By noon, the campus of Tenjou Academy was back to something like
normal.  Most of the visitors who had come for Corwin and Utena's
wedding had gone back whence they came sometime in the morning, the crew
of students detailed for cleanup and restoration of the school's normal
settings had long since completed their work, and the only major
remaining trace of the festivities was the giant hot tub in the middle
of the Quad.  This, its creator having left the world without being
asked to return the area to its original state, looked like being a
permanent feature after all.
        Nall Silverclaw roamed the deserted corridors of East Hall,
checking to see if there was anyone from the Midgard Duelist contingent
still at large.  Most, he knew, had gone back with the Rune Knights as
guides, earlier in the morning, while he'd still been in bed.  There was
always the possibility that a few others had opted to go back to sleep
rather than heed the early wakeup call, knowing that he was still around
to take them back later on.
        And, indeed, there were.  Nall found his two stragglers in the
common room, watching the last of the Avalon 17 Saturday-morning
cartoons on the giant holoset.  They were a couple of the new generation
from Jeraddo, the tall Scottish girl and her English boyfriend, who
between them had kicked a lot of Earthforce ass and earned a lot of
Duelist cred on Tau Ceti.  Having seen the way they handled that
crazyfest without batting an eye, Nall figured they'd be well up for his
little errand, and anyone who would bother figuring out how to work
Corwin's interdimensional pirate cable TV receiver just to watch My
Little Destroid had to be decent company.
        "Hey, guys," he said from the doorway.
        "Oh, hey, Nall," said Rory Williams from the depths of the
center couch.
        "Are you guys it?" Nall wondered.
        "Yeah, everybody else headed back this morning," Amy Pond
confirmed from even deeper in the couch.
        Nall moseyed into the room and made himself at home in one of
the armchairs to watch the rest of the show.  At noon, the cartoons gave
way to the 12 o'clock news.  Amy surfed the channels for a while, found
nothing of interest, and gave up in disgust, switching the set off.
        "Well, whadya say, guy?" she asked, thumping Rory lightly on the
leg.  "S'pose we ought to get a move on ourselves."
        "You guys have any special plans for the week?" asked Nall.
        "Not really," said Rory.  "Why?"
        "Well," Nall said, "I've got this errand to run for my boy
Corwin.  Got to deliver a mysterious package to a far-off foreign land."
He grinned.  "I thought maybe you guys might want a piece of that
action."
        Amy and Rory looked at each other speculatively, then got to
their feet.
        "Sounds better than going back to Jeraddo and taking an eight-
day nap," Amy quipped.
        "Great!" said Nall, rising.  "Be good to have the company.
It'll be a long train ride, but the view's nice."
        Rory put up a hand in the hang-on-a-second gesture.  "We're
going someplace you have to go by -train?-  From here?"
        "Well, no, not from -here,-" Nall admitted.  "We'll take the
Rose Gate from here to Saikyo on Zipang, and from -there- we take the
train - "
        Amy's green eyes went wide.  "To Diqiu!" she blurted.
        Nall raised an eyebrow at her.  "... You guys know about Diqiu?"
        "Uh... yeah," said Amy hesitantly.  "We went there.  Once."
        "Long time ago," Rory put in.
        Amy nodded.  "Yeah.  -Long- time."
        Nall thought that over for a second - Amy and Rory were
sophomores in high school, what constituted a long time for them? - then
said, "Huh.  Interesting.  You speak Tongyu?"
        "He does," said Amy, tilting her head at Rory.
        "Sort of," Rory qualified.
        "I just speak Standard more slowly," Amy added.
        "And louder," supplied Rory, earning himself an elbow in the
ribs.
        "Huh," Nall repeated.  "Well, OK.  Actually you should be good
to go with Standard there these days.  Go grab your gear and meet me at
Utena and Anthy's room.  I've got to collect the mysterious package."
As they were leaving the common room, he remarked, "I hope I still have
admin access to the elevator.  I do -not- wanna lug that thing up all
those stairs."

> "Huh," Nall repeated. "Well, OK. Actually you should be good
>to go with Standard there these days. Go grab your gear and meet me
>at
>Utena and Anthy's room. I've got to collect the mysterious package."
>As they were leaving the common room, he remarked, "I hope I still
>have
>admin access to the elevator. I do -not- wanna lug that thing up all
>those stairs."

It seems dragons are without exception in Western literature depicted as lazy, unambitious creatures, sleeping for centuries, avoiding physical exertion, and only rousing themselves to great and terrible purpose when some pesky adventurer comes along and sneaks off with the +5 Holy Mace "Peace Thru Repeated Thwappings" from their treasure hoard.

We need a new type of dragon. One that without prodding rights wrongs, lifts great burdens over tall buildings, and rewires your house up to code without being asked.

Brian

You gotta remember here, Nall's in his human form - which is probably only slightly stronger, physically speaking, than stock human. And the mysterious package is an iron-bound chest full of hot coals and a dragon egg, unless I miss my guess, so you can figure it's got some weight to it in addition to being rather difficult to handle. Would -you- wanna haul that up infinity-plus-one stairs?

Besides, he'd have to destroy the house to rewire it, and they -just- got the wallpaper right...

I was just rereading Ash Knight and that chest is lugged in by two guys in the scene it's revealed. If Nall's going to carry it all that way I honestly hope he brought a hand truck.

--------

this world created by the
hands of the gods
everything is false
everything is a LIE
the final days have come
now
let everything be destroyed

--mu

>I was just rereading Ash Knight and that chest is lugged in by
>two guys in the scene it's revealed. If Nall's going to carry it all
>that way I honestly hope he brought a hand truck.

Or a couple of sturdy teenagers. I'm just sayin'. :)

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>It seems dragons are without exception in Western literature depicted
>as lazy, unambitious creatures

That's not true at all! Maevis Copperwing (one of King Bahamut's chamberlains, seen in Ash Knight) is very chipper and industrious. And lest we forget, Nall has been seen preparing to help Umi's dad out with some home improvement. It's just that it's a very heavy box. And a lot of stairs.

--G.
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>It seems dragons are without exception in Western literature depicted
>as lazy, unambitious creatures, sleeping for centuries, avoiding
>physical exertion, and only rousing themselves to great and terrible
>purpose when some pesky adventurer comes along and sneaks off with the
>+5 Holy Mace "Peace Thru Repeated Thwappings" from their treasure
>hoard.

That ain't true, at least in modern times.

The most famous dragon in Western literature is probably either Smaug or St. George's dragon. The St. George legends are... weird and atypical, so let's talk Smaug.

Smaug was neither lazy nor unambitious; he singlehandedly took on a powerful dwarven kingdom that was allied with a powerful human kingdom, in a universe where both dwarves and humans often slew dragons, sometimes single-handedly. And he did it only to obtain glory and wealth for himself.

It's true that after the deed was done, he took it easy for a century or so. But, you know, he'd won.

Tolkien's other big famous dragons, Glaurung and Ancalagon, can't really be said to have been all that lazy and unambitious either.

So that's at least a few exceptions, and I'd argue that all the people who wrote about dragons following Tolkien used the same model. Dragons don't obtain treasure hoards by being passive, indolent creatures; they gain them by murdering lots of people with fire/acid/what-have-you and taking their shit.

-Merc
Keep Rat

It's easy to be called lazy when your lifespan can be meassured in centuries.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-07-13 AT 01:13 PM (EDT)
 
A relevant t-shirt I have.

> Rory put up a hand in the hang-on-a-second gesture.

Let's not forget the traditional accompanying pre-dropping-of-the-other-shoe expression that Rory does so well.

I'm still somewhat becroggled by the universal retcon that comes with Amy and Rory's UF adventures. I wonder if Nall "remembers" meeting them before the beginning of February...?

--
Unable to save the day: File is read-only.

LAST EDITED ON Aug-05-13 AT 10:37 PM (EDT)
 
>> Rory put up a hand in the hang-on-a-second gesture.
>
>Let's not forget the traditional accompanying
>pre-dropping-of-the-other-shoe expression that Rory does so well.

"Why'd ye make the sign of the cross, ye numpty?"

"Oh, oh, I'm being reviewed now am I?"

- this was exactly where I decided to believe Rory wasn't going to be a reiteration of the Mickey Smith "mundane boyfriend is mundane" riff after all. :)

>I'm still somewhat becroggled by the universal retcon that comes with
>Amy and Rory's UF adventures. I wonder if Nall "remembers" meeting
>them before the beginning of February...?

Sure. Heck, he did meet them before the beginning of February. Mind you, Nall doesn't know them really well, for the same reason Anthy doesn't (noted in S5M4). Heck, he didn't even attend DSM before they got there. Before Second Tau Ceti, he'd only seen them a couple of times, at DSM Duelist Alumni Days he'd plus-oned at. But those meetings did actually happen! ... for some values of did, actually, and happen. It's... it's all very Bohrian. Quantum-physicsy stuff. Niels Bohr (1885-1962, world's most quotable physicist) once said that anyone who wasn't offended by quantum mechanics upon first hearing about it had obviously not understood the explanation. :)

--G.
"Young man, we are all agreed that your idea is crazy. What divides us is whether it is crazy enough to be correct."
-><-
Benjamin D. Hutchins, Co-Founder, Editor-in-Chief, & Forum Mod
Eyrie Productions, Unlimited http://www.eyrie-productions.com/
zgryphon at that email service Google has
Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.

>I'm still somewhat becroggled by the universal retcon that comes with
>Amy and Rory's UF adventures.

Amy and Rory's casual violations of causality and reality have me pretty excited, actually. The old Core stories proved that this universe is very... malleable... when it comes to such things, and that provides just all kinds of awesome potential for weird time shit and dividing and converging timelines and all that good stuff.

Of course, I got all excited over the same thing involving Power Girl about ten years ago, and DC managed to fuck that up. But Ben, thank god, is not Geoff Johns.

-Merc
Keep Rat