fic (Trains, Ships, and Elephants (Around the World, for kneazles time
Title: Trains, Ships, and Indian Elephants
Fandom: Around the World in 80 Days (book verse)
Author: karrenia
Characters: Passapartout and Phileas Fogg
Rating: General
Recipient: kneazles' previously filled multifandom 'time' request.
Day 15 of the June Challenge
Disclaimer: Around the World in 80 Days along with the characters of Phileas Fogg, Passepartout and any others that are mentioned or who appear, are the original creations of Jules Verne, or his estate;
in any case, they are not mine.
"Trains, Ships, and Indian Elephants" by Karen
Whatever he may have thought of the gentlemen's wager his master, Mr. Fogg, had taken up with such fervor on the eve of the his first full day of employment, and to Mr. Fogg said wager might as well have been wrought in ingots of pure gold.
Now several days into their jouney Passepartout had ceased to wonder how they were to circumscribe the globe in only eighty days. The french gentleman considered himself a hearty soul, and in fact he recalled pridefuly announcing such a fact to Mr. Fogg that his fortinde was as good as his word.
The railway system in London was adquate, Passepourtou had thought at the time, but could not refrain from pointing out the relative differnces between the English rail system and that of the French,
Mr. Fogg had evidently been quite in earnest, for not only had he secured a comfortble accomdations of the train and from there to a ship crossing the Middterran and making a conncetion on a ship bound for
the Indian Ocean.
The breakneck speed and the occassional alarms, were hardly a drop in the bucket, and point of fact added to the charm of the adventure.
A week or two later, the sense of adventure and mingled danger had ceased to become simply a matter of academic debate.
Hanging by one foot over the darkling plain of the interior of the Indian subcontinent from the fringed saddle of a ivory-tusked Indian elephant, Passpartout could only shake his head at his perceived folly and hang on for dear life.
In the sticky humid air all around him he could hear the high-pitched cries of the maarbouts, or the elephant handlers shouting and cajoling the animals to their best speed, while he dangled and wool-gathered. 'It would seem,' he thought, 'that I must needs attend to the urgency at hand by own efforts."
So saying, he gritted his teeth, squared his shoulders and yanked up on the rope which supported him. His eyes watering from the strain on his joints, but at last, sweat dripping from his the lace jacket
which he had refused to change in favor of the looser, cooler clothing of the region, maaged to get back in the saddle.
Elsehwere Phileas Fogg stood in the center of a ring of local villagers, arguing with them in their own langague, that the beatuiful woman whom they had been about to place on the funeral pyre of her
late husband, a maharajah, would be better off acompanying him on his journey, so by sparing her life.
By his own reckoning, which had for a long time in his small group of friends and accquaintancess been accounted uncannily accurate. He calculated that he could afford the time it would take out of his journeys to not only save her life, but also to convince her to accompany him. And in point of fact, he realized much to his astonishment that he was falling in love. 'How did that happen?" he thought and began to calmly make his arguments once more.
Fandom: Around the World in 80 Days (book verse)
Author: karrenia
Characters: Passapartout and Phileas Fogg
Rating: General
Recipient: kneazles' previously filled multifandom 'time' request.
Day 15 of the June Challenge
Disclaimer: Around the World in 80 Days along with the characters of Phileas Fogg, Passepartout and any others that are mentioned or who appear, are the original creations of Jules Verne, or his estate;
in any case, they are not mine.
"Trains, Ships, and Indian Elephants" by Karen
Whatever he may have thought of the gentlemen's wager his master, Mr. Fogg, had taken up with such fervor on the eve of the his first full day of employment, and to Mr. Fogg said wager might as well have been wrought in ingots of pure gold.
Now several days into their jouney Passepartout had ceased to wonder how they were to circumscribe the globe in only eighty days. The french gentleman considered himself a hearty soul, and in fact he recalled pridefuly announcing such a fact to Mr. Fogg that his fortinde was as good as his word.
The railway system in London was adquate, Passepourtou had thought at the time, but could not refrain from pointing out the relative differnces between the English rail system and that of the French,
Mr. Fogg had evidently been quite in earnest, for not only had he secured a comfortble accomdations of the train and from there to a ship crossing the Middterran and making a conncetion on a ship bound for
the Indian Ocean.
The breakneck speed and the occassional alarms, were hardly a drop in the bucket, and point of fact added to the charm of the adventure.
A week or two later, the sense of adventure and mingled danger had ceased to become simply a matter of academic debate.
Hanging by one foot over the darkling plain of the interior of the Indian subcontinent from the fringed saddle of a ivory-tusked Indian elephant, Passpartout could only shake his head at his perceived folly and hang on for dear life.
In the sticky humid air all around him he could hear the high-pitched cries of the maarbouts, or the elephant handlers shouting and cajoling the animals to their best speed, while he dangled and wool-gathered. 'It would seem,' he thought, 'that I must needs attend to the urgency at hand by own efforts."
So saying, he gritted his teeth, squared his shoulders and yanked up on the rope which supported him. His eyes watering from the strain on his joints, but at last, sweat dripping from his the lace jacket
which he had refused to change in favor of the looser, cooler clothing of the region, maaged to get back in the saddle.
Elsehwere Phileas Fogg stood in the center of a ring of local villagers, arguing with them in their own langague, that the beatuiful woman whom they had been about to place on the funeral pyre of her
late husband, a maharajah, would be better off acompanying him on his journey, so by sparing her life.
By his own reckoning, which had for a long time in his small group of friends and accquaintancess been accounted uncannily accurate. He calculated that he could afford the time it would take out of his journeys to not only save her life, but also to convince her to accompany him. And in point of fact, he realized much to his astonishment that he was falling in love. 'How did that happen?" he thought and began to calmly make his arguments once more.