From alt.pub.dragons-inn Tue Jan 17 11:29:00 1995 Xref: netcom.com alt.pub.dragons-inn:8067 Path: netcom.com!ix.netcom.com!howland.reston.ans.net!spool.mu.edu!caen!crl.dec.com!crl.dec.com!pa.dec.com!jac.zko.dec.com!leggy.zk3.dec.com!orb!not-for-mail From: penny@agora.rdrop.com (Penny Hutchison) Newsgroups: alt.pub.dragons-inn Subject: [Rat Tales] [LH] [KAN] The War for the Roses Date: 17 Jan 1995 03:24:33 -0000 Organization: Duchy of Wabesylvan Obspauk Lines: 192 Sender: news@Orb.Nashua.NH.US Message-ID: X-Mailer: ELM [version 2.4 PL23] Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=US-ASCII Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit This story is Copyright 1995 by Penny Hutchison. Permission is given to distribute and archive over the standard Usenet and altnet channels, but all other rights including repost are reserved. [ADMIN] This is the result of a wager between The Dreamer and myself. The Rose Bowl is a US College football team taking place between the Big Ten conference and the Pac Ten conference, and this year Penn State was the Big Ten champion while the University of Oregon was the Pac Ten champion. My alma mater lost. Thus this story. [END ADMIN] Little Rat peeked into the Great Room of the Lighthouse. ar'Elya was standing in front of the wall of windows, watching the sunset and meditatively stroking the ears of Kev's stuffed dragon toy. The young girl walked up to her and waited for a moment. When ar'Elya didn't turn towards her, Little Rat touched her sleeve hesitantly. At that touch, ar'Elya blinked once and looked at the girl and smiled. "Hello, little one. What's that you're carrying?" "It's one a Kev's storybooks," Little Rat replied, her voice gruff. "I wuz thinkin' dat mebbe you'd like a story." She looked away from ar'Elya's clear gaze and looked out the window. "'Cause a Kev an' da guys bein' gone," she added. ar'Elya's eyes brightened. "That sounds like just the thing to cheer me up. Is there an especially silly one in it?" Little Rat nodded. "Yeah. It's da one dat Kev really likes." The woman laughed at that. "Yes, if Kev likes it, it's got to be one of the sillier stories." She walked over to one of the couches and sat down, drawing her feet underneath her. Little Rat followed, sitting much closer to ar'Elya than usual. As the girl flipped the pages, looking for the story, ar'Elya turned her face away to hide a delighted grin. Any trusting gesture on Little Rat's part was a treasure to be cherished. And teaching the girl to read had been a great pleasure. Using the 'kan script made it easier than using Generican writing would have been. The 'kan symbols would read themselves into a receptive mind, and over time reading them gave a facility with other ways of writing, that would make learning to read less helpful languages a good deal easier. Better yet, she was almost ready to learn to write. "Here it is," Little Rat announced, and cleared her throat. As she read, her Low City dialect quickly faded away, and she stumbled only a little over the harder words. A Duck, a Lion and some Roses In a faraway land full of quakes and pens and cheesesteaks, lived a Lion, all fluffy white except for around the edges where he was blue from the cold. He was a mighty fierce and nasty sort of Lion, and quite proud of it. He had frightened away all other fierce and nasty Beasts of the East, and had no one else to fight with. So the poor Lion grew bored and restless. Then he heard of a magical land far to the West, where there were green-growing gardens where a mighty fierce and nasty Lion might rest at ease. Sighing with happiness, the Lion started out on the long journey. After many days of walking and after his footpads were quite sore, he reached the Western Lands. It only took a bit more seeking to find the particular garden he had been looking for. It was a large depression in a valley, round and smooth, and the air was filled with the fragrance of roses that grew all 'round. The Lion sniffed a Lion-sized sniff, then padded down into the bowl and stretched out to take a much-deserved nap. *QUACK*!!! The poor Lion leapt to his feet and shook his head to shake off the last of his sleepiness. What fearsome creature had dared disturb his slumber? *QUACK, QUACK*!!!!! It was a duck! A small, scruffy, green duck with bright yellow beak and feet, and a most baleful look in her eyes. "What are you, a most fluffy and nasty Lion doing here? This is _my_ garden!" she snapped. The Lion just stared at her. Then his whiskers twitched, his tail swished and he started to giggle in a most unfearsome way. He laughed so hard and mightily that he began to roll around on the ground, crushing some of the roses. After some rollings and rockings he was able to catch his breath and reply. "A duck!" the Lion guffawed. "I expected dashing Huskies or marching Trojans or prowling Cougars. Even a rabid Beaver. But a small scruffy duck? There's no way you can stop me from taking this garden." The Duck growled (as only a duck can growl) and fluffed up her feathers indignantly. "I've been here three times before, and have come back. How many times have _you_ been here?" The Lion grumbled, as this was his very first time, but he was hardly going to admit it to this insignificant, damp waterfowl. Knowing that his best defense was to be offensive, he stomped towards her and announced, "Guess I'll just have to kick you back to wherever you came from." He chuckled again. "You're so small and scruffy, I'll bet I can toss you 110 yards, easily." The Duck got _very_ kerfuffled at this, and stomped her little webbed feet. "Don't you underestimate me," she hissed. "I'm small but mighty. And green!" With that, she waddled savagely towards the Lion. Oh, then there was a great skirmish and scrimmage as the fur and feathers flew, even though it was more feathery than furry. The Lion swatted the Duck easily aside, at first, but she flew back and chomped the end of his tail. The poor Lion yelped in pain and embarrassment, and he spun and he grabbed the Duck in his mighty jaws and spat her out into the thorniest of the rosebushes. He thought he was rid of her at last, and ran the length of the bowl roaring his victory cry. The tune was nice, but the lyrics were an unimaginative "Up with Lions, Lions are great, Ducks are scruffy!" He stopped at the end of the field and started on his third verse which was "Lions are nice and fluffy and tinged with blue, Ducks are aaaarrOOOWWWWW!" That wasn't what he meant to sing, but the Duck had limped out of the thorns and gave the Lion a fierce chomp on his tender nose. As the Lion patted his poor offended nose, the Duck happily waddled around the Lion's feet, quacking out her own victory song. Sadly, ducks aren't known for their diction, so the Lion wasn't sure what she was going on about. The Duck waddled her victory dance so vigorously that she stomped the Lion's paws with her cold webbed feet. "THAT," roared the Lion, "is quite the outside of enough!" He grabbed the Duck with both his front paws and with a mighty leonine heave, flung the hapless Duck far, far to the north. As he watched her winging her way (involuntarily) back home, he could hear her quacking faintly "I'll be back next year!" The Lion snorted with satisfaction, but carefully, as his nose was still sore, and looked around for a place to curl up for his victory nap. But their fight had been so vigorous and thorough that the lovely bowl-shaped garden was a torn-up, muddy mess. The Lion sighed tiredly, and picked up one of the less-tattered roses as a token that he had visited this legendary place, and started on the long journey back to his eastern home. As he traveled, news of his great victory traveled ahead of him so when he finally reached home, the whole populace turned out to cheer and feast and party. Toothsome wenches danced before him and the greatest chefs cooked his victory feast. The chief chef carried a huge lidded platter up to the Lion, and removed the lid with a flourish. There, resting on a fluffy bed of rice, was a brace of crispy, crunchy, not at all scruffy ducks! "Oh, my," whispered one of the wenches to one of the chefs, "I never thought I'd see his lovely fluffy white fur with a tinge of blue turn to a tinge of _green_!" The End Little Rat closed the book and looked up at ar'Elya, who was wiping her eyes and was winding down from a laugh into a chuckle. "I hope there aren't stories much sillier than that one." The girl shrugged and grinned. "I'm hungry." "I am, too, and it's long past dinnertime," ar'Elya replied. "What would you like to eat, duck or lion?" Little Rat giggled. "No, no, no. I want one a dem cheesesteaks!" "You can have more than one," ar'Elya smiled and arose and walked towards the kitchen. Little Rat got up with her and tentatively slipped her arm around ar'Elya's waist. ar'Elya's breath caught at the gesture, and she placed her hand gently on Little Rat's shoulder. "So, 'up with Lions', hmmm?" "Nah," Little Rat replied, as they entered the kitchen. "Ducks are Mighty!"