o/~ I'm still standing, after all this time, pickin' up the pieces of my life without you on my mind...I'm still standing! o/~
It was nice to have a room again, one that I could call my own. A sort of luxury. A place where I could unpack and let my vast book collection take over the walls and flop onto my bed and read.
Anyway, that's what I was doing in my room at VRDET HQ when Tangaloor Firefoot stepped out of midair carrying a suitcase. I looked up lazily. "That's getting to be a habit with you, isn't it?" I asked.
He "smiled." Th-varians can take on hayuman gestures, and sometimes do, but a tailtwitch is just as eloquent as a facial twitch if you know what to look for. "I thought that you would be pleased that I brought this," he said, indicating the suitcase.
I finally noticed the stenciled "Magick Supplies ONLY" on the side of the case. "Tee's stuff?"
He nodded. "Take, take. I've been carrying this for too long."
I took the black case and set it on my bed, then flipped it open. There, on top of a pile of black cloth, was a sword with a black scabbard and a black handle. I turned back to Firefoot. "Tanasha *really* has no creativity when it comes to colors, you know that?" I asked him.
He rolled his eyes. "Flip it over," he suggested.
I shrugged and did so, noting the trigger set into the hilt. The other side boasted a huge fire opal as a setting. I groaned. "Tee," I said aloud, "you *know* how I feel about ornamenting stuff!"
That wasn't all. The hilt was covered in..."Bike handlebar grips. Creative, Tee." I sighed and pulled it out of the sheath and swung it a few times. It was light - probably Kai'iit Skysteel. The hilt was comfortable, I had to admit. And the whole thing was perfectly balanced. Other than that, nothing. It was pure tech, no trace of magical or psi fiddling. Refreshing.
I turned back to the case after sheathing the sword. There was also a matching dagger, hayumanstyle instead of Th-varian style, unfortunately. Underneath that was a unitard that had been enchanted with protection spells six ways from Sundae, and a "missing you" card. Just like Tanasha.
I opened the card and read the note aloud. "'Heya, 'Ristal...' Ooh, does that telepath ever learn? 'I heard that you're settling into your vacation well...glad to know that you've finally picked up on what entertainment is really about.'" I fixed Firefoot with a glare. "Can't you *do* something about her?"
He shrugged eloquently. I grimaced and kept reading. "'There have been some interesting developments here...interesting in the Chinese sense.' Oh, great, Tee, what'd you do *this* time? Misfire a teleport and send someone on an unwilling Continuum tour? 'My teleport misfired and sent Matt, Chris, and Niel spinning around the Continuum...causing havoc. DTA HQ's on my butt for that one, let me tell you.'" I looked up at Firefoot, who was trying to contain his laughter. "Not funny."
I sighed. "'Anyway, enjoy the goodies, and tell Firefoot that the dare is a go -' What dare?" I looked up in time to see him flick his claws out at me, and then the world spun. I flopped onto my bed ungracefully, sending my copy of "Sun-Runner's Fire" crashing to the floor.
I groaned and sat up, sending a glance at my fallen book. "You fool! You made me loose my place!" I groused, picking up the book and making a futile effort to seek for my page in the 470-page-thick novel. Something prickled at the back of my mind, and I stopped, then turned around.
Firefoot was grinning at me. I glared. "Okay, *that* was not nice," I said. "Hit the 'Undo' command *right* now and I might spare you."
He shrugged. "The spell will wear off in due time," he said.
"Or if I go into a magicless region."
"I don't know of any around here - and that wouldn't work, anyway."
"By your *father*, Harar Goldeneye, what possessed you to do that?" I growled. "I'm stuck, in *hayumanform* no less, by one of your spells! AND I DON'T EVEN HAVE CLAWS!! YOU MIGHT HAVE GIVEN ME *THAT!*" I growled, energy spent for the moment.
He lowered his eyelids until I could only see a slit of his strangely, at least for a Th-varian, gold-colored eyes. "You are one of the privileged few, Aristalarus, who I choose to let tradition slide with. So far I have not regretted my decision."
"And you're not going to regret it soon - I'm still your main supplier of computer jokes this side of Chaos." I grinned as he stared at me, then collapsed in a fit of laughter.
He wiped his eyes with the back of one paw. "True, true...I won't regret my waiving of formalities, if only for the computer jokes." He looked up eagerly. "Do you have any new ones?"
"Uhh..." I was on the spot. "Err, Microsoft just announced an end to aggressive marketing practices?" I shrugged.
He rolled his eyes. "All right, all right." He turned to go, then turned back. "You were on page 261, third paragraph, Rohan's convincing Sioned that Pol is still her son, no matter who the mother was."
I blinked as he faded out, then turned to spy the book on my bed. "Oh, yeah." I shook my head. "It's nice to have friends in high places." I flopped back on the bed and picked up the book again, focusing my eyes on the words.
Five minutes later, tired of reading the same two lines while my brain did flip-flops, I sighed and set the book down. Rolling onto my back, I pulled out my CD player, plugged it in, grabbed a random CD and made sure that soundproofing was active. After taking these precautions, I hit "random-repeat-play" in that order and prepared to wince at a big glob of musical self-inflicted irony.
I was inflicted with "The Rum Tum Tugger" from Cats for a while, until I couldn't take it anymore and grabbed a different CD. Then I flipped through the Eagles, Les Mis, Phantom, Elton John, Hackers, Barbara Streisand, Newsies, and Weird Al before finally settling back on a Dance Mix and practicing handstands and leaps in the empty floorspace. After that I was tired enough to settle back on Elton John, "It's Easier To Walk Away."
I think I fell asleep, because the next thing that I remembered was a horrid squealing noise right in my ear. I leapt up and whirled, hitting the CD player. The contraption hit the ground and the CD shot out like a piece of toast out of a toaster, embedding itself into the ceiling. The CD player burst spectacularly into flame.
"Burn!" I exclaimed. "That was one of my favorite CDs, too!" I grumbled as I poked at the smoking CD player, and then reached up to grab the CD. "At least it wasn't Les Mis...Burn!" I yelped and shoved my fingers into my mouth, trying to cool them, and glared at the smoldering CD.
The door hissed open and I whirled again. I tripped over the wreck of the CD player, spun around, and landed back on the bed, nearly biting my fingers off in surprise. "BURN!!" I yelled for the third time, and turned - to cut myself on my newly acquired sword.
"Grahh! That's it!" I grabbed the sword, spun it around my head, and embedded it in the wreck of the CD player. This caused the remaining bits to explode, several of the smaller pieces flying about the room. One of them hit the CD in the ceiling, and it shuddered, then fell.
I must have earned a break - the falling CD did *not* hit me. It fell, instead, on the guy who had entered the room, one of my orderlies. He yelped as the CD singed his hair, then tried unsuccessfully to bat the thing off of his head.
I had recovered by this time, enough to snatch the burning thing and run to the sink. I ran cold water over it, then turned to a blank spot in the ceiling. "Okay, *someone's* got a *lot* of explaining to do! PHYSICAL HUMOR IS NOT THAT FUNNY!!"
I didn't get an answer, so I went out to see the orderly, whose name was George Fink, gingerly prodding the wreck of the CD player with his foot. I sighed, pulled the sword out of the floor, and sheathed it. "Okay, what's up?" I asked.
He blinked a few times, glancing from me to the melted plastic on the floor to me again. "Uh, sir, I, uh..."
I shrugged. "Had a CD on infinite repeat for..." I glanced at the clock. "Ten hours. What's up?"
He gibbered for a few more seconds, then pulled himself together. "Katze...High Councillor Katze's been kidnapped by the Lyrans -"
"WHAT?!?" I yelled, startled. "Howthehelldidthathappenthatcouldn'thave
happenedshe'sthemostprotectedpersonthissideofchaosandit'simpossibleto
getpastthesecurity-" I saw George looking at me blankly and belatedly
realized that I was yelling in Th-varian. "Ri'larr'charr - uh, er, how?!
When?! Never mind that, what do we do about it?!"
He shivered. "I was told to tell you to go to briefing room 7-S..."
I nodded. "Great. I'll be there." He nodded again and darted out the door. I shut and locked it before changing into the unitard and strapping on the sword. Pulling my hair into a ponytail, I took one last glance at the mirror. "Great, I look like Sonya Blade with brown hair and a sword. Great sense of humor, Tee, really great." I turned, and the scabbard hit the suitcase that Firefoot had left.
Three tiny circles of gold flew out of the top of the case and bounced on the floor as I cursed my clumsiness. Curious, I scooped them into my hand and then shoved them into my backpack. I'd look at them later.
Darting out the door, I headed for the briefing room.