a very midsummer madness in may
May. 2nd, 2004 09:36 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
timerippleThis started out as me proving a point about cutting split ends with a pair of Fiskars. Back by popular demand, I present to you....
Goat-Girl And Harry Take Over The World... Er, Save It
PART 1.
In which our heroes meet a dragon, explain their predicament, and discuss hairstyling.
The biting air whistled threateningly around the rocks as the two travelers gained the heights and paused momentarily. From a distance they would have looked like dark specks, insignificant against the snow, but a closer view would have revealed them as two extraordinarily grouchy humans who were, for the moment, taking full advantage of the lack of 5,000-food drop to expend their energy in meaningful conversation. At least, that was the idea. The one wearing a jacket emblazoned with a goat turned to the other and sighed.
"Harry, I realize that this curse has been a terrible burden, but do you think you could at least make an attempt to refrain from mocking the Beach Boys in iambic pentameter?"
The only reply was a reproachful stare from a pair of startling smaragdine eyes.
"Fine!" the first snorted. Any further exchange was prevented by the arrival of an enormous golden dragon whose puff of fiery breath simultaneously melted the snow and killed all latent plant life within a 20-meter radius. Harry started forward, intent on communicating with the creature. Unfortunately for him, the patch of rock immediately in front of him was still slippery, and he ended up in a slightly less dignified position than he might have wished. His companion was temporarily mute, so once he recovered, he again attempted to speak with the new arrival.
"Greetings, O golden winged one - "
The dragon raised a suspicious eyebrow and turned to the goat-jacket-clad girl. She gulped.
"Er, what Harry means is... um... hi?"
The dragon switched eyebrows. She continued hurriedly, "He's been reading too much Homer lately, and Ovid made rather an impression on him, and, well....er... I don't suppose you could give us a ride out of here?"
Harry sat up, eyes blazing. "Wait one minute, Goat-Girl! It's not a good idea to ask for rides from strange dragons you've only just met." There was a pause. "However, I do seem to be cured of the ancient-poet-imitation thing."
Goat-Girl said something that could reasonably have been construed as expressing extreme gratitude. The dragon, although rather confused, rallied valiantly from the unexpected request.
"Sorry, there's a clause in my contract that says any rides out of remote locations must be given only to fair heroines with perfect hair and/or heroes with a darn good reason for needing to get out of said remote locations." The dragon eyed Goat-Girl's mop of brown hair, which Medusa herself would probably have shuddered at. "And from what I've seen, neither of you qualifies."
Harry was indignant. "I'm Harry Potter! I have to save the world! Doesn't that count for something?"
The dragon was suddenly interested. "What are you doing halfway up this mountain then?"
There was an awkward pause as Goat-Girl became very interested in her split ends, and Harry re-tied his shoelaces. Finally the girl spoke.
"During Harry's last face-off with Moldiemort...er, you do known who that is, don't you?... Anyway, somehow or other he was hit with an interesting combination of curses that left him unable to speak except in Homeric epithets or iambic pentameter. An unfortunate side-effect compelled him to become Petrified any time he tried to use a pair of scissors. So we were on our way to perform the immensely complicated wandless incantation that will only be effective when spoken from the top of a Himalayan mountain while singing 'Surfing USA', when you dropped by."
"Hmmmm..." was the dragon's comment. "Well, I suppose I could give Harry a lift, but from what you've described, he needs somebody else to do the singing. You've got the worst split ends this side of Jupiter, Goat-Girl - did I get that right? - so I'd do it myself, but I don't know that song. So I'm afraid it wouldn't do any good."
Harry sighed, resigned, but was severely unbalanced by what the dragon said next.
"I'd love to help, really I would, but since that seems to be out of the question, I'll just have to eat the pair of you."
Goat-Girl and Harry exchanged one of those looks that said "What?!" and "Uh-oh!" without anything actually having been said. The ensuing twenty minutes of bargaining only resulted in Goat-Girl's hair becoming even more windblown and frizzy. Harry stared at her. "Your hair is worse than Hermione's!"
"Oh, thank you so much. Now look here, Dragon-buddy - "
The dragon was unplacated. "Look, I'm sorry, really I am, but unless you can transform yourself into a fair heroine and find a salon to give you perfect hair in five minutes, you're both dragon chow."
Harry, having lost his wand somewhere halfway across India, was lost for words. Goat-Girl was more vocal. "I knew defying my roommate back at Wellesley would come in handy!" A pair of Fiskars safety scissors appeared from a jacket pocket, and within five minutes the split ends were drifting eerily down the mountainside. "Will this do?"
Harry glared at her. "It would look better if you'd let me try some styling on the edges."
She glared right back. "Yes, because you have such great styling sense when you're petrified."
Further bickering ceased as they found themselves seated on the dragon's magnificent gold-scaled back, soaring upward to the top of the peak where they could remove the curses, come up with another brilliant Cunning Plan, and proceed to save the world.
PART 2.
In which the dragon acquires an unwanted nickname, the Beach Boys make an appearance (so to speak), and our heroes meet a most unexpected person of great importance.
“Hey, Dragon-buddy!”
“Don’t call me that!”
“You got a name, then?”
“Er, well, no, actually.”
“Right, well, that’s settled then!”
“Are we there yet?”
The last remark was from Harry, seated inconveniently between Goat-Girl and the dragon’s head and thereby subjected to their entire conversation. He honestly didn’t care whether the dragon had a name or not as long as they got to the top of the mountain, at which point they could remove the curse, get back to England, and he could pursue his chosen career as a hairstylist without becoming Petrified every time he tried to use a pair of scissors. Although he had tried repeatedly to explain that styling scissors were radically different from Goat-Girl’s Fiskars safety scissors, the curse was unplacated, and Goat-Girl had begun humming obnoxious surf songs in an attempt to drown out his Homeric protestations. As both of his companions responded simultaneously and negatively to his query and then resumed arguing, he sighed and wished fervently for Ron and Hermione.
The rather conspicuous absence of Harry’s two best friends was due to a series of curious circumstances surrounding the loss of his wand halfway across India. Harry was a bit fuzzy on the details, but his two other halves had apparently been accosted by a couple of very small terriers who were (for some strange reason) wandering about in the middle of the plain – without leashes. Hermione, horrified, had insisted that she and Ron escort the canines to the nearest village to purchase collars and leads for the “yipping Muppets” (Ron’s designation). There had been some fierce debate concerning who was to accompany Harry on the rest of the journey, but it soon emerged that Goat-Girl was the only one who actually knew all of the lyrics to “Surfin’ USA”. Harry’s wand had disappeared in a desperate attempt to avert a tug-of-war battle approximately thirty seconds after their meeting with the terriers. One or more parties had mistaken it for a projectile, and the last Harry had seen of it, it was flying (seemingly of its own accord) toward a distant hill.
He missed it more than ever as Goat-Girl and the dragon began a new argument about the respective merits of different brands of nail polish remover. A good Quietus spell would be useful about now, he thought darkly. Or even a nice roll of Duct tape. Harry had chosen hair styling as his specialty precisely because he had no interest at all in the fine arts of the manicure and pedicure. And he really, really could have done without the revelation that the Clawpolish market was ripe for entrepreneurship. He completely missed the maniacal gleam that this tidbit sparked in Goat-Girl’s eyes, although that oversight might have been because they had just rounded a craggy slope and were about to land on top of the most fantastic mountain Harry had ever seen.
The landing left Harry slightly dizzy and fervently wishing that they could have brought brooms. Goat-Girl, unfazed, hopped down after him with a cheerful “Thanks, Dragon-buddy!”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Can we get on with this, please?” Harry was clearly the only one whose mind was still completely focused on the task ahead.
“All right, all right. Where’s that boombox again?” Goat-Girl had adamantly refused to sing a capella.
The requisite boombox was produced, the batteries were checked, and in short order any casual passerby would have been astonished at the ensuing spectacle.
Harry sat at the edge of a small rock heap, staring into space and wishing he had Colin’s camera. The dragon was perched nearby, clearly reluctant to miss the sight of Goat-Girl prancing about while singing at the top of her lungs. The subject matter of her song was utterly inappropriate for the rock-strewn landscape, but she was undeterred.
If everybody had an ocean
Across the USA
Then everybody’d be surfing
Like Californ-eye-ayee.
“I love that song!” Goat-Girl panted happily as she ceased her maniac dance and switched off the now-crackling boombox. Harry and the dragon both looked pained; the last phrase had sounded more like a yodel than anything that resembled a musical surfing endorsement.
“All right, let me at the scissors.” Harry carefully took the bright pink-handled Fiskars from his companion and glanced around for something to try them on. His glance lit on Goat-Girl’s hair (it was frizzing again), but she backed away and gave him a look that said rather clearly that if he attempted such a thing, he would find himself in the same predicament as her shorn split ends. Harry finally contented himself by hacking away at some persistent dead grass stems. When no Petrification was forthcoming, he returned the Fiskars and turned to the dragon.
“I don’t suppose you’d be so kind as to drop us off at the bottom?”
“My pleasure,” said the dragon. “But only if she promises not to sing again until I’m well out of earshot!” Goat-Girl glared at this, but refrained from commenting. The dragon left them atop a small cliff which they could easily scramble down (“Goodbye, Dragon-buddy!”) and soared off into the darkening sky (“I’ve really got to find myself a name!”).
The first thing Goat-Girl and Harry saw upon reaching the ground was a very large hamper covered with a spotless white cloth. The second and third (and perhaps fourth) things they saw were two men and a Persian cat. The first man saw them almost immediately, and stood with a calmly shocked expression, peering at them for a moment through a highly polished monocle. He pulled himself together immediately and addressed the motley group in cultured, utterly polite tones.
“Who, pray, are you? If I may be so bold as to ask.”
Unfortunately, this genteel statement was uttered at precisely the same moment as the cat’s loud (but equally cultured) yowl of surprise. There was no response from either Harry or Goat-Girl. The man tried again.
“I beg your pardon. Allow me to introduce myself and my companions. This is my butler, Phips. My cat, Lady Peabody. I am Mr. Salmon P. Wiggle, Esquire, Count of the Starry Down: Gentleman.”
Goat-Girl And Harry Take Over The World... Er, Save It
PART 1.
In which our heroes meet a dragon, explain their predicament, and discuss hairstyling.
The biting air whistled threateningly around the rocks as the two travelers gained the heights and paused momentarily. From a distance they would have looked like dark specks, insignificant against the snow, but a closer view would have revealed them as two extraordinarily grouchy humans who were, for the moment, taking full advantage of the lack of 5,000-food drop to expend their energy in meaningful conversation. At least, that was the idea. The one wearing a jacket emblazoned with a goat turned to the other and sighed.
"Harry, I realize that this curse has been a terrible burden, but do you think you could at least make an attempt to refrain from mocking the Beach Boys in iambic pentameter?"
The only reply was a reproachful stare from a pair of startling smaragdine eyes.
"Fine!" the first snorted. Any further exchange was prevented by the arrival of an enormous golden dragon whose puff of fiery breath simultaneously melted the snow and killed all latent plant life within a 20-meter radius. Harry started forward, intent on communicating with the creature. Unfortunately for him, the patch of rock immediately in front of him was still slippery, and he ended up in a slightly less dignified position than he might have wished. His companion was temporarily mute, so once he recovered, he again attempted to speak with the new arrival.
"Greetings, O golden winged one - "
The dragon raised a suspicious eyebrow and turned to the goat-jacket-clad girl. She gulped.
"Er, what Harry means is... um... hi?"
The dragon switched eyebrows. She continued hurriedly, "He's been reading too much Homer lately, and Ovid made rather an impression on him, and, well....er... I don't suppose you could give us a ride out of here?"
Harry sat up, eyes blazing. "Wait one minute, Goat-Girl! It's not a good idea to ask for rides from strange dragons you've only just met." There was a pause. "However, I do seem to be cured of the ancient-poet-imitation thing."
Goat-Girl said something that could reasonably have been construed as expressing extreme gratitude. The dragon, although rather confused, rallied valiantly from the unexpected request.
"Sorry, there's a clause in my contract that says any rides out of remote locations must be given only to fair heroines with perfect hair and/or heroes with a darn good reason for needing to get out of said remote locations." The dragon eyed Goat-Girl's mop of brown hair, which Medusa herself would probably have shuddered at. "And from what I've seen, neither of you qualifies."
Harry was indignant. "I'm Harry Potter! I have to save the world! Doesn't that count for something?"
The dragon was suddenly interested. "What are you doing halfway up this mountain then?"
There was an awkward pause as Goat-Girl became very interested in her split ends, and Harry re-tied his shoelaces. Finally the girl spoke.
"During Harry's last face-off with Moldiemort...er, you do known who that is, don't you?... Anyway, somehow or other he was hit with an interesting combination of curses that left him unable to speak except in Homeric epithets or iambic pentameter. An unfortunate side-effect compelled him to become Petrified any time he tried to use a pair of scissors. So we were on our way to perform the immensely complicated wandless incantation that will only be effective when spoken from the top of a Himalayan mountain while singing 'Surfing USA', when you dropped by."
"Hmmmm..." was the dragon's comment. "Well, I suppose I could give Harry a lift, but from what you've described, he needs somebody else to do the singing. You've got the worst split ends this side of Jupiter, Goat-Girl - did I get that right? - so I'd do it myself, but I don't know that song. So I'm afraid it wouldn't do any good."
Harry sighed, resigned, but was severely unbalanced by what the dragon said next.
"I'd love to help, really I would, but since that seems to be out of the question, I'll just have to eat the pair of you."
Goat-Girl and Harry exchanged one of those looks that said "What?!" and "Uh-oh!" without anything actually having been said. The ensuing twenty minutes of bargaining only resulted in Goat-Girl's hair becoming even more windblown and frizzy. Harry stared at her. "Your hair is worse than Hermione's!"
"Oh, thank you so much. Now look here, Dragon-buddy - "
The dragon was unplacated. "Look, I'm sorry, really I am, but unless you can transform yourself into a fair heroine and find a salon to give you perfect hair in five minutes, you're both dragon chow."
Harry, having lost his wand somewhere halfway across India, was lost for words. Goat-Girl was more vocal. "I knew defying my roommate back at Wellesley would come in handy!" A pair of Fiskars safety scissors appeared from a jacket pocket, and within five minutes the split ends were drifting eerily down the mountainside. "Will this do?"
Harry glared at her. "It would look better if you'd let me try some styling on the edges."
She glared right back. "Yes, because you have such great styling sense when you're petrified."
Further bickering ceased as they found themselves seated on the dragon's magnificent gold-scaled back, soaring upward to the top of the peak where they could remove the curses, come up with another brilliant Cunning Plan, and proceed to save the world.
PART 2.
In which the dragon acquires an unwanted nickname, the Beach Boys make an appearance (so to speak), and our heroes meet a most unexpected person of great importance.
“Hey, Dragon-buddy!”
“Don’t call me that!”
“You got a name, then?”
“Er, well, no, actually.”
“Right, well, that’s settled then!”
“Are we there yet?”
The last remark was from Harry, seated inconveniently between Goat-Girl and the dragon’s head and thereby subjected to their entire conversation. He honestly didn’t care whether the dragon had a name or not as long as they got to the top of the mountain, at which point they could remove the curse, get back to England, and he could pursue his chosen career as a hairstylist without becoming Petrified every time he tried to use a pair of scissors. Although he had tried repeatedly to explain that styling scissors were radically different from Goat-Girl’s Fiskars safety scissors, the curse was unplacated, and Goat-Girl had begun humming obnoxious surf songs in an attempt to drown out his Homeric protestations. As both of his companions responded simultaneously and negatively to his query and then resumed arguing, he sighed and wished fervently for Ron and Hermione.
The rather conspicuous absence of Harry’s two best friends was due to a series of curious circumstances surrounding the loss of his wand halfway across India. Harry was a bit fuzzy on the details, but his two other halves had apparently been accosted by a couple of very small terriers who were (for some strange reason) wandering about in the middle of the plain – without leashes. Hermione, horrified, had insisted that she and Ron escort the canines to the nearest village to purchase collars and leads for the “yipping Muppets” (Ron’s designation). There had been some fierce debate concerning who was to accompany Harry on the rest of the journey, but it soon emerged that Goat-Girl was the only one who actually knew all of the lyrics to “Surfin’ USA”. Harry’s wand had disappeared in a desperate attempt to avert a tug-of-war battle approximately thirty seconds after their meeting with the terriers. One or more parties had mistaken it for a projectile, and the last Harry had seen of it, it was flying (seemingly of its own accord) toward a distant hill.
He missed it more than ever as Goat-Girl and the dragon began a new argument about the respective merits of different brands of nail polish remover. A good Quietus spell would be useful about now, he thought darkly. Or even a nice roll of Duct tape. Harry had chosen hair styling as his specialty precisely because he had no interest at all in the fine arts of the manicure and pedicure. And he really, really could have done without the revelation that the Clawpolish market was ripe for entrepreneurship. He completely missed the maniacal gleam that this tidbit sparked in Goat-Girl’s eyes, although that oversight might have been because they had just rounded a craggy slope and were about to land on top of the most fantastic mountain Harry had ever seen.
The landing left Harry slightly dizzy and fervently wishing that they could have brought brooms. Goat-Girl, unfazed, hopped down after him with a cheerful “Thanks, Dragon-buddy!”
“Don’t call me that!”
“Can we get on with this, please?” Harry was clearly the only one whose mind was still completely focused on the task ahead.
“All right, all right. Where’s that boombox again?” Goat-Girl had adamantly refused to sing a capella.
The requisite boombox was produced, the batteries were checked, and in short order any casual passerby would have been astonished at the ensuing spectacle.
Harry sat at the edge of a small rock heap, staring into space and wishing he had Colin’s camera. The dragon was perched nearby, clearly reluctant to miss the sight of Goat-Girl prancing about while singing at the top of her lungs. The subject matter of her song was utterly inappropriate for the rock-strewn landscape, but she was undeterred.
If everybody had an ocean
Across the USA
Then everybody’d be surfing
Like Californ-eye-ayee.
“I love that song!” Goat-Girl panted happily as she ceased her maniac dance and switched off the now-crackling boombox. Harry and the dragon both looked pained; the last phrase had sounded more like a yodel than anything that resembled a musical surfing endorsement.
“All right, let me at the scissors.” Harry carefully took the bright pink-handled Fiskars from his companion and glanced around for something to try them on. His glance lit on Goat-Girl’s hair (it was frizzing again), but she backed away and gave him a look that said rather clearly that if he attempted such a thing, he would find himself in the same predicament as her shorn split ends. Harry finally contented himself by hacking away at some persistent dead grass stems. When no Petrification was forthcoming, he returned the Fiskars and turned to the dragon.
“I don’t suppose you’d be so kind as to drop us off at the bottom?”
“My pleasure,” said the dragon. “But only if she promises not to sing again until I’m well out of earshot!” Goat-Girl glared at this, but refrained from commenting. The dragon left them atop a small cliff which they could easily scramble down (“Goodbye, Dragon-buddy!”) and soared off into the darkening sky (“I’ve really got to find myself a name!”).
The first thing Goat-Girl and Harry saw upon reaching the ground was a very large hamper covered with a spotless white cloth. The second and third (and perhaps fourth) things they saw were two men and a Persian cat. The first man saw them almost immediately, and stood with a calmly shocked expression, peering at them for a moment through a highly polished monocle. He pulled himself together immediately and addressed the motley group in cultured, utterly polite tones.
“Who, pray, are you? If I may be so bold as to ask.”
Unfortunately, this genteel statement was uttered at precisely the same moment as the cat’s loud (but equally cultured) yowl of surprise. There was no response from either Harry or Goat-Girl. The man tried again.
“I beg your pardon. Allow me to introduce myself and my companions. This is my butler, Phips. My cat, Lady Peabody. I am Mr. Salmon P. Wiggle, Esquire, Count of the Starry Down: Gentleman.”
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Date: 2004-05-03 11:50 am (UTC)thanx fiona!!!!!!!!!! i shall post the next memoirs once i find the time. drat these research papers...
-melanie
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Date: 2004-05-03 03:17 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 03:25 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-03 06:00 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-05-04 10:42 am (UTC)