Re: The Phenomenal Fracas (GBS2G6) [Round Five: The Ambitus Phenomenon]
06-27-2012, 05:11 PM
Originally posted on MSPA by MalkyTop.
She needed to calm down she needed to calm down she needed to calm down.
“Intruders!” bellowed the tree.
There were several things that Eureka was good at and being calm was not exactly one of them, especially when confronted by a moving tree with the knowledge that she was no longer quite herself, though she had not been quite herself for the past few hours, really. It seemed to be the typical state for her nowadays, so perhaps she actually was quite herself by being not quite herself.
But right now, she needed to calm down.
Back when she had a government job, there was some quack therapist that she was required to go to. The quack was someone who supposedly had some amount of control over emotions, but he didn’t do anything for her. He was pretty much dull and repeated himself and sometimes talked about sex. She had to go to him so that he could beat the surliness out of her. He failed. But at least he taught her some anger management tricks.
She started backing up, her eyes closed. “Syvex,” she said, breathing slowly until her heartbeat was starting to match that speed. “I’m trying to calm down. You can do the same, right?”
The giant tree shook down things that looked spikey and dangerous. Syvex knocked them all away. “Well, maybe if you weren’t just standing there, in front of all his attacks!”
Not thinking about her blood. Not thinking about the fight. Not thinking about killer trees and their pet birds. Not thinking.
“I’ve got an idea. Try to follow me if you can. If you can’t, teleport out or something. You can handle some tree, right?”
She finally opened her eyes when she had finished talking. For the first time, she noticed Syvex’s new hat. Huh. She had completely missed that. It looked pretty silly on him. Had she really been that distracted?
She couldn’t hear Syvex’s reply because she was too busy being in the future. Syvex turned back to the giant tree and got ready to flee.
“Hey! Hey, Crepitans! Stop that!”
Crepitans blinked for the both of them before turning around and begrudgingly staring down at a somewhat earthy woman.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The forest was still a forest, just a tamed one. There were several park benches littered around a path.
Eureka took the time to keep her heartbeat steady and started jogging off towards the city proper. And then when her heart started to pump faster, she decided to stroll leisurely towards the city instead. She passed a few couples who frowned at her hair and tapped the shoulder of a nearby parktender.
“Hey, know where a library is? Any place with a lot of books would do.”
The parktender did know, and in fact asked her to return a book for him as well. She wondered if she had stared too much at his eyes, which under the shade of his hat seemed to glow red, but really there were too many strange things about for anybody to be disturbed by anybody else.
The library was quaint, but dark. She had been expecting it to be closed in the first place and was ready to break in, but when she dropped the book off into the return slot, she saw a very distinct shadow move across the window to fetch it. She should probably belay the first plan, then. It was never good to upset librarians.
She reminded herself to breathe in and out, and then knocked. “I know you’re in there,” she called out. “I saw you. I need to do some reading and it absolutely can’t wait until tomorrow.”
The door did a whole bunch of not opening.
“I knocked to be polite, but I can totally break the door down. Can’t you at least answer it?”
The door allowed a sliver of someone’s head to peak out. Eureka shoved against the door and pushed her way in.
“Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have,” the doorflower sighed, rubbing at his bruised shoulder. He was dressed somewhat like her, or at least when she wasn’t in fancy disguise. “Please, you shouldn’t have done that. I was just going to tell you to shove off because we’re closed. Do you mind, ah, still leaving? I don’t want to punch you. Or something.”
Eureka squinted in the dark as she closed the door behind her. “What kind of librarian stops people in their quest for knowledge?” she said, trying not to sound entirely cheesy but failing horribly.
“The kind that wants some sleep,” the man snapped back, starting to toy with his scarf.
“You sure weren’t doing a lot of sleeping when I came by,” she pointed out. “You’re still in your coat.”
“I never sleep without my coat.”
“That’s weird.”
“Look, will you just leave?” As punctuation, the ends of his scarf raised all by themselves. Eureka tried not to get too excited. Another textilurge? Oh my god.
She casually raised the ends of her own scarf in response. “I just want to learn a bit of history.”
“Well, I’m sure history won’t change tomorrow so why don’t you just come back la – “
The man was interrupted by a floating notepad tapping itself on his shoulder. “What – oh, fine.” And the man plopped down in a nearby chair and sulkily read a book.
The notepad floated closer to Eureka, followed along by a couple crates. “Hey, didn’t I see you at the party…shindig…thing?”
She could hear a pencil starting to scribble out a response but she interrupted it. “It’s too dark to read,” she said.
“So you’re blind as well as rude?” the book man called out from his corner. A nearby book thwacked him on the head. “Ow. Christ, why are you trusting her so goddamn quickly? …Alright, whatever. Go downstairs. I’ll just keep on sitting here, doing nothing except staring out windows.”
Light slightly flooded the floor as a trapdoor near the back opened, and the crates were already starting to float down. Eureka walked as fast as she could to catch up but ended up banging an elbow against a bookshelf. She pretended not to hear the man’s snigger.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eureka was most definitely gone and Syvex wouldn’t have minded joining her, but he certainly never had a therapist teach him any anger management tips and the mere presence of a rather cross-looking giant animate tree was enough to keep him at least slightly jittery, even as the nice lady with a plant growing out of her tried to explain to him just exactly who they were.
“I’m Olivia, you see, this is Crepitans –“
“There was another one with him,” the tree interjected. “A woman, and she disappeared – “
“ – spies! They’re spies! She’s gone to tell the king and – ” shouted a rugged man.
“ – she probably disappeared because you were rude and scared her off,” Olivia snapped, quieting the two. She raised her smile again. “Sorry about that. This man is Dove, and this is Hedy.”
Syvex wasn’t sure, but the woman seemed to be referring to the plant growing on her. This didn’t make him any less uneasy. Dove aimed very unwelcoming glares at him, only matched in intensity by Crepitan’s.
“M.M.’s out to get some more food, I believe,” Olivia continued, willfully unaware of any hostility being shown.
Syvex glanced down at the plate of fruit sitting in front of him before getting out of his seat. “Nice to meet you and all, but I really gotta get going to, uh, somewhere.”
Olivia got up with him and reached for an arm. “Oh, but we haven’t begun to explain our mission statement!”
“Mission statement.” Syvex metaphorically blinked. “About living in the woods?”
Olivia’s face was the sort of face that people wore when they were about to gush concerning a topic that only very few person would be interested in. In her case, it seemed that she had the ability to gush for a very long time.
“Not simply living in the woods, but returning to our roots,” she said. “Returning to nature and embracing it, coexisting rather than exploiting.”
“Yeah, respecting nature, unlike all you idiots – “
“Dove, we don’t condemn, we only explain and remain accepting of any decision one may make.” Olivia never lost her smile, but Dove hung his head as though he had just been admonished by his grade school teacher.
Syvex admittedly didn’t know too much about monarchies and politics, but he did understand the vague concept of a king. He glanced back to the castle. “Uh, doesn’t the king own this land? Does he know you all are here?”
Crepitans creaked ominously and Dove gave an inward hiss. Even Olivia winced a little. “Nnnnnnot as such. But we believe that nature belongs to no man, even if they happen to be an absolute ruler of a monarchy. Eventually, though, you know, we’ll tell him and ask him to relinquish ownership – “
“ – As soon as we figure he won’t kill us or anything with his big damn army.”
Olivia twirled a finger in the air. “Yes! Exactly! And on that note, if you decide to not stay with us here, please don’t tell anybody that we’re here.”
Well, at the very least, the group didn’t seem to want to kill him. Or maybe two did but the leader didn’t, which was most important.
“So…does that mean I can leave now?” Syvex asked, pushing himself away from the makeshift table again.
Olivia reached over and stared into his face. “But don’t you have any questions? Anything at all about what we do here! Our goal in life and what message we intend to send to the people out there, you know, so maybe you could spread the message around, talk to other people – “
“ – which may not be a good idea because then people would know we’re living here illegally,” said Dove.
“The people that would come wouldn’t really understand,” Crepitans grumbled. “It’ll get crowded. They’ll make it a romantic ideal.”
“But boys, we really need all the support we can get!” Olivia turned on the two, her voice growing to a high-pitched whine. Dove clasped his hands behind his back and shuffled his feet. Crepitans gave a ‘harumph,’ but did not outright disagree.
The only thing that Syvex was fixated on was that he was technically not allowed to leave, even though he was allowed to leave. The last time he used portals, he somehow missed. So the only option was to get bored.
“Yeah, okay, go ahead and tell me everything. Your whole stu – interesting living-in-the-woods…thing.”
Olivia looked as though she would burst. “Wow! Okay! I’m so glad to hear you have such an interest! You see, all of us sentients, even you, have our ancestral roots in those who communed with nature and coexisted. But unfortunately, we are now killing nature, exploiting it. Our humble mud abodes have now turned into tree-killing, large stone villages, and we continue to stifle nature in the name of progress – “
Syvex leaned back. This was as boring as he thought it would be. Excellent.
“ – we have a mission of spreading the message to not exploit – “
“ – Yeah, stop hunting for sport! Stop being wasteful! Stop making things you don’t even need!”
“Like books,” Crepitans rumbled.
Olivia stood silent. “I like books.”
“I don’t.” The giant tree crossed his arms, a movement that managed to jostle his nesting bird out of his branches. “You could go back to oral tradition, maybe. Or carve them on stone.”
“That’s a little inconvenient…and slow…”
“Hypocrite,” Dove muttered, causing Olivia to turn on him next.
“Oh, come on! You’re the one who controls plants! That’s, like, the definition of exploitation!”
“Hey, hey, the plants and I have a, a, a mutual relationship – “
“A mutual relationship where you control them! No wonder nobody dates you!”
“Hey now,” Dove replied, more hurt than angry.
“She’s right, though. A healthy relationship relies on communication. Did you ever ask the plants whether they want to be controlled?” said Crepitans.
“I told you,” Dove mumbled. “The planet talks to me and gave me – “
“But that’s like a king speaking for his people,” Olivia insisted. “I mean, we all know what the planet wants, but what about the plants? Don’t you ever talk to them?”
“Hey, Crepitans is the talking tree.”
“That’s racist.”
As Syvex watched the three squabble a little longer, he soon realized that this was not a calming atmosphere.
At all.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
i would not be welcome at that party
i remind them too much of the past
why do you need to know the past so badly
“I only really need to know about one day,” Eureka replied, her voice muffled by the snugness of the hidden room. “Exactly a hundred years ago.”
an interesting date
but i hope you realize that history is written by the winners
and interesting dates are always written simplistically
incomplete
biased
history books will not help you
“Well, I don’t have anything better – “
you could ask someone who actually experienced that day a hundred years ago
such as me
and oddly enough
you
Eureka stared at the written scrawl. “I…what?”
i recognize you
you were there
you were arrested
and now you are here and
even odder you need to ask about the day you were present in
interesting
Eureka abruptly stood up. “I don’t really want any questions asked so if you’re not going to help – “
Something shuffled in one of the stationary crates and a leather-bound book slowly rose and unclasped itself before settling on the table between them. Eureka looked down and carefully flipped to a random, yellowed page. It was in the same handwriting as that on the notepad in front of her.
my recordings of the event
and my musings on why the event happened
though i suppose it is also biased
it is not the propaganda you would find in the other books
Eureka continued to flip through. “So you supported the royalty.”
the queen was not confident enough to be a queen
she constantly questioned herself
and tried to stay in the background
the king was not ambitious or mindful enough to be a king
he preferred to read and to learn
and the matters of the state were a burden to him
of which he discussed very frequently with me
but they did no crime
they tried to do what was right and just
and the church punished them and turned the people against them
“That’s…dumb,” Eureka said, her innate suspicion of people in power being overrided by her absolute hatred of stupidity. “Could I…borrow this?”
this is a library
“Well, yeah, but this seems kinda…personal.”
it is a source of information
it was written in case i would no longer be tolerated
and would no longer be there to remember
and hopefully it will be useful
Eureka stared at the titleless cover once more. “Right. Thanks. I’ll be leaving, then. Gotta test something out.”
And as she walked up the steps again, she thought about her blood and she thought about the circumstances that brought her here and she thought about the revolution.
The library was still dark, but this time the owner was really out, celebrating a birthday party. Eureka looked at her hands and couldn’t hold back a grin at the sight of the book.
Finally, she had an advantage.
As she walked towards the forest, she began to read.
She needed to calm down she needed to calm down she needed to calm down.
“Intruders!” bellowed the tree.
There were several things that Eureka was good at and being calm was not exactly one of them, especially when confronted by a moving tree with the knowledge that she was no longer quite herself, though she had not been quite herself for the past few hours, really. It seemed to be the typical state for her nowadays, so perhaps she actually was quite herself by being not quite herself.
But right now, she needed to calm down.
Back when she had a government job, there was some quack therapist that she was required to go to. The quack was someone who supposedly had some amount of control over emotions, but he didn’t do anything for her. He was pretty much dull and repeated himself and sometimes talked about sex. She had to go to him so that he could beat the surliness out of her. He failed. But at least he taught her some anger management tricks.
She started backing up, her eyes closed. “Syvex,” she said, breathing slowly until her heartbeat was starting to match that speed. “I’m trying to calm down. You can do the same, right?”
The giant tree shook down things that looked spikey and dangerous. Syvex knocked them all away. “Well, maybe if you weren’t just standing there, in front of all his attacks!”
Not thinking about her blood. Not thinking about the fight. Not thinking about killer trees and their pet birds. Not thinking.
“I’ve got an idea. Try to follow me if you can. If you can’t, teleport out or something. You can handle some tree, right?”
She finally opened her eyes when she had finished talking. For the first time, she noticed Syvex’s new hat. Huh. She had completely missed that. It looked pretty silly on him. Had she really been that distracted?
She couldn’t hear Syvex’s reply because she was too busy being in the future. Syvex turned back to the giant tree and got ready to flee.
“Hey! Hey, Crepitans! Stop that!”
Crepitans blinked for the both of them before turning around and begrudgingly staring down at a somewhat earthy woman.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
The forest was still a forest, just a tamed one. There were several park benches littered around a path.
Eureka took the time to keep her heartbeat steady and started jogging off towards the city proper. And then when her heart started to pump faster, she decided to stroll leisurely towards the city instead. She passed a few couples who frowned at her hair and tapped the shoulder of a nearby parktender.
“Hey, know where a library is? Any place with a lot of books would do.”
The parktender did know, and in fact asked her to return a book for him as well. She wondered if she had stared too much at his eyes, which under the shade of his hat seemed to glow red, but really there were too many strange things about for anybody to be disturbed by anybody else.
The library was quaint, but dark. She had been expecting it to be closed in the first place and was ready to break in, but when she dropped the book off into the return slot, she saw a very distinct shadow move across the window to fetch it. She should probably belay the first plan, then. It was never good to upset librarians.
She reminded herself to breathe in and out, and then knocked. “I know you’re in there,” she called out. “I saw you. I need to do some reading and it absolutely can’t wait until tomorrow.”
The door did a whole bunch of not opening.
“I knocked to be polite, but I can totally break the door down. Can’t you at least answer it?”
The door allowed a sliver of someone’s head to peak out. Eureka shoved against the door and pushed her way in.
“Oh, I knew I shouldn’t have,” the doorflower sighed, rubbing at his bruised shoulder. He was dressed somewhat like her, or at least when she wasn’t in fancy disguise. “Please, you shouldn’t have done that. I was just going to tell you to shove off because we’re closed. Do you mind, ah, still leaving? I don’t want to punch you. Or something.”
Eureka squinted in the dark as she closed the door behind her. “What kind of librarian stops people in their quest for knowledge?” she said, trying not to sound entirely cheesy but failing horribly.
“The kind that wants some sleep,” the man snapped back, starting to toy with his scarf.
“You sure weren’t doing a lot of sleeping when I came by,” she pointed out. “You’re still in your coat.”
“I never sleep without my coat.”
“That’s weird.”
“Look, will you just leave?” As punctuation, the ends of his scarf raised all by themselves. Eureka tried not to get too excited. Another textilurge? Oh my god.
She casually raised the ends of her own scarf in response. “I just want to learn a bit of history.”
“Well, I’m sure history won’t change tomorrow so why don’t you just come back la – “
The man was interrupted by a floating notepad tapping itself on his shoulder. “What – oh, fine.” And the man plopped down in a nearby chair and sulkily read a book.
The notepad floated closer to Eureka, followed along by a couple crates. “Hey, didn’t I see you at the party…shindig…thing?”
She could hear a pencil starting to scribble out a response but she interrupted it. “It’s too dark to read,” she said.
“So you’re blind as well as rude?” the book man called out from his corner. A nearby book thwacked him on the head. “Ow. Christ, why are you trusting her so goddamn quickly? …Alright, whatever. Go downstairs. I’ll just keep on sitting here, doing nothing except staring out windows.”
Light slightly flooded the floor as a trapdoor near the back opened, and the crates were already starting to float down. Eureka walked as fast as she could to catch up but ended up banging an elbow against a bookshelf. She pretended not to hear the man’s snigger.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
Eureka was most definitely gone and Syvex wouldn’t have minded joining her, but he certainly never had a therapist teach him any anger management tips and the mere presence of a rather cross-looking giant animate tree was enough to keep him at least slightly jittery, even as the nice lady with a plant growing out of her tried to explain to him just exactly who they were.
“I’m Olivia, you see, this is Crepitans –“
“There was another one with him,” the tree interjected. “A woman, and she disappeared – “
“ – spies! They’re spies! She’s gone to tell the king and – ” shouted a rugged man.
“ – she probably disappeared because you were rude and scared her off,” Olivia snapped, quieting the two. She raised her smile again. “Sorry about that. This man is Dove, and this is Hedy.”
Syvex wasn’t sure, but the woman seemed to be referring to the plant growing on her. This didn’t make him any less uneasy. Dove aimed very unwelcoming glares at him, only matched in intensity by Crepitan’s.
“M.M.’s out to get some more food, I believe,” Olivia continued, willfully unaware of any hostility being shown.
Syvex glanced down at the plate of fruit sitting in front of him before getting out of his seat. “Nice to meet you and all, but I really gotta get going to, uh, somewhere.”
Olivia got up with him and reached for an arm. “Oh, but we haven’t begun to explain our mission statement!”
“Mission statement.” Syvex metaphorically blinked. “About living in the woods?”
Olivia’s face was the sort of face that people wore when they were about to gush concerning a topic that only very few person would be interested in. In her case, it seemed that she had the ability to gush for a very long time.
“Not simply living in the woods, but returning to our roots,” she said. “Returning to nature and embracing it, coexisting rather than exploiting.”
“Yeah, respecting nature, unlike all you idiots – “
“Dove, we don’t condemn, we only explain and remain accepting of any decision one may make.” Olivia never lost her smile, but Dove hung his head as though he had just been admonished by his grade school teacher.
Syvex admittedly didn’t know too much about monarchies and politics, but he did understand the vague concept of a king. He glanced back to the castle. “Uh, doesn’t the king own this land? Does he know you all are here?”
Crepitans creaked ominously and Dove gave an inward hiss. Even Olivia winced a little. “Nnnnnnot as such. But we believe that nature belongs to no man, even if they happen to be an absolute ruler of a monarchy. Eventually, though, you know, we’ll tell him and ask him to relinquish ownership – “
“ – As soon as we figure he won’t kill us or anything with his big damn army.”
Olivia twirled a finger in the air. “Yes! Exactly! And on that note, if you decide to not stay with us here, please don’t tell anybody that we’re here.”
Well, at the very least, the group didn’t seem to want to kill him. Or maybe two did but the leader didn’t, which was most important.
“So…does that mean I can leave now?” Syvex asked, pushing himself away from the makeshift table again.
Olivia reached over and stared into his face. “But don’t you have any questions? Anything at all about what we do here! Our goal in life and what message we intend to send to the people out there, you know, so maybe you could spread the message around, talk to other people – “
“ – which may not be a good idea because then people would know we’re living here illegally,” said Dove.
“The people that would come wouldn’t really understand,” Crepitans grumbled. “It’ll get crowded. They’ll make it a romantic ideal.”
“But boys, we really need all the support we can get!” Olivia turned on the two, her voice growing to a high-pitched whine. Dove clasped his hands behind his back and shuffled his feet. Crepitans gave a ‘harumph,’ but did not outright disagree.
The only thing that Syvex was fixated on was that he was technically not allowed to leave, even though he was allowed to leave. The last time he used portals, he somehow missed. So the only option was to get bored.
“Yeah, okay, go ahead and tell me everything. Your whole stu – interesting living-in-the-woods…thing.”
Olivia looked as though she would burst. “Wow! Okay! I’m so glad to hear you have such an interest! You see, all of us sentients, even you, have our ancestral roots in those who communed with nature and coexisted. But unfortunately, we are now killing nature, exploiting it. Our humble mud abodes have now turned into tree-killing, large stone villages, and we continue to stifle nature in the name of progress – “
Syvex leaned back. This was as boring as he thought it would be. Excellent.
“ – we have a mission of spreading the message to not exploit – “
“ – Yeah, stop hunting for sport! Stop being wasteful! Stop making things you don’t even need!”
“Like books,” Crepitans rumbled.
Olivia stood silent. “I like books.”
“I don’t.” The giant tree crossed his arms, a movement that managed to jostle his nesting bird out of his branches. “You could go back to oral tradition, maybe. Or carve them on stone.”
“That’s a little inconvenient…and slow…”
“Hypocrite,” Dove muttered, causing Olivia to turn on him next.
“Oh, come on! You’re the one who controls plants! That’s, like, the definition of exploitation!”
“Hey, hey, the plants and I have a, a, a mutual relationship – “
“A mutual relationship where you control them! No wonder nobody dates you!”
“Hey now,” Dove replied, more hurt than angry.
“She’s right, though. A healthy relationship relies on communication. Did you ever ask the plants whether they want to be controlled?” said Crepitans.
“I told you,” Dove mumbled. “The planet talks to me and gave me – “
“But that’s like a king speaking for his people,” Olivia insisted. “I mean, we all know what the planet wants, but what about the plants? Don’t you ever talk to them?”
“Hey, Crepitans is the talking tree.”
“That’s racist.”
As Syvex watched the three squabble a little longer, he soon realized that this was not a calming atmosphere.
At all.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------
i would not be welcome at that party
i remind them too much of the past
why do you need to know the past so badly
“I only really need to know about one day,” Eureka replied, her voice muffled by the snugness of the hidden room. “Exactly a hundred years ago.”
an interesting date
but i hope you realize that history is written by the winners
and interesting dates are always written simplistically
incomplete
biased
history books will not help you
“Well, I don’t have anything better – “
you could ask someone who actually experienced that day a hundred years ago
such as me
and oddly enough
you
Eureka stared at the written scrawl. “I…what?”
i recognize you
you were there
you were arrested
and now you are here and
even odder you need to ask about the day you were present in
interesting
Eureka abruptly stood up. “I don’t really want any questions asked so if you’re not going to help – “
Something shuffled in one of the stationary crates and a leather-bound book slowly rose and unclasped itself before settling on the table between them. Eureka looked down and carefully flipped to a random, yellowed page. It was in the same handwriting as that on the notepad in front of her.
my recordings of the event
and my musings on why the event happened
though i suppose it is also biased
it is not the propaganda you would find in the other books
Eureka continued to flip through. “So you supported the royalty.”
the queen was not confident enough to be a queen
she constantly questioned herself
and tried to stay in the background
the king was not ambitious or mindful enough to be a king
he preferred to read and to learn
and the matters of the state were a burden to him
of which he discussed very frequently with me
but they did no crime
they tried to do what was right and just
and the church punished them and turned the people against them
“That’s…dumb,” Eureka said, her innate suspicion of people in power being overrided by her absolute hatred of stupidity. “Could I…borrow this?”
this is a library
“Well, yeah, but this seems kinda…personal.”
it is a source of information
it was written in case i would no longer be tolerated
and would no longer be there to remember
and hopefully it will be useful
Eureka stared at the titleless cover once more. “Right. Thanks. I’ll be leaving, then. Gotta test something out.”
And as she walked up the steps again, she thought about her blood and she thought about the circumstances that brought her here and she thought about the revolution.
The library was still dark, but this time the owner was really out, celebrating a birthday party. Eureka looked at her hands and couldn’t hold back a grin at the sight of the book.
Finally, she had an advantage.
As she walked towards the forest, she began to read.