#So went to the store long story short i got the stupid dragon fruit

[bornsexyesterday]

Okay.

[tardytothepardy]

Fruits Basket - Vol 19

Compared to the last few books, this one was actually pretty mild in subject matter. Nothing too heavy, which was a pretty nice break. The heavy stuff is fine, don't get me wrong, but you need a break from it, y'know? These characters certainly need a break.

In this book, we got a lot of backstory on Kakeru, which was pretty interesting. He seems kinda weird, the more we learn about him. Something's off about his ability to emote. Idk.

In the first section (which honestly is pretty heavy), it continues right where vol 18 left off: Tohru saying that they gotta find a way to break the curse soon, for everyone's sake, but especially for Kyo's sake. This seems to throw Tohru into a tiny crisis, because she had promised herself, after her mom died, that she would never place anyone above her mom, that her mom would always be the most important person to her. But she's realizing that is starting to fade away.

When Izusu first asked her what was most important to her, Tohru couldn't answer. She wanted to say her mom, of course her mom was the most important thing to her, but there clearly was another thing that was rivaling for that first place. She made the promise to always keep her mom in mind, to always have her be the most important, so that she would never fade away. It was right after she died, and Tohru had cleared everything out of their apartment, and even then, Tohru felt like Kyoko's memory was fading away.

As she was walking home, caught up in all these memories and thoughts, Shigure pops up, and says that she's heading to the main Sohma house, which is weird. On the way back to their house (should I phrase it as Shigure's house? I dunno), Shigure mentions how both she and Izusu have made it clear that they're trying to break the curse, and Tohru asks if he knew that the curse was already breaking. He said he didn't, it was just a hunch. Apparently, there has never been a time when all 13 members of the Juunishi have been alive, there's always been one missing. Because of this, Shigure thinks that the time for the curse to break is coming near, that it's the "final banquet". Not to mention, things have been watered down a lot through the generations, like Hatori being possessed by the dragon, but he turns into a sea horse. No offense Hatori, but that is kinda underwhelming. Additionally, Kureno's living proof that something is happening, with the way that the curse just,, randomly broke for him, and he wasn't doing anything to trigger that.

Shigure then brings up Kyo, and how time is cutting close for him, and it won't be long before he'll be taken away (something that Tohru is very aware of). He also says that the reason that the Cat has always been hated, is because it's just kinda the most convenient. I mean, the Cat is the only one that has a "dark form", which is all gross and etc., and it's easier to pick on that, than to really sit with yourself and think about how you're a fuckin weirdo who can turn into an animal, not even by choice, it's just something that happens that mostly out of your control, and because of that, it causes you to distance yourself from everyone. It's a burden, it's really just a curse. He really just keeps hammering down on the point that everyone knows that Kyo's the worst of them all, and they use that to feel better about themselves, that at least they're not like that, a disgusting creature. Personally, idk why he's doing this, but it makes Tohru pretty upset. She was upset to begin with, and now he's just putting salt in the wound with an oddly calm demeanor. After she makes him stop saying all that, he asks her if she does love him, and that sends her right back into her initial crisis.

Kyo shows up soon after, and Shigure just says she's upset because she got in a fight with Izusu, and not to worry about it. Kyo tries to console her about this "fight", which only makes Tohru feel worse. She says she doesn't know what to do, and he said that in situations like that, it's best to not do anything. I swear to goodness, these two are just kinda hopeless.

Anyway, the next chapter continues (as it is wont to do), and it's been another year since Tohru's mom died. Kyo didn't go with Tohru and her friends, clearly it all brings up a separate bunch of bad memories for him. Mostly involving when his own mom died, and the shit his dad said to him at the funeral. The stupid thing is, that after his dad said, "You can't get close [to the headstone] because you feel guilty, don't you?" Kazuma said that isn't something you say to a child, and Kyo's dad doubled down and said that's why he said it, because he wouldn't.

Unsurprisingly, Kyo did understand, because ✨news flash✨ kids aren't stupid. They can understand what you're saying, it's not like an adult's words are all garbled like in Peanuts. Especially when they're looking you dead in the eye, accusing you of killing their wife and your mother. They understand. He understood. (Why couldn't have kicked Kyo's dad in the throat he just,, he deserves it)

Anyway, while that particular thing in sitting around in his head, he runs into Tohru's grandfather, who's just kinda sitting there, chilling. He recognizes Kyo, which is what Kyo gets for having bright orange hair (he didn't do it on purpose but he has to understand the consequences of being a main character: he's recognizable) While they're talking, Kyo notices that Tohru's grandfather keeps calling Tohru "Kyoko", and Kyo asks about it. Tohru's grandfather (he doesn't really get a name, but this is also really clumsy ;-;) says it's to remember Kyoko, and shortly after Kyoko died, it was partially for Tohru's sake. He then asks Kyo if he knows why Tohru asks the way she does. I would imagine that if Kyo did think about it at all, he'd just figure it's because that's how she is, but Tohru's grandfather says it's an imitation of her father, Katsuya. This is mostly because after Katsuya died, some relatives started saying that Tohru wasn't anything like Katsuya, are you sure she's his daughter? Disgusting shit like that. Tohru's grandfather mused that they probably said it because they didn't think Tohru would understand them, which kinda makes Kyo go "!!" because holy crap, he was just thinking about that! how crazy!, and Tohru's grandfather says that, if nothing else, a kid can understand if a comment is nice or mean, but they are usually pretty good at understanding things.

After that, Kyo went home and saw Tohru taking down the laundry (do they not have a dryer or was it just more poetic to have her hanging them on a line and having them flutter around in the breeze?), and was thinking about the things that Tohru's grandfather said, along with some times that he was with Kyoko. Apparently, Kyo had seen (not really met) Tohru before they met in the beginning of the series. One time Kyoko was fretting about having to stay overtime at work, and how Tohru would be alone at home for a while, and so I guess Kyo decided that he'd check up on Tohru, and she was just sitting at the table, eating dinner, and he thought she looked pretty lonely.

Jump back to current events, Kyo's just been standing there, thinking about all this stuff while Tohru was folding laundry, and she finally noticed him. Ack! Startlements. Out of the blue, Kyo asked Tohru about her dad, and she froze up. She then said that they didn't really, but according to her mom, they acted the same. Then she retracted that statement, and revealed that she used to think her dad was a bad man, mostly just because as child, she used to fear that he would take Kyoko away from her, despite remembering that he was a kind and caring person. When he heard that, Kyo thought it was stupid, but it was most likely just from her trying to cope with her dad's death, and how her mom reacted so severely to it, and by thinking of her dad as a bad man, it was easier for her? Personally, I don't really follow the train of thought, I've read it a couple times, I'm just kinda confused by it, but it's mostly that she told herself a story that helped her, and it might have made her seem unaware of things (I hesitate to say "stupid"), so that she could push down her pain enough to seem happy on the outside. Tohru felt guilty about it, but Kyo told her that Kyoko probably knew what Tohru was doing, but it was okay, because Tohru helped Kyoko through a really tough time in her life (and he knows that for certain because Kyoko told him that).

Oh also the reason why there was all the billowing sheets and everything turned out to be kinda useful. Reassurance becomes awkward when you go to hug someone and you turn into a cat. So, stupid earlier question out of the way.

After all that, there is some unmistakably painful awkwardness between Kyo and Tohru, they're just stumbling over each other. Having to sit by and watch them is too much to bear for Yuki, so he flies off, to anywhere, because anywhere is better than that. And I mean, I've never been in that situation (because I'm generally not around people) but it's awkward enough just reading it, I think I would wither away or slam my head on a table/wall if I had to be around it, so I don't blame Yuki whatsoever. While he's wandering around, a woman comes up to him, asking if he's Ayame. Hm,, I wonder who this mysterious woman is??

(But first, a short peek back to the house and-- oh of course Kyo and Tohru are still struggling to exist around each other cool cool, and oh! Tohru just said something very cute and endearing and Kyo had a heart attack nice move my dude, and off in the distance, Hanajima senses their struggles and general pain)

Okay, back to Yuki. He went to Ayame's store to ask about that woman, and Ayame tells him that she was someone that he went to school with. He was the student body president, and he came to be friends with (or at least, he was friendly, there's a difference) another president from an all-girls school. Unbeknownst to him, she had fallen in love with him, but when he was younger, he didn't really seem to give a shit about people. Like, he seemed to be a raging asshole, not even on purpose. He just never took the time to consider and understand other people's feelings, and was just flippant to everything. So when this girl confessed her feelings to Ayame, he was decently surprised (kinda. If he was anywhere as popular as Yuki is in school, he probably had people confessing to him all the time, but unlike Yuki, Ayame probably just used that to boost his ego. What I'm saying is that it wouldn't really be a surprise to him; I have a feeling that he'd heard it a lot throughout high school), gave a "Oh, that's nice. What's your name again?" which was a huge blow to the girl. They'd been friends for a while, which she said. He then proceeded to say, "Oh, well then I guess your personality was so dull that I couldn't be bothered to remember!" Holy fuck. This is just getting worse and worse. Never mind the fact that Shigure and Hatori were there too, this wasn't just Ayame and the girl, and Shigure was snickering and poorly attempting to hide it. Hatori finally made them stop while the girl ran off, and Ayame had the gall to ask why. Dude. Wow.

It took him a while to fully understand what had happened, and how acting that way can really hurt someone, until he met Mine, the girl who works with him in the costume shop. (She's pretty distinctive in that she's always wearing a maid costume. She's enthusiastic about costumes) Yuki asked if Mine was Ayame's girlfriend, and Ayame said that she was, though they didn't make the biggest deal out of it. After going through his few minutes of Intense Retrospective, Ayame said (dramatically, you know him) that he hopes that moment hasn't traumatized her or affected her poorly, and Yuki said that she actually seemed pretty happy, if anything she was embarrassed, but it seemed like she had a husband and kid, so it could be guessed that she moved on from that incident. Yuki then tried to ask if Mine knows about the curse, but Ayame skillfully swerved around that by entirely ignoring the question, and Mine had come back from the store, so that conversation was over. But, when she came back, another followed, none other than Kakeru, who apparently is pretty friendly with Mine and Ayame, since the two of them came to the school during the "Sorta Cinderella" play to provide costumes.

While Kakeru was there, he briefly brought up Machi, and so she was brought over as well. That's only significant because she saw something she liked, and it pops up again later. Slightly later in this book, but more later in the series. It's a whole thing.

We also get a short little peek at what Kyo and Tohru are doing at the end of the chapter. I guess they just went out for shopping and stuff, and came across a place with lots of cats, who were quite excited to see Kyo. (Kyo was less excited to see the cats, it's probably for the better that they're separated by glass.)

The next chapter starts with Shigure at the main Sohma house, where apparently Akito has been stuck in her room for so long, asking if she thinks the world will change around her if she just stays in there long enough. He then leaves, and Akito says, "Fine! I don't care anymore!" (which, statistically speaking, almost always means that they still care), but Shigure doesn't bother with it. Being stubborn in this situation isn't going to help anything, but it's just not worth arguing over.

The scene jumps to school, and apparently Momiji's gotten a hell of a growth spurt, now he's all tall and tall, and he doesn't wear as much cutesy stuff. It also looks like he got a crush on Tohru, but Tohru would most likely quietly tuck Momiji into the friendzone like, so fast. I honestly doubt Momiji would actually try anything to get Tohru's attention, but later in the book he taunts Kyo a little bit, basically saying, "You better figure out your situation with Tohru bc I also l-l-like her lots <3" (After which Kyo has a mild crisis like "Holy shit does everyone know?? What the fuck??")

Tohru and Momiji run into Yuki and Haru at school, and for some reason they're all gonna go back home and get ice cream. Idk why, I guess they just felt like it.

Back at home itself, Kyo walks in and just finds Kisa sitting at the table. She flustered, he's confused ("why tf is she here what's going on?"), and Hiro pops out of nowhere to defuse a situation that wasn't occurring. Anyway, Kyo starts to walk off before Kisa says Hello!, and he's just like, "...hi. Anyway." and I'm just saying any of this bc it was so fuckin funny to me, idk why Kisa was acting like that, that might just be how she is, I've forgotten, but yeah.

Swerving back momentarily to the main Sohma house, Hatori's asking Shigure why he's always so mean to Akito. Would it really be so bad to just be nice for once? Shigure's pretty indifferent to it, especially when he said that Hatori's niceness or Kureno's niceness are more genuine, but he just can't fake that stuff, he doesn't care. He knows he's an annoying lil shit, and he doesn't seem to want to take any steps towards fixing that. After all, it's not his job to make Akito happy. (seriously though what's up with this whiplash between here and Tohru and Co. it's kinda weird.)

Let's just switch over to the last main chunk of the book, because I don't want to repeat myself too many times. This is the one that focuses on Kakeru, and his general weirdness. So he has a girlfriend, her name is Komaki Nakao. Just,, keep that in mind, I guess, so that I'm not saying "Kakeru's girlfriend" far too many times.

Anyway, Kakeru and Yuki head to the student council room, and Yuki gives Machi a little apology gift for having to deal with Ayame and Mine at the costume shop. Kimi complains about not getting something, which Naohito is irritated by (I think he lives to be irritated). She nabs the bag, opens it, and what is inside but a little Mogeta paper weight dude, a smaller version of the Mogeta doll that Ayame had in his shop that she was interested in (see I told you it was relevant), and she likes it a lot. Yuki can somehow tell by her waving it around in the air, idk how but he knows her better than I do. (Seeing as they're all in their fictional universe and I, it turns out, am not)

We also got a mini backstory into why Kimi is the way she is. It's because one time in middle school, a group of girls went up to her and said, "You think you can just float on by just because you're pretty and popular with boys?" and Kimi heartedly agreed, and just,,, didn't change. In case you were wondering.

Moving onto the part specifically about Kakeru, he used to have a thing against Tohru, a while back. When Kyoko got hit by that car, it turns out that the driver died as well, and that driver was Komaki's dad. So when Tohru and Kakeru ran into each other at the graveyard place, he basically was like, "Don't you dare think you can be the most sad in this situation, because someone else got hurt, so that means you can't be in as much pain as they are," completely out of the blue. Of course, Tohru didn't say anything against it, she wouldn't do that normally, and at the time she was still heavily mourning the death of her mother. He told Komaki of what he said to Tohru, reasoning that, like he said, she can't be the one most sad here, someone else has died. He saw her go about school, smiling and laughing, clearly she has to be faking her misery (rather than,, idk,, coping,,, and trying to get through life as a sudden orphan,,, idk,,), but Komaki didn't take it well, saying that you can't make a competition of something like being sad, or mourning. Him going out of his way to say that to Tohru did not help. That confused Kakeru initially, because he thought they were both on the same page. He did apologize, when they ran into each other later, completely owning up to his shit, which is nice. It's nice when people are accountable for their actions.

Back to Yuki and Machi for a second, Machi didn't have a chance to thank Yuki for the tiny Mogeta after she first got it, but she did like the gift. She tried to ask for what Yuki wanted, but all he said was self-confidence and fertilizer. (Does she know that he has a garden? I don't think she knows, that would probably seem very odd out of context.)

I think I'm gonna end that there. I have four more books left, so it's ending soon, but given how infrequently I actually sit down and write these, I just hope I'll be able to finish before they have to be taken back to the library.

[beardyallen]

Day 3 - An extensive recap

First, I want to extend my apologies to those who have been patiently awaiting this post. I had every intention of writing this yesterday, which got away from me (as you’ll see if you keep reading), and then I had every intention of writing this in the morning, which disappeared (again, as you’ll see if you keep reading). It’s now 5:38pm on Wednesday, February 20th as I’m typing this sentence, and I’m once again exhausted from a long day.

[Edit 2: TL;DR for the following TL;DR -- A bunch of cool stuff happened, including books, dragons, lions, motorcycles, KFC, banks, SIM cards, a Starbucks, public transit, and traveling to two opposite ends of Beijing in a single day. Also my trip went from horribly lonely and daunting to pretty freaking cool and slightly less daunting in less than 24 hours. Done typing this at 8:55pm]

Edit: It’s legit 8:37pm when I’m making this edit, only a bit after posting the original. I wanted to add a tl;dr for those not interesting in reading all of this shit. Basically, I made 4 friends in Beijing, none of them from the same country, only one of them is white, only one is male, and only one is from the US. All three of these descriptions describe CB, my supervisor. His wife, RB, is Indian and works with children orphaned due to birth defects. There’s ML, a half-Brazilian, half-Japanese Communications instructor at ICB, and her friend R, who is herself a former Chinese physician turned public health professional/liaison/something-or-other that seems far more impressive and is exactly what she wants to be. All of them are really cool, interesting people that I’m very glad I had the opportunity to meet. In no particular order, I went to several bookstores, a Starbucks, a KFC early in the morning, the supermarket (twice) and got beer (both times) for ridiculously low prices, experienced the Lantern Festival (still not entirely sure what this is, but there were dragons and lions and motorcycles doing crazy synchronized stunts in a metal globe) at an amusement park, rode 5-6 different subway trains and a city bus, ate 10+ new foods, bought a book (because of course I did) which has both the original English and the translate Chinese characters on each page, tried to open a bank account, then got a SIM card, then actually opened a bank account, finally unpacked my luggage, and spent 3 hours typing this blog post. Also the long flight and trip from the airport to my new apartment were mostly uneventful. See? Even this was super long!]

The last you all heard from me here was as I was sitting in a bar in the Vancouver Airport, Sunday morning. Which was sort of 2 days ago, but sort of 3. Time zones are funky, especially when you cross the International Date Line. *shrug*

After I finished writing that post, I lumbered over to my gate and waited to board with the other couple hundred passengers. At one point, I noticed an older woman (probably in her 60′s or 70′s?) trucking along on one of those things that I can only manage to call a human-conveyor-belt that you see in airports. I mention this as she, had she been on carpeted flooring, she would have been making good time; as it so happens, she was on the conveyor belt that was going opposite of her destination. She was still making progress, but every so slowly, and seemed maddeningly oblivious to the fact that the floor was fighting her at every step. Fortunately, she made it to the other end without incident, although the same cannot be said for when she attempted to enter the next belt; a concerned employee using that particular belt in the intended fashion beckoned that she stop and try the other. So she stopped walking. And didn’t do anything, even when her feet made it back to where she had started. Naturally, she took a pretty solid tumble, lessened only by the shocked, and rightfully flustered, employee, who managed to help her to her feet as half of the onlookers gawked.

The actual flight, all 9 hours of it, went off rather uneventfully. Especially compared to the above story. It was nice having the longer flight second, as completing the first gave me an unearned sense of accomplishment; I’m nervous for my return as I’ll have actually achieved something when I get back to Vancouver, only to have to sit back down for three more hours. Seems less enticing, especially as I won’t be going back to an apartment that I’m renting. Oh well: that’s a problem for Future-Me, as are most things. I will say that the food on the flight was quite satisfying, and the complementary wine was much tastier than expected! And I managed to read a good chunk of Dan Brown’s Origin.

After landing in the Beijing airport, I managed to get through customs without too much trouble and had my first several experiences of what I’ll just refer to here as stranger-staring. #sarcasticwoo

I was met near baggage claim by an undergraduate at the University who chose to call himself Paul. I would later find out that, although it is common practice for Chinese residents to give themselves “American” or “Western” names, they don’t seem to share those names with their fellow residents.

Needless to say, I was exhausted and just wanted to eat something and lie down without dealing with anymore people. To his credit, Paul was an excellent host, his English was quite good, and he helped me to my apartment without incident. I think he was expecting to escort me to dinner at one of the nearby dining halls on campus (Princess Building), but I (hopefully graciously) conveyed that I would really rather just go to bed. After he left, I took a stroll on campus to the Princess Building to check it out for myself, and then stopped at a nearby convenience store to grab some snacks. GUYS! THEY HAVE CUCUMBER-FLAVORED LAYS POTATO CHIPS!!! And so many other flavors that are mind-boggling, and somehow simultaneously vague and specific.

Once I was back in my apartment, I chowed down on some fruit bread, drank some water, had a moment of near paralyzing fear/anxiety/regret/shame/etc., scolded myself for being (I think understandably) pathetic, and then went to sleep. By that point, I had been up for nearly 23 hours, and it was somehow already 7pm on Monday, Feb. 18. I slept until 6am the next morning.

That morning, I got in touch with CB, my supervisor, who was more than happy to meet with me around 11am. So I spent the morning figuring out how to be an adult person in Beijing. Several standard things took place that were daunting only because I’m in Beijing: showering, brushing my teeth, grabbing some toilet paper to carry with me, deciding how much cash to keep in my wallet, etc. I also came to the disturbing realization that there are precisely three outlets, each with one port. One of them was occupied by the television, one by the mini-fridge, and one was free to charge my tablet; it was then that I decided to try to go shopping and track down a power strip.

Day 2: Merry Mart

First, I want to say one quick thing: the exchange rate from RMB (also called yuan) to USD is approximately 0.15:1. So, as an example, I spotted a can of beer for 5.90 yuan, or roughly $0.90. For those of you who know me, you may understand why this was my first example.

Now, the supermarket that I was heading towards is located on the other side of the north gate of the CAU (China Agricultural University, which houses ICB, or the International College of Beijing, where I’m living and instructing), and my apartment is in the very southeast corner of campus, about a 10 minute walk away. And it’s not even 8am yet. I mention this as, when I approached the supermarket, or rather the building housing the supermarket and a dozen or so other shops, I noticed a KFC right next door. Now, I shouldn’t have been shocked to see the advertisements were for food that you would never find at a KFC in the States, but I was. What I feel completely justified in being shocked at was that the KFC was already quite busy. Naturally, I stepped inside and saw that a “Chicken Burger” with a glass of milk (and maybe a side?) was going for 12 yuan, or $1.80. So cheap!!

I stepped out without buying anything and continued into the supermarket. Oh, the wonders I beheld. I’ll try to keep it short, but I’ll point out that I’ve never paid so much attention in the produce and meat sections of a supermarket as I did yesterday. Once I made it past these sections, I experienced an onslaught of packing that looked both familiar and foreign (yes, I realized how stupid that sounds as I typed it). As I was on a bit of a mission (for hand soap and a couple power strips), I contained my curiosity as best I could. But I did take a peak at all of the flavors of Lays Chips in the snack section...

Fortunately, I managed to find a power strip! They had Philips power strips going for 70 yuan (~$10.50) and some from a company I’ve never heard of for 30/40 yuan. Naturally, I grabbed on of the cheaper variety. It seems I didn’t bring enough cash the first time. I moved on, failing to find anything that I could guarantee was hand soap, but let me tell you: after being around people who I could not understand, guessing at products based on the images along, and recognizing that I’m waaaaay in over my head, I have never been so happy to see a can of Budweiser in my life!

Now, I can’t be certain, but I’m pretty sure a 3-pack 16-oz or 500 mL or whatever-their-volume cans came out to 9 yuan, or $1.35. What a deal! (Fast forward to this morning, and I stumbled an even better find: 500 mL cans of Guiness with nitrous rockets for 15 yuan ($2.25) a pop! In the States, those usually run $16 for four!)

After spotting way more milk (a recent trend, apparently) than I’ve ever seen, ultra-pasteurized so it can sit on an uncooled shelf for months at a time, heaps and heaps of “sanitary tissue” and slew of snacks that boggled my poor, unworldly mind, I made my way to the checkout. Fortunately, I stick out so damn much that people just expect that I don’t speak Chinese; the look of mild irritation isn’t grating at all, it just lets me know that I’m not the only one who feels moderately uncomfortable at my residing in Beijing for these next 4 months. The interaction at the stand was pleasant enough, and we mimed our way through the bits that weren’t communicable. Then I headed back home to meet with CB.

Day 2: The Book

So, I’m already feeling wildly unprepared to teaching a senior-level mathematics course, but one of the few things that was keeping me grounded was that the book was to be selected by administrators at ICB/CAU, so that would save me having to make most of the decisions regarding content for my Probability class. Moreover, the university would provide the textbooks to the students. Little did I know, and little did CB know, and little did the person supposedly in charge of retrieving said textbooks from the library, no textbook was on file for this class. #sarcasticwoo

FORTUNATELY (can’t believe how many lucky breaks I’m catching!), there happened to be a textbook titled Probability and Statistics for Engineers and something-or-other. To be honest, my eyes glazed over at “Engineers,” not because they are lesser scientists, because they are most assuredly not, but because they just don’t appreciate the fine nuances of theoretical mathematics. That is to say, they’re lesser scientists. ;) #allinjest #imsuretheyvegotsickerburnsforme So, I guess I’m teaching from an Engineering textbook.

During this brief window of time with CB, I learned how various countries measure the breathability of the air, acquired a facemask, and snagged an air purifier. Things necessary to life in Beijing! I was then invited out to lunch with CB and his wife RB; I was unaware that their would be fourth, ML. Having never met RB, and being unaware that ML existed, I waited for the 20 minutes that CB needed to get a couple things ready before lunch in my room, then headed down to the entrance of the Guest House (where my apartment and office are located, in case I haven’t mentioned it by name yet). Waiting there was a 30-something Asian-descent woman who somehow didn’t look like she was a native Chinese resident. Best guess: RB. She smiles at me and asks if I’m here to have lunch with R, to which I say confirm and ask if that’s her. Turns out it’s ML, and a reference to a particular Disney movie popped into my head. (I bet you’re not thinking of the same one I was, though!) Anyway, it’s 12:30pm at that point, and I wouldn’t spend the next 11 hours with ML, a Communications instructor for ICB who has only been in Beijing since September, barely speaks any Chinese and gets by reading it as she knows Japanese. Turns out she was born in Brazil, though! That certainly explained why her features were not quite Chinese.

CB and RB showed up a few awkward, mostly silent, minutes later as, not anticipating a fourth left me just socially awkward enough to just keep my mouth shut and let my mind wander. RB led the way to a Chinese restaurant around the corner, and we had a ridiculously cheap meal. Everything was delicious, even the rice noodles and cabbage dish! CB asked how open I was to trying things I’ve never had before, and I responded that I’m hear to make the make the most of this opportunity. He followed up with, “So, you’ll try chicken feet?” I’ve never so quickly doubted my convictions before! Fortunately, the food we order was basic enough fare for a Chinese restaurant, so I didn’t have to prove my grit just yet.

Day 2: The Big Adventure

During the meal, ML mentioned that the “lantern festival” was that night, and that she’d be joining a friend of her’s somewhere in Beijing, TBD. CB mentioned off-handedly that there was a 4-story bookstore several kilometers away. My interest was piqued, but having no means of transportation, I kept my mouth shut. ML did not. She expressed serious interest in venturing out to the store, and I asked if it would be in imposition if I joined. After lunch, CB and RB gave us a rough pin location for the building, walked us over to a bus stop, explained to me how to use my transit card (Thanks, CG!!!), and saw us off on our adventure. At this point, it seems relevant to mention that, although I have two cell phones (my usual American one, and a Chinese phone bought secondhand from ES) (THANKS ES!!!), I don’t have internet access or any real means to contact CB or RB. I also don’t access to a map app (see: I don’t have internet access). As it turns out, ML’s access is hindered by the fact that her iPhone is apparently dated enough to not operate at full capacity with a Chinese SIM card. So she has spotty internet. SPOILERS: Her cell phone would die later that evening. #dundundun

The bus ride was uneventful, and we got off where we thought was should. Without the name of the bookstore or any solid evidence to suggest precisely where the bookstore was, ML then confides in me that she has frequently found herself incapable of finding her destination, wandered around for several hours, then given up and went home. My confidence was soaring. But, as they say, “When in Beijing...”

After finding a map of the surrounding area and comparing it to a screenshot of the rough-pin-location of the bookstore in question, I managed to match shapes cut out by walkways and roads and spot where we should be heading. The pin led us to a bookstore. But this bookstore had only one floor, although the building housing it had 20 floors and an elevator that looked out over the surrounding area. Needless to say, we rode the elevator for a moment before deciding to continue exploring. Stepping outside, we tried to reach CB...and we did! He gave us a more accurate pin and the name of the bookstore. Only one of those two things wound up being helpful.

On our way over to the new location (2 more blocks West), we stumbled on a developed “alley” that housed a wide plethora of shops, including....A BOOKSTORE!!! Dudes and Dudettes: let me tell you, this bookstore was amazing!! Check out the pictures below:

So cool! But this wasn’t where the pin was located, only had two floors, and when we scaled the spiral staircase, some 20-something employees started walking towards us and speaking in Mandarin. ML goes, “I’m sorry, we don’t speak any Mandarin, but we think we know what you’re trying to say. Have a nice day!” And we walked out of the store with our tails tucked loosely between our legs.

I was I could accurately convey all of the things I saw that struck me as fascinating while we explored this area of Beijing, but honestly there was just too much, and I can’t imagine you all are still reading this carefully, given that I’m not exactly giving the “Reader’s Digest” version of events. Or so you may think. I guess what I’m trying to say is that I’m doing my best to keep this short while still conveying how crazy this day was. And we’re only a couple hours into my afternoon/evening with ML. I applaud any and all who keep reading attentively. I’ll try to make it entertaining.

I will say that in this alley, I got stared down by a police officer. Mildly intimidating and recalled to mind the other intimidating visual to grace me. Just after checking out at the supermarket that morning, while I was packing the couple of items I had purchased into my backpack, I looked up and saw, for the first time in my life, 4 full sets of riot gear. Helmet, vest, nightstick (or whatever it’s called), and some sort of gun in a padded case. Sure, I know that I’ve been around those things before in my life, but never were they in plain view, seemingly on display.

After a few more minutes, a few more crossed streets, and pulling ML out of the way of a car that didn’t seem to care that she was there, we made our way to the pin’s location. And none of the stores around us bore the name of the 4-story bookstore. But we did find another bookstore.........and it turned out to be the right one! Crazy!! Of course, this was after trying out what we guessed was a calligraphy shop that seemed to primarily sell books? The words on the door were somewhat misleading. Anyway, let me tell you: in spite of being in a bookstore filled with words that I can’t understand, I still felt so calm and secure being surrounded by all of those books!

At this point, ML and I seemed to have figured out each other’s senses of humor and made frequent jokes and shared stores as we roamed the shelves, looking desperately for books written in English. After searching all four floors, some twice, we find a section with no markings nearby that happened to have some books in English. After looking over all of the classics (pretty much all they had), discussing the ones we’ve read, conversing about those we haven’t, we each picked one out to buy. I’ve seen Aldous Huxley’s A Brave New World referenced too many times in crossword puzzles and trivia questions to not have developed an absurd curiousity for this book I’ve never read. So naturally I bought it. It seems like a rather nice-looking copy, no artwork to speak of, but elegant in a somewhat formal-Chinese kind of way. It came to 26 yuan, or about $3.90. HOW AM I BUYING A BOOK FOR THAT CHEAP?! WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING WITH MY LIFE?! *sigh* Well, I seem to be getting by without my Kindle fine enough for now...(THANKS AGAIN RS FOR SHIPPING IT TO ME!!! I’ll let you know as soon as it arrives!)

Day 2: The Lantern Festival

At this point, ML had heard from her friend who I will just call R (have yet to become privy to her family name), and we were given the name of the place we were headed towards: Happy Park. By now, it was around 4:15pm, and we needed to somehow figure out where Happy Park was, how to get there, and manage to not get lost in the process by 6:30pm. So we went for tea. The place we stopped in was what seemed to be a solid attempt at a German tea/coffee shop-slash-bakery. And I got a cup of English Breakfast Tea for 22 yuan ($3.30). Not the best deal, but I learned an invaluable lesson: just take a picture of what you want to order! So simple, so elegant, so effective!!! I was also by this time learning that most people make purchases using the main “social media” app, WeChat. In fact, many shops and restaurants don’t carry any cash as WeChat is just a more effective means of payment. You can link a debit card to your account and you’re good to go! (More on this in Day 3).

<I’ve been writing for almost 2 hours! Yikes!!!> <I wonder if I can get a book deal out of this...>

Without really knowing where to find a subway station, ML and I headed back to where the bus dropped us off, thinking at the very least we could head back to campus and the subway station there. (Also, for those of you who don’t know: I’ve never ridden a subway. Sure, I use RTD rails almost daily in Denver, but somehow this just seemed different. Especially given how many lines there are and that we didn’t actually know where we were going...) We found a bus heading back towards campus, hopped on, and almost immediately spotted a subway station. The bus didn’t drop us off for 2-3 more blocks...

After meandering back to the subway station, we found a map and lo-and-behold there was a stop dedicated to whatever Happy Park is. And it’s on the complete opposite side of town. #unethusedyay #adventuretime We plotted our course and hopped on the train without incident if you don’t count the pile of vomit that I would almost certainly have stepped in had ML not avoided it just before me! *phew* The subway itself was on par, if not nicer, than the trains in Denver, if only a bit louder. Confined spaces and all that. By the time we made our three transfers and got to the other side of Beijing, the sun had set, it was 6:20pm, and we had made it just in time! R met us at the station minutes after.

When we turned to see where we were headed, I was floored. Right in front of us with giant glowing words spelling out (in two languages) “Happy Park” was an amusement park that rivals some Disney parks in it’s show-y-ness. As it was dark, I can’t say precisely how big it was, but I was impressed. Tickets for entry were 145 yuan (roughly $20), which I fortunately had brought along that morning, not realizing precisely how crazy the day would get.

Once inside, R informed us that there’d be a show starting in a few minutes. We tried to find a spot, but the girls had trouble seeing over the heads of the people ahead of us. In fact, I had to stand on my tiptoes as most of the people in front of me were holding up their children, phones, and self-sticks. There was a small mound that almost certainly was not intended for foot-traffic, but nonetheless had a solid 75 people standing on 6-foot-tall trees. When we joined the crowd up there, hoping for a better vantage point, we were disappoint. That is, until ML decided to climb a tree. And I joined her. Naturally. I don’t have pictures of the entire show, sadly. I was too busy being floored and hoping that my one leg that was supporting my weight would hold up! I’m also not including them here as I have to format the videos. But stay tuned in the near future for videos!!

After the show, we wandered around the park for several more hours. I was quite impressed. And the food we got was quite delicious!! Small, fried potatos balls, and donut-hole sized balls loosely-based on a Japanese dish that I couldn’t possibly spell correctly, topped with dried fish. YUM! Check out the pictures of some of the attractions we saw:

This was the interior of an Aquariam-themed section of the park. It was a welcome respite near the end of the night, given that it felt like it was nearing 10F outside.

A Mayan temple, with a restaurant inside and, probably, a water-slide ride built into it? Hard to say. If only our phones hadn’t died and we weren’t so cold by the time we made it to the Athenian/Spartan-inspired section of the park! So many cool statues and buildings!

A still shot as 5 motorcyclists entered the arena after some drum-dancers! Stay tuned for videos of them riding inside the wire ball on the right! [Edit 3: the videos will likely get posted as gifs. Quality will probs be not great. One of them will involve the motorcyclists doing loop-stunts, and the other will involve a dragon-dance with dope fireworks. I didn’t get any video of the lion-dancers from earlier in the show, but take my word for it: it was dope as fuck. So much so that I don’t feel bad about dropping an f-bomb in this edit. I can’t possibly find the words after 3.5 hours of writing to convey just how cool this show was!]

Honestly, I’m not entirely sure what this is, but it looked cool!

This was a small bridge, reminiscent of the bridges in Europe where people write their initials on padlocks and toss the keys into the river below. From what we could tell (thanks to R’s understanding of her native tongue), the pieces all talk about the love between family, friends or significant others.

After the Aquarium-themed building got us toasty warm, and it was ticking closer and closer to 10pm, we bee-lined it out of the park and back to to the subway station. Another three transfers, some more conversation, and we were back on campus. While on the trains, either to or from Happy Park, I don’t remember which, ML commented on how quiet I had been earlier that day while waiting for CB and RB before lunch. Given how quiet I was at lunch, she was understandably worried that the pattern would continue. If you know me, you know it just takes a bit for me to get comfortable and figure out how to talk to you. Needless to say, I told too many stories with a surplus of details in each of the bookstores, on each of the trains, and all of the time in between. I’m thinking ML is going to be a pretty solid friend these next couple of months, if I she doesn’t get sick of my stories first!

As I alluded to above, it was around 11pm before we were back in the Guest House. I was ridiculously pooped but not entirely unimpressed at how not-jet-lagged I was! I passed out soon thereafter and woke up for the third and final time around 7am.

Day 3: Merry Mart II, the Second Part

Alas, morning came; and with it came a surplus of energy to spent getting my life together in Beijing. I still hadn’t unpacked my luggage, there were too many things my apartment was still missing, and I didn’t have a reliable means of feeding myself as I had been warned (and witnessed) that many places just simply don’t carry cash. And naturally don’t accept American credit cards.

So I packed a small bag and headed out again. I stopped by Starbucks, attempted to order a Black Tea Latte from the girl who said “Morning” to me, and made the false assumption that this particular colloquialism implied English-fluency. I wound up with a regular Latte. Still good, though! After that, I made my way to the KFC near the Merry Mart only to find that this establishment is one described above. My cash wouldn’t do me much good there. *shrug*

In the Merry Mart, I grabbed several more bread-based food items, a microwavable meal in a bowl, another power strip, some gum, and more chips. Pringles. American flavors. Two cans of Guiness, and two bottles of hand soap. This time, I kept track of the price of each individual item so I knew how much cash to have ready at the register. This time went far more smoothly, and I filled my entire backpack with items that ran up to 134 yuan (~$20). HOW?! HOW AM I GETTING SO MUCH FOR SO LITTLE I LOVE THIS!!!

Day 3: Getting my shit together

After that, my mind was set on opening a bank account to connect to my WeChat account. I reached out to CB, who graciously offered his assistance for a small amount of time. Ideally, this wouldn’t take too long. After all, he has plenty of work to be getting on with!

Well, the first bank we tried didn’t work because I’m not staying in town for more than 2 years. The second bank was more accepting. He translated exceptionally while I filled out documents written completely in Chinese. I was having an internal panic attack as I did something that felt incredibly wrong or anything. No, not at all. It’s totally okay to sign your name on documents that you can’t read. Yup, totally okay...

As it turns out, the bank would need to send me verification texts, so I gave them my phone number. But my American phone number wouldn’t work for them (they didn’t even try!), so after 30 minutes of waiting and 10 minutes of paperwork, CB and I headed down the street to get a SIM card and a cellular plan. Oh boy. All told, I think I waited for another hour there while CB got some work done; the paperwork and discussions took another 20-30 minutes. Once I had my phone situated, CB assured me that I could handle the rest of the bank stuff on my own as the staff would certainly recognize me and remember what I wanted. Plus, most of the paperwork was already filled out, right? Right? *sigh

The staff at the bank were less than enthused to find that CB hadn’t joined me. This was gonna be a blast, let me tell ya...

All told, I filled out twice as much paperwork as the staff scrambled to find a way to communicate with the moronic American who didn’t have the slightest idea what was going on around him. Of course, filling out this paperwork and determining exactly what they wanted and whether or not I wrote down the right things (i.e. understood exactly what information they were after) included 5-8 different sessions with several different employees, each with somewhere between 10-70 min wait-times. On the plus side, I’m almost done with Dan Brown’s Origin. Not his best work, but certainly entertaining enough to pass the time in a bank surrounded by people who probably would rather I not exist. To be clear, I don’t begrudge them at all; their service was impeccable, and their patience was never-ending, and the entire thing was significantly less annoying than it had any right to be, given the language barrier.

I left their establishment many hours later with a debit card, Chinese bank account, and the means to buy stuff wherever I wanted to go. And a significant amount of confidence that I can get through the next four months quite contentedly. Granted, I didn’t do nearly as much to earn this confidence as the staff at my new bank did!

After the fiasco at the bank, I went back to the Guest House, unpacked my suitcases, and laid down in bed to type this novella. That was several hours ago.

Convinced that I’ve had a crazy few days?

A coworker from Denver asked me how China has been so far, and I told him that it “[w]ent from shit to fantastic so damn fast.” Hopefully my long, rambling story has here has justified that claim for those of you reading this.

There was only one other day in my life that I can recall feeling as justifiably petrified as I did Monday night. I described the feeling as trying to wake up from a dream only to find that you’re wide awake. I was encouraged earlier today to remember that I don’t have to get through all 4 months of this experience at once; I just need to take it one day at a time. I usually don’t find these adages and idioms to be particularly helpful, but this one seems to be true.

In the future, blog posts probably won’t be nearly as long. Thanks for reading!

Now to finish this beer and book!

Sláinte,

BeardyAllen

[cbwalive]

CBWA SUPER ESTRELLA EP.10

Welcome everybody to another exciting episode of Super Estrella, I’m your host good ol JR alongside Gordon Solie.

Gordo this Sunday is Wrestle Rock at Sea 4 but before that we have business to attend to tonight.

That’s right Jimbo, when we left you last week the contract was signed for the main event this Sunday between the challenger Goldberg and the champion Raman Reigns and tonight there will be a final face off between the two Also tonight is there friction between two BS Service members as we saw last week The Underfaker and The Fiend couldn’t seem to be on the same page, well they will be tagging up again tonight to face Ax and Smash of Demolition We will also see the brand new CBWA Univision Television champion The Colombian Dragon as he puts the title on the line against Party Jannetty That should be a great one indeed plus we had our camera all last week with Blaster Lashley and PN News to see who is the best food man in Bogotá and the results will shock you folks and wait just a minute that’s the music of AuZZtin and look at this Gordon he has that BMF walk to the ring.

Let’s take you to the ring and see what he has to say Cut the damn music, I’ve been sitting my ass at home long enough, Miz you have a contract for me to sign for Drug Wars 5 well son I have a counter offer for you right here.

Oh boy ZZ is certainly not in the mood tonight Now I ain’t here to sign a stupid contract I’m here to whip your ass so get your sorry ass out here so you can get what’s coming to you The Gatorsnake is wanting The Miz now and oh wait just a minute it’s the boss Mr. Schneider

Now ZZ as the head of creative of The CBWA and as of right now the boss, I can’t have you out here making threats when we all know you are not one hundred percent cleared from your injury, you have to think what would happen if The Miz came out here

 I whoop his ass

I can’t have this company reliable if something were to worsen your injury and you can be permanently paralyzed ZZ I appreciate the fact that you and the CBWA care........and I can also appreciate that he’ll you can kiss my ass

Oh my god ZZ just stunned Mr. Schneider and look at this, the cops are on ZZ and they are arresting him, ZZ is going to jail

Folks stay with us we will be right back

And welcome back folks as we are seeing ZZ being hauled off to jail

And I wonder what this means for this Sunday, will ZZ show up to sign the contract as Kenny is now with the Boss Mr. Schneider

  Mr. Schneider after what just went down what is going to happen to ZZ Well Mr. AuZZtin will definitely be spending the night in jail and as far as this Sunday goes, if he can not get cleared by Sunday then Mr. AuZZtin will be indefinitely suspended until further notice

Guys you heard it from the boss back to you.

Alright Kenny thank you for that and we we will keep our eyes on that as we take you to the ring in the Fink

The following contest set for one fall is for the CBWA Univision Television Championship, making his way to the ring weighing in at 229lbs Party Jannetty

And there you see Party as this match is brought to by Fruit Stripes, need a fruity taste in your mouth? 

Try Fruit Stripes available at your nearest store As we take back to The Fink for the champions introduction.

And his opponent weighing in at 235lbs he is the CBWA Univision Television Champion The Colombian Dragon

Here comes the brand new CBWA Univision Television Champion which he won last week in that epic fatal four way as referee Nicholas Patrick holds up that brand new belt Bell rings and we are underway, as last week Dragon said he would be a fighter champion as he extends his hand for Party but Party totally ignores it and is focusing his attention on some ladies in the front row Party better focus on the champion That indeed as now Party turns around and bam a running knee this all but over 1,2,3 let’s get the official announcement The winner of the match and still CBWA Univision Television Champion The Colombian Dragon And Part...... wait just a minute that music only means one man, could be? 

My god it’s The Heartbreak Kid Shawn Michaels, what is he doing here? Folks don’t you dare go away we will be right back

Welcome back folks and if your just tuning in you just missed a surprise appearance from the one and only Shawn Michaels, yes that Shawn Michaels who now has the mic, I can’t wait to hear this.

Super Estrella!!!!!! 

The Heartbreak Kid is live and in living color!!!! Now a lot of questions obviously need to be answered but I have to take care of some business first, Party me and you go way back, I know you still like to party obviously but can you still rock and roll? Basically what I’m saying is what you say if we bring the Rockers to the CBWA?

Oh my god what an announcement and Michaels now extending the hand and Party has embraced him, are we seeing the reformation of the Rockers? 

And oh wait just a minute Michaels with a super kick What’s this about? 

Why Shawn? And now Michaels walks away, folks we will stay on this story for sure as we take you to Kenny

Wow what a crazy night already as I welcome my guest at this time, he is the CBWA Intercontinental Champion Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert

Champ, welcome back how’s the knee going?

Well Kenny I actually just got back from the doctors and he told me that I’m actually....... Oh wait just a minute we are being interrupted by Foot Von Erich

Shut it Kenny it’s Hollywood Von Erich, I hate to come out here and play spoiler for everybody here and everybody sitting at home baby but I got a hot tip concerning your knee, I’ve been told that your little injury that I caused is worst than thought and it looks like you are going to have a little surgery and you are actually here to surrender that beautiful Intercontinental Title to yours truly, so let’s quit messing around and hand over that title to its rightful owner Well Hollywood once again you are wrong, as a matter of fact I was going to tell everybody that I’m actually one hundred percent and since you wanna come out and spoil stuff, how bout I spoil something for you, this Sunday at Wrestle Rock at Sea 4, you and me for this title and to make it fun, since you think I have one good knee and we all know you got one good foot, let’s make this a ladder match, what do you say “Hollywood” You got it baby

There you have it another great match added for this Sunday at Wrestle Rock at Sea 4, back to you guys

Alright thank you Kenny, Wrestle Rock at Sea this Sunday is shaping up to be a big pay per view you do not want to miss it this Sunday folks, call your local pay per view provider, well now we are going to take you to a video recorded earlier this week as the CBWA camera crews followed both Blaster Lashley and PN Pitmaster News to see who exactly had the best food service in Bogotá check it out Alright guys come on in to Blaster Lashley’s Ubber Eats, we already got a delivery ready to go so hop on in

Should you be eating that? Of course man, I ain’t going to deliver something that could be poisonous to my customers, it’s called customer service man But the food is almost gone Man you are tripping, y’all better not cramp my style, alright here we are stay here Hey you my Ubber Eats guy? The best in town, got your food right here Ummm this is only half of what I ordered Hey man I would take it up with Taco Bell, I just deliver it Oh ok here you go Appreciate your business, uh hold up, you’re a little short Well I didn’t get my full meal Look man I said you are going have to take it up with them, now give me my damn money or I’ll beat it out of you Ok ok here man Thanks have a nice day and thank you for choosing Blaster Lashley Ubber Eats Hey come on in guys, welcome to PN News Pit house, make yourself at home Thanks Pitmaster what’s on the menu? Well.....we have some yo baby yo baby yo baby back ribs, corn on the cob that so good it will make you turn your knob, refried beans that will make your colon mean and cobbler pie that will make you die, I’ll be right back with your plate Alright guys here we are let me know what you guys think, hold that thought I got a driver here, wait a minute you are my Ubber driver? Yeah the best in town man, why did I agree to deliver this garbage? Garbage? Yeah everybody knows that you were the reason for the city wide sickness with your expired meat You better watch what you say fat boy Looks who’s talking chubby I’m about to show you chubby And as you see Gordon a fight broke out between Lashley and PN News and we just got confirmation from Mr. Schneider that this Sunday it will be PN Pitmaster News goes one on one with Blaster Lashley Those poor camera crew Indeed well we are going take a quick break and we will be right back with our main event right after this

And welcome back to Super Estrella it’s main event time as we take you to the Fink

The following contest set for one fall is a tag team match making their way to the ring at a total combined weight of 621lbs Ax and Smash Demolition

And their opponents first weighing in at 317LBS The Fiend Bray Wyatt And his tag team partner to be accompanied to the ring by his manager Zombie Robert Blake, weighing in at 308lbs the Underfaker These two were not in the same page last week against Roberto Gibson so this is a take two if you will for them as they are going up against Ax and Smash of Demolition, bell rings as it looks like it’s going to be Ax and The Fiend starting off for their respective team and The Fiend is taking out some frustration on Ax and a tag to Underfaker and faker taking Ax for a ride and wow what athleticism from the big man a flying closeline and now look at this Gordon, The Fiend tagged himself in and Faker didn’t seem to like that at all No he sure didn’t as now The Fiend whips Ax to his corner and tells Smash to tag in, reluctantly he does and is met with a hard right hand Wow what power from this man and now throws Smash into the ropes and a huge body dive knocking the wind out of both men, who got the worst of that? And now Underfaker tags himself in and look at this a stare down And now look out as Smash from behind nails The Fiend who bumps into the Underfaker and now Faker has The Fiend around the throat and down with a chokeslam, what is going on with this two? Smash with the cover 1 and a kick out by The Fiend, Fiend is now up and mandible claw and here comes Ax and a Sister Abigail for his trouble, 1,2,3 let’s go to The Fink for the official announcement and wait before we go to that The Fiend has the mandible claw in the Underfaker, look at this Gordon Certainly these two can’t co exist Well security trying to break these two up, folks don’t you dare go anywhere, Goldberg and Reigns face to face right after this

And welcome back folks before we get to the showdown between Goldberg and Reigns we have breaking news as it pertains to Wrestle Rock at Sea this Sunday from the boss Mr. Schneider three huge matches have been added to the card thanks to what we saw tonight, the CBWA Univision Television Championship will be on the line as the champion Colombian Dragon will defend his title against BS Service member Johnny Seenya, Party Jannetty will go one on one with his former tag team partner Shawn Michaels and this next one is very interesting Gordon That’s right even though it looks like these two are not on the same page they will have to this Sunday as The Underfaker and The Fiend will challenge the CBWA Tag Team Champions City Hall and the titles will be on the line Wow what a huge match that is going to be as we take a look at the updated card also earlier tonight the challenge was accepted it will be a ladder match for the CBWA Intercontinental Championship as Hollywood Von Erich will face the champion Hot Stuff Eddie Gilbert Also because of what happened tonight BS Service member Blaster Lashley will go one on one with PN Pitmaster News And I hope to never see this match again as it’s a first and hopefully a last, a last jerk off standing match for the CBWA Hardcore title between the champ Garth Lane and challenger Left Eye Gibson The woman’s champion Alexa Bliss put up an open challenge to anyone this Sunday, it would be very interesting to see who will accept The number one contender Powerhouse Steve Ryder will go one on one with Brian Withers with the number one contender spot for Drug Wars 5 on the line Also will ZZ be able to come up with a clear doctors note to compete at Drug Wars 5 and sign the contract against The Miz? That indeed and I even hate to say this, but a father and son will be in a fight cage surrounded by fire as Frank Converse will go one on one with his flesh and blood, his own son Boltsy and Frank said if he can not defeat his son he will set himself on fire and breathe his last breath, my god folks And our main event Gordon, for the CBWA World Heavyweight Championship inside the demonic steel cage it will be Goldberg trying to regain the title he fought so hard to get against the champion Raman Reigns, I’m telling you folks this is a pay per view you do not wanna miss, the last pay per view before the biggest show of the year Drug Wars 5, call your local pay per view provider and don’t miss this one bit as we now take you to the ring and Kenny standing by, take it away Kenny Alright JR and Gordon thank you very much this is the finally showdown before the this Sunday at Wrestle Rock at Sea 4 where these two men will compete inside a steel cage match for the CBWA World Heavyweight title, so let me introduce to you first the challenger Goldberg!!!!!! And here he comes Gordon Looks to be very focused JR Alright and now The CBWA World Heavyweight Champion The tribal chief Raman Reigns Hey jabroni up here on the the screen, you think for one damn second I was going to go in that ring and have that crazy man try to spear me yet again? I’m the CBWA World Heavyweight Champion, the head of the table the tribal chief, in other words I say what goes down, now this Sunday Goldberg it will be me and you in a steel cage match for this title right here but Goldberg let me make this perfectly clear to you, after I beat you again, that’s it, no more shot at this, you will never ever get a title shot again as long as I’m the champion, which will be a very long time cause let’s face it their ain’t a man on this roster that can sniff me Enough of the talking champ, why don’t do be a man for once and bring your ass down here because you can’t avoid it much longer but you’re next!!!!! Oh wait just a minute that’s the music of the number one contender Steve Ryder Is he coming to the ring? Oh wait a minute back in the ring Reigns is in the ring and Goldberg saw it coming and the stare down is on, folks we are out of time don’t you dare miss this Sunday on pay per view Wrestle Rock at Sea 4 we will see you on the sea this Sunday!!!!!!

[rhetoricandlogic]

The Dragonslayer of Merebarton

— by K.J. PARKER —

AUDIO VERSION

I was mending my chamber pot when they came to tell me about the dragon.

Mending a pot is one of those jobs you think is easy, because tinkers do it, and tinkers are no good or they’d be doing something else. Actually, it’s not easy at all. You have to drill a series of very small holes in the broken pieces, then thread short lengths of wire through the holes, then twist the ends of the wires together really tight, so as to draw the bits together firmly enough to make the pot watertight. In order to do the job you need a very hard, sharp, thin drill bit, a good eye, loads of patience, and at least three pairs of rock-steady hands. The tinker had quoted me a turner and a quarter; get lost, I told him, I’ll do it myself. It was beginning to dawn on me that some sorts of work are properly reserved for specialists.

Ah, the irony.

Stupid of me to break it in the first place. I’m not usually that clumsy. Stumbling about in the dark, was how I explained it. You should’ve lit a lamp, then, shouldn’t you, she said. I pointed out that you don’t need a lamp in the long summer evenings. She smirked at me. I don’t think she quite understands how finely balanced our financial position is. We’re not hard up, nothing like that. There’s absolutely no question of having to sell off any of the land, or take out mortgages. It’s just that, if we carry on wasting money unnecessarily on lamp-oil and tinkers and like frivolities, there’ll come a time when the current slight reduction in our income will start to be a mild nuisance. Only temporary, of course. The hard times will pass, and soon we’ll all be just fine.

Like I said, the irony.

“Ebba’s here to see you,” she said.

She could see I was busy. “He’ll have to come back,” I snapped. I had three little bits of wire gripped between my lips, which considerably reduced my snapping power.

“He said it’s urgent.”

“Fine.” I put down the pot—call it that, no way it was a pot anymore. It was disjointed memories of the shape of a pot, loosely tied together with metal string, like the scale armor the other side wore in Outremer. “Send him up.”

“He’s not coming up here in those boots,” she said, and at once I realized that no, he wasn’t, not when she was using that tone of voice. “And why don’t you just give up on that? You’re wasting your time.”

Women have no patience. “The tinker—”

“That bit doesn’t go there.”

I dropped the articulated mess on the floor and walked past her, down the stairs, into the great hall. Great, in this context, is strictly a comparative term.

Ebba and I understand each other. For a start, he’s practically the same age as me—I’m a week younger; so what? We both grew up silently ashamed of our fathers (his father Ossun was the laziest man on the estate; mine—well) and we’re both quietly disappointed with our children. He took over his farm shortly before I came home from Outremer, so we both sort of started off being responsible for our own destinies around the same time. I have no illusions about him, and I can’t begin to imagine he has any about me. He’s medium height, bald and thin, stronger than he looks and smarter than he sounds. He used to set up the targets and pick up the arrows for me when I was a boy; never used to say anything, just stood there looking bored.

He had that look on his face. He told me I wasn’t going to believe what he was about to tell me.

The thing about Ebba is, he has absolutely no imagination. Not even when roaring drunk—whimpering drunk in his case; very rare occurrence, in case you’ve got the impression he’s what she calls basically-no-good. About twice a year, specific anniversaries. I have no idea what they’re the anniversaries of, and of course I don’t ask. Twice a year, then, he sits in the hayloft with a big stone jar and only comes out when it’s empty. Not, is the point I’m trying to make, prone to seeing things not strictly speaking there.

“There’s a dragon,” he said.

Now Ossun, his father, saw all manner of weird and wonderful things. “Don’t be bloody stupid,” I said. He just looked at me. Ebba never argues or contradicts; doesn’t need to.

“All right,” I said, and the words just sort of squeezed out, like a fat man in a narrow doorway. “Where?”

“Down Merebarton.”

A brief digression concerning dragons.

There’s no such thing. However, there’s the White Drake (its larger cousin, the Blue Drake, is now almost certainly extinct). According to Hrabanus’ Imperfect Bestiary, the White Drake is a native of the large and entirely unexpected belt of marshes you stumble into after you’ve crossed the desert, going from Crac Boamond to the sea. Hrabanus thinks it’s a very large bat, but conscientiously cites Priscian, who holds that it’s a featherless bird, and Saloninus, who maintains that it’s a winged lizard. The White Drake can get to be five feet long—that’s nose to tip-of-tail; three feet of that is tail, but it can still give you a nasty nip. They launch themselves out of trees, which can be horribly alarming (I speak from personal experience). White Drakes live almost exclusively on carrion and rotting fruit, rarely attack unless provoked, and absolutely definitely don’t breathe fire.

White Drakes aren’t found outside Outremer. Except, some idiot of a nobleman brought back five breeding pairs about a century ago, to decorate the grounds of his castle. Why people do these things, I don’t know. My father tried to keep peacocks once. As soon as we opened the cage they were off like arrows from the bowstring; next heard of six miles away, and could we please come and do something about them, because they were pecking the thatch out in handfuls. My father rode over that way, happening to take his bow with him. No more was ever said about peacocks.

Dragons, by contrast, are nine to ten feet long excluding the tail; they attack on sight, and breathe fire. At any rate, this one did.

Three houses and four barns in Merebarton, two houses and a hayrick in Stile. Nobody hurt yet, but only a matter of time. A dozen sheep carcasses, stripped to the bone. One shepherd reported being followed by the horrible thing: he saw it, it saw him, he turned and ran; it just sort of drifted along after him, hardly a wingbeat, as if mildly curious. When he couldn’t run any further, he tried crawling down a badger hole. Got stuck, head down the hole, legs sticking up in the air. He reckoned he felt the thump as the thing pitched down next to him, heard the snuffling—like a bull, he reckoned; felt its warm breath on his ankles. Time sort of stopped for a while, and then it went away again. The man said it was the first time he’d pissed himself and felt the piss running down his chest and dripping off his chin. Well, there you go.

The Brother at Merebarton appears to have taken charge, the way they do. He herded everyone into the grain store—stone walls, yes, but a thatched roof; you’d imagine even a Brother would’ve watched them making charcoal some time—and sent a terrified young kid off on a pony to, guess what. You’ve got it. Fetch the knight.

At this point, the story recognizes (isn’t that what they say in Grand Council?) Dodinas le Cure Hardy, age fifty-six, knight, of the honors of Westmoor, Merebarton, East Rew, Middle Side, and Big Room; veteran of Outremer (four years, so help me), in his day a modest success on the circuit—three second places in ranking tournaments, two thirds, usually in the top twenty out of an average field of forty or so. Through with all that a long time ago, though. I always knew I was never going to be one of those gaunt, terrifying old men who carry on knocking ’em down and getting knocked down into their sixties. I had an uncle like that, Petipas of Lyen. I saw him in a tournament when he was sixty-seven, and some young giant bashed him off his horse. Uncle landed badly, and I watched him drag himself up off the ground, so desperately tired. I was only, what, twelve; even I could see, every last scrap of flesh and bone was yelling, don’t want to do this anymore. But he stood up, shamed the young idiot into giving him a go on foot, and proceeded to use his head as an anvil for ten minutes before graciously accepting his surrender. There was so much anger in that performance—not at the kid, for showing him up, Uncle wasn’t like that. He was furious with himself for getting old, and he took it out on the only target available. I thought the whole thing was disturbing and sad. I won’t ever be like that, I told myself.

(The question was, is: why? I can understand fighting. I fought—really fought—in Outremer. I did it because I was afraid the other man was going to kill me. So happens my defense has always been weak, so I compensate with extreme aggression. Never could keep it going for very long, but on the battlefield that’s not usually an issue. So I attacked anything that moved with white-hot ferocity fueled entirely and exclusively by ice-cold fear. Tournaments, though, jousting, behourd, the grand melee—what was the point? I have absolutely no idea, except that I did feel very happy indeed on those rare occasions when I got a little tin trophy to take home. Was that enough to account for the pain of being laid up six weeks with two busted ribs? Of course it wasn’t. We do it because it’s what we do; one of my father’s more profound statements. Conversely, I remember my aunt: silly woman, too soft for her own good. She kept these stupid big white chickens, and when they got past laying she couldn’t bear to have their necks pulled. Instead, they were taken out into the woods and set free, meaning in real terms fed to the hawks and foxes. One time, my turn, I lugged down a cage with four hens and two cocks squashed in there, too petrified to move. Now, what draws in the fox is the clucking; so I turned them out in different places, wide apart, so they had nobody to talk to. Released the last hen, walking back down the track; already the two cock birds had found each other, no idea how, and were ripping each other into tissue scraps with their spurs. They do it because it’s what they do. Someone once said, the man who’s tired of killing is tired of life. Not sure I know what that means.)

A picture is emerging, I hope, of Dodinas le Cure Hardy; while he was active in chivalry he tried to do what was expected of him, but his heart was never in it. Glad, in a way, to be past it and no longer obliged to take part. Instead, prefers to devote himself to the estate, trying to keep the ancestral mess from collapsing in on itself. A man aware of his obligations, and at least some of his many shortcomings.

Go and fetch the knight, says the fool of a Brother. Tell him—

On reflection, if I hadn’t seen those wretched White Drakes in Outremer, there’s a reasonable chance I’d have refused to believe in a dragon trashing Merebarton, and then, who knows, it might’ve flown away and bothered someone else. Well, you don’t know, that’s the whole point. It’s that very ignorance that makes life possible. But when Ebba told me what the boy told him he’d seen, immediately I thought; White Drake. Clearly it wasn’t one, but it was close enough to something I’d seen to allow belief to seep into my mind, and then I was done for. No hope.

Even so, I think I said, “Are you sure?” about six or seven times, until eventually it dawned on me I was making a fool of myself. At which point, a horrible sort of mist of despair settled over me, as I realized that this extraordinary, impossible, grossly and viciously unfair thing had landed on me, and that I was going to have to deal with it.

But you do your best. You struggle, just as a man crushed under a giant stone still draws in the last one or two desperate whistling breaths; pointless, but you can’t just give up. So I looked him steadily in the eye, and I said, “So, what do they expect me to do about it?”

He didn’t say a word. Looked at me.

“The hell with that,” I remember shouting. “I’m fifty-six years old, I don’t even hunt boar anymore. I’ve got a stiff knee. I wouldn’t last two minutes.”

He looked at me. When you’ve known someone all your life, arguing with them is more or less arguing with yourself. Never had much joy with lying to myself. Or anyone else, come to that. Of course, my mother used to say: the only thing I want you not to be the best in the world at is lying. She said a lot of that sort of thing; much better written down on paper rather than said out loud in casual conversation, but of course she couldn’t read or write. She also tended to say: do your duty. I don’t think she ever liked me very much. Loved, of course, but not liked.

He was looking at me. I felt like that poor devil under the stone (at the siege of Crac des Bests; man I knew slightly). Comes a point when you just can’t breathe anymore.

We do have a library: forty-seven books. The Imperfect Bestiary is an abridged edition, local copy, drawings are pretty laughable, they make everything look like either a pig or a cow, because that’s all the poor fool who drew it had ever seen. So there I was, looking at a picture of a big white cow with wings, thinking: how in God’s name am I supposed to kill something like that?

White Drakes don’t breathe fire, but there’s this stupid little lizard in Permia somewhere that does. About eighteen inches long, otherwise completely unremarkable; not to put too fine a point on it, it farts through its mouth and somehow contrives to set fire to it. You see little flashes and puffs of smoke among the reed beds. So it’s possible. Wonderful.

(Why would anything want to do that? Hrabanus, who has an answer for every damn thing, points out that the reed beds would clog up the delta, divert the flowing water and turn the whole of South Permia into a fetid swamp if it wasn’t for the frequent, regular fires, which clear off the reed and lay down a thick bed of fertile ash, just perfect for everything else to grow sweet and fat and provide a living for the hundreds of species of animals and birds who live there. The fires are started by the lizards, who appear to serve no other function. Hrabanus points to this as proof of the Divine Clockmaker theory. I think they do it because it’s what they do, though I’m guessing the lizards who actually do the fire-starting are resentful younger sons. Tell you about my brother in a minute.)

She found me in the library. Clearly she’d been talking to Ebba. “Well?” she said.

I told her what I’d decided to do. She can pull this face of concentrated scorn and fury. It’s so intensely eloquent, there’s really no need for her to add words. But she does. Oh, she does.

“I’ve got no choice,” I protested. “I’m the knight.”

“You’re fifty-six and you get out of breath climbing the stairs. And you’re proposing to fight dragons.”

It’s a black lie about the stairs. Just that one time; and that was the clock-tower. Seventy-seven steps to the top. “I don’t want to do it,” I pointed out. “Last bloody thing I want—”

“Last bloody thing you’ll ever do, if you’re stupid enough to do it.” She never swears, except when quoting me back at myself. “Just think for a minute, will you? If you get yourself killed, what’ll happen to this place?”

“I have no intention of getting myself—”

“Florian’s too young to run the estate,” she went on, as though I hadn’t spoken. “That clown of a bailiff of yours can’t be trusted to remember to breathe without someone standing over him. On top of which, there’s heriot and wardship, that’s hundreds and hundreds of thalers we simply haven’t got, which means having to sell land, and once you start doing that you might as well load up a handcart and take to the roads, because—”

“Absolutely no intention of getting killed,” I said.

“And for crying out loud don’t shout,” she shouted. “It’s bad enough you’re worrying me to death without yelling at me as well. I don’t know why you do this to me. Do you hate me, or something?”

We were four and a quarter seconds away from tears, and I really can’t be doing with that. “All right,” I said. “So tell me. What do I do?”

“I don’t know, do I? I don’t get myself into these ridiculous messes.” I wish I could do that; I should be able to. After all, it’s the knight’s move, isn’t it? A step at right angles, then jump clean over the other man’s head. “What about that useless brother of yours? Send him.”

The dreadful thing is, the same thought had crossed my mind. It’d be—well, not acceptable, but within the rules, meaning there’s precedents. Of course, I’d have to be practically bedridden with some foul but honorable disease. Titurel is ten years younger than me and still competing regularly on the circuit, though at the time he was three miles away, at the lodge, with some female he’d found somewhere. And if I really was ill—

I was grateful to her. If she hadn’t suggested it, I might just have considered it. As it was; “Don’t be ridiculous,” I said. “Just think, if I was to chicken out and Titurel actually managed to kill this bloody thing. We’ve got to live here. He’d be insufferable.”

She breathed through her nose; like, dare I say it, one of the D things. “All right,” she said. “Though how precisely it’s better for you to get killed and your appalling brother moves in and takes over running the estate—”

“I am not going to get killed,” I said.

“But there, you never listen to me, so I might as well save my breath.” She paused and scowled at me. “Well?”

Hard, sometimes, to remember that when I married her, she was the Fair Maid of Lannandale. “Well what?”

“What are you going to do?”

“Oh,” he said, sort of half-turning and wiping his forehead on his forearm. “It’s you.”

Another close contemporary of mine. He’s maybe six months older than me, took over the forge just before my father died. He’s never liked me. Still, we understand each other. He’s not nearly as good a tradesman as he thinks he is, but he’s good enough.

“Come to pay me for those harrows?” he said.

“Not entirely,” I replied. “I need something made.”

“Of course you do.” He turned his back on me, dragged something orange-hot out from under the coals, and bashed it, very hard, very quickly, for about twenty seconds. Then he shoved it back under the coals and hauled on the bellows handle a dozen times. Then he had leisure to talk to me. “I’ll need a deposit.”

“Don’t be silly,” I said. There was a small heap of tools piled up on the spare anvil. I moved them carefully aside and spread out my scraps of parchment. “Now, you’ll need to pay attention.”

The parchment I’d drawn my pathetic attempts at sketches on was the fly-leaf out of Monomachus of Teana’s Principles of Mercantile Law. I’d had just enough left over to use for a very brief note, which I’d folded four times, sealed, and sent the stable boy off to deliver. It came back, folded the other way; and under my message, written in big crude handwriting, smudged for lack of sand—

What the hell do you want it for?

I wasn’t in the mood. I stamped back into the house (I’d been out in the barn, rummaging about in the pile of old junk), got out the pen and ink and wrote sideways up the margin (only just enough room, writing very small)—

No time. Please. Now.

I underlined please twice. The stable boy had wandered off somewhere, so I sent the kitchenmaid. She whined about having to go out in her indoors shoes. I ask you.

Moddo the blacksmith is one of those men who gets caught up in the job in hand. He whinges and complains, then the problems of doing the job snag his imagination, and then your main difficulty is getting it away from him when it’s finished, because he’s just come up with some cunning little modification which’ll make it ever so slightly, irrelevantly better.

He does good work. I was so impressed I paid cash.

“Your design was useless, so I changed it,” he’d said. A bit of an overstatement. What he’d done was to substitute two thin springs for one fat one, and add on a sort of ratchet thing taken off a millers’ winch, to make it easier to wind it up. It was still sticky with the oil he’d quenched it in. The sight of it made my flesh crawl.

Basically, it was just a very, very large gin trap, with an offset pressure plate. “It’s pretty simple,” I said. “Think about it. Think about birds. In order to get off the ground, they’ve got very light bones, right?”

Ebba shrugged: if you say so.

“Well,” I told him, “they have. And you break a bird’s leg, it can’t get off the ground. I’m assuming it’s the same with this bastard. We put out a carcass, with this underneath. It stands on the carcass, braces it with one foot so it can tear it up with the other. Bang, got him. This thing ought to snap the bugger’s leg like a carrot, and then it won’t be going anywhere in a hurry, you can be sure of that.”

He frowned. I could tell the sight of the trap scared him, like it did me. The mainspring was three eighths of an inch thick. Just as well Moddo thought to add a cocking mechanism. “You’ll still have to kill it, though,” he said.

I grinned at him. “Why?” I asked. “No, the hell with that. Just keep everybody and their livestock well away for a week until it starves to death.”

He was thinking about it. I waited. “If it can breathe fire,” he said slowly, “maybe it can melt the trap off.”

“And burn through its own leg in the process. Also,” I added—I’d considered this very point—“even without the trap it’s still crippled, it won’t be able to hunt and feed. Just like a bird that’s got away from the cat.”

He pulled a small frown that means, well, maybe. “We’ll need a carcass.”

“There’s that sick goat,” I said.

Nod. His sick goat. Well, I can’t help it if all my animals are healthy.

He went off with the small cart to fetch the goat. A few minutes later, a big wagon crunched down to the yard gate and stopped just in time. Too wide to pass through; it’d have got stuck.

Praise be, Marhouse had sent me the scorpion. Rather less joy and happiness, he’d come along with it, but never mind.

The scorpion is genuine Mezentine, two hundred years old at least. Family tradition says Marhouse’s great-great-and-so-forth-grandfather brought it back from the Grand Tour, as a souvenir. More likely, his grandfather took it in part exchange or to settle a bad debt; but to acknowledge that would be to admit that two generations back they were still in trade.

“What the hell,” Marhouse said, hopping down off the wagon box, “do you want it for?”

He’s all right, I suppose. We were in Outremer together—met there for the first time, which is crazy, since our houses are only four miles apart. But he was fostered as a boy, away up country somewhere. I’ve always assumed that’s what made him turn out like he did.

I gave him a sort of hopeless grin. Our kitchenmaid was still sitting up on the box, hoping for someone to help her down. “Thanks,” I said. “I’m hoping we won’t need it, but—”

A scorpion is a siege engine; a pretty small one, compared to the huge stone-throwing catapults and mangonels and trebuchets they pounded us with at Crac des Bests. It’s essentially a big steel crossbow, with a frame, a heavy stand, and a super-efficient winch. One man with a long steel bar can wind it up, and it shoots a steel arrow long as your arm and thick as your thumb three hundred yards. We had them at Metouches. Fortunately, the other lot didn’t.

I told Marhouse about the dragon. He assumed I was trying to be funny. Then he caught sight of the trap, lying on the ground in front of the cider house, and he went very quiet.

“You’re serious,” he said.

I nodded. “Apparently it’s burned some houses out at Merebarton.”

“Burned.” Never seen him look like that before.

“So they reckon. I don’t think it’s just a drake.”

“That’s—” He didn’t get around to finishing the sentence. No need.

“Which is why,” I said, trying to sound cheerful, “I’m so very glad your granddad had the foresight to buy a scorpion. No wonder he made a fortune in business. He obviously knew good stuff when he saw it.”

Took him a moment to figure that one out, by which time the moment had passed. “There’s no arrows,” he said.

“What?”

“No arrows,” he repeated, “just the machine. Well,” he went on, “it’s not like we use the bloody thing, it’s just for show.”

I opened and closed my mouth a couple of times. “Surely there must’ve been—”

“Originally, yes, I suppose so. I expect they got used for something around the place.” He gave me a thin smile. “We don’t tend to store up old junk for two hundred years on the off chance in my family,” he said.

I was trying to remember what scorpion bolts look like. There’s a sort of three-bladed flange down the butt end, to stabilize them in flight. “No matter,” I said. “Bit of old rod’ll have to do. I’ll get Moddo to run me some up.” I was looking at the machine. The lead screws and the keyways the slider ran in were caked up with stiff, solid bogeys of dried grease. “Does it work?”

“I assume so. Or it did, last time it was used. We keep it covered with greased hides in the root store.”

I flicked a flake of rust off the frame. It looked sound enough, but what if the works had seized solid? “Guess I’d better get it down off the cart and we’ll see,” I said. “Well, thanks again. I’ll let you know how it turns out.”

Meaning: please go away now. But Marhouse just scowled at me. “I’m staying here,” he said. “You honestly think I’d trust you lot with a family heirloom?”

“No, really,” I said, “you don’t need to trouble. I know how to work these things, remember. Besides, they’re pretty well indestructible.”

Wasting my breath. Marhouse is like a dog I used to have, couldn’t bear to be left out of anything; if you went out for a shit in the middle of the night, she had to come too. Marhouse was the only one of us in Outremer who ever volunteered for anything. And never got picked, for that exact reason.

So, through no choice or fault of my own, there were nine of us: me, Ebba, Marhouse, the six men from the farm. Of the six, Liutprand is seventeen and Rognvald is twenty-nine, though he barely counts, with his bad arm. The rest of us somewhere between fifty-two and sixty. Old men. We must be mad, I thought.

We rode out there in the flat-bed cart, bumping and bouncing over the ruts in Watery Lane. Everybody was thinking the same thing, and nobody said a word: what if the bugger swoops down and crisps the lot of us while we’re sat here in the cart? In addition, I was also thinking: Marhouse is his own fault, after all, he’s a knight too, and he insisted on butting in. The rest of them, though—my responsibility. Send for the knight, they’d said, not the knight and half the damn village. But a knight in real terms isn’t a single man, he’s the nucleus of a unit, the heart of a society; the lance in war, the village in peace, he stands for them, in front of them when there’s danger, behind them when times are hard, not so much an individual, more of a collective noun. That’s understood, surely; so that, in all those old tales of gallantry and errantry, when the poet sings of the knight wandering in a dark wood and encountering the evil to be fought, the wrong to be put right, “knight” in that context is just shorthand for a knight and his squire and his armor-bearer and his three men-at-arms and the boy who leads the spare horses. The others aren’t mentioned by name, they’re subsumed in him, he gets the glory or the blame but everyone knows, if they stop to think about it, that the rest of them were there too; or who lugged around the spare lances, to replace the ones that got broken? And who got the poor bugger in and out of his full plate harness every morning and evening? There are some straps and buckles you just can’t reach on your own, unless you happen to have three hands on the ends of unnaturally long arms. Without the people around me, I’d be completely worthless. It’s understood. Well, isn’t it?

We set the trap up on the top of a small rise, in the big meadow next to the old clay pit. Marhouse’s suggestion, as a matter of fact; he reckoned that it was where the flightlines the thing had been following all crossed. Flightlines? Well yes, he said, and proceeded to plot all the recorded attacks on a series of straight lines, scratched in the dried splatter on the side of the cart with a stick. It looked pretty convincing to me. Actually, I hadn’t really given it any thought, just assumed that if we dumped a bleeding carcass down on the ground, the dragon would smell it and come whooshing down. Stupid, when you come to think of it. And I call myself a huntsman.

Moddo had fitted the trap with four good, thick chains, attached to eighteen-inch steel pegs, which we hammered into the ground. Again, Marhouse did the thinking. They needed to be offset (his word) so that if it pulled this way or that, there’d be three chains offering maximum resistance—well, it made sense when he said it. He’s got that sort of brain, invents clever machines and devices for around the farm. Most of them don’t work, but some of them do.

The trap, of course, was Plan A. Plan B was the scorpion, set up seventy-five yards away under the busted chestnut tree, with all that gorse and briars for cover. The idea was, we had a direct line of sight, but if we missed and he came at us, he wouldn’t dare swoop in too close, for fear of smashing his wings on the low branches. That bit was me.

We propped the poor dead goat up on sticks so it wasn’t actually pressing on the floorplate of the trap, then scampered back to where we’d set up the scorpion. Luitprand got volunteered to drive the cart back to Castle Farm; he whined about being out in the open, but I chose him because he’s the youngest and I wanted him well out of harm’s way if the dragon actually did put in an appearance. Seventy-five yards was about as far as I trusted the scorpion to shoot straight without having to make allowance for elevation—we didn’t have time to zero it, obviously—but it felt stupidly close. How long would it take the horrible thing to fly seventy-five yards? I had no idea, obviously. We spanned the scorpion—reassuringly hard to do—loaded Moddo’s idea of a bolt into the slider groove, nestled down as far as we could get into the briars and nettles, and waited.

No show. When it got too dark to see, Marhouse said, “What kind of poison do you think it’d take to kill something like that?”

I’d been thinking about that. “Something we haven’t got,” I said.

“You reckon?”

“Oh come on,” I said. “I don’t know about you, but I don’t keep a wide selection of poisons in the house. For some reason.”

“There’s archer’s root,” Ebba said.

“He’s right,” Marhouse said. “That stuff’ll kill just about anything.”

“Of course it will,” I replied. “But nobody around here—”

“Mercel,” Ebba said. “He’s got some.”

News to me. “What?”

“Mercel. Lidda’s boy. He uses it to kill wild pigs.”

Does he now?, I thought. It had occurred to me that wild boar were getting a bit hard to find. I knew all about smearing a touch of archer’s root on a bit of jagged wire nailed to a fencepost—boar love to scratch, and it’s true, they do a lot of damage to standing corn. That’s why I pay compensation. Archer’s root is illegal, of course, but so are a lot of useful everyday commodities.

“I’d better ask him,” Ebba said. “He won’t want to get in any trouble.”

Decided unanimously, apparently. Well, we weren’t doing any good crouching in the bushes. It did cross my mind that if the dragon hadn’t noticed a dead goat with a trap under it, there was no guarantee it’d notice the same dead goat stuffed full of archer’s root, but I dismissed the idea as unconstructive.

We left the trap and the scorpion set up, just in case, and rode in the cart back to Castle Farm. To begin with, as we came over the top of the Hog’s Back down Castle Lane, I assumed the pretty red glow on the skyline was the last blush of the setting sun. As we got closer, I hoped that was what it was. By the time we passed the quince orchard, however, the hypothesis was no longer tenable.

We found Luitprand in the goose pond. Stupid fool, he’d jumped in the water to keep from getting burned up. Of course, the mud’s three feet deep on the bottom. I could have told him that.

In passing: I think Luitprand was my son. At any rate, I knew his mother rather too well, seventeen years ago. Couldn’t ever say anything, naturally. But he reminded me a lot of myself. For a start, he was half-smart stupid, just like me. Hurling myself in the pond to avoid the flames was just the sort of thing I might have done at his age; and, goes without saying, he wasn’t there when we dug the bloody pond, twenty-one years ago, so how could he have known we’d chosen the soft spot, no use for anything else?

No other casualties, thank God, but the hay barn, the straw rick, the woodpile, all gone. The thatch, miraculously, burned itself out without taking the rafters with it. But losing that much hay meant we’d be killing a lot of perfectly good stock come winter, since I can’t afford to buy in. One damn thing after another.

Opito, Larcan’s wife, was hysterical, even though her home hadn’t gone up in flames after all. Larcan said it was a great big lizard, about twenty feet long. He got one very brief glimpse of it out of the corner of his eye, just before he dragged his wife and son under the cart. He looked at me like it was all my fault. Just what I needed after a long day crouched in a briar patch.

Luitprand played the flute; not very well. I gave him the one I brought back from Outremer. I never did find it among his stuff, so I can only assume he sold it at some point.

Anyway, that was that, as far as I was concerned. Whatever it was, wherever it had come from, it would have to be dealt with, as soon as possible. On the ride back from the farm, Marhouse had been banging on about flightlines again, where we were going to move the bait to; two days here, while the wind’s in the south, then if that’s no good, then another two days over there, and if that still doesn’t work, we’ll know for sure it must be following the line of the river, so either here, there, or just possibly everywhere, would be bound to do the trick, logically speaking. I smiled and nodded. I’m sure he was perfectly correct. He’s a good huntsman, Marhouse. Come the end of the season, he always knows exactly where all the game we’ve failed to find must be holed up. Next year, he then says—

Trouble was, there wasn’t time for a next year.

By midnight (couldn’t sleep, oddly enough) I was fairly sure how it had to be done.

Before you start grinning to yourself at my presumption, I had no logical explanation for my conclusions. Flightlines, patterns of behavior, life cycles, cover crops, mating seasons, wind directions; put them together and you’ll inevitably flush out the truth, which will then elude you, zig-zag running through the roots of the long variables. I knew.

I knew, because I used to hunt with my father. He was, of course, always in charge of everything, knew everything, excelled at everything. We never caught much. And I knew, when he’d drawn up the lines of beaters, given them their timings (say three Glorious Sun Ascendants and two Minor Catechisms, then come out making as much noise as you can), positioned the stillhunters and the hounds and the horsemen, finally blown the horn; I knew exactly where the wretched animal would come bursting out, so as to elude us all with the maximum of safety and the minimum of effort. Pure intuition, never failed. Naturally, I never said anything. Not my place to.

So: I knew what was going to happen, and that there was nothing much I could do about it, and my chances of success and survival were—well, not to worry about that. When I was in Outremer, I got shot in the face with an arrow. Should’ve killed me instantly; but by some miracle it hung up in my cheekbone, and an enemy doctor we’d captured the day before yanked it out with a pair of tongs. You should be dead, they said to me, like I’d deliberately cheated. No moral fiber. Ever since then—true, I shuddered to think how the estate would get on with my brother in charge, but it survived my father and grandfather, so it was clearly indestructible. Besides, everyone dies sooner or later. It’s not like I’m important.

Marhouse insisted on coming with us. I told him, you stay here, we’ll need a wise, experienced hand to take charge if it decides to burn out the castle. For a moment I thought he’d fallen for it, but no such luck.

So there were three of us: me, Ebba, Marhouse. The idea was, we’d follow the Ridgeway on horseback, looking down on either side. As soon as we saw smoke, Ebba would ride back to the castle and get the gear, meet us at the next likely attack scene. I know; bloody stupid idea. But I knew it wouldn’t happen like that, because I knew how it’d happen.

Marhouse had on his black-and-white—that’s breastplate, pauldrons, rerebraces, and tassets. I told him, you’ll boil to death in that lot. He scowled at me. He’d also fetched along a full-weight lance, issue. You won’t need that, I told him. I’d got a boar-spear, and Ebba was carrying the steel crossbow my father spent a whole year’s apple money on, the year before he died. “But they’re just to make us feel better,” I said. That got me another scowl. The wrong attitude.

Noon; nothing to be seen anywhere. I was just daring to think, perhaps the bloody thing’s moved on, or maybe it’d caught some disease or got itself hung up in a tree. Then I saw a crow.

I think Ebba saw it first, but he didn’t point and say, “Look, there’s a crow.” Marhouse was explaining some fine point of decoying, how you go about establishing which tree is the principal turning point on an elliptical recursive flight pattern. I thought: that’s not a crow, it’s just hanging there. Must be a hawk.

Ebba was looking over his shoulder. No, not a hawk, the profile’s wrong. Marhouse stopped talking, looked at me, said, “What are you two staring at?” I was thinking, Oh.

I’m right about things so rarely that I usually relish the experience. Not this time.

Oh, you may be thinking, is a funny way of putting it. But that was the full extent of it: no elation, no regret, not even resignation; to my great surprise, no real fear. Just: oh, as in, well, here we are, then. Call it a total inability to feel anything. Twice in Outremer, once when my father died, and now. I’d far rather have wet myself, but you can’t decide these things for yourself. Oh, I thought, and that was all.

Marhouse was swearing, which isn’t like him. He only swears when he’s terrified, or when something’s got stuck or broken. Bad language, he reckons, lubricates the brain, stops it seizing up with fear or anger. Ebba had gone white as milk. His horse was playing up, and he was having to work hard to keep it from bolting. Amazing how they know.

On top of the Ridgeway, of course, there’s no cover. We could gallop forward, or turn around and gallop back; either case, at the rate the bloody thing was moving, it’d be on us long before we could get our heads down. I heard someone give the order to dismount. Wasn’t Marhouse, because he stayed mounted. Wouldn’t have been Ebba, so I guess it must’ve been me.

First time, it swooped down low over our heads—about as high up as the spire of Blue Temple—and just kept on going. We were frozen solid. We watched. It was on the glide, like a pigeon approaching a laid patch in a barley field, deciding whether to pitch or go on. Very slight tailwind, so if it wanted to come in on us, it’d have to bank, turn up into the wind a little bit to start to stall, then wheel and come in with its wings back. I honestly thought: it’s gone too far, it’s not going to come in. Then it lifted, and I knew.

Sounds odd, but I hadn’t really been looking at it the first time, when it buzzed us. I saw a black bird shape, long neck like a heron, long tail like a pheasant, but no sense of scale. As it came in the second time, I couldn’t help but stare; a real dragon, for crying out loud, something to tell your grandchildren about. Well, maybe.

I’d say the body was about horse-sized, head not in proportion; smaller, like a red deer stag. Wings absurdly large—featherless, like a bat, skin stretched on disturbingly extended fingers. Tail, maybe half as long again as the body; neck like a swan, if that makes any sense. Sort of a gray color, but it looked green at a distance. Big hind legs, small front legs looking vaguely ridiculous, as if it had stolen them off a squirrel. A much rounder snout than I’d expected, almost chubby. It didn’t look all that dangerous, to be honest.

Marhouse is one of those people who translate fear into action; the scareder he is, the braver. Works against people. No warning—it’d have been nice if he’d said something first; he kicked his horse hard enough to stove in a rib, lance in rest, seat and posture straight out of the coaching manual. Rode straight at it.

What happened then—

Marhouse was five yards away from it, going full tilt. The dragon probably couldn’t have slowed down if it had wanted to. Instead—it actually made this sort of “pop” noise as it opened its mouth and burped up a fat round ball of fire, then lifted just a little, to sail about five feet over Marhouse’s head. He, meanwhile, rode straight into the fireball, and through it.

And stopped, and fell all to pieces; the reason being, there was nothing left. Horse, man, all gone, not even ash, and the dozen or so pieces of armor dropping glowing to the ground, cherry-red, like they’d just come off the forge. I’ve seen worse things, in Outremer, but nothing stranger.

I was gawping, forgotten all about the dragon. It was Ebba who shoved me down as it came back. I have no idea why it didn’t just melt us both as it passed, unless maybe it was all out of puff and needed to recharge. Anyway, it soared away, repeated the little lift. I had a feeling it was enjoying itself. Well, indeed. It must be wonderful to be able to fly.

Ebba was shouting at me, waving something, the crossbow, he wanted me to take it from him. “Shoot it,” he was yelling. Made no sense to me; but then again, why not? I took the bow, planted my feet a shoulders’ width apart, left elbow tucked in tight to the chest to brace the bow, just the fingers on the trigger. A good archery stance didn’t seem to have anything to do with the matter in hand—like playing bowls in the middle of an earthquake—but I’m a good archer, so I couldn’t help doing it properly. I found the dragon in the middle of the peep-sight, drew the tip of the arrow up to find it, and pressed the trigger.

For the record, I hit the damn thing. The bolt went in four inches, just above the heart. Good shot. With a bow five times as strong, quite possibly a clean kill.

I think it must’ve hurt, though, because instead of flaming and lifting, it squirmed—hunched its back then stretched out full-length like a dog waking up—and kept coming, straight at me. I think I actually did try and jump out of the way; just rather too late. I think what hit me must’ve been the side of its head.

I had three ribs stoved in once in Outremer, so I knew what was going on. I recognized the sound, and the particular sort of pain, and the not quite being able to breathe. Mostly I remember thinking: it won’t hurt, because any moment now I’ll be dead. Bizarrely reassuring, as if I was cheating, getting away with it. Cheating twice; once by staying alive, once by dying. This man is morally bankrupt.

I was on my back, not able or minded to move. I couldn’t see the dragon. I could hear Ebba shouting; shut up, you old fool, I thought, I’m really not interested. But he was shouting, “Hold on, mate, hold on, I’m coming,” which made absolutely no sense at all—

Then he shut up, and I lay there waiting. I waited, and waited. I’m not a patient man. I waited so long, those crunched ribs started to hurt, or at least I became aware of the pain. For crying out loud, I thought. And waited.

And thought: now just a minute.

It hurt so much, hauling myself onto my side so I could see. I was in tears.

Later, I figured out what had happened. When Ebba saw me go down, he grabbed the boar-spear and ran towards me. I don’t imagine he considered the dragon, except as an inconvenience. Hold on, I’m coming; all his thoughts in his words. He got about half way when the dragon pitched—it must’ve swooped off and come in again. As it put its feet down to land, he must’ve stuck the butt of the spear in the ground and presented the point, like you do with a boar, to let it stick itself, its momentum being far more effective than your own puny strength. As it pitched, it lashed with its tail, sent Ebba flying. Whether or not it realized it was dead, the spear a foot deep in its windpipe before the shaft gave way under the pressure and snapped, I neither know nor care. By the marks on the ground, it rolled three or four times before the lights went out. My best estimate is, it weighed just short of a ton. Ebba—under it as it rolled—was crushed like a grape, so that his guts burst and his eyes popped, and nearly all his bones were broken.

He wouldn’t have thought: I’ll kill the dragon. He’d have thought, ground the spear, like boar-hunting, and then the tail hit him, and then the weight squashed him. So it wouldn’t have been much; not a heroic thought, not the stuff of song and story. Just: this is a bit like boar-hunting, so ground the spear. And then, perhaps: oh.

I think that’s all there is; anywhere, anytime, in the whole world.

I tried preserving the head in honey. We got an old pottery bath and filled it and put the head in; but eight weeks later it had turned green and it stank like hell, and she said, for pity’s sake get rid of it. So we boiled it out and scraped it, and mounted the skull on the wall. Not much bigger than a big deer; in a hundred years’ time, they won’t believe the old story about it being a dragon. No such thing as dragons, they’ll say.

Meanwhile, for now, I’m the Dragonslayer; which is a joke. The duke himself threatened to ride over and take a look at the remains, but affairs of state supervened, thank God. Entertaining the duke and his court would’ve ruined us, and we’d lost so much already.

Twice I’ve cheated. Marhouse was straight as a die, and his end, I’m sorry, was just ludicrous. I keep telling myself, Ebba made a choice, you must respect that. I can’t. Instead of a friend, I have a horrible memory, and yet another debt I can’t pay. People assume you want to be saved, no matter what the cost; sometimes, though, it’s just too expensive to stay alive. Not sure I’ll ever forgive him for that.

And that’s that. I really don’t want to talk about it anymore.