Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…

Mandrake rested his chin on my head and made the mind link. ‘I can understand why our fae finds this lot disturbing.’
‘Me too. Although they are behaving far better than they ever have before.’
‘Yeah, well. Your man Knut owes me a life debt. And I’m thinking he is the big guy in the group.’
‘He is.’ I favoured Mandrake with a narrow-eyed stare. ‘Where did you learn to instigate the link?’
‘Mothwing thought we might need it.’
I couldn’t argue with that so I just sat back and watched, entranced as always by exactly how much beef and beer seven orcs could get outside of. It was impressive if a trifle messy. It took them the best part of an hour to finish off the beef and a goodly portion of the beer.
Mandrake flicked an eyebrow my way and I nodded.
“Knut,” he said casually, “what was up with those kids at the hot springs?”
Knut was picking his teeth with a needle pointed dagger and he grunted. However, something in my mate’s voice must have penetrated the beer fog, because he put the dagger away and stood scratching at one armpit as he thought.
“I dunno. They were pretty up themselves until we rolled in. Then they mostly shut up.”
One of the other Angels belched quite loudly. “The tall one with the mouth never buttoned it.”
“Until you smacked him around the head.”
“The second time. The first time he just kept right on talking.”
“Asswipe,” a third muscular orc joined in the conversation. “The piece of shit I had hold of was riding high on something. I near to twisted his dick off before he stopped wriggling.”
“Wonder what he was on,” Knut grunted.
“I dunno, but he had some glass vials in his pocket. I stomped on most of ‘em. Ground ‘em to paste under my boot.”
“Where’d he get the shit?”
“His dad’s some sort of science human out of the research station. Snotty bumhole. Didn’t like being told that if his kid got caught trying it on with underage females again he’d be in trouble.”
The orc, who I just then realised was female, grinned at some memory and her neighbour elbowed her hard.
“What’d’ya say to him?”
Her grin grew wider. “I might’ve said that I’d castrate the brat myself and make him eat his own balls.”
Knut belched sonorously. “Seems proportionate to me.”
He ambled off into the trees and I had to push down the impetus to question the female further. It was unlikely she knew any more than she had said, and anyway asking her without her pack leader being present would have been the cue for a fight.
The drunkest of the orcs lay on his back and started to sing. Well, I say sing, what I mean is bellow loudly at the sky.
“Shut up Gobshite.”
“You gonna make me?”
The singer struggled to his feet, but whatever he had been going to say or do was immediately superseded by the call of nature.
“Orcs shit in the woods,” he announced before shambling off into the undergrowth.
I marked his entry place carefully as the chances of him getting lost were high, and if that happened me and Mandrake would have to lead the retrieval party.
While we waited for Knut to return I replayed the conversation in my head. I’d just got to ‘most of them’ when the pack leader stumbled back into the clearing. He’d obviously been thinking too.
“Stomped on most of them?”
“Yes Pack Leader. I kept two.”
“Why’d you do that, my mate?” He sounded puzzled and right on the edge of being angry.
She showed him her fangs. “One for our chemists to look at and one for The Agency.”
It was amazing, and mightily pleasing, to see such a big orc reduced to the status of a naughty schoolboy. He ducked his head and looked at his own huge feet.
“I’m sorry, mother of my cubs, it’s you have the brains.”
She chuckled. “You stick to cracking heads, and leave the thinking to me. Now. If we had some music.”
I sprinted into the biggest of the store caves and came out with the music box my master had stolen from some humans. I keep it charged in his memory so I could turn the dial to ‘heavy rock’ and fill the clearing with wailing guitars and a thumping beat. The orcs started to dance, stamping their feet and swinging their shoulders in perfect time with the beat.
I leaned into Mandrake. “They can keep this up for hours.”
“Somehow that isn’t a surprise.” He watched for a while. “Some of them are females aren’t they?”
I looked carefully. “Two or maybe three.”
“Three?”
As Mandrake studied the whirling stomping figures a ululating wail split the night air. He dropped into a fighting crouch.
“What the frag?”
“Orcs shit in the woods. And quite often get lost.”
The dancers came to a ragged and reluctant halt. Knut scratched his exceedingly hairy chest.
“Anybody know where that fragging moron Gobshite went?”
The orcs all shook their heads, and Knut tugged ferociously at his own beard in irritation.
I whistled sharply to get the big guy’s attention. “I know where your lost packmate went into the undergrowth, and what direction he took.”
“That’s a start, but it’s still gonna frag up the party.”
Mandrake laughed. “I’ll go find him.”
One of the females glared at Mandrake. “What you gonna do we can’t, human?”
Knut’s mate smacked her firmly around the head. “Mouth shut and eyes open,” she snapped.
Mandrake stepped out of the firelight onto the freezing cold grass of the upland meadow and the chilly moonlight. He made the change and the disrespectful orc swallowed audibly.
“You better hope,” Knut rumbled, “that there isn’t a vengeful dragon.”
Mandrake turned his whirling multicoloured gaze on the group of orcs for a heartbeat, before giving his full attention to the business of taking off in a fairly limited space. Three wingbeats took him to treetop height and he began the search.
It didn’t take him long to locate the lost orc and he hovered above it, whistling to attract attention, but the distressed drunkard just carried on crashing about in circles and making his horrible ululating noises. Mandrake swooped and scraped the top of the orc’s head with his talons, but even that failed to break through the twin fogs of alcohol and panic.
I saw the precise moment that my mate’s patience ran out, so the blue flame that lit the woodland in front of Gobshite came as no surprise. The rest of the orcs were a bit more surprised, with Knut going so far as to throw back his head and roar.
“We’re in for some sport now,” he said.
His mate’s grin was a feral thing, and I made a mental note not to get on the wrong side of her.
“Sport?” it was the voice of the orc who had disrespected Mandrake, only now it quivered with barely concealed fear.
“Oh yes. You are about to watch a dragon herd his prey. Only this time he won’t eat what he herds. Or at least I hope he won’t.”
Knut looked at me and I hastened to reassure him. “No. He won’t eat your orc. Orc flesh gives him wind.”
The pack stared at me for a second before the idea that I was joking landed. When it did they laughed far more than such a small jest merited, with Knut hisself capping my joke with a very rude suggestion about hot dragon wind.

Jane Jago

Ponies and Progeny or the graceless art of equine management as envisaged by the pen of Jane Jago and inspired by the genius of Norman Thelwell (1923-2004)

Today we consider the importance of making sure your pony has a good night’s sleep…

***** ***** *****

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

The little man with the beaky nose started the chant, and all the cross-legged celebrants joined in. As the smoke from the incense burners filled the air with heavy sweetness, the people began to sway from side to side – moving in disturbing unison.

The cat, Bast, stalked into the centre of the circle, and all around her the foreheads touched the ground in profound respect.

“Lighten our darkness.”

The yellow eyes studied her disciples. One fell face down. Speaking in tongues.

“The way of Enlightenment is a stony road.” 

As a mark of favour, the cat pissed on him.

Jane Jago

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

Ginny was getting ready to go to the brutalist-designed village hall for the meeting of the Ladies Association. She had decided she should go in disguise – as a normal middle-aged woman. 
This would have two advantages both anonymising her as she walked through the village and maybe allowing her to blend in better with the Ladies Association. Turning up dressed in her usual kind of outfit, looking very much like the slightly out-of-date lifestyle guru she really was, would be bound to cause issues. 
What if someone recognised her?
The horror of that thought sent her back to her wardrobe for her flattest of flat shoes and the once-upon-a-time ‘office smart’ black trousers she had been contemplating donating to charity for the last year but which had still somehow made it into the packing boxes when she moved. A suitable slightly baggy blouse-top with fake buttons and a slate grey thigh-length cardigan completed the ensemble.
Makeup was a minimum. Then she recalled Lucinda’s pithy comment and sighed.
“At a certain age you have to cake it to fake it, darling, or just throw in the towel and give up.”
Should she?
Did she even have time?
As she dithered over that, there was a sharp rap on the front door. Which was odd as she had a very visible doorbell.
The man who stood on her threshold was somewhere in his sixties at a guess, close to six foot tall, his grey hair a bristle on his scalp and his eyes pulled into a slight squint. His posture was severe, as if he had something uncomfortable pushing in the small of his spine and forcing his shoulders back. In one hand he held a large manilla envelope and under the other arm was a short cane with a silver ferrule. Ginny found herself staring at the cane.
“Doorknocker,” he said in a clipped tenor. Then proceeded to demonstrate by fluidly reversing the cane into his hand and rapping on her door with the ferrule. “Major Sidney Harmsley-Gunn at your service. Please don’t ask about my military service, hush-hush and all that.”
“I wasn’t…” She stopped herself, hearing in her head how rude that might sound so she changed it quickly. “I wasn’t expecting anyone.”
“No. I didn’t send ahead. On a sort of recon, you see. Recruiting.”
“Recruiting?” Ginny echoed weakly, desperately thinking what he could mean. “I think I’m a bit old to be eligible for the army – even the reserves.”
That made his squint turn into a frown. It occurred to Ginny that he probably couldn’t see very well. Too proud to wear specs and not suited for contacts. She had met a few of those in London.
“Recruiting for the PC. We have a vacancy and I thought with your metropolitan – er – heritage, you’d bring some much needed common sense about progress in the village.”
“PC?”
“Parish council.” He thrust the manila envelope into her hands. “Just fill these in and bring them along and we’ll co-opt you. Village hall. Second Tuesday.” He stepped back almost clicking his heels then spun on the spot and marched back towards the gate. He paused and lifted the cane as he reached the corner of the cottage. “That’s next week.” 
Then he was gone. Ginny caught a glimpse of the clock and realised there was no time to think about her makeup, she had to go or risk being late and having to sneak in and hope no one noticed. She grabbed her shoulder bag, the one she had chosen as it looked most like a regular kind of handbag, plain faux-suede with tagged zips. All her bags had shoulder straps so that was not something she could choose to do anything about.
There was something happening at the church, but she didn’t have time to find out what, although she was sure there was an outside broadcast van from the local TV in the car park partly concealed from view by the trees. 
The doors of the ugly hall were open as she arrived. Inside the room was cavernous and steel-strutted rafters gave the whole a very grunge feel. There were three doors at one end, the two on either side marked with representations of male and female and the one in the middle labelled ‘Kitchen’. At the other end was a small stage and three rows of chairs were set in a horseshoe facing it. But their focus was not the stage. Someone had set a small table with a laptop in the middle of the horseshoe and a woman sat there who looked to be about the same age as Major Harmsley-Gunn. She was short and comfortably rounded with a neatly cropped head of snowy waves, a pair of hugely trendy horn-rimmed spectacles and a determined chin. She was dressed from head to toe in eye-wateringly bright colours culminating in a ‘pair’ of hand-painted DMs, one of which was orange while the other was violet.
She stood up as Ginny walked in and smiled a welcome.
“Hello there! You must be Virginia Cropper? Em mentioned you might be along. I’m Agnes Millman. Do take a seat. Wherever you like.” She accompanied the final words with a sweeping gesture to the rows of empty chairs. ”Oh and don’t worry, everyone will be here in a few minutes. I asked them to be ten minutes late today so I could brief you first. It’s always a bit daunting walking into a room full of people who all know each other I find.”
Ginny felt a sharp prick behind her eyes and blinked. This was another heritage of the depression. Simple acts of understanding and kindness aimed her way always made her feel teary. But gone was her plan to hide at the back and hope not to be noticed – to observe quietly and see how she might fit in. She took a reluctant seat in the front and to the side mumbling her thanks.
“The Ladies Association is a very venerable institution in the village,” Agnes told her, sitting down again. “We can trace our organisation back to the middle of the Eighteenth Century, but we have always kept up with the times and changed our remit accordingly. In fact, part of our AGM is reviewing the charter so we can discard the outdated and update the dated.”
Ginny nodded and when silence followed she risked a question.
“So what is it the Ladies Association actually does?”
Agnes laughed.
“Oh, everything. We do everything. From organising the annual fete to raising funds for village causes. You’ll soon gather what we’re all about when the meeting starts. Please don’t feel pressured to take anything on first time out. It’s very hard not to, but you’ve barely been here a couple of weeks and I’m sure you’ll still be settling in.” She leaned forward over the table her voice lowered to a conspiratorial whisper. “I’d just try and learn a couple of names and accept a few invitations for coffee. Everyone is going to want to have you over as you’re new here, so be careful not to overfill your diary.”
Agnes sat back and her voice changed to a cheerful bellow that resembled a roll call.
“Adriana! Stacey! Parminder! Rose! Charlotte! Lilian!” There were a number more and Ginny had turned to see a parade of women most in middle age or older with a scattering of those under forty, before Agnes finished with “Wonderful to see you all. This is Virginia And now let’s get started.” She beamed at one arrival who had a large plastic tub in their hands “Oh Cathy you remembered it was your turn and brought cake. How very kind.”
Ginny found herself shaking hands and trying to put names to faces for a confusing few minutes before Agnes cleared her throat loudly and the room settled down. There were apologies from Emmeline Vanderbilt and the minutes of the last meeting which were approved unread. Everyone seemed to know the agenda and it must have been obvious she was a little a lost as the woman sitting next to her – who had to be around eighty and Ginny recalled was Lilian – whispered “Emailed out – except for Brenda and Clarice as they have no idea about technology, they still think a tablet is what you take for arthritis and a mouse is something you keep cats to prevent.”  
Unfortunately, it was a stage whisper and some sharp looks and the odd giggle came their way.
“Now, let’s get on with the business in hand, ladies.”
For the next half hour they talked fetes and sharing school runs for children and grand-children, charity pushes and knitting bees, bake-ins and who should get the annual award for their garden in bloom. Then the room fell into a kind of expectant hush and Agnes finished making some notes on the laptop. When she looked up and there was something different about the atmosphere in the hall.
“Has anyone got any new problems to report?” Agnes looked around and must have spotted something. “Chloe?”
Chloe turned out to be one of the few younger members.
“Well some of us on the Brownfield Estate is getting eviction notices. The housing association saying we’ve not met some cry-tear-thing what’s on the contract. Me and some of the other single mums has nowhere to go. Kylie’s scared she moves back to her parents and her ex’ll find her again and old Jack Pleasance has been getting sick with his heart after they told him he’d not get his renewed.”
Agnes had become very still and she tapped away on the keyboard of the laptop into a suddenly silent hall. Then she looked up again and smiled warmly at Chloe.
“Thank you for bringing that to our attention. Now, ladies, it’s tea, coffee and some of Cathy’s wonderful cake!”

Part 8 of Much Dithering in Little Botheringham by Jane Jago and Eleanor Swift-Hook, will be here next week.

Because life happens…

Exploring the mysteries of life through the versatile medium of limerick poetry.

Style

Growing older means now you can smile
When you think how it was for a while
In your youthful years
When all of your fears
Were about if you had the right style

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Time is certainly a tricky thing. Mumsie seems to have scant grasp of it for sure. The amount of occasions she has declared she would be visiting the local tawdry tavern for ‘a quick one’, vowing to return within the hour, only to roll back inebriated post-midnight, are too numerous to count.

Indeed, it was whilst awaiting her return one such evening that I came upon a slender tome, a mere novella, which claimed to be a true classic of speculative fiction by a gentleman who preferred to be known by his initials, as is now such a modern trend. I recalled reading some platitudinous parable by the same author when I was at school, the story of a sighted man who discovers a country where everyone else is blind. But this, the cover blurb assured me, was no such. It was science fiction!

So to the review.

My review of The Time Machine by H.G. Wells

A man makes a time machine and is doing a lecture tour about it. He uses the device, goes hundreds of thousands of years into the future and lands in a social allegory. Here the effete and pretty Eloi (think elves) are hunted by the troglodytic Morlocks (think orcs). Our hero completely messes up when he tries to save the day, loses the girl (who is killed) and runs off in his time machine. He then stops at a couple more pointless and empty places on equally ridiculous timescales, before he somehow winds up back where he started in time for his next lecture.

One star for encouraging the entrepreneurial spirit by advocating lecture tours for scientists.

Moonbeam Farquhar Metheringham IV

You can find more of IVy’s profound thoughts in How To Start Writing A Book courtesy of E.M. Swift-Hook and Jane Jago.

See how the light falls
Stripes on the ground
Beneath us the mosses
Muffle all sound
And we run like children
Forgetting our days
As silence and sunshine
Tempts us to play
On the bosom of summer
When tender leaves cling
When grasses grow verdant
And small brown birds sing
See how the light falls
Kind as a kiss
And we thank whoever
For moments like this

Jane Jago

Being a true shifter isn’t the blessing it may seem. But through pain and darkness Perdita seeks to find her own life despite the ambition of others…

Chapter Five – Orc Angels

After we had garaged the quad, Mandrake shifted into his dragon form and me and Moth climbed aboard. Six beats of his wings brought us to the altitude from which he deemed it safe to drop and he landed on the lawn with us on his back.
I jumped down and Mandrake opened his mouth to speak to me. I shook my head. Moth put a hand on his arm.
“Beloved has a think in her brain.”
Mandrake shut his mouth and waited.
Once I had marshalled my thoughts I spoke. “Sorry beloved fae, but I think we need to speak to the Angels.”
Moth hissed. “Why for?”
“Because there is an idea in back of my head telling me they will find something out from the would-be bad boys.”
“Won’t the agency?” Mandrake asked.
“Good grief, no. Having sent the boys in to provide proper chastisement, the matter is very likely to be considered as closed. I’m fairly sure the request from the hot springs will have been dealt with by a clerk in the office. If a Deputy or Senior Investigator had seen it. But they won’t have.”
“Rewind that a bit, my heart, aren’t the motorcycle boys Deputies?”
“They are. But only insofar as that allows them to be intimidating without comeback. They certainly won’t see fit to report anything they may discover.”
Moth screwed up her face. “Fact. Moth will ask.” She gave me an evil look before concentrating briefly. “Agency will tell.”
“Now what?”
“We wait.” Moth said shortly.
“No time for that. We have to go back down to the flatland and get the barbecue started.”
This time the look Moth gave me could have melted steel. Mandrake eyed the annoyed fae with some amusement.
“What is the matter beloved Mothwing?”
“Cooking dead things.”
I opened my arms and she flew into my embrace. “I do know, my love. How about if you stay up here? Mandrake can guard me.”
“He don’t know bikers.”
“No. But he knows dragons. And the boys will know what he is.”
Moth thought. “Is true. Maybe I stay here and mend garden.”
I hugged her and she sort of spread herself across my chest. Mandrake came and rested a gentle hand on her wildly curly head. After a minute or two she sighed.
“Moth is better now. Thought she would have to smell dead things cooking.”
“I will guard our beloved.”
Moth turned and rubbed her face against his chest. “Why your skin feels scaly, loved dragon?”
He smiled. “I’m a bit dragonish, because I’m preparing to guard our mate.”
“Good.” She held up a hand for quiet. “Message comes. Bikers will. At sundown.”
At sundown me and Mandrake waited in the shadow of an oak tree while about half a cow cooked on the hot coals and a long table groaned with bread, cheeses and beer. Mandrake had an icy cold bottle of lager in his hand and he sipped it appreciatively.
“Good beer my darling. Where does it come from?”
“I don’t honestly know. Moth keeps the cellar stocked. And the food store up at the cottage.”
“But she really is grossed out by meat, isn’t she?”
“You have no idea. I ate some buffalo once. When I was running with a wolf pack. She was sick for weeks.”
“I bet you felt guilty.”
“Not until my master had dragged me back into this shape. I lost myself and all but become a wolf forever. It was sobering and a much needed lesson to a cocky youngling.”
He regarded me soberly. “Moth tells me your master died long ago, so how do you remain grounded in your true self now?”
“It’s Moth. She’s my anchor. There’s a shitload of strength in that cross-grained little body.”
“Maybe I can help her sometimes.”
“I think you already have. She obviously feels you can be trusted with some of the responsibilities that weigh on her so heavily.”
Mandrake drew me to him, and I leaned into his warmth. He bent his head, but was forestalled by the sound of motorcycles growling up the road. It sounded to me like about a half dozen – so we should be okay for food and beer. The first bike came slowly into the clearing, followed by six more. The Angels parked their bikes facing back the way that had come and walked towards us in a loose arrowhead formation.
The leader spoke. “Where’s the fairy? Or is…” Fortunately for the success of the evening, he got close enough to recognise Mandrake before his big mouth got him into trouble.
“Wing leader?” The orc sounded both puzzled and impressed.
“Wing leader no more, Knut. I am Mated now.”
The other six Angels went very still, except for the hands that hovered above their weapons.
Mandrake chuckled and Knut stomped forward to grab him in a crushing embrace.
“This my man. He saved my worthless hide a couple centuries back.”
The rest relaxed and Mandrake grinned at me. “I truly didn’t know, amata.”
“I don’t suppose you did, any more than I knew this orc’s name.”
Knut’s face creased as he thought that one through.
“Don’t suppose you did,” he said eventually, “names is power.”
“Indeed they are.”
I thrust out a fist and he bumped knuckles with me almost reflexively. I tried the smile with dimples and discovered it works on orcs as well as anything humanoid. He blushed and ducked his huge head.
“Help yourself to beer, my friend.” I suggested and he ambled over to the buffet.
“The others too?”
“Why not? Unless you and my mate can drink all that beer and eat all that cow meat.”
Knut’s smile showed his long, yellow fangs as he grabbed a beer then went and ripped about a dozen ribs off the barbecue. The sound as he chomped was unsettling to say the least.

Jane Jago

Ponies and Progeny or the graceless art of equine management as envisaged by the pen of Jane Jago and inspired by the genius of Norman Thelwell (1923-2004)

Today we consider the importance of being on the alert for unexpected problems…

***** ***** *****

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

June
Beneath the moon
As lovers spoon
I’m sunk in gloom
It is my doom
To act the buffoon
In June

Jane Jago