Narrator:
She looks dolefully after Brennan and Beauty, then shrugs her shoulders, and sinks to the ground, where she sits cross-legged without speaking.
Narrator:
Assuming that Blackbird *does* get back to Luther.....
Finally, Luther wakes up. Every bone, and joint in his body aches (compounded by the fact that they are closer together :).
Luther: [still a bit groggy]
Blackbird? Oh, 'bird, we've got to stop meeting like this.
Ed.K:
Probably the only time in his life he'll be able to say that. :)
Narrator:
Luther looks around, worried. He rubs his eyes. Looks around again. Problem is, Brennan and Beauty are out of sight by now.
Luther: [quietly]
Tell me something, and promise not to laugh.
Blackbird: [nods]
Luther:
Did you just see the biggest damned alley cat in the Realm come through here or am I cracking up?
Maia: [eavesdropping, and speaking to herself]
Not an alley cat. Housecat. Feral.
Blackbird: [fighting the temptation]
Yes. I saw her. She was real.
Luther: [relieved]
Good.
Narrator:
In a flash of insight, Luther catches on to what HE looked like all this time -- the world's biggest cat toy. In an instant, he is standing up (albeit a bit wobbly), brushing himself off (a bit carefully), and looking around like "I planned that. Yeah, just having a little fun with the kitten" (not the least bit successfully).
Luther looks down at the scorched ground beside where he was lying. He decides, easily, not to ask.
Luther:
Have you had breakfast yet? Might I convince you to join me?
[pause]
The gods *must* be trying to tell us to get to spend some time together. We just keep bumping into each other.
[smiles]
[unspoken]
Yeah, and I wouldn't mind if you'd be just a little more subtle about it next time!
Blackbird:
I'd be honored to join you. I hope you don't mind -- they're all out of ham.
[to Maia, sounding friendly]
Would you like to join us? I'd be fascinated to hear where you found such a kitten.
[Tone of voice and body language are "Let's try this again. Maybe we don't have to hate each other."]
Narrator:
Maia, still sitting morosely on the ground, looks up.
Maia:
I've already eaten, but will take a cup of tea with you. It's not a long story, nor very exciting. Interesting, though.
Narrator:
She gets up and joins Luther and Blackbird as they head to the tables. As they walk and fill their plates, she fills them in on the way she and Brennan have spent their time since Jhereg's party. Speaking of the party reminds Blackbird of Maia's skill as a musician and she wonders why Maia isn't at least an apprentice Bard. However, Maia's storytelling soon answers that question. She barely covers the facts, never embellishes, and leaves most of the story to the imagination. Worst is her tendency to wander off on botanical and biological details, explaining the subspecies, species, genus, order, family, class, phylum, and kingdom of every plant or animal she mentions.
Maia: [matter-of-factly]
I didn't find Beauty, she found us. We were walking down a game trail, in grasses that were way over our heads, even though they were just regular field grasses.
Narrator:
She heads off into classification. The first few times she does it, Blackbird is actually interested in some of the botanical tangents. She hardly gets to "order" the first time through before Luther goes glassy eyed.
Luther: [unspoken]
Smile. Nod. Wait for the story to start again.
Narrator:
Luther waits politely for her to continue the tale.
Blackbird: [interjecting when Maia is talking about a particular flower she came across]
Really? There's anemone out there? That's hard to find! I've been keeping my out for some! It can be used to cure blindness, you know. And It has other uses I'm less clear on. My friend, Portnoy will very pleased.
[looks at Luther, who is looking profoundly bored].
Oh, sorry. Go on.
[to Maia]
You'll have to show me where it is later.
Narrator:
By the third traversal of the classification tree, Luther's smile is looking a bit thin. Astute observers will notice he's white-knuckling his fork.
Luther: [unspoken]
I can do this. I know I can do this. Hesketh wouldn't wrestle her to the ground and shake the story out of her. Richard wouldn't reach around and slap her on the back until she coughed it up. I can do this. I know I can do this.
Narrator:
By the sixth time Maia has heads into the Land of Boredom, Luther puts his fork down and just looks at Maia.
Luther: [unspoken]
AAAAAAAAAAUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!
Come on, Anchor, give this woman a Heimlich! Force that story out! Where's a doctor? Maybe we can remove this tale surgically.
Narrator:
That thought, and the associated imagery, calms him a bit. Rather than actually attempting it, he squirms and gives Blackbird a long-suffering Look.
Blackbird: [noting Luther's look. speaking to Maia]
Your knowledge is astounding! I'm still so new at this. I would just be overcome with gratitude if you could take a little time to show me just the tip of what you know about plants and animals. But it would probably be best to do it out in the woods, where there aren't all these distractions. When you keep sprinkling it in with your story, I can't follow it all -- the storyteller is warring with the naturalist and neither of them does her best. It would help me if you stuck to what happened first, then you could go over it again with me and tell me all the details.
Narrator:
After much prodding, and several refills of Maia's glass of tea, they have put together the following story:
Maia and Brennan decided to take a look at the Castle. They took the four dogs, left the horses, and went to explore. The nearer they got to the Castle, the larger all lifeforms were - there was nothing organically wrong with anything - it was just BIG. A large owl took Brennan's dog Zeke and, assumedly, ate him. While they were following a game trail, they literally ran into Beauty. She agreed to come with Maia, and Maia plans to breed her to see if the gigantism breeds true.
On this last statement, Blackbird chokes, just as Brennan had done before when Maia mentioned her plans. Luther nearly looses his breakfast right then and there. The idea of being the plaything of a whole breed of cats is just a little more than he can stand. The image of Beauty and a normal-sized tomcat is, uh, frightening. (Maia sees nothing unusual about it, but then she knows about artificial insemination.) She continues the story blandly.
Brennan's dogs and the horses aren't fond of Beauty, but the animals have agreed on a truce. We came to join you for breakfast because Brennan thought everyone should see Beauty. Then the Myame-forsaken ****
[something in a language that sounds a bit like old-Elven]
leaves, takes the cat with him, and leaves me with a crowd of Others!
She seems to be talking to herself by the end of her story.
Blackbird: [smiles]
The thought of a new breed of gigantic cats is fascinating -- almost worth trying just to see if it can be done, but there are problems. If that thing grows at the rate a normal cat does, it is going to be as big as a house before long. It will need to eat two or three whole cows a day just to keep its belly filled. I'm not sure the world is ready for that. Also, it is kittenish now, and you can work with it, but cats are awfully independent. If there were many of them, accidents would be likely. Luther here is a case in point. A carnivore the size of a house can't help but look on humans as prey. That may not overly concern you, but few of us Others are likely to agree.
Maia:
I guess I wasn't clear about Beauty.
Luther: [pales, starts to shake, unspoken]
Oh, god, please, please, please don't let her "clarify". Please?
Maia: [looks at him curiously, then shakes her head]
She's a baby in the way she acts, but she's a full grown cat. An adolescent, if you will. She won't really get any bigger, maybe fatter if she stays with people all the time.
Narrator:
Luther relaxes a bit, then registers what she just said. Luther blanches. Maia continues.
Maia:
People feed cats too much, and when they are pets, animals often don't get enough exercise.
Narrator:
Luther takes a deep breath, and bites his tongue *HARD*.
Luther: [under his breath]
.....hope it stays that way.
Blackbird:
But back to present concerns. You never said, did you ever make it all the way to the castle? If so, what was it like? I can see how a ring of gigantic critters around it could account for the disappearances of those who have ventured there before.
Luther: [not sounding amused]
Yeah, they all wondered into a patch of catnip and WHAM!
Maia: [vaguely - she's thinking about how people interact with pets]
No, we turned back after we found Beauty. I wanted to do some more experiments with her and with the plants and insects I collected.
[returning to the conversation]
Yes, I imagine it could account for missing people.
Luther:
Oh. good. Having that mystery solved makes me feel *much* better.
Blackbird:
Jhereg will want to hear this.
[speculative look at Maia. quietly enough so that people farther than Luther and Maia cannot hear]
It surprises me that you did not know the nature of that area.
Maia: [simply]
I've never been there before.
Blackbird:
All the old legends say it was the people of the forest -- I take that to mean Druids -- who put the curse on the castle. Do your people keep secrets from each other, too?
Maia: [shortly]
There are other people in the forest besides the Tuath. Legends are True but they may not be true, at least that's what Brennan keeps trying to argue. He always wants to know what is true and doesn't seem to understand what Truth is.
Luther: [unspoken]
No. No, please. We're not going to talk about Truth. No. Weeds, critters, and woods were bad enough. Not philosophy.
Somebody stop her!
Narrator:
Sorry, Luther.... "truth" is a hot topic among Anchors.
Blackbird:
Truth is not mutable. Either the story is correct in its details or it is incorrect. If it is correct then it is true. If not, it is false. The same standards of truth apply to the mundane and the sublime. Truth [she pronounces the capital T] has to stick to the facts just like truth does.
Luther: [unspoken]
Aaagh! Not you too?
Maia: [looks in her cup]
I need some more tea. But first I have to empty the tea I've already drunk or I'll start to float.