Wednesday, November 23, 2005
The Rest of Chapter Five
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Naraqe had nearly reached the house numbered 1138 Westmark Avenue when a particularly cute looking kitten with orange and black markings bounced past her, a gray ball of wool in its teeth. Aw. How adorable, she thought, watching as the innocent kitten bounded past her.
Five and three seventeenths of a second later a short woman dressed in pink with bunny slippers and wearing oven mitts crashed into her. The two went sprawling into the dust, a cloud of gray and brown swirling up into the air as they both flew backwards in a flurry of speedlines. Naraqe jumped to her feet, and offered the spawled short woman a hand.
“That cat...” The shorter woman coughed, and pulled herself upright. “Has my Wool of Doom!”
“Your what?”
“Wool of Doom!” the woman exclaimed, pointing wildly in the direction of the kitten.
Some part of Naraqe’s mind decided that she thought she liked this woman. “Oh. Well, in that case...” The elf queen grabbed the woman’s arm, and dragged her off in the direction of the thieving cat. Togther they chased after it through the streets of Serenor, attempting to recover the Ultimate Superweapon.
Chickens went flying, merchants found themselves pushed aside, and dust went clouding up into the air in large murky quantities as they dashed after the adorable kitten in possession of the Wool of Doom. For some odd reason the fact that the ball of wool had been dubbed the Wool of Doom didn’t really sink into Naraqe’s mind. The fact that the woman had smelt like chocolate chip cookies had, however, and she hoped that if they made it to the cat, she would be able to apprehend a few of the cookies in reward.
No matter that she had just eaten a chocolate tea cake. The elf wanted cookies. She liked cookies every bit as much as she liked pickles, cake, and apples (though not all mixed together).
The other woman, on the other hand, seemed very set on catching the cat. But Naraqe thought she seemed nice.
They barreled through a stall full of various rugs and unbreakable ornaments in attempt to locate the cat, sending pet rocks flying into the street. One of them went flying and hit a garden gnome in the forehead, who carried on to start a protest on the mistreatment of smaller races, leading on a campaign to stop the racism directed towards species under four feet tall. This led several human childern to join in, declaring that they were protected by the new demands as long as they remained under four feet tall, and this in turn lead to tortured teenagers cutting their legs off in order to attempt to join in the new society for the Vertically Challenged. Greatly inspired by the testimonies of various short people, a bard wrote a deeply moving poem in favor of love for all races, and a listener found himself throwing his arms out dramatically. A vase was knocked from a window when he did this, and accidently hit an elf on the head. This elf was the leader of a crime ring, and when the vase knocked him out, the ring was ended.
None of which had any relevance to the present plot, of course.
Finally running into a blank wall, the two looked around wildly for the cat.
Naraqe blinked. The cat had vanished.
The other woman blinked as well. It wasn’t as if blinking was an abnormal thing to do. It removed dust particles from ones eye that could otherwise bring blindness to their remarkably useful retinal tools. Or at least cause ones eyes to grow strained and liquid to pool up in their corners causing one to look as if they are remarkably distressed. Of course, by this time, one is quite likely to be very distressed from not blinking, because all sorts of atoms would be brushing against the surface of your sclera and oculus, and who knows what could be in those. This does cause remarkable distress after about twenty seconds or more, unless of course you are fond of the feeling of your eyes drying up and shriveling into useless circular shapes of muscle.
So, in that context, it was not an abnormal thing for either of them to blink at that time.
The shorter woman threw her hands out dramatically, bringing about the ultimate demise of several unfortunate atoms. “Why, oh why does fate hate me?” she declared.
“Perhaps we could lure the cat with some of those cookies you obviously baked?” Naraqe asked hopefully.
“Perhaps that would work...” The shorter woman considered it with a contemplative expression. “How did you know I made cookies?”
“You smell like them, and you’re wearing oven mitts.” And pink bunny slippers, Naraqe noted with an amused expression.
“You could smell that I made cookies in Serenor?”
“Yes...”
The other woman looked rather impressed. Considering that most of the city smelt like a brilliant mass of various scents from horse droppings to chocolate cake to the mixture of a million various being’s sweat mingled into the air, it was an impressive feat. To think about all the millions of things you were breathing into your nasal passages by the mere act of breathing in Serenor, and several cities like it made one think twice about breathing, in truth. Because anyone who had studied anything about the human body (and most other races) knew that smelling involved several particles of the unpleasant smell working their way up your nose and lodging themselves in your head.
Although this did explain why a lot of people acted like butt-heads, and as if they continually had their heads stuck in an outhouse, it still wasn’t a pleasant thought to think that there were tiny particles of horse droppings in your nose mingling with the scent of chocolate and roses.
Naraqe took a final look around for the cat, which had vanished. “Who did you say you were again?”
“Didn’t say,” she replied.
“I thought you did.”
“I didn’t. The author isn’t calling me by my proper name.”
Naraqe blinked. “You can hear narrators too?”
“No, but it’s a logical deduction.” She shrugged. “I’m Lyrane.”
Naraqe nodded, and offered her left hand to Lyrane’s great confusion. To offer your left hand in a friendly handshake generally confuses the person who has to accept the hand proffered unless they’re a lefty by heart. Naraqe knew this. She just enjoyed irritating people greatly. “I’m Naraqe.”
“Hi.” Lyrane finally sorted out her hands and took the offered left hand, shaking it firmly.
“About those cookies?” Naraqe asked pointedly.
“Sure thing.” Lyrane took the lead and led her back towards 1138 Westmark Avenue again, all the while wondering whether luring the cat with cookies would work, or if her Wool of Doom was lost forever. She wouldn’t have doubted the latter. Every time someone she had known had made an all powerful artifact of great magical use, it had either been stolen, vanished mysteriously, been borrowed by a powerful wizard, or backfired at the last possible moment.
She doubted the elf would sympathize with her case, however. The elf seemed far more interested in the idea of eating cookies than taking over the world. But then, Lyrane reasoned, cookies seemed a lovely idea in themself.
**
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Woo! Now our lovely two female heroines have met. Well. Two of them. Amber still hasn't, and I'm at 44 230 words. *falls over* Next update will include the entirety of Chapter Six I think.
i hit the post button at
4:17:00 PM
note your presence
