mayfield_rpg | (no subject)

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[phone]
Oh, marvelous, it's August again. My favorite time of the year.

Students, I hope you've been working on your summer assignments. Adult men, I hope you're prepared to be perfect gentlemen when we all find ourselves floundering in that ghastly hotel. Anything else to expect this month? No? On to business, then.

I'm sure we're all very distracted by talking pony parties and pool parties and platter parties and inpourings of perpetually perplexed new populations, but has anyone made any effort whatsoever to sort out that business from last month or are we still playing the game where we ignore all interesting information in favor of smashing random objects we find in the dairy? I don't mind that game; of course, quite invigorating, good for the vasculature, but it might be worth trying a different approach at some point in time. I venture to suggest today, if no one's too busy holding competitions to see who looks the most absurd absent their clothing.

[action, 726 Anderson Lane]
[Susan can be found hanging up black cloaks and other assorted clothing in uniform crepuscular shades around the house where garish green was all there was formerly to see. A welcome change, in her opinion; she'd missed her wardrobe from home, even if everything looked exactly the same as the black cloak she had commissioned here in Mayfield.

Still, she pauses for a moment as she handles an emerald-green cloak, never worn, hanging in the hall closet since the previous Christmas. ...It goes back on the rack after a bit. And she'll only push it back behind the others an inch or two.]

[action, park]
[A rather unusual sight in the park later on that week. Somehow, Miss Susan the English teacher has been cajoled into reading a nice story for a small group of drones.]

And so, adding conspiracy and first-degree murder to their trespass and property damage charges, Hansel and Gretel pushed the old woman into the oven and ignored her anguished screams as they left the house of gingerbread, naturally taking all of her valuables with them as they went. With these illicit goods, they reunited with their criminally negligent father, but not, surprisingly, their 'wicked' stepmother, who had mysteriously vanished in the space of the two nights in which the children were gone, leaving the father sole keeper of his property and remaining funds and raising suspicion as to who it was had devised the plan to leave the children in the forest in the first place.

But it doesn't matter, because they all lived happily ever after.

The End.

[The drones seem quite pleased with her recitation, at any rate.]

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

The trick, I expect, is that falling from a building failed to kill you. Or perhaps it's that you haven't got friends, but that's rather a depressing thing to introduce into casual conversation.

[Sherlock chuckles grimly.]

I don't know yet... I was brought here mid-fall... The reason it was impressive was he pulled out a pistol and put a bullet through his mouth to convince me to jump.

[He looks at her after she make the last statement.]

This isn't casual conversation. It is simply the next chapter of your fairytale. What happens after the story ends? What happens to the man who found the children?

He got old and fat and sat about lazing about all day depending on Hansel to split the firewood until the poor boy lost a leg in a rather unfortunate accident involving a sow and a thresher. Gretel was married off to a disreputable salesman on account of bringing in more income, but he ran off after a lovelier girl, saddling her with seven children and loans to pay.

Rather typical, all in all.

[Sherlock chuckles less grimly this time.]

My ending is less dull...

Then I expect he threw himself off a cliff to save his friends after his archnemesis put a bullet through his own mouth, after which he ended up in a discussion about fairy tales with a schoolteacher from Ankh-Morpork, though in this case, the tale doesn't seem to be Hansel and Gretel so much as The Man Who Was Forced to Reenact a Fairy Tale to Rather Undesirable Results.

[He's oddly reminded of Irene Adler. Though Susan is nothing like her - in all the right ways.]

Oh, you are rather good...

[It should be pretty clear from his tone he doesn't pay compliments often.]

I rather think so myself, thanks.

[Another smile.]

And as modest as myself. Where are you from?

Modesty is merely a socially acceptable form of lying.

I'm from the Disc. Born in Sto Helit, though I live in Ankh-Morpork at the moment.

[Oh definitely a person after his own heart.]

And lying is so cumbersome - boring. The truth is much more... exciting.

[He means 'trouble making.']

The... Disc? I take it you don't mean Earth.

I don't.

We do know of Earth, I believe - the wizards have done rather a lot of research on a Roundworld. You can gather from that that the Disc is a literal disc, and yes, it's every bit as preposterous and trying as it sounds.

[At this point, Sherlock's opinion of Susan may rapidly reverse into 'this person is obviously insane'.]

[It might have, except that his not-wife is a vampire from the same world - not that he knows that yet.]

Is it preposterous and trying?

[Sherlock has this little issue where he's deleted most of his knowledge of the universe - because it doesn't apply to his work.]

It's very inefficient. A'Tuin can't possibly eat enough to sustain his girth and how do the elephants never adjust their footholds?

And those things are the fault of the planet?

[Why is he talking about this? He needs to get out of Mayfield. But something about this... he's enjoying it, not as good as cases, but it's distracting at least.]

It's the fault of the gods, but they're too busy bickering to ever take complaints.

The... gods?

[And she was seemingly so intelligent, right up to that line. Still, he'll give her a chance. He'll be shock to learn who she's related to.]

Yes, I know you've only got one here; some sort of odd conglomerate of Om and Nuggan. It's probably the most tolerable thing about this world.

Actually, I don't know that there are such things as gods - so more than one doesn't matter to me.

[Sherlock is more agnostic than atheist. After all, it is helpful to have an explanation for all those things he can't explain.]

Yes, that's the tolerable part - He seems to leave well enough alone.

Am I to understand that your gods... don't?

Well.

I would avoid saying you don't believe in them if you'd rather not be struck by lightning, for one thing.

[A wry grin appears.]

I see. And I suppose there are devils and that death is a god as well?

No, don't be absurd. Death is an anthropomorphic personification.

[Duh.]

[Sherlock coughs quietly.]

That... actually does make sense.

[What is he saying? That makes no sense at all... unless]

That woman I live with - Maladict said I should talk to Death.

[Because he's not entirely convinced he didn't die.]

There are two of them in town. Conveniently, they live together.

Why, exactly, do you need to talk with them?