some Discfic, in progress
More to come.
Anthropomorphic personifications do not have friends. This is a fact. After all, people don't picture Death hanging out with a few buddies in a bar somewhere after a long day at the office. And what people picture is what there is, for your average tangible intangible.
But it is also a fact that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse owe their successful gigs to Time. Plus, they've seen quite a lot of her, one way or another(1). She's done them all more favors than they can, collectively, sneeze at, especially since of them only Pestilence really has the equipment to sneeze at all. It's amazing what a few extra years tucked in here or there will do for a slow-moving sort of deadly bacteria; an unsatisfactory drought; a superficially peaceful pair of little towns; even, on occasion, for some stubborn soul who insists on dragging a member of the civil service (who has worked himself quite literally to the bone) out of the gentlemen's club where he was taking a bit of well-deserved rest every other week to go on yet another wild goose chase that inevitably ends with the miraculous survival of said stubborn soul, naming no names, Rincewind.
Time is on their side.
Which naturally creates a kind of affection in the anthropomorphic mind, no matter how mythically inappropriate.
So when, on a cheery autumn day, Quoth informed the Death of Rats that Time was expecting, with child, enceinte, in confinement, and generally pregnant, and the Death of Rats passed this on to the Death of Everything Else, Death beamed. Then he looked consideringly around himself. He was sitting in the orchard, and if it had been anyone else's the fruit trees would have been a vaguely parrotlike riot of brilliant reds and yellows and greens: that is, a showcase for Mother Nature's way of standing on a car parked under Summer's bedroom window with "FORGIVE ME" painted on the windshield, while holding up a boombox on which one of the less obviously drug-inspired Beatles song would in this hypothetical scenario be playing loud enough for all the neighbors to enjoy(3). It wasn't anyone else's orchard, and these fruit trees were done up in various subtle, sober shades of black, black, and blackish black, but some of this general spirit managed to leak through regardless. It made Death as close to sentimental as you can get, sans glands.
WELL, WELL, WELL, he said, aloud. HOW TIMES CHANGE.
SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats, disapprovingly.
JUST MY LITTLE JOKE, said Death, hopefully.
SQUEAK.
OH, VERY WELL, I PROMISE NOT TO REPEAT THAT ONE.
The Death of Rats hopped up onto the stone bench and prodded Death in the thighbone with the butt of its miniature scythe. SQUEAK, SQUEAK.
SCHEME? I DON'T SCHEME.
The Death of Rats crossed bony forelimbs.
SQUEAK.
Death said nothing, but the spark in his left eyesocket flared. I WAS SIMPLY MUSING, he said. WHICH IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THING.
SQUEAK?
SHE WAS, he said, VERY KIND WHEN YSABEL ARRIVED, YOU KNOW.
The Death of Rats buried its muzzle in its paws. Death ignored it. ALBERT? he said.
His manservant did something that could reasonably have been described as 'shimmering in', although in a sense that had less to do with the entrances and exits of classically trained butlers across the Disc than one might expect and more to do with how the greasy hot air moves over an open fire. He proceeded from there to stub out his dog-end and straighten up a bit. "Master?"
SADDLE UP BINKY, WILL YOU?
Albert blinked. This was not on the schedule.
"Er... yes, master. Right away."
He shimmered out again, like moonlight reflecting off an oil spill. Death stalked after him, but it was a genial stalk.
Quoth flapped down from a nearby branch to perch next to the Death of Rats. He looked after Death contemplatively. "Wot's that all about, eh?"
SQUEAK, sighed the Death of Rats.
"A what shower?"
SQUEAK.
"Oh," said Quoth. "Right."
There was a silence. Together, they contemplated the distant sight of Death, on Binky's back, riding up into the inky sky.
It was broken by the tentative question: "D'you think there'll be eyeballs in the oor-derves, then?"
And broken again, by a thump, as of wood hitting feathers, and an indignant squawk.
After that there was nothing but the rustle of black leaves. But an observer with more than the usual complement of senses might have detected a kind of... anticipation, in the lean of the fruit trees, the increasingly urgent hum of the bees, the slight thickening of the atmosphere, the sudden concentration of the breeze. And to an observer with only the usual complement of senses, well-- I mean, the tasselled cushions that materialized on the bench and the little arched and beflowered trellises that popped up full-grown out of the soil were also a bit of a clue.
(1) Metaphorically(2).
(2) Okay, well, not completely metaphorically, but what Wen didn't know about his wife's drunken collegiate exploits wouldn't hurt him.
(3) This never works.
Anthropomorphic personifications do not have friends. This is a fact. After all, people don't picture Death hanging out with a few buddies in a bar somewhere after a long day at the office. And what people picture is what there is, for your average tangible intangible.
But it is also a fact that the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse owe their successful gigs to Time. Plus, they've seen quite a lot of her, one way or another(1). She's done them all more favors than they can, collectively, sneeze at, especially since of them only Pestilence really has the equipment to sneeze at all. It's amazing what a few extra years tucked in here or there will do for a slow-moving sort of deadly bacteria; an unsatisfactory drought; a superficially peaceful pair of little towns; even, on occasion, for some stubborn soul who insists on dragging a member of the civil service (who has worked himself quite literally to the bone) out of the gentlemen's club where he was taking a bit of well-deserved rest every other week to go on yet another wild goose chase that inevitably ends with the miraculous survival of said stubborn soul, naming no names, Rincewind.
Time is on their side.
Which naturally creates a kind of affection in the anthropomorphic mind, no matter how mythically inappropriate.
So when, on a cheery autumn day, Quoth informed the Death of Rats that Time was expecting, with child, enceinte, in confinement, and generally pregnant, and the Death of Rats passed this on to the Death of Everything Else, Death beamed. Then he looked consideringly around himself. He was sitting in the orchard, and if it had been anyone else's the fruit trees would have been a vaguely parrotlike riot of brilliant reds and yellows and greens: that is, a showcase for Mother Nature's way of standing on a car parked under Summer's bedroom window with "FORGIVE ME" painted on the windshield, while holding up a boombox on which one of the less obviously drug-inspired Beatles song would in this hypothetical scenario be playing loud enough for all the neighbors to enjoy(3). It wasn't anyone else's orchard, and these fruit trees were done up in various subtle, sober shades of black, black, and blackish black, but some of this general spirit managed to leak through regardless. It made Death as close to sentimental as you can get, sans glands.
WELL, WELL, WELL, he said, aloud. HOW TIMES CHANGE.
SQUEAK, said the Death of Rats, disapprovingly.
JUST MY LITTLE JOKE, said Death, hopefully.
SQUEAK.
OH, VERY WELL, I PROMISE NOT TO REPEAT THAT ONE.
The Death of Rats hopped up onto the stone bench and prodded Death in the thighbone with the butt of its miniature scythe. SQUEAK, SQUEAK.
SCHEME? I DON'T SCHEME.
The Death of Rats crossed bony forelimbs.
SQUEAK.
Death said nothing, but the spark in his left eyesocket flared. I WAS SIMPLY MUSING, he said. WHICH IS AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT THING.
SQUEAK?
SHE WAS, he said, VERY KIND WHEN YSABEL ARRIVED, YOU KNOW.
The Death of Rats buried its muzzle in its paws. Death ignored it. ALBERT? he said.
His manservant did something that could reasonably have been described as 'shimmering in', although in a sense that had less to do with the entrances and exits of classically trained butlers across the Disc than one might expect and more to do with how the greasy hot air moves over an open fire. He proceeded from there to stub out his dog-end and straighten up a bit. "Master?"
SADDLE UP BINKY, WILL YOU?
Albert blinked. This was not on the schedule.
"Er... yes, master. Right away."
He shimmered out again, like moonlight reflecting off an oil spill. Death stalked after him, but it was a genial stalk.
Quoth flapped down from a nearby branch to perch next to the Death of Rats. He looked after Death contemplatively. "Wot's that all about, eh?"
SQUEAK, sighed the Death of Rats.
"A what shower?"
SQUEAK.
"Oh," said Quoth. "Right."
There was a silence. Together, they contemplated the distant sight of Death, on Binky's back, riding up into the inky sky.
It was broken by the tentative question: "D'you think there'll be eyeballs in the oor-derves, then?"
And broken again, by a thump, as of wood hitting feathers, and an indignant squawk.
After that there was nothing but the rustle of black leaves. But an observer with more than the usual complement of senses might have detected a kind of... anticipation, in the lean of the fruit trees, the increasingly urgent hum of the bees, the slight thickening of the atmosphere, the sudden concentration of the breeze. And to an observer with only the usual complement of senses, well-- I mean, the tasselled cushions that materialized on the bench and the little arched and beflowered trellises that popped up full-grown out of the soil were also a bit of a clue.
(1) Metaphorically(2).
(2) Okay, well, not completely metaphorically, but what Wen didn't know about his wife's drunken collegiate exploits wouldn't hurt him.
(3) This never works.