The Reluctant Heiress
Sir Pensius and his new ward, Chamone returned to Starry Wisdom Temple after
Pensius' audience with his liege lord, Count Tormentil. They were greeted by Toby,
and his new "friend" Mr. Bun - the butchered carcass of a rabbit Toby killed
earlier that morning and wore on his hand like a puppet. This rather upset Chamone,
who didn't understand why her lord, Count Tormentil, wanted her to stay with such
horrible people. She didn't mind Edward Grey Wolf and Jenny Nettles, who came up
to greet her next, quite so much. Nonetheless she breathed a sigh of relief when
Albert, Pensius's human retainer, arrived to escort her to her new quarters.
Edward, in the meantime, couldn't resist provoking Toby. Edward used his Bugs Bunny
voice (and a bit of glamour, of course) to make Toby think his "hand puppet"
was alive and out to attack him. ("It's wedcap season!"). Toby managed
to spatter rabbit blood all over everyone in his panic to escape his seemingly possessed
plaything. Chamone REALLY didn't understand why she had to stay there as she sought
the refuge of her room. (Secret History #1)
Pensius told the others about the quest he must undertake: to find the count's missing
heir Ariel before the Midwinter Carnival in seven days, or else. The others agreed
to join in his quest and swore the oath of questing using the magic pocket watch
given to Pensius by Tormentil. Chamone rejoined the group too late to swear the oath
but said that she would help out too. The group had dinner and decided to split up
to pursue their own sources of information. Jenny flirted with Franklin and rsn her
toes up the back of his leg under the table, which caused his eyes to nearly pop
out of his head.
Edward and Toby went in search of a few of Edward's unseelie contacts. After being
unable to find a place to park in Hillcrest, they ended up downtown. They ran into
Hermann, a boggart swindler in the middle of shaking down his next victim. Toby chased
the human mark away while Edward intimidated Hermann. With Toby's help Edward managed
to pry a few clues out of the boggart. He told them that Ariel has been seen with
Little Alex, an unsavory sluagh childling. They went off to find some other folks
to intimidate.
Jenny and Chamone, accompanied by Pensius' troll bodyguard, Franklin, drove to a
sluagh coffeehouse in the Gaslamp Quarter. On the drive downtown, Jenny was diverted
from further flirting with Franklin by Chamone’s saying, “Are you guys doing that
mushy stuff?” Jenny then got into a discussion of human sexual behavior with Chamone
that Chamone found vastly educational and Franklin found vastly embarrassing. They
reached the sluagh coffeehouse and after a brief screening at the door they were
welcomed in. The coffeehouse looked Victorian/gothic, with an equal number of pale
goth sluagh and dusty Victorian sluagh sitting around. There were a few non-sluagh
customers. The menu board looked something like this:
| Espresso Cappuccino Mocha Absinthe Russian Caravan Tea Wormwood/Belladonna Tea Sour Milk Sour Milk and Anise Pastries Day Old Pastries Week Old Pastries Really Moldy Pastries Stories Rumors Lies Secrets Really Big Secrets Secrets Man was not Meant to Know |
1.25 2.00 2.50 3.50 1.00 1.00 1.50 1.75 2.00 2.50 3.00 3.50 Market Price Market Price Market Price Market Price Market Price Market Price |
This took place in the last year in the kingdom of Apples on the shores of Lake Ontario, and in this tale is enfolded a riddle that’s not easy to answer. There was a lady of the high court called Melisande, and she had as many admirers as a dandelion has seeds, for her hair was black and shiny as licorice whips and her shoulders were white and smooth as vanilla Haagen-Dazs, and that was just the back of her. She was as graceful as she was pretty, and her only flaw was a wee streak of temper that could make her speak in haste and regret it at leisure. Her beloved and the apple of her whole understanding was a knight of that court named Matthias, who was blond where she was dark and bronze where she was silver, and as many ladies pined after him as men pined after Melisande, but he had eyes only for her. His flaw was a jealousy as hot and black as a double espresso, and many a lord had made eyes at Melisande only to find himself challenged to a duel and soundly beaten for his trouble. In this kingdom there was also a pooka named Racky Tom, who had a fine glossy tail with brown rings on it and a smart pair of Ray-Ban Wayfarers that he wore everywhere he went. Racky Tom fancied himself the cleverest pooka on two feet or four, and when he wanted something, he would move heaven and earth to have it, for he could not let go of a yearning no matter how dangerous it might prove to satisfy it. There was also a nocker by the name of Ratchet Molly, and she was as greedy a nocker as you can imagine, but however much she charged for her work there were few complaints from the buyers, for she was every bit as clever as she was greedy, and if she built something you knew it would do the job and then some.
As you might expect, Racky Tom having had a look at Melisande would not give up until he had her. Always taking care to keep out of sight of Matthias, he set out to win her heart, or at least some warm and throbbing part of her anatomy. He tried flowers and sweets, he tried poetry and brave deeds, he tried singing under her window and sending her passionate e-mail, but it did him no good. Every time she would say “Racky Tom, give it up, for you will never have me. Off with you, and the horse you rode in on!” Every time her temper grew a little bit hotter. One day he spied her when she was walking alone by the shores of Lake Ontario, and he went to court her there. She was so angry at his persistence that she would not even listen to the fine set of limericks he had composed in praise of her beauty. “Racky Tom,” she snapped, “the day you have me is the day Lake Ontario runs dry! Give it up! Get lost!” And he slunk away dejected, but as he walked home it occurred to him that Melisande, as a lady of the high court, must live by her word. So all he had to do was make Lake Ontario run dry and he was in like Flynn. Well, it might be impossible, but then again it might not, and it certainly wouldn’t hurt to get an estimate. So he went straight to Ratchet Molly’s house, where he found her doing something in her laboratory that involved small explosions and stuff that glowed green.
“Ratchet Molly,” he said, “how much would it cost to make Lake Ontario run dry?” She scribbled some calculations on a napkin, and then she told him “Fifty thousand dollars, a set of first-edition Dark Knight comics, and a stuffed Barney. But it won’t stay dry long; you’ll get an hour at most.” Racky Tom went out and he swindled and stole, and he lied and cheated, and he bamboozled and baffled them with bullshit, and a week later he came back to Ratchet Molly’s with a big suitcase and dropped it at her feet. She took out the Dark Knight comics and popped them into her safe, and she fondled the cash and smelled it and rubbed it on her body, and then she set fire to the stuffed Barney. “I’ve always wanted to do that,” she said as it went up in a cloud of oily purple smoke. Then she went into her laboratory and made a great fuss with tubes and wires and careful notes and antiquated notions, and a week later she presented Racky Tom with a lake-drinker.
The lake-drinker was the cleverest thing Racky Tom had ever seen. It was so small it could sit in the palm of his hand, and he had to trust in Ratchet Molly’s reputation to believe it could drink all of Lake Ontario. He waited until Melisande went walking by the lake again, and then he threw the lake-drinker out into the water and watched. The lake-drinker opened its mouth and took an enormous gulp, and the water level dropped by a man’s height. That was just to warm up. Then it chugged all the rest of the lake, and in two minutes it was sitting in the mud surrounded by limp weeds and dying fish, and it had to pee in the worst way but it crossed its legs and held it. Melisande, watching this, was clueless—until she heard someone clear his throat behind her and she turned to find Racky Tom looking at her and grinning a shit-eating grin. As she realized what she had said, and what he had done, she swayed where she stood. Giving him what he was after came below eating a live tarantula on her list of pleasant things to do, for she belonged body, heart and soul to her dear Matthias, but she had given her word and she had to live by it. So she swallowed hard and she told Racky Tom that he had won fair and square, and if he came to her house that night he could get what he came for. Now Racky Tom would just as soon have had her right there on the shore, but he grudgingly allowed her a few hours to prepare herself.
Melisande went straight to Matthias and told him, through tears, what had happened. His face turned as dark as blood and then as pale as clouds, and he ground his teeth till she thought his jaw would crack. She was half hoping that he would save her from keeping her promise by challenging Racky Tom to a duel or trouncing him outright, but Matthias was just slightly more honorable than he was jealous, and through clenched teeth he told her that honor demanded that she keep her word and he bid her go home and do so. Still crying, she left.
When Racky Tom came to her house that night, swaggering and ever so pleased with himself, he found her red-eyed and pale, and though she let him kiss her and lay her on the bed and take off her gown, she looked the whole time as though she had swallowed broken glass and was trying not to let on. Many a damsel had been tricked into bed by this pooka in one clever way or another, but this was the first one who was actually miserable about it, and as he came to understand this it sat in his belly like a brick. Though he still prized her above ultra-rare Magic cards and wanted her more than a new leather jacket, he couldn’t bring himself to take her. He covered her with the sheet and told her he didn’t want to see her that unhappy, and he left.
He went to Ratchet Molly’s and told her what had happened, and he was so sad about it that his sorrow overflowed him and flooded her laboratory, and some of it seeped into Ratchet Molly. Although she had done the job he asked of her, it hadn’t worked in the bigger picture, and she was so upset about this in sympathy with him that she took back the lake-drinker and gave him back the fifty thousand dollars, though she did keep the comic books.
The riddle is this:of these four, who was the most generous?*
Anastasia liked the story very much. She said her friends all liked it too. Jenny
and Chamone had no idea who she was referring to, but Franklin seemed to recognize
something. When Anastasia asked Jenny what story she wanted to hear, Jenny said “The
tale of a young lady of high degree who vanished right before her debutante ball.”
Anastasia nodded knowingly and told the characters the following: There is a place
that serves as a refuge for unseelie changelings on the run. If Ariel was kidnapped
by unseelie, they may have taken her there. It is rumored to be in the downtown area
and is called Moria. She does not know where it is. She also says that Ariel has
been seen with Little Alex, and that Alex works for Black Annis, who is possibly
an ogre (a really nasty type of troll).
Because she liked the story so much, she also read her tea leaves to see if she could
glimpse the future for them. She told them that they needed to look "under ground"
and that they should listen to " the man in brown". She didn't claim to
understand what any of this meant. As the characters left, they noticed that Anastasia
went back to playing with her Magic cards. The cards had changed and now illustrated
Jenny's story.
Jenny, Chamone, and Franklin left the coffeehouse. Jenny asked Franklin if he could
see who Anastasia was talking to. He said she was talking to several ghosts (including
one apparently named Mortitia) and that the ghosts gathered around Jenny in rapt
attention when she told her tale.
Meanwhile Pensius and Mel set off for the Isher Weapons Collective in National City,
a group of (mostly) unseelie nockers who make real and chimerical weapons for the
kithain.
*Story copyright 1998 by Allison Lonsdale
1. The group often comment on the feeding behavior of redcaps. Here's one comment:
The word "herbivore" came up in the game and Jim-as-Toby the Redcap mused "Herbivores eat herbs. Toby ate guy named Herb once. Tasted bad. Toby not herbivore."
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