Discworld: Comeback Kid ch.6

Away with the Fairies

Imp paused, taking the card out of his pocket to see if it matched the street name. Of course it does, he thought to himself. He was getting the odd feeling that his feet were withholding information from his brain – they carried him here automatically, even though he had no idea where he was going. He didn’t even particularly want to go to the address on the card, but it seemed that he had little choice in the matter.

Well, now that I’m here, he thought to himself, I might as well find the house number. He looked at the card again as he strolled along the street: You’re looking for house number 7, he told himself. It was clearly one of the more well-to-do areas; the footpaths (that looked as if no one had tried to steal them as they did in the more… rough parts of town) were lined with neatly-trimmed poplars, and even the seamstresses on the street-corner were better dressed. No.4, no.5, no.6, vacant lot, no.8, no.9, he counted as he went along – hang on.

He retraced his footsteps, and stopped to face into the empty lot. There was the faint, eerie sound of singing. Well, at least he thought it was singing –he was almost sure that it at one point been a song, but now it bore about as much resemblance to a tune as a shaved silverback gorilla did to a parakeet.

“It’s oh so quiet!
It’s oh so still!
You’re all alone!
And so peaceful until-”

As he drew closer, he could see a thin figure with long, golden hair standing rigidly in the centre of the lot, its face turned away from him. It appeared to be staring skyward, into the dark, blank nothingness. Imp suddenly felt a chill akin to thousands of ants scurrying up and down his spine with blocks of ice tied to their feet.
“Um,” he called out, in his fear forgetting to use his new city accent “Hellllo?”

The figure turned slowly, giving Imp a better look at it. She was a slim girl, dressed in an entirely black outfit that seemed to have been made for someone about her size, but with a Y chromosome (as a result, Imp couldn’t help but notice, the waistcoat didn’t button up all the way). Her eyes looked like bright blue buttons staring out of the night. She wore a smile that people who liked to think they were quite clever would say was as vacant as the lot she was standing in.

“Hello!” she smiled brightly, then wrinkled her brow in confusion “I – I think there was meant to be a house here…” she trailed off, peering down at a small rectangular card in her hand. She shrugged, brightening, and cheerfully skipped over to Imp.
“You have a card like mine! Isn’t that funny!!” she chirped. Imp couldn’t help noticing just how emphatically everything was said – he had never met anyone so animated before.
“Yes, it is quite funny,” Imp pondered, “Did a woman in a red dress ask you to come here?”
The girl seemed to think very hard about this: then she began staring at her own waistcoat. Her face lit up as if she had just had an epiphany “I’m wearing trousers!”
“Wellll,” Imp replied, baffled, “Yes, I noticed that…”
“I’m not really a boy, you know!” she glanced around conspiratorially before loudly whispering “But you see – I’m playing a game!”
“A game?”
“Yes!” she nodded “It’s a game where I get to be an Assassin!!!” she said Assassin in a manner similar to a Montessori teacher telling a story about big scary lions “Isn’t that exciting??”
“An assassin?” Imp gulped, not liking where this seemed to be going.
“Not a real one!” the girl smiled dimly “I don’t get to – I don’t have to kill anyone!”
“Oh,” he sighed with relief “That’s good, then.”
“I guess,” she gave a half-shrug “You see, it was earlier this afternoon, and this rather funny man came up to me and gave me this card! He said her majesty was a big fan of mine, ah-hah-hah – he laughed, just like that- and she should like to meet me tonight at this address because there was going to be a big surprise ah-hah-hah! And then he was going to leave, but stopped and said that, you know, I looked about the right size, and I asked him what he meant, and then he asked me if I wanted to play a game!” she paused for breath.
“And I said I should think so because I enjoy games, because games are jolly good fun, and then I asked what kind of game it was and he said that it was the kind of game where I gave him my dress ah-hah-hah!!!” she blushed embarrassedly.
“And then I said that he was being terribly improper and I would call the Watch! But then he said No, I didn’t understand - we would do a swap and he would give me special clothes so I could play the special game where I got to be an Assassin! Oh, it’s all been terribly exciting!!!”
“Wow,” Imp didn’t know what else to say.
“Mmm,” the girl said, clearly relieved to have that all off her chest. Sitting down on the side of the footpath, she turned her full attention to Imp for the first time “I like you – you’re a terrific listener even if you do smell like fried fish!! My name’s Christine!! What’s your name?”
“Imp Y Celyn,” Imp said, sitting beside her.
“Ooh!” the girl clapped her hands together “That means ‘bud of the holly’ in Llamedosian, doesn’t it?!” He stared at the girl in bewildered wonderment – these sudden flashes of intelligence came like bolts out of the blue, although Imp got the strange feeling that they were perhaps leaking out rather than coming from nowhere.

You see, if people who liked to think they were clever had looked closer, they would have noticed that Christine didn’t have a vacant smile; but the smile of someone who spent a great deal of time trying to look vacant – the lights were on, someone was home, but they were pretending not to be (Incidentally, the person who was there was as mad as a milliner who has been around the mercury for a little too long, but I digress). Imp couldn’t understand why someone would do that, but then again, he didn’t have much experience with girls.

“That’s right,” he smiled “Not many people know that,”
“Can I ask you a question?!” Christine didn’t wait for an answer “Did her majesty invite you here too??”
“Her majesty?”
“The Queen of the Elves!!!” Christine chirped “She’s super nice! She came up to me after a show last week and said that I was very pretty!! She said that she would arrange a meeting with me to help me with my music, so when that funny chap gave me the card I knew it must be from her!!!”
“The Queen of the Elves…” like a glass being filled with orange juice, this conversation was filling Imp with dread. Sticky, orange dread.
“You know, my father once told me that a dear little pixie would come to help make my dreams come true…”
“A pictsie?!” Images of tiny, furious, azure-skinned men danced in his head “Those angry little blue fellas?”
“Oh, heavens no! Not a gnome – a pixie! You know; a cute little fairy!!” still staring into nothingness, she put a hand on Imp’s knee, causing him to feel very uncomfortable “An elf!!” she suddenly turned her head to him “Imp!!!”
“Christine…” he said, trying to inch away.

“Are you an elf???”

--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--*--
----

Chapter 6 is up, and I put the illustration as the main piece for some reason that seemed to make sense at the time.

It depicts, naturally enough, Imp and Christine (guess which is which).
This is my first time posting drawings of either of them, so I hope I did them justice!
Christine (who is very fun to write, by the way!!!) is wearing her "assassin" clothes, a nod to the last chapter, and Imp is still in his work clothes, because I find it amusing.
I gave him green/hazel eyes - I couldn't find a description to the contrary in the book, and I didn't want to give him blue, since I gave Christine blue eyes.