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| − | '''by [[User:Morbus Iff|Morbus Iff]]'''. ''The Guardian of Aloons is a weekly [[webserial]] set in the world of [[ghyll:|Ghyll]].'' [[Category:Fiction]] [[Category:Ghyll]] [[Category:Webserial]] [[Category:SilentWriters]]
| + | A [[ghyll:|Ghyll]] webserial. |
| | + | |
| | {{Fiction | | {{Fiction |
| | | author = [[User:Morbus Iff|Morbus Iff]] | | | author = [[User:Morbus Iff|Morbus Iff]] |
| − | | genre = Humor / Fantasy | + | | genre = Fantasy, Humor, Mystery |
| | | rating = PG-13 | | | rating = PG-13 |
| | | frequency = Weekly | | | frequency = Weekly |
| − | | image = | + | | image = The Penny Dreadful.png |
| − | | image_size = | + | | image_link = http://tpdonline.wordpress.com/ |
| − | | caption = | + | | image_size = 160 |
| | }} | | }} |
| | | | |
| − | == Part 1 ==
| + | * 2010-04-16: [[The Guardian of Aloons/1]] |
| − | | + | * 2010-04-23: [[The Guardian of Aloons/2]] |
| − | When I came to, I was kissing the gravel. She was gone. I tried to raise myself up, and that’s when I noticed a few of the rarer things in life: getting clocked by a six-inch heel feels much like a jab from a two-bit thug, and this was the third time my pants were missing. You’d think that I’d be getting used it by now. The beatings, not the pants.
| + | * 2010-04-30: [[The Guardian of Aloons/3]] |
| − | | + | * To be continued? |
| − | It was about two weeks ago, that first beating. I had walked into her yard like each blade of grass was mine to tread upon, a flattener of crops whose message was more theatrics than mystery. Her back was to me as she planted [[ghyll:Zhur Fruit|zhur fruits]], sitting on her knees and leaning forward like a polka-dotted bloomer ornament. I waved her letter like a white flag, and asked when I could come home.
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| − | A gardening trowel, when properly wielded, scales near the end of blunt sharpness: a fist has none, a heel narrows to a coin-sized square, but a trowel, well, whether it’s a slice or a jab, there’s going to be a cut, and there’s going to be blood. Mine didn’t taste so good, but seeing her eyes burn the way they did, her blouse ruffling in the wind, it was worth it. I still loved Olivia Birns and I was sure I could sweet-talk her back. After she invited me in to atone for the trowel, it’d be downhill and fireworks, y’know?
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| − | That time, however, she must have forgotten to clean the house, because she tried to give my right cheek twin artistry. I caught her thrust with my left and pulled her in. I could see the midday sweat on her neck, escaping the loose folds of the kerchief she wore. There’s something special about a lady working up an effort, doubly so when it’s her own initiative.
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| − | “What’s that, Liv?” I nodded down to the letter that had fallen when she threw herself at me.
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| − | “It’s over, Henry.” she said, and pulled away. “We’re done.”
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| − | | |
| − | “You know you won’t follow through.”
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| − | | |
| − | “You’ll get the paperwork tomorrow.”
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| − | | |
| − | “I’ll wait you out. I’ve more patience.”
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| − | | |
| − | “You’re right, you know that, Henry?” She turned back to me, a [[ghyll:Zhur Fruit|zhur plant]] in her gloved hand, new roots poking through sod and soil. “I have lost all patience! With you, your job”, I could see the air quotes, “your lifestyle. You’ve yet to create a single puzzle! To broach a single conundrum!”
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| − | | |
| − | “The margi...”
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| − | | |
| − | “Oh, I know all about the margins, Henry.” She had a talent for dripping the sort of acid one would gladly swim through. “Venn ain’t got nothing on you, Henry! But it’s not enough. Children need these challenges, Henry. I need a man who can provide them.” She turned away, giving me a good look at her long neck. “Go away, Henry”.
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| − | | |
| − | I turned to go. I’d wait her out, like I said. I’d give her a question. I’d go home right now, I thought, and give a sprout a question that’d take months, no, years!, to answer. That’d make her proud. I turned to tell her as much, when I felt a wind ruffling the hair on my legs, which I knew somewhere deep inside shouldn’t have been possible. She noticed it first.
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| − | | |
| − | “Henry! [[ghyll:Quezlar 6|Quezlar's ghost]], put some pants on and get the hell outta here!” She had raised the trowel again, and I rushed back to my wagon. Not because I was afraid, mind you, but because blood was reaching my shirt and I couldn’t really afford the laundering. As the creak of the wheels cracked the occasional stick in the mud, I remember staring down at my undergarments and thinking it the funniest thing. Me, a [[ghyll:Hive-Lord|Hive-Lord]], wandering around town unclothed. I couldn’t help but laugh but I also wondered if it would improve my reputation: I could pass it off as research for a really tough question. That’d gain me respect.
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| − | | |
| − | I never did find out where my pants went that day, but I sent Liv’s mailing to the same null and void. [[ghyll:Badges|Badge extrication]] was a procedure I knew she couldn't afford, and no one wanted a marked philly. I wasn’t quite sure she’d be willing to lose the austere of being branded a Hive-Lord’s wife either.
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| − | | |
| − | A week later, I was mulling over the commonalities of [[ghyll:Fefferberry|fefferberries]] and interrobangs when a knock shook me awake. It was one of the children, Lenvard something-or-other, wondering if I had come up with his challenge yet. I beckoned him in, being certain to look lost in thought, the weight of the [[ghyll:Orthogonality|orthogonality]] spread out unevenly upon my shoulders. I pointed to a chair, returned to my desk, and went back to staring at fefferberries.
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| − | | |
| − | I’d say it was about thirty minutes or so before I remembered he was there. By then, the berries had started to drip a little, and the enthusiasm of the ‘bang was on the wane. “Yes,” I murmured, as if some great insight had come to me. I nodded to myself. Menward was impressed. Lenvard. Edward? Something or other.
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| − | | |
| − | “Nothing today, boy.” I said.
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| − | | |
| − | “Sir, I’m nearing five years.” He wouldn’t stare me in the face, and I took his statement of fact as just that. I’m the one who implies the questions, not him.
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| − | | |
| − | “I said, nothing today!” and, for theatric effect, for it pays to keep the children in line, I swept the fefferberry jar to the floor. It smashed, the dying light from the glass giving a barely poetic show to the juice that sprayed. The boy scurried out the front, though I knew he'd be back tomorrow. I chuckled and rubbed my mandibles.
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| − | | |
| − | And sisters be damned if I didn’t feel something dripping down my legs.
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| − | | |
| − | That was the second time my pants went missing, and I wiped up a track of fefferberry juice and savored the sweetness of it. I wasn’t too worried about the disappearance - not only was I in my office where few could see me (but fi!, the missed opportunity to proclaim a breakthrough in my research), but I happened to have another set in the wagon. Liv had dropped a suitcase off the other day, hiding her kindness and love under excuses of cleaning house and asking whether I had signed the papers.
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| − | | |
| − | As I ruffled through the back of my wagon, I heard the whistling. So did Mrs. Gurptshonis, whom I caught from the corner of my eye, taking her gaze from me to look at the sky. I shared her fixation: it was a bi... no, a flock of birds. On fire. With mail bags. This would be considered relatively abnormal, but I hadn’t a chance to state as such before they slammed into the roo... no, make that through the roof, of my office. Things started bursting into flames.
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| − | | |
| − | “My margins!” The thought tore a hole through my carapace and became sound. Pants or no pants, I ran in the side door, only to be pushed back by a wave of heat. My papers, my scrawled side notes, all were aflame. So too were the avians, a dozen or more, broken wings, charred talons. In the air was the flit-flit of undelivered mail dancing on jetstreams of heat.
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| − | | |
| − | Somewhere in the roar of flames and exasperation, I felt a jabbing sensation. It was Gurptshonis, poking at me with that damned hook of hers. Her lips mouthed something about “getting out of there” and “pants”, then she yanked hard: she hadn't been just poking, but scrabbling for a hold. As I was pulled back, I clutched at anything to keep me there, anything to comprehend what was going on. All I got was two or three scraps of burning notes and a charred bird's leg.
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| − | | |
| − | {{Talk about it}}
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| − | | |
| − | ==Part 2==
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| − | ''Planned for next week's [[silentwriters]]. Watch for it!''
| + | [[Category:Fiction]] |
