[RP] ALL the Drinks.

I'm really happy with the switch to Wordpress so far. Everything feels more neat, tidy and under my control (MUST HAVE CONTROL /twitch). Hop on over and take a peek at the new Hammar & Veldarin post if you haven't already. Let us know what you think of the RP and the new site format. I love comments!

Click HERE for fiction! ---> http://bikacentral.wordpress.com/2010/12/30/rp-all-the-drinks/

[RP] A Crisis of Insulin

I’m surprised at how much blogging got done last month, all things considered. Special thanks goes out to all my flash fic subbers, who were so kind as to provide me with guest post material in the name of fun writing challenges. It makes me want to open up another challenge soon! Feel free to post comments with ideas or oh-god-please-no-mores.

My first day post-NaNo saw me back to no good on 750words.com. It’s nice to do a little stream-of consciousness writing as a change of pace. I also have some ongoing projects that need work. Like what, you might ask? Let’s see: Odd blood elf priest counsels a troubled paladin; Ambika completes her penance with Zana’zua’s help; Veldarin the mage eats his Wheaties and becomes The Predicament, a might warrior. Yonah completes Brooms, primer one, and her jelly jar sees Frederick #2391. Thiyenn elopes with a turnip farmer only to return to Stormwind after the Sundering with the horrible certainty that she is Bad Luck to any man she touches.

There are more, I’m sure--let’s not even talk about Ysani, because that whole situation is a can of worms I don’t know if I’m ready to deal with yet--but you get the idea. I have a lot of writing to do.

I have an awesome surprise for the culminating post of The Tree, but it will take a wee bit longer to finish. Please enjoy this little fluffy filler-post in the meantime.

Authors: Me & Hammy(Fenn)

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With the huge linen sack slung over her shoulder and her cheeks red as roses, Ysani looked like the world’s most giddy Greatfather Winter. She smelled like it, too; the scent of cinnamon and cloves wafted off of her like a bakery in full holiday swing.

“You’re not gonna believe this,” she said when he opened the door, not wasting her breath on silly things like ‘hello’ or ‘how are you’. Plop went the sack onto the floor.

“He was going to throw them out! I don’t even.” Her pale fingers rapidly untied the cord that held the bag shut as she talked a mile a minute. “I’ve been hoarding them all rather than chuck them out and he’s still baking but they’re so good Fenn you just don’t know.”

She yanked open the bag. A heap of golden muffins dotted with the red marks of crushed hot cinnamon candy and covered in veritable drifts of cinnamon-sugar threatened to tumble out onto the rug. She rescued one from toppling over the edge and practically shoved it in Fenniel’s face. “Eat!”

Fenn sniffed the muffin for a moment before tenderly taking it from Ysani’s hand, shoving about half of it into his mouth. A blissful expression spread over his face as he chewed. “Thff if amayhin.”

“I KNOW.” She crammed one in her mouth and chewed, savoring the crunch of undissolved and buttery sugar. “Let’sh go get shider,” she said around a mouthful of crumbs, and closed the bag up once more, hoisting it up over her shoulder.

Fenn shoved the other half of the muffin into his mouth, a few crumbs spilling out as his cheeks filled up like a chipmunk. “Mmhmm.”

In the Legerdemain, they ate one delicious baked good after another, washing down every other bite with spicy mulled cider that was just making its seasonal debut. Waitstaff and barkeep alike watched with growing amusement, then alarm as the bag of muffins deflated and the pair just kept on shoveling it in.

At some point, Ysani’s enthusiasm for crumbly, cinnamon-candied sweets began to wane.

“Urmph,” she said to no one in particular, as she waved away the server who’d come to refill their cider mugs for the umpteenth time. “I think imma be... imma be sick.”

Fenn stopped mid-bite to look at Ysani. “Are you okay?”

An enormous belch was her only answer, and it appeared to make her feel slightly better. If nothing else, she was less green.

“Uh. I’ll be fine.”

She pushed away the unconquerable half-eaten muffin and Fenniel eyed it. “Are you gonna eat that..?”

“Go for it.”

She ordered a glass of cold water and sipped at it while he worked his way through the last half-dozen candy-studded confections. He didn’t even appear to be slowing down, and that was pretty fascinating to the redheaded girl. Such fortitude! Surely she should strive for such staggering stamina. When the last crumb was gone and he licked his fingers for the last glittering bits of crystalline sweetness, she smiled.

“Let’s go outside, I could use some fresh air.”

Fenniel nodded in agreement. “I’m kind of full.”

They sprawled out on the grass under the enormous statue of Antonidas and watched the stars slowly appear in the evening sky, eyes glazed, groaning periodically as their distended bellies gurgled various complaints against the evils of excess.

“Fenn,” slurred Ysani.

“Hm?”

“I just realized I’m gonna have to taste-test more muffins when I get home.”

They both stared up at the sky. It was impossible for a casual observer to tell whether they lay there in companionable silence or in a state of metabolic shock. Regardless, no one fetched a medic and they were allowed to rest undisturbed.

Back at the chapter house, Keilos baked.

[RP] Is it Hot in Here or is it Just You [barely PG]

Here's another collaboration with Hammy, the creator of Fenniel/Zana'zua/Hammaryn. We really like to write silly stories together (Captain Obvious here, I know) and for some reason I forgot to post this back when we wrote it for a challenge this summer.

Don't forget, there's only about a week left to write your flash fic for the party!

Authors: Me & Hammy

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Ysani skipped through the troll ruins of Tanaris. Pausing for a moment, she looked back over her shoulder. "Fenn? Are you coming?"

Fenniel was sure he was miles behind Ysani, or perhaps it was just the waves of heat rising up through the sand. His long brown hair was plastered to his neck and he dripped sweat as he trudged along, desperately trying to keep up with the sprightly blood knight. As if to add insult to injury, he'd even been forced to wear shoes, lest he burn his feet walking.

Ysani didn't seem to be suffering in the slightest. With her hair pulled back in a ponytail, she jogged lightly over the sand from ruin to ruin, digging along the stones for shards of pottery. Sure, she was sweating, but on her it was more of a... a glow, almost. Her light linen shirt was almost completely dry, a bit of moisture just beginning to peek through along her spine, and overall she looked way more chipper than she had any right to be in the wilting heat.

His shirt was stuck to him; the linen clung to his torso from the sweat dripping down his back. Fenn looked down, grabbing the bottom of his shirt to untuck it. The sweat-cling seemed to be nicely outlining his flabby tummy. He groaned. "Just a second," he called back.

"Fenn! I think I found something!" Her voice carried over what seemed like endless desert, dunes rearing up in all directions and punctuated in the valleys by heaps of crumbling troll architecture. The air shimmered with heat and made the distance between them seem even longer. At least the wind had died down. Ysani had begged him to wait just a little longer, hoping that it wouldn't become a storm and ruin their excavation trip. Luckily for her, it was just a passing breeze.

Fenniel forced himself to pick up his pace towards the ruins, digging his feet into the sand. "I'm..." he wheezed in a giant breath, "almost there."

Ysani beckoned him over as he closed in, slowly, on her position. She stood up and wiped her forehead with a bare forearm, gingerly holding a curved hunk of pottery in her gloved hands. Her shirt was tailored to hug her curves and her assets were all too apparent as she turned toward him with a grin and called out, "Found some!"

Fenniel took his glasses off, wiping his forehead from the sweat that was dripping into his eyes. "That piece could work." He shoved his glasses back onto his nose, and his eyes went from relaxed to dinner plate size as the pottery and her... assets... came into focus. "Ysani." He clamped a hand over his face. "You...your..."

"You have to see this! I've never seen anything like it." Ysani moved in close to her friend, examining the heavy ceramic chunk as she turned it over in her hands. "There aren't even any hairline fractures, it just cracked in one piece where a stone fell on it. It's pretty incredible, and dense too." She seemed utterly oblivious to Fenniel's discomfort.

"Ysani...you just...your shirt..." he turned a vivid shade of red.

"It even feels cool to the touch after having been just two inches under the sand, and it is HOT down there!" She grabbed his wrist and put his hand on the smooth pottery. It was downright cold. "This is so amazing! I wonder how they managed it in such a primitive culture? We need to find more of this, there's just so much we can do with material like this. Imagine what kind of insulation you could make, you could keep engines from overheating 'till doomsday--"

Fenniel teetered a bit and lowered his hand from his eyes. "Ysani, I kinda um...I kinda..." He fell over unconscious, plumes of sand flying up as he hit the ground with a solid THUD.

"Oh, Light..." Ysani dropped the relic. The impact sent more sand flying over Fenniel's prone, sweaty body, but the piece stayed miraculously intact. "Fenn, you're supposed to stay hydrated! Oh dear, oh dear..." She unhitched her belt and slid a full canteen off of it, kneeling over the victim as she poured some of the shockingly cold water over his forehead and neck. Luckily, she was somewhat trained to deal with heatstroke, and once she'd given him a bit of water she hooked her arms under his armpits (LIGHT is he sweaty!) and began to drag him toward the meager shade of a partially exhumed stone wall.

Fenniel's eyes fluttered open as Ysani drug him through the sand. "S'okay..." he mumbled semi-coherently. "I always wanted a waterbed." He smiled contentedly up at her.

Ysani grunted as she dragged him along. He was heavier than he looked, and she was really starting to sweat. By the time she finished propping him up in the shade, her clothes were completely soaked through. "Are you okay, Fenn?"

Fenniel pushed himself up to sitting with his arms, nearly falling over again. He blinked at Ysani, rubbed at his eyes, and blushed again. "There's um..." He took a deep breath. "I think I'm fine. It's just uh kinda hot and your um...there's something with your..."

Ysani looked down. Her shirt was clinging scandalously to her entire torso, almost sheer in places with moisture. She turned bright red and stood up quickly, crossing her arms over her chest to hide her fairly apparent nipples. "...Oh."

Fenniel averted his eyes to the sand. "Yeah."

"Well... well HEY! How about this ceramic?" Ysani turned her back to Fenniel and dug around in her knapsack for the spare shirt she'd brought along with her. It was one of Kei's button-down shirts, plain but light and comfortable. She wriggled into it and tied it at the waist, making sure it covered her... er... chest... area.

"Can I look yet," he mumbled.

"Y-yeah," she said, clearing her throat and ducking behind the wall for a moment to fetch the pottery scrap. When she returned, she sat next to him with her back to the wall, leaving a good buffer of empty space between them.

He glanced over, making sure it was safe, then smiled sheepishly. "Sorry I fell over. The ceramic is neat; we should probably bring it back to Dalaran to study."

"We'll dig a little bit before we go and see if we can't get a few more samples." Ysani paused, then looked over at Fenn. "And... let's never speak of this again. Okay?"

He nodded. "I...uhh...think that's for the best." He grabbed the collar of his shirt and shook it. "Let's get this over with fast, it's way too hot out here."

[RP] In with the New

Here's another little Yonah story I wrote when there was a mix-up in Azeroth and most warlocks had their various demon pets swapped with unfamiliar faces. Things are back to normal now, but poor Piptog will never be the same again.

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“Where’s Burpy?”

The imp stared sullenly at the little girl across the room. The eyes of his new master glowed with a dull yellow light and her jaw, attached to her skull with makeshift metal hooks, swung precariously at the bottom of her face.

“You are not Burpy. He’s not Burpy, is he, Frederick?” She spoke to the jelly jar in her lap. A bee that would buzz no more lay still in the bottom. Yonah lifted the jar and peered at the insect. “Oh dear. More’s the pity. I loved you best, Frederick #39.”

The little warlock carelessly tossed the jar over her shoulder. It bounced off her narrow bed and fell to the floor with a loud THUNK, but, by some miracle, didn’t break. She lifted her raw, peeled-looking chin and, with a regal air, bored look-holes into the demon’s hateful face (not Rupqua’s hateful face, she could never mistake another imp’s face for his, the rage-induced tilt of his pointed black chin and the especially putrid fire of hate in his adorable orange eyes).

The imp said nothing.

“Well, if you are not Burpy, you must have a name of your very own.”

She bored more look-holes into the scruffy black minion. He continued to stare with his stare-y eyes, sulky and silent.

“I shall give you a name, then.”

A flicker of alarm animated the imp’s face for a moment, and he licked his lips with a slithery, darting black tongue. He spoke in a voice that was reminiscent of nails on chalkboards, of the shrieks of the dying, of asthmatic banshees being tickled to death. “Piptog. I am Piptog.” He paused, then continued with a grudging “...Mistress.”

She clapped her hands together with delight and grinned an awful little half-grin; only the top portion of her mouth flexed upward, the loose appendage of her jaw swaying slightly and not quite meeting the ruined row of her upper teeth.

“Do you like bees, Pitfog? No? That’s quite all right, I’m sure we will get on swimmingly anyway.”

Yonah stood, reaching for the broom at her side. Even at her not-quite-pubescent height, she towered over the imp. Limp, dirty hair fell into her face and obscured her eyes, but did nothing to cover that terrible grin..In her right hand, the broom slowly swiveled into the On position.

“It’s time for your sweeping, Pit.”

[RP] Swept

This story borrows heavily from a random RP session with a couple strangers in Brill. It was fun!

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He was an affable troll, was Zerkla. When he observed the waif-like girl standing in the entrance to the Gallow’s End Tavern with her face to the wall and a scrubby old broom strapped to her back, he decided he would say hello. Even the Forsaken could, on occasion, respond well to being treated like people.

Besides, he was bored.

“That’s a nice broom you got there,” he said.

Yonah, who privately enjoyed thinking of herself as Yonah, the Littlest Warlock (conveniently ignoring the existence of gnomish demon-wranglers all over the world, she scribbled her notebooks from beginning to end with similar and usually grandiose third-person references), turned slowly toward him. Her jaw followed slightly behind, and he noted that it was sewn rather crudely to her cheeks in an attempt to keep it attached to her face. She looked no more than twelve, but you never could tell with the deaders. Maybe she was fourteen, even fifteen when she died. Did it really matter? Probably not. It was just a little creepy to see the younglings walking around, that’s all.

“It’s for sweeping.”

Zerkla scratched his long chin as she unholstered the thing and planted it, handle end down, against the floorboards. “For sweeping the ceiling, maybe. You’ve got that thing upside down.”

“It’s a childproof broom. Right now it’s set to ‘Off’, for safety.”

“I see.” Did she ever blink? “Whatcha sweepin’ with it, anyway?”

She smiled. It was sorta ghastly, what with the whole mess of her jaw, and, you know, entire facial area, but at least it was genuine. “Stuff!”

“I mighta guessed.”

“I swept a bug once.” Yonah giggled. It did horrifying things to her facial expression and sounded like someone trying to cough through a throat filled with locusts. Zerkla didn’t seem to notice.

“How was it?”

“It was like sweeping, of course. The bug went CHICHICHIRRRRR!!!” She looked thoughtfully up at the troll. “It did not like being swept.”

“I think I’d make a noise too, if I got swept.”

“Let’s see!” Before he could react, she flicked the broom into the proper position and brushed it over his toes.

He laughed. “CHICHICHIRRRRR!”

She jumped at his sudden (and very loud) exclamation, then laughed with him, more than a little delighted.

“Well, I’ll be,” he grinned at the little girl. “Maybe that’s the noise everything makes when it’s swept, not just bugs.”

“Maybe it’s a magic broom,” she said. “ I should make note of this for later; you never know when you might need something to make that sound.”

A sudden heavy thump loosened bits of old plaster from the ceiling overhead and they heard a cranky woman’s voice shouting down to them from the room above. “Be quiet down there!” There was a crash and several more thumps. Plaster and dust sifted down onto their heads. “Can’t even sleep in my own bed--”

Zerkla frowned. “Elves.”

“She is very loud for someone who is trying to sleep,” said his new little friend. She put her broom into the ‘On’ position and whacked the end against the ceiling three times. “Don’t make me come up there! I will see to it you don’t get your dessert if you don’t go back to sleep THIS INSTANT.”

Thudding footsteps paced away from the space over their heads. Zerkla stuck his hands in his pockets and looked down at the girl. “Going straight for the throat, I see.”

They giggled together as the elf clattered her way down the stairs and crossed the lobby in her dressing gown, chittering imp in tow. Her sudden, very grumpy appearance made them giggle even harder.

“YOU TWO.”

“Hello noisy person!” said Yonah. “You yell a lot.”

“So do you!” the elf fumed, tossing her long red hair over one shoulder.

“Hey now, we were just talking,” said Zerkla.

The girl grinned her creepy grin and nodded at the troll. “The graveyard is very quiet. They should put the beds out there.”

“I can hear you all the way upstairs!”

“You need to be swept!” The girl brandished her broom.

“Bring it on!” cried the elf.

Thus challenged, the waif had no choice but to reach out with her broom and attack the elf’s tiny feet with singular enthusiasm. The elf was unamused and took several steps backward while threatening the child. “Watch yourself, or I’ll break that thing..!”

Yonah stopped abruptly. “You sound like Frederick.”

“I never heard of any stupid Frederick.” The elder warlock shook her skirts back into their original smoothness and glowered at the girl.

Without letting go of her broom, the wee witch fumbled in her pocket and withdrew a clean jelly jar. Inside it was a common honeybee. Zerkla wondered if such was the fate of all grouchy midday-napping people. He tried to picture a tiny grump-elf in a jar and his chortles began anew.

“Frederick, this is... who are you?” Yonah asked the other warlock.

“Jynxy,” she said, frowning a frownish frown.

“Frederick, Jynxy. Jynxy, Frederick.”

“What,” said Jynxy, baffled.

Yonah shook the little jar with vigor. Frederick buzzed angrily. “See? He is just like you.”

“I can definitely hear the resemblance.” Zerkla grinned toothily.

“Frederick is a bee?”

“I guess he might be a wasp.” Yonah peered into the jar. Frederick buzzed and bonked around inside the glass.

“I am not a bee,” Jynxy exclaimed indignantly.

“Not yet,” said a delighted Zerkla.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

The troll only looked sidelong at Yonah with an impish smirk as Jynxy grumped and harrumphed herself steadily toward a state of apoplectic spasms. Surely she would pop at any moment.

The matter-of-fact expression returned to Yonah’s face. “My sister needs honey for her potions, so I help find bees for our bee farm and she helps me pay for warlock lessons.”

Jynxy paused mid-fit. “Ooo. You’re studying to be a ‘lock, too? What type?”

“A sweeping one,” chuckled Zerkla.

“One with BEES,” grinned Yonah.

“Weird,” said Jynxy. Zerkla agreed.

“I have to learn how to make bees make babies before I can continue my other lessons. Then I must complete Brooms for Novices, Primer One.” Yonah stuffed Frederick’s jar back into her pocket and looked with utmost serious seriousness at Jynxy. “I hope to have my sweeping license before Winter Veil.”

The elf raised one red eyebrow. “You’re not very bright, are you.”

“Nora says I’m about as smart as a bag of hammers. I don’t think hammers are very smart, so I guess not.”

“Where is your imp?” Jynxy picked up her own demonic familiar and squeezed it with affection.

“You mean Burpy? I sent him away. He never shuts up. Hold on.” Yonah gesticulated wildly with her broom and summoned a cringing, black little creature. It hissed.

“He’s a cute little devil,” said Zerkla.

“Burpy! Say hello.”

Burpy (the imp loathed this nickname with every fiber of its hateful little being, but he was quite certain kodos would fly before the girl granted him any remote semblance of dignity) stared at his mistress with abject hatred in his eyes. Yonah stared back.

“See? Never shuts up.”

Jynxy gave the feral imp a sympathetic look and hugged her own even more tightly to her chest until it squeaked. “What did you do to the poor thing? My Gimpy loves me.”

Zerkla chuckled. “I bet she swept it.”

The littlest warlock snatched up her hissing imp and gave it a crushing hug, easily evading its attempts to bite off her arms. Frederick buzzed in his jar. Then Burpy managed to nip her finger, so she dropped him unceremoniously to the floor and flipped her broom into the On position.

It screeched at her in its demonic tongue as she swept it into a corner. Sweep, sweep.

“Poor Burpy,” said Zerkla.

“No wonder he hates you,” said Jynxy. “Bad girl!”

Yonah only swept faster and tittered gleefully. Zerkla took a step back.

“I uh, gotta run,” he said, staring at the harassed little imp as he backed out of the inn. “Best of luck to ya, Burpy. I feel for you, man, what with the sweeping--”

With that, the troll was gone. Jynxy made up her mind to intervene on Burpy’s behalf, but before she could act, Yonah’s sweeping came to an abrupt halt and she opened her glowing yellow eyes wide. The imp cringed in his corner.

“Holy crackers, I’m late!”

Yonah ran out the door with her jaw flopping and skirts flapping, broom in hand. Burpy breathed a sigh of relief and vanished in a puff of acrid smoke. Jynxy blinked.

“Well, I never.”