Storm Chasing: Show and Tell
Title: Storm Chasing: Show and Tell
Author: clodia_metelli.
Rating: K+
Characters: OC, War.
Summary: Last lecture of term and Professor Plum's brought along his best prop...
Disclaimer: I do not own Good Omens and I make nothing from this except my own entertainment.
Word Count: 500
Italy, Pyrrhus, Carthage (x3), Macedon (x2), Antiochus | Pyrrhic Victories | Mater Punica | Catch Up Over Coffee | Filia Punica (1) | Filia Punica (2) | Filia Punica (3) |
~ show and tell ~
The end of term’s so close that Professor Plum can almost smell it. Just one more day. That’s all. He only needs to keep going for one more day. The mantra’s being chanted up and down the department right now, he knows for a fact. And then it’ll be time to hash out exam papers and negotiate who’ll be marking which crazy undergrad dissertations and maybe even claw back a moment or two for actual research, but at least the students will have gone and he’ll be free of teaching for a whole four weeks.
Yes. Nearly there.
But first, one last lecture, on the First Macedonian War. And today he’s brought his best prop, so at least the term will go out on a bang. That’s just as well, because:
“Note Professor White sitting at the back,” he says. “Professor White is here to carry out a peer review, which unfortunately means I cannot make the large number of rude and offensive jokes I had planned...”
The laughter’s weak. Everyone’s tired, even the students.
“... however, this week I managed to remember my gladius.”
That perks them up a bit. Especially the redhead with the scarlet lipstick, who’s sitting right in the middle of the front row today. He brandishes it proudly.
“It seems,” he says, “though evidence is thin on the ground, so you’re better off taking my word for it, that the Romans picked up this form of sword in Spain. I smuggled this one back from Ireland in my ironing board. Makes me wish I’d smuggled high-value drugs, or something...”
A little more laughter this time. Tom White is grinning at the back. They’re warming up, thinks Professor Plum, and launches himself into the rest of the spiel: technological innovations acquired from the Spanish Celts, the shape of the gladius and its efficacy against the chainmail worn by the locals, the superiority of Celtic steel to Greek bronze or Macedonian iron. “They were terror weapons,” he tells them, and has to wonder about that redheaded girl: she’s sitting forwards now, intent, her lips a little parted. He can see the pink tip of her tongue. “There’s good evidence that they terrified the Greeks, who were used to the wounds inflicted by spears.”
And now she’s nodding along and rolling her head sleekly on her shoulders like someone who’s just woken up from really sweet dreams. Maybe she’s done the reading ahead of the lecture. It does happen. Occasionally.
The gladius is getting heavy now. Professor Plum keeps hold of it anyway. It means he can point out Megalopolis on the map, and Corinth’s citadel (“Most of my pictures of the Acrocorinth tend to be from the ground looking upwards, for the simple reason that I’m terrified of heights and nowhere near fit enough to climb up there anyway”) and other places related to Rome’s first war with Philip of Macedon. Besides, something about that girl’s grin makes him feel he’ll be better off hanging onto a weapon.
On to Coda
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