Metaworld: At the Sign of the "Who Gives a Shit", Epilogue
Metaworld: Athe Sign of the "Who Gives a Shit" Epilogue
Go Back to Part 3?
Go Back to Part 2?
Start at the Beginning?
HARK! A sequel hook
Fandom: L4D (mostly) Respect A Woman Verse (still mostly)
Characters: Lady Smoker and Lady Hunter, with various cameos and several of my OCs
Warnings: Some language; vague allusions to lady-on-lady sexy times. May contain gratuitous foot notes about
Word Count: 1,742. Shortest one of all!
The Bar-between-worlds had emptied out considerably after the evening* of excitement. It was the closest it would ever have to a downtime.** The crowd around the DDR had dispersed, and all that remained was the anthropomorphic fox girl and the grey haired lady in the vaguely religious outfit, who were both happily twirling on the dance pad with no regard to the steps at all. A handful of the staff tidied the last things in preparation for the next shift, and the fresh staff of volunteer servers who would relieve them. The couple who had been manning the bar had already vanished, the stoic blonde woman muttering something about continuing a discussion. The skinny brunette empath had a rather telling smile on his face. A small group sat at an out-of-the-way table, dividing up the winnings from a bet.
“Gotta hand it to you, Horse Junk,” Said the surly looking brunette known as Mike, double and triple checking his math against the pile of credits, jotting his calculations down on a small notepad as he went. “You did a good job picking a ringer. That Hunter was something else.”
Tora smiled broadly, brushing his heavy forelock back from his face. “Don’t sound so surprised, man; like I keep telling you, I have a nose for these things.”
“I still can’t believe you assholes bet against me…” muttered Kaz darkly from his position in Sha’s lap.
“Think of it this way, kiskei***…” said the mage, as he occupied himself with rebraiding the diminutive catboy’s long sandy hair, “at least this way, you indirectly get a cut of the profits through Tora. If you had managed to win, you wouldn’t have gotten anything.”
“I’d have my pride still. And I only wouldn’t get any cash because the rules forbid me betting for or against myself.” Growled Kaz, flattening his ears.
“If I’d bet for you, everyone would have thought I was up to something.” Said Tora with an unapologetic shrug. “Quit your moaning; you know I’m going to make it up to you eventually.”
“You damn well better.” Said the cat with an indignant sniff, causing the mage to laugh and tug on the end of his braid playfully.
“Are you sure you didn’t move a comma on these numbers, Mica?” said Holly, leaning over to peer at his notepad. “Those tallies look off; I was under the impression that our takings were going to be bigger.”
She held up her hands defensively when he shot her a look. “Not that I’m complaining! This is still a good share. I’m just curious.”
“For the last time, Holland, I’ve triple and quadrupled checked everything, and have gotten the same results every blessed time. We got all the wagers. It’s all here.” He said this in a exaggeratedly patient tone that still promised pain to the next person who dared question his mathematical abilities.
“But it’s split between you, Tora, and me…why are there four stacks?”
“Cause I promised Hunter a cut if she won, remember?” Chimed in Tora. “And, no, that technically doesn’t count as her betting on herself, Kaz, so don’t even say it.”
“How the frag do you figure that?” muttered Sha.
“Because,” said Mike “we went over the rules list with a fine tooth comb ahead of time. She didn’t set up the initial bet, and she didn’t put any money or favors in, and wasn’t risking losing anything if she lost. Nothing she didn’t already have, at any rate. Us giving her a percentage of the win upon winning, under those conditions, counts as payment for services rendered.”
“Make it sound a little bit more sleazy, why don’t you?” muttered Tora. “I prefer to think of it as a thank-you present.”
“Ok, then, but we still have a problem.” Persisted Holly, who was resisting the urge to grind her fist into Mike’s skull for the rather patronizing tone. “Here is her compensation fee or whatever…where is she?”
Everyone at the table looked up with a start, and started looking around the room, trying in vain to spot the small Asian woman in a green cat hoodie. Mike swore under his breath, and Sha gaped at his larger teammate. “You didn’t…you forgot to ask her to hang around after to get her cut, didn’t you? Holy fragmented…she’s going to think you did that to her on purpose, you…”
“Hey, hey, she was somewhat occupied after, IF YOU WILL RECALL, and someone, not naming any names here, threatened to burn my tail off if I even tried to go near her and Smokey. And how was I supposed to know that they would slip out while we were looking the other way?”
“Ok, ok, calm down, everyone. From what I gathered, this was her second time here, and now she has her girlfriend initiated. There’s pretty much no way she’s not coming back.” Said Holly in a firm voice. “We’ll just keep her share in the safe until the next time we see her, alright?”
“Sides, it’s not like the credit here would have done her much good at all in the context of her own universe.” Muttered Mike, as he did one last calculation before shoving the other two their winnings. “You can’t use it or remember it outside of the hub, and that would be the case even if half if the wagers weren’t made in favor owed.”
“You’re just cranky because those are harder to factor in.” teased Holly.
“Damn straight I am! Effing nonstandard monetary units…”
“So you definitely think that both of them are coming back then?” said Sha, as he scratched Kaz’s ears. Kaz, for his part, snorted at the mage’s rather wistful tone, and buried his face deeper in the crook of his arm.”
Holly smiled. “Oh, yes. Alison said that Smoker’s face lit up when she mentioned Middle Earth and the theatre scene. She has plenty of reasons to come back, count on it.”
*For a given value of the word “evening”. Time does not pass normally in any part of the Metaverse, unless explicitly stated, and rarely has any real impact on the characters; this is why events in fiction can always conveniently take exactly as long or short as the author needs, regardless of how long similar events would take in real life. In other words, Tolkien’s Hobbits can spend a few years getting ready for a journey and several weeks traveling the first leg of it in a just a handful of chapters, while Toriyami’s characters can spend 4 consecutive 20 minute episodes fighting a 5 minute battle, and rag-tag bands of misfits all across the genres can accomplish any task or learn any skill in a timely manner as long as they do it within the frame of a hard-work montage.
**Nothing ever fully closed up in the Metaverse.
***Pronounced kees key; roughly translated from the Kaskein language, it means “beloved, darling pet; precious.” and is an affectionate term normally reserved for a younger relative (most often used by parents for children), or in rarer cases, a very close (almost always younger) friend.
……………………………………….
Earlier…so to speak…but not much earlier…
A pair of women, one tall, brunette, and dressed like the early nineties, the other short, dark haired, and dressed like a cosplaying parkour enthusiast, walked through a lively crowd towards an inconspicuous door, each with one arm still firmly wrapped around the other. Somehow, through silent mutual agreement, they had decided to call it a night. Any thought of mentioning this to the people they’d spent time with that night were overwhelmed by the more immediate need to find some privacy. Besides, they were far, far too busy with all consuming thoughts of each other. (Which, in the grand scheme of things, is how it should be.)
Out the door they went. Had either of them glanced behind, they would have noticed that they sign had once again changed:
We Still Can’t Be Arsed to Come up with a Real Name for Ourselves
but who gives a shit about that, we brought you guys closer!
(You two know the way now, so we fully expect you to come back.)
But they did notice, nor did they once look back. They were two busy looking forward.
Several feet from the door, their memories of the Bar-in-Between-Worlds and the Metaverse started to fade, and gradually context took hold again.
Smoker blinked, and look around for a moment, and check her watch in confusion when she noticed one thing….”Huh. We weren’t in…umm…that place for that long. At all. But it felt like we were in…wherever for hours. But only a few minutes has passed out here.”
Hunter normally would have made a snide remark about Smoker’s memory failing with her age, but this time she just nodded. “Yeah, I know, it is kind of weird. I…want to say the same thing happened to me. The first time I went to…y’know. Like, it had only been a few minutes, tops. I checked to be sure, too, because I was a little worried it had been longer than I realized.”
“Did it really happen, then? The…bar? The…everything?”
“Maybe? I dunno. I feel like something happened. And I also get this feeling that I forgot to do something…”
“Hmph. Well…can it wait?”
“…yeah, probably.”
“So, you wanna spend the night?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
And so the tall lady in flannel and the short lady in cat ears wandered off into the night; and while neither could no longer recall the night’s activities beyond a vague impression that SOMETHING GOOD had happened, they never once let go of each other, not even on the drive home.*
And while your humble author would not dare to intrude upon the two ladies’ privacy at this moment by following them further than the door of the apartment, she would like to assure you that the rest of their evening was very satisfactory for everyone involved.
*Smoker, due to years of habitual nicotine use, was already quite adept at driving one handed. Hunter rarely bothered to buckle herself in anyway, so it somehow didn’t matter that she was snuggled to close to Smoker to actually fit the restraint around herself. Also, partially straddling the instrument panel dividing the passenger seat from the driver seat turned out to be unexpectedly comfortable. **
**Not that either of them was really thinking that deeply about the situation. All in all, it was probably a good thing that they didn’t pass any cop cars on the way to Smoker’s apartment…
The End It Never Really Ends
Author's Notes?
Go Back to Part 3?
Go Back to Part 2?
Start at the Beginning?
HARK! A sequel hook
Fandom: L4D (mostly) Respect A Woman Verse (still mostly)
Characters: Lady Smoker and Lady Hunter, with various cameos and several of my OCs
Warnings: Some language; vague allusions to lady-on-lady sexy times. May contain gratuitous foot notes about
Word Count: 1,742. Shortest one of all!
The Bar-between-worlds had emptied out considerably after the evening* of excitement. It was the closest it would ever have to a downtime.** The crowd around the DDR had dispersed, and all that remained was the anthropomorphic fox girl and the grey haired lady in the vaguely religious outfit, who were both happily twirling on the dance pad with no regard to the steps at all. A handful of the staff tidied the last things in preparation for the next shift, and the fresh staff of volunteer servers who would relieve them. The couple who had been manning the bar had already vanished, the stoic blonde woman muttering something about continuing a discussion. The skinny brunette empath had a rather telling smile on his face. A small group sat at an out-of-the-way table, dividing up the winnings from a bet.
“Gotta hand it to you, Horse Junk,” Said the surly looking brunette known as Mike, double and triple checking his math against the pile of credits, jotting his calculations down on a small notepad as he went. “You did a good job picking a ringer. That Hunter was something else.”
Tora smiled broadly, brushing his heavy forelock back from his face. “Don’t sound so surprised, man; like I keep telling you, I have a nose for these things.”
“I still can’t believe you assholes bet against me…” muttered Kaz darkly from his position in Sha’s lap.
“Think of it this way, kiskei***…” said the mage, as he occupied himself with rebraiding the diminutive catboy’s long sandy hair, “at least this way, you indirectly get a cut of the profits through Tora. If you had managed to win, you wouldn’t have gotten anything.”
“I’d have my pride still. And I only wouldn’t get any cash because the rules forbid me betting for or against myself.” Growled Kaz, flattening his ears.
“If I’d bet for you, everyone would have thought I was up to something.” Said Tora with an unapologetic shrug. “Quit your moaning; you know I’m going to make it up to you eventually.”
“You damn well better.” Said the cat with an indignant sniff, causing the mage to laugh and tug on the end of his braid playfully.
“Are you sure you didn’t move a comma on these numbers, Mica?” said Holly, leaning over to peer at his notepad. “Those tallies look off; I was under the impression that our takings were going to be bigger.”
She held up her hands defensively when he shot her a look. “Not that I’m complaining! This is still a good share. I’m just curious.”
“For the last time, Holland, I’ve triple and quadrupled checked everything, and have gotten the same results every blessed time. We got all the wagers. It’s all here.” He said this in a exaggeratedly patient tone that still promised pain to the next person who dared question his mathematical abilities.
“But it’s split between you, Tora, and me…why are there four stacks?”
“Cause I promised Hunter a cut if she won, remember?” Chimed in Tora. “And, no, that technically doesn’t count as her betting on herself, Kaz, so don’t even say it.”
“How the frag do you figure that?” muttered Sha.
“Because,” said Mike “we went over the rules list with a fine tooth comb ahead of time. She didn’t set up the initial bet, and she didn’t put any money or favors in, and wasn’t risking losing anything if she lost. Nothing she didn’t already have, at any rate. Us giving her a percentage of the win upon winning, under those conditions, counts as payment for services rendered.”
“Make it sound a little bit more sleazy, why don’t you?” muttered Tora. “I prefer to think of it as a thank-you present.”
“Ok, then, but we still have a problem.” Persisted Holly, who was resisting the urge to grind her fist into Mike’s skull for the rather patronizing tone. “Here is her compensation fee or whatever…where is she?”
Everyone at the table looked up with a start, and started looking around the room, trying in vain to spot the small Asian woman in a green cat hoodie. Mike swore under his breath, and Sha gaped at his larger teammate. “You didn’t…you forgot to ask her to hang around after to get her cut, didn’t you? Holy fragmented…she’s going to think you did that to her on purpose, you…”
“Hey, hey, she was somewhat occupied after, IF YOU WILL RECALL, and someone, not naming any names here, threatened to burn my tail off if I even tried to go near her and Smokey. And how was I supposed to know that they would slip out while we were looking the other way?”
“Ok, ok, calm down, everyone. From what I gathered, this was her second time here, and now she has her girlfriend initiated. There’s pretty much no way she’s not coming back.” Said Holly in a firm voice. “We’ll just keep her share in the safe until the next time we see her, alright?”
“Sides, it’s not like the credit here would have done her much good at all in the context of her own universe.” Muttered Mike, as he did one last calculation before shoving the other two their winnings. “You can’t use it or remember it outside of the hub, and that would be the case even if half if the wagers weren’t made in favor owed.”
“You’re just cranky because those are harder to factor in.” teased Holly.
“Damn straight I am! Effing nonstandard monetary units…”
“So you definitely think that both of them are coming back then?” said Sha, as he scratched Kaz’s ears. Kaz, for his part, snorted at the mage’s rather wistful tone, and buried his face deeper in the crook of his arm.”
Holly smiled. “Oh, yes. Alison said that Smoker’s face lit up when she mentioned Middle Earth and the theatre scene. She has plenty of reasons to come back, count on it.”
*For a given value of the word “evening”. Time does not pass normally in any part of the Metaverse, unless explicitly stated, and rarely has any real impact on the characters; this is why events in fiction can always conveniently take exactly as long or short as the author needs, regardless of how long similar events would take in real life. In other words, Tolkien’s Hobbits can spend a few years getting ready for a journey and several weeks traveling the first leg of it in a just a handful of chapters, while Toriyami’s characters can spend 4 consecutive 20 minute episodes fighting a 5 minute battle, and rag-tag bands of misfits all across the genres can accomplish any task or learn any skill in a timely manner as long as they do it within the frame of a hard-work montage.
**Nothing ever fully closed up in the Metaverse.
***Pronounced kees key; roughly translated from the Kaskein language, it means “beloved, darling pet; precious.” and is an affectionate term normally reserved for a younger relative (most often used by parents for children), or in rarer cases, a very close (almost always younger) friend.
……………………………………….
Earlier…so to speak…but not much earlier…
A pair of women, one tall, brunette, and dressed like the early nineties, the other short, dark haired, and dressed like a cosplaying parkour enthusiast, walked through a lively crowd towards an inconspicuous door, each with one arm still firmly wrapped around the other. Somehow, through silent mutual agreement, they had decided to call it a night. Any thought of mentioning this to the people they’d spent time with that night were overwhelmed by the more immediate need to find some privacy. Besides, they were far, far too busy with all consuming thoughts of each other. (Which, in the grand scheme of things, is how it should be.)
Out the door they went. Had either of them glanced behind, they would have noticed that they sign had once again changed:
We Still Can’t Be Arsed to Come up with a Real Name for Ourselves
but who gives a shit about that, we brought you guys closer!
(You two know the way now, so we fully expect you to come back.)
But they did notice, nor did they once look back. They were two busy looking forward.
Several feet from the door, their memories of the Bar-in-Between-Worlds and the Metaverse started to fade, and gradually context took hold again.
Smoker blinked, and look around for a moment, and check her watch in confusion when she noticed one thing….”Huh. We weren’t in…umm…that place for that long. At all. But it felt like we were in…wherever for hours. But only a few minutes has passed out here.”
Hunter normally would have made a snide remark about Smoker’s memory failing with her age, but this time she just nodded. “Yeah, I know, it is kind of weird. I…want to say the same thing happened to me. The first time I went to…y’know. Like, it had only been a few minutes, tops. I checked to be sure, too, because I was a little worried it had been longer than I realized.”
“Did it really happen, then? The…bar? The…everything?”
“Maybe? I dunno. I feel like something happened. And I also get this feeling that I forgot to do something…”
“Hmph. Well…can it wait?”
“…yeah, probably.”
“So, you wanna spend the night?”
“I thought you’d never ask.”
And so the tall lady in flannel and the short lady in cat ears wandered off into the night; and while neither could no longer recall the night’s activities beyond a vague impression that SOMETHING GOOD had happened, they never once let go of each other, not even on the drive home.*
And while your humble author would not dare to intrude upon the two ladies’ privacy at this moment by following them further than the door of the apartment, she would like to assure you that the rest of their evening was very satisfactory for everyone involved.
*Smoker, due to years of habitual nicotine use, was already quite adept at driving one handed. Hunter rarely bothered to buckle herself in anyway, so it somehow didn’t matter that she was snuggled to close to Smoker to actually fit the restraint around herself. Also, partially straddling the instrument panel dividing the passenger seat from the driver seat turned out to be unexpectedly comfortable. **
**Not that either of them was really thinking that deeply about the situation. All in all, it was probably a good thing that they didn’t pass any cop cars on the way to Smoker’s apartment…
The End It Never Really Ends
Author's Notes?