Author’s Note: I received a lot of requests for a story about Dee, and I almost went with that for today, but in the end my idea just wasn’t coming together. So, I’ll let it sit a bit and maybe save it for next time. But what to put up instead? Well, I got an e-mail asking me if I would consider answering a certain long-standing question… so… without further ado…
It was mid-morning Tuesday on the first week of classes at Magisterius University, and Sooni the fox-eared kitsuyokai and her three nekoyokai friends were returning to Harlowe. Their professor for their first class–instruction in Pax Imperium, the common tongue of the empire–had let the class go after doing little more than going over the syllabus and having everybody introduce themselves to the class.
Sooni had received effuse praise from the teacher for her pronunciation, which she‘d taken as her due, just as she accepted it as her right to have nothing but nice things to wear and three beautifully groomed cat girls for her loyal best friends.
One of those same cat girls, on the other hand, had not received such a positive response for her efforts, and was fuming.
<<<I do not see why we are forced to converse in the barbarous idiom of the coarse westerners even among ourselves,>>> Suzi lamented in her native tongue of Yokano as they trudged up the stairs to the fifth floor. Sooni went first, of course. She was followed by the small, quiet cat girl called Kai, and then the other two brought up the rear. They hung back so that they would not be overheard by Sooni, who had forbidden the speaking of anything but Pax. <<<Why must we suffer the indignity of mangling our mouths with their disharmonious syllables simply because they have never taken the time to learn a proper language?>>>
<<<Oh, you are just jealous because you haven’t my way with the imperial tongue,>>> Maliko whispered in response.
<<<I do not know how they can call it a proper empire when their ruler isn’t even a god,>>> Suzi retorted. <<<Do these westerners have no pride that they would let themselves be governed by a mortal?>>>
They’d grown careless in their conversation, though, and Sooni whirled around, giving them a furious glare made all the more imposing by her position near the top of the final flight of stairs, looking down on the pair. Kai, unprepared for the caravan’s sudden stop, accidentally continued and walked past Sooni. With a reflexive fluidity, Sooni grabbed her by the tail and hauled her back down the stairs without a word.
“How many times must I tell you?” she demanded to the other nekos. “We must speak Pax or people will think we are ignorant!”
“Sorry, Sooni,” Suzi said thickly.
“Don’t you remember how we used to laugh at the stupid tourists in the market, who could not read the street signs?” Sooni asked, hardly mollified. “That is what you sound like when you natter on in Yokano all day! You don’t want people thinking I am an ignorant tourist, do you?”
“Oh, Sooni, nobody could ever think that of you!” Maliko purred.
“They will if they see me associating with a couple of.. of.. stupid heads!” Sooni said. Having learned her basic Pax at the feet of a cultured tutor, she didn’t have very much ammo in her quiver when it was time to sling barbs.
“Apologies, Sooni,” Maliko said, putting her palms together and giving a little bow. “We shall not forget to use Pax again.”
“Good,” Sooni said, and she turned and headed back up the stairs. “Father says that all people of importance must learn the language of the western empire. He says that to speak well the language of others is a mark of distinction and culture.”
“Stupid Pax,” Suzi hissed.
“Besides, I have always liked Pax,” Sooni said. “Magisterian culture is so… rad?”
“I always thought that Pax has a certain… something… to it,” Maliko said sycophantically. “Everybody’s words have a certain flavor to them when spoken in Pax.”
“I has a flavor?” Suzi asked doubtfully.
“I’m so glad you think so,” Sooni said. “Because I’ve decided to start writing all my fics in Pax from now on. When we get upstairs you can all help me write the ending to my newest one, where my new character Princess Ne-Su comes to Pretty Neko Island and reveals that she is Baby Kai-Kai’s real sister–oh, this is an alternate universe where Baby Kai-Kai is adopted–and at first Science Princess thinks she is an enemy but she’s actually just jealous because Ne-Su is a prettier neko than she is and in the end they have to team up because only Princess Ne-Su’s science is powerful enough to…”
“Halp!” Suzi shrieked as, behind the oblivious Sooni, Maliko gave her a sudden hard shove sideways, knocking her over the railing and sending her tumbling onto the next flight of stairs down.
Sooni and Kai spun around to see Maliko alone looking down over the railing, to where a very surprised Suzi sat in a sort of crouch, obviously shaken but not obviously injured.
“Oh, clumsy Suzi!” she said, clapping her paw-like hands to her furry face in exaggerated concern. She pointed down. “She has fall and broke her leg! She needs the healing center right away!”
“I thought you people could land on your feet,” Sooni said, skeptically, as Suzi struggled to rise.
“Of course, Sooni, and that is why her leg is broke!” Maliko said.
“I are fine,” Suzi said. “I think.”
“Do not try to stand!” Maliko said, hurrying down the stairs and around the landing. “I will come and make sure it is broke.”
“Why you push me?” Suzi asked.
“Poor Suzi!” Maliko said, reaching her side. She reached out to give Suzi a helping hand, and somehow managed to push her back down in the process. She giggled. “She fall on her feet and hit her head! I will take her to the healing center while you and Kai go on and finish your story.”
“Are you sure her leg is broken?” Sooni asked.
“Very sure,” Maliko said. She grabbed Suzi’s leg just above the ankle with both of her hands and gave it a violent wrenching twist, prompting an inarticulate yelp of pain which mostly drowned out the cracking sound. “See? It hurts when I do this.” She demonstrated again, a bit more gently. “It is broke.”
“Very well,” Sooni said, sighing dramatically. “If it’s really broken I guess you’d better go get her healed. I’ll wait for you to…”
“Oh, you are so selfless to offer,” Maliko said, hauling the now definitely injured Suzi up by the arms and supporting her. “But you must not let your brilliant ideas slip away from you. You must strike while now is the iron!”
“Maybe…” Sooni said. “Well, I’ll see what I can come up with by myself.”
“You are not by yourself!” Maliko reminded her, hobbling down the steps as fast as she could with Suzi, before Sooni could change her mind. “You have your own Baby Kai-Kai!”
“That’s right,” Sooni said, pulling the passively mute Kai to her. “I do. Come, Baby Kai-Kai! We have a story to write! Do you think twenty stories is tall enough for Ne-Su’s crystal tower, or should it be thirty? Or…”
“I kill you for this,” Suzi hissed as Sooni and Kai passed through the door at the top of the stairs and out of earshot.
“You should thank me for it,” Maliko said. <<<If we are very lucky, something else will catch her attention before we get back and we won’t even have to read it.>>>
<<<What if we aren’t lucky?>>> Suzi asked.
<<<I’m sure something will happen to get us out of it.>>>
Argh! It’s far, far worse than Mackenzie ever thought. Sooni is torturing them with Mary Sue Fanfiction…
I was thinking of something worse… Heck even my GFs Yu-Gi-Oh fanfics don’t reek that bad. What’s really sad is I figured out what Maliko was upto the second I read the line she tossed Suzi over the railing. I can definitely relate after all the god awful fanfics I’ve read, let alone being forced to write them for someone which I think was implicit in Sooni’s characterization.
A major “DO NOT WANT!” moment for the poor nekos…
Clearly Sooni and Mackenzie need to go off to write horrendous fanfictions together. Far away from where any other living soul need be subjected to the horrors.