Wednesday's family had always encouraged great trials to prove one's worthiness to claim a mate. She'd been hearing the stories since she was small, and repeating them from the time she learned to talk. Most of these stories ended in marriage, or at least a temporary alliance; some of them ended in bloodshed, tragedy, and in one memorable case, the burning of an entire city quarter. Wednesday liked those ones best.
Now that she was sitting in front of her hut, though, waiting for Peter to return, the stories without death and dismemberment suddenly seemed more appealing.
"If you want to kiss me, you have to bring me the head of a dinosaur first," she had said, which seemed reasonable at the time.
Peter had been gone a day and a half now.
If this was one of her family's stories, Peter would come back with the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex on a stick and present it to her with great aplomb. Or the Tyrannosaurus Rex would come back with Peter in his teeth.
When Peter finally did return, bloody and bruised but with a wide, pleased smile on his face, the head he presented her with looked to be from an animal the size of a large dog.
She narrowed her eyes and studied it closely from the top of its lizardy head to the sawed off bottom of its lizardy neck. It was true, she hadn't exactly specified the size of the dinosaur. And so, in the end, she supposed this counted.
"All right, you can claim me now," she said.
The story would probably get better in the retelling anyway.
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Date: 2009-02-11 01:31 am (UTC)Wednesday's family had always encouraged great trials to prove one's worthiness to claim a mate. She'd been hearing the stories since she was small, and repeating them from the time she learned to talk. Most of these stories ended in marriage, or at least a temporary alliance; some of them ended in bloodshed, tragedy, and in one memorable case, the burning of an entire city quarter. Wednesday liked those ones best.
Now that she was sitting in front of her hut, though, waiting for Peter to return, the stories without death and dismemberment suddenly seemed more appealing.
"If you want to kiss me, you have to bring me the head of a dinosaur first," she had said, which seemed reasonable at the time.
Peter had been gone a day and a half now.
If this was one of her family's stories, Peter would come back with the head of a Tyrannosaurus Rex on a stick and present it to her with great aplomb. Or the Tyrannosaurus Rex would come back with Peter in his teeth.
When Peter finally did return, bloody and bruised but with a wide, pleased smile on his face, the head he presented her with looked to be from an animal the size of a large dog.
She narrowed her eyes and studied it closely from the top of its lizardy head to the sawed off bottom of its lizardy neck. It was true, she hadn't exactly specified the size of the dinosaur. And so, in the end, she supposed this counted.
"All right, you can claim me now," she said.
The story would probably get better in the retelling anyway.