It's November!

[chu_totoro]

Hi guys.

It's 2009, I'm in Japan, and as something I neglected to do in 2008 (and 2007), this year I am going to try to tackle NaNo seriously!!

It's November, I've got 2000 words down, which is too few because it's a precious WEEKEND WHEN AM I GOING TO GET ANY OTHER TIME TO GET A HEAD START AHHHHHHHHHHH but that is not the point of this post.

I found my NaNo 2006. Again. Now, this is something I haven't posted for 3 years because 2006 was my first year doing NaNo, I was a silly freshman, and I wrote a story chock full of inside jokes and I was afraid that posting it would offend people. TBH it isn't really a story, it's just full of a setup for a story that never got written, hahaha. But now that the chatgroup is, whut, dead and gone, at least I don't even remember half of the jokes we had from 2006 (they keep changing!), I can probably say for certain that this is something I will never finish!

So, here it is. I'm sure we've all grown enough in three years not to get offended over silliness from three years ago? (a.k.a. DON'T KILL MEEEEEEEE~)

Warning: It's pretty terrible. I never went back to edit, so it's stuffed with random skipping and notes incomprehensible to me now and a lot of it makes me cringe in my seat (like... the bits about myself AUGH LET ME DIE NOW) - but some of it still cracks me up. Like the first Tiffany cow entrance. HARHARHAR. So have a laugh, guys!



(I attempted to format it, guys, but I just got too lazy halfway through. Sorry!)

A long, long time ago, in a faraway kingdom, a little prince was born.

Great celebrations took place! Wondrous festivities, of which nothing the like has ever been seen. For the king and queen had long wanted and yet been denied this heir. Indeed, they were at first afeared that the prince may simply be a false satisfaction, that he may turn out to be weak and sickly and fall ill and die young-- but soon enough they were certain that he was hale and healthy as a child could be.

His christening was a sight to see. The entire nation celebrated with fireworks and jollities all day long, and seventeen fairies were invited to the scene, contrary to the customary one. Of these some were too far away to make the journey, and others too lazy, but a great many were rather too busy, preoccupied each in their own fairy-like fashion. For instance,

Another fairy never received the invitation at all, simply because a short while back she had had the brilliant notion of making her tower invisible to the world within a 3 mile radius. She possessed one of those enchanted dwellings that disappeared and reappeared in random places of its own accord, and she was getting very sick of people making such a big deal of it every time she moved. However, instead of vanishing just the castle like she planned, she accidentally vanished EVERYTHING within the 3 mile radius. This posed a very noticeable gigantic white spot of nothingness in the middle of nowhere, and so for the time being she moved the tower to a rural part of the world, which few ever journeyed through.

As to spells gone wrong, one of the witch-fairies had rejected the traditional notion of felines as a companion, and had been experimenting with barnyard animals when the invitation arrived. It was not such a ridiculous idea, mind you, for certain animals such as cows possessed just as much power, in their own way, as a feline, which is why they are held in reverence in certain parts of the world. She was absolutely right in thinking that they could aid in spells as well as any feline-- but the one problem with creatures such as cows and horses is that they are far too large. They simply cannot ride with ease upon a witch’s shoulder the way a cat can. They also cannot communicate half as smoothly, and that, in fact, was primarily what she was working to change. Unfortunately at the time of the invitation one of her colts had managed to smash out through a partially broken fence, letting loose several of his fellows as well as a heifer, which had, even worse, wandered into her portal. Now the poor thing was probably bouncing hopelessly through time-space, maybe to stay there forever, maybe to be flung out in some hundred years, when it hits upon some slight discrepancy (leftover remnants of shabbily-done magic) that sends the rebound just slightly off course.

but by and by twelve of them arrived upon the scene, each in a varied spectacular fashion (excepting those few who chose the traditional witch role and came flying in on broomsticks, with pointed hats upon their heads).

One flew in atop the back of a fiery dragon, which exploded midflight into thousands of sizzling shooting stars, leaving the fairy herself to float gently down to earth. Another came riding in a magnificent pumpkin carriage draped full of vines and ribbons that fluttered in the wind. Seas of people parted to make way for its slow, majestic journey through the streets, gaping after the wheels that seemed to propel themselves, for there were no horses. Another chose to top that with a monstrous carriage that came sailing through the air, pulled by equally gigantic flying horses. She even had a troupe of promiscuous girls with her (for ‘twould be sad indeed if such a large conveyance held only her and her alone!), that danced and whirled and drew the eyes of every male citizen upon them, and unfortunately caused the unpleasant side-effects of many popped eyes, nosebleeds, and dislocated jaws. The women of the town complained mightily, but their turn soon came with a fairy of the far northlands, who had a more rustic taste and favored the simple, fur-clad young men of the north, whom she brought with a grand demonstration of martial-arts upon the palace steps. The women fell head over heels for them. Ironically enough, the men did not complain, for fear of being labelled hypocrites. Instead, they contented themselves drinking and playing cards with one another, and spent their time out of the house.

The eldest fairy of them all, however, was the only rightful fairy godmother of the little prince. From her small cottage she witnessed all the antics of her youthful comrades (for fairies can see far beyond the normal range of sight). She shook her head and smiled. The young were always so ostentatious! But patiently she watched, and waited, and when all that would come seemed to be present, she sent herself there with a lazy wave of her hand, vanishing and reappearing immediately amidst the centre of the celebrations, clothed elegantly in a simple black robe.

Her arrival was received with a warm welcome, though she couldn’t help eyeing the promiscuous girls and fur-clad young men with distaste. No mere ostentatiousness, but bad taste, as well! They bore no ill-will, however, and she resigned herself to settling on the opposite end of the room.

The little prince was honored indeed, with twelve fairies at his christening! And of course, after he had received his sprinkling of holy water, each stepped forth as per tradition, to bless him by bestowing upon him a gift. There were the typical gifts, of wisdom and courage and kindness and so on, but also a few peculiar ones. For instance, “prudence” and “artistic ability” were rather atypical gifts, and the fairy who had brought with her the promiscuous girls bestowed upon him the gift of sexy thighs, “with holy sexiness enough to override all else that is important in this world.”

Unfortunately, a disaster occurred before the tenth fairy was able to bestow her gift.

A thirteenth fairy burst into the room, eyes wild, hair disheveled, clothes unkempt, and showing all the signs of having taken too much fairy dust recently. In fact, her appearance suggested that she was a regular fairy dust addict, and all the other fairies flinched a little at the sight of her.

“Why wasn’t I invited?!” she demanded, one hand on her hips. (In fact, she had been invited - she overlooked the invitation - but that is of no relevance to the story.) She glared around the room, then caught sight of the tenth fairy, standing open-mouthed before the infant, and realized what was going on.

“Oho, giving blessings, are we?” She stalked over to the little prince and loomed over him dangerously, shoving the tenth fairy out of the way. Then abruptly she cackled. “All right then, I bestow upon you this: that from the moment you are able to walk and talk you become a raving lunatic, and stay that way until you die, on your sixteenth birthday.” Then she whirled sharply on her heels and stormed out of the place in a huff, leaving the king and queen speechless on their thrones. A long silence ensued, everyone either in shock or too embarrassed to make any move, until at last the tenth fairy timidly stepped forward.

“I, uh, I... bestow upon you... this: that on your sixteenth birthday, though ill happenings may occur, you will not die, but will continue to live on until... until your destined day of death,” she said falteringly. Then she looked nervously at the king and queen, for one fairy could never undo the curse of another, only lessen, and took a step back into place. The eleventh fairy, taking her cue from this, stepped forward and proclaimed,

“I bestow upon you this: that you will never suffer the fate of a raving lunatic, though you may become engulfed with sporadic fanatical obsessions that makes others look upon you as such, still... you will always keep your sanity preserved.” Then she stepped back, and glanced at the eldest, the true fairy godmother, in hopes that her power could lessen the curse yet more, and mend the harm that has been done.

The fairy godmother, however, merely produced a small blue vial from her robe and, with a string so fine it was nearly invisible (for it was spun from only the finest of spiderwebs), she hung the thing round the infant’s neck. “This I bestow upon you,” she said, “and may it do you much good in future times of need.” Then she stooped and kissed the little prince upon the forehead and, standing up, nodded curtly to all those around her. With another wave of her hand she vanished, forgoing proper farewells. The situation didn’t really call for them, and she wanted to return to her little cottage and there watch her godchild’s unfolding life story-- she had a hunch it would be an interesting one.

And thus with his godmother’s kiss upon his forehead and blessings upon his soul, the little prince began his long journey into life.



It was nearing dusk. The sun sank closer and closer to the horizon, and with each passing minute the hot thirstiness of a midsummer’s afternoon faded from memory, like an ephemeral dream. A light breeze began to blow-- not one of those hot, humid blasts that nearly bowl a person over and leave them sputtering and faint from heat stroke, but the cool, refreshing breeze of evening. The trees shivered all the way down to their roots, and with a great sigh the grass bent over in a rolling chain reaction that swept all the way down the hill.

In the thickets a little pink nose twitched, first this way, then that. Slight, transparent whiskers shimmered faintly through the leaves, then gingerly a furry grey head peeped out, eyes swiveling as it took in the surroundings. Then all of a sudden it made up its mind, and with a bound the claribunny left the safe haven of the thickets and hopped into the open. Resolutely it hopped foward, eyes riveted on a patch of young green clovers waving deliciously in the wind.

To its right the underbrush shook violently before another claribunny emerged, peering about curiously. It espied the first bunny, now indulging itself in a great feast of clovers, and hopped over to join it. More and more others began coming out as well, leaving their shady hiding spots in the coolness of dusk. Here and there little glimmers of silver shone through the green as the fading sunlight caught and reflected the fur of one of the bunnies, diligently nibbling away at the second meal of the day.

All of a sudden a haunting melody floated into the clearing, and every head turned towards it. The tune was queer indeed, eeriely beautiful yet soothing in a most peculiar fashion. Without a backward glance, the claribunnies all began hopping towards the source of the music, forming in the process a funny little line of flashing furry silver blobs, all determinedly hopping in the same direction with a mesmerized look upon their faces.

By and by they discovered the source of the music in a little clearing not too far away. It came from something that swirled with the most hypnotizing vortex of colors, and the claribunnies approached it gingerly. They formed a sort of circle around it, each craning its neck to try and get a better view of the thing, until at last a more reckless one ventured out with a few short hops and went right up to the thing. It sniffed it, nose twitching curiously. Then it cocked its head, puzzled, and crouched down lower, for a better view. However, as soon as one of its whiskers touched the thing, a great noise like a plunger drew the claribunny into the vortex with a strong sucking wind. The unfortunate bunny squealed in surprise and writhed about violently, to no avail. The circle of bunnies hastily scrambled back. The helpless bunny was sucked further and further into the vortex... now only the head was left... now the ears... now a tiny bit of whisker...

POOF!!!

The circle of bunnies jumped back another foot as the entire claribunny reappeared suddenly, silver fur gleaming a dull grey and looking exceedingly unhappy. A plain white net held it fast to its place, and no matter how it struggled it could not get free. Now that it had achieved its goal, however, the clarinet no longer swirled with colors or played its special bunny-mesmerizing melody. Losing interest, the rest of the bunnies scattered, leaving this one to its fate. They returned to their feeding grounds, picking up where they had left off.

They were all nibbling happily again when some odd rumbling noise sounded in
the distance. Most of them completely ignored it, but one or two looked up.
Now what? read their faces.

Then came a loud boom as something came crashing through the foliage, and
the bunnies were left with no time to think as they scattered every which
way, bounding as fast as they possibly could to get away from the looming
monster that held in its hands a gigantic metallic device that was dripping
red stuff onto the ground, a long, flat thing with jagged metal teeth at
both ends and glinted maliciously in the light.



Around the time the little prince turned five and could walk and talk and
even read and write a bit, and suddenly developed a dread obsession with
drawing robotic squirrels, a young orphan child was left in the dark back
alleys of Fandom. She could not have been more than two years old, and
raised a dreadful racket, wailing up a storm the way two-year-olds would.
Luckily the first person to find her was a drug-dealer, still relatively
sane compared to many of the others who lurked around such alleys, and he
sold her to a harem of prostitutes for personal profit. They could not use a
two-year-old for their... typical services, of course, but they branded her
and settled to the churlish task of raising her, for she could be useful as
a child-servant while young and they can set her to the real work when she
comes of age. Such was their reasoning, at least, which was mostly reasoned
into them by the drug-dealer’s honeyed words, but they all believed it to be
what they themselves truly thought.

In reality, there really wasn’t much for the girl to do. She grew up wild,
and the dangerous back alleys of Fandom became her playpen. Most took note
of her brand and left her alone, for it was customary in those parts not to
harm those who belonged to a larger organization, so as to keep a delicate
sort of peace with them. However, there were those who had lost too much
reason too long to recognize or remember such unspoken laws of conduct, and
the girl soon learned how to deal with these. The prostitutes taught her.

Really, the prostitutes rather favored her. Children came scarce in these
parts, and amongst these women she was fawned over and adored, and almost
spoiled, if that were possible. They never had any real chores for her to do
and let her run free for the most part, after warning her of the most common
dangers and how to deal with them. They outlined for her the chancy places
to avoid, and the territories that should not be trespassed. They showed her
the quickest routes and the safest routes, and taught her what to say when
she came face to face with a man with a knife. They showed her how to
distinguish a drunk man from a sober one, and how to tell if a man has been
smoking from the telltale blankness in the eyes and the yellowness of the
teeth and the foul breath. Then they let her free.

The girl was smart, and she learned. The prostitutes might have watched over
her closely to make sure she did each thing as they told her, but it was not
in their nature to do so. A child who cannot survive on her own in the
streets is better off dead. They adored her, but not so much as to weep over
her death. Fandom was not a horrible place - it had its good parts and its
bad - but back there, in the darkness of the alleys, people died on a daily
basis, and a child’s death was not worth so much.

...but she did not die. They taught, and she learned. And survived. And if
anything, it only made them like her more. Indeed, from the point of view of
the girl, her times in Fandom were some of the best times of her life. Not
that she remembered much of her life before Fandom. So perhaps Fandom was
the only life she knew-- but all the same, a grand one.

She spent much time exploring, adventuring through the streets, and became
incredibly familiar with those back alleys that others found so intimidating
and dangerous. She knew every nook and cranny of them, where to run to for
an open-ended escape, where best to hide, where the crowds of druggies would
be and where the sorcerers lay. If you placed in front of her three smokers
side by side, she could immediately point out to you who had been dealing in
pot and who was a longterm heroine addict, and which one had just had their
first taste of crack and was now doomed for life. She was an excellent thief
and a handy runner, and held her own place within the hundreds of
mini-societies existing in complicated underlying patterns throughout the
street. Indeed, only in the streets was she completely at home, for she knew
that one little corner of Fandom backwards and forwards like no other. She
loved it, and it loved her.

Of course, as she began to explore further and further, outside of her
little comfort-zone where life was perfectly integrated and everything moved
with its own flow, she began to hit the greater parts of Fandom. Better
parts, more wondrous parts, all so mysterious and alluring! She began to
venture out more often, and returned to the harem less and less. After all,
she was still too young for them to put her to use, and they never had
anything for her to do there. Her skills were sufficient for survival-- or
at least for lurking behind in the shadows, observing, absorbing, learning.
No one noticed the scraggly little girl hiding in the darkness. Slowly she
was putting the alleys behind her, and moving on to greater things.



In the middle of the Pacific Ocean, two dragons were flying away, away, fast
departing the tiny island they had once called home. The first shone a
transparent icy blue, glimmering slightly in the moonlight. Her great wings
beat the air, and a row of spikes ran all the way down her spine to the tip
of her tail. In between two of these spikes was wedged her rider, arm
wrapped about the great circular cone for support, but otherwise lying as if
dead. As she lay face-down her age was indistinguishable, but she could not
have been very old, judging from the sheen of black hair whipping about so
violently in the wind. More notable, though, was the furry tuft of two fox’s
ears poking out from within the storm of black, and the red-brown fox’s tail
that wrapped round the girl’s body, over her clothing, keeping her warm. Her
comrade shared those peculiar traits, and indeed at first glance looked to
be much the same as she. However, upon closer inspection, one realizes that
it was only their identical aura of infinite exhaustion that gave off this
impression. In reality both were quite different. For one, the other girl
possessed chocolate-brown hair, and was sitting up halfway, wearily leaning
all her weight back upon a spike. Her eyes were clearly hazel, forming a
sharp contrast with the emerald-and-gold scales of the dragon she rode, and
they spoke of an unending weariness of the world.

The dragons flew still shrouded in mist, for the island home they had just
left encompassed a wide radius veiled by an eternal fog, in which rain and
storm hindered any possible intruders. Yes, thus was Taplyth, which had
always remained gratefully separate from the rest of the world. Taplyth,
where caukaeyrs frolick amongst the fields of flowers and dance alongside
furry puffs of dandelions in the wind. Taplyth, that houses strange demons
and stranger creatures yet, all unknown to the rest of the world. Taplyth,
in which time flows differently and magic stubbornly takes its own course.
Taplyth, upon which bloody warfare has finally erupted...

Theoretically it was impossible to leave Taplyth, for it was a place that
few ever entered and none ever left, yet it could not be said that anyone
has ever made an attempt to leave... and so the theory could never be
proved. It may never have been tested, either, had not the war broke out.

The peace between the humans and the demons had always been a fragile one,
and the smallest catalyst was usually enough to induce conflict. However,
this time the strife was no mere scuffle. A combination of bad conditions,
bad luck, and the humans just going too far for once - it triggered real
anger, not easily quelled. In fact, this provocation was one of the
stupidest things the humans could have done, especially because of what it
led to-- the demons, all five clans, held a meeting in the icy blizzards of
the Endless Frozen Desert and decided to destroy the humans once and for
all. The decision was not bluntly made, either. They spent days formulating
a most detailed plan of attack, that they could obliterate them all quickly
and cleanly, and FOR GOOD.

Oh yes, the plan. They argued for days on the details, but when they were
done, it was brilliant. It was brilliant, thorough, organized, and
absolutely foolproof. But was it immediately carried out? No. They simply
agreed on a meeting date and scattered, each clan departing to its own lair
for preparation. Of course. Such a plan could not be completed so easily,
no... they worked zealously and rehearsed each individual part of the plan
until it was absolutely perfect. PERFECT. And then on that day...

On that day all hell broke loose.

Oh, the plan worked, perfectly. The fortress fell exactly as planned, each
clan coordinating impeccably with precise timing rehearsed a thousand times
over. All the assaults went just as they should, the distractions, the
fires, the destruction. They miscalculated only one thing.

They underestimated the tenacity of the humans.

They assumed the humans would be easy kills, and they were. One, two, life
pinched out of them quick as the flame goes out on a candle. But what about
droves of humans, masses of tens, hundreds, thousands? A lone stick is easy
enough to snap, but a fat bundle tied fast in a clump-- nearly impossible.
And that was what the demons discovered, the hard way. The battle was long
and it was bloody, and in the end, in the end... well, when the two kitsune
left, they were still fighting, and for all they knew the battle might still
be raging on, and probably was. Only, they could not stand it any longer,
and so they left. When they saw the fire ravaging their beloved Larinja
forest, the black, eddying swirls of ashes in the Healing Springs, and the
Hill of Growth withered and stained with blood, they despaired, and so they
left.

To be honest, there were a fair amount of others that agreed with them at
heart, but had neither the willpower nor the means to avoid this
catastrophe, and so simply went along with things and grew sicker and sicker
at heart until they themselves felt like to die. Yuki and Kione were
different. Within the kitsune clan they were held in high esteem, for each
had been favored by a dragonet at the hatchings, and the unspoken bond that
linked them to their dragons raised them immediately to the status of Dragon
Masters, a position of wisdom and power. Indeed, they alone could fathom
making such an escape, with the aid of their dragons. No craft handmade
could ever overcome the enchantment surrounding the island, and would only
be washed back ashore or torn to pieces amongst the waves. Yet dragons...
with strength and magick and sheer force, their approach from air opened a
possible route to escape, and that was the way Yuki and Kione were headed
now. They knew nothing of the world beyond Taplyth, but it was the only path
that still lay open to them.

Hyousetsu and Kaloryth plowed on through the mist, flapping their great
leathery wings steadily, with an almost rhythmic beat. The rain and wind
meant nothing to them-- dragons fly in any kind of weather. The mist was
thinning, however, and on Kaloryth’s back, Kione pushed back the wet hair
plastered to her face and squinted into the murkiness. She still could not
make out anything much, but the sky was definitely clearing. This signified
that the enchantment was weakening, here, and they were fast approaching the
edge of the invisible border that divided Taplyth from the rest of the
world. She was more than a little nervous at that, for though they could not
know that no such thing as kitsune even existed in the outside world, or any
creatures such as the magnificent two dragons that they were riding, her
subconscious held a vague instinct that told her this, and it sent shivers
down her spine.

Atop Hyousetsu’s back Yuki was beginning to stir as well, the sudden
onslaught of being drenched in icy sheets of rainwater serving to wake her
very well. As she straightened up and groaned (riding upon a dragon’s back
is not so comfortable as one might think), a soppy-looking little mop of
grey uncurled itself from behind her, revealing itself to be a little wolf
pup, looking for all the world disgusted at having been forced to ride upon
such a gigantic scalely creature in this kind of weather. It shook itself,
sending water spraying everywhere and nearly falling off the dragon’s back,
then settled back down in a perfect-sized hollow formed by the joints of the
dragon’s vertebrae.

Kione attempted to signal to Yuki, but Yuki wasn’t looking in the right
direction. She sighed. She wanted to tell her how close they were to the
unknown, how near to their fate, so she could have someone to speculate
with. As it was, this gesture was quite unnecessary, because the very next
second they hurled out of the mist, out of the moonlight into direct,
glaring sunlight in a clear blue sky. And as they passed between the mist,
the fox’s ears and tail immediately vanished from both, and of a sudden the
easy ebb and flow of shapechanging left them, leaving them with a pang and a
feeling of loss. They had not known they possessed the power until they lost
it. The pup slipped, scrabbled frantically, then toppled from Hyousetsu’s
back, yowling as it sailed through the air in an elegant arc.

“Hyouden!!” screeched Yuki, only she was not Yuki any longer, just as Kione
ceased to be Kione the moment she passed over the invisible border and
Hyouden ceased to be Hyouden. He was simply a wolf pup, and Yuki a girl. A
normal human girl. And the two dragons were changing, too. Shrinking,
condensing, as both riders lost their hold and fell after the pup.
Hyousetsu’s magnificent half-transparence was reduced to the scraggly yellow
of a Kit Fox, and Kaloryth shrank into an ocelot. As their wings vanished,
their flight began to break up, and they tumbled helplessly through the air,
dropping towards the ground at an alarming speed. They did not, however,
fall to their deaths. At that very moment a great wind gusted up and seized
them in its enfolding gales, whirling them round and round about like a
tornado. The two girls were flung out in opposite directions, and the
animals went hurling every which way. Where each ended up I cannot say, only
that they all ended up very far away from each other...



Now let us jump a thousand miles across the water to Carebear Land, in which
a great disturbance was taking place. The country ought to have been
consumed with revelry and merrymaking in celebration of their little
princess’s birthday, yet a great portion of it was in turmoil, for a
rampaging heifer - dropped out of nowhere, claimed the people - was wreaking
havoc. It whirled to and fro within the country, now raging her way through
the north, now in the east, leaving behind a maelstrom of destruction and
chaos wherever she went. Hurried messengers were dispatched from each place
as the heifer passed through, and the king and queen were bombarded with a
stream of unending people, all spewing identical complaints.

The princess was very unhappy.

She sat upon her fluffy cloud, face growing darker and darker as each
messenger burst through the doors in precisely the same fashion and toppled
over panting in exactly the same way and repeated the exact same message
that they had just heard from someplace else a moment ago and only THEN
remembered their manners, just like all the others, and stumbled outside.
The same stupid words about some calf echoed over and over in her head until
she was about to go crazy. When the eighty-first person came plunging
through the doors, she had had enough.

“OUT!!” she screamed, jumping bolt upright on her cloud and flinging her arm
in front of her, pointing straight at the astonished messenger’s nose. “OUT,
OUT, OUT, OUT, OUT!!!!”

The man stood dumb for a moment, too surprised to move even a fingertip.
Then he blinked, and abruptly came back to life, and made a sudden motion as
if to say something. But he looked up and the princess still stood, resolute
as a statue; the finger still pointed, and the hot anger that flashed from
her eyes seemed to generate waves of hate that burned right through him and
out the other side. He gulped, and backed out of the room without another
word. And thus the king and queen never received the word of warning that
the heifer was headed their way, and that they had better clear out.

When the great doors finally screeched shut, the princess flung herself down
upon her cloud, weeping into its fluffy whiteness. This was the most
horrible birthday she’s ever had in her life. The king and queen glanced at
her warily, but she sank a bit deeper into the cottony fluffiness and hid
herself from their view. They sighed, and decided not to reproach her. The
messengers had been about to drive them insane, as well. The three were so
dejected that they barely even moved when the heifer exploded into the room
with a muffled crash and burst through the opposite wall in a great cloud of
dust and debris. Indeed, the all three would have stayed that way for a very
long time had not a strangled yelp come from the next room. At this the
princess bounded back up again with an agitated look upon her face.

“Cookie!” she cried, and sent her cloud racing after the calf through the
hole in the wall. There she found a sight that, if it had not been so
horrific, would have been almost comical.

The little brown and yellow dog, originally tied to the pole in the center
of the kennel via her chain, was now hopelessly attached to the heifer. In
bursting through so violently, the heifer had snapped the chain right off
the pole, but then got caught in the backlash and became tangled by it.
Through sheer force it had managed to extricate itself from much of the
mess, the result being that the leftover clump of knotted and twisted chain
was now hopelessly affixed onto one of her backlegs, dragging the dog with
it. The dog, finding itself jerked aloft and dragged sideways in the air by
a furious heifer, did the only thing it could think to do before it hit the
ground: it bit onto the heifer’s tail and held on for dear life. This, of
course, only angered her more, and she reared and snorted angrily, fully
prepared to make a dash for the wall when the princess appeared upon the
scene.

“AHHHHHH!!!!” shrieked the princess, horrified by what she saw. She bid her
fluffy to fly closer in, that she could go save Cookie, but the cloud took
one look at the snorting heifer and hastily backed up, taking the princess
with it. The princess repeated her order more forcefully, but it paid her no
mind. In her fury she pounded the cloud in frustration, but it did no good.
Her fists simply sank down through the soft fluffiness and bounded right
back up again. It was a stroke of luck for her, however, for the heifer
probably would have trampled her had she tried even to touch it.

Summoning her wits, the princess saw the sense in her cloud’s judgement, and
instead called for it to bring her to the castle sorcerer. This the cloud
did with all haste, zipping past the king and queen with zeal and nearly
knocking over a new messenger, this time repeating a different message
(obviously, since the heifer was now within the castle). Something about
unlawful destruction of claribunnies with chainsaws.

They nearly collided with the sorcerer on one of the corridors, for he had
been hurrying down to see what all the noise was about. Without a word the
princess grabbed hold of his collar and hauled him up through the cloud with
a tremendous will of force, setting him back down atop it. He immediately
began to fall through again, but gathering his wits muttered a few quick
words to slow his progress. Starting, the princess snapped at her cloud,
which flinched slightly and wavered a little, but at last the man was
sitting upon it somewhat stably.

“What...” he began, but the princess cut him off. “It’s Cookie!” she
exclaimed. “A little cow is about to make off with her! Do something about
it!”

The sorcerer blinked, unaccustomed to being spoken to so sharply, but said
mildly, “As you wish, my lady.”

Now then, the cloud approached the haze of wreckage and shot past several
more devastated rooms through holes in the wall, and came abruptly upon the
heifer, Cookie attached still to her tail. She had her eyes squeezed shut
and her teeth clamped down hard on the tail, exerting an stubborn aura of
all-or-nothing. The calf bawled and twisted and danced, ramming the walls,
but could neither dislodge the dog nor the chains fast constraining its left
back foot.

The sorcerer beheld all this in amazement, but came back to his senses when
the princess tugged at his sleeve. He then examined the heifer carefully
with his wizard’s eye, but returned a moment later to reality looking
baffled as ever. The princess threw him a questioning glance. He shook his
head.

“I don’t know what’s been done to this poor calf,” he told her, “but it’s
laden with more enchantments than I can think to untangle, and from the
looks of...”

“Waitwait,” cut in the princess. “What’s causing it to rampage right NOW,
though?”

“Well, the dog and the chains, of course. but also... it’s showing all the
signs of extreme pent-up frustration, but I can’t quite pinpoint the source.
It seems to be very pissed off at being shuttled back and forth between
somewhere - I can’t quite tell where - for a very long time. A VERY long
time. But then it has to be older than it looks, yet it isn’t... I can’t
make head or tail of it.”

“But can you cure it?” asked the princess anxiously.

“Well, that’s the easy part. I just have to leech the frustration out of it,
like this...” and he muttered a few words under his breath, making some
complicated-looking hand gestures at the same time. Then he pointed at the
heifer and said “ha!” and all of a sudden the wild bawling and rearing
stopped, and the heifer stood placidly blinking, looking slightly dazed. Her
tail flopped back down, slamming Cookie forcibly into her rear-end, but the
little dog stoically held on with her eyes closed, refusing to let go for
anything. The princess slipped off her cloud and went running over to her,
with a wary glance at the heifer. When it didn’t seem to mind, she gingerly
put a hand on Cookie’s back, then stroked her head and flipped a floppy ear
playfully. The little dog glanced up and saw her. “Arf?” it said, and in
doing so lost its hold and fell into the princess’s arms, leaving a few
bloody holes on the heifer’s tail.

“Moo,” said the heifer.

“Phew,” said the princess.

“Yay,” said the sorcerer.

“Moo,” continued the heifer. “Moooooooo.
Moo-OOWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!”

The princess and the sorcerer stared.

“MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAA!!!!!”

“Oh dear,” said the princess.



Back in the country of the little prince, the king and queen have finally
given up on him. It was just as the fairies had predicted-- he was perfectly
sane in every possible way, he just had these hopeless dread obsessions that
proved absolutely uncurable. At first it had been robotic squirrels. They
had no clue where the idea even sprung from, but the obsession clamped down
on him almost before he could fully walk and talk, and everywhere he went it
was just robotic squirrels, robotic squirrels, ro-bo-tic squirrels. He
scribbled them EVERYWHERE. At first just on random sheets of paper, but then
when the paper was taken away, on the walls, and then onto the floor and on
his own bed and even in the throne room, upon the king and queen’s very own
thrones, and it wasn’t like his drawings were bad - he had been blessed with
unique artistic ability, after all - they were just... everywhere. Anywhere
you looked, squirrels squirrels squirrels squirrels. And not just any
squirrels. Robo-squirrels, with mechanical ears and round little metal balls
for claws and feet and giant, glimmery eyes.

They tried taking away his drawing utensils, but that didn’t work. He’d find
more, and when that was taken away he could draw with anything-- a decent
chunk of black rock, for example, scratched black marks very well, and even
when there was nothing he could trace figures with water, or use his own
fingernails to scratch in the pictures. This, of course, was greatly harmful
to his nails, and to prevent it the king had no choice but to let him do as
he wished. Instead they ordered a specific team of servant-slaves, half
always armed with a bucketful of soap and water and the other half with
sponges and paper towels, to follow the little prince around the palace and
eradicate his squirrels as soon as he drew them. The little prince was
perfectly fine with this, since he saw it as simply more canvas made
available to draw more squirrels upon, and so things went for a while.

But then one day he abruptly stopped. Just like that. He had finished
painting a gargantuan robo-squirrel mural upon a blank wall in the east wing
of the palace, and when he was finished he dropped his paintbrush (the
servants immediately snatched it away, in hopes that it will make him forget
to paint more) and stepped back to admire it. Even as he stepped back,
though, busy slaves were already sloshing soap water over the still-wet
painting and starting to scrub it from existence. Then the little prince
looked at the wall, covered in working people scrubbing busily away, and
felt for the first time a curious sense of loss. Then his hand convulsed and
he looked down and realized the paintbrush wasn’t there anymore. And all of
a sudden drawing robotic squirrels just didn’t seem to appeal to him
anymore, and he turned around and walked away.

The next dread obsession he fell into, however, really gave the king
headaches. In fact, he even proclaimed once that he would rather have the
squirrels back.

He took to poking people. He would poke them and poke them and call them by
weird scientific names, and then when he’s provoked them to the point of
explosion he would back off and stand at a respectable distance, giving the
person in question time to remember that he was a prince and that nothing
can be done about it. It was one of the most frustrating and cruelest games
he’s ever played. Even worse, after he has pried some reaction out of even
the most patient and enduring man with his excessive poking, he would start
documenting the reactions in a very official voice, as if studying the
behavior of a wild animal. He nearly drove all the occupants of the palace
insane with this behavior, including the king and the queen. People took to
avoiding him at all costs, sometimes going as far as to sprint as soon as
they caught sight of him, so he wouldn’t have time to exercise his authority
as a prince and order them to return.

This obsession, thankfully, lasted only a short time. The day the prince hit
on the court jester as his victim, it ended.

This court jester, now, was a queer sort of fellow. He wasn’t much older
than the prince himself, yet wore his hair just too long to be decent, and
it looked wild and tangled half the time. He wore a kind of half-laugh all
the time, no matter where his location, and dressed in a blinding purple
robe. His outlandish garb really made him look quite ridiculous, and suited
him perfectly in his role of jester. After all, he specialized in doing
ridiculous things, and was quite good at them, too. This also had the
side-effect of him being the only one daring ever to talk back to the king
or queen, or maybe the prince, for that is such a ridiculously stupid thing
to do that only a jester could do it. Hence, the day the little prince began
to poke him and call him “Sir Jesterus,” he did the most ridiculous,
unthinkable thing that no one else would ever dare to, not in a million
years. He produced from within his sleeve a writhing tuna fish, and slapped
the little prince across the face with it.

The little prince was too startled even to move, much less start speaking in
his reporter-voice. He just stood there, blinking rapidly, with his mouth
hanging slightly open in shock. Abruptly the jester began to laugh. He
laughed and ran around in wild circles about the little prince, jumped to
the wall, and stood on his head. His purple robe, miraculously, remained
defiantly upright round his legs and feet, defying the forces of gravity.
With a magnificent somersault and rebound (using the wall for leverage), he
flipped upright again, and somehow managed to land perfectly balanced on
both feet, half his face hidden by his bangs. There he remained, bouncing
happily in place with a wide grin on his face. The little prince, now quite
dizzy from following all his progress, uncertainly began to smile as well.

Both stood motionless like that awhile before a loud bzzt-PING suddenly
broke the silence. Above the jester’s head there flickered on a tiny dot of
light, even more obnoxiously bright than a burning strip of magnesium
ribbon. The jester’s whole face lit up, and, as if possessed by some
fantastic idea, he dropped to the ground, tracing out invisible squares upon
the floor with his right index finger even as the light began to fade. A
moment later he jumped up again, linked arms with the little prince, and
began dancing through what appeared to be an invisible game of hopscotch.
The prince, caught by surprise, stumbled and nearly fell flat on his face.
The only thing that saved him was the iron grip of the jester strong upon
his arm.

At this the jester stopped, and regarded the prince for wide eyes a second
before suddenly breaking into a knowing smile. Flying again to the floor, he
gave the bewildered prince a little wink and diligently began to trace anew.
This time he drew a far lengthier combination of squares, but in a small
considerate gesture included an additional arrow within each square,
pointing out the designated direction in which to jump. From time to time he
glanced up with a twinkle in his eye, as if to say, Now this solves the
problem, doesn’t it?

The little prince, still standing hopelessly rooted to the same spot, began
to see the source of the problem, but he was still in a state of half-shock
and thus too stunned to speak. Instead he simply stared. His eyes followed
the jester’s fingers, and he tried futilely to remember the complicated
pattern on the cold marble, but he simply could not do it. When he thought
he had got some he found that he had forgotten the beginning, and when he
glanced back to the beginning his mind forgot what he had just remembered,
and by the time the jester came for him the entire floor just seemed a solid
sheet of marble that he could make neither head nor tail of. Not that the
jester seemed to mind. Linking arms once again, he skipped merrily across
the patterns that were, apparently, perfectly clear to him within his mind’s
eye. The little prince he pulled with him, dragging him this way and that
and sometimes twisting impetuously in midair to get some two squares at
once, so that the prince, flopping around, had the breath squeezed out of
him. By and by the game ended, however, and with a jaunty wave the jester
shot off like an arrow down the corridor, vanishing completely in the space
of three seconds. The little prince was left standing, brain still
fruitlessly trying to work out the half-memorized patterns of squares and
arrows.



Back into the country for a bit of sun and a breath of fresh air.

In the fields there was no sign of life. The farmers, as it were, were each
back amongst their own huts, some napping, others relaxing, older ones
contentedly rocking back and forth on lawn chairs out in the porch, lazily
blowing smoke rings out from their pipes. It was one of those rare
in-between times, when the cow has been milked and the horses fed, the field
plowed and the seeds sown. All the chores were done; the only thing that
remained was to wait. And relax. So the farmers did, seizing upon this rare
moment when they could simply be instead of do, the calm between the storms.
At least, most of them did.

From far out by the river, broken, indistinct wisps of muttering could be
caught from time to time, as the breeze shifted and shifted again. If you
ever took a fancy to hunt out its source, simply follow the river straight
down, and by and by you’ll come across a farm boy squatting on the edge of
the riverbank, tracing figures in the sand with a long stick.

“Fifteen,” he could be heard mumbling, “fifteen, twenty-eight, thirty-six.
Nono wait, then the pfaffian of the matrix doesn’t fit the permutation...
but it’s skew-symmetric! wait...”

This child was the odd one out. For one, he hated farming and never wanted
to have anything to do with it. He hated the huts, hated the fields (even
the rice-paddies!), hated the work and the chores that were always piled on
and on upon him in heaps so that he could barely breathe, hated his parents
for forcing him to work, and just hated farm life in general. He was the
kind of person that would never, ever have become a farmer of his own free
will, except when he was born into it...

The farmers thought him rather bizarre as well. He was always going on and
muttering to himself (such as the above) about things nobody could even
begin to understand, and, in the end, they decided that it was all
meaningless babble and wrote him off as slightly wacked in the head. A
loner, he was. Sometimes he would just sit and stare into space for hours,
thinking about god knows what. From this he earned the ridiculous nickname
Pinecone, when once a farmer sniggered and remarked that his head (for it
was quite a sizable one) looked exactly like an unmoving pinecone when he
sat thus. Of course, pineapple may have been more appropiate, or maybe egg,
or perhaps most fitting of all, mango. However, the farmers rarely got
pineapples and mangos where they lived (though there were a small grove of
pine trees a couple of miles away, down at the base of the mountain just
before it starts to get hilly), and anyway the faint piney scent that always
seemed to linger so slightly in the air about him affects one’s subconscious
judgement. Pinecone he was, and Pinecone he stayed, for no one used names
much out in the fields anyway. There were too few people for names ever to
matter much.

In reality, Pinecone liked to hang out at the pine trees and relax there
when he could, because the little grove formed a perfect cozy little niche,
and he would stay there day and night if he could. The trees roughly formed
a sort of circle, and in the centre there was just enough space for about
two people to fit. The whole place smelled of pine, and Pinecone loved to
lie on the soft cushion of pine needles, picking idly away at the edges of a
pinecone, and close his eyes to daydream about how he was lying in a
wonderful field of flowers that rolled and fluttered eternally in an endless
wave of green and white and purple and red, and make-believe that the fresh
smell of the pinecone he held was the sweet scent of a rose. Yes indeed, the
grove was his happy place. Never mind that it was miles from his house and
he never visited it much. When he wasn’t fiddling around with algorithms
that no one understood and random-pointless-but-very-true facts that no one
cared to know, he was often thinking about this place and what he would
think about when he was there.

Actually, it wasn’t as difficult for Pinecone to get there as one might
think. He possessed a special ability known to no other: at will he could
blend into the background and vanish as smoothly as a trained ninja, or
maybe a mute korean child who specializes in breaking into houses. And there
was an added bonus, for he literally melted into the background, which meant
that he had no physical form that could be detected in any possible way.
This caused a great controversy at the time of his birthing, when the infant
suddenly vanished from the bed and there was such a racket of searching you
cuold hear it from a mile off. To no avail, of course, but the poor farmers
were greatly puzzled the next day when they found the infant sleeping
peacefully on its mother’s bosom, looking for all the world like it had been
there all the time (in fact, it had).

Anyway, in this sidled in-between form, he could easily flow from one place
to another and revisibilize himself there with ease, and so the miles meant
very little to him. Still, he never visited much, because of the WORK. So
much work to be done on a farm, so many chores, and yes, he could melt away
and no one would ever be able to find him, but where would he go to?
Eventually he would have to return, and then face his parents’ wrath and
have a jolly good row with them, and twice as much work to do in half the
time. No, sir. No sir. He does, I should add, retain a milder ability that
allows him to deflect any general attention directed at him (this is how he
has managed to survive and grow up on these farms for so long without being
exiled under the general consensus of oddball), but it is utterly useless
with his parents. Maybe because they share the same blood, maybe because
they are just too strong-willed, but in any case it has no effect upon them
and when they are angry (his mother particularly), a row is unavoidable.

Now, though, his free time was perfectly justified, and indeed after some
more futile calculating with his matrices, Pinecone threw down his stick and
gave up. Irately he rubbed the figures from the sand with his foot, and
glanced around to make sure no one was about. Then, with a faint hwzzshhhhh,
his head and arms and body all began to melt into the background, swirling
into a fading whirlpool of iridescent colors. The next moment there was
nothing left, except some footprints and a broken stick on the ground.

He reappeared a few minutes later within the grove (for that, of course, was
where he had been headed), and to his great surprise was greeted with a
growl.

“AAAAAAAAAAAGHH!!!!” he yelled as a wolf pup pounced on him and opened its
mouth to bite, revealing a row of shiny white teeth. Immediately he swirled
out of the visible world again, leaving a very confused pup staring at the
empty scrap of cloth in its mouth. Then, regaining his senses, Pinecone
willed very hard the deflection of any attention from the pup, and gingerly
began to rematerialize, hoping very much that his skill was also applicable
to wolves. They had never had anything of the sort before in the area, and
he had no idea where this one came from.

Luckily, it seemed to work. The pup still watched him curiously, but at
least it was no longer attacking or attempting to eat him. Pinecone took a
few steps backwards on the cushion of pine needles, and looked at the little
thing. It blinked back up at him. Carefully, carefully, he began lowering
himself down to sit against the trunk of a pine tree on the opposite end of
the mini-clearing, eyeing the pup the whole way. Nothing happened. The pup
stayed where it was, mouth open in a grinning pant. Its tail wagged a few
friendly half-thumps upon the pine needles, then it lay its head down
between its paws and gazed up at him. Pinecone finally relaxed a bit.

“Where did you come from, you little beast, eh?” he muttered under his
breath.



The nameless girl found herself to be in a large park.

None of her companions were with her apparently, though even as she thought
the thought the memory of them faded from her mind. What did they look like?
She struggled to remember. Something large. Something large and wet and
something about flying and something furry and... what? Where was she
anyway? Feeling a curious sense of loss, she looked around and realized that
she was still soaked to the bone, clothing plastered to her skin and
dripping puddles beneath her feet. How did she get here? Falling. Something
about falling, and flying...

A breeze blew by and she shivered. Instinctively she started to curl up,
then realized that she didn’t have a tail. And then she thought, Tail? What
tail? She had the vague sensation that she was forgetting something
incredibly important, but in another moment it passed again and was
forgotten. The wind swept by again, and her teeth began to chatter. She did
her best to wring out her clothes, which helped, some, and then looked
around at her surroundings, hoping to find shelter somewhere. She was
standing in the middle of a large grassy knoll with a few trees scattered
throughout, but they all stood straight and tall and looked none too
promising to climb. Nonetheless she tried, attacking one with a semilow
branch, but succeeded only in shaking the tree violently to no avail. She
backed up and repeated the process with a running start, and managed to get
ahold of the branch with a violent jerk and was about to swing with the
momentum to pull herself up when an extremely pissed-off squirrel, shaken
straight out of the tree, fell on her face. Horribly angry at this unknown
intruder, the squirrel scrabbled and squeaked and clawed, and the girl was
forced to let go of the branch to defend her face. The two fell to the
ground in a tangled heap, and after a few moments of scuffling the girl
emerged clutching the squirrel, arms straight out to keep it as far from her
face as possible. It flailed and scrabbled and hissed and spat, but to no
avail. The girl already sported several deep grooves across her face, just
starting to well up with blood, along with a couple of light scratches and a
bite mark or too-- she wasn’t about to loosen her grip.

Not that the squirrel would have attacked her. It was angry, yes, but mostly
just surprised at being shaken so rudely out of its home, and the grooves
were gouged out less in attack than in a mad scrabble and attempt to escape.
Now that it found itself so hopelessly stuck, however, it figured there was
only one choice. It clamped down upon the nameless girl’s fingers, hard. She
made a little yelp and let out a curse under her breath, then immediately
tightened the grip again, but the one moment was enough. The squirrel darted
away like lightning and scampered up the tree without looking back.

The nameless one looked up at it for a while, then shook her head and
refocused herself on the surroundings. The sky was gradually getting darker,
and though the weather had seemed decent so far, ominous clouds loomed
dangerously overhead and she figured finding shelter would be a good idea. A
short way off she thought she could make out some strange construction, the
likes of which she had never seen before. But still, it was quite obviously
man-made, and that gave her more hope. She headed towards it.

The first thing she came upon was the tanbark. It caught her quite by
surprise, for she hadn’t been really looking down much as she walked, and
did a number on her feet. Nearby there was a little corner of sand, though,
and she hopped hurriedly into it, brushing the little chunks of wood off the
bottom of her feet. Then she looked at the construction. It seemed a
haphazard mixture of planks and ladders and bars and long smooth metal
pieces that served no purpose whatsoever, at least so far as she could tell.
Nearby there were other contraptions that looked equally useless. There were
fake miniature horses and some sort of giant balance but without the numbers
or the measurements...

She ventured out again. This time she was prepared, and though she had to
hop in a rather awkward fashion to avoid killing her feet, she got through
the tanbark and went right up to the structure, studying it quizzically.
Then with a start she realized that there was someone sleeping underneath
the long smooth metal piece that ran diagonally down from one of the planks.
A minute ago, anyway. For the girl underneath the slide was now wide awake,
looking curiously at this newcomer. She was dressed plainly, but her clothes
were clean and dry. It formed rather a stark contrast with the nameless girl
in her soaked, torn garb, and the bloody wounds upon her face. They stared
at each other like that for a moment, before the former burst out,

“What happened to your face?”

“A squirrel happened to it.”

“Oh.”

“...”

“...”

“So where is this, exactly?”

“...a playground?”

“But where?”

“In Uchihacest?”

“...what?”

“Well, this whole general area is Uchiha territory.” she gestured. “It’s
been growing exponentially for the past couple of years...”

“Yeah, OK, but where’s THAT?”

The question was met with a blank stare. The nameless one tried a different
approach.

“What country is this?”

To her relief, she saw the gleam of understanding finally cross the other’s
face, yet when the other replied she still wasn’t much better off. She had
never heard of the place before in her life.

“Fandom,” said the girl under the slide, and smiled into her eyes.

Part 2