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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Nov 3, 2006 13:58:47 GMT -5
Hey, it's a story I'll actually update!
But I tell you now. It'll be crap. Please. Be warned.
Super Dramatic Doomy Prologue
Every now and then, there comes a story so marvellous, so super, so exciting and just so dang exciting and dramatic that it HAS to be told.
Not everyone would agree that this was one of those. But hey.
It began hundreds and hundreds of years ago. Perhaps even thousands. In fact, it was probably was thousands, but ‘hundreds and hundreds’ somehow sounds more. Don’t ask me why. Anyway, a LONG TIME AGO.
Back when humanity was just becoming interesting, to be exact.
It’s a fact of life that things get interesting when things go wrong. If all those particles floating around from the Big Bang hadn’t crashed together, we wouldn’t get planets. If volcanoes hadn’t erupted all the time, we wouldn’t have an atmosphere. Thus – when the best laid plans of the gods went awry, and mankind turned out a little differently than they’d intended – it got interesting.
And lo, the gods did proclaim, “Oh bugger.”
See, the gods would like people to think that they’re all-powerful, all-seeing and generally all-mighty. Wait, that should be almighty. Oh well. It works. Anyway. They’re not. Think about it – if you were in command of a populace, and knew you all had to generally get along, and depended on their prayers and sacrifices for your very existence – then wouldn’t you want them to respect you, a tiny bit? You’d hardly admit that you made mistakes. The minute you admit to someone you make mistakes, they start seeing them in your actions whatever you do.
The gods couldn’t handle it. All they wanted to do was sit around, drink, make merry and do the freaknasty with hot mortals. The world was their entertainment, not their problem.
So they got outside help. Thus, the moment that mankind started making conscious decisions, Fate’s power ruled supreme.
It was a good system, really. The Fates sorted everything mankind was going to do in advance, and gave the gods plenty of warning when something big was coming up. Any huge problems could be sorted early – make a future killer of millions die while being born because the car to the hospital gets stuck in traffic because someone dropped a bottle which pierced a bike tyre which caused a crash, problem solved early – and the gods could still watch and enjoy the show. Only setback was they knew the ending.
Of course, they didn’t always sort out the big problems. Then the show got boring.
This was a big job for the Fates. Coming up with new and original things for the gods to watch over thousands of years. There was also the matter of the Balance. Good and Evil, Light and Darkness, nuts Happens. They couldn’t just make everything fluffy and light for mankind, because mankind itself wasn’t light and fluffy. If Fate didn’t organise Evil, Evil would take matters into its own scaly hands.
It was due to all of this that there were such prophecies as ‘And lo, as a new star arises in the east, a bunch of goats will die in Sidmouth’. Fate always made sure that Evil was organised. This meant that the gods got warning – to either sort out the problem, or get in extra popcorn.
And this schedule of Evil was so useful and efficient, it got repeated. Roughly every two thousand years, the same cycle of events would come round again. And the gods would throw popcorn at the world and mutter angrily about repeats and unimaginative programming.
But in this case, there was a teeny, tiny problem. So let this story be a lesson to you next time you complain about constant repeats of ‘The Simpsons’. You might have seen some of them a hundred times before, and they might be running out of ideas…
But hey. It’s not the end of the world.
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Nov 3, 2006 13:59:39 GMT -5
Chapter 1
“WHERE THE HELL ARE MY PANTS?”
“Er,” replied Sophie, watching Gemma tearing her college room to shreds in search of the elusive undergarments, “Aren’t you wearing any?”
“Yes, I’m still wearing the ones from last night. I need new ones for today. I can’t have worn them all…”
“Can’t you-” Sophie ducked a pillow flying past her head. “Can’t you just wear the ones you’ve got now?”
“It’s the principle! I CANNOT have run out of pants, my mum made me bring enough!”
“Normally, Gemma, I would accompany you on your noble quest to find your surely-misladen underwear as opposed to just telling you to go laundry already-”
“I will do laundry when I have no clothes left! There’s still some wear left in my Halloween costume!”
“- but the fact and the matter is, this is a fire drill, so we’re supposed to be going?”
“Fine.” Gemma pulled a jumper over her pyjamas, grabbed her keys from where they had fallen in a pile of clutter on her desk chair, and staggered out of the door after Sophie, muttering various curses and grumbling about insensitive fire drill organisers. She even managed to lock her door grumpily before the two of them trudged off down the corridor.
“I swear the college is conspiring to teach us that drinking is bad,” muttered Gemma grumpily as they hurried down the staircase, joining the other groups of students making their way out into the cold morning air, “I mean, this is the second fire drill we’ve had, right? And both this one and the last one are on mornings after I’ve got a leetle drunk.”
“I think you were more than a leetle drunk last night.”
“Hey, I didn’t know what was in a Brownie Bomber, all right? Stop judging me.”
“There were about five units of alcohol in it.”
“I said no judging, and that sounds pretty judgmental.”
“You drank THREE.”
“So? You drank four!”
“… I did?”
“Yes. And much more besides.”
“Oh gods. So that’s not a burning gerbil trying to burrow its way out of my head.”
“Not as such.”
“I did wonder.” Sophie sighed. “It seems that there is something worse than waking up and regretting how much you had to drink the night before – waking up and not knowing how much you had to drink the night before.”
“Indeed, verily, forsooth.”
They stepped out of the dorm rooms door into the icy air, which was the particular kind of bracing you only find when forced out of a lovely warm bed at some ungodly hour for some unconvincingly necessary reason. It seemed to skip chilling the skin and head straight into freezing the blood without all the bothersome heat conduction through the clothes and the epidermis. Sophie and Gemma immediately folded their arms over their coats, muttered curses, and struck out towards the Fire Assembly Point.
“So what happened to you last night?” asked Gemma, as they battled through the north wind, “I lost track of you in Varsity.”
“Er…” Sophie tried to think back to the night before, and was met with blurs of image and sound and some insistent conflagration from the burrowing gerbil in her skull. “I can’t really remember… I believe alcohol was involved somewhat.”
“I think that’s a reasonable assumption. You can’t remember anything?”
Sophie frowned, just for the look of the thing, and tried to ignore the burning gerbil, which now felt as though it had got hold of a pneumatic drill in its attempt to break out of her skull. “I remember… going to the college bar… we played Jenga… we played Jenga a lot…”
“Doubt I’m going to forget that, the tower fell on my head.”
“Oh. Did I try taking out two of the blocks from the bottom again?”
“Yes.”
“Oh. Sorry.”
“Don’t worry, it’s just your internal lust for destruction playing out. And then what?”
“Er…” The negative temperature of the wind revived her slightly. “We headed down to the Swan & Three,” she said firmly, as memories started creeping sheepishly back into her consciousness as though they too were ashamed at how much they had to drink the night before, “where we… did we sing?”
“We did indeed. I believe it was the Pirate Song.”
Sophie groaned. “Oh no, oh no, oh no… who started that?”
“Er. You did.”
Sophie was suddenly wishing there was a wall nearby for her to bang her head against. But she didn’t think the gerbil would like it much anyway, and right now, the gerbil’s word was Law. She just groaned as they started to climb the inconsiderate hill between their dorm and the Fire Assembly Point.
“You did manage to get quite a lot of people joining in with the chorus,” reassured Gemma, patting her friend on the arm, “It was only really on the verses where you were singing on your own.”
“Oh gods…”
“Well, the chorus is catchy. ‘I’d love to let my anchor drop into your ocean blue…’”
“Gemma.”
“‘Won’t you shiver me timbers, ‘cause you’ve raised my mainsail too…’”
“GEMMA.”
“‘Now my boat is full of seamen, if you’d like to meet the crew…’”
“GEMMA!”
“‘Oh baby, won’t you walk my plank tonight?’ Sorry, what?”
“How can you sing at this time of the morning?”
“I don’t know. I don’t feel hungover. Oh… hang on…” Gemma looked at her feet and realised she was walking in a slightly wavering line. “Yep, I’m still drunk.”
“That’d explain it. So after the Swan & Three, did we go to Varsity?”
“Uh-uh, we went to get chips first. You did a little dance for the servers.”
“Oh no. Not the ‘Life is Happee Jolly Dee’ dance.”
“I’ve… never heard of it, but I think that summed up the themes and mood of the movement quite well. It involved a lot of hopping from one foot to the other and waving of the hands.”
“That’s it, I’m switching universities.”
“They liked it! They took your photo to stick on the wall. Only time I’ve had my photo taken is when I go there after Treasure Trap and half of us are painted green.”
They finally crested the top of the hill and joined the milling groups of students, all of whom, by the looks on their faces and the sullen muttering rolling over them, shared Sophie and Gemma’s lack of appreciation for the college’s concern about their fire safety.
“Did we go to Varsity then? Or did I decide to go round my college dad’s house and hit on him first?”
“Yes, we did. But you were plotting to do so as we walked there.”
“Oh gods.”
“I think you were planning on singing the Pirate Song at him.”
Sophie again tried to remember any of this. All she could remember was staggering down the street, arms linked with people she’d never seen before in her life, thinking how much more fun it was walking when the pavement seemed to be tilting away from her in all directions. Including through the fourth dimension.
“So we got to Varsity,” said Sophie slowly, “Hang on, I think I remember this… we went to get more drinks…”
“Which may not have been the best idea, under the circumstances,” observed Gemma, who seemed to be trying to burrow as deeply into her coat as possible.
“And then what?”
“Don’t know. One minute you were there, next minute you weren’t. Garn, I’m bloody freezing. Look, there’s Lizzie and the twins, let’s go penguin huddle. PENGUIN HUDDLE!” she yelled over to the three similarly grumpy, cold and hungover looking girls.
“Oh, yes, genius brainwave Gemma,” said Lizzie as they all bustled together to keep out the wind, “It is bloody freezing though, isn’t it?”
“Really? Hadn’t noticed,” grumbled one of the twins, Zoe, who had actually pulled most of her jumper over her head.
“Did you all have fun last night?” asked the other, Charlotte.
“We assume we did,” said Gemma, “Though memories of the details are somewhat sketchy.”
“We saw you in Varsity,” said Lizzie, “You came in with chips, and – ****!” she yelled as a strong gust of icy wind tore through them, her voice just one of many in the chorus of dismayed yells, “This is insane! If there was an actual fire I’d probably stay inside, at least it’d be a bit warmer!”
“You saw us in Varsity?” said Sophie, “What happened?”
“You were at the bar getting drinks,” said Lizzie, “Singing some song about pirates-”
Gemma groaned and buried her face in her sleeves.
“Then Gemma went off to sit with some guy with a sword-”
“DAN!” said Gemma suddenly, “Of course, I saw him there!”
“Why did he have a sword?” said Zoe, raising an eyebrow.
“I don’t know. I think it’s like a comfort blanket for him.”
“And then?” persisted Sophie. She got the feeling a memory was trying to resurface, but was being held at bay by the gerbil.
To her surprise, Lizzie suddenly grinned. “And then you, you dark horse, got chatting to some guy and went off with him.”
And with those words, a memory suddenly exploded back into life in Sophie’s mind, so incredibly vividly that I think I’m going to have to use a flashback.
FLASHBACK ZOOM!
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Nov 3, 2006 14:04:54 GMT -5
“Well, our nights were filled with pleasure, I dug up her buried treasure…”
Sophie, Gemma and various others staggered up the hill to the door of Varsity, the local ‘classy’ bar for students. By ‘classy’, it meant ‘overpriced but clean’.
“And then I took her to the crows' nest, where I rummaged in her treasure chest…”
“Wait wait wait,” said Gemma suddenly, “We cannae look too drunk, or they won’t let us in.”
“I swear to sober I’m drink,” insisted Sophie, wobbling slightly as she unchained herself from the group, “Or should that be… to drunk I’m not… drunk… eh, forget it.”
“Just stand up straight,” said another girl, “and try to walk in a straight line.”
“I AM walking in a straight line,” grumbled a boy, “but the bloody pavement keeps moving.”
Gemma suddenly straightened her posture with some dignified flair. “See? I am perfectly sober,” she said in a proud tone of voice, holding her head high as she entered Varsity. The effect was somewhat ruined when she collided with the still-closed glass door.
“Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha,” observed the mildly inebriated students.
After a couple more attempts, the motley crew did manage to get through the door of Varsity, to much cheering and applause from the students already inside. Half their group seemed to vanish instantly after muttering words about ‘chairs’ and ‘sleep’ – dude, they can do magic, thought Sophie blearily – and the rest of them went up to the bar, leaning on it more than they would need to if they were sober and confident in their sense of balance.
“You know what?” said Gemma in a very pensive voice while they waited for the barman, staring off into the unseeable distance.
“What?”
Gemma didn’t reply. A few seconds later, she repeated, “You know what?”
“What?”
“I think…” She frowned slightly. “… that I am actually a bit drunk.”
“Really?”
“Yeah.”
“Huh.”
“Funny that, isn’t it?” Gemma started patting the bar in time to a song which it seemed only she could hear. Sophie tried to sing along, but didn’t get very far, gave up, and started up the Pirate Song again.
“And now my telescope's extended, 'cause I've been looking at your view… This song is supposed to sung by guys, isn’t it?” she observed.
“I find that sexist,” grumbled Gemma, “Tis a fawesome song, anyone should get to sing it.”
“Fair enough. I've got a barrel with your name on, and it's big enough for two…”
“And now my mainbrace needs a splicin', and so girl I say to you…” came a voice from behind them. Both Sophie and Gemma looked round to find a dark-haired skinny boy behind them, grinning, with a sword in a back-scabbard.
“DAN!” said Gemma delightedly, with such enthusiasm several other patrons winced and the barman dropped a glass.
“Baby, won't you walk my plank tonight?” finished Dan, “Hey Gemma, how are you?”
“I’m good! Whee, I’m so happy to see you!” she squealed, throwing her arms round his neck.
Dan looked at Sophie with an eyebrow raised. “She’s been drinking,” explained Sophie. She paused. “As have we all.”
“Ahh, drunk freshers. I get you. Brownie bombers?”
“Ohhh yes.”
“Doom.” He looked a little uncomfortable. “Er, Gemma, are you going to let go?”
“Sorry,” beamed Gemma, finally releasing him so he could stand up straight, “It’s just so great seeing you! You know, without worrying you’re going to kill me!”
“Don’t be so sure about that.” He drew his sword and hit her on the head with it. “Single!”
“Arrow of Light subdual single!” shot Gemma right back, pointing at his chest.
“Bitchslap zero!”
“By the power of the gods of flange, create ‘I win’ button!” Gemma held up an empty palm and pressed it. “Coo. Look. I win!”
Sophie shook her head and went back to trying to catch the barman’s eye. They were in Treasure Trap mode now – before long, they’d start discussing which elf was the most ‘made of god and win’. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Gemma heading off to a table with Dan, motioning Sophie to follow them when she got a drink.
After staring intently at the barman for several minutes, he finally came over. “What can I get you?”
“I,” stated Sophie, and then added, “don’t.” A moment later, she rounded it off with, “know.”
The barman blinked. “Right. Shall I come back to you?”
“NO! Stay here. Er. What flavours of VK do you have?”
“Er… all of them?”
“Ooooh. OK. I’ll have a green one then, thanks.”
The barman nodded, and headed off to fetch it. Sophie leaned against the bar and gazed around in a happy daze. Life was nice. It was all warm and fuzzy and slightly wobbly. Being a student was nice, she decided, she loved all her friends, they were the nicest people in the world, she wanted to go hug Gemma right now, and that guy over there who she’d never met but was sure was very nice as well… He looked up and saw her staring at him with a wide lazy grin on her face, and looked a little startled. Sophie beamed and waved at him. A little hesitantly, he waved back, then quickly turned away.
A tall boy moved into the gap recently vacated by Gemma. Sophie quickly switched her beam to him, and said “Hi!”
The guy blinked in surprise, but replied, “Hello!”
Sophie repeated, “Hi!” She might have been able to persuade her alcohol-addled brain to come up with something more intelligent, or possibly even something original and conversation-furthering, but it was currently caught up with the fact that this guy was pretty hot. HOT DAMN hot, in fact. He was tall, dark haired, and seemed to have borrowed a few facial features from Johnny Depp and done good things with them.
The guy blinked. “Hello! Again! What’s your name?”
“Sophie,” beamed Sophie, “Sophie Fabian.”
“Thought so,” said the guy, suddenly grinning.
“What, did you see me on Facebook?”
“Something like that.”
Hot DAMN, thought Sophie, that grin is teh schmexeh.
Somewhere in her brain, a tiny part which had built up barricades against the inevitable flood of alcohol currently creeping into all corners, a little voice said, “No! Bad Sophie! You are not shallow!”
But another part, already steeped in alcohol and thoroughly enjoying itself, said, “But – but – hot damn, look at teh schmexeh!”
The non alcohol-addled part seemed to take in the guy’s appearance once more, and said, “Hot DAMN. That IS teh schmexeh.”
“See??”
“But no, you are not shallow!”
“Awww, why not?”
“…‘cause!”
“One apple VK,” said the barman, returning with her drink and interrupting her internal argument over schmexiness.
“Oh – right – hang on-”
“Don’t worry, I’ll get it,” said the guy, handing over the exact change to the barman.
Had Sophie been sober, she probably wouldn’t have noticed that the money suddenly just seemed to be in his hand without him needing to reach into a pocket. Or if she had, she would have just put it down to him having it ready for his own drink and forgotten about it.
But people who are drunk have a particularly special frame of mind. “Hey! Was that magic?” she gasped.
The guy looked slightly startled, handing her her drink. “Er, what?”
“The money! It just appeared in your hand, like VWOOSH! ALAKAZAM!”
“Ah.” He grinned again. “You saw that, huh?”
“YUH. It was FAWESOME,” she said, nodding enthusiastically.
“I see.” He looked around, and seemed to catch the eye of the guy at the bar who Sophie had waved at earlier. “Say, it’s a bit crowded in here, do you want to go out onto the balcony?”
“Are you a rapist or paedophile or sex predator or axe maniac?” asked Sophie, squinting at him suspiciously.
“Uh… no.”
“But then you’d say that even if you were.”
“No, I’d probably have asked to go somewhere more private than a balcony currently hosting the Rugby Initiation Social.”
Sophie looked where he was pointing and saw that, indeed, the balcony was playing host to a large group of rugby players, all dressed as waitresses and apparently playing lots of drinking games involving pineapples.
“OK,” said Sophie, “But if you try to rape me or kill me or anything, well – you’re mean.”
“I’ll bear that in mind,” said the guy, grinning again.
“Hot DAMN!” squeed her brain once again.
“YOU ARE NOT SHALLOW!” insisted the sober part.
“Come on, LOOK at him!” replied the rest of it.
“What about his personality, his inner spirit?”
“You already agreed he was schmexeh!”
“I will play no part in this. I will sit here and muse over the themes of The Aeneid.”
“You do that. We’ll be fine. Hot DAMN.”
Sophie followed the guy out onto the balcony, overlooking the river and Durham Castle up on the hill. All the lights on the water and glowing against the stone walls would have been extremely pretty and atmospheric, had it not been for one small problem.
“GODS, it’s FREEZING!!” exclaimed Sophie as soon as they stepped beyond the warmth radiating from inside.
“Oh, yeah, sorry. Do you want a jacket?” Before she could reply, he had one in his hands, and was draping it over her shoulders.
Sophie looked at him. “Great. I get an axe-murdering rapist who is also a gentleman magician.”
The guy laughed. “I’m not a magician. Or an axe-murdering rapist, for that part,” he added quickly.
“Oh. That’s all right, then.” She started to take a drink from her glass.
“I’m actually Hermes, the messenger for the gods.”
Apple VK shot straight up through Sophie’s sinuses and came out her nose as she snorted. “Bloody hell!” she spluttered, coughing madly.
“I know, it’s a bit of a shock-”
“I didn’t even know you could really do that! Have your drink come out your nose, I mean! I mean, I’ve heard about it happening, but never actually seen it or had it happen to me – ow, it HURTS.”
“Er,” said the guy, watching her rub her nose, “and the me-being-messenger-to-the-gods thing?”
“Oh. That. Well, you’re obviously crazy, lying or joking.” She began to take a drink again, but then thought better of it.
He promptly shot up a couple of feet into the air and hovered there in space. Sophie looked at him and considered this turn of events.
“… or I’M the crazy one. Or drunk.”
“No, sorry, I’m actually Hermes. See, I’ve got the winged sandals and everything.” He rose another couple of feet and waved a winged sandal clad foot in front of her face.
Sophie’s mouth fell open. “DUDE. Those are COOL.”
“Thank you.”
“They have go-faster stripes and EVERYTHING.”
“They have been updated over the centuries, yes. So you believe me?”
“Er. OK.”
“Good, that was quick. I can come down then.” He slowly sank back down to the wooden decking, apparently oblivious to the suddenly silent Rugby Team staring at his back. They continued to stare for a second, then looked at Sophie. She shrugged. They also shrugged, and went back to their pineapples.
Sophie found part of herself wishing she could just go back to a pineapple and ignore this as well. Her brain was suddenly aware that something HUGE was happening, and knew it was too drunk to deal with it. What the hell was it supposed to do??
“… and in particular in book 10 there is reference to father-son relationships, not only that Aeneas & Ascanius and Evander & Pallas, but also slightly controversially that of Mezentius & Lausus… oh, look who came crawling back,” gloated the one sober part of her brain.
“AAAAAHHH!” wailed back the rest of it, “This guy says he’s Hermes and can fly and stuff!! What the hell do we do?”
“How about tell him how SCHMEXEH he is?”
“YOU’RE NOT HELPING!”
“That’s rather the point.”
“Are you all right?” said Hermes, looking slightly concerned.
“Huh? Me? Oh yeah, just dandy. So, Hermes, huh? That must be cool,” babbled Sophie without thinking, just trying to keep the word ‘schmexeh’ out of her mouth.
“I guess it is,” said Hermes slowly. He drew himself up a little straighter – bloody hell, he IS tall, Sophie found herself thinking – and said in a slightly more official tone of voice, “I come bringing an important message from the gods themselves.”
“The gods? Er, you mean Zeus and Hera and that lot?”
“Er… yes.”
“They exist?”
“In a manner of speaking. Do you want another drink?” he asked, watching her down the rest of her glass of VK.
Sophie shook her head. “No, I’m fine. So, you exist, Greek gods exist. Dude, suddenly my Classics degree has relevancy. Anything else I should know about?”
“… well, there’s the message itself.”
“Oh. OK. Er.” Sophie suddenly felt extremely awkward, and waved her hands vaguely. “Go ahead.”
Hermes hesitated before saying anything, but Sophie got the idea it was for dramatic effect than any kind of nervousness on his part. “How would you like to go on a quest?” he asked.
Sophie stared. “Er. Never really thought about it. Why?”
“A prophesied ancient evil is due to rise once more, and the gods have selected you to be their champion, their hero, and to face it and defeat it, saving the universe from darkness and peril…” recited Hermes, “… again.”
Once again, Sophie stared at him. The other parts of her brain turned to look at the sober part expectantly.
“I got nothing,” it shrugged.
“A quest,” she said finally.
“Yes.”
“To defeat a prophesied ancient evil.”
“Yes.”
“The gods chose me.”
“Yes.”
“As their hero.”
“Yes.”
“To save the universe.”
“Yes.”
“From darkness and peril.”
“Look, you’re just repeating what I just said.”
“Yes. Because it’s insane.”
“I’ll tell Zeus you said that. I think he’ll be rather hurt.”
“No. Seriously.” Her brain was finally getting its act together and knew it had to get Hermes to understand the sheer badness of the situation. “I can’t be your hero. I – I’ve never done anything like that, I wouldn’t know where to start! What the hell is the ancient prophesied evil?”
“No idea,” shrugged Hermes.
“Then how am I supposed to defeat it??”
“I don’t know, you’re the hero. Well. Heroine.”
“That’s another thing – though it goes against every feminist urge in my body, aren’t I supposed to be a guy? They always are in the legends, and all action movies they try to make with a female hero are always really crap.”
“Apparently,” said Hermes, “you’ll have to do.”
Sophie grabbed a handful on hair in her right hand and scrunched it tight, staring at the decking. Hermes waited patiently. “Fine,” she said suddenly after a long silence, “Whatever, I’ll try to do your quest thing. Where do I start?”
“First step,” said Hermes, stepping towards her and looking deep into her eyes, “most important step, possibly one of the most arduous…”
He stopped right in front of her. They were getting stared at by the Rugby guys again. “Hot DAMN,” muttered a little voice in her head.
“STOP THAT!”
“Sorry.”
“Yes?” asked Sophie in a squeakier voice than she’d intended.
Hermes looked her up and down intently. “Sober up.” And with that, he took off and soared back into the air.
“Wha – hang on, WAIT!” she yelled after him, “Bloody hell, winged sandals, the enemy of completed conversations…”
Hermes landed back in front of her. “What?”
“Er, how do I contact you?”
“You don’t. Yet. I contact you. Is that all?”
“Yes. I mean… er…” The cold wind was starting to creep through gaps in her jacket, and as the sober part of her brain started to gain back control once more (sending the drunk parts to sit in the corner and think about what they’d done and why drinking alcohol in excess was a foolish pastime) she became all to aware of all the bloody hills she had to climb back up to get back to college…
She looked a little shamefacedly at Hermes. “Could you, er, give me a lift home? Since I’m going to be hero and save the world and everything?”
Hermes smiled. “I guess so. Take my hand.”
Sophie reached out and took hold of it. It was startling to the touch: it wasn’t warm or cold, it didn’t seem to have any temperature at all, and somehow felt more real than anything else; it felt as though it was glowing, as though there was some great energy under the surface. It made her entire arm tingle slightly.
“I’m saying nothing,” said the one of the little voices in the corner.
“Go on. We all know you’re thinking it.”
“Thank you. OMG HOT DAMN SCHMEXEH.”
“Sigh. You do realise this is a god?”
“Damn right he is.”
Sophie’s brain facepalmed.
END FLASHBACK ZOOM!
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Nov 3, 2006 14:05:47 GMT -5
“So who was he?” persisted Lizzie, “He looked pretty hot.”
Sophie’s mind was racing from the end flashback zoom. She struggled to get her thoughts in order. This was possibly made more difficult by the fact half of them were still sitting in the corner thinking about why drinking alcohol in excess was foolish.
“Is that why you never came and sat with me and Dan?” asked Gemma, “We waited for you, but we ended up going to Subway for sandwichy goodness.”
“Ohh, I love Subway,” moaned Zoe, stamping her feet to try to keep warm, “What I’d give for a Subway melt right now…”
“Mmm, I want a Meatball sub… with extra cheese…”
Gratefully, the conversation seemed to be moving onto sandwiches. While all the other girls fantasised about various hot sandwiches they could have right at that moment, all of which would apparently banish the freezing wind blowing right through them, Sophie ran over the events of the night before in her head, trying to make some vague kind of sense of them.
She’d met Hermes. He’d had really nifty winged sandals, with go-faster stripes and everything. Her brain had brought dishonour upon itself with the constant musings over his schmexehness while he was trying to tell her… to tell her…
Oh. Right. The quest thing. To save the universe. From darkness and peril.
BUGGER.
“So who was the guy?” asked Gemma, when they were finally released and allowed to scuttle back to their rooms to snuggle back under their duvets for a couple of hours before breakfast.
“Er… I don’t really know,” said Sophie, “I don’t really remember… he seemed nice, though. I think I just chatted with him for a while and then decided to come back.”
“Without even stopping for more chips?” Gemma whistled. “You must have been hammered. Hang on, you didn’t walk back on your own, did you?”
“No – er – I met up with some people from my ‘Remembering Athens’ lecture, I walked back with them.”
“Good. Try to find the guy on facebook, I’m sure he’ll be on there. Gaargh, I want my bed.”
Sophie bade Gemma good night/morning/ungodly hour for fire alarms at the door to her room, and carried on down the corridor to her own. She entered, kicked off the shoes she’d pulled on when she’d worked out just what that horrible ringing noise was that woke her up (“Why the hell are they ringing bells at this time of morning the bastards? Hang on… that ringing means something… errrrr… earthquake? No, it’s… OH, fire bell. nuts, that means I have to get up…”) and crawled back under her duvet.
How was she supposed to go on a quest? She couldn’t even organise herself enough to do her preparatory reading for lectures. Anyway, how did one GO on a quest these days? There weren’t exactly any evil sorcerers sitting around, just waiting to be defeated. Everything was complicated nowadays.
She groaned and pulled her pillow over her head. She hoped she wouldn’t have to get a cape or anything.
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Post by goblingirl on Nov 3, 2006 14:25:16 GMT -5
..........well, at least now I feel less guilty about my character's first action being to re-play Shindig in her head....
And, I HATE YOU! IN A GOOD WAY! ARG! The only funny part of MY story is when the giant spider is eaten by the cat!
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Post by reasonably_crazy on Nov 3, 2006 14:48:33 GMT -5
haha, cat. Are you posting your nanowrino story, too, Thea?
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Nov 4, 2006 12:49:54 GMT -5
You like, then?
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Post by A.Leon the Zarkin Frood on Nov 4, 2006 20:26:44 GMT -5
Yay! *claps*
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Post by goblingirl on Nov 5, 2006 12:57:47 GMT -5
And no, I can't post mine, and probably won't be able to finish it, because my bloody computer has broken again, eating half I've written already, and depriving me of a permanently accessible computer (I'm on my mum's laptop - only allowed on it in emergencies)
Yes, I like it.
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Post by reasonably_crazy on Nov 6, 2006 2:24:15 GMT -5
Katie, we loff it.
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Nov 6, 2006 5:56:34 GMT -5
Wheee! ;D I'm just writing the first complete crap that comes out of my head, and IT WOOORKS!!!
Now we meet the second part of the story...
Claire’s Blog, November 1st 2006
Entry 1 - So You've Decided to Take Over the World
It dawned on me today during lectures that being an Evil Genius must be harder than most people assume.
For one thing, what is ‘Evil’? For that matter, what’s a ‘Genius’?
And even if one does manage to become an Evil Genius, how can one turn that into a successful career? It’s hardly on those leaflets which your careers guidance teacher gives you. ‘ARE YOU EVIL? ARE YOU A GENIUS? HAVE YOU CONSIDERED COMBINING THE TWO AND JOINING THE GROWING PROFESSION OF WORLD DOMINATION?’ And I didn’t see too many presentations sponsored by ‘Evil Genius & Minions inc.’ at the Freshers Fair.
I mused over this for the rest of the lecture. At least I was doing something constructive with my non-listening-ness. I thought about all those films I’d been going to see lately which featured ‘Evil Genii’ and wondered just how many of them I thought were actually good at it.
They all had their good points. Lex Luthor, in particular, stood out in my head – but his plan sucked. I mean, a new continent made of graphite? Who would want to live there? The ground was pointy!
Who else had I seen? Voldemort, in the latest Harry Potter film – well, I can’t take an Evil Genius seriously when he flounces. Again, he had a terrible plan.
What about Darth Vader? Good plans, true aura of menace – but could I really call him a genius? The plans were not his own, and frankly, seeing the prequels ruined any fear I might have had for him. He yelled ‘yippee’. Not to mention the eloquent, “I wish I could just wish these feelings away!” Perhaps some articulacy is a prerequisite for a budding Evil Genius.
By the time I was climbing back up the hill towards college, I decided that most good Evil Genii’s failing point was their plan. I was sure I could do better, if I were an Evil Genius.
Then I thought ‘Hey – what if I wanted to be an Evil Genius?’
Where would I even start?
Well, I’m going to try to start. I’m a bloody arts student after all – I have far too much free time.
I decided that, logically, to be an Evil Genius, I was going to have to start by either becoming ‘Evil’ or a ‘Genius’. I had no idea which should come first, so in the end, I left it up to Fate. I grabbed a coin.
But I paused it pre-flip, trying to decide which side should be heads and which tails.
I did what any self-respecting student would do when facing a difficult decision. I posted on Facebook about it.
‘Hey guys, which side of a coin should be Evil and which side should be Genius?’
Pretty quickly, I got a reply from another bloody arts student.
‘Evil should be tails, because geniuses need to use their heads.’
Armed with her unarguable logic, I flipped the coin.
An embarrassing amount of time later - I never realised how confusing twenty pence pieces were - and after some careful investigation, I concluded that it had come up tails. So first, I have to become ‘Evil’.
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Nov 6, 2006 5:57:06 GMT -5
Breakfast at college was always a somewhat surreal affair. Hardly anyone went any more – beds were far more appealing – and there was the knowledge that whatever you had for breakfast would probably resurface in at least three more meals over the coming week.
“I think it’s some sort of sausage stew for lunch as well,” observed Gemma, prodding one of her sausages with her fork to see if it sprouted tentacles, “And then there’s the Sausage & Onion pie thing for dinner.”
“Maybe the sausages regenerate,” said Sophie distractedly, not really listening. She was still thinking about her apparent quest, and wondering if Hermes was going to turn up again. He’d told her to sober up – well, she was well on her way there. The burning gerbil had been extinguished somewhat by the miraculously regenerating sausages. Now there was just the sore throat and general fuzzy headedness (smoke left by the gerbil?) to get rid of. “Or maybe they’re like the heads of the Hydra, you know, you cut one off and you get three in its place…”
“Are you saying there’s some kind of unstoppable Sausage Monster in the kitchens?” Gemma paused, staring off into the middle distance as the mental image took shape in her head. “WOW. Do you think there are Spaghetti Hoops of Wrath, too.”
“I don’t know. What kind of insane place serves spaghetti hoops for breakfast?”
“Er… this one? On Thursdays?”
“Bah. Thursdays are my sleepy day.”
“Bloody arts student.”
“Science geek.” Sophie drank some of the apple juice which had clearly come from the bottom of the barrel, and thus tasted like the bottom of the barrel. Nutricious-alicious. Really, it was to buy time to decide whether or not to ask a very Stupid Question.
She would later blame her hangover for deciding to ask it. “Hey… Gemma…”
“Mmm?”
“You don’t have lectures this afternoon, do you?”
“Nope. Muhahaha.”
“Well, er, someone might come to see me – I guess they’ll know where my room is – basically, if they do, ask them to…” What? Leave a message?? “…come back this evening, after my lectures are done.”
“OK. Who are they?”
“Err… it’s that guy I chatted to at Varsity last night.”
“Oh aye?” Gemma suddenly grinned widely. “Getting your memory back, are you?”
“Err… yes… anyway, he said he might drop round. So. Just tell him, er, to come back later.”
“Surely will. Heeheehee.”
“Stop grinning like that, it’s unnerving.”
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Nov 6, 2006 5:58:33 GMT -5
Sophie spent that morning hard at work. That is, she spent it thinking “I really must get down to some work” but really mucked around on Facebook, joining such societies as ‘I Will Go Slightly Out Of My Way To Tread On That Crunchy-Looking Leaf’, then feeling extremely bad for lack of work, but looking at clock and deciding, “Ah, it’s too late to do any real work now, might as well keep up this Poking War with this random fresher I only met once at the bar”, and promising herself to get to work when she got back from lectures.
If Hermes hadn’t turned up by then.
That, she told herself (tagging photos of herself from the Classics Society Social) was the real reason she couldn’t settle down to work. She was waiting to see if the Messenger for the Gods showed up.
Well, it was certainly an original excuse. Perhaps she could use it for her Facebook status.
But he didn’t come, so after lunch (again, sausages) she headed off to lectures, wondering whether she should have left a note on her door. ‘HI HERMES, SORRY JUST GONE TO ‘CLASSICAL THEORIES OF SOUL’ LECTURE, BRB, OREOS IN DESK IF YOU’RE HUNGRY’.
Maybe not.
What would happen if he did come to her room while she was gone? And Gemma spoke to him? Oh gods, would he explain everything to her? Well, it might help… if anyone was going to understand how quests worked, it was Gemma. She went on quests every Saturday. True, she consistently died, but the principle was there.
If this all turned out to be true – and she got an actual quest to go on – she could have a lot worse companion than Gemma, she decided. She’d have to talk to her – if this did all turn out to be true. But right now, in a classroom full of chattering slightly hungover students trying to figure out how to bluff their way through Nicomachean Ethics, it seemed impossible.
“Hello there,” said Hermes.
“ACK!” yelled Sophie, literally jumping out of her seat – only a few inches, then falling back into it again at a jaunty angle – to discover him sitting in the chair on her left.
“Are you all right?”
“What – what-”
‘Oh gods. It was all true. It wasn’t all a drink-induced fantasy, I'm really supposed to be a hero and save the world… Ooh, he is still very schmexeh.’
‘SHUT UP OR I CUT YOU.’
“You seem to have sobered up,” shrugged Hermes, “Thought it was time I came down and outlined the situation.”
“Outlined the- How did you know I was here?”
Hermes just gave her a Look. “Possibly could it have something to do with gods being omniscient?”
“Oh yeah. Right. The whole see-all know-all thing. How could I forget? Silly me. But fact is, er, Hermes, this isn’t the best time. I’m kind of in the middle of a lecture?”
“How can you be? The lecturer isn’t here yet.”
“Yes, but… he will be. So, you ought to go. Like, now.”
“Now?”
“Yes. Unless you want to learn the finer points of Socrates’ views on the soul.”
“Oh. Not really. I knew Socrates, nice bloke, but not the smartest of guys. Had a really great singing voice after a few bottles of wine though. Do you have to stay?”
“Yes,” said Sophie’s Conscience, without consulting her brain in the matter.
Hermes got to his feet. “Right, I’ll come find you later. What time does this finish?”
“I really ought to do some work today,” Sophie’s Conscience said, again of its own accord, while her brain made a mental note to give it a stern talking-to about its place in decisions later.
“No you don’t. I heard about this, you’re a – what is it? – ‘Bloody Arts Student’. Apparently it’s a kind of degree with no work involved.” Hermes started edging his way along the row of desks. “Outside, in an hour. I’ll see you then.”
At that point, the lecturer for the class came in. He caught sight of Hermes, looked a little taken aback, and asked, “Young man, have you picked up the course handouts for today?”
“Er, no thanks,” grinned Hermes cheerily, “I already know all this. It’s not really that interesting. Got better things to do. Bye!”
And with that he walked out of the classroom and into Classics Department legend.
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Post by Hobbit-eyes on Nov 6, 2006 6:01:10 GMT -5
Sophie barely took in a word of the following lecture. She got the vague feeling that she was missing something important on Socrates’s views on pleasure, and that seminars were finally being organised (why now?? It was already several weeks into the term, why did they have to decide to get their act together now??), but funnily enough couldn’t really concentrate on anything else other than the fact that she was supposed to meet Hermes, Messenger to the Gods (who, by the way, really existed) later.
Even her doodles on her notepad were somewhat less enthusiastic than usual.
While the lecture was taking place, it seemed to drag by, but when Sophie blinked and realised that it was over and people were getting ready to leave, it seemed as though no time had passed at all. Stomach feeling a bit strange, she got up, shoved her books into her bag and joined the crowd heading for the stairs.
She managed to navigate her way through the throngs of people to outside the building. She had just glanced up and down, looking for Hermes –
- when she was glomped by another mercurial traveller. “Hey!” beamed Gemma, “How was your lecture?”
“What? Oh, it was fine. You know. Educational. Er, what are you doing here?”
“I ran out of ways to procrastinate of Facebook. Plus, I’ve got to go get a top for Treasure Trap later. Want to come?”
“Er – I’d like to, but – hang on, did you say you ran out of ways to procrastinate of Facebook??”
“Yeah,” said Gemma glumly, “It has forsaken me. But I forced myself to go get the top before I moved onto Youtube. So, coming?”
“Er, I don’t think so, I’m just waiting for-”
“Hello again!” said a familiar deity-sounding voice behind her. And judging by the way that Gemma’s eyebrows vanished under her fringe, either this was Hermes, or some other living embodiment of schmexeh.
She turned round and saw that yes, it was Hermes. Her stomach twisted slightly, in sudden nervousness of what he was going to tell her – or at least she thought it was that, because her brain was hardly helping her identify the emotion, what with the unintentional resounding, ‘Hot DAMN’ echoing around her head.
“Hi,” she said, suddenly feeling very awkward, “Er – how are you?”
Hermes gave her a ‘OK, either she’s weird or behind in my God-Mortal Relations classes’ look. “I’m fine,” he said slowly, “Can you listen now?”
“Er – sure – sorry, Gemma, I can’t come with you-”
“Who’s this?” asked Gemma quickly, eyes wide. Sophie thought she could catch glimpses of ‘OMG THE SCHMEXEH’ floating behind them.
“Er – this is the guy I met last night in Varsity, remember? He just needs to talk to me.”
“Can I come?” asked Gemma immediately.
“I don’t think-”
“Of course you can,” said Hermes, smiling, “Sophie’s probably going to need all the help she can get. Where do you want to go?”
“O’Neill’s,” said Gemma immediately before Sophie could even draw breath, “Best cheesy-bacon chips in the world. We go after sword practice,” she explained, reddening slightly.
Sophie looked helplessly between the two of them. “Fine,” she said resignedly, “Come on, let’s go…”
As they headed off towards the pub, she heard Gemma asking, “Are those winged sandals?”
“Yes.”
“With go-faster stripes?”
“Yes.”
“FAWESOME.”
“Er, thanks.”
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Post by goblingirl on Nov 6, 2006 13:44:51 GMT -5
I keep feeling thankful he's not reading her mind...
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