Subject: Re: IC: Wolves Glen Pub From: Jeff Huo In article <20010712212856.06055.00001431@nso-ml.aol.com>, malada2@aol.com says... > Jeff Huo writes: > > >"Long way off?" Alex blurts out. > > > >She suddenly realizes with horror that in thinking out > >loud she has interuppted the conversation. One > >hand goes over her mouth in embarassment as the other > >goes to hold the octagonal polished stone badge > >on her breast. > > > >"I'm so sorry," she says, apologetically, "I didn't > >mean to inturuppt --it was very rude of me." > > > >"Alex Talibah of Boston," she introduces herself > >to the assembled group, offering a hand. "And you > >are?" > > "Pearl 'Cares-About-Things' McMann," Pearl says with raised > eyebrow and gives her hand a firm but quick handshake. "I'd > hazard to say you're not from around here, are you?" and she > waves to an empty seat. "Have a seat, take a load off your feet." "Thank you," Alex says as she pulls a chair up underneath her. "I'm not entirely sure what the best way of answering your question is, since I'm not totally clear where *here* is, other than what I've been told..." She thinks for a moment how exactly to explain herself. "It was like this," she begins, uncertainly. "The other night, I hear this insistent tap-tap-tapping on the sliding glass doors leading to the balcony of my hab...and when I slip on my flannels and my bunny slippers and hike on over I find this beautiful fox-lady sitting on my railing, smiling, sitting there like she was expecting me." " 'ello 'ello!' she introduces herself, as she hops down, 'Millificent Hali Alexander Lewis DeOnorio-- pleasure to meet you!' " " She then looked at me hopefully. 'You wouldn't happen to have any cocoa, would you? I'm just *dying* for some cocoa.' " " I suppose I should have said 'Hi' in return, or maybe 'Do you want to come in,' or 'Um, you're standing in my petunias', but right then and there most of my brain decided that it wasn't ready to deal with hosting the physical manifestation of a kitsune from fantasy asking for a spot of hot chocolate, and would I mind leaving a message and trying again in the morning, what?" "So after a few moments of me standing there with my mouth agape, trying to decide whether maybe the punch was spiked at the previous night's dinner, some kind of emergency ettiquite program reasserted itself on a brainstem level and I invited her in and made her up some of the Godiva I keep on hand for visitors and friends." "About ten minutes later we're sipping hot chocolate from big two-handled mugs, me, and this furry, fox-tailed visitor. Neither one of us saying a word, she evidently really enjoying her cocoa-- sipping it and closing her eyes and making these happy little contented hums, and me waiting to wake up or for the army of penguins to explode through the wall bearing trays of sardine-and-anchovy blintzes." "I've been having a lot of dreams about penguins and blintzes," she notes tangentially. " 'So,' she finally says brightly, 'You want to go somewhere where magick and fantasy is real?' " Alex smiles. "About the best I can manage is to not drop my cup and to reply 'Er, uh, sure.' Not exactly a ringing endorsement, but..." "Would I like to go somewhere where magick and fantasy is real? Me? The girl who went trick-or -treating in the third-grade as Dame Honor Harrington, Admiral of the Royal Manticore Navy? Who once spent a whole semester without eating lunch because I spent my food money on scoring a set of first-edition hard-cover Discworld books? Who used to wear an Anla'Shok pin as an accessory to formal academic events and went to the theater to watch all three of Peter Jackson's Lord of the Rings movies back to back --twice-- in one sitting?" She grins in minor embarrassment. "Yep, I'm a hopeless fangirl," she says sheepishly. "Every woman hath her vice, and mine is SF/Fantasy/ Comics and the like...did I want to go somewhere where fantasies were real? Heck yeah!" "So Millie smiles and writes an address on a piece of paper and hands it to me, saying a bunch of stuff, admonishing 'Now, you have to believe it's real -- if you doubt, if you doubt even a little, it won't work', and the whole time I'm nodding, playing along, figuring at some point I'm going to wake up, we hug, she skips out of my hab, gets on the balcony, whistles, waves goodbye and then vanishes into thin air. I tack the note up to the fridge and go back to bed." "Last thing she says to me before she goes it this: 'See, this place is a little different. It's here, it's there, it's every- which-where at once and nowhere all in one place. Folks from lots of different places come, including lots from worlds where magick is real.' " " 'Be careful what you wish for,' she admonished me, ''cause you might just get it.' " "Well, I woke up in the morning, trudged over to the kitchen, set up the auto-cycler for the morning brew, pass the note from Millie tacked to my fridge door..." "Pass the note from Millie?!? I did a double-back --it was morning, I *knew* I was awake, and there it was, Millie's note, as real as day, with directions on how to get to the Wolves Glen Pub." "That night was no dream. I had the dirt pawprints on my carpet to prove it, too." "I don't honestly remember the rest of the day --I had a bunch of things I had to do, and frankly I was itching the whole way through to bugger all and go hunt down the address. Finally, late, late evening, I get a chance to pull away and off like a shot I went." "I must have passed this place a dozen dozen times before and never paid it any mind. But this time it was right there, and it still was open, and in I went and here I am." "So," she asks, uncertainly, "where *am* I?" > >- Alex, ? > > -Pearl > Does she say 'yeah'? - Alex Oh yeah. -- Jeff Huo | jeff@spundreams.net.nospam (remove nospam) U. Michigan Med | http://www.spundreams.net/~jeff