(no subject)
Hey, look! It's backstory!
Includes first meeting, an incident in a bazaar, a day at the seashore, lingerie shopping, and Isaac being set up for a makeover.
He didn't know what he'd been expecting, the first time he met Dextra, but it certainly wasn't what was standing in front of him. He blinked, politely or not-so-politely, and wondered why her legs looked so long.
Then he looked her up and down again, and consequently the first thing out of his mouth was none of the things he'd thought he'd say. Instead, he said, "Good lord. How do you manage to keep your ankles intact in those things?" with some amount of incredulity.
"Years of practice," she said, grinning, and that was that.
---
The bazaar was crowded, and he'd never had much of a sense of direction. These factors taken apart may not have been too tragic, but together they resulted in Isaac standing at an intersection of two so-called roads, blinking and wondering where Dex went.
And, of course, this had to be a world where they were undercover, so he couldn't even use the maps on his handheld. Not that they'd help any, likely, and if he checked later on -- and he probably would -- he probably wouldn't find anything, but the point remained.
He was sure there was a point there somewhere.
-- and there were men with fish on their heads here. There was a very good reason for this, Isaac remembered, but what that reason was refused to surface. He hoped there was a good reason, at any rate, as they probably made terrible hats, as practicality went.
But mostly he stayed clear of them, as much as he could, because they seemed a bit like a religious order. Not only a religious order, though; one of the ones in which the members sacrifice themselves to rid the world of the unbelieving scum, and all that. There was a certain glint to their eyes, was the thing.
(Well. All things considered, they might well let him be. Still. He didn't want to risk it, as he had a strong feeling fanatics were impervious to such things. Most things, actually, including reason.)
A moment later he was nearly knocked over by a small bundle of bright red, which, he realized quickly, was in fact Dex, a worried expression on her face.
and then something happens and he can't remember
And then he and Dex were draped around each other, or as much as two people could be while walking away at the same time, although whether it's sincere or for cover he's not sure, can't remember, and both of them trembled and tried to hide it.
---
He didn't think he'd been on this world before -- it wasn't unheard of, he thought, for operatives to be sent to the same world but different places. Certain operatives were suited for certain worlds, after all, and so it made sense.
He knew all these different worlds were only so many variations on home -- no matter how much time he spent at Headquarters, his first earth would still be home and he didn't know why -- but sometimes it was hard to remember. After all, a tweak here and a fiddle there and suddenly it's 1803 and Napoleon's used the atomic bomb three times already, or it's 5489, or thereabout (although everyone says that's the year, Jesus Christ was never who he was on this world, so for a long time the years referred only to a ruler's reign), and the mages have found a way to turn all those unworthy into pigs. A fitting fate, to be sure, but all the more amusing when half the mages themselves turn into squealing swine.
Apparently they weren't the ones judging. When he heard about that he said a silent thanks -- he didn't know to what -- that he hadn't been there at the time, because he wasn't sure what the standards were for whatever did judge, and while they were clean he didn't relish a lifetime as a pig.
Or this one: islands everywhere. Every day was a day at the seashore, because to have one that wasn't one would have to look for a very long time. And they said that Things lived inland, in the forests, so no-one ventured very far in anyway.
The natives told him, when he feigned amnesia -- and thanked that unknown something again that this still worked -- that long ago men had gotten great ideas in their head, great and arrogant, and tried to harness the world to do what they liked.
But the world had retaliated and recalibrated itself, as worlds tend to do, and suddenly the continents were no more, replaced by thousands of small pieces of land. Everyone learned to swim, because with the way the countries were set up the boatmaking materials were only on certain islands, and swimming was the only way to get from one place to another for a long while.
It was said that the Things came about because of this, that if men ever tried something like that again that the Things would emerge from their forests and rid the world of the problem before it did any damage.
Still, human nature will out, and a sort of hierarchy had been set up all the same. There was a king, and his was the central island in this particular group. And it was this that brought Isaac and Dex to this particular world; not diplomacy, this time, but espionage. They complemented one another, after all, with his likeability and her excellent skill at lying.
And then of course there was intrigue. Well. It was probably Intrigue, to be honest; they were at court anyway, so things might as well be properly capitalized. Goodness knew they would be in normal speech. (And these people capitalized everything. Worse than he did.)
So, as a result, Dex got to go play in the water with the other teenagers -- well, they were, and she was a so-called teenager -- while he had to attend to the king. Normally, he noted to himself for the record, he didn't mind, but today was just too warm a day.
Especially for today's tedium, which concerned itself entirely with how the teenagers were having entirely too much fun, and how they ought to be a) ashamed of themselves and b) back on land like sensible people. Larking about in the sea like that! Why, someone could run them right over, start them drowning, and not care. Never mind the fact that everyone here but Dex'd grown up around water and could almost definitely swim their ways out of such a situation.
Isaac sighed, and wished for the days when he looked young enough to lark about, boring nobility talking about him or not.
---
"All right, so why am I helping you shop for lingerie?" Isaac eyed the racks with some amount of trepidation. There were so many frills.
Dex looked up from hers, surprised. "Oh, didn't I tell you? Our dear Wilhelm sent me a message saying I'm to come to his chambers tonight. I don't have anything slutty enough."
And then the eyeing turned to Dex, who went right back to going through the horrid frilly things. "He what?"
She shrugged, peering at something that looked vaguely like a dead zebra. This store was convincing him that when he died it would be a frilly death. "I guess he's grown tired of his other wives."
"Yes, I understand that, but you're actually going to do this?"
"Mmhmm. I just need something that's both convincing and opaque enough to hide the vial of whatever it is that's going to make his love falter and stop for a few minutes."
More eyeing, then he nodded. "So that's how we're going to do it, then?"
"Yeah. Not enough to die, though." Pause, as she moved to a different rack. "Just need something to cover my thighs. Help me?"
Another nod. "Yeah, sure. Any colors in particular?"
"Anything but pink." She shuddered. "I hate pink."
---
It was hard to concentrate, here.
It shouldn't have been; what he was doing there was relatively simple, and once he knew what he was doing it looked to be rather fun as well. (In order to prove their worth, he and Jack had been given the task of, from scratch, making something which would unite the two kingdoms in magic.) What with the enormous amount of knowledge available to them -- the king had, of course, given them both passes to the Royal Library, where most university students went to study -- it wouldn't be any trouble.
Still.
The smell kept distracting him.
Not that it was a bad smell. He knew it wasn't for everyone, that a certain tiny redhead with an unhealthy fixation on six-inch heels might even term it stuffy or musty, but it reminded him of home. His mother had been a librarian, with a fondness for tall ceilings and stained-glass windows, so he'd grown up around it. It was encouraging, in some small way; reminded him that more than simply geography and biology united the worlds.
On the heels of that thought came another: here comes Jack. And sure enough, a moment later she emerged from the shelves, laden with a stack of books he was sure was at least half her height.
She also had a very shifty expression on her face. And by shifty he was fairly sure he meant shifting between guilty and mischievous. Great surprise, that. Although --
Look! A giant frog had just landed in front of his train of thought, in the form of the one book he hadn't been able to find and the one book he was fairly sure would glue everything together. (And it was green, so the giant frog simile was perfectly appropriate.)
He may or may not have said "Ooooooh."
Jack grinned and dropped into the seat across from him, her expression now entirely mischievous. "You're very welcome, my dear Nancy. Curious what I had to do to get it?" A pause. "You might want to ask anyway. Not the kind of thing someone tends to put off. Although with you, you know, all bets are off ..."
He eyed her like a fly. "Jack? My dear?"
"Yes?"
"You didn't prostitute yourself out to the Restricted Section guard, did you?"
"Oh, no. Goodness, no," she said, a mortified expression on her face. "I wouldn't do that. I'm too short for him, anyway."
He smiled, relieved, and went back to peering at the book.
"I might have whored you out, though ..."
Ouch. He was going to have whiplash later, he just knew it. "You did what?"
"Well. The guard told me I was too short for him, asked me if I had any friends who were taller. I said yeah, but she's ugly, and he said that was wonderful, because he just wanted to give her a makeover anyway." She shrugged and went back to sorting through the books; he let his head drop to the table and groaned.
"Oh, Jack, you're a terrible terrible person. You really are."
She kissed the back of his head. "The ends justify the means, dear, and besides it's not even a date. He'll just put lots of toner on you, excessive eyeshadow, and some lipstick, and that'll be that. It'll be fun."
Includes first meeting, an incident in a bazaar, a day at the seashore, lingerie shopping, and Isaac being set up for a makeover.
He didn't know what he'd been expecting, the first time he met Dextra, but it certainly wasn't what was standing in front of him. He blinked, politely or not-so-politely, and wondered why her legs looked so long.
Then he looked her up and down again, and consequently the first thing out of his mouth was none of the things he'd thought he'd say. Instead, he said, "Good lord. How do you manage to keep your ankles intact in those things?" with some amount of incredulity.
"Years of practice," she said, grinning, and that was that.
---
The bazaar was crowded, and he'd never had much of a sense of direction. These factors taken apart may not have been too tragic, but together they resulted in Isaac standing at an intersection of two so-called roads, blinking and wondering where Dex went.
And, of course, this had to be a world where they were undercover, so he couldn't even use the maps on his handheld. Not that they'd help any, likely, and if he checked later on -- and he probably would -- he probably wouldn't find anything, but the point remained.
He was sure there was a point there somewhere.
-- and there were men with fish on their heads here. There was a very good reason for this, Isaac remembered, but what that reason was refused to surface. He hoped there was a good reason, at any rate, as they probably made terrible hats, as practicality went.
But mostly he stayed clear of them, as much as he could, because they seemed a bit like a religious order. Not only a religious order, though; one of the ones in which the members sacrifice themselves to rid the world of the unbelieving scum, and all that. There was a certain glint to their eyes, was the thing.
(Well. All things considered, they might well let him be. Still. He didn't want to risk it, as he had a strong feeling fanatics were impervious to such things. Most things, actually, including reason.)
A moment later he was nearly knocked over by a small bundle of bright red, which, he realized quickly, was in fact Dex, a worried expression on her face.
and then something happens and he can't remember
And then he and Dex were draped around each other, or as much as two people could be while walking away at the same time, although whether it's sincere or for cover he's not sure, can't remember, and both of them trembled and tried to hide it.
---
He didn't think he'd been on this world before -- it wasn't unheard of, he thought, for operatives to be sent to the same world but different places. Certain operatives were suited for certain worlds, after all, and so it made sense.
He knew all these different worlds were only so many variations on home -- no matter how much time he spent at Headquarters, his first earth would still be home and he didn't know why -- but sometimes it was hard to remember. After all, a tweak here and a fiddle there and suddenly it's 1803 and Napoleon's used the atomic bomb three times already, or it's 5489, or thereabout (although everyone says that's the year, Jesus Christ was never who he was on this world, so for a long time the years referred only to a ruler's reign), and the mages have found a way to turn all those unworthy into pigs. A fitting fate, to be sure, but all the more amusing when half the mages themselves turn into squealing swine.
Apparently they weren't the ones judging. When he heard about that he said a silent thanks -- he didn't know to what -- that he hadn't been there at the time, because he wasn't sure what the standards were for whatever did judge, and while they were clean he didn't relish a lifetime as a pig.
Or this one: islands everywhere. Every day was a day at the seashore, because to have one that wasn't one would have to look for a very long time. And they said that Things lived inland, in the forests, so no-one ventured very far in anyway.
The natives told him, when he feigned amnesia -- and thanked that unknown something again that this still worked -- that long ago men had gotten great ideas in their head, great and arrogant, and tried to harness the world to do what they liked.
But the world had retaliated and recalibrated itself, as worlds tend to do, and suddenly the continents were no more, replaced by thousands of small pieces of land. Everyone learned to swim, because with the way the countries were set up the boatmaking materials were only on certain islands, and swimming was the only way to get from one place to another for a long while.
It was said that the Things came about because of this, that if men ever tried something like that again that the Things would emerge from their forests and rid the world of the problem before it did any damage.
Still, human nature will out, and a sort of hierarchy had been set up all the same. There was a king, and his was the central island in this particular group. And it was this that brought Isaac and Dex to this particular world; not diplomacy, this time, but espionage. They complemented one another, after all, with his likeability and her excellent skill at lying.
And then of course there was intrigue. Well. It was probably Intrigue, to be honest; they were at court anyway, so things might as well be properly capitalized. Goodness knew they would be in normal speech. (And these people capitalized everything. Worse than he did.)
So, as a result, Dex got to go play in the water with the other teenagers -- well, they were, and she was a so-called teenager -- while he had to attend to the king. Normally, he noted to himself for the record, he didn't mind, but today was just too warm a day.
Especially for today's tedium, which concerned itself entirely with how the teenagers were having entirely too much fun, and how they ought to be a) ashamed of themselves and b) back on land like sensible people. Larking about in the sea like that! Why, someone could run them right over, start them drowning, and not care. Never mind the fact that everyone here but Dex'd grown up around water and could almost definitely swim their ways out of such a situation.
Isaac sighed, and wished for the days when he looked young enough to lark about, boring nobility talking about him or not.
---
"All right, so why am I helping you shop for lingerie?" Isaac eyed the racks with some amount of trepidation. There were so many frills.
Dex looked up from hers, surprised. "Oh, didn't I tell you? Our dear Wilhelm sent me a message saying I'm to come to his chambers tonight. I don't have anything slutty enough."
And then the eyeing turned to Dex, who went right back to going through the horrid frilly things. "He what?"
She shrugged, peering at something that looked vaguely like a dead zebra. This store was convincing him that when he died it would be a frilly death. "I guess he's grown tired of his other wives."
"Yes, I understand that, but you're actually going to do this?"
"Mmhmm. I just need something that's both convincing and opaque enough to hide the vial of whatever it is that's going to make his love falter and stop for a few minutes."
More eyeing, then he nodded. "So that's how we're going to do it, then?"
"Yeah. Not enough to die, though." Pause, as she moved to a different rack. "Just need something to cover my thighs. Help me?"
Another nod. "Yeah, sure. Any colors in particular?"
"Anything but pink." She shuddered. "I hate pink."
---
It was hard to concentrate, here.
It shouldn't have been; what he was doing there was relatively simple, and once he knew what he was doing it looked to be rather fun as well. (In order to prove their worth, he and Jack had been given the task of, from scratch, making something which would unite the two kingdoms in magic.) What with the enormous amount of knowledge available to them -- the king had, of course, given them both passes to the Royal Library, where most university students went to study -- it wouldn't be any trouble.
Still.
The smell kept distracting him.
Not that it was a bad smell. He knew it wasn't for everyone, that a certain tiny redhead with an unhealthy fixation on six-inch heels might even term it stuffy or musty, but it reminded him of home. His mother had been a librarian, with a fondness for tall ceilings and stained-glass windows, so he'd grown up around it. It was encouraging, in some small way; reminded him that more than simply geography and biology united the worlds.
On the heels of that thought came another: here comes Jack. And sure enough, a moment later she emerged from the shelves, laden with a stack of books he was sure was at least half her height.
She also had a very shifty expression on her face. And by shifty he was fairly sure he meant shifting between guilty and mischievous. Great surprise, that. Although --
Look! A giant frog had just landed in front of his train of thought, in the form of the one book he hadn't been able to find and the one book he was fairly sure would glue everything together. (And it was green, so the giant frog simile was perfectly appropriate.)
He may or may not have said "Ooooooh."
Jack grinned and dropped into the seat across from him, her expression now entirely mischievous. "You're very welcome, my dear Nancy. Curious what I had to do to get it?" A pause. "You might want to ask anyway. Not the kind of thing someone tends to put off. Although with you, you know, all bets are off ..."
He eyed her like a fly. "Jack? My dear?"
"Yes?"
"You didn't prostitute yourself out to the Restricted Section guard, did you?"
"Oh, no. Goodness, no," she said, a mortified expression on her face. "I wouldn't do that. I'm too short for him, anyway."
He smiled, relieved, and went back to peering at the book.
"I might have whored you out, though ..."
Ouch. He was going to have whiplash later, he just knew it. "You did what?"
"Well. The guard told me I was too short for him, asked me if I had any friends who were taller. I said yeah, but she's ugly, and he said that was wonderful, because he just wanted to give her a makeover anyway." She shrugged and went back to sorting through the books; he let his head drop to the table and groaned.
"Oh, Jack, you're a terrible terrible person. You really are."
She kissed the back of his head. "The ends justify the means, dear, and besides it's not even a date. He'll just put lots of toner on you, excessive eyeshadow, and some lipstick, and that'll be that. It'll be fun."