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rwbyconversations · 6 years ago

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Why Oscar’s writing has been disappointing

Stories rely on their characters. You can tell a grand, sweeping narrative that spans continents and timelines but if you don’t give a rats ass about the people at the center of these events, viewers won’t care. Stories with high kill-counts like Walking Dead, Game of Thrones and Attack on Titan rely on audiences forming an attachment with characters very quickly, so that the possibility of their sudden death is all the more painful for the viewer. Long story short, if you can’t make an audience care about your character, it can be hard to keep them interested.

RWBY has overall done a fantastic job at getting people to fall for its cast; I’m a case in point with how hard I’ll go to bat for Emerald and Mercury. But be it the obvious choices in the main cast, the wide array of villains to obsess over. The fandom even has a few eccentric folk who stan for people not seen in years! (shoutout to CFVY fans, who knew you’d get rewarded over the whole Coco in Chibi thing by getting a book?) But rather unfortunately, while one character has managed to earn a fanbase happy to see them get content, the writing has consistently failed one particular character, through constant refusals to allow them the screentime they deserve and often putting it in the wrong places when they do get morsels of time to shine each year.

Oh no, not you. I’ll get back to you before this hiatus is out.

... actually why are his gloves orange of all colors? And what’s with the banages, is he planning on cosplaying Dazai from Bungou Stray Dogs at an Atlas convention during the off-season?

Yeah, no, I’m talking about Oscar Pine. First introduced in Volume 4, Oscar has now been a part of the main cast for half of the show’s runtime. In that time Oscar has developed psychosis, met a ticket-punching man, got stuck in a house for a month, fought a teleporting staircase man, was involved in a train crash, bought new clothes, and stole military property.

Notice something? Nothing in there mentioned Oscar getting character development. Or rather he does... but it’s always offscreen. Oscar is infuriating in the sense that he has a lot of wasted character potential to be one of the best characters in the show- a simple but efficient design, great voice work from Aaron Dismuke and a charming personality that makes him a likable hero. But in spite of that all, Oscar constantly get the shaft when it comes to his screentime showing him developing from his problems, and each volume so far has had Oscar be faced with a trial that would make for a truly fascinating character arc, only for him to get over it while the camera’s focused elsewhere. And that’s what I’m going to focus on in this essay- I’m going to go over why I think Oscar’s writing has been consistently mishandled, and my hopes for the character in Volume 7.

God damn I don’t like doing this, I want to like the farm boi most of the time

1) Volume 4: All these voices running through my head, I’m on fire, face burning red

Oscar is introduced very early in Volume 4- as in, he’s in the first episode and is the eighth character we see onscreen after the villains. Oscar is in fact, if you don’t count Ruby’s character short, present in Volume 4 before the title characters. His first episode is... a lot of nothing, mostly just Oscar doing some farming. Oscar’s introduction does a good job telling us a bit about his character without him saying much- he’s prone to daydreaming while working on the farm, clearly not enjoying himself and his work. It matches up with what we learn later, that Oscar dreams of becoming a hero. It’s a stock motivation, and a stock background, but a simple and effective way of setting up a hero who desires the chance to prove himself in the wider world. His intro scene is a nice, quiet beat between the dark opening of Evernight and Salem, and the more frantic action of RNJR fighting the Geist. But overall the time the fandom was wondering what was up with Oscar- he wasn’t in the OP and nothing had set him up before now and yet here he was, getting focus before the main girls.

It takes until Oscar’s second appearance, three episodes later in Family, that we get the real reason for his importance- Ozpin’s in his head, but it would take another three episodes, in Punished, for this to be elaborated on in an unintentional Christmas gift from Rooster Teeth; Ozpin’s in his head due to their Auras and souls merging thanks to Ozma’s pact with the Archangel Asshole a few centuries back, and now Oscar is starting to act like an Assassin’s Creed character with all the memories that are in his head that he didn’t create. It’s a cruel irony for Oscar- Ozpin plays on how Oscar wants to be more than just a farmhand to try and get him to go to Mistral, but Oscar’s body language and face make it clear that this wasn’t how he saw himself getting some new life choices. Rather tragically, Oscar finally gets the chance to be part of something bigger but the manner in which it’s offered to him is anathema, as it’s coming from a literal voice in his head who claims to be a dead headmaster, and more importantly, he was never offered a choice- this was thrust upon him, a young 14 year old child who never asked for this burden of responsibility. And the last shot of Oscar in this episode already has him cracking under that burden, stuck on his knees and unsure what to do.

(also btw Oscar’s Aunt tells him to clean his hands but Oscar’s model has gloves on all the time, so... how would he clean his hands? Or does he read books with dirty gloves? Eww)

It’s an interesting place to leave Oscar, at the metaphorical and and spiritual crossroads, and means the viewer wants to see Oscar’s next actions and the deliberation between the easy, boring life he knows or risking everything on a voice in his head telling him to try his chances in the big city. Sounds pretty interesting, right?

Not to the writers, unfortunately. Because when we next check in with Oscar three episodes later during Kuroyuri, Oscar’s already on the road to Mistral with his backpack all ready to go. That deliberation, the consideration, Oscar eventually choosing to trust Ozpin and go along with his plan? All done offscreen. Similarly, Oscar goes from treating Ozpin’s voice as an irritating thing to be annoyed has been chucked out a window- now out on the open road, it doesn’t “feel crazy” anymore. It just feels like such a cheap way to handle Oscar’s writing- rather than show his development naturally, it just fast-forwards until it reaches a point where it skips all that. And unfortunately, this isn’t the first or last time Oscar is victim to the writers fast-forwarding through his development moments. Given how much of Oscar’s arc hinges on this crucial first step, it just seems inane to me that of all of the potential Oscar scenes to cut... him coming around on Ozpin and making the call to leave was what got the cutting room floor. Especially since nothing in his Kuroyuri scene was all that essential for Oscar in contrast, barring setting up the the mystery Hazel and Ozpin’s past.

Oscar doesn’t appear again after his encounter with Hazel until the finale, when during the montage of Ruby’s letter (that consists of half her dialogue this season) we see Oscar on the train to Mistral, which really only caused a problem thanks to all the people who used it to ask why RNJR didn’t take a train. He also appears in the post-credits scene, meeting Qrow at a bar and asking for his cane back, the volume ending on Oscar extending the cane experimentally.

Being blunt, I feel like Oscar should have been cut from Volume 4 and just introduced in Volume 5 with the bar scene. Volume 4 already had to juggle far too much in RWBY and Cinder’s plots, and adding Oscar to the mix unfortunately meant the screentime for some characters had to suffer- especially Yang. His time this season ultimately goes nowhere and only gives him a basic background that most fans would have already guessed from his character design, and the already wobbly Jenga Tower that was Volume 4′s screentime didn’t need more blocks thrown on top. I like a fair few things in Oscar’s arc, but it’s content that ultimately I’d have been fine having left on the cutting room floor. Hell, if nothing else, Oscar’s first scene should have ended with Ozpin’s reappearance, that these are two separate scenes is mind-boggling and left the fans wondering what the hell was Oscar’s purpose for weeks.

Oscar’s debut arc has its ups and downs, much like the volume itself. His intro scene and argument with Ozpin are both well-executed and show the viewer the vocal dynamite of Dismuke’s performance or just set up his base character, but for every good thing to come of Oscar’s arc, it’s fraught with issues- most notably, his scene of choosing to leave his home being omitted and beginning the unfortunate tendency for Oscar to get the short end of the stick when it came to development and agency, which undermine his choice to leave. But overall, Oscar built himself a small but dedicated fanbase with his debut volume, even immediately shooting up to become a potential target for Ruby’s affections in the fandom shipping wars. It was a rocky start, but surely now that Oscar was going to have his plot merged with RNJR, he’d be able to handle his screen-time more effectively, right?

Right?

Volume 5- Two for one on meatsacks

Volume 5 is Oscar’s worst volume so far, being blunt. It’s a lot of people’s worst volumes though (Cinder, Ruby, Weiss, Mercury, Adam, mine) that at least he can share the load. It doesn’t help that he’s not in half the damn thing because his body is being used by Ozpin to regale the audience with expositon that makes them actively yearn for the sweet embrace of death... or just the return of the World of Remnant shorts. Oscar’s first scene in Volume 5 is just a recycling of the Volume 4 post-credits scene, which raises the question of why the scene was used in Volume 4. I don’t think it’s even touched up, they literally just copy-pasted it. Much like his first scene in Volume 4, his intro scene this volume is intercepted by comedy relief- last time it was Jaune’s miserable attempts at being a strategist, this time it’s Drunkle Qrow.

... You know, this scene ages poorly in hindsight given how just one volume later Qrow’s alcoholism is treated with ice-cold severity.

Episode 3 follows up on this and gives us Ozcar’s first major scene of the volume, and unfortunately also sets up their dynamic this volume. Oscar gets some awkwardly charming moments with Ruby but overall the scene is dominated by Ozpin taking over for the first time and explaining his reincarnation powers alongside setitng up RNJR’s plot for the season- “training.” An episode later sees the entirety of this training, with Oscar and Ruby engaging in hand-to-hand combat and Oscar getting a lore dump from Ren (in hindsight this is novel not just because they’re outside during it but Ren’s the one delivering the infodump and not Ozpin). Ozpin barely even factors into the episode barring some fisticuffs and a generic speech at the end. But the scene is overall just pointless to the narrative beyond loosely setting up Jaune’s own Semblance unlocking, and this is the last we hear of RNJR “training” for the upcoming trials at Haven. Hell, even though the story makes a point of noting Oscar still hasn’t unlocked his Semblance, that still hasn’t come up two years later. This scene really only pays off in one immediate way:

This is Ruby’s sole contribution to the Battle of Haven after getting KO’d by Emerald outside of just yelling orders for offscreen fights, and all this helped do was begin to convince people that “MERC’S A BAD FIGHTER WITHOUT EMERALD.”

Lighting the Fire’s training scene is one of Oscar’s only major scenes where he interacts with RNJR to boot for the entirety of Volume 5, and it’s quite sad that nothing really comes of it. It just serves to highlight how little Oscar interacts with the other kids, as most of his dialogue this season is just as Ozcar.

Necessary Sacrifice then, should be great on paper. It’s an entirely Oscar and Ruby scene with Ozpin only chiming in at the end. It has Oscar confronting Ruby and himself on his fears and how Ruby can put up a brace face, and Ruby finally gets to open up a little about losing Penny and Pyrrha at Beacon. But the scene just falls flat on its face and botches the execution. Putting aside Ruby’s own problems in this scene (her speech feels incredibly pre-rehearsed, as if she spent hours practicing it in the mirror to ward off anyone actually prying into her life). Oscar’s anger and fear come out of left field with nothing setting this up in his prior scenes this volume. Ruby needed a scene where she talked about losing Penny and Pyrrha, but it should have been during Volume 4, with Jaune. Having it now with Oscar feels like the writers apologizing for having Ruby get shafted for screenitme during Volume 4... during the volume where she gets shafted by literally everyone else. The scene is frustrating to me, it could and should have been a lot better (musically at least I love the reprises of When It Falls and Lets Just Live), but it just feels like a hasty patch note. Oscar doesn’t really develop from the situation and his fears are just forgotten for the rest of the volume.

Oscar then proceeds to basically sit out Volume 5 barring Chapters 11 and 12. I still don’t get why he wasn’t part of the dinner scene with RWBJNR, since it would have been so very easy for him to be part of the dinner and get the chance to interact with the rest of the kids. Oscar wants to be a hero, so let him... actually interact with heroes his age. Have him brought up to speed on the crazy adventures the team have, let them get to interact with Oscar without having to deal with his backseat driver. You could even make something tragic of the scene where Oscar is forced to go away so Ozpin can take over, and the team’s faces fall flat when Ozpin gets right to talking shop which leads to the YOU TURNED THEM INTO BIRDS exchange. But otherwise, the rest of the House scenes revolve around Ozpin talking. The kids talk past Oscar, and again, you can very easily make something tragic of that as Oscar could grow to resent Ozpin because none of the others see him as himself, just a puppet on strings. But again... Oscar’s just not allowed to develop onscreen in this show.

And perhaps the worst thing about all this is that whenever Ozpin actually is called out on his tactics, one of the most pressings ones in his possession of Oscar,a 14 year old boy, is never used as fuel. Granted, yes, Ozpin has no control over who’s his next host but surely someone, somewhere is going to opine how morally bankrupt it is that Ozpin essentially conscripted a child not even old enough to get a learner’s permit into his eternal shadow war. It’s times like this that my theory that Jaune was going to be Ozpin’s original replacement before the backlash to Jaundice made them backtrack looks more and more possible.

The Haven Battle episodes quickly have Ozpin force control away from Oscar, but it’s not like Oscar did much before then anyway other than serve as the conduit for another lore dump on Hazel’s backstory. He doesn’t try and learn why Leo defected and manages to trounce the headmaster so well one wonders how the hell Leo got put in charge of a combat school. After that, Ozpin takes over (and we admittedly get some of the coolest fighting in the actual Battle of Haven in Ozcar vs Hazel) and Oscar only briefly returns in the last seconds of the finale to drop the sequel hook that they need to get the lamp to Atlas.

Volume 5 is just a bad season for Oscar- this is the one time we don’t get his eternal phantom of offscreen character development because it’s not fair to say Oscar has any development in Volume 5. He’s immediately forced to the back to serve as a projector through which Ozpin can put the audience to sleep, most of his actual scenes are irrelevant or just feel like a waste of time and he basically sits out the entire finale. It’s just infuriatingly incompetent writing- we’ve gone from Oscar being a waste of time in Volume 4 to just being a waste of a character in Volume 5 who barely gets to express himself. Little is done with Oscar that could not be achieved by putting a tape recorder beside a lampshade and calling that Ozpin’s new host. Volume 5′s bad for a lot of characters, but at least most of the rest of the cast had good seasons beforehand to show how well they could be handled or written. Oscar didn’t have that, and while ultimately the blame was placed more on Ozpin for hogging the time, Oscar’s critics began to grow and he was derisively seen as just a plot device to let the writers bring Ozpin back and serve as a mission marker for the heroes. One more bad season for Oscar could spell the end to his character ever having a warm reception among the fans and critics. Drastic action would need to be undertaken in order to regain trust in Oscar.

3) Volume 6- Tossing out the baby with the water

So the big plan to give Oscar some screentime... was basically cut Ozpin out of the story entirely. Oscar is almost entirely himself after the fourth episode, it’s the longest run of episodes with Oscar as himself that we’ve gotten in the show to date and Ozpin doesn’t even surface until the finale. There’s a lovely line of Oscar’s in episode 4 that finally lets him address some of the fears and concerns he should be rightfully worried about- “I’m just going to be another one of his lives, aren’t I?” Oscar’s tone is just so bleak there, it works super well and it was nice to finally see Oscar expressing human emotions. It even my cynical heart hope that Volume 6 would finally see Oscar get the limelight he had been denied for two years running.

But then the ball is just dropped hard. Oscar’s left in a background role for the Brunswick episodes, stuck working on a tire while RWBY encounter the Apathy. What’s already a somewhat rushed resolution to the whole plot of “RWBY express concerns about going onward to Atlas in light of Jinn’s revelations” now leaves Oscar, the guy carrying Ozma’s soul in him, out of the moment. He just gets to be tired and tell Blake to make food if she’s hungry.

Argus at least alludes to putting Oscar in the driver’s seat for his own solo arc where he explores the city alone after Jaune physically assults him (why didn’t anyone stop Jaune from hurting Oscar two people saying Jaune’s name with all the concern of someone stubbing their toe just feels cheap). Even though I was cold on the episode as a whole, Dead End did set up the wonderful idea of an Oscar episode, one where he maybe forces Ozpin to come out so they can talk frankly for the first time in two volumes. Maybe they could even rip off Avatar (some more) and have Oscar meet Ozma himself, using his conversation with the two as his own chance to rally onwards and decide to bring the fight to Salem. It could have been a really sweet moment of him backing Ruby up in her desire to keep going, the two forming a mutual bond of bolstering each other’s hopes as they carry the burden for their team.

But no. Because I can’t have nice things, in an otherwise near-perfect episode where I actually got Mercury and Emerald screentime and the lovely Pyrrha statue scene (which I low-key feel like Oscar should have been a part of but that’s a subject for another day), Oscar just gets over his issues, buys a new outfit and dodges past his problems, getting to develop past them, off-screen, for the third time in a row.

As far as I care, Oscar stole the money for this costume from either Qrow or Jaune and I don’t care if Miles says to my face he earned the money legit, I’m keeping that headcanon. Also, why are his gloves still orange? They don’t fit the rest of his costume.

If there was anything that got cut from Volume 6′s final half, I’d bet money on it being Oscar’s solo arc. Kerry himself has admitted during the RWBY Rewind for the finale that stuff got cut, and it’s very likely (going off comments from Miles that The Lost Fable was a huge resource drain) that this content was going to be part of the entire episode that was cut (Volume 6 initially had 14 episodes but around Christmastime this was remedied down to 13). It’s actually downright insulting and infuriating that Oscar got the shaft again, especially when Volume 6 finally seemed to be addressing the issue of Oscar never getting growth or focus. He was free of Ozpin, and with Ozma’s history revealed it was the perfect time for him to embrace the past forced upon him and resolve to become a hero. But no, the episode count went down so we had to wave goodbye to Oscar’s agency again.

Just think of how beneficial it would be for Oscar to actually confront his sorta-not-really ancestor, who may have had to watch as soul after soul gets consumed for him. Has Ozma ever had someone tell him none of this was his fault? I feel he needs it.

If I was a more suspicious person I’d say it almost feels deliberate, that someone on the writing team doesn’t like Oscar and is purposefully keeping his growth offscreen out of childish spite. But three volumes in a row now, Oscar’s growth has felt artificial and fake, and leaves him feeling like an afterthought. I know it’s not a problem of RWBY not being able to write new characters well, just look at how fleshed out and beloved Maria was after just her debut season. But Oscar just can’t catch a break and it’s frustrating to watch. In a volume that otherwise made huge strides in solving many of the pre-existing issues in Volumes 4 and 5, that 6 still refuses to treat Oscar with anything other than mild apathy is just mind-boggling.

Like, what was even the point of having Jaune say Ozpin was just pretending to be Oscar? To make Jaune look irrational? To plant the red herring in the viewer’s minds? The rest of the volume itself shoots the idea down hard, and it feels like it was going to be used during Oscar’s potential cut scene, but again... it was cut. I can only go off what’s in the volume and unfortunately, Oscar in Volume 6 is only marginally better than he was in past Volumes. Bless his heart, Aaron is trying to save this character but the writing itself is dragging Oscar down every chance it can get.

4) Volume 7- The potential breaking point

Oscar’s character is currently in a make or break spot, and Volume 7 will either finally solve his growth issues or this will be it and his fandom will reach a boiling point. The worst thing is, it’s a very easy solution to fix Oscar.

Just put his character development onscreen.

That’s it, the golden answer to all of Oscar’s problems is to just stop cutting his development and agency short. Oscar has potential to be the most tragic character in RWBY- someone who wanted to be a hero, only for the responsibilities to be forced on him without his consent. He’s someone who the rest of his companions oftentimes don’t see as a person, just a walking telephone to their boss. Imagine how dehumanizing it would be, especially after Qrow’s “Don’t lie to him, we’re better than that” line? Imagine being someone effectively living on borrowed time because sooner or later, your consciousness will be absorbed what makes you you will be but a distant memory? Oscar could easily be a shining example of character growth, he could easily have a great arc of learning to deal with the burdens of Ozma’s struggle, of being the target of Hazel and Salem’s ire when he did nothing to earn it. But it needs to be soon, or all the potential in the world won’t be able to save Oscar.

Perhaps Volume 7 will have a flashback to Oscar in Argus having that confrontation with Ozpin and getting his new outfit. Perhaps Ironwood will be mistrusting of Oscar claiming to be Oz, and Oscar will have to step up and prove he is who he says he is. Qrow never apologized to Oscar for punching him, so an apology would serve both Qrow and Oscar’s arcs as Qrow reignites his spark to fight. A potential confrontation with Salem where Oscar may try something the previous Oz lives didn’t could work wonders for Oscar. Volume 7 could still easily have Oscar get spotlight, but with how many plates the season is already planning to spin (Tyrian and Wattts going to Atlas, Cinder and Neo going after Ruby, Weiss dealing with her family, Ruby learning about the Silver Eyes with Maria, a likely return of Faunus racism for Blake and Yang, Atlas class warfare, the token reminder that Pyrrha died so Jaune, Ren and Nora can be sad, etc.) I’m already accepting that Oscar is the most likely candidate to get the boot again. It’s happened before, and I try to avoid being a sucker who falls for the same thing over and over. Definition of insanity and all that.

5) Conclusion

Oscar is... I hate to say this again, but infuriating to me writing wise. He has so much potential as a character in terms of his growth but despite having had main character status for half the show’s runtime now, it’s hard to really care. Oscar keeps getting the short end of the stick, and if it turns out that the whole reason he got shafted for years was because of M&K’s mystery fetish, I might actually throw a chair out a window.

What makes it worse is that Oscar is not a character with no hopes of being salvaged! There is a very easy way to remedy the problem and it’s just to let him have his time to shine and develop offscreen. Flashbacks covering the lost events such as his leaving his farm or gaining confidence in Argus (or even giving Oscar a character short specifically to address these issues) might be belated and feel like damage control- let’s be fair, after Adam’s short this wouldn’t be the first time they resorted to doing damage control in their shorts- but it would be a step in the right direction and show the team are committed to working to salvage Oscar. But they want to do it, it has to be now. If Oscar leaves Volume 7 suffering from the same problems, he might as well get killed off in Volume 8 because that will be it for his character, no one will defend him and Oscar will fully become the heroic Cinder in that no matter what, you can rest assured they won’t get onscreen development from anything that happens. In the meantime, all I can do is hope that this time, things will work out for the farm boi. There’s a goldmine of a character here guys, someone’s just gotta put the work into finding the first nugget.

In short, Oscar can be a great character, if the writing lets him become it onscreen. But until then, it’s going to be a frankly depressing journey to get there.

Thank you for reading.

#rwby #oscar pine #ozpin #ruby rose #rwde #rwby analysis #ozma #salem #james ironwood #hazel rainart #aaron dismuke #rwby4 #rwby5 #rwby6 #rwby7 #jaune arc #qrow branwen

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faveficarchive · 5 years ago

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I’ve Been to Pocatello, but I’ve Never Been to Me

Another White Trash Tale of Depravity, Soul-Searching, and Potato Chips

By Vivian Darkbloom

Pairing: Xena/Gabrielle

Rating: Mature

Synopsis: This is the fourth installment in the White Trash Series. Gabrielle learns all about Zina’s dark past when a few unwanteds wander back into her girlfriend’s life.

1. An Interlude in the Manner of Pinky and the Brain

"Gabrielle, are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

"I think so, baby. I'll go get your fire helmet and the nacho cheese dip."

"No, I'm not thinking about that."

"Okay. Let me try again." A hopeful pause. A batting of fair eyelashes. A comely pout. "Your fire helmet and the vibrator?"

Zina sighed. Her fire helmet—the penultimate symbol of her profession, a badge of pride, a lifesaving device—had been reduced, by Gabrielle, to both a fetish object and a receptacle for foodstuffs. She was just grateful that Gabrielle had decided the helmet was ill-suited for use as a pitcher for margaritas (her hair had smelled like tequila for weeks). "I'm thinking…"

"Always a bad sign, baby."

"…like maybe we should go to the movies."

Gabrielle regarded her skeptically. "Really?" She loved to go to movie theaters, but since Zina found the entire experience stressful—dealing with large, inane groups of people was not the firefighter's forte—they did not go very often.

Zina cleared her throat. This "being sensitive" shit is really hard. "Listen, Gabrielle, I thought, you know, you deserve a night out, a night where we do something different…'cause, uh, I know your finals were hard."

"I agree, absolutely. So like I said, let me go get your helmet and the vibrator…"

"Now, how is that special? We've done that plenty of times."

"Well, this time I'll let you wear the helmet, stud." With a wiggle of her eyebrows, Gabrielle ran upstairs. Grinning, Zina followed. She was more than willing to do whatever it would take to make the little poet happy…especially when it involves sex, thought the firefighter, as she took the steps two at a time.

*****

Cyrene stepped out of her Volkswagen, humming the crazy violin part of "Baba O'Riley," her head bobbing up and down, and approached the front door of the farmhouse. She lingered on the porch as she peered into the daunting recesses of her macramé purse, looking for the house keys, something that was hard to do in the evening light. A full fifteen minutes passed, during which she found some Chiclets from 1977 and the results of an VD test from 1990 (Hey, I'm negative! Cool!), before she finally found the keys. Still humming, she entered the darkened home that her daughter shared with Gabrielle. She wound her way through the black hallway to the kitchen, where she snapped on the light. She clapped her hands together and rubbed them briskly. Okay, I've got a half an hour before the meeting, just enough time to make hummus…

"Ayiyyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyiyi!" The strange cry ripped through the room and, not wasting any time, Cyrene grabbed the nearest butcher knife and, with a less exotic shriek of her own, jumped on the kitchen counter. Her daughter was crouched in the doorway, nude, ready to pounce, wielding a baseball bat…and with a fire helmet ever so slightly askance on her head.

"Jesus, Zina!" Cyrene cried, as her adrenaline rush subsided. "What the fuck was that?"

Zina grinned. "Just a little something I picked up from the Discovery Channel," she said proudly. "Didn't know you could still jump that fast, Mom." She rose to her full height and leaned the bat in a corner. "Sorry. I thought you were a burglar or somethin'."

"I didn't think you were home, honey. Gabrielle said I could use the house tonight for an LPN group meeting."

"LPN?" Zina echoed. Her mother wanted to become a nurse?

Cyrene sighed. Another disbeliever. "Legalize Pot Now."

The firefighter snorted. "Oh, for Christ's sake."

Cyrene jabbed a finger of maternal authority at Zina. "Yeah, man, scoff all you want. All I can say if it weren't for pot, you wouldn't be here right now!" Somehow a Chevy van, a bottle of Boone's Hill strawberry wine, an 8-track tape of Badfinger, and a draft dodger with a droopy mustache had appeared all the more erotic and alluring under the influence of a fat joint.

Footsteps on the stairs announced Gabrielle's arrival. The lithe poet had taken a minute to make herself presentable for dangerous felons, and had thrown on a t-shirt and shorts. But her mussed hair, reddened lips, and flushed face announced, louder than a Siegfried and Roy show at Vegas, what she and her hunky firefighter had been up to. "Cyrene? What the hell—"

"You forgot, didn't you?" Cyrene accused gently.

"Oh…shit! I did! I'm sorry." She apologized to two generations of bad-ass chicks at once. Both scowled at her. "Uh, Zina, didn't you say you wanted to go to the movies?"

2. Mrs. Peel, We're Needed

The trip to the movies also involved babysitting Purdy, who was having a fight with Lila. He had called up Gabrielle a few minutes before they were about to leave for the theater, to see if she wanted to get drunk at the Saddle. Soft-hearted little poet that she was, she invited him along. "Is that okay?" she sheepishly asked Zina after the fact.

Zina shrugged. "Sure."

"Zina, you're so nice to Purdy. It's sweet."

"I figure anyone who dumped you for your sister needs some special treatment, if you know what I mean." She waggled a finger in a circle alongside her head.

They met Purdy at the theater. He stood, sulky, in the parking lot, leaning against his Ford pickup, John Deere cap pulled low in an attempt to make his babyfat face more menacing. "Hiya, Gab, Hiya Zina," he greeted. "So, what movie are we seeing?"

Gabrielle smirked with pride. "The Avengers."

Purdy made a face. "Gab, you always pick these artsy-fartsy foreign films!"

Zina nodded in agreement. "Yeah! With these snooty British people or something," she piped up.

"Knock it off, both o' you. I'll have you know that things blow up in this movie, and that Uma Thurman chick runs around wearing leather. It can't be bad."

A skeptical grunt issued forth from the firefighter as they headed into the multiplex. After they bought tickets, Gabrielle immediately took off in the direction of the concession stand. But she didn’t get very far before Zina snagged her arm. "Don't do it," her companion purred in her ear.

Such a suggestive, seductive tone made the blonde poet want to do it even more. "I don't know what you're talking about," she protested, lying, trying to squirm out of Zina's grip.

"You know what I mean, Gabrielle. Don't do it. Don't give in."

Gabrielle stopped thrashing and met Zina's eyes. "Okay, okay. I won't. I swear."

The blue eyes held her gaze for a moment. "All right, then." The firefighter released her. "Get me a Coke, okay? See you down front." She headed for the theater.

As Gabrielle waited patiently in line, she drank in the smell of rancid popcorn and butter. Popcorn. I'll just get some popcorn. With feigned casualness she surveyed the boxes of candy in the display case; the green eyes flickered and hesitated for a nanosecond at the Raisinet boxes, but then continued their thorough scan of the candy. Okay, that was fine. I didn't feel a thing.

Nonetheless she turned away abruptly and studied the faded wallpaper. Oh my…that's a nice pattern. I never thought green and brown could work together like that...Then she turned her attention to a new movie poster: Weekend at Bernie's 3: "This Time It's Personal…Hygiene."

Then the voices began.

Gabrielle.

No! She clutched her forehead. "I'm not listening," she muttered aloud, causing a glance from the burly gentleman in front of her wearing a cowboy hat and a Charlie Daniels Band t-shirt.

Gabrielle! It's us. Please listen!!!

"Stop it!" Gabrielle growled. The large cowboy shifted away from her slightly.

You must listen. Only you can set us free. Gabrielllllllllllle…

"No!"

Look at us.

She shook her head savagely.

Come. Look. Or do you fear us?

Timidly the poet turned, slowly, and looked.

The box of Raisinets glowed with a preternatural beauty, even more striking than Zina in full firefighter regalia (or buck naked for that matter), and the voices of the Raisinets, blending together with mellow effervescence and sounding precisely like the two midget women in that little box from the Mothra movies, sang their siren song of freedom to their golden-haired liberator: Gabriellllllle…buy us, eat us!

"Ohhhhh…all right!" screamed the poet, scaring away not only the Charlie Daniels guy but also the couple in front of him, and thus effectively shortening the line.

Arms cradling the Coke, the popcorn, a bunch of candy bars, and the evil Raisinets, Gabrielle waddled down the aisle to where her companions sat. She tossed a giant Kit Kat bar at Purdy and thrust a Coke at Zina; both firefighter and mechanic noted the Raisinets lying in her lap.

"Don't say anything," Gabrielle snarled at them.

A long silence ensued. It was finally broken by Purdy's guffaw. "You'll be on the can all night long, then havin' bad dreams," he chastised her. "Man, I am so glad I don't live with you anymore!"

She gave a lunge toward him, sending popcorn flying, but was restrained by Zina's powerful arm. "Down, girl," said the firefighter.

"They…they…" stammered Gabrielle.

"Yeah, I know, honey bunny, they were talking to you…" Zina replied, as if Gabrielle were a reject from the Special Olympics.

"They were!" wailed the poet, as the previews began.

Twenty minutes later, as Zina snored through a trailer for a Brad Pitt film, Purdy, arms folded, threatened once again: "This better be good."

"It can't be bad," assured Gabrielle, whose childlike faith in Hollywood, while tremendously touching, was sorely misplaced, misguided, and plainly retarded.

*****

It was bad.

"How stupid could I be!" cried Gabrielle, as they left the theater for the lobby. "To think that anyone else could be Mrs. Peel!"

"Well, duh," Zina agreed.

"But things sure blowed up pretty good," Purdy said. Zina nodded in assent.

It was all that mattered, really.

"Hey, isn't that Callie over there?" Gabrielle asked apprehensively, grasping her beloved's arm and nodding to a small, poorly dressed group that circled the front of the multiplex and carried strange signs: "THE AVENGERS" PROMOTES UNNATURAL CLOTHES, one said. LEATHER IS FOR BOOTS ONLY, proclaimed another.

Sure enough, the crazed blonde was in the eye of the protesting storm. However, upon spotting the movie-going trio of Zina, Gabrielle, and Purdy, she bore down on them like a bulimic toward a toilet bowl.

"Well!" sniped Callie by way of greeting, "I can guess what sick film you three have been seeing."

Zina rolled her eyes. "Callie, you are pathetic. There was nothing weird in that film. Hell, it was so boring I fell asleep who knows how many times."

"Five," supplied Gabrielle, with some measure of irritation.

"It figures you wouldn't notice the fine details, Zina," Callie sneered haughtily. "The clothing was scandalous and suggestive. It was perverted." Even speaking of the dreaded film caused Callie to grip her jumbo-sized Sprite a little tighter, even though her hand could barely get around it as it was.

"So I take it you actually saw the film?" Gabrielle asked coolly.

"No, of course not! I'm not spending money to see such filth!"

"Lady, you are bonkers," Purdy mumbled.

"What?" hissed Callie.

"You heard me!" he retorted defiantly.

She threw her drink at him, drenching him with sticky carbonated coolness. "You crazy bitch! This is my best flannel shirt!" he cried as she stalked away from them.

"Yeah! You get back here, you bitch!" Gabrielle shouted. She tried to take off after Callie, but found Zina's restraining arm around her midriff.

"What the hell's gotten into you?" Zina asked, perturbed that Gabrielle would get so upset over such a matter—of course, it would have been different had Callie thrown the drink on her, then it would be acceptable for Gabrielle to flip out. But over Purdy? She makes absolutely no sense when she's PMSing, thought Zina, who nonetheless enjoyed the sensation of the wiggling Gabrielle pressed against her.

"She's pushed me too far, Zina! I can't have her throwing drinks at my ex-boyfriend! I got my pride!"

"Yeah, and it's pretty warped, I'd say."

"Lemme go!" demanded the angry poet.

"Gabrielle, don't you remember once…you told me the cycle of violence and hatred must be broken…."

Finally Gabrielle slipped out of the firefighter's loose grasp. "For Christ's sake, Zina, I had four shots of tequila when I said that! Now lemme go kick that twat's ass!" She stomped over to Callie for a Meeting of the Blondes. A brief interaction ensued: Callie, motionless, with eyebrows raised, watched Gabrielle gesticulate all over the place.

It ended with one punch.

Zina was amazed at how quickly Callie could run in heels. The minister was in her Camaro and tearing out of the parking lot before she and Purdy reached the prostrate poet.

"Gabrielle?" The firefighter gently shook the unconscious form. Her frightened blue eyes locked onto the anxious Purdy. "Quick, get some chocolate!"

*****

"Mrs. Peel?" The voice, with its clipped British accent, was vaguely familiar to Gabrielle. Nonetheless her eyelids refused to open until she felt something soft tapping her cheeks.

Willpower pried open her eyes, which could not believe what they were seeing.

It was Zina, kneeling in front of her, grinning, wearing a dark blue pinstripe suit and a bowler hat, a white carnation gracing her lapel. "Mrs. Peel, are you all right?" Zina asked again, in impeccable, more-upper-class -than-thou English tones.

Those goddamn Raisinets!!!! She tried blinking several times in hopes of dispelling the hallucination. No go. "Is it Halloween again?" she whispered timidly.

Zina frowned. "I say, my dear, you simply are not yourself. You even sound different, Mrs. Peel."

Why does she keep…Gabrielle tried to move and her body, which felt taut, tense, and immobile, made a strange, flatulent noise. She looked down the length of her form. She was clad in a tight black leather bodysuit and boots.

…calling me that? She was attired just like Mrs. Peel. "Oh, God," she moaned. She looked at Zina, who was still looking ever so concerned in a restrained, British kinda way.

"So. You must be Steed." Gabrielle ventured the guess nervously.

The tall, dark-haired woman smiled at that. "Verrrry good," she replied with imperial condescension. "Now, do you remember anything else?"

Gabrielle gritted her teeth as she attempted to sit up again, which elicited a protracted farting noise from her leather outfit. This time she was successful. "Like what?"

"Ohhh, let's see," Zina sighed in thought, "The Cybernauts? The Hellfire Club? Castle De'Ath?"

"Uh…yeah. I do." Except I wasn't Mrs. Peel, I was only sitting on the floor in the living room eating Screaming Yellow Zonkers and wishing I were her.

"Encouraging!" replied Zina/Steed.

And they were off, driving through the countryside, drinking champagne, listening to Petula Clark…. Downtown!

She held out her glass for more champagne (and how did Steed manage to pour and drive at the same time?) but when she brought it to her lips there was a telegram inside the glass. "What's this?" she asked.

"Good news, Mrs. Peel. Your husband, Purdy Peel, has been found in the Amazon…"

In an Amazon? Surely not Effie! "My husband? But I—I was never married!" wailed Gabrielle.

"So I'm afraid it's time for all our glamorous adventures to come to an end…"

"They can't!"

"But you must do your duty…"

"No!"

The Bentley entered a tunnel. All was darkness….

….and Gabrielle opened her eyes. She was back home, in the bedroom she shared with Zina, and the tall firefighter was sitting on the bed, watching her with concern. Fortunately, sans the bowler hat.

"Sugar booger!" she cried, sitting up. She flung her arms around Zina.

"Gabrielle! How are you feeling, honey?" Zina gave her girlfriend a squeeze, a kiss on the cheek, and rubbed her back.

"Better. Baby, I had this crazy dream—"

"Didn't I tell you not to eat the Raisinets?"

"I know. But this was different somehow...."

"You mean you have diarrhea this time?"

"No! Zina, listen. I was going through a tunnel, and you know that usually means—"

"Sex!" Zina's sapphire eyes lit up like a gas grill.

"Yeah, but it scared me a little. Like I feel the tunnel represents something else. 'Cause I was afraid to go through it. You know how I hate change…like I was ready to kill you when you got a different kind of toilet paper. But I think this is something serious, something I gotta think about. Like what I'm gonna do with my life. And what everything means. I feel like this dream was trying to impart some important message to me about my life, my writing…but what the bowler hat represented, I have no idea…" Gabrielle trailed off, and so had Zina's infant-like attention span—the baby blues were focused on the switchblade she pulled out of her pocket. With a flick of the wrist, Zina began to pare her nails. Gabrielle cleared her throat loudly. "Honey, do me a favor. Would you get that big book out of the bathroom for me?"

Zina nodded. Still fiddling with the switchblade, she shuffled into the bathroom. Five minutes passed. The toilet flushed. "I don't see anything!" she finally cried.

You damn—"It's under your copy of Guns and Ammo!" Gabrielle yelled.

A pause. "Oh." Zina returned, with a large hardcover tome. It was titled The Woman's Dictionary of Symbols, Signs, and Secret Meanings: Dream Interpretation for Quasi-Feminists. The book had been a Christmas gift from Cyrene. With the book splayed in her lap, Gabrielle flipped pages until she reached this entry, nestled between "Bowl of Oatmeal" and "Butane Lighters":

BOWLER HATS: Traditionally seen as a symbol of male bourgeoisie, the bowler hat takes on subversive meaning in dreams when it is worn by a woman. Its black color represents power, and the round, curvaceous shape calls to mind the feminine form. Nominally the dream figure wearing the hat is seen as powerful, a person whose acceptance of self is something that you strive for.

Gabrielle looked at her companion skeptically. Zina was flipping the switchblade in her hand, then, with a sudden growl and a cry of "Hee-yah!" flung the blade across the room until it landed, bull's eye, in a decrepit dart board. She smirked with pride.

"Zina, I'm having a spiritual crisis kinda thing going on. Least you could do is leave the switchblade alone."

The firefighter blinked and looked at her girlfriend. "Oh. Yeah, sorry, Gabrielle." Like a scolded puppy she returned to the bed.

"Maybe this is why I'm having a writer’s block, too," mused the blonde.

"Don't worry, honey, you'll get your groove back." Zina admired her neatly trimmed nails, then shot Gabrielle a sly, lusty look. "We could have sex—that usually helps you write."

"Yeah, but I usually end up writing epic poems about your thighs. Not that that isn't a worthy subject, but…no. I gotta work this out. It's like a…quest. A spiritual quest, you know?"

"No." No, of course not. For Zina, a spiritual quest would be finding the perfect hunting knife.

"Well, it is. I have to discover who I am, and what my life means, and find inner peace."

They were quiet for a long minute. "I still think sex would help," Zina finally said.

Gabrielle pondered this. "Better safe than sorry." She peeled off her shirt.

3. Anything that Moves

The following day found Gabrielle answering a fateful knock at the door.

She blinked at the tall, dark stranger on the doorstep. "I am looking for Zina." He spoke heavily accented English.

Mentally, Gabrielle pulled out the Zina Ex-Lover Checklist (Male Version):

1. Does he have overstyled facial hair? Yes! Not as weird as Artie's, though.

2. Long and/or dark hair? Uh-huh.

3. Muscular and/or dangerous looking, like he just got out of prison? Absolutely.

4. An obvious death wish? We'll soon find out.

The Male Version of the Checklist did certainly help narrow the field a bit, unlike the Female Version, which was:1. Blonde?She leaned in the doorway. "Okay, man, I got your number. Welcome to Zinaholics Anonymous. I'm Gabrielle, and I can't sponsor you, because I'm a happy addict."

The man scowled at her. "A simple 'hello' would work just as well."

"Who are you?"

This did not erase his look of displeasure. "My name is Boris. I have come to see Zina about…" He paused melodramatically. "…our puppy."

"Puppy?"

"Da. We had puppy together…many years ago."

"A puppy?" Gabrielle gasped. Talk about commitment! Zina never wants us to have a pet! Every time I bring it up…"Too much responsibility, Gabrielle." She stomped over to the foot of the stairs. "Zina!" she roared up into the air. "Get your ass down here now!"

Various curses filtered down from the second floor of the house. "All right, all right, goddammit." A clunk emanating from above indicated that a barbell was threatening to come crashing through the ceiling. Sleek, sweaty, and pumped, Zina trooped down the stairs. And stopped just before hitting the last step. "Boris," she snarled. "I thought you were dead!" Great, another ex for Gabrielle to deal with. I'll never hear the end of it.

He looked blank for a moment, then threw up his arms. "Can't you read? The telegram said Dagnine killed me in the chess tournament. Not in real life, you eeediot!" He shook his head, dismayed, then gave her a less severe scrutiny. "But…Stolichnaya!" he murmured. "You still look fabulous!"

The firefighter ignored this. "What the hell do you want?"

A hurt look crossed his face. "What a greeting! Zeeeeena, I have not seen you for…what? Ten years?"

"Seven."

"I thought that was when you met Julie Caesar," Gabrielle interjected.

"Ummm, maybe five."

"Who is Julie Caesar?" Boris said.

"Maybe it's closer to eight…" Zina mused.

"Or nine," added Gabrielle.

"Maybe I should ask Mom…"

"Zina, every other week your mother thinks it's 1972. I don't think so." Only a few days prior Cyrene had traipsed up to Gabrielle and said, "Hey, man, they're starting this cool thing called Earth Day! Wanna go?"

"Who is this Julie Caesar?" Boris demanded again.

"Look, dickhead, I'm the main squeeze here, not you, so stop acting jealous. Okay, Zina," Gabrielle pointed at Boris, "let's hear all about this one. I'm ready for another long, crude story about your past. I just bought a jumbo-sized tub of potato chips, so I'm set. Spill it."

"Gabrielle, I can't—it's just too damn ugly." There were few things Zina was truly ashamed of doing…but this part of her life, with Boris, was simply too painful and hideous to contemplate. And if she couldn't deal with it…what made Gabrielle think that she could?

"Come on, I know everything else, baby. The drug deals, the stolen cars, setting Callie's house on fire—"

"You set somebody's house on fire?" cried Boris, aghast. The Russian's eyes widened in horror.

"—the shoplifting, picking up a Girl Scout—"

"She told me she was a troop leader!" the firefighter blurted in feeble defense.

"—beating up your parole officer, all the ABBA albums you had—"

"Why won't you admit 'SOS' is a great song?"

"—so the point is, Zina, I know all the bad stuff, so…trust me. I love you. I married you. I wash your t-shirts. Tell me."

"You want the truth? You can handle the truth!" Zina roared.

A stunned silence followed.

The firefighter shrugged sheepishly. "Sorry. I always wanted to say that."

"Tell me," demanded the poet quietly, folding her arms.

The firefighter sighed in defeat, and her beautiful countenance hardened into a spiteful sneer. "You wanna hear about it? All right, Gabrielle, you asked for it…" Her jaw shifted defiantly. "Boris and I were semi-professional ice skaters. We spent years—well, I guess maybe only one—trying to make it big at the Pocatello Ice Follies."

"Pocatello…?" echoed the poet.

"Da," Boris affirmed. "It's a town in that—ahhhh, what do you Americans call your potato state?"

"Idaho," Zina supplied curtly. "Anyway, the Ice Follies….It's like a dry run for the Ice Capades."

Gabrielle backed up away from her beloved, and gripped the arm of the decrepit couch. No. Totally uncool! My big, tough macho dyke girlfriend…a figure skater?

"And we made Tonya Harding look good," Boris added glumly.

"Yeah, Boris is right. We were the worst of the worst. The lowest of the low. I wore a pink chiffon bodysuit. And Boris made Rudy Galindo look butch." The Russian scowled at this. "We performed to 'You Light Up My Life'…"

"And that cute song from Cats. What's it called, Zina?" Boris started to hum "Memory." Without thinking, Zina picked up the melody and did the same.

"STOP!" shrieked Gabrielle. Pink? Ice skating? Debby Boone? Eyes staring blankly, she sank numbly into the depths of the couch.

"Zeeeeena, I think she's in shock," Boris said, waving a hand in front of Gabrielle's glassy, fixed stare.

4. Another Obligatory Flashback

Practice ended badly; a poorly executed triple axle landed Zina on her ass and ripped her costume. Boris was supposed to catch her, but he was not on his mark, where he should have been, but was at the edge of the rink with Alti, their coach, indulging in a prolonged smoke and discussion about various brands of vodka. Furious, she stomped over to her oblivious lover, cold-cocked him (eliciting an evil cackle from Alti in the process), and stalked back to their trailer, which was parked outside the rink

She didn't hit him too hard—he was only unconscious for half an hour—and, as she anticipated, he skulked back to the trailer, apologetic, and they proceeded to make up by screwing frantically under the canopy of the fuzzy, musty panda bear blanket they had bought from Woolworth's a few months ago.

Afterwards, while she snored he threw on a pair of jeans and hunted for another bottle of vodka. Bah! She hid it again! Greedy bitch! He returned to the bedroom, determined to wake her up and find out where the vodka was. However, sitting down beside her, he was overtaken by a moment of tenderness as he watched her sleep. Softly, he called her name. "Zina."

She sputtered, drooled, and grunted. He smiled. How he loved her! Gently, he shook her naked shoulder. "Zina, my beloved. Light of my life, fire of my loins, my sin, my soul, Zeeeena—"

A bleary blue eye cracked open and glared at him. "We're outta condoms, so don't even think about it."

He laughed merrily. "My darling, your crudeness is so charming. No, I just wanted to tell you…" His dark eyes were solemn. "I think I love you."

Like a cultural Pavlov's dog, all Zina could think about was the Partridge Family. The big yellow bus! Danny Bonaduce! Susan Dey in all her bitchy glory! "I think I'm gonna puke." She rolled over.

"This was not the reaction I had hoped for."

"Too fucking bad."

"It's all this…stress, all this nonsense that's making you act like this." He disregarded the fact that she had always been like this, even when they were trying to open up the Chinese/Tex-Mex restaurant with Lao Ma. He still shuddered involuntarily at the thought of it; he loved her, without a doubt, but he was damned if she didn't have the weirdest ideas when it came to food. And why Lao Ma indulged her…Well, I know why Lao Ma indulged her, he thought darkly, reflecting upon that miserable day when he caught them together. She was just washing my hair, Zina had said, and then we both got all wet, so we took off all our clothes to dry, but there weren't any towels, so we were just rubbing our bodies together—just to get dry!

But oh, Zina, if that's true, then why were you still…so wet? He wanted to cry, the pain of the betrayal was still so fresh. But he forced back the thoughts. "Zina, please," he continued. "I mean it. We could be so happy if we only stopped doing this��crap. Let's face it, neither one of us can skate to save our own lives."

Her body rippled with a sigh.

"You know I'm right," he pushed.

"Yeah, I guess you are," she conceded. "We should talk to Alti later and tell her it's not workin' out. Right now, I wanna sleep."

Unfortunately, a banging commenced upon the semi-sturdy door of the trailer. "Go the fuck away!" Zina shouted, pulling the blanket over her head.

He sighed. Apparently the Big Love Discussion would have to wait as well. He padded over to the door and opened it. It was Alti, a Pall Mall dangling (as always) from her lips, her mascara heavy and smeared, making her look like a cross between an aging Cure fan and an insomniac raccoon. "Boris, is she all right?" She nodded toward the bedroom.

"Is she all right?" he spat, incredulous. "She's the one who hit me!" Furious, he pointed at his swollen nose.

"Whatever," Alti grunted. "Can we come in for a moment?" It was at the mention of "we" that Boris noted a lithe blonde woman, wearing a short coat and a skirt, hovering inconspicuously behind Alti.

He frowned with suspicion. "I guess." He stepped aside to let them in, and

shouted in the direction of the bedroom, "Zina! We got company! Get dressed!"

A minute passed and the sullen Zina sauntered into the main room, wearing black underwear and a tank top.

"Now that's what I call dressed," Alti rasped with approval in her Brenda Vaccaro voice.

Boris, who had pulled on a sweatshirt, folded his arms and scowled. Ignoring them all, Zina headed for the kitchen and returned with a Heineken.

"What, you don't offer our guests anything?" Boris snapped at her.

"Fuck you. What am I, a maid?"

"Why, I ought to—" he raised a hand. She hissed at him.

Alti groaned. "As fascinating as I find this, we need to talk."

"About what?" Zina asked.

"Schedule change. The first performance of the Follies this season is next week at the Shriners' Arena, so we gotta pick up our pace."

"A week?" Boris gasped. "I thought it was in three weeks."

"It was. But the Militia Job Fair is all that week, in downtown Pocatello, so they moved it up to this week."

"Bastards!" snarled Boris.

"Look, Boris, what does it matter?" Zina said impatiently. "We might as well tell her now." She turned to Alti. "We were just talking about this whole thing a few minutes ago. Alti, we're sick of the skating. We're no good at it. So we're quitting."

Rage contorted the visage of the Mascara'ed One. "What? You can't quit! We have an agreement!"

"Screw the agreement," Zina retorted. "I'm not doing it anymore. I'm sick of wearing pink chiffon and skating to Whitney Houston."

"Should I let you pick the music?" Alti growled. "If I did, you would be banging your head on the ice to AC/DC."

Zina groaned. "Look, I just want out."

Alti looked to Boris, who was quiet, his face expressionless. "What do you think, Boris?"

"She speaks for us both," the Russian proclaimed.

"I see," Alti rumbled. She turned her head slightly, catching the attention of the blonde woman, who stepped out from behind the skating coach. "Well, I guess if that's your decision, Zina, then it's done. Oh, by the way, have I introduced you to my…new assistant?"

With a sensual shrug, the Blonde's short jacket fell away, revealing creamy bare shoulders above a halter top, followed by a firm, flat tummy and a short skirt. She pursed her full lips, winked at Zina, and purred a hello.

With delight Alti noted that her star skater's blue eyes were glazed with lust and her jaw shifting with the barely suppressed urge to devour the woman on the spot. So predictable, Zina, the coach thought. She smirked and watched as Boris fumed silently, figurative steam shooting out of his ears like a busy laundromat.

Eyes not moving from the Blonde, Zina groped blindly for her wallet, which was sunk into the pocket of her Levi's, draped on the couch. "Hey, Boris baby, why don't you an' Alti go down to the tavern for a while, have a couple rounds…" Absentmindedly she pulled a twenty from the pocket and tossed it in the general direction of her Russian companion.

Alti intercepted the flying money, and gently grasped Boris's arm, relieved to see that he was not protesting as she steered him toward the door. "We'll talk later about next week. All right, Zina?"

Like a bird of prey in a cocktail lounge, Zina took a few steps toward the Blonde, who tittered. "Sure, Alti, sure."

"See you at practice tomorrow?"

"Yeah, yeah, go on." Impatiently, she waved her coach away.

With a final shove Alti scooted Boris out the door and closed it behind her. Immediately, in rapid succession, she heard a low growl, a playful shriek, a giddy giggle, and a tortuous moan.

Boris heard it too. Oh great, now I really have to cheer him up, or else he'll spend all evening talking about Dostoevsky. She threw an arm around him. "Come on, Boris. Nothing but Stoli for you," she said. If we can find some in this Godforsaken town.

"Really?" he asked with timid hopefulness and puppy dog eyes.

"Really." Ah, as long as there's no shortage of blondes and vodka….

*****

Gabrielle glanced at the empty bottle of peach schnapps on the kitchen table. After Zina had begun the sad tale of her skating days, Boris had taken over the narrative, trying to explain the hold that Alti, their evil coach, had on them. In the interim Zina had wandered into the living room to watch a football game. It had taken him two hours and the empty bottle of liquor to complete his tale…which, unfortunately, had led into further discourse on the larger theme of the evening: Zina was an Evil Bitch Who Could Not Be Trusted.

He drained his glass of schnapps and slammed it on the table. "I put up with a lot of crap from her. First she dumps me for Lao Ma, then we're back together again and I thought everything was okay, then all of a sudden she's doing this blonde bitch…" A sob escaped him, and Gabrielle, cursing her good nature, found herself patting his arm.

"There there," soothed Gabrielle. "It's all over now, baby blue." Damn Cyrene, making me listen to Dylan over and over and over….

He sniffled into his shirt sleeve. "She'll do the same to you! You're better off without her," he said sullenly.

She stood up to stretch. "Boris, trust me. Zina's not like that anymore. She's a good person now. She's changed. She really has."

"WOO-HOO!!!! BUCKEYES!!!!!" came a scream from the living room. A few seconds later Zina strutted out, cocky and proud. "Goddamn forty-five yard TD! Sonofabitch!" She playfully slapped Gabrielle on the ass, grabbed a Rolling Rock from the fridge, then ambled back to the TV.

"Changed, huh?" Boris grunted.

Gabrielle rubbed her tingly butt and smiled. She hoped the strangely named football team would win, because it would put Zina in a really good mood afterward.

*****

Indeed, the fortunes of Zina's favorite college team held, and Gabrielle awoke the next morning with a sigh that signified blissful satisfaction. She wandered downstairs to find Zina in the kitchen, making one of her "power shakes": raw eggs with Tabasco sauce and seaweed.

"No good morning kiss for you," mumbled the sleepy poet as she padded into the kitchen.

The firefighter unleashed her evil laugh. "That's what you think," she growled happily, and swung Gabrielle up onto the counter, so that she was sitting among cracked eggs and dried bits of ocean gunk. Then Zina's lips fused with her own. And that burning sensation…was that the raven-haired woman's intense passion sizzling against her with tactile abandon, or was it the Tabasco?

Several minutes passed as they engaged in swapping heated spit, but as Gabrielle opened a lazy, lustful eye, movement from the living room, quite visible from her perch on the counter, caught her attention. Intrigued, she pulled away slightly from her partner, only to have the firefighter attach her lips to Gabrielle's neck. "Zina?"

"Mmmmm?"

"Why is Boris still here?"

The dark head flew back. "What?"

Gabrielle nodded toward the living room. "He's in there…" She and Zina peered intently in that direction. "…and he's eating my Cocoa Puffs!" shouted the poet.

"And he's wearing my pajamas!" Zina added with outrage. Disengaging herself from Gabrielle, she stomped into the living room and sat down on the couch beside Boris, who was watching "Donny and Marie" on TV.

"Good morning!" he said.

Fucking bastard. Always a morning person. "Boris, what the hell are you still doing here?"

"Zina, I told you last night…I am not going anywhere until you turn over our puppy." Boris did concede to himself that he could have picked his moment better. It was right after the Buckeyes won and the postgame makeout session was in full swing. ("Yay, Butt-Thighs!" Gabrielle had cried triumphantly as she was chased up the stairs.)

"I don't have our goddamn puppy! And another thing, he's probably a dog by now!"

"He will always be a 'puppy' to me, Natasha," Boris replied, letting slip the pet name he had sometimes called Zina when they were still together. They were Boris and Natasha, out to destroy Moose and Squirrel, and take over the world…."Well," he continued, with an exasperated sigh, "where is he?"

The firefighter stared guiltily into the distance.

"I, uh, gave him to Lao Ma."

He did an abortive Danny Thomas: instead of spewing milk and cereal all over the place, it only dribbled all over his beard. "You gave OUR PUPPY to Lao Ma??? Are you mad?"

She moaned. "Look, I'm sorry. We had broken up, and you left to play chess in Geneva, so…I didn't think I was fit to take care of a dog, Boris…"

"But…Lao Ma??? She probably turned him into a lunch special with an egg roll and choice of soup!"

"Cut that out. That's just some…whaddya call it…urbane legend," she replied nervously, chewing her lower lip. At least it better be, Lao!

"How could you?"

"Believe me, I didn't want to, Boris. I feel bad that I had to."

"Ha!" he shouted. "You felt bad about something. That's only slightly more amazing than the fact that some TV executive thinks that these eeeediots"—he pointed at the mugging Osmonds—"still have careers!"

In the interim Gabrielle had entered the living room; she too was munching

on the ambrosia of the lower classes, Cocoa Puffs. "Hey, who's that dopey guy who looks like Purdy?" she asked, gesturing toward the TV with her dripping, milky spoon.

5. Enter the Dragon

"This is stupid," grumbled Gabrielle, as she followed Zina into the Green Dragon. "Why can't he track down his own damn puppy?"

"Look, it's like a debt I have to repay," Zina muttered as they were underwhelmed by the dim lighting and the Orientalia of the restaurant: blood red and gold tones saturated the murals of Chinese characters and temples, and little figures dancing with giant peaches….

"Debt my ass," retorted the poet.

Just inside they were greeted by the surly visage of Ming Tien, Lao Ma's son, who, as usual, was manning the cash register. His skinny arms were folded over his Sailor Moon t-shirt. He sneered at them, adam's apple bobbing furiously. "Ah, my mother's erstwhile seductress dares to bring shame to our dwelling once again."

Zina snatched up a pair of complimentary chopsticks from a large bowl in front of the register. "I'm telling ya, kid, one of these days…" She mimed jamming the sticks into his head.

"Like I'm sooo afraid of you!" he taunted. She lunged at him and he skittered off his chair, seeking refuge behind Gabrielle.

"Stop it, both of you," Gabrielle chastised them. "Look, Zina, let's get this over with, okay?"

"Is she in the kitchen?" Zina barked at Ming Tien.

"Yeah," he replied, sulking.

The two women walked through the nearly empty restaurant to the kitchen. They found Lao idly stirring a huge cauldron of egg drop soup, which sat next to a metal table covered with a mini-army of little wax paper bags filled with dried noodles. "Ah, Zina. I knew you would come," she murmured with serene confidence.

Lao Ma's mystical side always fascinated the ex-con. "Yeah? How'd you know this time? A vision? Reading tea leaves? A talking eggroll?"

"No. Boris called me."

"Lazy bastard," muttered Gabrielle.

"Your jealous heart reveals itself, Gabrielle. Like a dumpling hiding spinach…soon, the truth is wedged bitterly between one's teeth."

Gabrielle rolled her eyes.

"Lao, baby," Zina began, folding her arms so that her supple biceps were highlighted, then tossing her black hair and grinning seductively, "you'll remember a few years back I gave you a puppy…"

"Ah, yes. A most unexpected gesture. Touching and beautiful."

"Thanks, Lao."

"Until you demanded money for the wretched creature."

"I just thought of that as a loan. Anyway, Lao, honey..." Zina stretched to emphasize her broad shoulders and perfectly rounded breasts. Lao's stirring of the egg drop soup grew agitated. And Gabrielle's blood simmered hotter than the most potent of Tabasco sauces.

"...I need the dog back. I'll buy him from you, even."

"Yes, I know. That's what Boris was calling about. He said he was sending you over, and that you would either seduce me or kill me for the dog."

"You know Boris. Loves to exaggerate. 'Cause if I kill anyone, it would be that bratty kid of yours."

Lao Ma sighed. "Ming Tien is so misunderstood....you see, I had to get rid of the dog for him."

"Whaaaaat?" Zina asked, with a growl building in her throat.

"Ming was the allergic to the animal. And it kept attacking him. So I took it to the local animal shelter."

"Attacking?" echoed Zina. "Lao, it's a dachshund, for Christ's sake."

"They have many sharp little teeth..."

"Yeah," drawled Gabrielle facetiously, "who can resist the raging dachshund?"

Lao Ma's cool eyes flickered to the angry poet. "A sarcastic bitch is like a Barbra Streisand CD: It yields unpleasantness for all within hearing range."

"Oh, yeah? Well, a bitch who drowns in a pot of egg drop soup is like…"

Zina and Lao watched, with anticipation, as Gabrielle struggled to find a metaphor. Both women raised eyebrows.

"…like….like…a bitch who drowns in a pot of egg drop soup!" In sheer frustration, Gabrielle kicked at the stove. Poor baby, Zina thought, she really is blocked.

A flicker of alarm crossed Lao Ma's face. "Gabrielle, do not kick my stove. Unless you want to find extra MSG in your next Szechuan Chicken." She turned to Zina. "Please, remove your dangerous girlfriend from the premises."

"C'mon, baby, let's go," Zina tugged gently on her companion's arm.

"Don't you threaten me with acronyms, you!" roared Gabrielle.

With a sigh, Zina flung the poet over a broad shoulder and exited the Green Dragon.

6. Of Pussies and Puppies

When Boris was not contentedly watching Sally Jessy Raphael, he pondered his ex-lover, Zina. It amazed him to see her so utterly under the thumb of this little blonde person, Gabrielle. The dark, dangerous woman who excited him so, who defied the law and good taste, well, she was now…what do they call it? Ah…pussy-whipped!

Now she knows what it's like, he thought spitefully.

The door of the farmhouse burst open, interrupting any further Russian ruminations. Zina stomped in, with Gabrielle on her heels.

"Did you have to hit the guy at the pound?" the strawberry blonde was complaining.

"Don't you give me any lectures, missy! You were about ready to cold cock Lao Ma at the restaurant!" the firefighter retorted angrily.

"Well, the difference here is that I didn't hit anyone, Zina. Besides, Lao Ma is a bitch."

"You're jealous."

"And you're practically homicidal!"

"I know I am! I've admitted it, Gabrielle! Whaddya want me to do, tell the world I'm gay? I'M GAY! I'M GAY!" Zina shouted to the heavens.

Gabrielle rolled her eyes in defeat. It's not even worth telling her.

"And you…you're a fine one to talk about us being homo-cidal. You haven't even told your parents yet!"

The poet flushed. "They're not ready to know!"

Boris decided that the ridiculous bickering had gone far enough, and it was time for a man—a force of reason—to intervene. "Did anyone bring 7-Up?" he asked calmly. "We're all out."

The two women stared at him. "What the hell are you still doing here?" Zina snarled.

"Zina, I told you…"

"Yeah, yeah, the dog. Well, I got news for you, Boris. The dog is in the pound and they won't let me have 'em unless I pay $1000."

The Russian's dark eyes swelled with emotion. "A thousand—but, they can't do that! Why is it so much money?"

"It's some stupid county law," Gabrielle said. "Zina was registered as the dog's owner, and since she 'abandoned' him and he ended up in the pound…well, they're fining her. It's a misdemeanor."

"Miss Demeanor? I once knew a drag gentleman by that name."

"Drag queen," Gabrielle corrected.

"Da." Boris looked over at Zina, who was slumped in the recliner, looking defeated. He squirmed—instinct told him something else was wrong. "What?" he prompted.

Gabrielle bit her lip nervously. "It's also a violation of Zina's parole, and if we don't pay the fine she'll go to jail."

Zina tried to convey indifference with a shrug. "I don't have that kinda money," the firefighter muttered. Damn. And I swore I would never go back….All the money they recovered from the sales of Barbecue Salsa Mayonnaise was gone, spent on their vacation and on fixing a dent in the Impala—Gabrielle's lone attempt at driving the fabled car having gone seriously awry when she accidentally ran over Crassus, one of Julie Caesar's dogs. The contrite poet had cried a river of tears on Zina's Black Sabbath t-shirt, but had eagerly agreed to the firefighter's plan to bury the dog in Farmer Draco's backyard and not tell Julie.

"I don't either, Zina," Boris implored, "but if we don't pay the money…they kill him."

"And you'll go to jail," Gabrielle added softly.

"Maybe they should just kill me and send the dog to prison," Zina grumbled darkly.

"Can they do that here?" asked the Russian, a mite too eagerly.

7. You Don't Need Pants for the Victory Dance

Gabrielle found the prospect of connubial visits at Shark Island Correctional Facility quite unappealing, and quickly decided upon the best approach to earning quick cash to keep her beloved out of the pen: She applied for employment at the Shimmy Shack.

Sid Moskowitz, the chubby, engaging proprietor of said establishment, was quite pleased when Gabrielle called him to inquire of job opportunities. Sid had an eye for natural talent, and ever since he had spotted Gabrielle in the supermarket, wearing Daisy Dukes and bending over to pick up a rather large box of detergent, he knew her assets would do well on his stage.

Nervously, Gabrielle walked into the dark, empty club. In the light of day, such an institution is rather like a gutted animal—hollow, smelly, dark, and dead. Nonetheless, Sid's cheery disposition did its best to dispel this impression. "Hiya, sweet pea!" Sid greeted her happily. "Glad you came!"

"Hi, Sid."

"How's that old psycho girlfriend of yours, baby?"

"She's fine."

"Yeah," he sighed wistfully. "I still remember the first time I met her. She was dealing dope in my club and I had her kicked out…later that same night, when I was closing up, she beat the crap out of me." He smiled nostalgically. "The very next day, I hired her as a bouncer. She was the best ever. I've never seen anyone inflict pain and humiliation the way she did!" Tears welled up in his eyes.

"That's a beautiful story, Sid. It gets more beautiful every time you tell it."

"Yeah." He moaned. "Ach, such memories! Now, honeycakes, before we get in too deep here….Zina does know about this, doesn't she?"

The blonde twitched. "Well, not yet. But I swear, Sid, she'll be cool with it. I mean, I'm doing it for her. We need the money to pay off all these fines and stuff about the dog."

"Yeah. Poor Killer."

"Killer?"

"That's the dachshund, sweet cheeks."

Gabrielle shook her head sadly. No wonder they never call him by his name. "It figures," she muttered.

"Okay, angel muffin, shall we get on with the interview?"

"Sure." Gabrielle slipped out of the long raincoat she was wearing, revealing a body clad in a lovely two-piece bikini.

Sid sucked in as much air as he could, as several blood vessels in his head threatened to burst. Having done so, he found himself unable to exhale—he was afraid that if he did so, this woman of sheer perfection might vanish. Or simply run away at the smell of his breath.

"Well?" demanded the poet impatiently, hands on hips.

"Are you kidding, honey?" he wheezed. "Just looking at you takes five years off my life span."

8. Benefits of the Missionary Position

The ritual began.

The lights were dimmed, candles were lit, and empty cans of Rolling Rock were lined up on the floor. Mentally, Zina counted them again. Twenty-four. Yes, that should do nicely. As usual, Gabrielle had requested that Zina play the softest music she had, which, unfortunately, was a tape of Joni Mitchell's Blue that Cyrene had left behind one evening. As the guitars tinkled gently and Joni mumbled something about the wind from Africa, Gabrielle entered. She sat on the bare floor near the cans and assumed the lotus position, while Zina wished that she were watching women's volleyball on ESPN. It wasn't that she really minded helping her girlfriend, once everything got started, but getting there just took so long. The firefighter suppressed a sigh….

…But apparently not well enough. A green eye opened and peered at her in annoyance.

"Sorry," she mumbled. She stretched out along the floor, waiting.

A few minutes passed while Gabrielle continued to meditate. The firefighter was about ready to fall asleep when the poet announced quietly, "I'm ready." The blonde unfurled her body from the yoga position and laid down on her back.

Zina, on her knees, loomed over her beloved. She reached for the first beer can. "Okay." Gently, she placed the can on its side against Gabrielle's bare midriff. It sat there precipitously, its green sheen merely the reflected glory of the poet’s eyes, until the young woman's body jackknifed with amazing speed and power….Zina had seen it happen many times, but it never failed to amaze her: The can was now flatter than the topography of Kansas.

"The Amazing Abs," Zina whispered in reverence. She removed the flattened can.

Gabrielle smiled proudly. "Plus the recycling people love me!" she crowed. "Next!"

Zina placed the second can on the poet's tummy. "Can't wait to see you at the club tomorrow night."

Crunch! "I'm really nervous, baby. I'm so glad you'll be there." Another innocent Rolling Rock can was placed in the abs of death. "I still can't believe"—Crunch! —"you're cool with this. I thought you'd be all pissed and everything."

"Are you crazy? It's like the dream of every red-blooded American dyke. To have a girlfriend who is an exotic dancer! I can go up to any slob in the crowd while they watch you dance, point at you, and say, 'That's my chick, man.' Ha!" she cackled in triumph.

"You're so fucked up," concluded Gabrielle with a sigh. Crunch!

"But you love me anyway," retorted Zina smugly.

"Like the way I love pork rinds: I know they’re bad, but I just can’t resist." The poet affirmed this with another crunch.

Zina pondered this. "That’ll do," she observed, as she selected another can. 9. Thanks for the Mammaries

Sid leaned against a wall in the club. He plucked at his black polyester shirt, which shimmered in the low light, and sighed. She simply isn't getting it, he thought. Such potential—I mean, oy! That body! But…. He had spent the last half an hour watching Gabrielle dance, or do something resembling dancing, and it was about as erotic as watching a spastic have a fit. He stopped the tape deck, and ZZ Top's "Gimme All Your Lovin'" once again died in an abrupt fashion, which mirrored the disjointed style of his private dancer. As silence filled the room, the young woman stumbled in her heels and fell onto her ass. She looked up at Sid helplessly.

"Sweet cheeks," he began warily, "hasn't Zina ever asked you to shake your titties, eh?"

Gabrielle blinked. "What the hell kind of question is that?" she asked, irritated. "It's none of your damn business." Carefully she stood up, hoping that no part of her skimpy bikini was askance; I'm not showing flesh until the meter starts running, she thought.

"Honey thighs, the name of this joint is the Shimmy Shack. You don't have to be goddamn Ginger Rogers to dance here, but…you need to shimmy. You need to shake it up. C'mon, stick 'em out, and vibrate. And later….when you latch onto that pole, you gotta hump it like hell. Okay?"

She stared at the dismal aluminum pole stuck in the middle of the stage. "But…it's a pole."

Sid sighed again, in utter exasperation. "Babycakes, aren't you a writer or somethin'?"

Gabrielle nodded furiously. "Do you need me to write—"

"No, I don't need you to write anything. All I'm saying is—use your imagination. Pretend that pole is Zina's thigh. Pretend all the guys you're dancing for are, like, a big lesbian soccer team or something."

The poet frowned skeptically.

"All right, a big, smelly, drunk lesbian soccer team."

Gabrielle's frown deepened. "All right, Sid. I'll do my best."

Sid smiled; he wasn't buying it. "Shit, sweetheart, I'm sorry you're having a rough time with this. Maybe Natalie can help you."

"Who's Natalie?"

"My best dancer, baby. Look, take a load off, go back in the dressing room. She'll be here soon."

*****

So Gabrielle went back into the bowels of the club, into the tiny dressing room she was to share with about three or four other women. She pulled on her t-shirt—the chilly air had made her nipples so erect and prominent that they could hail a taxi of their own accord. She sat down in front of a mirror. Scattered on the table in front of her were various accouterments of femininity: lipstick, rouge, baby powder, eyeliner, tampons …and a book. She picked it up, curiously—it was entitled A Separate Reality: Further Conversations with Don Juan.

As she started to page through the book, someone quietly entered the room.

"It's a great book," said a woman's voice.

Surprised, Gabrielle gave a little jump, then turned around. A woman with short blonde hair stood in the doorway, wearing jeans and a flannel shirt. Red alert! Red alert! Lesbian in the vicinity! Gabrielle's gaydar screamed. Nervously, the poet placed the book back where she found it. "Was this your book?" she asked the woman. "Sorry, just curious."

"No, no, it's all right," replied the woman. "It's nice to have someone around who's interested in the same thing." She walked over to Gabrielle and offered a hand. "Hi, I'm Natalie. Sid said I'd find you back here." Natalie's grasp was warm and tingly; Gabrielle felt a thumb brush lazily over the veins in the back of her hand. She squirmed slightly, partly uncomfortable and partly…aroused. "Gabrielle, is it?"

"Yeah, that's me." Natalie wouldn't let go of her hand. With a little tug, she finally reclaimed it.

"Cool. Sid said you're a student at the community college."

"I'm majoring in English."

"Wonderful! I used to teach there, you know."

Gabrielle brightened. "Really?"

"Yeah. I taught ethics. But then they got rid of the philosophy department. Cheap bastards. So I'm reduced to doing…this." Natalie waved her hand around the dismal dressing room.

"Sorry."

Natalie unleashed a dazzling smile. "Well, it's certainly not your fault." She began to strip rapidly, tossing her clothes over a lonely chair and revealing a thin, bikini clad form. "Okay, I guess I should show you some moves, like Sid said."

"Uh, sure, that'd be great. And, um, maybe afterward you can tell me all about this book," Gabrielle replied, picking up the Carlos Castaneda tome again.

"Oh, I'd love to!" responded the blonde stripper enthusiastically. She knelt down in front of Gabrielle, between the young poet's legs, and gazed at her with shining eyes. What the hell is she on? Gabrielle wondered, all the while fighting the delicious chills that turned her thighs all goose-pimply. "It's such a wonderful book. One of my favorites. It helps you see the world in a totally different way…"

*****

The blue Volkwagen sputtered to a halt in front of the Shimmy Shack. Cyrene took the keys out of the ignition, and looked over at her daughter, whose knees were pressed uncomfortably against the dash; she had forgotten that cramming Zina in her tiny VW bug was like putting Michael Jordan on a tricycle: It was not a good fit.

"Y'know, this is the kind of place I used to picket in the 70s, Zina," Cyrene grumbled.

"Look, Mom, don't start. She's just doing it for the money." Zina's muscular forearms were folded. While the firefighter was quite happy to show off her lover's body to the world, she was rather concerned that the look, don't touch policy firmly entrenched in her mind—and echoed by Sid's frequent admonitions to the crowd—would fall apart within the reality of the Shimmy Shack. She had been a bouncer too long at the dump to think otherwise. It made her tense. And a tense Zina was a hairsbreadth away from punching out anyone who dared annoy her.

Cyrene sighed. "You owe me for this, honey."

"The White Russians are on me, Mom."

*****

"I-I think I'm getting stage fright," Gabrielle stammered.

"I think you're just nauseous from eating three Snickers bars," Sid rumbled at her.

They were standing backstage. Natalie was on, dancing to "You Spin Me Right Round (Like a Record)."

"Oh shit, Sid…what if I bomb?"

"Honey, you're not gonna bomb. Just remember, you got the bod. You're halfway there. Shimmy the T, wiggle the A, hump the pole, and you'll be fine."

Wild applause and wolf whistles followed the sweaty Natalie as she left the stage. The number of $20 bills stuffed down the enticing pouch of her g-string made her look like she was packing in an odd kind of way. "Whew!" she said to Sid and Gabrielle, pushing damp strands of her blonde hair away from her face. "Those boys are primed now. They'd go nuts even if Shelley Winters went out there and danced."

Gabrielle gave a look of despair.

"Aw, Gabrielle! I'm just kidding!" Natalie hugged her impulsively. In her nervous state, having an attractive sweaty female body rubbing up against her own was almost too much. Almost. Natalie pulled away and all parties present noticed that the poet's nipples were harder than bullets.

"Well, somebody's ready to perform," Sid noted wryly. He patted her behind—Gabrielle resisted the urge to deck him—and headed onto the stage, in order to announce her.

"Just remember your mantra, Gabrielle," Natalie reminded her.

The young blonde nodded. "Yeah…shimmy the T, wiggle the A, hump the pole…" she mumbled.

"Actually I meant the other one we came up with. You know, your personal one: 'love, pop-tarts, and peace.' "

"Oh. Right. But hey, Natalie, like, aren't you supposed to not say it out loud?"

"Aw, shit!" the former professor winced.

"Gentlemen, we have a new performer tonight…I'd like you to give a warm welcome to…GABRIELLE!"

The poet stumbled toward the stage, and hesitated; her nerves felt so exposed that she imagined them—and not her body—bathed in lurid swaths of multicolored stage lights.

"Go toward the light!" Natalie shouted.

And which fucking light was that?

*****

"Wow, man, that was awesome," Cyrene babbled as she and Zina wound their way through dark hallways to the dressing room. "I mean, I never knew that she was so—" Cyrene's hands cupped imaginary breasts.

"Mom, shut the fuck up. You are seriously freaking me out," Zina retorted, while pondering the closed door in front of her. Her blood seethed with lust…who knew Gabrielle could dance so seductively? Zina had only ever witnessed the pogo-like maneuvers of the poet as she did the "Blitzkrieg Bop" to her favorite Ramones song. But now, she wanted nothing more than do ravish her companion…after that.

She kicked open the door. Cyrene rolled her eyes. Drama queen.

Zina's baby blues were greeted by the sight of Natalie painting Gabrielle's toenails while the poet pored over the Castaneda book. She did not miss the adoring look that the strange blonde woman was giving to her scantily-clad girlfriend, even though Gabrielle was clearly clueless to the attentions of the ex-professor. Indeed, if Oblivion were a town, Gabrielle would be mayor.

Nonetheless, at the startling sound of the door bursting open, both women turned their attention to the dark-haired firefighter.

"Baby!" Gabrielle squealed. "What did ya think?" She jumped up and ran over to Zina. The furious exchange of saliva prompted Natalie to read the label on the bottle of Dangerous Pomegranate nail polish and Cyrene to examine a selection of tassels hanging from the wall.

Zina broke off the kiss. "You were fantastic, baby. The best ever."

"Thanks…hey, I made almost $25 in tips!" she pointed to the bureau, littered with crumpled currency.

"That's great!"

"Yeah, I mean, I can't believe it…couple more weeks, we should have your fine paid off."

"Er, Gabrielle, why don't you introduce me to your—partner?" Natalie piped up unctuously.

" 'Partner?' " echoed Zina. "We don't work together. We sleep together."

She glowered at Natalie.

"Oh, uh, Zina, this is Natalie…she, uh, used to teach at Olympus." Nervously, Gabrielle looked from one woman to the other. Her new "mentor" and her beloved were not getting on well at all. "Honey, Natalie taught me how to dance. Ain't it great?"

Zina arched an eyebrow. Natalie smirked. "Yeah, great," muttered the firefighter.

"Well, I'm off…" said the blonde stripper breezily. She sailed past the three women, giving Gabrielle a wink. "See you tomorrow, Gabrielle." And she was gone.

Gabrielle disentangled herself from Zina. "You coulda been nicer, you know," she chastised sullenly, as she slipped on a t-shirt.

"I never said I was a nice person," Zina shot back.

In the interim, Cyrene had noticed the book lying on the bureau. She picked it up. "Oh man!" she cackled. "I haven't seen this used as a seduction technique since 1972!"

"Whaddya mean, seduction?" snarled Zina. Her blue eyes snapped to Gabrielle. Who looked away.

"Don't be silly, Cyrene," scoffed Gabrielle. "Excuse me, I have to go see Sid about my schedule for next week." With a cultivated, haughty air borne of careful examination of Joan Collins in Dynasty, the exotic dancer left the room.

Zina half-leaned, half-sat against the makeup table, looking defeated. "Shit, Mom."

Ah, my articulate child. "Look, honey, who knows what this chick is all about. But I'm sure Gabrielle is happy with you…and doesn't want to look elsewhere."

"I'm not so sure," mumbled the firefighter. "Maybe she needs to be with someone…like that. You know, who reads and stuff. Who understands poetry."

"…And who doesn't sit in an open pot of rouge." Cyrene concluded, nodding at Zina's behind. Zina jumped up, cursing. Her mother patted her arm affectionately. "I'll wait outside, in the car." The older woman ambled out the door.

*****

After confirming her schedule with Sid for the following week, Gabrielle was about to return to her dressing room when she was intercepted at the bar.

"Sweetie!" shrieked Chad, her fellow homo student at OCCC. He hugged Gabrielle. "You were fabulous!" Gabrielle was relieved to note that Chad wore no incendiary t-shirts, like I'M NOT GAY BUT MY ACADEMIC ADVISOR IS (an advertisement actually true). Although sporting a lilac-colored Ralph Lauren Polo shirt among the Shimmy Shack crowd was asking to be noticed.

"Aw, Chad, you came! I'm really glad."

"Oh, mary…" He took her face in his hands. "You have no idea how many screwdrivers I had to get through this…"

Vodka-influenced breath wafted over her. She blanched. "Yes, Chad. Yes I do."

"But Good God, Gab. I didn't know Natalie Hood was strutting her stuff here too."

"Hey, so you know her?"

Chad's eyes widened. "Oh yeah…man, I'm so glad they fired her."

"Fired? She told me they closed the philosophy department."

"Oh. that little liar!" Chad exclaimed petulantly. "No, she was canned for sexual harassment. She would pick a student she liked, and try to seduce them. You know, say she'd give them a higher grade." His thin lips trembled. "She even tried it with me once!"

"Duh, can't she tell you're gay?"

"That's what I said!" Chad wailed.

Gabrielle frowned in thought. Maybe Zina was right not to be suspicious of her. I mean, the big dope is right about some things…I should give her more credit. "Chad, I gotta go…I have to finish dressing" –the collective eyes of the bar were devouring her bikini'ed bottom, making her nervous—"and Zina's waiting for me."

" 'Kay, sweetie…Tell Zina I said hi, and that I want a date with a firefighter real soon."

When Gabrielle returned to the dressing room, Zina was swatting her Levi-clad butt with a towel.

"Baby, what the hell are you doing?"

"I got…stuff on my ass." Upon closer examination, the poet saw that some reddish powder clung to the denim. She chuckled. Zina scowled.

"I swear, you're like a big kid sometimes…" Gabrielle took the towel from her companion's hands. She dampened a corner with some bottled water left behind by Natalie, then successfully removed the powder. "Maybe this'll teach you not to sit on things a body shouldn't be sitting on."

"Yeah, right," grumbled Zina.

They were quiet for almost a minute.

"Do you…like her?" prompted the firefighter quietly. To mask her nervousness—which only emphasized it even more—she toyed with a stray cosmetic applicator…what it was exactly, she had no frigging idea.

"Who? Natalie?"

"Well, yeah."

Gabrielle shrugged. "I guess I did at first. I thought she was kinda cool…"

"And you thought she was cute."

" Yeah, she's cute…but so what? I just saw Chad outside, and he told me she's really an asshole."

"Really?" Zina frowned. "I had a bad feeling about her."

"You were right, honey. I'm sorry." The poet wrapped her arms around Zina's waist and propped her chin on the firefighter's broad shoulder. "So, um, I'm sorry. I didn't mean to make you jealous or anything. I love you, you big jerk."

Zina grinned. "And I love you too, you little bitch." She exhaled with relief. "Wow…so I was right about her, huh?" Gabrielle nodded. "I'm glad I'm right about something."

"You have good instincts, Zina. Except about your own strength."

"Huh?"

Gabrielle nodded at Zina's hand. Which was covered in inky black stuff. "You just crushed my eyeliner."

*****

Three weeks passed and the appropriate funds were procured, upon which Killer was sprung from the pound. Now, Boris was sprawled happily in the backyard with his dog. "There's my boy," he cooed, as Killer charged at him, the dachshund's ears flopping merrily.

"Your move," Zina grunted. The firefighter sat at the picnic table, where a chessboard lay before her. She had spent 20 minutes pondering how to put Boris into check. Having failed this particular objective, she opted for rearranging some of his pieces.

With a sigh, Boris stood up and returned to their chess match. Tomorrow he was off to Brussels for another tournament, with Killer in tow, and had decided to get in some practice with Zina before leaving. She was a good player, he admitted to himself, but her endgame was a weakness: She would grow impatient and then, ultimately, lose.

He sat down in front of the board and frowned, glaring at her. She simpered. He restored his knight and queen to their original positions.

Meanwhile, inside the farmhouse, Gabrielle was fending off Sid's advances, such as they were: "But, honey tits, are you sure you wanna hang up your G-string? You're my most popular dancer now!" the club owner protested as he stood in the kitchen and watched the lovely blonde make chocolate chip cookies.

"It's tempting, Sid…"

"I'll say."

Gabrielle stopped mixing cookie dough. "What do you mean by that?" she demanded.

"I got a good look at that car of yours. Oy, baby. An Escort? And it's gotta be rustier than Jesse Helms's dick."

A new car would be nice…Her lips twitched, but she said nothing.

Sid stroked his beard thoughtfully. He knew she was tempted. He decided to try another offer. "Look, sweetie, you know…I make movies too." He sidled up next to her. "And the money for that is even bigger than the dancing!" he whispered gleefully.

Gabrielle dropped her wooden spoon, covered in yummy cookie dough gunk. "You want me to be in porno?" she sputtered.

"Baby lamb, just one film will net you close to ten thou. You could buy yourself a Saturn, for God's sake!"

Her expression remained doubtful.

Damn. I almost had her. "Look, Gab, it's not really porno. It's erotica. There's a difference, y'know. Smart girl like you should know that." Still, she looked less than convinced as she rinsed off the wooden spoon. "This film that I want you to be in…it's ground-breaking, sugar cake. It really is. I can honestly say that there is no other film like it in existence. It touches me on a deep, religious level—in fact, I consider it a service to my people, because it's the first of its kind." Her green eyes fluttered with intrigue. He grinned. "You wanna know what it is?" he said eagerly.

"Yeah!" she exclaimed, caught up in his enthusiasm.

"The first ever Orthodox Jewish erotic film: Rabbi or Not, Here I Come."

Gabrielle groaned. "Jesus, Sid."

"Now that's one personage who will not be in this film." She shook her head and wiped her hands on a kitchen towel. "Come on, Hasidim deserve to have lively sex lives too, you know."

Through the back door Gabrielle saw a flash of movement: It was Zina, pinning Boris to the ground and trying to jam a rook into his ear. "Poor baby, she lost again," the poet murmured.

Sid noticed this too. "Ah, good old Zina. Making the world a little more dangerous," he sighed appreciatively.

"Yep, good old Zina," Gabrielle agreed happily.

"Who's that fine-looking fellow, babycakes? I think he would make a good rabbi."

Gabrielle flung open the back door. "Zina! Boris! Both of you knock it off, or no cookies!"

"She started it!" shouted Boris.

Zina sulked from her position, sitting on Boris's chest. Angrily he slapped her muscular thigh. "Get off me, you eeediot! I want cookies!"

She raised an eyebrow in disdain, and stood up.

Sid bustled past Gabrielle. "Zina, baby, what do you think of your girlfriend starring in a porn movie of her own? Eh?"

The blue eyes froze. Sid raised his hands in hapless self-defense. "But sugar lump, I got this great idea...maybe you could play the rabbi who seduces Gabrielle..." Sid brightened at his own idea. "This is great," he murmured to himself. "It increases the kink factor!"

"Rabbi?" Both dark eyebrows lifted, and a strange expression came over Zina's lovely face. With a shock, Gabrielle realized her lover was...thinking.

"Zina!" she cried. "You can't be serious!"

"Well, why not? You were real good in that home video we made—"

From his position on the ground, Boris nodded vigorously. "I agree! It was a wonderful performance!"

The blonde poet went pale. "You showed him...the tape?" Many months ago, a rainy Sunday and a borrowed video camera had yielded a long-playing tape filled with about five hours of frenetic sex, fifteen minutes of arguing, twenty minutes of eating pizza, and twenty-five minutes of Gabrielle napping and snoring between orgasms.

"Well, when Hank and Effie saw it they both thought that you were faking it in that one scene, you know, the one with the"—the firefighter made a vague hand gesture which could have represented anything from a kumquat to a plastic water gun—"and Ed wasn't sure, so I wanted another opinion..."

"For myself, I must say I was very convinced!" Boris declared solemnly. "A scream like that, it comes from the heart. Or someplace, um, similar."

"That’s what Mom said too." Zina replied, feeling affirmed.

Sid, hands on hips, whined, "Now why haven't I seen this?"

Zina recognized the fury in her companion's green eyes and, throwing down the gauntlet of a shit-eating grin, took off running.

"Oh, you better run!" Gabrielle shouted after her. "'Cause someone's gonna be on the receiving end of the strap-on tonight, and it ain't me, missy!" Which is probably exactly what she wants anyway. As she dashed into the twilight, leaving the menfolk alone with the cookie dough, Gabrielle felt her anger dissipate as she followed the unmistakable laughter of the firefighter.

THE END

#xena #xena warrior princess #xena/gabrielle #xena/gabrielle fanfiction #author: vivian darkbloom #mature #femslash #fanfiction

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kondo-hijikata · 6 years ago

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Pairing: Pre-Relationship to Relationship Kondo/Hijikata Rating: T Summary: Hijikata had no particular interest in meeting the new Tennen Rishin Ryu heir…until he saw the size of his shoes. [AO3]

<< Chapter 1

.*Before the Storm*. Chapter 2

As the waning sun painted the tree line in crimson, a kiseru pipe was packed, lit, and brought to a shapely mouth. The first pull was slow and the exhale just as indulgent, with white smoke drifting up and out toward wide open shoji that remedied a once too-humid space with fresh air.

The summer heat was like Hijikata’s preoccupation with the young master, both lingering and vexing him relentlessly from early June to mid-July. Despite these current parallels, the two were ultimately destined to be at odds, though. The days would grow shorter as the year wore on, with promise to an end of sticky and suffocating conditions. Unfortunately for Hijikata, his interest seemed resolute to do just the opposite. It flourished and deepened all on its own, without any new fuel to feed it, or a looming conclusion in sight.

An irritated scoff suddenly filled his room and he drew from the pipe again, sitting cross-legged with an elbow against his knee and chin weighing down heavy in a supportive palm.

That he was even still thinking about Kondo was absurd. Hijikata hadn’t seen or heard from him since the day they’d met just over four weeks ago, but that brief encounter was enough to ignite a fire in his chest and fill his head with questions that only his new acquaintance could quell. As if this weren’t infuriating enough, he wasn’t rightly sure how to go about articulating the things bothering him in the first place because they were so…indicative. Personal. Revealing. And certainly not fit or fair to inquire of someone he barely even knew.

Why aren’t you judging me? Everyone else tells me I’m wasting my life, so why don’t you? Why the hell are you so…nice?

And while I’m at it! How did you even get adopted into a samurai family? You really just…let go of your status without consequence and people actually take you seriously? You think it’s possible that someday I—?

Oh, now he was really veering off the rails of rationality. Hijikata scowled further and closed his eyes. These inquiries were so inane, so annoying, and not to mention so utterly pointless. So what if Kondo hadn’t derided him? It didn’t constitute approval. So what if he’d apparently earned his status, and seemed to embody the spirit of bushido as it was meant to be? Yeah, that was rare, okay. So what if he was humble and gentle around others, but a force to be reckoned with when a weapon was in his grip?

So what if he was handsome on top of everything—immaterial, truly, but an attribute which only complemented all the other things already so damn impressive?

“So fucking what?” Hijikata grumbled aloud, removing the pipe from his lips and ridding loose ash in the bowl with a pointed tap. Why did he, should he, care? Why should any of it matter?

…He knew exactly why, however—just as well as he knew the reason for asking these obvious questions of himself in the first place. They allowed him to deflect: from the anxiety of being wrong, or the dizzying, impossible notion that he might actually be right.

His first impression of Kondo was too positive. It was too good, too utopian, too much of a wild dream come true. Ever since his childhood, Hijikata had pined for the unlikely day he might meet someone exactly like this man who appeared out of thin air to teach lessons at Hikogoro’s dojo.

The samurai he encountered through the humdrum routine of his life were lazy bottom-feeders, and the ones who weren’t would never give him the time of day because of where he’d been born. They judged him for having hands which sewed fabric, for the medicine chest that clung to his back. Neither group viewed him to be a worthy contender in kenjutsu, and each side dismissed him on preconception alone.

But Kondo hadn’t. And Kondo was like him, born in Tama and raised of the land. Unlike Hijikata though, he’d somehow managed to traverse the constraints of classism and become a real samurai who didn’t throw the weight of ego around and, and, and—

Hijikata tossed his head aside. It was too ideal to be reality, too goddamn ideal. There had to be a flaw somewhere and he needed to find it, even if the letdown would be unthinkably severe should he discover his first impression was misguided. Yet…hope was already so fleeting and fragile, and his first touch with Kondo offered a dangerous glimmer of promise to whet a faith within him that’d gone long parched.

For all his life, Hijikata had sought the validation that would prove his dreams weren’t frivolous, that his birth class didn’t define him—only to be shoved aside and ridiculed again and again, because who had ever heard of a farmer becoming a samurai?

No one. Until now.

So, what if Kondo did approve? What if he really was as great as he seemed, if he could provide the blessing Hijikata had so desperately yearned for all this time? What if Hijikata could follow in Kondo’s footsteps, if they could actually become friends and bond over a crazy mutual goal?

His heart beat a little quicker as he stared out at the carefully chosen landscaping just beyond the doors. He’d felt trapped for so long in this one place, in this one room, going nowhere and doing nothing of importance when a whole country was out there for the taking. Hijikata had longed for the day when the view from his room shifted from meticulously pruned shrubs to a field of wildflowers—a disorderly and chaotic tangle, but beautiful if only because they weren’t strangled into obedience.

The kiseru went untouched for some time while his eyes fixated in an unseeing gaze. He wanted to be right. He wanted to be right so badly. But pinning all of his hopes, the most delicate of his dreams, to one person he barely even knew was beyond reckless. He was playing with fire. And if he didn’t watch out, he could get—

“Don’t burn yourself!”

Hijikata’s spine went ramrod straight, the daze rattled clear out of his brain. The hand that held his pipe lifted from resting on his knee and his attention snapped to find Nobu on the porch, a palm braced against the shoji.

“Were you sleeping?!” She stepped quickly over the threshold and despite having posed a question, gave him no chance to reply. “You could burn the whole house down, Toshi! Don’t smoke when you’re tired!”

His expression darkened as his cheeks went alight, simultaneously feeling annoyed at her lecturing but all too grateful for the distraction. “I wasn’t sleeping!” The petulant snap of his retort was followed by his pipe clanging against the ashtray again, and once it was put out, he set it down.

Nobu pursed her lips and slowly lowered to sit in informal seiza, the chastising bite from her demeanor slipping away since there was no longer a perceived threat. That was one of the best things about her—she could be dramatic and sometimes overbearing, but practicality was always first and foremost in her mind; when it was time to let things go, Nobu did and she always moved on fast. In kind, her voice deepened with consideration as she cocked her head. “Daydreaming, then? I said your name twice but you didn’t reply.”

“I was just thinking about something.”

She swept her hand slowly over the tatami, reveling in the texture as she often did. “Like what?”

“Nothing, just forget it.” Hijikata’s lashes fell as he shook his head.

“Well, what is it, something or nothing?”

Damn it. “Nothing.” He swallowed and stiffened his back, then looked to her. “It was stupid anyway. Did you need something?”

She hummed a negative reply. “Just wanted to ask how work was today. I thought I saw you stalking past the sitting room when you got home.” To Hijikata’s consequent cht, Nobu offered a sympathetic smile. “That bad, huh?”

His shoulders crept up and over a half-sigh, he brushed his fingers through his hair and flipped the ponytail out of the way. “Not any more than usual. Some guy came in to yell at us because his wife’s kimono was the wrong colors. Mind you, she picked them out.”

Nobu squinted. “And was Murakami-san there?”

“Yep. He came running out while I was handling it.” Hijikata huffed and diverted his attention forward, his eyes narrowing while recounting the situation. “Apologized right from the get-go and said we’d remake it the right way. Then he went on to lecture me, saying I was out to make his business an enemy to the public, that I’m—” His nose went high into the air, his tone turning into one of mockery, “—never allowed to oppose any guy wearing two swords ever again.” Disgusted, Hijikata sunk back down. “Blah blah. It’s always the same shit.”

“Well, if the patron was a samurai—”

“That man was no samurai,” he interjected.

“—it’s no wonder why he’s so entitled.” Nobu stressed her words, not allowing herself to be interrupted or misconstrued.

“Neesan, it’s bullshit, all of it.”

She sat still and silent, her hands now joined in a lazy fold just over her knees. Eyes remained studiously on him, and Hijikata was all too aware that she was trying to read between the lines.

“These assholes, they just get away with everything.” Taking fistfuls of hakama, he squeezed the material over and over to abate the animosity welling up inside of him. “They get whatever the hell they want because they’re born to the right privileged dickbags who were also raised the same damn way.”

“I…see your point, Toshi, you know I do.” A pensive moment. “And you know I appreciate what you’re saying. But there’s not too much we can do about it.”

He snapped his face to her. “Are you telling me to just be complacent?!”

Nobu scoffed and sat taller. “No. No, I’m not saying that at all. You can fight back, but you have to be smart about it. You can’t do it head on.” She cut him off before the rebuke could begin to leave his tongue. “I’m aware that’s not a satisfying answer for you, but you of all people know I’m right.”

Hijikata’s mouth was set in a line, wearing discontent openly across his features but he didn’t speak out—immediately, anyway. “Neesan, I’m quitting. I can’t do it anymore.”

A deep inhale filled her chest and as it left her lungs, she shook her head in surrender. “That’s up to you, Toshizo. But you have to be the one to break the news to Tamejiro-san. You know the strings he pulled to secure your apprenticeship there.”

“Yeah, I know,” he droned. “It’s just whatever. Murakami has no backbone. He’s an enabler. I’ll just find another apprenticeship in the same field.”

“Well.” The inflection in Nobu’s voice meant unsolicited cautionary advice was about to rear its head. “I hope it’s as easy as you think it’ll be. But I have a feeling it won’t.”

“Heh. What’s another failure on the already huge pile of failures I’m sitting on?” The words left him unaffected.

“Toshi…”

“Whatever.”

Nobu’s tongue poked out to wet her lips and her eyes closed for a brief time. “Hey, you do what you need to do. Tamejiro-san won’t be happy about it, so you’ll need to find a way to do right by him. He’s just looking out for you like any good brother would.”

“If he really wants to help me, then he should mind his own damn business.”

“Come on, stop that. Don’t you know we all want the best for you?”

Hijikata deflated. Of that he’d certainly been aware, but what he hadn’t ever learned was how to explain to his family that their concern with his successfulness (or lack thereof) was smothering and sometimes more harm than otherwise. He sure as hell wasn’t about to try explaining it now.

Nobu seemed to catch the hint, though. “Anyway…look. It’s all gonna work out in the end, okay? You know I have your back, so just do whatever you have to do. If you need me to help smooth things over with Tamejiro-san, I will.”

His shoulders shook with a huff, but he couldn’t prevent the tiny smile that wanted at his lips. “Thanks.”

“Now enough of this gloomy crap!” She clapped once and her eyes caught a shine as they widened, the room suddenly feeling much lighter with the change in mood. “I have some good news for you! And I’m sure it’ll make you feel better.”

Warily, Hijikata’s brows narrowed. “Well, what is it?”

“Katsuta-san is coming by tomorrow!”

Oh, fuck. And just when Mister Golden-Perfect-Handsome-Samurai had been out of his thoughts for more than three minutes… He exhaled sharply and looked away before he gave too much away. “Okay? So?”

“So you should make sure to be around.” Nobu leaned closer. “Aren’t you interested in talking with him more?”

“Why, so niisan can jump in every other word again?” Hijikata snapped, but immediately regretted the response. It wasn’t Hikogoro’s fault for returning hastily with lunch that day, just as he’d pulled Ishida Sanyaku from his chest at Kondo’s inquiry about medicine. Hell, for all his brother-in-law knew from the level of attitude Hijikata had given him, he probably rushed back to save both men from themselves. How could he possibly have guessed that the conversation was only just getting good?

“Oh, he did, huh? I’ll have a talk with him, then.”

Wincing, Hijikata held out one hand and stammered, “Just…never mind. Forget what I said just now, will you? Anyway, thanks for the info, but it really doesn’t concern me.” Relaxing his posture, his lashes fell once again with dismissal. “I have work tomorrow.”

A snort. “Ah yes, at a place you’re quitting.”

…As always, Nobu was on point. He cracked one eye open as she stood, and then watched while she walked back to the porch. “He’ll be here around noon. Training starts midday, I believe.” Raising her brows she waited expectantly for his agreement.

“Neesan.”

“Mm?”

“You know…” Hijikata peered right past her and into the garden, and suddenly pointed to it. “We oughta move that primrose bush a few centimeters to the right.” Nobu’s face pinched in confusion and she pivoted to the flowering plant in question. Upon returning to him, suspicion was written openly across her features.

“It’d look better if everything wasn’t so evenly spaced,” he explained.

“Toshizo…” She paused with a cant of her head. “You are most welcome to dig it up and put it where you please. Just don’t kill it.”

“Aa, of course,” he said over a breath and reached to pack his pipe again. “We can’t have that, now can we…everything has its place.”

“Dinner’s at the usual time,” Nobu said slowly in parting—but lingered a moment further to glance back at the primroses. Just when it appeared that she might speak again, she set off down the porch and disappeared.

Hijikata watched the tobacco smoldering a reddish-orange hue in his pipe.

So, Kondo would be back tomorrow… That was fine, just fine. It wasn’t like Hijikata would spend the rest of the evening thinking about that, wasn’t like he’d rush out of the textile shop tomorrow to get home before his arrival.

He took a pull and let the calm wash over him. Nope, it wasn’t like that at all.

“Where in Edo do you think you’re going?! Hijikata!!”

Ignoring the irking shrill of Murakami’s shout from the back door he’d slipped through, Hijikata’s feet hit the dirt until he rounded a stone-walled corner and the agitated old man’s yammering no longer reached his ears. Pressing his shoulder blades to the hard surface, he panted to catch his breath and allowed a triumphant grin to spread clear across his face.

He was home free and ready to wash the sweat from his skin, not because Hijikata wanted to look presentable for Kondo or anything, oh no. The day was simply beyond humid despite it being only late morning, and he hadn’t worn a hat to shield from the sun. Where was his hat? Forgotten in his room. Certainly not on purpose. Definitely not because he didn’t want it to wreck his hairstyle.

“Fuck, it’s hot today,” he groused while pulling at his hakamashita to generate airflow, and resuming a faster-than-usual pace, all too eager to feel the comfort of cool well water easing the heat.

When Hijikata had awoken to birds chirping outside his door at some ungodly hour today, he’d flirted with the idea of just not showing up at all or sending some kind of sob story letter in his stead—but that meant he’d have to deal with the nosy people at home asking questions, especially since Tamejiro was coming to visit.

Heading out had seemed like the correct decision at the time but now, as he felt tiny droplets lining his brow after just having wiped away the previous ones, he wondered if he’d really made the right choice at all. Were the prying inquiries worth the luxury of staying much drier in the shade of his room? He was beginning to think so. He’d feel much cleaner, at least.

Whatever the case, depending on the hour, he might have still have the time to bathe and wash his hair out again before Kondo showed up, but that was entirely reliant on—

Hijikata stopped short on his heels when he turned the next corner and made no certain effort to conceal the displeasure radiating from him at the sight ahead. The brats of the neighborhood were all huddled around some crouching guy with a wide-brimmed hat—one of their hifalutin fathers, he assumed—and getting a lecture of some sort. Little bastards had probably gotten into a fight or stolen something, wrecked something, like they usually did. And while Hijikata wasn’t one to call the kettle black when he was a pot himself, his bad behavior meant consequences when he was young, not pretty little speeches or slaps on the wrist.

It wasn’t like the harsher discipline made him change his ways, though, so perhaps there was no room for him to talk. Nevertheless, he didn’t particularly want to overhear what nonsense was transpiring but avoiding the situation meant heading another street over—which meant adding three more blocks to a schedule already too tight. Therefore, the fetid kid-contaminated path would have to do. Hijikata would just hold his nose, close his ears, and walk quicker.

Strangely, none of the children were crying or looking agitated from the assumed scolding and in fact, they seemed more interested in what that hoity-toity dad was saying. What was the world coming to?

As Hijikata neared, one of the boys in the front spoke up. “So…you’re really not gonna tell my mom that I punched Mantaro then?”

The hat-clad dad shook his head. “Nope, but as long as you keep your end of the deal, okay?”

Wait a minute…

Hijikata’s eyes narrowed and his steps slowed at the sound of a voice so unsettlingly familiar. He had noticed that the dad wore a pair of swords, but dismissed it because anyone could do that in the boonies of Tama without consequence. While it was technically illegal to bear blades if one wasn’t in the samurai class, the Bakufu couldn’t protect all this wide open space like they could a crowded city and was content to turn the other cheek at the bending of the rules. As such, ordinary country peasants took up kenjutsu, not so much for status or even interest as it was protecting themselves and their possessions. Still, that didn’t mean…

“But we’re not samurai, Mister! We’re farmers. We don’t know nothin’ about…” The boy studied a word that had been written in the soil with a stick. “…bushimichi¹.”

The dad tossed his head back and laughed—and that was when Hijikata stopped dead in his tracks and felt the color drain from his cheeks. This guy was no dad, he was—!

“Good try, but it’s read bushido, not bushimichi.” Kondo stayed crouched to maintain eye level and crossed his arms over the peaks of his bent knees. “And so what about being a farmer? I’m one too, you know.”

A high pitched choir of “eh?!” rose from the lot. The same kid who spoke earlier piped up again. “But you’re a samurai!”

“I am now, but that’s because I was adopted. I was actually born in Kami-Ishihara, not too far from here.”

“What?! No way, Mister!”

He chuckled. “I mean it!”

“Are you saying that anyone can be a samurai?”

Kondo shook his head. “Oh, no. Not just anyone. If you want to become one, you need to earn that honor and live it every day, no matter where you come from.”

“But…” Another child spoke out, the gears clearly turning in his head. “What about the people born into the samurai class?”

“Especially them.” Kondo looked into all the inquisitive eyes focused on him. “I’ll tell you boys something. You’re all from Hino, right?” Enthusiastic nodding ensued. “Even if this world sees you as farmers and nothing more…” Lifting one hand, he pointed to his heart. “If bushido is in here and you let it guide you, then what they think doesn’t matter. But!” His tone went serious. “But. Understand that being a samurai isn’t about status. It isn’t about walking around just saying you are one. The most important thing is acting the role.”

And with that, Kondo reached forth and gently flicked the first outspoken kid on the forehead. “So quit picking petty fights in the middle of the street!” Giggling erupted from the lot. “That’s un-samurai-like, I’m telling you!”

Hijikata remained frozen in a mid-summer inferno, goosebumps dotting his arms while his mouth had gone dry. His attention had been unseverable from the moment he’d made the realization, and only the gods knew if he’d even blinked or drew breath since then. All that mattered, all he’d been cognizant of was Kondo, who was now rising to stand while the children dispersed and—oh no! Tossing his face aside to hide it and hoping with all hope that he wasn’t seen in his current state, Hijikata began to pivot.

“Hi—Hijikata-san?!”

Fuck.

There would be time to process this entire situation and the emotions that billowed because of what he’d just heard, but for now Hijikata swallowed hard and stowed those feelings…tried with all his might to calm his racing heart and bate his breath. He kept his features out of sight only long enough to blot the sweat from them, and upon turning again, he found Kondo approaching with that same large smile he’d shown the first day they met.

“Wow, it is you! Imagine meeting you here! –Uh.” Rubbing at his neck, Kondo chuckled. “I mean…you live here, so I guess it’s not that strange, is it?”

Hijikata forced a laugh, not that he didn’t find the clumsy statement amusing, but the recovery from it was so… Well, it was…endearing. He prayed that Kondo simply presumed the flash of heat he felt burning clear across his cheeks was from the sun. “Aa. Um, my sister mentioned you’d be visiting, but she told me it would be around noon…”

It was hard to look at Kondo directly while feeling less than put together, so Hijikata gazed down the road with a squint and idly ran fingers through his hair.

“Oh, she was definitely right,” Kondo agreed. “I have this annoying habit of always leaving too early. Which means I also arrive too early. Which means I wind up needing to walk around and bide my time so I don’t impose.”

…Was it weird to not face someone when they were speaking? It was definitely weird. And rude. Hijikata ventured a glance and this time held it, when he realized what Kondo had just said. “You don’t have to do that, you know. You’d never be imposing.” A nod. “My family talks so highly of you. I guarantee that you could waltz into our place in the dead of night and my brother-in-law would start doing backflips.”

He felt the laugh which followed, felt the good-nature of Shimazaki Katsuta wash over him. It tingled, had butterflies flitting about in his belly, made it impossible to look anywhere else. And yet, strangely, Hijikata found himself not only minding but even wanting more of this bizarre sensation.

“Hikogoro-san is something else!” Kondo shook his head. “I keep asking him to not hype things up about me like that. Honestly, and I hope you won’t repeat this because I’d hate to hurt his feelings, but it makes me a little uncomfortable.”

Hijikata blinked. “Why?”

“How about we find some shade?” Kondo suggested. “I feel bad making you stand out in the sun. That is, if you have time? In fact, do you want to wear my hat?” He began reaching for the clasp. “I can make do without it—”

“No, it’s fine, it’s fine,” Hijikata chanted and raised his hands, equally as embarrassed as he was flattered that his comfort was being considered. Oh, why the hell didn’t he just bring his damn hat? Every sane person of an adult age wore a hat on a day like today. It was ridiculous to be without one. “Thanks, though.”

“You sure?”

“Mm. We could just head back to my place. It’s really close.” Hijikata dabbed at his face again with his sleeve. “Anyway, if someone in my family finds out that I was just hanging around with you and didn’t bring you back, I’d catch hell for it.”

Kondo grinned. “Guess we’d better get going then.”

And just like that, Hijikata was back on his way home with unexpected company at his side—company he’d needed time to ready himself for, or so he thought. Without even realizing it, the relentless self-conscious needling had slipped away while their conversation wore on and now, he was more concerned with not doing something mortifying like tripping over his own feet. He wasn’t clumsy by nature, and that was all the more reason to be super careful.

“So, yeah,” Kondo spoke up as they walked. “I respect Hikogoro-san more than I can put in words and I treasure my friendship with him in the same way.” His voice matched everything about him, Hijikata thought; it was warm and inviting, a pleasure to take in. “I’m just a regular guy, though, you know? Nothing special.”

…What? Hijikata’s face snapped to the side as he looked incredulously at Kondo over his shoulder. “But…you became a samurai.”

“By adoption,” Kondo insisted. “And I was adopted only because I was in the right place at the right time. That’s why I’m slated to take over for my father and inherit his sword style.” A breathy laugh followed and he shrugged. “It could’ve happened to anyone lucky enough, I promise.”

Despite not agreeing with that statement in the least, Hijikata let it go and his voice flattened, almost as if he’d meant to speak to himself. “You really meant what you said then.”

“Mm?” Kondo met his eyes.

“What you said to those kids back there.”

“Oh, you overheard that…”

Watching as his companion turned forward again in what appeared to be a pensive moment, Hijikata could feel the chagrin beginning to rise up from the pit of his abdomen—the looming discontent that it’d all just been a hefty bit of lip service. But then, the soft line of Kondo’s profile hardened and his chin dropped in a firm nod. “Absolutely.”

Validation. Just like that.

Approval. Freely given.

Acceptance. Affirmation. A sanction.

Hijikata’s feet halted in mid-step, and when Kondo realized the space at his side went empty, he paused and peered back. “Something wrong?”

Heat baked the dirt road that they stood upon, both as still as lifeless mannequins, as if the swelter hadn’t been oppressive and the humidity not suffocating. Neither spoke and neither moved, each reading the other like they were tangled in a high-stakes game of Go instead of friendly dialog.

At last, Hijikata moved his piece. “I didn’t expect you to say you actually meant it.”

There was silence for a moment longer, until Kondo’s expression shifted into something unexpectedly severe and his tone fell harsh in the same instant. “Do you disagree with me, Hijikata-san?”

…Apparently Kondo had been offended by the assumption that Hijikata believed samurai status was inherited, and not earned. And to leave such an incorrect premise unaddressed would simply not do, especially when it couldn’t be further from the truth. Hijikata’s bound hair swished with the shaking of his head. “Not at all. I agree with you completely.” He watched as Kondo’s demeanor immediately relaxed. “It’s just…it’s not something I expected to hear from a samurai, that’s all.”

“Hey, uh…” Kondo closed the distance between them, rubbing at his arms before setting hands on his hips. His eyes dropped to the ground for a beat before raising back to Hijikata’s. “What would you say to a match today?”

Hijikata’s brows raised, caught off guard by the abrupt change in subject. “What?”

“I mean, when we get to the dojo. Would you face off with me?”

Exasperation colored his response. “And what in the hell makes you think I have anything to do with kenjutsu?”

A breathy laugh fell from Kondo’s lips and his attention wandered off to nowhere important while he scratched at his jaw. “Sorry. I didn’t think it was an off-limit topic. Well, we all have our reasons.”

With his features going serious, Hijikata pressed, “No, answer my question. What makes you think I can fight?”

“Isn’t it obvious?” A beat. “Hijikata-san, you might sew fabric and you might sell medicine…” Kondo found his gaze then, and there was a particular directness in it that spoke novels all on its own. “But the calluses on your hands tell me those aren’t the only things they’re capable of.”

Well…shit.

¹ bushimichi: I needed the kid to misread the word bushido, so I swapped the "do" kanji reading with its other reading "michi." Suffice to say, this is a made-up word. Just wanted to make a note of it in case anyone wondered.

Chapter 3 >>

#uss enterplaid #toshisami #hakuouki #t1 #long post #writing on plaid paper

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kats-randomology · 6 years ago

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Playmate AU: Poor Decisions Lead to Poor Outcomes

The voids between dimensions were odd places, being the equivalent of a dumping ground for other realms, filled with all manner of lost items. A variety of trinkets, from shoes, to garbage, even hunks of land floated about in the dark space.

It was on one of the land masses that Liu Hai found himself stuck on, cursing into the void furiously, jumping between English and Chinese in his anger.

"How?! How did I miss his terrible luck?! That blasted McDuck tricked me! Tā mā de! Dào dì shí bā dài qù cāo nǐ de zǔ xiān, McDuck! AAAAGGHH!!!"

Heaving a aggravated sigh, he finally sat down and rested his head in one hand. He glanced down at his free hand, attempting to conjure even a small bit of magic, but could only manage a flicker of green. All he'd managed to do since arriving was adjust his robe size, which didn't accomplish much else except comfort. He muttered angrily as he looked himself over with a dissatisfied scowl; he hadn't been this scrawny since his adolescence...

How the hell was he gonna get out of here? Without magic, there was no way he was opening a portal, and there was no one to feed on here... In time he'd regain power naturally but that would take far longer than he was willing to wait. He wanted out now, he wanted to get out and hunt down those blasted ducks--!

"My, my, I haven't heard that kind of language in quite some time!"

The sudden voice came from behind, startling him; he quickly jumped to his feet and jerked around to face the speaker, and was met with a bizarre looking duck. He was quite tall, taller than himself even, wearing a faded jester costume, and studying him with brilliant red eyes.

"Wh...uh...."

The presence of another in this empty space was shocking enough to render him speechless, especially one this odd. His bewildered expression must've been humorous to the other, as he cracked a grin of shark-like teeth.

"What happened to all that fire? Cat got your tongue? I tend to have that effect on people; it's almost as funny as their screaming!"

Liu Hai continued his dumbfounded silence for a moment longer, before shaking it off.

"And...you are...?"

"Ah, right, how rude of me! I am Paddywhack, demon of mischief, devour-er of misery, that creepy clown faced freak that occasionally hides under the bed of that one guy in France!"

"....right....I'm Liu Hai, spirit of chance and fortune."

"Ooo, a fellow ancient being, then! So, your dimension decided to kick you out too?"

"No, I-- uh...had some....difficulties with a group of mortals..."

"Hey, me too! Though, I'm not stuck here like you presumably are, I just like to drop by once and a while to find new toys, like this ball!"

A basketball manifested in his hands, and he tossed it happily before it vanished away again. He returned his focus to Liu Hai, who watched his antics with a quirked brow, and tilted his head with another wide grin.

"Lucky you, I decided to do that today..."

"Yes, lucky me...wait, wait, you can leave?! Right now?"

"Of course...would you like to?"

Liu Hai paused, looking him over with narrowed eyes. He'd been jumping at the chance of escape earlier...but this was a bit too good to be true.

"What's in it for you? What do you want?"

"I can't help a fellow ancient spirit without there being a catch?"

Paddywhack's seemingly innocent grin was met with a skeptic frown.

"It's in my line of work to expect some form of clause..."

"A clever mindset to have; but, I'm offering this free of charge, seeing as I'm in a good mood today."

He held out a hand, smiling a little less worryingly.

"Interested? I mean, unless you waaant to stay here, instead of I don't know...looking for whoever was crazy enough to set you off..."

Liu Hai frowned, looking away in thought; he didn't have any better options. Staying here was one, but not one he particularly enjoyed...this Paddywhack was bizarre, to say the least, but seemed to be genuine in his offer. And if he did try anything, well, magic wasn't Liu Hai's only method of defense.

Plus, once he got back to Macaw there were plenty of places to start restoring his power, so he wouldn't be without magic for long anyway.

And he couldn't bare to wait any longer here, in this bleak empty place...

A place that McDuck and his kin had put him in, while they milled about out there laughing at him. The thought sent a new wave of anger over him, and he returned his gaze to Paddywhack.

"Alright."

He took the offered hand in a firm hold, and Paddywhack's grin widened slightly. He moved to speak, but Liu Hai suddenly pulled him close.

"And if you even think of turning on me, regret won't even begin to cover it..."

A laugh was given as a response as Paddywhack pulled himself free.

"You're fun; now then, if you'll step into my work space..."

A snap of fingers conjured a small box at their feet, and Liu Hai stared down at for a moment, once more speechless.

"That's...that's a jack in the box."

"I know, good model right? I've had it for centuries!"

He noted Liu Hai's uncomprehending expression with a humored smirk.

"Don't worry, it's bigger on the inside."

"....we're supposed to go in that?"

"Just take my hand."

Liu Hai eyed him curiously, but consented. Paddywhack grinned, gave a sharp tug on his arm, and then in an instant, everything was a blur of color, sounds, and smells. Like going through a long neon tunnel at lightspeed. It was a bizarre experience that left his brain reeling as it tried to keep up. It was over just as quickly, and he found himself standing on...sand?

Looking around, he found the new environment was just as strange as everything else had been today.

An unusual assortment of objects, from large building blocks and shears, to what appeared to be a tree of candy; off in the distance he could make out other vague shapes, possibly mountains, or perhaps just large mounds of the other odd trinkets Paddywhack had collected over the years.

"I see you're...very avant-garde in your decor...fitting I suppose."

Paddywhack snickered at this, and the sound put him slightly on edge, but he brushed it off as a result of the multitude of strange and insane things he'd come across in the last fifteen minutes. He turned away to look at the rest of the environment curiously as he continued.

"Okay, return me to Macaw, there are plenty of game houses there I can use to regain power and restore my House...though Las Vegas in America could also work, puts me closer to McDuck...no, he’d probably hear about it and come ruin everything, best to stick close to home for now. I have the advantage there. Now how do you make this thing go?”

He waited for an answer, but received nothing but unnerving silence. After a moment, he glanced over his shoulder at the other to see him simply standing there, watching him with a sinister grin. And then he laughed.

It was a chilling sound, starting off at a high pitch before deepening into a deranged cackle. Liu Hai, now most definitely on edge, turned to face him with a small curl in his lip. The laughter died down finally, and Paddywhack wiped a tear from his eye as he stepped closer.

"Oh, oh...I've encountered many saps in my time...but you, you were sooo, easy!"

He leaned forward, leveling his sharp gaze with Liu Hai's increasingly suspicious glare.

"And here I thought you'd be a challenge, Liu Hai..."

"What are you going on about?!"

"I've known about you for some time; I picked up on that little goose's negativity and considered stealing him away...but then I got a whiff of you. He might've been miserable and angry, but you..."

His grin was wide, too wide, and with a note of disgust Liu Hai realized he was salivating.

"There is sooo much more; buried under all that calm, collected attitude and suave manner is a festering sore that I'm dying to tear into."

Liu Hai stared for a moment, caught somewhere between dumbfounded and anger; eventually anger won out, and he let out a snarl as he took a step back.

"I don't know what inane nonsense you're talking, but if you think you can just show up and make a fool out of me--!"

"Like those pesky ducks you were going on about did?"

Flushing briefly, Liu Hai loosed a growl and jabbed a finger into his chest.

"I've had enough of your drivel, take me home, now!"

"Mmm...no, I don't think I will. I've been waiting for an opportunity to invite you in, and when's a better moment than when you're so hopelessly blinded by rage you'll willingly step into my playground?"

"I am not staying here, and I am not playing your childish games, now let me out!"

Paddywhack's eyes were smug as he straightened, and gestured around with both arms.

"And just what are you going to do if I don't?"

Liu Hai started to retort, but stopped as things suddenly dawned on him; he had no idea how to get out of here, doubted he even could without Paddywhack's aid, and he had no magic, nor anyone to feed on...he glanced upward, but saw no signs of a door, or anything beyond the yellowed sky that offered an escape. Even if he did overpower Paddywhack physically, he had nowhere to go afterwards.

He was well and truly trapped in this bizarre prison.

And he'd so stupidly walked himself in.

Wide eyes slowly came back down to meet the other's, and Paddywhack grinned triumphantly.

"What was that you were saying about regret?"

"You...you're a fool if you think you can keep me here! I will not be your prisoner!"

"Prisoner? Oh no, no, don't look at it like that. You're not my prisoner, you're something more, sooo much more..."

He took a wide step forward, one arm reaching towards him and wrapping around his waist, drawing him closer. He felt the prick of claws against his back, while the other hand lightly tapped his nose.

"You're my new playmate..."

Finished this last night on the last dregs of a coffee fueled writing craze. I really hope that Chinese is accurate, I googled Chinese swears and got a few that worked ^^’

Liu Hai, honey, when a creepy looking clown invites you into his jack in the box, you say, “No...”

#toad liu hai #paddywhack #Playmate AU #fanfiction #my writing #disney #duckverse

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parsonsjessica1989 · 4 years ago

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thevelonaut · 7 years ago

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Homefront.

This is absolutely classics country. Fortunately, any semblance of romance gives way, quickly, to pain and frustration. On the way South East, I’d known in my heart of hearts that a tailwind (and occasionally swipey cross-wind) was helping me out. I knew that I’d be turning back into it, and that however gentle it felt as we wandered the streets of Brux, it would be multiplied significantly as I crept back across the ridgey-flats of the North West. The reason that the early-season classics are a hotch-potch of gurn, of hellish faces and awful weather, is much the same as the reason why this was a crap place for a crap war; once the sun goes in (and to some extent when it’s out), the endless flat lands, farm smells, headwinds, sideways drizzle and cobbled tracks become as steadfast an obstacle as the Pyrenean cols, the switchbacks of d’Huez, the ramps of the mighty Lecht. I’d prefer some hardy cols to this. It’s the kind of place suited for those broad-shouldered monsters of the old days, who could puncheur into wind like a force of nature. I can, for a bit. For a little bit.

The fifth day / Brussels → Ieper

Ypres, the French call it. Some five days (and 100 years) after the Battle of Paschendaele, I roll into Ypres through the Menenpoort. I say roll, I think it was the least uphill-feeling part of the day. I’d hung out with HC, her brother and sister-in-law in Brussels for two days. I’d had a cheeky swim to spin my legs, I’d noted a twinge in my groin which I imagine is due to over-cranking a gear for 200k, loaded with luggage, and not ever stretching it en route. I curse it. It needs rest, two days probably won’t cut it, and the Cambium isn’t so comfy after a four or five hour day. Maybe leather is better. I think so. I’ll flog it.

Anyway, I was up and out at 8am; the paths and back streets of Brussels are fairly easy to navigate, and the sun was out to remind me to head in a NWerly direction. I ended up on the ring-road and saw no way to head further north without a) riding on a motorway or b) turning back and trying again from about 3 miles back. With a 90-mile day ahead, I decided to head for Aalst, due west of Brussels, then turn to the north-west after about 30km. It wasn’t the worst idea. The pastoral, calm canalside riding that had seen me down seemed to desert me; instead, I was often on paths alongside the murder roads of NW Belgium, caning it up decentish-tracks and pavements, lamenting the canopied, wind-free joyfest of days two and three. This is another of my problems - I never set out a good return trip. Or, perhaps, I am so addled by the sense of return that I fail to enjoy what is nice about it. Or, the wind is a hell-ferret that never stopped in its attempts to break me. Eventually I stopped at a Spar and sprayed my face with Appletiser, and at 2.30pm when the sun hot-spongs for a spell, I applied suncream and ate a baguette and houmous on a housing estate by a dual carriageway. If it sounds exciting, then it is. I picked up a little of that TCR spirit. Fuck the views.. they all look like this anyway.

They do. Seriously. I did about 90k of this. There were marginally more leaves on the trees, but most of them were blowing into my face. Still, it is pancake flat, ironing board, smooth as Christ riding. Let’s not mince words. Easy-hard. Or hard-easy.

I get to Oudenaarde, then Wevelgem, and hit the final 20k to Ypres where I know there is a campings. Those last km are sign-posted all to hell with Commonwealth War Graves. Evocative names, famous craters, hills, memorials, regiments; atop the ridgeline, white crosses, monoliths and megaliths, the bright stalagmites that point to where most peoples innards ended up; scattered into the pressing wind, lovely human beings fractioned into micro-particles, cast into a land ever-fertile for the growing of war-dead cabbages and sprouts. They say each breath you take will contain at least an oxygen molecule that Julius Caesar himself would have inhaled. (They don’t say that in the song. They should.) Along the Menen road, you are sucking in the literal and figurative remains of almost a whole generation of human beings.

I don’t like it. I’d seen Ypres was en route to Dunkirk, from where I spring home, and figured that it made sense to pass through. If I did a long-day-short-day two-day ride then I could stay here. I crept in through the gate; the sun is now out glorious, and the town is a magnificent sight. HC navigates me (she’s in London, having taken a bus to the station in Brussels, a train to London, and a bus home in the time it has taken me to yam some houmous in a lay-by) to the campsite; it’s a nice one, if you ignore the Canadian grave-baggers in the mobile homes, the people wearing T-shirts that name regiments and feature photographs of eternally-young great-great-uncles. I put up camp, wash, and stroll to Lidl to bag the last baguette, 3-flavour houmous (oh MY ACTUAL GOD THIS IS AMAZING) and a tin of mackerel. Whilst I demolish this on Ypres square, I note a bunch of people dressed in their going-out clothes walking purposely through town. I’d forgotten that they play The Last Post every night at the Gate, and ambled along covered in beetroot and parsnip dip to pay my respects.

Except I didn’t really know how to. Or why I should? TO what, exactly, am I paying respect? And where are the Germans? Why is the Poort covered with only the Allied dead? And it’s nice that we honour the Indian regiments, when they were forced to dig so many trenches and graves, and be treated like shit for the privilege. Plus, I recently read that an explicit promise to release India from the Commonwealth in return for military support was never honoured. So, really, the whole thing leaves a strange taste in the mouth. Not just the race, the nationalism, the anti-nationalism, the visible lack of outreach; the spectacle itself feels like a fetish. There cannot be a person here who actually knew the dead of Ypres; too much time has gone by. And it is important that we honour this stupidity in order that we may not see its like again. But the crowds, the iPhones, the inane chat when it’s finished. I wasn’t in the mood. Is it the case that a ride across the Maginot Line is the perfect pace to consider the distance and futility of a war that became a mass-grave, formed into a perfect borderline? The Last Post had been, on some unconscious level, playing in my head for hours. It’s the soundtrack of a dark, sad place. So, so sad.

I woke at 6.30am the next day and hotfooted it out of town.

The sixth day / Ieper → Dunkirk → Dover → London Bridge → My bed.

The roads from Ypres to the border were quiet, uneventful, still windy. I got lost two or three times. I’d cycle later this month with my friend Ed, who uses Strava and Garmin and magic; the ease of navigation with devices astounds me. It picks out exactly where you are, and tells you exactly where to go. I almost give in to the temptation to update my by-now 4 year-old Blackberry to something worth a shit, that could do such things. Handlebar mounts for phones don’t do it for me, though. I use every square millimetre of space on a handlebar for, well, my hands. So... not yet. The phone still works. I got lost. Added six miles onto a 40-mile day. Nae bother.

I reached Oost-Capel after a spell of anonymity. I craved a coffee, hoped this French border town would have someplace to sit. It did not.. Belgian towns are decidedly absent of cafes, I know not why. It’s one of those subtle differences; you feel as if you are in France, but it’s the upside-down version. Instead of a nice cafe, there are about ten border guards sleepily waving down cars, mirror-checking the chassis, asking where people are off to. It’s an unsettling sight, but they wave me right by. (The guards at the port would later give me the same bored wave-through. I’m not carrying weapons of mass destruction (400k of fixed touring has savaged my groin and patella, mind you) but it’s both curious and somewhat alarming that a bike can get through to the ferry easily.)

There’s a nice small walled city called Bergues, where I stop for a brew. I dip the remains of last night’s baguette into it, soaking up about half that black glorious. I love soaking bread in coffee, but even though I still get the coffee, I feel like I’m denying myself something. Bergues is right pretty; I trace the little canal network to the North and take a cycle path alongside a canal to Dunkirk. It’s the nicest part of the day. I reach Dunkirk at about 12.30pm, and orbit the old town for an hour or so, then take the dock road up toward the ferry port. I load my bright pink musette with a lunch from Lidl, carry it over a motorway overpass, under a gyratory, behind a Travelodge, past some cranes, around ten roundabouts, over another autoroute, along a busy truck road, around a slag pile and just beneath some fire-spewing chimneys. The ferry port is not a pretty place. Pretty, in that industrial sense, which is to say not so pretty at all. I eat lunch in the weird cafe where no staff work, only machines; it’s a post-Marxist approach to the service industry. I wonder if the docking ferry in front of me is driven by a human being. I think about all those human beings who waited for a boat home in 1940 and all the ones that never got a chance to leave the cruddy fields of Flanders. I am covered in houmous, again, at a moment of silent contemplation. The world is a calm sea, choppy in the middle, and some white chalky downs that leap out of the channel at Dover. Everyone takes photographs of the sharp teeth of England’s mouth, opening up in a bucolic snarl to gobble up its visitors. Pretty soon, I am in torrential rain outside Dover station, throbbing legs, pack of peanuts, Spar lemon-lime and a newspaper to tell me what I missed.

Tour over. Legs recover. I pull out of London Bridge and spin crazy-legs to home. HC makes porridge. The sun goes down.

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zippdementia · 6 years ago

Text

Part 69 Alignment May Vary: Demon Trains and Were-Houses

Situation: Having escaped the horrors of the City of Ghosts, Imoaza, Aldric, and Carrick rally back on board The Arc.

Aldric wants to take a little break to go catch up with his Goblin fuck buddies but all three of the companions are severely injured and so Tinia gets started on caring for them. After a long rest, she turns her attentions to the complicated process of healing Jacobs with Puck’s begrudging (but promised) help. Geth fixes up Aldric and Carrick’s energy weapons, making it so they won’t blow up in their hands, and recharges their ammunition. Krisp lays out the situation for the companions.

“Things are bad and I don’t mind telling you that and thank you to keep any snarky responses to yourselves,” he says in his auctioneer’s voice at a “ we’re off to the races” pace. “As long as your souls are fresh and still in your body, they are like a beacon to everything here, a bright, big, beautiful light begging to be devoured by the forces of darkness. Or at least by a fiery devil who wants to rip apart from limb to limb. Our best option, and by that I mean only option, is to get off this rock and post haste! I’ve taken the liberty of fixing up the horse you rode in on, by which I mean that goddamn huge spacecraft. It’s a wonderful thing, at least when it isn’t all smashed to pieces. And to be fair, it was in better shape then I thought it would be after the crash it must have had. Still, even the prettiest wench has to eat from time to time and this girl is hungry! She needs fuel, and the only fuel she’ll take are crystals, the special ones that Alyss has been hunting down for months. We always knew the crystals held the answers, but we thought we’d have to build an engine capable of using them. Now, we’ve got the engine, we just need the gas, and the gas is the crystals, and they are being stored in the vault at Mammon Tower, seat of the President of Hell. To get in there, we’re going to need a little help.”

To break into Mammon Tower, Alyss planned to free the Demon Train from its bonds using Heartcarver and by speaking the demon’s secret name, which she has discovered. Now she has been captured and thrown inside the train to whatever fate the Yellow King decries for her. It’s up to the players to make it to the train and free her. Without her, they can’t get the train. Without the train, they won’t get the crystals from Mammon’s vault. Without the crystals, they will never escape Hell.

The Demon train makes its way across Hell’s blasted landscape, looking like a living train, with dozens of arms erupting from its front and constantly building new tracks for it at blinding speed. To catch up to the train, the players are going to have to use experimental rocket packs to jet over to it.

How does it go: The players strap into their rocket packs and are slingshot off the deck of The Arc. Only Aldric’s launch goes well: Carrick is sent spinning around and around as he turns to say something clever to Krisp right before he launches. And Imoaza’s rocket pack fails to ignite and she free falls towards the ground while the other two try (and fail) to catch her. Eventually she gets her pack working, but there is something wrong with it, and the whole contraption catches on fire on her back.

While all this is going on, the players are suddenly transported (in spirit) to Mammon’s tower, their minds pulled there by Mammon himself, who proceeds to try and banter with them in a lame attempt to find out what they are up to and whether they are willing to join his cause. His negotiations are hurt by the fact that he doesn’t really have anything to offer the players or even any idea of what they want. He ends up failing to impress them at the moment, and the players break free of his grasp to find themselves way off course and heading straight for a cliff side. And Imoaza is about to explode. Aldric banks sharply to avoid the cliff; Imoaza discards her rocket pack and free falls; Carrick grabs Imoaza and just barely manages to pull up before smashing them both to jelly against the cliff. They spot the Demon Train only a small ways away. In the last rush to the Train they are chased by Spiney Devils also wearing rocket packs. This leads to a crazy fight where Imoaza, hanging in Carrick’s grasp, is firing Eldritch blasts back at the Devils while they jetpack forward and attack with laser rifles. She ends up hitting their rocket packs and rupturing them, causing them all to explode.

The players land on the Demon train, Imoaza nearly falling off the Train but saving himself by digging Drosselgreymer into the Train’s roof and using it to halt her momentum. Drosselgreymer opens up a hole in the train’s roof and the three slip inside, only to find themselves not inside a train compartment, as they expected, but inside an entire city.

Notes:

Krisp isn’t especially thrilled to see they’ve brought Puck with them, and seems especially displeased when Puck refuses to try some of his cereal. There’s some odd interaction here, but the players don’t roll high enough to catch it.

Puck fills them in on the history of Arbeyach, telling them that he used to be a powerful devil, known the world over as The Yellow King. He is a corrupting force and famously corrupted Ia’fret (whose name will sound familiar to lovers of Abenthy!), turning the angelic knight into one of his lieutenants. But Ia’fret later betrayed him and took over his original domain and Arbeyach never truly recovered his political power. Now Ia’fret is gone, too, lost during the final assault on the Abyss during the Blood War, having gone in at the side of Asmodeus.

The players end up completely hating Mammon, which is not unexpected. I’m playing him here to be more annoying (complete with an exaggerated Southern accent) then truly threatening. Like I said, he doesn’t really have anything to entice them with, so this scene is meant really just to show how prevalent in this world he is and to give them a further challenge with the rocket pack. But the antics they get up to in his chamber are pretty funny. Aldric quips ridiculous insults and inane puns. Carrick and Imoaza ignore him completely, talking to each other the whole time. Imoaza realizes before the others that this is their psyches being pulled here and tries to snap Carrick out of it by punching him in the face. After, he gets a brief glimpse of what’s happening to their bodies and reports to Imoaza what he sees: “By the way, you’re on fire.”

Situation: The inside of the demon train is a maze of broken down warrens and crumbling infrastructure. In truth, it is a deteriorating version of Old Hell, the Hell that the scholars write of, remembered and loved now only by Arbeyach, who has made the Demon Train his domain and has full control over it. He’s populated his domain with vermin folk, most of them either humanoid rats or bugs (the bugs seem to have superior ranking in the hierarchy) and takes what precious souls he can capture for torture and sustenance.

The players have to find Alyss and free the Demon train, but first they have to get their bearings. They start exploring the rooftops and Carrick loses his footing and falls, smashing down through a halfway broken roof to land ungracefully on a poker table, surrounded by three rats and two bugs. The bugs call for backup and everything erupts into a fight. Bugs from outside, who were guarding the game, fly up to the roof to confront Imoaza, while Abenthy drops into the hallway outside of the poker room and cuts down anyone who tries to flee. Surprisingly, the rats turn on the bugs (well, one flees entirely), led by one in particular named Ratticus, who tells them that the rats and bugs don’t really get along: rats are treated like second class citizens, while the bugs work closely with Arbeyach, The Yellow King. The other rat left, Scampers, is extremely nervous to be helping the players, but Ratticus says it’s “every rat must band together if we want to survive!” He’s very curious to see “living souls” wandering through the Belly, which is what they call this city, but doesn’t seem to wish them harm. He decides to take them to Vaermin, his king, a huge swarm of rats that share a single mind. Vaermin shares some of his cheese stash with Aldric (who gobbles it up) and tells the companions that he can help them hunt down Alyss, but in return they must do something for him. Time is of the essence: captured souls don’t stay alive long in The Belly before their souls are drained and the remains of their being reshaped into either bug or rat. Despite this, Vaermin tells them it will take some time to hunt down their friend and insists they all take a short rest inside his dungeons to prepare for the upcoming challenge, and the players uneasily oblige, and spend their short rest eating cheese and drinking mead supplied by Vaermin, and reflecting on how strange their circumstances have become.

The mission: The players have to infiltrate a rival gang, made up of Were Rats instead of “proper rat folk” (as Vaermin puts it). They are to find the leader of the group, a powerful wererat called Fernifang, and dispose of him. The wererats have been clever, never keeping to a single base, but moving constantly around the city. However, Vaermin has a plan. The wererats have been collecting a large amount of souls and that requires storing them somewhere. So he sets a trap. Scampers (whom it turns out Vaermin doesn’t like since he chickened out on a mission recently) is dispatched with a large tank of “soul stuff” to gather more from the territory the wererats were last seen in. Ratticus and the party quietly follow.

The companions moved in a half crouch along the rooftops, Ratticus keeping an eye on the sky to spot any “flyers” as he called the human sized bug creatures that frequently patrolled the skies. This part of the city was less their domain, he explained, pointing out how the buildings here were mismatched in terms of size and shape. “It’s hard for them to navigate,” he explained. “They like the wide open, where they can rule the skies. Places like this were made for us rats.”

Eventually, Rartticus motioned for them to stop and join him at the lip of a rooftop. He pointed excitedly below, where they could see an alley, and in that alley Scampers was standing next to a literal pus boil in the street. The boil pushed out from under cobblestone, pushing the cobblestones aside in a grotesque growth clearly filled near to bursting with a pink fluid. Scampers pulled a large needle from the pack at his back, the needle the size and length of a human arm, and stabbed it into the boil then began to pull on the needle’s plunger, sucking the pink juices up.

“Soul stuff,” Ratticus whispered to Carrick, who was looking on in disgust. “A lot of wayward souls drift to the train. Most of it gets picked up by Arbeyach, but some gets left behind and it eventually manifests like this, gets worked to the surface. We harvest it. A lot you can do with soul stuff. But watch now! Our quarry approaches!”

Indeed, Scampers did not notice them, but two large and hairy rats were silently climbing down the wall of the building that helped form the alley. At the last moment, Scampers realized his danger, lifting his head and sniffing madly, his whiskers bouncing every which way. Then he tried to run, but he was not fast enough. One of the wererats caught him, lifted him off his feet, and jabbed the harvesting needle into his eye, piercing his brain in a sudden lobotomy. The two Wererats then fell to a grisly feast, tearing Scampers apart right there in the street and devouring his flesh while he almost idly tried to remove the needle from his eye. Eventually, he stopped moving and the feast was finished. The Wererats grabbed the tank of soul stuff and began to move quickly out of the alley.

“Now the hunt is on!” Ratticus announced.

The Situation: The players follow the wererats back to their underground hideout with some minor difficulty (see below). They overhear the two wererats talking to a third, a guard at the warehouse entrance, about this being “the final day” they will be spending in the warehouse before moving on, on Fernifang’s orders. They also complain about the ventilation system being broken and it getting bloody hot in the warehouse. This gives the players a plan. They round the corner and proclaim themselves maintenance men, Aldric pointing to his leather jacket (the one he stole from Bones) and calling themselves the Hell’s Angels maintenance crew.

Amazingly, the ruse works, thanks to this wererat not being the brightest, the players having information about the ventilation system from the overheard conversation, and Aldric making an incredible deception roll.

“That’s a damn fine jacket,” the guard says, shaking his head appreciatively, as he directs them to a ventilation cover nearby. Ratticus (who nearly shit himself with fear during the ruse) climbs up and opens it, then ushers them all inside, everyone but him having to get on hands and knees to fit in the vent.

The vent I’ve designed with several different passages, each one of which will take them to a different area in the warehouse (one leads down to an incinerator and is a bad dead end). There’s a lot of elements to the warehouse itself. The vents leading to different spots, a possible gas leak in the vent, the possibility of parleying with the Warlock Wererat, Fernifang. Also the soul jars, if they are broken, will release shadows and (occasionally) wraiths, as the angered souls of the dead fight back against the living. Then there’s shelves and shelves of these things, which could create a lot of stealth possibilities, and a catwalk for snipping. In short, there’s a lot that could happen here.

Combat: What does end up happening is that the players sneak down beneath the main floor and overhear a conversation that the were rats are getting ready to move out with this mighty haul they got, biggest one yet! The players watch the movements of these wererats until they think the coast is clear, then come out of their cover. This doesn’t last long, though: while scouting the area by flying above the shelves, Carrick is spotted by Fernifang’s paramour, a wererat cleric who doesn’t give a name but simply shrieks a warning and the room erupts into combat.

The fight goes easier than I thought it would. Fernifang is swarmed immediately by the players and his biggest move, a polymorph into an abominable yeti (unique to his skill set) is disrupted by a dispel magic cast by Imoaza. After that, the fight is pretty much done. But things still get harry because the wererats, while climbing up to fight the flying Carrick, knock over the shelf they use to climb on and dozens of the soul cannisters shatter in the resultant domino chain. The souls burst forth as angry spirits and the players barely escape with their lives, while the spirits feast on the wererats left behind, snatching Ratticus as they go from the clutches of the doorguard, who proclaims one last time even as he tries to strike them down: “That’s a damn fine jacket.”

Notes:

Aldric and Carrick stand out like sore thumbs in the middle of the crowded bazaar, which is why the wererats realize they are being followed after a bad stealth roll from the players, and flee into the crowd. But Imoaza has taken on the disguise of one of the bug people and uses her fly spell to fly above the crowd and track the were rats to a secret entrance to the sewers, hidden in an alley. It’s a cool use of disguise self!

Aldric is charmed by Fernifang before the players take him down, using a strong suggestion spell to plant the idea in his mind that he must attack the Rat King, Vaermin, when they return to him. In fact, the suggestion is worded such that Aldric doesn’t even want to fight the Wererats: he immediately wants to rush back to the Rat King and deliver his “message.” But he is able to be convinced to fight when Imoaza convinces him that they can’t leave until Fernifang is dead; thus, he has to kill the wererat or never deliver his message.

The Situation: the players return to the Rat King and Aldric, charmed by Fernifang, suddenly attacks the King, prompting a combat! Aldric plays it perfect: insisting that he did nothing wrong. He plays it so well, the others don’t even realize he was charmed and suspicion grows in the party. There is little time to discuss, however, because even as the Rat King falls the Yellow King arrives, taking control of Ratticus, who desperately gives the players some vials of soul-stuff which he tells them can restore their health. He also tells them, before he loses his mind, that the Rat King knew where Alyss was all along but didn’t want to tell them until they’d helped him. He did intend to share the information until the players attacked him (here Carrick and Imoaza glare at Aldric, who innocently asks “what?”) but that it would have been a bit of a slap to their proverbial faces: Alyss is about to be executed and there is no way they can get there in time. He does tell them where the execution is to occur: at the central hive, a huge structure they can’t miss in the middle of the city. The players know they have to reach her before she is killed, or else her knowledge of the Demon Train’s name and their only escape from this foul place goes with her. The players flee through the sewer lair of the Rat King while Arbeyach gives chase.

The figure proceeding down the tunnel behind them looked like a sallow-skinned old man, with wispy white hair that hung in greasy tendrils down to his knees. His eyes blazed with a yellow light that matched his outfit, a worn, often patched coat that hung far past his knees. Underneath it was more yellow clothing: the striped pants and finery of nobility, but raggedy and greasy. He was surrounded by swarms of biting, flying insects, and as he drew ever closer to the fleeing group, they could hear voices speaking to them through the cloud of buzzing: “This is my domain,” the voices said as one. “You cannot win here.”

The chase takes the players out of the sewers and through the city. During the chase, both Aldric and Imoaza are caught briefly and infected by the King’s disease, which drains their health and will eventually kill them if not cured. Carrick is not affected: immune as he is to disease, being a Paladin.

Out in the city the chaos continues as Arbeyach seems to be everywhere, stepping out of doorways into the path of their flight, even smashing through a window to grab at them as Imoaza casts fly again and they soar out over the broken city. Aldric stands his ground for a moment and manages to “kill” Arbeyach with a couple decisive sword strikes to the head, but there always seems to be another one ready to take his place, appearing with a taunting word and deadly smug smile. He knows there is no escape from his realm. He isn’t taking this too seriously: he is toying with them. Like Mammon, he doesn’t consider them a threat. Like Mammon, he is deadly wrong.

The players have no trouble, once flying, locating the Central Hive. It is a bulbous, horrible thing, growing like a cancer out of the center of the city and surrounded by crawling, flying, and chittering humanoid insects. The bugs are preparing Alyss’ public execution on a ledge constructed from their hardened saliva and debris on the edge of the hive. Here, three humans have been hooked up to a horrible machine of tubes and wires and needles, which is sucking the soul from them. Alyss is still intact, just being hooked up, when the players descend on the ledge. They cut her free and flee, Arbeyach now so angered by their impertinence that he has decided to kill them. But just as the army of bugs arrises behind them and The King in Yellow in front of them, Alyss wakes enough to call out a single, unspeakable name. The Yellow King screams in fury as a tunnel appears in the floor of the city, a tunnel leading out of this constructed reality and to the heart of the Demon Train, which is bound round with chains. A single stroke from Oathbreaker and the chains shatter!

Notes

When the players approach Alyss, there are too many bugs to handle. Something surprising happens here: Aldric grabs the Rod of Storms at his side and tries to use it... and is successful! This is strange, because it can only be attuned to and used by a magic user and Aldric has not an ounce of magic power in him. But nonetheless he unleashes a lightning blast at the ledge that scatters the bugs, dropping several dead from the sky. This use of the rod will have complications later.

Meanwhile, Carrick saves Alyss. Aldric is not super happy about this. He’s hoped to foster a relationship with Alyss so seeing her suddenly throw her arms around Carrick and cling to him while they all fly off, humorously disgruntles him.

Next time, we conclude our hellish adventures!

#dnd #dungeons and dragons 5e #hell #planar #campaign journey #Alignment May Vary

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maedarakat · 7 years ago

Note

✍🏻 please

(Thanks!!! You didn’t include a pairing tho so I hope you’re cool with me just doing my fave boys? XD This is going to be around season 1 and maybe 2, pre-redemption Dagur bc he’s fun.)

—-

Dagur stared at the parchment in his hands, expression extraordinarily dumbfounded. One of the Riders had just … Terror-mailed him a letter?

The Terror was even still hanging around - just out of reach and ridiculously good at avoiding thrown knives. Almost like it was waiting for a response to this drivel.

He’d of course spent a good portion of time over-analyzing it. Was it a distraction? The set-up for a trap? It wasn’t from Hiccup and it didn’t ask him to meet him anywhere though.

Nope, just inane babbling from one member of Hiccup’s little dragon-loving group. There was nothing to really do but tear it up and throw it overboard. Which he almost did, but Savage stopped him.

“If you don’t mind me suggesting, sir, this could be an opportunity? Write back and tell the boy to meet you alone if he really wants an … “ Savage peered over Dagur’s shoulder to re-read the lines that had his leader so flustered. “An arrow-launcher for Snoggletogg.”

“Arrow-launcher! As if I’d actually send anyone else a Berserker crafted arrow-launcher for anything, let alone for -” Dagur paused, mid-tirade. “Wait, is it Snoggletogg today?”

Savage shook his head. “Not for four more months sir.”

Dagur scowled, but made his decision and stormed toward his cabin. “Nobody disturb me and leave that Terrible Terror alone. I’m writing a response.”

——-

Dear Blithering Dragon-Rider Idiot #1,

OF COURSE IM NOT SENDING YOU AN ARROW-LAUNCHER FOR SNOGGLETOGG, YOU COMPLETE MORON! Why in Loki’s name WOULD I?!? I cannot believe you’d even DARE ASK ME for such a thing?! Are you serious?!?

Can’t you ask your parents?!?! I heard you can get a pretty nice selection at the Northern Market. None as close to the quality on my ship, so I guess you’ve got decent taste, but still - DON’T YOU EVER, EVER ASK ME FOR SOMETHING LIKE THIS AGAIN.

It seriously weirded me out.

- DAGUR THE DERANGED

P.S. And I hope your tree catches fire!!!!

—–

“There, I sent it.” Dagur and Savage both watched as the Terror flew off, disappearing soon in the fog that surrounded the Berserker armada.

“What did you write?” asked Savage, nosey as ever.

“What do you think?!” Dagur snapped. “I told that rider where he could shove his stupid request!”

And that was the end of it, until the next letter came.

——

Dear Dagur the Deranged,

Wow, I had no idea you would be so offended? Sorry. You’re always offering Hiccup stuff and he doesn’t appreciate it, so I figured I could use some of that misplaced affection to fulfill both our emotional needs.

And also my need for a totally awesome arrow-launcher.

You sure you don’t have a spare one? Or a broken one I can fix that’s just taking up space on your ship? I promise I won’t mind if it’s a wreck, just put a festive little bow on it or something. It’s the thought that counts, right?

Ooh, but besides all that, do you worship Loki too? I’m so happy to hear that if it’s so - it fits you! You’re clever and devious, He’s clever and devious … If you ever want to talk trickster gods and their frustrating yet endearing ways of making life interesting - then I, Tuffnut Thorston, am your man.

Also, thanks for the tip about the Northern Markets, but if my parents actually liked me enough to get me one, they’d probably make me share it with my sister.

Do you KNOW how hard it is for two people to work the same massively destructive weapon at the same time? Trust me, the projectiles do not go where you want them to. Just ask Sven’s sheep. We all had to eat a lot of mutton that night. It was good too; I still don’t get why the Chief was so mad.

Anyway, I hope your tree catches fire too! Ours does every year, as a tribute to that time Astrid decimated almost everybody’s house with exploding dragon eggs.

Have a Happy Snoggletogg! (I’m wishing you one early, in case you manage to kill us all before it gets here. Hopefully with an arrow launcher because that would be ironic and kind of funny.)

See you on the battlefield!

- Tuffnut Thorston

P.S. What would you like for Snoggletogg, assuming we all live to see it? I probably can’t afford or steal anything fancy, but I can always write you another poem.

——

Dagur was enraged. Livid. Also, more confused than ever.

This had to be some sort of trick. Why was this crazy Rider still talking to him? It was like having a prisoner you just couldn’t make shut up.

Or resist talking back to.

What he should do was crumple this stupid parchment up and throw it over the side. But then that Terror would hang around all day and annoy him.

Dagur growled and ignored the strange look Savage gave him, as he ordered the man to find him better parchment and some more ink.

He didn’t write letters that much; but he wasn’t about to send something smudged and tattered back to this dumb kid. Maybe if he wrote completely bluntly and in big letters, the Rider would get that they were enemies.

Not friends. Not … quill pals.

—–

Dragon Rider,

You seem to be confused, so let me help you out here.

I’m not sending you anything for Snoggletogg, and I don’t want anything from you either. Thanks for the offer, but –

We are enemies. I want to kill you and your buddies and all your little dragon friends, including your stupid Terror that keeps dodging my knives. Actually if you wanted to send me anything, send me more knives. I’ve lost at least three over the side because of that thing. Who knew they could be so fast?!

Seriously, write to me again asking for anything, and I’ll blow up your entire house the next time I attack Berk.

- Dagur the Deranged

—–

Dear Dagur,

Okay, I get it. I won’t ask for anything. Just surprise me.

Some knives are totally coming your way, though. Nice ones too, with polished antler handles and sharp edges. The merchant almost sold them out from under me, but I distracted him by pointing out a rainbow and snagged you four.

Also, if you blew up my house, you’d be doing us all a favor. It’s a total mess. I’ve been begging the local dragons to ‘accidentally’ torch it, but Hiccup keeps stopping me. It’s a shame; my mom would get a new house built and new furniture, so she wouldn’t have to clean for a while. She hates cleaning. Gets it from me.

Oh and I guess Pop would have to drink out in the sunshine. Or the rain. He could use a quick rinse either way, he’s gotten kinda ripe since I last visited. Pshh, Dads today, am I right?

Anyway, that last letter was so serious. Dare I say formal? You sounded like you could use some cheering up, so I wrote you a poem.

I know it’s not Snoggletogg yet, but I’m sure we’ve missed your birthday by now, anyway. (Hey when is your birthday? Let me know.)

Here’s the poem:

There once was a rider named Hic, Whose tyranny would make you sickThough love him we will,And we follow him still,Sometimes he can be a real prick

——

Dagur snorted and started laughing out loud, causing a few heads to turn. He quickly caught himself and glared them back to work before turning back to the letter in his hands.

He had meant to get rid of it this time, really. But it had just been so boring today.

He had to admit, the kid had some nice poetry. Also, the thought that he had an actual belated (or was it early?) birthday gift coming his way honestly thrilled him - especially if it was stolen.

Because buying things with money and prestige? Boring! As a chieftain’s son, expensive gifts had always felt like people were sucking up to him, so whatever it was had no meaning really.

But this do-gooder dragon-rider had actually broken the law (and definitely had gone against Hiccup’s wishes) just to get him a nice gift.

That was … That was just so … thoughtful?

He bit his lip, a little conflicted, but then shook his head to clear it. If someone was wanting to be nice to him, it didn’t mean anything. It didn’t mean he had to be nice in return.

But maybe it wouldn’t hurt anything to keep writing back.

—–

Rider,

Thanks. That poem was pretty funny. I’ll accept those knives too, since you’re technically just paying me back for the ones I lost. I hope you don’t expect anything big in return, like mercy or extra food rations when I eventually kill and capture you all.

I’m no good with poetry … maybe you’d like a story or something? I know some pretty scary ones. Ooh, I bet you can make that big kid with the Gronckle scream like a little girl!

My birthday is the 15th of September.

Regards, Dagur

P.S. When’s yours? Maybe I’ll just try extra hard not to kill you that week.

—–

Well, it wasn’t anything he’d brag about to his men, Dagur thought, watching the Terror fly off. But maybe being quill-pals with the enemy wasn’t such a bad thing.

#rtte #tuffnut #dagur the deranged #httyd

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xottzot · 8 years ago

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2017-5(MAY)-08-Monday---ferals roaming freely the streets. LOUD SCREAMS from a house.

The by-line above of this entry says it.

I apologise for my terseness in this entry, I am literally starting to shake in pain, and my eyesight has been afflicted......and then when, as I am tying to rest, I have to witness all the shit thats going on.....you'll understand my ripped-to-shreds normal state of calmness....

Firstly, the rabid nose-picker aboriginal kid I have mentioned so many times for so long, THAT kid is the VERY SAME aborigial criminal who attempted and failed (not by his actions), he tried to burn a house down with it's owners inside in 2016. -- He actually set fire to the house knowing full well that innocent people were inside. -- And I am not going to tell the rest of what happened because I have done so MANY times and STILL nobody believes me. So fuck off.

From out of the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD has had a group of them walk out and go to ? - With them was the two 'token aborigial kids' the suposedly 'respectable ones', but are just the same as the rest of them of that CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD. -- The group walked off.

And they were being watched.

They were being watched by a 'Watcher' on foor as well as there was an anonymous 'Watcher' vehicle parked in a completely empty car park.

It had remained there watching. Of course it does the same things that they always do. Nothing but watching..... -- And then it drives off. Nobody ever gets out of these vehicles. Nobody even gets out of them. They just drive along, go in, park and observe for any length of time, before they move off.

Determine what you will of the anonymous vehicles. They are not Police. They appear to be some sort of nameless anonymous depatrment that caters to the whims and constant 'support' of the criminals of the aboriginal criminal households.

Sometimes they stay for a great deal of time, sometimes only a minute or less, its completely unpredictable just like the criminal aboriginals......

And the entire carpark area is in direct open view of the crimial aboriginal households. - And do they then file reports that they kept watch unnoticed? - What a joke.

Sometimes the vehicles (rarely) try to remain inconspicuous and hidden by parking further from open view in car park before moving off. And as always, nobody gets out of them, nobody gets into them. They just arrive, watch, then leave.

As soon as it had gone, from out of the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD, comes rabid nose-picker. He's barefoot (as they all constantly are), and he's shabbily dresed as always.

He walks straight onto the road and starts acting crazy.

He starts spinning about, throwing punches at an invisible nobody in the air, he starts kicking at an invisible nobody in the air, and he starts to manically do Australian aboriginal like antics but in a manic crazy way....he starts acting as if he's got a spear and hunting something...and then he does a crazed dance and kicks his barefoot legs all over the place.......please bare in mind that all this was enacted in the middle of the road......

Then he began wandering aimlessly along ON the road, goes to the intersection, all of this is being done aimlessly and brainlessly, he looks at the corner household that has had its fence repaired and replaced (BUT NOT ALL OF IT), and besides...they have long had their tall secure drivewy gates open and without a lock for anyone (especially criminal aboriginals) to freely walk straight into the yard. There is also a man-sized in the property fence, a hole smashed by aboriginals and still heavily used by aboriginals, that is STILL there. It is also being used by the children of that rented house as well to actively go through in & out.

Please, do NOT imagine or try to convince yourself that he and others of them has EVER gone to school. Despite it being a school day and despite the school within visible distance of the CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD. Indeed, the criminals barely even care anymore that they are seen on the streets and everywhere now.

So that criminal is idly standing in the middle of the road intersection, he is looking wetwards towards the Koongamia shops area, and then he suddenly SPRINTS off along the road to in that direction, literally runs as fast as he can go, his bare feet thumping on the road as he does so.

But he doesn't stay there long.

He eventually drifts back and wanders back until he goes into the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD.

I am sick and tired of truthfully stating everything to everyone and for them having to suddenly leap to inane conclusions trying to diminish, lessen, and evaporate away everything as if none of it is conncted or has any relevance. Fuck off.

Later, an older bearded aboriginal man carrying bags of items purchased from the Koongamia shops area, he walks along the footpaths. He walks along, and is carrying plastic bags of ? -- He is walking along and suddenly waves and acts very friendly to ? at the aboriginal 6 Kalara Way house. He turns and apparently goes inside.......

Later, aboriginals of the CRIMINAL HOSUEHOLD are walking along around there on the footpaths after taking the two token children aboriginals to ?. -- As they are rounding the street corner, there is VERY VERY LOUD SHOUTING AND SWEARING suddenly coming out of 6 Kalara Way, so loud it can be heard so very far away. -- The aboriginal man (who is usually constantly riding about aimlessly on a pushbike) is this time walking with another woman of the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD and with them is the aboriginal toddler child. -- They slow down their walking and stare at the LOUD noise. One of them grabs the toddler child and the trio walks hurriedly off and into the aborigial CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD across the road from there. -- Nobody comes out of the 6 Kalara Way property. The VERY VERY LOUD SWEARING AND SHOUTING continues. It continues on and on. - Fuck the lot of them.

Later, one of the 'Watchers' was walking about, looking and taking notes of the aboriginal ghetto, taking special notice of a vehicle parked at the just-moved-in aboriginal household that previously for over 10 years was the aboriginal drug dealer house before he was evicted. (that house as soon as it was evicted, became the trigger event which resulted in the criminals of the aborigial CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD to then suddenly rise up in criminality and they have remained) and rising. -- I'm sick of stating all these facts and constanlty having to repeat them. Fuck off.

A commercial vehicle, "Statewide Lock Services" is epenly seen parked in the driveway and has its doors open, and a male person of it is apparently doing work at that place. -- Countless times aboriginal kids from the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD go wandering all about there, and some go in an out of the house there but never stay very long at all.

And they NEVER EVER got to any school. Fuck off.

I'm sorry, but even as I'm typing this, aboriginals of the aborigial CRIINAL HOUSEHOLD have been all on the streets, and loudly carrying on. They also are doing another piece of shit thing which is relatively new in occurence. Standing in the streets ON the streets and using mobile devices in their hands they are taking "selfies" of themselves standing in front of other innocent peoples homes and properties. They don't just do this once, but are doing it over and over again as they stand in front of peoples outside yards.

As as always, there is the aboriginal diaper-todder (all throughout my blog), that child was walking on the road with them. Suddenly the women began to abuse and swear and threaten the toddler. The toddler is wearing pants this time and is clothed but no shoes. The toddler is literaly driven off by the onslaught of abuse (you have no idea of how much swearing too) and it wanders by itself across the road and goes into the smashed hole in the side-fence of the picketted corner house. It is just left there completely unattend by anyone at all. The others continue walking ON the roads and acting normal because this IS routine for them. -- I am heartily sick of stating countless times how crazed and feral they are. Fuck off.

They are all making their ways on the streets. And they have been doing so.

False calm.

If you ever wonder why I say "false calm" that because it is exactly as it states. And there can be a period or periods of false calm. It is simply a case of a lesser shit going on that is not written about in this blog.

And truly COUNTLESS times, after busy writing things in, then normal tasks trying to be performed in the hope that just like a war, there is a lull in the shelling. But it is truly a false calm.

Even as I was writing the above...quite literally.....there has been shit going on.

And other adult aboriginals have been all about. They are making the entire area a place to travel through and go all about. They come from one place, go about, and are later seen elsewehere. They're using the pedestrian walkways as the criminal conduits that they are.

And they are using the Koongamia school car park as their car parks too.

Later on, after midday noon, there was an aboriginal woman pushing a covered pram along on the footpaths. In front of her was an adult aboriginal man. And he was pushing a shopping trolley (aka shopping cart) along on font of her. They were together. -- If you have bothered to read and rememeber anything I have written in my blog, you will constantly seen me speaking about mysterious shopping trolleys that just 'appear' and are abandoned on street verges, even though there is no shops of anything about in the area that has shopping trolleys. -- Now you see just one reason, a very valid reason why.

And I have personally witnessed aboriginals in shopping areas, (that have shopping trolleys for their customers), how aboriginals will openly just walk off with trolleys full of goods completely unpaid for. AND I have also been there when aboriginals just go stealing other peoples ENTIRE shopping trolley loads. -- I've lost count the number of times I have been to that shopping area and seen (Midland?) Police actively doing their duty there. And I have lost count the number of times that I have heard aboriginals yelling out, swearing, abusing, and threatening people and staff. Indeed, it can feel ominous when there is none of the above occuring there and your entire being is just awiting for it to suddenly occur.

Later today, there was a single female VERY LOUD scream. -- And from out of the picketted fenced rental place comes the oldest of the 2 boys who lives there. He's dressed in black t-hirt, dark jeans, shoes.......and he's picking his nose just like the abo criminal kid does all the time.

And once again....he goes briskly walking along the road....but then he changes his mind and walks on the footpath. Then crossed the road and goes to the Koongamia shops area. -- Don't even bother to ask him if he's supposed to be at school.....

Later, the mother of that rented picketted place, she comes out making a rare appearance these days. She ON the roads, pauses, and starts angrily yelling back at the oldest kid who has yelled out soemthing to her as he's hiding in the front yard of their heavily tree and bushes filled place. - The mother certainly looks a lot thinnner than has always been. But she's wearing the same rough clothing she does. She keeps angrily jabbiong at the air at the oldest kid and demanding soemthing (to stay?), and she finally turns about and continues walking on the road and goes away.

But the oldest boy of that household has been skulking about in the yard and endlessly prowling about in the yard......

That brought out one of the criminal aboriginal kids who NEVER EVER EVER GOES TO SCHOOL and she walked all ON along the roads and carrying on to herself as she listend to some iPod or whatever else whe's got plugged into her head via wired headphones. She walks up towards the Koongamia shops. A car comes along, an innocent member of the public, but she doesn't get off the road. It wouldn't matter or not. They just don't. -- She doesn't stay long at the Kongamia shops. She returns empty-handed and walks along the roads and aimlessly walks about. She's long since taken off the headphones and is twirling the entire things in her hand constantly. I've lost count the number of times there has been these things smashed and the remains and pieces scattered all over the place because of the criminal aboriginals.

I've lost count the number of times this very same girl, and the same aboriginals from the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD just throw rubbish all about.......rubbish that then blows into peoples yards. The innocent people NEVER do ANY of the rubbish making. And yet it is the INNOCENT people who are constantly having to work to keep everything tidy. That and crows and birds which fly down and will sometimes pick up the food rubbish that aboriginals have flung. - The entire area has rubbish everywhere and it's all because of the criminals of the aboriginal CRIMIAL HOUSEHOLD who don't give a shit about anything. You can watch them and you will be amazed at how vicious they strip things of their wrappers, then just throw the wrappers as they are standing or walking along the streets. I don't mean just careless 'littering', I mean it is a constant state of their existance. They don't give a shit. REALLY. Not of anyone or ANYTHING.

Later, there was a group of aboriginals that came out of the 6 Kalara Way residence. It has been a very rare apperance.

They appear well-dressed as if going to front a court apearance. They are all aboriginals. There is an overweight woman, another woman in a long dress, an older teen aboriginal male, an aboriginal small girl, and an aboriginal toddler who is not carried but is told to hurry up and keep up with walking with them. They slowly start their way along the footpaths and go to the Koongamia shops area. a short time later they return. And the other woman with them is reacting any time one of the kids speaks. She tries to heavily smack across the back of their heads with her hand. But they duck. It is amazing to see such timing. It's because it has happend so long and they are so conditioned. She lashes out at the girl she ducks. She lashes out down at the toddler and it ducks. She tries to lash out at the other adult female but she then walks faster and gets ahead of the group. And they go like this all along the footpaths until they arrive and go into 6 Kalara Way. The other aboriginal woman in the long dress comes back out and walks to the nearby bus shelter area. Nobody else goes with her.

Later, nearby medical assistance vehicles have been coming and going numerous times to a nearby innocent residents home and they park outside on the street verge to make their coming and going easier and to have their vehicle parked out in the open in the vain hopes it will not be interfered with.....this is a common occurence these days......

The very end house of Kalara Way street, number 11?, the brand newly built house, which may not even appear on any online maps you look at STILL (including Google's public ones), that place has had aboriginals freely roaming into and out of it too it seems. If so, the aboriginal ghetto is even larger than at first thought or seen.

PLEASE NOTE:--- that I have previoulsy stated in my blog that I was relieved to have thought that that the house next door to the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD had been move into by innocent people. - They did so. - But now it sems as though the place has been devoid of all life since then for many many days.

This has had the effect of emboldening the criminal aborigials of the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD to be more overt in doing all that they do.

It seems to have also had a 'knock-on' effect and made so MUCH more goings on occur.

It is now time of the Koongamia school to be out end emptying of its students and mothers have been escorting their children AND carrying their backpacks for them like pack mules and they have been briskly walking about on the footpaths. Normal innocent people are really just so completely uncommon and when they walk by it is out-of-the-ordinary in this hellhole. -- Sometimes it's as if I want to cheer out loud for them to ncourage them in the face of so much shittynes in these strests for them to hang in trere and be bold and proud.

And an anonymous dark sedan has once more taken up it's standard position in the car park area......and of course nobody gets out, nobody gets in, and it may or may not stay there for a short while or not.......

And before I forget to mention it...the black dog of the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD was out this morning roaming the strets on its own......but they don't care about the kids they have in that house doing exactly the same ALL DAY and in the dark. One one day last week they made a show of leading it out on a dog lead abut the streets. But that only lasted just that one day. It was a one-off bullshit show. (the last dog lead still lies hanging in the elctricity wires where it was thrown there.)

STOP PRESS:-----at 3:08pm.....a West Australian POLICE 'paddy wagon' kind of vehicle (not a 4WD type) went slowly around and past the aboriginal ghetto area. Aboriginal kids were wandering on the streets but the POLICE did nothing. The POLICE vehicle went to the bottom of Kalara Way street and was stopped there for awhile (looking around or looking ahead?), and then it slowly drove off eastwards along Clayton Street and continued its patrol.

And it was VERY closely being watched by (all pervasive) aboriginal kids of the aboriginal CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD who as soon as the POLICE vehicle had gone, literally sprinted back into the CRIMINAL HOUSEHOLD.

P.@17:21----I love YOU deer sweet FLiss and want to be with yiou.. Withouyt being with you Fliss I am reduced to a lessir persn than I am to duekl with all this hehllhole

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