~/o Alfalfa -is- the King / Sweet luscious -sprouts- of spring / They're just a -tasty- thing. / And that is -why- we sing, / Alfalfa -is- the King... o/~
The song resounded to the tune of Ta-ra-ra-boom-der-e, infectious and catchy, and so Tasci sang along.
Jim had led up a hearty baritone while everyone else sang on top. Rockin' on the lafalfa, the whole family was filling the car with song. And so of course, Tasci sang along.
Billy stopped for a moment at the sound of the little synx's croon and cheered, "Dad! She's singing along!"
"Alfalfa -is- the King," Jim replied in song, nodding emphatically. Billy rejoined the car song, encouraging Tasci eagerly. A sweet and wordless melody rose over the main chorus, matching harmony, and lifting the notes ephemerically. Starling was swaying slowly, eyes closed, quickly leading them along in the canonical chorus.
"Traffic," the dad roared in warning as the hulf of a plugged freeway loomed on the horizon. A chorus of groans went up, ending the impromptu allelieuiah on alfalfa.
"Hold on, gang," Jim said, his hand tight against the steering wheel. "We're taking the backroads."
As the station wagon slowed to a halt behind the endless ribbon of crawling cars, an off-ramp glimmered seductively in the distance ahead. "There's an exit," the dad said, "Not much more to go." Silence ensued.
Carolin twirled one finger lazily in the air, singing faintly, "Alfalfa is the Lord, / Oh god I am so bored."
"Alfalfa is the Lord," Jim interrupted, singing expressively, "Oh god I am so bored," beckoning with his non-driving hand for everyone to join in. The rest of the family joined in and soon everyone was laughing and cheering to the chorus of "Alfalfa is the Lord, / Oh God I am so bored,"
Billy raised his hand with a snap halfway through a stanza, and once again Tasci witnessed the unusual ritual. Everyone else fell silent on cue as the stanza ended, and Billy continued alone with a new verse.
"If only -this- car soared," he sang, "The other -cars- ignored. Alfalfa is the Lord..." When Billy returned to the original song, everyone joined in again, incorporating the new lines in their repeating refrain.
Tasci smiled bemusedly. It was crazy, hard to believe, but it worked so well why question it? She resumed providing wordless harmony now in the alto range.
* * *
The car crept along, then zipped down the exit ramp. It wove and turned expertly through side streets, clearly piloted by a professional quality traffic avoider. The little fluid filled compass bouncing on the front of the car remained fixed on North. As one more hour drew past, the car left one city and entered another, moving on up into the hills above a third city.
The sun, high in the sky, was obscured by pleasant greyness covering all the land. An overcast sky greeted the car when it finally pulled up a little side street and onto a wide driveway.
The house wasn't fancy. It was a pastel peach stucco color, with a slightly sagging roof. There was a small front yeard covered in ankle high grass. The family cleared out of the car, Billy doing handflips and Carolin just standing, eyes closed, staring up at the sky.
"Aw c'mon," the dad said as his wife cheered in the background. "It's just a little car ride."
"The Hoover Dam was not -just- a little car ride," Carolin said furiously.
"They're just happy to be home," his wife said, leaning on Jim's shoulder. "The Hoover Dam was a bit long of a car ride, so now let's just sit back and..."
"Aw, honey," he complained. "But it's not just the dam we went for. The journey is as important as the destination."
She flung her hand up, retorting, "With all the places you would have us go, it's a wonder we haven't seen all of America yet."
When Jim looked crestfallen, she smiled and hugged him tenderly, placing one kiss on his cheek. "You know I'm playing with you, Jim." she said warmly. "We had a wonderful time, and yes even the car ride was made fun by your presence."
"But the sights..." he mumbled, "The landmarks..." letting himself be led away by the shoulder.
"Look, dear!" she said excitedly. "They restarted our paper route this very morning, just like you asked them to." Rebecca was looking down at the newspaper resting on their doorstep.
"I can't say the same for the mail," Jim said, looking at their overstuffed mailbox. The newspaper lay on the front porch where it had knocked their welcome mat askew.
* * *
The synx had gotten on top of the car, and was perched on the luggage, which was on the luggage rack, trilling fiercly down at the children. Jim and Rebecca approached, laughing a bit at the overwhelming... cuteness of it all. The newspaper trailed in Jim's left hand, unopened.
"What's she doing Billy?" Rebecca asked the boy as she and her husband came closer to the car.
"I dunno mom," said Billy, trying to lift his scrawny form up the side of the car to reach the synx. "She just jumped up there lookin' at me."
Carolin gave an exasperated sigh, turning in a huff away from her family. "You people are all so unobservant," she said cryptically over her back, tossing up a hand and retreating.
"I think she's aiming for your head, Billy," Jim concluded wisely as Tasci hopped from the luggage lightly onto Billy's head.
Billy smiled goofily, his brown bangs pushed down over his eyes. "She's cute," he murmured.
"Actually, it's 'he' not 'she'," Tasci spoke clearly. Bounding off of Billy's shock of hair, she fluttered up to the branch of a maple tree in the front yard. "Carolin had it right the first time."
"Thank you for the ride," Tasci called down to the stunned family once a good foothold had been obtained on the branch. "And the song. I have some things to do now, but I wanted to thank you before I left."
Tasci cocked her head towards Carolin who alone stared back not with bewilderment, but with the equally calculating gaze Tasci was giving her. Then leaving the tree branch shaking behind, the Starling lifted off into the air.
You will meet again.
"We will meet again!" Tasci crowed as soaring through the air and vanishing over the rooftops.
Some moments later, Jim said, "I wonder if that had anything to do with this headline," lifting up the newspaper for all to read. "LTF: New Findings in the Search for a Cure,"
* * *
Some time later, Tasci paused with a skitter on a sloping stretch of rooftop. Flapping her wings backwards clumsily, she managed not to go tumbling this time.
"Well you've been awfully quiet lately," the Starling declared.
I like to separate our conversations so as not to distract the readers.
"From the story line, I see." Tasci said, surveying the quiet rooftops. They were touched by the late afternoon sun, going from house to house down the hill to the city. Nothing sounded more than the noisy rush of cars. A few birds chirped in the distance.
"Judging from the lack of action, I'd say this is one of those times," Tasci concluded, sitting down.
You got it.
"Okay, so what should we talk about?" the synx said pleasantly, though a trifle impatiently.
Actually I had a question...
"Shoot."
Are you a guy or a girl?
Tasci twitched. "Er... I've been male since my transformation, but you know that right?"
Oh geez, and I've been using all those feminine pronouns. The readers must be so confused...
"_Tell_ me you knew," Tasci said in a shocked tone.
Um.
"You didn't even notice that I had been changed into a guy?" Tasci yipped in shock. "How could you write something and not even /know/ about it?"
You don't hafta shout.
"Dude," Tasci went on, "It isn't exactly the sort of thing you don't notice."
It must have slipped my mind.
"So you forgot--," Tasci paused to nibble at his haunch irritably. "What about that whole fiasco where I first tried to go to the bathroom?" Tasci grimaced. "There's a memory I could do without."
Dead silence.
"You didn't know. Even after clearly identifying me as male back in the car scene, you didn't know."
The car scene? I never... oh... yeh, looks like I did. Silence reigned, then Tasci started to chuckle, then collapsed in hysteric laughter, almost rolling off the roof gleefully. Hey, don't laugh! It was an honest mistake!
Tasci whooped out, "I pulled a fast one on the author. The author! Hoodwinked! Bamboozled. Horn swaggled!"
Well I feel sheepish.
"Alright, you ba-a-a-ad boy," Tasci said sheepishly.
But no more freebies!
"Okay okay, enough obscure movie quotes," Tasci said abruptly, lying on his back and talking up to the sky. "But seriously, you did know about this beforehand, really."
...
"That's just not funny," Tasci snapped. "Someone had to write it. If you're writing things you're not aware of, that is called crazy. So which is it? Did a mysterious higher power guide your hand for my bathroom scene, or are you schizophrenic."
I uh... the bathroom scene was never written.
Tasci put a paw under his chin in thought. "But how did I experience something that hasn't been written?"
Perhaps you think you experienced it, but instead you're generating the memories on the spot and not even realizing it.
"Oh, I hadn't thought of it that way," he said in a small voice. "But isn't there some solution not so metaphysical?"
Well I could be lying to you.
"There is that," Tasci said, chuckling. He flipped around and dug his footclaws into the pliant roof shingles. Looking at the falling sun, he remarked, "It's getting on in the day. Shall we move on then?"
Let's.
* * *
There was an unusual amount of activity at the zoo, even after darkness had fallen. A few men stood around lazily in soldiers' garb, sporting impressively automatic weaponry. That, apparantly, was enough, as the crowd of people glaring in the soldiers' direction wasn't doing anything foolish. The rest of the people lined up in a semi-formal line for the right to crowd around a flickering monitor. The monitor showed a scene from a camera in a lush zoo enclosure. In the baleful glare of the halogen lights, something moved. Something big and scaly, and white.
A brief shadow flickered overhead, flitting from tree to tree above the soldier's heads. "Oh man," it whispered, looking at the soldiers. The shadow paused briefly at the signs marked "DANGER! Dangerous animal ahead," and "EXTREME RISK TO LIFE" and "Do _not_ proceed." "Oh -man-," it said, ignoring the signs and going on.
Tasci came up slowly through the bushes to the high walled enclosure. Barbed-wire had been hastily thrown up around the walls, beyond which a 12 foot drop led to a slowly sloping forested hillock.
"OH /man/," the synx said, poking his head out of the bushes to peer through the barbed wire, down the sheer walls. Something was resting down there, not bothering to seek cover. Nor did it need to, being 24 feet long with talons like razors, a jaw like a steel trap and a total interlocking coat of milky white scales strong as steel. It whipped its tail back and forth, then yawned revealing an impressive array of sharp teeth. Then it quietly went back to sleep.
"Oh no, mom, not a white dragon," Tasci whispered despairingly. He let out a little huff. "I've got to find a way to help you, I just gotta. This is too big for me to deal with by myself. I don't suppose you have any suggestions."
The dragon was silent.
"I meant you."
Oh. Sorry, I'm not supposed to interfere. Story universe rules. Besides it wouldn't be good for the story if I told you what to do; you know that.
"Yeah..." Tasci sighed, standing up and turning around.
"Well, time to go." he concluded.
Where will you go?
Tasci shrugged. "I don't know. She seems safe where she is for the moment. I'll just let fate take me where it will, and I should find help somewhere along the line."
Good idea! That way I can help without--
"Ssssh!" Tasci whispered conspiratorially.
Oh, right. The dragon beneath her turned over and went to sleep.
"Now all I have to do," Tasci mused, "Is figure out /how/ to go."
Well trucks go everywhere...
Last Updated: Sun Dec 1 2002 08:26:18
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