone warrior. Vashka watched with interest, but was startled when Mara pulled her hand away, nodded her head briskly, and ran away down the canyon floor.
Unwilling to lose her opportunity, Vashka quickly followed. She was surprised to see Mara run to a trio of large birds standing in the shade of the canyon wall.
The strange birds were tall, with gangly gray legs and pink, bare-skinned heads and necks. Each bird wore a bridle, and had an odd little saddle cinched to its back. Mara leapt up into a saddle and turned to face the wizard, fierce tears streaming down her cheeks.
“Can you ride, outlander?”
Vashka gulped.
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It turned out that these strange birds – Mara called them something unpronounceable like “orstretch” or something like that with too many consonants – couldn’t fly, but they were surprisingly fast and agile runners. Vashka clung in terror to her mount’s neck for dear life while a smug Nuki glided along behind, perched comfortably on a floating circle of magical energies. She ground her teeth in consternation, but it was the only way to bring the seal along. She just wished he didn’t gloat so much about it. Vashka had long since lost her sense of direction, but apparently her mount knew to follow the halfling’s lead.
The path to the Ch’Quenya took them through more deep, twisting canyons. Both Vashka and her mount were almost worn out when they finally arrived, well after nightfall. A large ring of angry-looking halfling warriors quickly surrounded Vashka and Nuki; up close, the wizard noted with some alarm that the tips of all the spears pointed at her were coated in a tarry white substance. She had a sneaking suspicion it was rock viper venom.
A defiant Mara shouted at the circled warriors. There was a brief but heated exchange, which Mara must have won. The spears went away, and Mara dragged Vashka by the hand to introduce the wizard to her father, the chief.
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After a night of dancing, feasting, and drinking to honor the fallen Ch’Quenyan warriors, Vashka woke to a new morning. She also woke to the overpowering stench of a loudly-snoring Nuki’s fish breath in her face.
She was startled to see Mara sitting quietly at her side in the early morning light. The halfling gave a small smile of welcome, then rose to her feet. Without a word, Vashka followed.
They walked through the camp and up a narrow path that wound through the rocks. Vashka somehow sensed that this was neither a time for wisecracks, nor for words at all. Mara took the wizard to the hidden, sacred vale where the saguaro lilies grew. Mara reached out and plucked a bloom from one of the cacti, then offered it to the wizard. Vashka nodded solemnly and accepted the fragile flower, then tucked it carefully into her magical satchel. The two women continued to silently gather flowers; as they harvested the sacred blooms they moved deep into the heart of the vale.
Vashka was surprised to find a circle of ancient statues at the center of the saguaros, their features nearly entirely erased by time. She watched in respectful silence while Mara repeated her ritual with these halfling-sized statues, bowing reverently and laying a hand in the center of their chests. As before, the halfling nodded as she touched the statues; it almost seemed as if she was agreeing with an unheard voice.
The wizard approached the statues, and Mara looked up at her. The halfling took her by the hand again, and finally spoke.
“They are the Eldest. They are the Wise. They keep the secrets of our Way.” Mara gently placed Vashka’s hand on a statue’s chest. “You are the first outlander to learn of the Way.”
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Knowledge blazed through her every synapse, every capillary, every strand of DNA that made her utterly unique. The Eldest. The combined wisdom and knowledge of the entire halfling race had been gathered within them since the last time they had collectively drawn breath.
Vashka couldn’t hold it. Her mind could barely begin to comprehend the most miniscule of their shared thoughts. She was an outsider. He/she/they recognized the trickle of diluted energy this wizardthingoutsider could wield. What came next was neither derision nor dismissal, but it also was. She did not belong. She was not welcome.
Vashka could see – almost touch – the loving embrace the Eldest shared with all their children. But she was denied. It was the most beautiful pain in all of existence…
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Vashka opened her eyes and took a deep, shuddering breath as she pulled her hand away from the ancient stone. Mara stood watching, her eyes shining with pride and love.
Vashka now knew. “In the canyon… He was your brother, wasn’t he?” Mara nodded. “You could have freed him. The sacred lilies can break the enchantment. But he chose to stay with the Eldest.” The halfling’s smile was bittersweet.
Vashka’s tears began to fall. “Thank you. Thank you for letting me see.”
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Upon returning to Galenia, Vashka found the kingdom in an uproar. The king had vanished under suspicious circumstances. No one knew who to blame. Vashka didn’t really care, except it would probably mean she’d be fired for incompetence, but that didn’t really matter anymore. There were things she needed to do.
First things first. She needed to talk to the princess.
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She confronted Shianna in the garden, where the princess seemed to spend almost every single waking moment. If the rumors were true, she even slept out here most nights. It was already well-known through the castle’s gossip channels that Shianna had banished the royal gardeners from the princess’ private garden. The normally-well-manicured garden pool was beginning to show signs of disrepair.
Vashka and Nuki found Shianna busily arranging flowers on and around a stone head jutting from the ground. She noticed that the princess almost constantly kept a hand on the statue, caressing its surface like a lover’s skin. Shianna didn’t seem surprised to see the wizard at all.
“You’re marrying Gregan the Bold, aren’t you?” Vashka didn’t feel like being civil this morning.
Shianna smiled sweetly. “I expected you to figure it out eventually. The saguaro lilies are pretty enough, but I really just need them to free my love.”
Vashka grimaced. “You realize he’s actually your great, great, great-something grandfather, right?”
Shianna’s smile quickly turned to an ugly sneer. “Oh please. I’m related to every single noble in this kingdom. Save me the righteous speeches.”
The wizard glanced down at the mostly-buried statue. “He tried to start a war, so they zapped him with rock viper venom and buried him in the garden. Hell of a way to go.”
She watched the princess’ eyes slip just a little bit further down the path to Crazytown. “He knew he’d find me eventually. It took him years and years, but he finally climbed up out of that hole they’d buried him in. And I found him. He’s my love, my soulmate. And we’re to be married tomorrow morning.”
Vashka sighed. Puppy love was one thing, but this? She didn’t even know where to start. “And where’s your father, princess?”
Shianna’s expression grew darker. “Gregan told me daddy wouldn’t approve. Daddy won’t have to approve now.”
Nuki barked derisively. “I don’t think Shianna’s stairs are going all the way to the top floor anymore, boss.”
Not for the first time, Vashka thanked her lucky stars that no one else could understand what her mouthy familiar said.
Shianna glanced at the barking seal and slyly grinned. “You know Vashka, I always wanted a pet. You could give him to us as a wedding present.”
Nuki promptly jumped into the pond and vanished.
Vashka was suddenly sick of the princess’ banter.
“You’re not going to get away with it, princess.”
Shianna just smiled. “I already have, wizard. My Gregan and I are going to be reunited tomorrow, and there’s nothing you or anyone else can do to stop us!”
Vashka smiled grimly and stalked away, seething.
Nuki joined her at the far end of the pool. “Boss? I think there’s something you should know…”
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The chapel was filled to overflowing with the brightest and the boldest of the kingdom’s subjects. As the first to appear in the ceremony, Vashka solemnly and slowly walked down the aisle. The opulence of the church decorations was staggering. In her ridiculously ornate costume (the high priest had insisted that that garish silvery-white headdress had been worn by the Royal Wizard in every single Galenian royal wedding), Vashka began lighting the nine-and-ninety candles on the altar one by one. She completed her duties by kneeling reverently at the altar, where she quietly cast a spell while her back was turned to the congregation.
When the princess appeared, the crowd was properly stunned by her dazzling gown. They’d better be, considering the trouble I went through for that silk, thought the wizard. Shianna looked just as radiant as a new bride should, but there was still that hint of crazy around the whites of her eyes. She gave a contemptuous curl of her lip to Vashka, unseen by the rest of the room, before turning to face the crowd.
When the princess had finished her grand entrance, the crowd waited with an almost predatory anticipation. Where was the mysterious groom? Who was he?
Whatever they were hoping for, the blue-blood nobles of Galenia were most definitely not expecting to see a statue wheeled down the aisle. The dirt had been meticulously scrubbed away, but Gregan still wore his crown of white flowers. Harsh whispers erupted throughout the grand chapel. What would the king have said if he were there? Was anyone going to put a stop to this madness?
As a matter of fact someone was, and someone did. Just as Princess Shianna said “I do,” a pristinely white seal popped out from under the cloth-covered altar and touched his nose to the statue. “SHATTER, sucker!” Nuki barked. Poor Gregan-the-statue burst into flying bits of gravel. The audience went a little crazy. The princess shrieked and tried to tackle the seal, but he quickly scooted up the aisle, his barking laughter leading the way. Shianna got tangled up in her grand gown and fell flat on her face.
Vashka stood off to the side in her ridiculous get-up and laughed until she cried.
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The Court Wizard of Galenia stood by, overseeing the removal of the remarkably kingly statue from the depths of the royal garden pond. Her final official duty was going to be administering the antidote to Ulrich, undoing his petrification, after which she was handing in her resignation.
She wondered how Nuki would ever adjust to life in the desert. Maybe she could convince him that “orstretches” taste like fish. That just might do it…
[/sblock]
Deuce Traveler
Adventurer
All three writers finished... it's on now...
I see that, Deuce Traveler. It would appear to, indeed, be "on now." I shall summon the Tribunal and we will do our utmost to hasten for your continued entertainment.
