(no subject)
The thing is that when it comes to writing, I am really, really easy.
It goes like this: there is a challenge. The ultimate genre crossover challenge to be precise. There is nagging. There is a free Saturday afternoon.
Now there is original fiction. Cracked. 3100 words of very cracked original fic, for which I earned 21 points! Go, me.
Um.
~~~~~
On Xundelfiday around dinner time, an ICV the size of a battleship pulls up outside the home of a human named Mary.
The ICV is being driven by Mary's second-best friend, who is a dragon. The ICV is a make and model most commonly seen in shiny, horrible music videos, and everyone makes fun of the dragon for driving it, except for on Xundelfidays. Xundelfiday is dinner out day and the ICV is the only cruising vehicle large enough to fit the dragon, the dragon's boyfriend who is a zombie, and Mary the human, plus their friends the vampire, the ogre, the fairy, the nymph, and the werewolf.
Mary gets into the ICV, hugs as many of her friends as she can without being accidentally killed, maimed, sparkle-dusted, molested, or otherwise harmed, and the dragon hits the dark matter pedal and takes them out of the atmosphere at a leisurely .3 speed-of-light. When they are out of sight of Mary's house, the ICV hits .7 s-o-l. Dragons might've lost their wings more generations back than anyone can remember, but they still like to fly.
They head for one of the inner planets, where the good chain restaurants are. There is an argument, sort of, between the creatures who no, really, really really, don't care where they eat, so long as members of their species aren't on the menu, and the creatures who don't care but want someone else to make the decision.
They flip a coin, as usual. If it lands on Franklin, they go to Denny's, which is the zombie's favorite chain. If it lands on Einstein, they go to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which is Mary's favorite. Because the zombie is the only one who ever carries a coin, let alone knows how to flip one, they spend a lot of Xundelfidays at Denny's.
Their favorite waiter at Denny's is a clown. Their favorite waiter at any restaurant tends to be a clown, because clowns are the only waiters who don't try to crack jokes and jolly you out as fast as possible so they can seat another party. The clown at Denny's is their real favorite though, because he's cuter than most, and his painted scarlet lips curve so perfectly. He recognizes them when they come in and his red red smile widens a little. He gives them their favorite table, in the back, where they won't bother the other patrons and can linger as long as they want.
"I love him," Mary says when their favorite clown waiter leaves the table.
"Marry him," says the nymph.
"You marry him!"
The nymph laughs. She's braiding the hair on the werewolf's forearm. They're totally in love, even if they won't admit it. Mary wouldn't ever braid the hair on anyone's forearm. She'd braid the clown's wig, though. Probably. That's how she knows she loves him.
"Maybe I'll marry him," says the dragon.
Her boyfriend rolls his eyes. Then he has to get up to go find them. One is under a table with a little family, none of them any taller than the utensils they can't use. The other eyeball is almost in the kitchen. "Maybe I'll finally get to see what they put on the fries to make them so tasty," he says. "Haha!"
The dragon sighs. "I sure can't marry him," she says to Mary when the zombie is out of earshot. "I don't know, I don't think it's going to last much longer."
"He was really mad last week when you fried his fingers," Mary says, nodding.
"And it was honestly an accident! I was just trying to kiss his hand!" the dragon says. She sighs again. "But I don't know, I don't want to lose his friendship."
"He's a good guy," Mary says. She hates the zombie. But if she told the dragon that, she'd probably lose her eyebrows or something. The dragon is the only one allowed to say a bad word about the zombie, it's like a group law or something. "Maybe things will get better?"
"I don't know, he's really starting to reek," the dragon says. "The fried fingers do not help--oh, shh, he's coming back, don't tell him what I said, okay?"
The zombie comes back excited. He drops into his seat at the dragon's side, winces, shifts carefully. "If I still had nerve endings, that would really hurt," he says, and Mary's afraid to wonder what he means by that. "Hey, guess what I saw in the kitchen!"
No one guesses. Mary and the nymph look at each other across the table and don't say a word. Sometimes their soul-bond comes in so, so handy. The zombie doesn't have a clue how gross they think he is.
"What did you see?" the dragon asks, after a long, awkward moment.
The zombie leans forward and whispers, "The cook is in there cutting up a body."
The dragon coughs, apologizes to the ogre, who is slapping out the fire in his beard, and says, "Um, okay, sweetie. But...isn't that what they normally do in restaurants?"
"If my eyeballs weren't all gross right now, I'd roll them again," the zombie says. "Seriously, listen! He's cutting up a cat!"
Everyone gasps.
"Are you sure?" the fairy asks. His wings are shimmering dark blue, spreading distress all over the table. He apologizes, wipes it off with his napkin before any of them can get it on their skin, curses, wipes more off with the ogre's napkin. "Sorry, sorry," he says, and now he's shimmering blue distress and bright red embarrassment.
The zombie nods. "I know what a cat looks like," he says. "And I know what a big fucking knife looks like. And I know what happens when you combine the two!"
The dragon puts a claw on his leg, gently. "But not from like, personal experience, right?" she asks, worried.
"God no," the zombie says. "I won't deny I dismembered a few puppies in my day, but I'm not heartless!"
No one says anything.
"Well, okay, so I wasn't always heartless," the zombie says.
"I'm calling the cops," the ogre grunts, pulling his comm out of his beard. "Everyone just chill out, okay? We'll get some black and whites out here, they'll handle the problem--if there really is one."
The zombie huffs and sits back, crossing his arms over his chest. "You guys always think I'm lying," he mumbles. The dragon pats his leg again. Mary and the nymph look at each other, and no one says a word.
"We think a cat got hurt at Denny's," the ogre whispers into his comm. "Can you, like, send out a couple officers? Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. The one on Mercury. Yeah. Okay. Thanks." He slides the comm back into its little bone-shaped carrier and says, "They want us to wait here. So, um, yeah. Um, the clown is coming back. We should order. Does everyone know what they want?"
Mary looks at the clown's pale, painted face and his big shoes, his silky pants and fluff-buttoned shirt, and sighs wistfully. She hope hope hopes that he's not involved with whatever is going on in the kitchen, and orders a plate of fries just so he'll smile and say, "You like those burned to a crisp, right?" the way he always does.
"Yes," she says, and he smiles into her eyes and tucks his stylus in his wig and walks away to put their order in, the blue pom-pom on the back of his pants moving just right. Mary sighs again, and sits back to wait for the black and whites.
~~~~~
The white comes in first. He's pretty even for a white; his coat and hooves are pearly, and he has a long, shiny mane and tail, and an iridescent horn. Everyone in the restaurant, even the ones who don't know about the maybe-death of a cat, looks up and goes silent when he opens the door. He clip-clops across the restaurant and despite the nasty carpet, his every step rings like a bell.
Whites are not subtle.
"You the ones that called this in?" he says to Mary and her friends. He has one great, big, silver-blue eye trained on Mary's face. They say there's no such thing as species-profiling, but the whites are immortal, and they still tell stories about humans. 'Tapestry' and 'virgin' and 'aphrodisiac' are very popular curse words in their culture.
"Um," Mary says.
The white nods. "Right," he says. "Okay. Now, who saw the cat, and where is it?"
The zombie raises his hand. It's shaking. Mary hopes that it doesn't fall off again; seeing his wrist bones is guaranteed to ruin her appetite for weeks. "I saw it," he says, suddenly sounding a lot less sure of himself. "It was, um, in the kitchen."
The white says to thin air, "You got that, partner?"
"Got it," the air says in a low, dark little voice, and that is the black. Mary can't see anything more of him than a dark flit out of the corner of her eye. "I'll check it out."
"Be careful," Mary says, even though it's stupid. What can happen to a team of blacks and whites? There are a lot of benefits to being incorporeal and immortal. But there might be a cat killer back there, and she can't help but worry.
The white is really nice about it though, just nods at her, then turns his attention to the door of the kitchen. The black is probably already in there. He probably could've gone in there while the white was walking across the restaurant, then come back and stood behind Mary's shoulder. She shivers, a little creeped out, and the dragon pats her leg, blunted claws clicking gently.
The white bobs his head and his long tail whisks a bit. The blacks and whites are telepathic. He's probably getting all the details, calling in other teams, calling in EMWs or something. Mary watches him closely, hoping against hope that the cat is all right, that the zombie was wrong or lying as usual, hoping everything is okay--
And then the white shakes his head, great masses of mane flying everywhere, and Mary knows it wasn't just a trick of like, lettuce on the zombie's eyeball.
"Ladies, gentlethings, and stuff!" the white booms as he trots towards the kitchen door. "Please remain in your seats! Remain calm! Clown, remain where you are, do you understand me?"
Their clown is standing at the register, a helpless look in his eyes, his big red smile bewildered. "What's going on?" he asks. "Officer? Please!"
"Make way for EMWs," the white says, nudging the clown out of the way with the tip of his horn.
"How is he supposed to remain where he is, and make way?" the werewolf growls. Mary smacks his hairy arm and he howls, but quietly.
"Don't make the white mad or he might hurt the clown!" she hisses under her breath, and the werewolf grumbles at her. The nymph pats his other arm, looking at Mary sympathetically--she's Mary's first-best friend for more reasons than a soul-bond--and undoes the werewolf's braid, combing his hair out with her fingers, which is way more likely to soothe him than music.
"He's right, though, that was a stupid order," the dragon on Mary's other side says, her tail twitching restlessly. Anyone who smacks a dragon is asking to be fried, so Mary just glares and turns her attention back to the white, who is still pushing the clown backwards with the tip of his horn, making room for the EMWs.
Mary has never seen EMWs in action before, outside of televideos and stuff. When they glide in, pointed ears quivering and already monitoring lifesigns, long cloaks floating closely behind them but still giving the impression of sweeping, bespelled equipment floating after them, it makes the whole scene seem a little unreal.
The kitchen door slams open and the elves glide through; the black just barely waits for them to clear out of the way before tossing the cook out like a hairy brown rag.
"He owed me money, he owed me money!" the cook howls. The white turns away from the clown, who sags back against the wall, and he sinks the sharp tip of his horn into the cook's chest to keep him in place. The cook just keeps yelling, like he doesn't even notice. "What was I supposed to do, let him get away with it? He's just a filthy feline!"
The cook is clearly from Melmac. They've never understood the real value of cats. The elves do, though; Mary can hear them frantically trying to revive the cook's victim, their sing-song voices casting spell after spell in the kitchen.
"They're gonna have to use the turner on him," the fairy says, wings dusting yellow anxiety all over everything.
"The turner doesn't even work on cats," the zombie says, like the fairy is an idiot.
"Cats have nine lives," the fairy snaps back. "If the turner works on anyone, it works on cats!"
"Cun veee node viiiiite?" the vampire says, and everyone shuts up. The vampire speaks like, once a week, and when he speaks, everyone listens. Mostly because they can't figure out what he's saying, and partially because no one wants to annoy the blood-suckers, but also because he's usually saying something pretty smart. That's why they keep inviting him out for dinner, even though it always makes him look confused and annoyed when they don't let him near their necks. "Id meeks me vuuuuungwy."
Mary nods, after repeating the vampire's words to herself a couple times with different consonant and vowel sounds, until she understands. "He's right, we shouldn't be fighting!" she says, glaring at her friends. "Just, just--be quiet! Let the elves do their work!"
There's a pop-pop-popping sound from the kitchen, and everyone shuts up, everyone in the whole restaurant, even the screaming cook. They know that sound, from the televideos. The elves are using the turner. Mary reaches out helplessly, and the werewolf must not be mad at her anymore because he holds her hand in his big paw, squeezing gently.
The turner is scary. It's supposed to be stable, and it's supposed to only work on the person under its shield, and it's supposed to only turn time back by a few minutes each pop. But everyone's seen what happens in the televideos when it fails: death, destruction, people for miles around turned either to skeletons, or dust, or puddles of thick wetness. For the elves to use it means the victim is far, far gone. Mary squeezes the werewolf's paw back, holds her breath, and waits.
~~~~~
When the EMWs float the cat out on their stretcher, it is clearly breathing. It is not a skeleton, or dust, or wetness; it is an orange tom, bigger than any cat Mary's ever seen in her life, with handsome white paws and a long tail that is weakly lashing the air.
Everyone in the restaurant lets out a loud cheer, except for the white, who ducks his head and stomps his hoof, and the cook, who shrieks and lunges for the stretcher only to find himself dangling in mid-air thanks to the strong mental powers of the black.
Mary finds she is laughing. She leans over to hug the werewolf, beams cheerfully at the dragon; she even reaches out to give the zombie a high-five although on his part, it is a high-three-and-a-quarter, slightly slimy. Sometimes she wishes she could hug her first-best friend in public, but the soul-bond makes that kind of weird. Last time, they almost got arrested. They look at each other though and that's enough, especially with the ogre beating his chest happily, the fairy sprinkling white joy everywhere, and even the vampire looking pleased.
The elves, the cat and the medical equipment vanish just outside the door, teleporting back to the hospital. The black and white are being joined by other officers, some of whom drag the shrieking cook out of the room.
"I know you're all a little scared and a lot relieved!" the first of the white booms. "We appreciate your time and patience! Please stand and line up against this wall and wait for an officer to take your information, as you may be called on as witnesses! Thank you!"
Mary lets her chattering, excited friends go first. She hesitates for a long moment, then finds the clown near the end of the line, his head down. He has taken his red nose off, and even his rainbow wig looks sad.
Mary looks at the nymph, who nods and smiles, then turns to the rest of their friends and urges them forward, sweetly saying, "C'mon, guys, haven't any of you ever heard of a straight line before? We can do this! Come on!"
She walks slowly toward the clown, then takes her place behind him in line. He has very broad shoulders and he smells good, like makeup and warm silk and pancakes. She takes a very deep breath and says, "Hey."
The clown jumps, then turns around and looks down at Mary. "Uh, hey," he says. Even when he is not being their waiter, his voice is very smooth and mild. Mary could listen to him say 'You want coleslaw?' all night.
"I'm sorry about," she says, and gestures around the restaurant. "You're probably not going to get good tips tonight, huh?"
The clown looks around at all the emptied tables like he hadn't even noticed, then shrugs. "Well, at least the cat's okay," he says. "I never thought Ulf was the type, you know?"
"Yeah," Mary says. The line is moving. There's a white headed their way. "Um, so, listen," she says, working up her courage. "Um, I was wondering, do you maybe want us to wait for you? We can go, like, get coffee or something. When we're all done here. There's room for one more in the ICV."
The clown blinks, and then is looking at Mary like he hadn't even noticed her before. She can feel herself blushing and wishes she had a thick layer of paint like his to keep him from seeing.
But then he smiles, and touches her cheek with his gloved hand, and Mary is suddenly, fiercely glad she is herself, pale skin and all. "You know," he says, "that'd be great. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Mary says, and even though the clown drops his hand then, she can feel the warm satin on her cheek.
She smiles to herself for the rest of the night.
It goes like this: there is a challenge. The ultimate genre crossover challenge to be precise. There is nagging. There is a free Saturday afternoon.
Now there is original fiction. Cracked. 3100 words of very cracked original fic, for which I earned 21 points! Go, me.
Um.
~~~~~
On Xundelfiday around dinner time, an ICV the size of a battleship pulls up outside the home of a human named Mary.
The ICV is being driven by Mary's second-best friend, who is a dragon. The ICV is a make and model most commonly seen in shiny, horrible music videos, and everyone makes fun of the dragon for driving it, except for on Xundelfidays. Xundelfiday is dinner out day and the ICV is the only cruising vehicle large enough to fit the dragon, the dragon's boyfriend who is a zombie, and Mary the human, plus their friends the vampire, the ogre, the fairy, the nymph, and the werewolf.
Mary gets into the ICV, hugs as many of her friends as she can without being accidentally killed, maimed, sparkle-dusted, molested, or otherwise harmed, and the dragon hits the dark matter pedal and takes them out of the atmosphere at a leisurely .3 speed-of-light. When they are out of sight of Mary's house, the ICV hits .7 s-o-l. Dragons might've lost their wings more generations back than anyone can remember, but they still like to fly.
They head for one of the inner planets, where the good chain restaurants are. There is an argument, sort of, between the creatures who no, really, really really, don't care where they eat, so long as members of their species aren't on the menu, and the creatures who don't care but want someone else to make the decision.
They flip a coin, as usual. If it lands on Franklin, they go to Denny's, which is the zombie's favorite chain. If it lands on Einstein, they go to the Restaurant at the End of the Universe, which is Mary's favorite. Because the zombie is the only one who ever carries a coin, let alone knows how to flip one, they spend a lot of Xundelfidays at Denny's.
Their favorite waiter at Denny's is a clown. Their favorite waiter at any restaurant tends to be a clown, because clowns are the only waiters who don't try to crack jokes and jolly you out as fast as possible so they can seat another party. The clown at Denny's is their real favorite though, because he's cuter than most, and his painted scarlet lips curve so perfectly. He recognizes them when they come in and his red red smile widens a little. He gives them their favorite table, in the back, where they won't bother the other patrons and can linger as long as they want.
"I love him," Mary says when their favorite clown waiter leaves the table.
"Marry him," says the nymph.
"You marry him!"
The nymph laughs. She's braiding the hair on the werewolf's forearm. They're totally in love, even if they won't admit it. Mary wouldn't ever braid the hair on anyone's forearm. She'd braid the clown's wig, though. Probably. That's how she knows she loves him.
"Maybe I'll marry him," says the dragon.
Her boyfriend rolls his eyes. Then he has to get up to go find them. One is under a table with a little family, none of them any taller than the utensils they can't use. The other eyeball is almost in the kitchen. "Maybe I'll finally get to see what they put on the fries to make them so tasty," he says. "Haha!"
The dragon sighs. "I sure can't marry him," she says to Mary when the zombie is out of earshot. "I don't know, I don't think it's going to last much longer."
"He was really mad last week when you fried his fingers," Mary says, nodding.
"And it was honestly an accident! I was just trying to kiss his hand!" the dragon says. She sighs again. "But I don't know, I don't want to lose his friendship."
"He's a good guy," Mary says. She hates the zombie. But if she told the dragon that, she'd probably lose her eyebrows or something. The dragon is the only one allowed to say a bad word about the zombie, it's like a group law or something. "Maybe things will get better?"
"I don't know, he's really starting to reek," the dragon says. "The fried fingers do not help--oh, shh, he's coming back, don't tell him what I said, okay?"
The zombie comes back excited. He drops into his seat at the dragon's side, winces, shifts carefully. "If I still had nerve endings, that would really hurt," he says, and Mary's afraid to wonder what he means by that. "Hey, guess what I saw in the kitchen!"
No one guesses. Mary and the nymph look at each other across the table and don't say a word. Sometimes their soul-bond comes in so, so handy. The zombie doesn't have a clue how gross they think he is.
"What did you see?" the dragon asks, after a long, awkward moment.
The zombie leans forward and whispers, "The cook is in there cutting up a body."
The dragon coughs, apologizes to the ogre, who is slapping out the fire in his beard, and says, "Um, okay, sweetie. But...isn't that what they normally do in restaurants?"
"If my eyeballs weren't all gross right now, I'd roll them again," the zombie says. "Seriously, listen! He's cutting up a cat!"
Everyone gasps.
"Are you sure?" the fairy asks. His wings are shimmering dark blue, spreading distress all over the table. He apologizes, wipes it off with his napkin before any of them can get it on their skin, curses, wipes more off with the ogre's napkin. "Sorry, sorry," he says, and now he's shimmering blue distress and bright red embarrassment.
The zombie nods. "I know what a cat looks like," he says. "And I know what a big fucking knife looks like. And I know what happens when you combine the two!"
The dragon puts a claw on his leg, gently. "But not from like, personal experience, right?" she asks, worried.
"God no," the zombie says. "I won't deny I dismembered a few puppies in my day, but I'm not heartless!"
No one says anything.
"Well, okay, so I wasn't always heartless," the zombie says.
"I'm calling the cops," the ogre grunts, pulling his comm out of his beard. "Everyone just chill out, okay? We'll get some black and whites out here, they'll handle the problem--if there really is one."
The zombie huffs and sits back, crossing his arms over his chest. "You guys always think I'm lying," he mumbles. The dragon pats his leg again. Mary and the nymph look at each other, and no one says a word.
"We think a cat got hurt at Denny's," the ogre whispers into his comm. "Can you, like, send out a couple officers? Yeah. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. The one on Mercury. Yeah. Okay. Thanks." He slides the comm back into its little bone-shaped carrier and says, "They want us to wait here. So, um, yeah. Um, the clown is coming back. We should order. Does everyone know what they want?"
Mary looks at the clown's pale, painted face and his big shoes, his silky pants and fluff-buttoned shirt, and sighs wistfully. She hope hope hopes that he's not involved with whatever is going on in the kitchen, and orders a plate of fries just so he'll smile and say, "You like those burned to a crisp, right?" the way he always does.
"Yes," she says, and he smiles into her eyes and tucks his stylus in his wig and walks away to put their order in, the blue pom-pom on the back of his pants moving just right. Mary sighs again, and sits back to wait for the black and whites.
~~~~~
The white comes in first. He's pretty even for a white; his coat and hooves are pearly, and he has a long, shiny mane and tail, and an iridescent horn. Everyone in the restaurant, even the ones who don't know about the maybe-death of a cat, looks up and goes silent when he opens the door. He clip-clops across the restaurant and despite the nasty carpet, his every step rings like a bell.
Whites are not subtle.
"You the ones that called this in?" he says to Mary and her friends. He has one great, big, silver-blue eye trained on Mary's face. They say there's no such thing as species-profiling, but the whites are immortal, and they still tell stories about humans. 'Tapestry' and 'virgin' and 'aphrodisiac' are very popular curse words in their culture.
"Um," Mary says.
The white nods. "Right," he says. "Okay. Now, who saw the cat, and where is it?"
The zombie raises his hand. It's shaking. Mary hopes that it doesn't fall off again; seeing his wrist bones is guaranteed to ruin her appetite for weeks. "I saw it," he says, suddenly sounding a lot less sure of himself. "It was, um, in the kitchen."
The white says to thin air, "You got that, partner?"
"Got it," the air says in a low, dark little voice, and that is the black. Mary can't see anything more of him than a dark flit out of the corner of her eye. "I'll check it out."
"Be careful," Mary says, even though it's stupid. What can happen to a team of blacks and whites? There are a lot of benefits to being incorporeal and immortal. But there might be a cat killer back there, and she can't help but worry.
The white is really nice about it though, just nods at her, then turns his attention to the door of the kitchen. The black is probably already in there. He probably could've gone in there while the white was walking across the restaurant, then come back and stood behind Mary's shoulder. She shivers, a little creeped out, and the dragon pats her leg, blunted claws clicking gently.
The white bobs his head and his long tail whisks a bit. The blacks and whites are telepathic. He's probably getting all the details, calling in other teams, calling in EMWs or something. Mary watches him closely, hoping against hope that the cat is all right, that the zombie was wrong or lying as usual, hoping everything is okay--
And then the white shakes his head, great masses of mane flying everywhere, and Mary knows it wasn't just a trick of like, lettuce on the zombie's eyeball.
"Ladies, gentlethings, and stuff!" the white booms as he trots towards the kitchen door. "Please remain in your seats! Remain calm! Clown, remain where you are, do you understand me?"
Their clown is standing at the register, a helpless look in his eyes, his big red smile bewildered. "What's going on?" he asks. "Officer? Please!"
"Make way for EMWs," the white says, nudging the clown out of the way with the tip of his horn.
"How is he supposed to remain where he is, and make way?" the werewolf growls. Mary smacks his hairy arm and he howls, but quietly.
"Don't make the white mad or he might hurt the clown!" she hisses under her breath, and the werewolf grumbles at her. The nymph pats his other arm, looking at Mary sympathetically--she's Mary's first-best friend for more reasons than a soul-bond--and undoes the werewolf's braid, combing his hair out with her fingers, which is way more likely to soothe him than music.
"He's right, though, that was a stupid order," the dragon on Mary's other side says, her tail twitching restlessly. Anyone who smacks a dragon is asking to be fried, so Mary just glares and turns her attention back to the white, who is still pushing the clown backwards with the tip of his horn, making room for the EMWs.
Mary has never seen EMWs in action before, outside of televideos and stuff. When they glide in, pointed ears quivering and already monitoring lifesigns, long cloaks floating closely behind them but still giving the impression of sweeping, bespelled equipment floating after them, it makes the whole scene seem a little unreal.
The kitchen door slams open and the elves glide through; the black just barely waits for them to clear out of the way before tossing the cook out like a hairy brown rag.
"He owed me money, he owed me money!" the cook howls. The white turns away from the clown, who sags back against the wall, and he sinks the sharp tip of his horn into the cook's chest to keep him in place. The cook just keeps yelling, like he doesn't even notice. "What was I supposed to do, let him get away with it? He's just a filthy feline!"
The cook is clearly from Melmac. They've never understood the real value of cats. The elves do, though; Mary can hear them frantically trying to revive the cook's victim, their sing-song voices casting spell after spell in the kitchen.
"They're gonna have to use the turner on him," the fairy says, wings dusting yellow anxiety all over everything.
"The turner doesn't even work on cats," the zombie says, like the fairy is an idiot.
"Cats have nine lives," the fairy snaps back. "If the turner works on anyone, it works on cats!"
"Cun veee node viiiiite?" the vampire says, and everyone shuts up. The vampire speaks like, once a week, and when he speaks, everyone listens. Mostly because they can't figure out what he's saying, and partially because no one wants to annoy the blood-suckers, but also because he's usually saying something pretty smart. That's why they keep inviting him out for dinner, even though it always makes him look confused and annoyed when they don't let him near their necks. "Id meeks me vuuuuungwy."
Mary nods, after repeating the vampire's words to herself a couple times with different consonant and vowel sounds, until she understands. "He's right, we shouldn't be fighting!" she says, glaring at her friends. "Just, just--be quiet! Let the elves do their work!"
There's a pop-pop-popping sound from the kitchen, and everyone shuts up, everyone in the whole restaurant, even the screaming cook. They know that sound, from the televideos. The elves are using the turner. Mary reaches out helplessly, and the werewolf must not be mad at her anymore because he holds her hand in his big paw, squeezing gently.
The turner is scary. It's supposed to be stable, and it's supposed to only work on the person under its shield, and it's supposed to only turn time back by a few minutes each pop. But everyone's seen what happens in the televideos when it fails: death, destruction, people for miles around turned either to skeletons, or dust, or puddles of thick wetness. For the elves to use it means the victim is far, far gone. Mary squeezes the werewolf's paw back, holds her breath, and waits.
~~~~~
When the EMWs float the cat out on their stretcher, it is clearly breathing. It is not a skeleton, or dust, or wetness; it is an orange tom, bigger than any cat Mary's ever seen in her life, with handsome white paws and a long tail that is weakly lashing the air.
Everyone in the restaurant lets out a loud cheer, except for the white, who ducks his head and stomps his hoof, and the cook, who shrieks and lunges for the stretcher only to find himself dangling in mid-air thanks to the strong mental powers of the black.
Mary finds she is laughing. She leans over to hug the werewolf, beams cheerfully at the dragon; she even reaches out to give the zombie a high-five although on his part, it is a high-three-and-a-quarter, slightly slimy. Sometimes she wishes she could hug her first-best friend in public, but the soul-bond makes that kind of weird. Last time, they almost got arrested. They look at each other though and that's enough, especially with the ogre beating his chest happily, the fairy sprinkling white joy everywhere, and even the vampire looking pleased.
The elves, the cat and the medical equipment vanish just outside the door, teleporting back to the hospital. The black and white are being joined by other officers, some of whom drag the shrieking cook out of the room.
"I know you're all a little scared and a lot relieved!" the first of the white booms. "We appreciate your time and patience! Please stand and line up against this wall and wait for an officer to take your information, as you may be called on as witnesses! Thank you!"
Mary lets her chattering, excited friends go first. She hesitates for a long moment, then finds the clown near the end of the line, his head down. He has taken his red nose off, and even his rainbow wig looks sad.
Mary looks at the nymph, who nods and smiles, then turns to the rest of their friends and urges them forward, sweetly saying, "C'mon, guys, haven't any of you ever heard of a straight line before? We can do this! Come on!"
She walks slowly toward the clown, then takes her place behind him in line. He has very broad shoulders and he smells good, like makeup and warm silk and pancakes. She takes a very deep breath and says, "Hey."
The clown jumps, then turns around and looks down at Mary. "Uh, hey," he says. Even when he is not being their waiter, his voice is very smooth and mild. Mary could listen to him say 'You want coleslaw?' all night.
"I'm sorry about," she says, and gestures around the restaurant. "You're probably not going to get good tips tonight, huh?"
The clown looks around at all the emptied tables like he hadn't even noticed, then shrugs. "Well, at least the cat's okay," he says. "I never thought Ulf was the type, you know?"
"Yeah," Mary says. The line is moving. There's a white headed their way. "Um, so, listen," she says, working up her courage. "Um, I was wondering, do you maybe want us to wait for you? We can go, like, get coffee or something. When we're all done here. There's room for one more in the ICV."
The clown blinks, and then is looking at Mary like he hadn't even noticed her before. She can feel herself blushing and wishes she had a thick layer of paint like his to keep him from seeing.
But then he smiles, and touches her cheek with his gloved hand, and Mary is suddenly, fiercely glad she is herself, pale skin and all. "You know," he says, "that'd be great. Thank you."
"You're welcome," Mary says, and even though the clown drops his hand then, she can feel the warm satin on her cheek.
She smiles to herself for the rest of the night.