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

An everyday tale of village life and vampires…

When the bat man finally turned up Em wasn’t impressed. He was skinny, largely bearded and unpleasantly sweaty, he also wore sandals with socks and baggy khaki shorts. He shook hands rather too vigorously and introduced himself in a surprisingly bass voice, although he appeared to communicate with the world via the use of a few words as possible.
He was hung about with boxes and bags, and as Em followed his red gooseberry-like calves through the lich gate she sincerely hoped he was more useful than he looked. The church door stood open and he strode in with his sandals slapping on the ancient stone.
“Where bats?”
“Belfry.”
He turned to smile at her, revealing a set of long, yellow teeth that made Em think of the donkey sanctuary.
“Pipistrelle?”
“Nah. Bigger.”
He spared her a disbelieving sneer before heading towards the vestry door.
Em enjoyed a silent moment of glee and waited for him to admit his error. It took a while but he eventually reemerged.
“Where staircase.”
Em pointed to the door that was almost hidden in the linenfold panelling that covered the white stone walls up to a height of about seven feet. Batman disappeared again and Em composed herself to wait. There came a disturbance in the air and Erasmus appeared on her shoulder. He was giggling. 
“I’m glad I stayed awake to watch the fun,” his voice in her mind was full of unholy glee. “The guy with the beard is getting on Enoch’s nerves.”
“Enoch?”
“Head of the family of small bats. He is so gonna shit on the human’s head. Just waiting for him to take his hat off.”
A faint scream attested to the validity of Erasmus’ instincts before the sound of careful footfalls had him fading abruptly into the background. Arnold came down the aisle walking softly and carrying a large broom. Em grinned and cocked her chin towards the open belfry door. Arnold sat beside her putting something small and black in her hands as he sat. It was a knitted bat, perfect in every detail and Em could feel her face creasing into a doting smile. Erasmus’ voice in her head was awestruck. 
“How’d he make a woolly me?”
“I dunno, boy, it’s beyond my skills.”
Arnold just grinned.
The sound of sandals slapping on the difficult spiral of the old stone stairs alerted them to the arrival of a hyperventilating bat man. He just about fell into the nave, with his beard full of bat shit and his eyes ablaze with missionary zeal.
“Rhinolophus hipposideros. The biggest colony I have ever seen. I will be writing this up immediately.”
He bobbed his head to Em, in a sort of a gesture of respect, before almost running out of the building. 
“Rudolph’s hippopotamus?”
Arnold’s grin grew wider. “Lesser Horseshoe Bat. Rare.
Em nodded and she and Arnold sat in companionable silence for a while, with neither being quite sure what to make of the odd little man’s shenanigans.
Em was thinking about going home when she felt an inimical presence coming close. Being who she was she wasn’t about to run away, but neither was she up for a confrontation with something she had yet to suss out. So she took the third way. She drew in a deep breath and held it, gently willing herself to be unremarkable and at one with the old building. Years of practice ensured that she succeeded to the extent that the light passed through her instead of around her and she became effectively invisible.  Arnold picked up his broom and began methodically sweeping the worn flagstones of the church floor. He had just progressed to the corner by the belfry and quietly closed the door when the vicar swept into the building like an avenging vicar.
“Arnold. Who was that strange little man I just passed?”
“Which strange little man, vicar?” Arnold was the picture of bucolic stupidity as he blinked down at the smaller man.
“The one with the unkempt ginger beard and all the bags.”
“Oh that one. I don’t rightly know. He was messing about in the churchyard. Then he run off. Why?”
The vicar waved a distracted hand. “Never mind. Just so long as he wasn’t… I mean… Well… See there’s a strange car parked outside that nosey bitch Vanderbilt’s house. So I wondered if he was anything to do with her.”
Arnold grunted. “Mrs Vanderbilt don’t usually have no truck with men. Strange or not.”
“Maybe you are right. But doesn’t the old bat seem a bit strange to you.”
“Her’s a woman. They’m all strange.” Arnold shrugged about a yard and a half of shoulder and carried on with his slow methodical sweeping.
The vicar stared at him for quite some time before seeming to come to the conclusion that his employee was just as slow on the uptake as he appeared. He turned on his heel, as if about to leave the building, when he must have caught on to something not quite right. His eyes rounded and his nose became damp and pink and twitchy as he stood very still – scenting the air and finding something not to his taste.
“Arnold,” he said sharply, “can you not smell something?”
“All’s I can smell is bat shit.”
The vicar shook his head and his features rearranged themselves back to handsome human mode. “Oh yes. Maybe it’s the inimical winged rats I can feel. Carry on with your work.”
And he was gone.
Em would normally have dropped the concealment immediately, but some seventh sense had her remain hidden. Which was just as well, as only five or so minutes had passed before the vestry door sprang open to reveal the vicar’s suspicious face.His eyes raked the building before he pulled his head back and closed the door with bang.
Walking home a while later Em was troubled.
“What are you?” she asked herself. “What the heck are you?”

Part 7 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.

Rule of Thumb

The secret of living not glum
Is to live by this one rule of thumb:
If you can’t eat it or fuck it
Then pass by that bucket
And go find a bottle of rum!

Eleanor Swift-Hook

Sometimes you trip over a book by chance and thus it was for me with this one.

Mumsie had been redecorating her retiring room and stacked her broken-spined monstrosities of literature in the hall. Since she was not entirely sober, these leaning towers had shed volumes across the parquet and I missed my footing on one that had fallen open.

Nursing a twisted ankle and a bruised derriere I retrieved the offending tome with every intention of feeding it to the flames in retribution. But the cover caught my eye, and instead, I rescued it from being re-interred within the maternal parent’s bookshelf and started reading.

My review of Dune by Frank Herbert

A family with names that seemed to me highly inappropriate for science fiction (Paul, Jessica, Duncan and Wellington), move to a desert planet which is full of worms. This family seem to be very unpopular and almost all of them get killed off by another family, who have much more genre appropriate names (Glossu, Vladimir and Feyd-Rautha).

Paul survives and goes on to become the hero of the book. He gets to wear a wetsuit which works in reverse, take drugs and ride one of the worms. Oh, there are also some very strange women who go around torturing children and speaking in enigmatic phrases such as ‘fear is the little death’ and other meaningless nonsense.

The best thing about this book is its length. It is fat enough to be perfect for wedging the door of my writing sanctuary closed.

2 stars for such excellent utility!

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.

June comes in beauty, decked out with flowers
Bluebells and harebells, buttercups and celandine
Bringing us days with long daylight hours
And lily-of-the-valley and sweet columbine

Every hedgerow and meadow is blooming
Poppies and daisies, cornflower and chamomile
Gardeners’ know midsummer is looming
Forget-me-nots, campion and hoary cinqfoil

Summer is coming with all nature’s glory
Comfrey and clover, valerian and marigold
Wildflowers blooming tell their own story
Agrimony, saxifrage, and dandelions bold.

So out in the fields and gardens we ramble
Pansy and tansy, willowherb and cow parsley
Braving the sun and the rain and the brambles
For foxgloves and meadowsweet and bird’s foot trefoil.

Eleanor Swift-Hook

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…

At fist I didn’t understand why Moth thought it necessary to look, but then I noticed just how many guards there were – seemingly lounging at their ease, but actually in a high state of alertness. They were watching a group of about a dozen young human males who were horsing around, but creeping closer and closer to a family, whose teenage daughter was combing her hair dry while her parents dealt with the business of getting three young boys out of the water. They were weres – wolves would have been my guess – and if the young men got too close to the daughter of the family there was going to be trouble. Even as I thought that it kicked off. Two of the young men moved to flank the young girl. One grabbed his crotch and made what must have been a spectacularly crude suggestion, because the girl immediately started to cry. 

Security grabbed the offenders and the girl’s mother leapt to pet and pacify the frightened teenager. 

“Stupid youngsters.” Mandrake muttered. “But the trolls have them.” He must have had a thought, though, because he spoke to Moth. “Why is it important beloved fae?”

“Moth don’t know, is just feeling.”

They both looked at me. 

“How about this? Those human males obviously thought themselves above common decency and in a position where they wouldn’t be challenged. We might want to put some effort into finding out why.”

“Indeed we might.” Mandrake snarled.

Moth just sighed, but I felt her contacting The Agency. “Is known, and being watched,” she said after a moment or two. Then she shivered.

Mandrake picked her up and shared warmth.

“Time to go home?”

We hustled a bit and were dry and dressed quite quickly. At the bottom of the stairs, the troll guard handed us our furs.

“If I was you,” he said conversationally, “I’d be cutting straight into the woodland. There might be unfriendly people on the road.”

At least Mandrake waited until we were outside the gate before he asked. “Unfriendly people?”

“Means Agency Deputies.” Moth explained. “Trolls don’t know we are agents.”

“So. Do we avoid them?”

“Fraggit yes. Some deputies are right pain in the arse. And if it’s the sort of ones they are likely to send to chastise badly behaved human adolescents, they’d probably find stopping us on the road highly amusing. Especially as we outrank them and they don’t much care for that.”

“In which case. Take me to the woods.” 

There was an old loggers trail about a quarter of a mile from the hot springs and I put on all the speed I could find to get there. Even then we were only just out of sight when the sound of heavy engines split the air. I drew the quad to a halt and motioned for stillness and silence. The bikes that rolled along the road were as different from my quad as chalk is from cheese. They were big and loud and smelly, and were ridden by a group of big, loud Deputies, who were also probably smelly. This group is dangerous to cross swords with. It takes its culture from the human place although none of the members are actually human – and they don’t make any effort to appear human. They call themselves Hell’s Angels and they are an assortment of orcs, trolls and demons who are mostly the kind of assholes you never want to meet in a fight, or on a pub crawl. But on the other side of the coin they are brave, strong and utterly incorruptible.

When they had passed we went home. Quietly.

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 finding the right mount for your pony-mad offspring…

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

Some whimsical words on whimsical themes…

“When shall we eleven meet again?” Even to her own ears that sounded silly so she hunched her scrawny shoulders and tried again. “Next month? Same time? Same place?”

There was a generalised mutter of vague agreement, before the oldest and fattest of their number unearthed a battered Tupperware box from somewhere About her person.

“Fudge anybody?”

It always seemed easier when they got to the eating and drinking, and quite a lively party ensued.

As the last acolyte drifted drunkenly homeward, still singing, there came an aroma of decay. 

Two demons regarded each other in some disgust.

“Witches today…”

Jane Jago