Bored and at work.
So I am at work again, bored again. I had a customer but then they left so, uh, now I'm bored. LOL.
So I brought my English notebook from this semester and I thought I would type up some of the short fanfics/originals I wrote during our 'free writing' time.
See, this is how it works: he would write a prompt on the board and we had to start a free writing exercise with it. We have 15 minutes to do the whole thing. Most of the class wrote like, insightful boring shit about themselves that no one else cared about. Especially this kid named Dave, who thinks he is hot shit. And then he would read it with this fake British accent and this deep profound voice and shit. And then he'd chat me up, doubtlessly thinking that I was so wooed by his dramatic reading that I would strip my clothes off right there in Memorial Hall and he could have me. Which wasn't the case. But it was funny! Until he started coming up to my room at like 12:15 at night wanting me to come down to his room, at which point it started being creepy. But I resisted, kept my door locked, and that was that. Yayyyy.
ANYWAY. Here's some writing! Enjoy.
Everything was written in 15 minutes. The italicized words are the original prompt. All original fics are from my superhero story and the stories surrounding it. Original stuff all takes place on Earth in the US. Everything but Murder is the only one that doesn't take place in modern day - take place about 80 years ago, but that doesn't really matter.
Shotgun Wedding, btw, is a totally AU prologue to and hugely AU fanfiction that will never be written. Enjoy it.
You know it's one of those days when you write crackfic about Plainsong:
On Symbolism with Raymond and Harold
You ever think much about symbolism, Harold? Raymond asked. Harold eyed him warily.
Something wrong with you? Harold countered.
No, I was thinking about symbolism, Raymond said idly. Like, in books and the sort.
As I recall, you don't read many books.
No, true. But I heard about them. And Victoria talks about it sometimes, as she does her homework.
So what about symbolism? Harold seemed distinctly uncomfortable with this topic.
If our lives were books -
They'd be boring books.
Would you let me finish? Raymond waited for Harold to settle back. So if our lives were books, you think that red cow would symbolize anything?
The hell kind of question is that? His brother turned suspicious. You been drinking?
No, I have not, Raymond said, indignant, if such a word could be applied to him. I was just thinking.
Well knock it off. Men in our line of work have no business having thoughts like that.
You don't think she could symbolize a trial for the boys or something?
She symbolizes whatever 1400 pounds of beef is going for on Tuesday.
Godammmit, Harold, it wouldn't kill you to think about this a little.
No, Harold said slowly, no I reckon it wouldn't. He gave his brother a long look. But it's not going to get the cows hayed either.
No, no it's not, Raymond agreed.
And they went back to work.
Thursday, too, was gray and misty, the soggy air seeping in through the barn's stone walls. Wendy flicked a forkful of mess out into the manure pile, out into the damp. It was more work, but the short path to the pile was muddy enough to suck the soles off her well-worn boots, and she didn't want to risk it. In the stall to her right, Oyster watched her with benign equine interest. To her left, the chestnut mare waited for an opportunity to strike.
She knew, like all passionate people do, that to outsiders her "obsession" make her seem a little crazy. But everyone, really, was crazy about something, and those that weren't were to be pitied. They couldn't know the spark of true passion, rolling in your soul, burning bright even while your heart broke, or when you'd been away from it so long you could barely remember the smell, the feel of the work.
He'd thought she was crazy from the second he'd seen her, maybe before. He didn't show it outright - he never showed much emotion, she'd heard - but a life of working with large, occasionally hostile animals with little capacity for facial expression had taught her to read body language, and some signals were amazingly universal.
He'd been nice, if perplexed, she reflected, as the last load of muck launched into the pile. She wouldn't mind talking to him again. It wasn't so bad, really.
Oyster lipped at her hair as she leaned against the stall front, coming away with a strand of hay. She smiled and rubbed the horse's muzzle.
"He'll be back," she decided aloud. "We'll see to that."
But the sun, at least, had seen fit to make an effort, despite the somber mood of the afternoon. It's not fair to be left alone on such a day, many people would have lamented, and the thought did prey on her mind, though she did her best to push it aside.
She leaned back on her elbows and looked out over the pond, red-stained in the evening light, and wondered about her life, and when all these strange turns had seen fit to lead her down a path that put her alone, lakeside, on the fourth.
"It's not the end of the path, you know," she heard Laizaus say matter-of-factly, and she turned to watch the angel sit next to her, cross-legged, on the shore. "And you're not alone," he added.
She exhaled through her nose and frowned. "Am too."
"What am I, chopped liver?"
"You're not the same thing."
He regarded her for a minute, expressionless. Then he looked to the horizon. "I've never really thought of the fourth of July as a romantic holiday," he said idly. She scowled and he shrugged. "I don't know, I'm just saying."
She put her chin in her hands, leaning forward so her elbows were on her knees. "It's not, I guess," she said finally. "But the whole being alone thing gets old."
He considered it. "I wouldn't know," he said. "Might be nice once and a while."
"But every holiday?"
"But you're not technically alone," he pointed out again. "I'm here, and Celmer's around, and there's a zombie out there somewhere thinking about you."
She snorted. "So I have 3 men in my life," she giggled, "and they're an angel, a wizard that's at least a century old, and an attractive dead boy."
The angel shrugged. "Could do worse. You could be married to Celmer." She laughed and made a face. "You know, just pointing it out."
She smiled and laid back as the sun dipped below the pond. The sky lit up dark purple, dusky and dotted with only the brightest of stars. Over the treeline, a test mortar broke and flared.
"It's not really a romantic holiday, is it?"
Laizaus hazarded a smile. "You know, call me cynical, but explosions never struck me as, you know, a sensitive and tender gesture. Unless you're Loki, I guess."
"You're right. But they are fun."
What a nice man, thought Sybil as she watched the suitor's coach rattle off down the driveway. Her father stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder. When the coach clattered around the corner and out of sight, he closed the door. They walked together to the Variably Pink room.
"So what did you think?" Lord Ramkin asked, seating himself in a wingback chair and pouring a glass of brandy.
"He's nice," she answered lightly, sitting in a couch by the window. "He seems very kind."
Lord Ramkin smiled indulgently. "Only the best for my little girl. Would you like to see him again?"
"Socially, certainly." She waited. Her father sighed.
"Sybil, I can't keep finding suitors for you. I've had ever boy in the city by and that was the last ambassador's son! I'll have to start looking in other countries next."
She shrugged. "Of course you don't daddy. I could just not marry yet."
"But you're of age!"
"That doesn't mean anything." They sat in silence, Sybil looking peacefully out the window and her father looking despondent.
"I received a letter from Madam Meserole today," he said finally. Sybil perked up.
"Yes?"
"The news is good, but then again, it isn't." He paused before saying gently "Her nephew is getting married."
Sybil's expression froze in puzzlement. "Havelock?"
"Yes."
"But he'd never . . . what about the city?"
Lord Ramkin shrugged. "There were . . . extenuating circumstances."
"Like what?"
"The bride-to-be is with child."
Sybil blinked. "Oh."
"I tell you this in utmost confidence, understand," he said gravely. "Can't have the young man's reputation ruined like that."
"Of course," she said, voice faint. Her father rose and patted her on the knee.
"I am sorry Sybil," he sighed. "But perhaps it's for the best."
"Perhaps." Her father smiled sadly before leaving the room. Sybil waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps before letting a tear or two leak from the corner of her eyes.
"You stupid bastard," she sniffed, looking out over the Avenue. She wiped her eyes. "And I still miss you."
On a beautiful spring morning, Gabe Davidson was killed. It was exercise hour-or-twenty-minutes or whatever, and he was beheaded. All in all, not the way he'd hoped his day would go. Or his life.
But ah, the call of money. It was gone now.
He stood up, out of his body, and waited. He wasn't sure what for. A bright light, maybe, a black-cloaked skeleton with a scythe possibly. He looked over his selves - his memory of a form, blue and transparent and unsettling, certainly - and his body, pale, husk-like, headless, still in the blue denim jumpsuit. The wardens dragged it away and he watched them but didn't follow. Why? Why follow, was really the question. It was junk now.
"It's weird, isn't it," said someone, and Gabe turned to look. His limbs blurred and fogged as he forgot what they looked like in motion. "They'll bury you in the plot out back, probably with a marker."
"Who are you?" Gabe asked, choking on the airless sounds. "What are you?"
"Same as you, a ghost," said the other. "Jake. You get used to it after a while," he added when a warden stepped through Gabe and both grimaced.
"And you died here?"
"Executed." Jake shrugged and his pale hair moved enough that Gabe could see a bullet hole in his forehead.
"What for?"
"A list we don't have time for."
"But we have forever," Gabe pointed out.
Jake clapped him on the shoulder and smiled personably. "It wouldn't be long enough."
Gabe followed as the older ghost headed for and through the door to the prison's kitchen. "Murder?"
"Not murder. Stop thinking about being solid." Gabe rubbed his memory of a forehead where it had bounced off the door.
"Oh good. At least that's something."
Even in his current state, Alana couldn't help but think of how handsome Jacob must have been. Tall, slim, wiry, with features neither too angular nor too rough. A mop of brown hair which, in life, presumably had been carefully styled to the neat fashion of the time. At least, that's what he'd told her. She wasn't sure she believed him as she watched him comb the clods of dried mud out.
"Does it feel weird?" she asked and he shrugged.
"Couldn't say; I think I've forgotten what being alive felt like." It was believable - his heart had beat its last 150 years ago. He'd lain quiet ever since, up until tonight.
"Celmer isn't very happy," she mused as Jacob pulled an earthworm out of his nose.
"Which one was he?"
"The wizard, the one with the flannel shirt."
"Oh, right." Jacob used the pointed tips of his exposed finger bones to scrape a clod of dirt out from the engraving on one of his buttons. "Well he wouldn't be, would he? I'm an abomination."
"You're handling it very well."
"I was never much of one for religion."
"I'm not sure that has anything to do with it," Alana mused. "I think it's more the logistics that bother him."
"Logistics?"
"You know, a demon and a necromancer create a zombie warlock," she laughed. "Could get tricky."
"Could," he conceded. "These days though, I have to ask, can a zombie get one of those fast metal machines?"
She laughed harder. "A car? Sorry, but undead rights haven't really progressed much since you died."
"Pity," he said. "All that time to work on it too."
She sighed and shrugged, though she was smiling. "These things take time. You never know, though, one day we might even have a zombie president."
He snorted. "Unlikely. You'll be telling me there's a chance a Catholic or a Negro could be president next."
She blinked. One hundred and fifty years. It was a long time. And then she laughed. "Well, about that . . ."
Nearly breathless, but with enough adrenaline pumping through his veins, Moist slid down the turnwise roof of the Palace. He'd heard from an Assassin that the Palace was a tough climb but good fun, as long as you didn't go inside, and the kid had been right. This was miles better than extreme sneezing. He was about to continue on the run after his brief pause on a flat space when a dry, sudden and horribly familiar voice startled him enough to yelp.
"You know, I'm not typically one to judge, but you really do need to find a less insane way of dealing with Miss Dearheart being on vacation, Mr. von Lipwig." Moist turned around slowly. "Boo," Vetinari added, a ghost of a smirk on his face.
"Er, hello sir," Moist hazarded. "What brings you up here?"
"Oh, you know, someone running across my roof is usually enough to do it," Vetinari said lightly. "The students aren't usually up here until Ick or so."
"Uh, ha ha." Moist laughed nervously, privately wishing he were dead. Which he might be in a moment, if he didn't play his cards right. Problem was, he didn't know which cards he had.
"Don't look so worried," Vetinari sighed. "I'm certainly not going to kill you."
"No?"
"I hadn't been considering it," Vetinari amended.
"Listen, I'm sorry I'm on your roof," Moist gasped hurriedly. "It was silly, I'll just be going -"
"Wait." Vetinari held up a hand. "You clearly have a need for the occasional adrenaline rush, which is understandable, I suppose. But of the thousands of frankly insane things you could do in this city, you chose to run around on roofs. Why?"
"Er." Moist gulped. "I, I don't know."
"Yes you do."
"Um." Moist paused and breathed. He looked around, out over the candlelit city. "Um." He shrugged. "What a view." He turned back to the ruler of the city. Far be it for him to judge Havelock Vetinari's expression, but he almost felt the man looked approving.
"Good answer," Vetinari said. "I wouldn't recommend the hubwards wall, by the way." And with that he turned, stalked off through the infrastructure, and vanished.
Moist paused. He wasn't sure, especially when dealing with the Patrician, how to take that, but he felt vaguely as if he'd just passed some sort of test. He looked back out over the glittering smog-smothered city.
And then he turned hubwards, and headed for the wall.
"No, it's like this," Jacob insisted. "When I cleaned the chalk and the tallow off the floor, I used what you told me. But it wasn't for wood."
"Did you know it wasn't for wood?" Celmer asked, face in his hands.
"I had my suspicions," Jacob muttered. When the wizard glared at him he threw up his yellow-rubber-gloved hands. "Okay, I've been dead, I don't know about all your cleaning supplies."
"Did you read the label?"
"No." Jacob's yellow eyes narrowed. "What? You told me to use it!"
"And if I told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?"
"Jumping off a bridge is very different from cleaning a floor," the zombie pointed out sullenly. Celmer sighed.
"Fair enough." He looked morosely to the floorboards, cracked and gray and brittle-looking where the chemicals had touched them. There were decent-looking splotches throughout, protection offered by the candle wax. "It looks horrible."
His undead student rose and stood next to him, cocking his head as he took the floor in. "It's not so bad," he said. "You could put a rug over it."
"Where am I going to get a rug?"
"Well, I would say you could make one," Jacob muttered, "but apparently you have to buy everything because the only place anything gets made these days is China."
Celmer looked to his student and sighed, reminding himself that while he'd been born before the boy had, he'd had the benefit of being upright and breathing for the past 150 years. Jacob hung his head.
"Listen, I'm sorry I wrecked the floor," he muttered. Celmer patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry about it. I'll have the angel pick up a rug for it."
"I thought he hates shopping?" Jacob asked, scuffing more wax up with the tip of his shoe.
"He does," Celmer said cheerfully. "But he owes me for all that moonshine I made him."
So I brought my English notebook from this semester and I thought I would type up some of the short fanfics/originals I wrote during our 'free writing' time.
See, this is how it works: he would write a prompt on the board and we had to start a free writing exercise with it. We have 15 minutes to do the whole thing. Most of the class wrote like, insightful boring shit about themselves that no one else cared about. Especially this kid named Dave, who thinks he is hot shit. And then he would read it with this fake British accent and this deep profound voice and shit. And then he'd chat me up, doubtlessly thinking that I was so wooed by his dramatic reading that I would strip my clothes off right there in Memorial Hall and he could have me. Which wasn't the case. But it was funny! Until he started coming up to my room at like 12:15 at night wanting me to come down to his room, at which point it started being creepy. But I resisted, kept my door locked, and that was that. Yayyyy.
ANYWAY. Here's some writing! Enjoy.
Everything was written in 15 minutes. The italicized words are the original prompt. All original fics are from my superhero story and the stories surrounding it. Original stuff all takes place on Earth in the US. Everything but Murder is the only one that doesn't take place in modern day - take place about 80 years ago, but that doesn't really matter.
Shotgun Wedding, btw, is a totally AU prologue to and hugely AU fanfiction that will never be written. Enjoy it.
You know it's one of those days when you write crackfic about Plainsong:
On Symbolism with Raymond and Harold
You ever think much about symbolism, Harold? Raymond asked. Harold eyed him warily.
Something wrong with you? Harold countered.
No, I was thinking about symbolism, Raymond said idly. Like, in books and the sort.
As I recall, you don't read many books.
No, true. But I heard about them. And Victoria talks about it sometimes, as she does her homework.
So what about symbolism? Harold seemed distinctly uncomfortable with this topic.
If our lives were books -
They'd be boring books.
Would you let me finish? Raymond waited for Harold to settle back. So if our lives were books, you think that red cow would symbolize anything?
The hell kind of question is that? His brother turned suspicious. You been drinking?
No, I have not, Raymond said, indignant, if such a word could be applied to him. I was just thinking.
Well knock it off. Men in our line of work have no business having thoughts like that.
You don't think she could symbolize a trial for the boys or something?
She symbolizes whatever 1400 pounds of beef is going for on Tuesday.
Godammmit, Harold, it wouldn't kill you to think about this a little.
No, Harold said slowly, no I reckon it wouldn't. He gave his brother a long look. But it's not going to get the cows hayed either.
No, no it's not, Raymond agreed.
And they went back to work.
Thursday, too, was gray and misty, the soggy air seeping in through the barn's stone walls. Wendy flicked a forkful of mess out into the manure pile, out into the damp. It was more work, but the short path to the pile was muddy enough to suck the soles off her well-worn boots, and she didn't want to risk it. In the stall to her right, Oyster watched her with benign equine interest. To her left, the chestnut mare waited for an opportunity to strike.
She knew, like all passionate people do, that to outsiders her "obsession" make her seem a little crazy. But everyone, really, was crazy about something, and those that weren't were to be pitied. They couldn't know the spark of true passion, rolling in your soul, burning bright even while your heart broke, or when you'd been away from it so long you could barely remember the smell, the feel of the work.
He'd thought she was crazy from the second he'd seen her, maybe before. He didn't show it outright - he never showed much emotion, she'd heard - but a life of working with large, occasionally hostile animals with little capacity for facial expression had taught her to read body language, and some signals were amazingly universal.
He'd been nice, if perplexed, she reflected, as the last load of muck launched into the pile. She wouldn't mind talking to him again. It wasn't so bad, really.
Oyster lipped at her hair as she leaned against the stall front, coming away with a strand of hay. She smiled and rubbed the horse's muzzle.
"He'll be back," she decided aloud. "We'll see to that."
But the sun, at least, had seen fit to make an effort, despite the somber mood of the afternoon. It's not fair to be left alone on such a day, many people would have lamented, and the thought did prey on her mind, though she did her best to push it aside.
She leaned back on her elbows and looked out over the pond, red-stained in the evening light, and wondered about her life, and when all these strange turns had seen fit to lead her down a path that put her alone, lakeside, on the fourth.
"It's not the end of the path, you know," she heard Laizaus say matter-of-factly, and she turned to watch the angel sit next to her, cross-legged, on the shore. "And you're not alone," he added.
She exhaled through her nose and frowned. "Am too."
"What am I, chopped liver?"
"You're not the same thing."
He regarded her for a minute, expressionless. Then he looked to the horizon. "I've never really thought of the fourth of July as a romantic holiday," he said idly. She scowled and he shrugged. "I don't know, I'm just saying."
She put her chin in her hands, leaning forward so her elbows were on her knees. "It's not, I guess," she said finally. "But the whole being alone thing gets old."
He considered it. "I wouldn't know," he said. "Might be nice once and a while."
"But every holiday?"
"But you're not technically alone," he pointed out again. "I'm here, and Celmer's around, and there's a zombie out there somewhere thinking about you."
She snorted. "So I have 3 men in my life," she giggled, "and they're an angel, a wizard that's at least a century old, and an attractive dead boy."
The angel shrugged. "Could do worse. You could be married to Celmer." She laughed and made a face. "You know, just pointing it out."
She smiled and laid back as the sun dipped below the pond. The sky lit up dark purple, dusky and dotted with only the brightest of stars. Over the treeline, a test mortar broke and flared.
"It's not really a romantic holiday, is it?"
Laizaus hazarded a smile. "You know, call me cynical, but explosions never struck me as, you know, a sensitive and tender gesture. Unless you're Loki, I guess."
"You're right. But they are fun."
What a nice man, thought Sybil as she watched the suitor's coach rattle off down the driveway. Her father stood behind her, one hand on her shoulder. When the coach clattered around the corner and out of sight, he closed the door. They walked together to the Variably Pink room.
"So what did you think?" Lord Ramkin asked, seating himself in a wingback chair and pouring a glass of brandy.
"He's nice," she answered lightly, sitting in a couch by the window. "He seems very kind."
Lord Ramkin smiled indulgently. "Only the best for my little girl. Would you like to see him again?"
"Socially, certainly." She waited. Her father sighed.
"Sybil, I can't keep finding suitors for you. I've had ever boy in the city by and that was the last ambassador's son! I'll have to start looking in other countries next."
She shrugged. "Of course you don't daddy. I could just not marry yet."
"But you're of age!"
"That doesn't mean anything." They sat in silence, Sybil looking peacefully out the window and her father looking despondent.
"I received a letter from Madam Meserole today," he said finally. Sybil perked up.
"Yes?"
"The news is good, but then again, it isn't." He paused before saying gently "Her nephew is getting married."
Sybil's expression froze in puzzlement. "Havelock?"
"Yes."
"But he'd never . . . what about the city?"
Lord Ramkin shrugged. "There were . . . extenuating circumstances."
"Like what?"
"The bride-to-be is with child."
Sybil blinked. "Oh."
"I tell you this in utmost confidence, understand," he said gravely. "Can't have the young man's reputation ruined like that."
"Of course," she said, voice faint. Her father rose and patted her on the knee.
"I am sorry Sybil," he sighed. "But perhaps it's for the best."
"Perhaps." Her father smiled sadly before leaving the room. Sybil waited until she could no longer hear his footsteps before letting a tear or two leak from the corner of her eyes.
"You stupid bastard," she sniffed, looking out over the Avenue. She wiped her eyes. "And I still miss you."
On a beautiful spring morning, Gabe Davidson was killed. It was exercise hour-or-twenty-minutes or whatever, and he was beheaded. All in all, not the way he'd hoped his day would go. Or his life.
But ah, the call of money. It was gone now.
He stood up, out of his body, and waited. He wasn't sure what for. A bright light, maybe, a black-cloaked skeleton with a scythe possibly. He looked over his selves - his memory of a form, blue and transparent and unsettling, certainly - and his body, pale, husk-like, headless, still in the blue denim jumpsuit. The wardens dragged it away and he watched them but didn't follow. Why? Why follow, was really the question. It was junk now.
"It's weird, isn't it," said someone, and Gabe turned to look. His limbs blurred and fogged as he forgot what they looked like in motion. "They'll bury you in the plot out back, probably with a marker."
"Who are you?" Gabe asked, choking on the airless sounds. "What are you?"
"Same as you, a ghost," said the other. "Jake. You get used to it after a while," he added when a warden stepped through Gabe and both grimaced.
"And you died here?"
"Executed." Jake shrugged and his pale hair moved enough that Gabe could see a bullet hole in his forehead.
"What for?"
"A list we don't have time for."
"But we have forever," Gabe pointed out.
Jake clapped him on the shoulder and smiled personably. "It wouldn't be long enough."
Gabe followed as the older ghost headed for and through the door to the prison's kitchen. "Murder?"
"Not murder. Stop thinking about being solid." Gabe rubbed his memory of a forehead where it had bounced off the door.
"Oh good. At least that's something."
Even in his current state, Alana couldn't help but think of how handsome Jacob must have been. Tall, slim, wiry, with features neither too angular nor too rough. A mop of brown hair which, in life, presumably had been carefully styled to the neat fashion of the time. At least, that's what he'd told her. She wasn't sure she believed him as she watched him comb the clods of dried mud out.
"Does it feel weird?" she asked and he shrugged.
"Couldn't say; I think I've forgotten what being alive felt like." It was believable - his heart had beat its last 150 years ago. He'd lain quiet ever since, up until tonight.
"Celmer isn't very happy," she mused as Jacob pulled an earthworm out of his nose.
"Which one was he?"
"The wizard, the one with the flannel shirt."
"Oh, right." Jacob used the pointed tips of his exposed finger bones to scrape a clod of dirt out from the engraving on one of his buttons. "Well he wouldn't be, would he? I'm an abomination."
"You're handling it very well."
"I was never much of one for religion."
"I'm not sure that has anything to do with it," Alana mused. "I think it's more the logistics that bother him."
"Logistics?"
"You know, a demon and a necromancer create a zombie warlock," she laughed. "Could get tricky."
"Could," he conceded. "These days though, I have to ask, can a zombie get one of those fast metal machines?"
She laughed harder. "A car? Sorry, but undead rights haven't really progressed much since you died."
"Pity," he said. "All that time to work on it too."
She sighed and shrugged, though she was smiling. "These things take time. You never know, though, one day we might even have a zombie president."
He snorted. "Unlikely. You'll be telling me there's a chance a Catholic or a Negro could be president next."
She blinked. One hundred and fifty years. It was a long time. And then she laughed. "Well, about that . . ."
Nearly breathless, but with enough adrenaline pumping through his veins, Moist slid down the turnwise roof of the Palace. He'd heard from an Assassin that the Palace was a tough climb but good fun, as long as you didn't go inside, and the kid had been right. This was miles better than extreme sneezing. He was about to continue on the run after his brief pause on a flat space when a dry, sudden and horribly familiar voice startled him enough to yelp.
"You know, I'm not typically one to judge, but you really do need to find a less insane way of dealing with Miss Dearheart being on vacation, Mr. von Lipwig." Moist turned around slowly. "Boo," Vetinari added, a ghost of a smirk on his face.
"Er, hello sir," Moist hazarded. "What brings you up here?"
"Oh, you know, someone running across my roof is usually enough to do it," Vetinari said lightly. "The students aren't usually up here until Ick or so."
"Uh, ha ha." Moist laughed nervously, privately wishing he were dead. Which he might be in a moment, if he didn't play his cards right. Problem was, he didn't know which cards he had.
"Don't look so worried," Vetinari sighed. "I'm certainly not going to kill you."
"No?"
"I hadn't been considering it," Vetinari amended.
"Listen, I'm sorry I'm on your roof," Moist gasped hurriedly. "It was silly, I'll just be going -"
"Wait." Vetinari held up a hand. "You clearly have a need for the occasional adrenaline rush, which is understandable, I suppose. But of the thousands of frankly insane things you could do in this city, you chose to run around on roofs. Why?"
"Er." Moist gulped. "I, I don't know."
"Yes you do."
"Um." Moist paused and breathed. He looked around, out over the candlelit city. "Um." He shrugged. "What a view." He turned back to the ruler of the city. Far be it for him to judge Havelock Vetinari's expression, but he almost felt the man looked approving.
"Good answer," Vetinari said. "I wouldn't recommend the hubwards wall, by the way." And with that he turned, stalked off through the infrastructure, and vanished.
Moist paused. He wasn't sure, especially when dealing with the Patrician, how to take that, but he felt vaguely as if he'd just passed some sort of test. He looked back out over the glittering smog-smothered city.
And then he turned hubwards, and headed for the wall.
"No, it's like this," Jacob insisted. "When I cleaned the chalk and the tallow off the floor, I used what you told me. But it wasn't for wood."
"Did you know it wasn't for wood?" Celmer asked, face in his hands.
"I had my suspicions," Jacob muttered. When the wizard glared at him he threw up his yellow-rubber-gloved hands. "Okay, I've been dead, I don't know about all your cleaning supplies."
"Did you read the label?"
"No." Jacob's yellow eyes narrowed. "What? You told me to use it!"
"And if I told you to jump off a bridge, would you do it?"
"Jumping off a bridge is very different from cleaning a floor," the zombie pointed out sullenly. Celmer sighed.
"Fair enough." He looked morosely to the floorboards, cracked and gray and brittle-looking where the chemicals had touched them. There were decent-looking splotches throughout, protection offered by the candle wax. "It looks horrible."
His undead student rose and stood next to him, cocking his head as he took the floor in. "It's not so bad," he said. "You could put a rug over it."
"Where am I going to get a rug?"
"Well, I would say you could make one," Jacob muttered, "but apparently you have to buy everything because the only place anything gets made these days is China."
Celmer looked to his student and sighed, reminding himself that while he'd been born before the boy had, he'd had the benefit of being upright and breathing for the past 150 years. Jacob hung his head.
"Listen, I'm sorry I wrecked the floor," he muttered. Celmer patted him on the shoulder.
"Don't worry about it. I'll have the angel pick up a rug for it."
"I thought he hates shopping?" Jacob asked, scuffing more wax up with the tip of his shoe.
"He does," Celmer said cheerfully. "But he owes me for all that moonshine I made him."