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In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
“Rise and shine bitches!” The voice of Linda Paul through the ezapper was unmistakable.
“Tonight you’ll be judged on your in character performance, so better prepare your false tits and butts, corsets and wigs, because tonight’s gonna be a kiki party’s_Have_a_Kiki ! Chop chop those pork chops”Reggie was looking around for signs of Ced’ and Amar, only to realise Amar was the only one there sleeping, rolled in his choirboy robe like a big sausage. The thought had him starve for crispy chicken sausages, eggs and bacon. His stomach grumbled in a loud and imperative gargle.
“Where’s Ced’?” That binge on the wine was no fuckin’ good idea, they should have listened to that smart-ass Lady Prissy of Sadie. What a bitch that one, always being right and spot-on. Someone should tell her how annoying that was. And that head-splitting headache…
He woke up Amar who rolled aside moaning to leave him alone.
“Ceeeeeed’!” he yelled, “Cedriiiiiic!” again so loudly that the resounding sound in the chapel almost deafened him. Then remembering Cedric would sometimes only answer to his queen name “Consuelaaaaaaaa!”“No need to alert the whole neighbourhood” Sadie appeared, calm and prim as a rose. “He’s sleeping outside in the gardens. Go get him, so we can get back to business, I got a tracking device with the current location of the ferrets. We’ll split in teams of two: one to retrieve the ferrets on one side, and the other to get our night’s gowns. Let’s have a draw in ten, so we can eat and get moving.”
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
The youngest maid, Adeline, quickly placed one of the rat like toys at the bottom of the large basket of laundry she had come to collect.
The Queen has so many; she will not even notice this small one. And there are two of them. What does an old woman like the Queen want with toys? she reasoned.
It was Adeline’s small brother’s birthday tomorrow and there would be no fine party for him. She knew he would love this strange toy.The few measly coins she received each week for slaving over her mistress left nothing for luxuries. It was barely enough to survive. Although she knew she should be grateful she was not on the streets like so many others. She noticed a small tear in the seam of the toy. All the better! If she were found out she could say she was taking it to mend. She knew if she were not believed there would be a heavy price to pay.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Anna’s voice and young face trailed off as the Queen emerged from her dream. Confused for a moment, she tried to get rid off the undefinable guilt she always felt when dreaming about her late sister. You simply didn’t speak about Anna. And you couldn’t take pleasure in childish dreams.
Her guilt soon transformed into a mild irritation and she frowned as she remembered the cavagnol game of the previous night. She had lost again. The amount didn’t really matter, it was more about the principle. She always lost. But she took a momentary pleasure in thinking that Jeanne-Antoinette also lost most of her bets.
With a sigh, she looked at the big ornate windows. Someone had opened the heavy velvet curtains while she was still asleep, and it certainly didn’t help keep the air warm in that time of year. Nonetheless, she enjoyed seeing the sky when she woke up, even in winter time when it was still dark or like today, when the colours of dawn preceded the Sun. She couldn’t believe she had slept so long.
It always was a too brief moment alone. As if summonned by magic, three maids entered the room silently, two of them holding her morning dress, that they carefully deposited on a chair, and the other holding the copper basin of fresh water for the Queen’s quick morning ablution. The maid put it on top of the sauteuse chest made of rose wood and carved beautifully. One of her daughters once told her that she swore the chest in her bedroom was alive and would jump on her bed at night to play with her.
One thought leading to another, she looked at her collection of stuffed toy, unconsciously counting them and checking if they were all in order. She had two cabinets made of rose wood especially for her “friends” as she used to call them. She had begun to buy them after she almost died giving birth so long ago. At first it was just a simple gift from the King. She first thought it to be a lion, but apparently it was one of those Asian dogs. The finish was crude, it had small beady eyes and the curly tail didn’t hold very long on its bottom, but she developed a liking for it. And after a few weeks, she felt it needed a friend, so she had a lion made as a companion for her asian dog.
Her ladies-in-waiting, began to bring her new ones, little dogs (she had a liking for them), zebras, fluffy cats and dwarf goats, she even had an owl and two rabbits, one white and one cerulean blue.Her eyes almost missed the twin ferrets, offered to her by Saint Germain after a gambling party. He had said they would bring her luck. She didn’t really liked them, they were scrawny and heavy, certainly weighted with lead.
It was time to get up, she had her weekly Polish concert to organize. One of her small pleasures.
In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Joseph, the puppeteer felt a drop of sweat fall from his left eyebrow. The Queen had frowned. She was selecting the artists for the party and she didn’t seem very pleased by his performance. The string from the puppets kept breaking. He had tried all those he had brought with him and it was his last. Unfortunately he wasn’t responding very well to such a stressful situation. He hoped he’d have listened to his wife when he’d woken up this morning. “Take the frog”, she had said. And he had taken the donkey.
When the tail of the animal fell from its butt, he awakened in his bed, all wet. His wife was snoring as usual. It all had been a dream.In reply to: The Time-Dragglers’ Extravaganzas
Queen Marie, Our Good Queen, as the little gents liked to call her, had not been as excited at the prospect of the salon since a long time.
She ringed the bell for the servant girl to bring more wood, as drafts of chilly air were coming from outside. Although quite modern and shiny, the palace was not as equipped for the cold season as the old castles from her mother land. Worse, with age and soft weather, she’d grown accustomed to being warm, and couldn’t bear the cold any longer.The crackling sound of the pine wood inside the small chimney was comforting and brought her back to her thoughts. A salon, full of delightful witty people, with laughters and costumes, entertainment and champagne wine. She’d heard a special batch of barrels from la Maison Ruinart would be brought especially for the Royalties. Of course, she knew most of those were small favors for the King’s mistress, Reinette, but she didn’t care. Oddly enough, she didn’t mind the woman, who had been always very delicate and considerate towards her, almost affectionate. To be honest, she was a blessing, as the inextinguishable appetite of the King for the flesh and woman beauty was now too hard to bear.
But a party like this, ah… She reveled in the thought of seeing again monsieur de St Galle and the mysterious Comte de St Germain who always was the light of the party with his extravagant stories.
The servant had finished to dress her for the night, putting her new powdered wig on the parakeet shaped wig-holder. She’d bought the wig with its lacquered holder in the morning from a small shop in Paris, which was had quite an aura of mystery she’d heard. Naturally she’d wanted to see for herself.
The wigmaker was a gaunt and unassuming young man who notwithstanding made an impression on her. Jean-Baptiste’s wigs were simple and elegant, albeit not terribly inspired. His eyes, on the other hand, had a piercing yet soft gaze about them, and didn’t seem embarrassed to look at her, almost through her, as if she were a person, instead of the Queen surrounded by a retinue of bland people eager to please.
“Let me draw you some fingers” he’d said to her, changing abruptly the topic from his rambling about books he was inspired to write about symbols. He’d forgotten the traditional address of “Your Majesty”, yet wouldn’t be stopped —regardless of the shocked expressions on the people’s faces.
“You see, I love symbols, and when I draw people’s fingers, I can foretell events to come”.
So that was it, she’d thought, the reason why everyone was ranting about him. He’d better be more inspired at that than wigs, as her patience was wearing thin.
She’d had fortune tellers draw her cards a few times, but the fingers drawing part was curious enough to entice her into removing the glove off her eburnated fingers and letting him do his trick.
An eldritch feeling crept though her spine as he was uttering words for each of the fingers he drew on with a slight pull of his hand, just enough not to crack the joints.In the bed warmed to a delightful temperature by the bouillotte, she began sliding into deep sleep, while a mixture of words half-forgotten or half-remembered danced around in her mind like the swirls of snowflakes dying on the warm window of her chamber: “funny moment, cold diversion, dream parade, house moustache pink, blue wonder carpets, possible king turned, green mirror travel, understand whole large parade”…
In reply to: Rafaela’s Random Ramblings
Raven reminds me of the time travel part yurt, and the jelly dimension, and trifle. It’s beginning to sound like a bit of a party already. Sh! If T….if only T could shift her memory back to how to add a photo to the thread…
In reply to: Rafaela’s Random Ramblings
Well fancy that, she exclaimed almost gleefully (although not altogether surprised at the synchronicity), an empty chair! Just moments before, she had read: “What I am trying to say is that given the propensity for empty chairs it took a while to realise that a vacancy even existed.” That was in the Loosid Thread Times, but the interesting thing was that not long before that, she had been reading about the Empty Seats Party. The Empty Seats Party was a bit like musical chairs, in that there were chairs involved, and parties, but in the case of the Empty Seats Party, the chairs remained empty, and the parties and festivities were held in celebration than no political parties would be sitting on any of the chairs.
Everyone was at the parties and so nobody noticed that someone was sitting on one of the chairs.In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
Cornella wondered if the Shangpoon pig incident was a red herring, and if the real story was another successful surge team diversion of pig flooh into a surge of snilk, just in time for the opening of the new cooperative time travel party yurt factory inauguration in Adelaide.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
In Ed Steam’s old office, Lord Lemon was like in a mausoleum full of ghosts.
Mostly computer illiterate, he favoured greatly goose feather and dark Chinese ink soft purr on the paper over the annoying clickety racket of the keyboards. So he wasn’t exactly feeling at home in Ed’s old shoes.The team’s greeting party had been cordial, but he didn’t feel an overwhelming welcome either, not that he expected it. It was Ed’s team after all, he was the Rooster of the chicks of roast, whatever they liked to call themselves. He was not found of monikers and preferred to be addressed simply as Sir.
The call he received on the morning was perplexing him. They’d found an auditor dead with a Surge Corp. business card in his jacket in the streets of a Spanish city, he couldn’t really remember which, the accent on the phone was as dreadful as that of a Chinese civet, but… What was that about already? He’d thought his memory was improving, getting back on the field, but there were relapses again, he had to concentrate. Afternoon Scrabble games were not that bad after all.
He’d perfected a neat technique to remember things, placing vivid images in memory palaces constructed in his mind were he could retrieve them later, but the thing was that his memory palaces sorely lacked a cleaning lady, and images sometimes blurred together or went missing, fading away. He sighed.
His gaze on the phone brought him back to his stream of thought. This would have been stored on the Suspicious Clues Palace, in Ed’s corner. His mind raced back in the atrium of his palace where he could see the various corners, and he went back into the Alley of Dark Secrets, then turned to the Corner of Lonely Puzzle Pieces. There were actually a lot of them, but the topmost one was vivid enough. It was a red blood hearing-aid spewing out a mean Larsen and bathing in paella. For “auditor murdered in Spain” obviously. He turned down mentally the volume of the hearing-piece. This was not a very elegant image, but he was in a hurry, and crude preposterous images always were remembered better he’d found out. The lewdest even more so. Which was why his Palace of Past Precious Moments was starting to look like a brothel he was loath to admit.
He was starting to wonder if Ed’s demise was not some sort of inside job. Circumstances were not really orthodox, but nothing was in their line of duty, so he had to look for something else. He’d already started to make an inventory of the storage room, just before the break-in, but computer handicapped as he was, between paper and memory palaces, he couldn’t figure it anymore and had to start it over with some help from Cornella.
At least, he’d sent Hyphen and Dash to discreetly investigate on the break-in and now, he will probably send them to investigate on… he faced a blank. All he could remember now was he was having the meanest craving for mussels and prawns.In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
sense attention silly himself
read inside: king portal
land suddenly deep party
body friend knew magic
interesting pink side flight ship
days hot energy, sir
once ~ often ~ baltazar surge hand, already steam events mapIn reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
In the meantime in Long Poon, Cornella was irritated by her last Naza Fecebook update. It appeared THEY had noticed something about the sun that the Surge Team was not aware of yet. How could that be so ? She thought momentarily about the invitation she received last week about a costumed party in Tartessos (did she get the name right ?) and maybe too many of the operatives chose to take their vacations then. She would not be surprised if she checked on Maya, the vacation software of the company.
But the fact that was bothering her was that the sun wind was hotter that it should be. Wasn’t it a surge, for Roaster’s sake ? Her damn cell phone wasn’t working in the lab with all the security mesures and she wondered how she could have received the update from fecebook, but shit always finds its way, doesn’t it?
On her way to the lab, she was ranting about all that. And she had to go through the mist again. It was primarily intended for disinfection. An idea Ed got when he came back from a trip to France where it was customary to get sprayed on your face by the stewardesses before landing. And maybe he watched too much spy TV series, but that was another story Mari Fe told her once. How did she knew that ?
Blinded by the mist, she eventually found the door. She was holding her breath not to get too intoxicated and it was always a pain to type the code to get out. She’ll have to mention that to Ed soon. But she always forgot.
Taking a deep breath in, she didn’t notice Aqua Luna struggling with the keyboard of Cornella’s computer.
In reply to: The Surge Team’s Coils
At approximately 11:11 Pearl heard a whoosh and a whoot, and then a loud thump. “Hop in, Pearl! toot! toot! Oh, and sorry about the porch swing, didn’t see it under all that snow” Bee was grinning from ear to ear. “First time I’ve used the snowmobile ski option, it’s a riot, haven’t quite got the hang of it yet though, but boy is it ever fun!”
Pearl laughed and hugged Bee. “It’s great to see you! I love your hat!” It was an elaborate blue turban, over the top with feathers and jewels. “Looks fabulous against all that snow, very delft. You know, you could have just used the portal to avoid all that snow! Janet!” Pearl spotted Janet in the back of the red car, who was picking herself up off the floor, and adjusting her pointy hat.
“But the journey was so much fun!” Janet said. “We bumped into Skolt, the travelling reindeer pee salesman, in Minnesota.”
“I hope you saved some for me!” replied Pearl. “I’ve got the moonshine, let’s party!”
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
blue whether looking later
despite feeling head black
vincentius rather remember
wrong come clear
wearing party lavender
space times land openIn reply to: Tales of Tw’Elves
Through her tears Sue Flay caught a glimpse of the sun flashing on the shiny foil purple party hooter lying at her feet. Curiosity halted the sobs that were vibrating the wooden decking under the cafe terraces, much to the relief of several dozen Italian tourists, who were busily mopping up the coffee that had sloshed over their cups and onto their buns.
Who sent me this purple party hooter? Sue asked, blowing her nose on Fray Mentos’ white loincloth, providing the Italian tourists with an eyeful of Fray’s crown jewels which were momentarily exposed to the salty marina air.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Unable to hear, see, smell or taste in the usual manner, they sensed sound, aromas, sights and flavours with the sense threads that hung from their shoulders. Unfortunately sense threads were out of fashion this season and the aliens had plucked them all out, not wishing to appear passe and frumpy. Without their sense threads, however, they failed to notice that their appearance would no longer be appearing in any sense whatsoever to any of their friends. The senseless endeavour remained unsensed entirely, until the appearance of Eggboot, who immediately sensed (using a variety of sense apparatus) that this was all a strange kind of none sense party.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
The TIme TRavel PArty YUrt had just landed on Ferris Island, in Frobisher Bay, for a special performance of the Aurora Borealis. Dr Ferris of Frobisher House, Dolphin Square, was one of the guests, oddly enough.
In reply to: Strings of Nines
“W-a-t-e-r-f-r-i-n-g-i-n-m-e-l-o-n … yes still way too short!” Yikesy wasn’t really the party type and felt ridiculous wearing a bowler hat. While the others were engaged in general merriment precipitated by the arrival of the champagne, he surreptitiously removed the map from Minky’s backpack.
He scanned the map till he found what he was looking for.
Meanwhile ….
Arona giggled. “Look at that sign! Waakaawaakawaawaawaawaawaawaawahuhun! I want to go there!”
Mandrake raised an elegant eyebrow. “I suppose it is as good as anywhere, considering we have no idea where we are going.”
“I will run ahead and make sure it is safe.” announced Vincentius melodically. “You rest Arona, and eat these delicious sandwiches I whipped up earlier.”
“And shall I lick her feet for you while we wait?” asked the sarcastic Mandrake.
“Splendid idea. Thank you Mandrake!”
In reply to: The Eights’ Shift, Stories
Sadness, whilst not being entirely unheard of, was alot more uncommon during the days of the Gardenation. The weather was kindness itself, and everyone, naturally enough, was at liberty to grow whatever they wanted in their gardens. There were no rules and regulations in the Gardenation; it worked on a sort of expanded “pay forward” system, not that there was any pay, or forward thinking for that matter, involved. The genesis of the new collaberation of independant garden nations (although it was actually more of a renaissance, simultaneous time notwithstanding) had come about as a result of the widespread discontent of the populace with all of the political parties, in just about every nation on the planet.
During a particularly wild and raucous bridge tart birthday party (they were always having birthday parties; it was always somebody’s birthday somewhere, after all) the avant garde shift pioneers, as well as the twelve Wisp rats, came up with a plan ~ of sorts. It was more of an imaginative play really.
One of the children had been bemoaning the fact that his friend in another nation could grow whatever he wanted in his garden, and he couldn’t, in his own nation. He asked the bridge tarts if they could create a new nation, from all the independant garden nations all over the world. The bridge tarts decided that it was a fine idea and set about bridging the independant garden nations all over the world together, in energy.
Some of the bridge tarts worked on the connecting links between the garden nations all over the globe, and some of the bridge tarts were instrumental in innovative new gardening ideas. One of them experimented with pulling funny faces at the seedlings, which resulted in bizarre comical blooms. New ideas bounced from one gardenation to another, originating you might say in all gardenations at the same time, so connected were they in energy.
Given sufficient motivation, the Gardenation might have started sooner ~ notwithstanding simultaneous time. Or perhaps they already did.
In reply to: Scrying the Word Cloud
fun summer somewhat hand free random wish heard whispered seen yurick alone life hear suppose raucous
“surprise others!”
“cave heads suddenly body!”
“sudden self popped!”“ come words, following wondered told often; replied:
~ “thinking thank fingers!” ~
certainly thread moment, perhaps lovely away…..
