From: CHM173S@vma.smsu.edu (Chris Meadows)
Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn
Subject: [AU] [Pitzar] Night Moves (Ignore Previous Post!!!)
Date: Fri, 14 May 93 12:36:01 CDT
Message-ID: <16BCEB131.CHM173S@vma.smsu.edu>
Keywords: [AU] [Pitzar] Andrea Sheryl Jake transition CORRECTION

ADMIN:
 
Jake Pitzar is owned by
  corleyj@GAS.uug.Arizona.EDU (Jason D. Corley)
Andrea and Sheryl are owned by
  CHM173S@SMSVMA.BITNET (Chris Meadows)
 
     This is a collaborative post written together by both of us.
And, as it happens, both of us are going to be away for a while.
(Hey, Andrea, you and Sheryl all packed?  "Yeah, Chris...we're
ready to go...")  In fact, you probably won't see either of us
again until early June.  However, I hope to do a bit of writing
while I'm gone, so maybe when I get back you'll see a few posts
hit the scene within the first day or so.  And maybe I'll be able
to do some work on a story called Robotech: The Misfold that I
started aeons ago but never finished.
     Anyway, I hope you enjoy this bit, 'cause it's the last [AU]
you'll be seeing for a while.  Okay, lights, cameras, ACTION!
                    ---Chris Meadows
 
 
     The smoke rose from the chimney of the house, billowing into
vague patterns above the wooden roof.  Inside, the fire crackled
and leapt upwards toward the chimney.  The fence wood had been
dry and seasoned, and burned well.
     Jake had sliced chunks of bread, cheese and sausage with a
long-handled knife.  He skewered them on the end of a poker and
held them over the fire.  When he bit into it, he grimaced.  "Not
a bit like home," he said.
     Sheryl had grazed outside as the sun went down, under
Andrea's watchful eye, the setting sun burnishing her brilliant
white flanks with shining gold.  In the flickering firelight, she
appeared to fade in and out, shadows running down her body.
     Andrea rested her aching bones on the remains of a straw
mattress and wearily consumed some of the provisions in her pack.
After eating, she appeared much more alert.  "Don't know how I
got so hungry," she said.
     The fire burned on.  The wood shifted, sending a shower of
sparks upward.  "Hey," Andrea said.  "Do you know where we are,
Jake?"
     Jake was leaning his head back against a wall, staring into
the fire.  It was reflected in his eyes.  He didn't answer for a
long time.
     "Jake!  Hey, wake up!"
     Jake shook his head and turned his face away from the fire
for a moment. "Yeah, wha...oh. I think we're pretty much due
northeast of where we were before."
     Andrea was on a blanket near the fire, on her stomach,
Sheryl curled up in front of her.  She played idly with Sheryl's
mane.  "Oh, okay." Andrea said.  She seemed to be trying to
remember something. "So tell me...how did we..."
     Jake interrupted her.  "How did you come to find Sheryl?" he
asked.
     Andrea smiled.  "It's a long story, but we've always been
together."
     "I've got time to hear it, or at least I think I do.  Always
is a long time."
     Andrea's smile faded a little bit.  "Yeah, I guess it is."
     There was a long pause.  Outside, the smoke swirled upwards.
Andrea finally said "You really want to know, don't you?"
     Jake nodded slowly.  Andrea grinned maliciously: "Then lets
cut a deal.  I'll tell you how I know Sheryl, if you'll tell me
something."
     "What?"
     "How did we get here?"
     Jake rolled his head back against the wall.  "All right,
I'll tell you.  You brought us here.  You panicked and ran.  You
ran very fast, faster than the people chasing us."
     "No, I don't buy that, Jake.  If it were just running, I'd
remember it.  I'd remember running.  No, it was something else.
Tell me."
     "You really don't remember?" Jake asked.  His face was lost
in shadow.
     "No, I don't remember, for the last time, now will you
please tell me?"  Sheryl snorted in her sleep.
     "Your arms hurt today, didn't they?" Jake said dully.  "Your
arms and legs hurt like you had been lifting things, and running
a long way.  Your back hurt too.  But it hurt like you had been
carrying something heavy on your back, it didn't hurt like you
had lifted something.  You were carrying something on your back."
     "All right, then what was I carrying?" Andrea asked
sarcastically.
     Jake stood up, the sudden motion bringing Sheryl out of her
sleep, the small round blue eyes following Jake's walk to the
woodpile, putting another log into the fire.  "It was me.  You
were carrying me."
     "You aren't talking sense, Jake."  Andrea said, "I couldn't
have carried you all that far."
     Jake thrust the wood around in the fire, the poker dimly
glowing red near the tip, the fire flaring.  Sheryl's eyes
watched him very carefully. He turned, still on his knees, to
look at the pair.  Sheryl's head gave an imperceptible nod.  Jake
looked into Andrea's eyes, clear and blue, with a little white
fire dancing merrily in the center.  Silhouetted in the light of
the fire, Jake was a shadow, a dark figure sitting in red and
orange light.
     "You want the whole truth, fine.  Here it is.  We started
running, there was a shout.  The shout panicked both of us, I
fell and tripped you up. You stood up again, but you stood up on
all fours.  You ran faster than the mob because you were running
faster than a horse. You carried me because I hung on for dear
life.  You had turned into a unicorn.  Got that?  A unicorn.  The
rednecks said they saw two unicorns because there WERE two
unicorns.  I followed the tracks of two unicorns but only saw
Sheryl, because you were the other unicorn.  It wasn't any trick
of the light.  It was you."
     Andrea sat silent, stunned.  Sheryl nuzzled her hand, but
she continued to sit there, staring into the fire.  "It's
impossible..." she said after a while.
     Jake gestured to Sheryl.  "Ask her," he suggested.  "She'll
tell you it's true."  Sheryl nodded, and nickered.  Andrea just
stared back at her, and then at him.
     As Andrea sat lost in thought, Jake added some more wood to
the fire and adjusted the damper.  He knew that if she wanted to
talk about it, she would, so there wasn't any point in adding
more words.
     And then with a WHZZZZT-THUNK! an arrow pinned one corner of
his cloak to the side of the fireplace.  Swearing, Jake turned to
see Andrea snatch up her crossbow and lunge across the floor to
the window, standing up against the wall beside it.  There was
some wild yelling and whooping from outside, and Jake could make
out some movement beyond the window, but not much or what it was.
     "Damn fools we are, staring into the fire like that," he
muttered, yanking the arrow out of his cloak and dropping to the
floor.  He grabbed a nearby rusty pail that was full of water and
dashed it onto the fire, putting it out with a loud hiss.  Then
he crawled across the floor to the opposite side of the window
from Andrea, gripped the haft of the knife stuck in his belt, and
looked up.
     "Sheryl!" Andrea hissed, "get under that bed and stay there.
Now!"  The little 'corn obeyed without any resistance.
     Jake blinked as his eyes grew more accustomed to the
darkness.  He peered up over the windowsill...and nearly got an
arrow in the face for his trouble.  But in the brief glimpse he
got before ducking back he had seen several riders carrying
torches racing around the house, yelling and carrying on.
     "Shit," Jake swore.  "Brigands."
     Andrea nodded, jaw clenched.  "And they've got torches.
This old house will burn like kindling if it's torched."
     "Tell me something I don't know," Jake rasped.  "Any
suggestions?"
     "I assume giving up isn't an option," Andrea joked.  Her
attempt at humor fell rather flat as Jake ignored it.  "Right,"
she continued.  "We can't run...we'd be cut down before we made
ten yards.  Hmm, maybe we can bluff them."
     Just then, one of them yelled out, "Come on out of there!
We have you surrounded, and we'll just torch the place if you
don't show your faces!"
     Jake opened his mouth to shoot back a suitable insult, but
Andrea beat him to it.  "You don't know who you're messing with,
buster!" she called back.  "I'm a powerful wizard, and if you
make me mad I can strike you down without even lifting a finger!"
     Jake looked at Andrea as though she were half-crazy, then a
smile began to creep across his face as she reached into a pocket
and brought out a handful of small marble-sized globes.  "Lady, I
don't like the look on your face..."  He grinned and put a crack
in his voice, yelling "Look out, she's crazy, she'll kill you
all!"
     "Yeah, right!" one of the brigands yelled back.  "And I'm
the king of Specifica of the Gems!"
     "All right, we warned you!"  Andrea stepped in front of the
window, started waving her hands, muttering.  Then she hurled the
globes outward, covering the throw with a sweeping arm gesture,
and ducked back into cover.
     As the globes hit the ground, they exploded, with bright
flashes and loud reports!  Andrea and Jake heard shrill, panicked
whinnies and loud swearing from without.  Andrea chuckled.
"That'll teach 'em..."
     "Boss!  Let's get out of here!  She's a mage, she can kill
us!"
     "Shut up, you twit.  It's a trick!"
     "But what if it isn't?" another voice said.  "What if he's
right?  Let's go find some caravan to pick on or somethin'."
     "You lily-livered cow--AUWK!  ARRRGLE!"  The lead brigand
fell from his horse, a crossbow bolt sticking through his neck.
Andrea ducked back again, before more arrows could fly.
     "That's it, I'm getting out of here!"
     "Me, too--but don't forget Jorkir's purse!"
     "Oh, yeah, right..."  There was a jingle of coins as the
brigands looted their former leader's still-warm corpse.  Then
the sound of hooves as they rode off into the night.
     Jake and Andrea looked at each other.  "Think they're really
gone?" Andrea asked.  Jake shrugged noncommittally.
     "We'd better set up watches for tonight," Andrea decided.
"I'll take first--"  Then Andrea yawned, betraying her
exhaustion.
     Jake shook his head.  "No...the condition you're in, you'd
nod off after five minutes.  Get some shuteye, I'll take the
first watch."
     "But--"
     "No buts, I slept on the way here."  Seeing her expression,
he added, "Look, you're gonna have to trust me sooner or later.
Might as well be now."
     Andrea shrugged.  "I guess you're right..."  She moved over
to the fireplace, restarted the fire burning, and then climbed
onto the straw mattress.  She yawned once more, and was asleep
within a few seconds of hitting the bed.
     Jake walked over, looked at her for a few moments.  In the
flickering firelight, her face had returned to a kind of
child-like innocence.  An unreadable expression flickered across
Jake's face, and he turned away.  As Sheryl curled up next to the
fire once more, Jake picked up a chair and took it over next to
the window, ready to begin the first watch.  As he sat down, it
occurred to him that he never had heard Andrea's tale.  But that
didn't matter right now.
     The moon was setting, near the horizon, a bloated yellow
mass swiveling downwards through the blackness.  The wide flat
plains were still and quiet, the weeds thick, muffling the noise
of the evening birds.  From time to time, Jake would turn and
look back at the guttering fire, its last feeble glow flickering
across the wooden floor, a wide field, stretching back to a
sleeping woman and a unicorn, picture-perfect, unreal.
--
Chris Meadows           ||  NOTICE: I will be gone for two
CHM173S@SMSVMA.BITNET   ||  or three weeks, starting on Fri-
CHM173S@VMA.SMSU.EDU    ||  day, May 14 and ending in early
CMEADOWS@NYX.CS.DU.EDU  ||  June.  Sorry for any inconvenience.
 
Seeya June 7th!