Category: Uncategorized

20:Childhood illnesses? Any interesting stories behind them?

‘Well, I don’ remember all of ‘em, but I ‘ad the usual, I’s told. Mumps, measles, chicken pox, mumps again – an’ tha’ weren’ ‘spected, but it ‘appent. Though, for all I got some bad thin’s to say about Priestess Japera as a administrator for the orphanage, she were good ‘nough at ‘er ‘ealin’ arts. Din’ get no scars from all o’ tha’, nor playground accidents – though them wasn’ really, bein’s as I got pushed, I din’ fall.’ She shrugged, more or less dismissing the memory.

8:Favorite indulgence and feelings surrounding indulging

The faux redhead pondered long enough, it wasn’t clear she was going to answer at first. Finally, she sighed, shaking her head and moistening her lips. ‘I ain’ real sure wha’d count for indulgin’. Some folks is seduced by their fears, for example – though they wouldn’ see it tha’ way. I tries to confront mine, so I don’ reckon that oughta be on my list, though. Even out o’ my pleasures, though… hrm. Brandy… be kinda a ode to a lost love, but… I don’ overindulge, so tha’ prob’ly don’ count as “favourite”. More jus’ ‘abit, now. I reckons cheesecake prob’ly be wha’ counts, bein’s as I so often ‘ranges to share it wi’ a lover.’

She shrugged and shifted her position a bit. ‘I reckons, as to feelin’s around it… it be kinda like… enjoy some thin’s whiles you can, ‘cause there ain’ no guarantee y’ curren’ prosperity won’ vanish one way or another. Sort of a … way to make some use o’ what I ‘as now, an’ not jus’ ‘ope tha’ puttin’ wealth away for the future goin’ be useful.’

Apathy.

Leaving her shop for her afternoon break, Adri took the low road home for once, feeling like the longer walk would do her good. She heard all manner of things, as usual. Her magic wasn’t all that discriminating in what it brought to her attention on the breezes. She shook her head a bit, and pondered as she walked. So many snippets of things she would once have been passionate about, and trying to intervene. Somewhere along the way, she’d changed. She wasn’t so sure she missed it, even. Being pulled in too many directions at once, her heart going every which way to every problem – no. She wasn’t sure whether she’d simply used up her lifetime quota of caring already at 21, or whether she was smarter now, but that was not how she was any more. Now, if it didn’t impact directly on her life, she couldn’t manage to care. Some ghost of her old ways tried to gibber for her attention, to tell her this was wrong of her. She didn’t care about that, either.

That was always the dream, wasn’t it? ‘I wish I’d known then what I know now’? But when you got older you found out that you NOW wasn’t YOU then. You then was a twerp. You then was what you had to be to start out on the rocky road of becoming you now, and one of the rocky patches on that road was being a twerp.

Terry Pratchett, Night Watch (via xirdain)