#i ought to start putting out more sudden writings instead of just letting them rot in dms and note apps honestly | Explore Tumblr Posts and Blogs

eloarei · 7 years

Text

Damsel and Company in Distress (aka “DamselCo.”)

Chapter “it’s the beginning of the story so I guess we’ll call it One” (So, everybody’s got that one original fic, right? The one that when someone says, “your original story” that’s the one they think of? This is mine. I originally started writing it when I was sixteen. Which was 12 years ago, god help me. This past November, as part of NaNoWriMo, I started rewriting it. (Let’s be honest: “again”.) Someone please humor me and read this.) IT STARTS HERE >. It was said that the northern kingdoms were, at one point, a singular country, ruled by a single monarch. Now, people both in the north and elsewhere had differing opinions on whether the dissolution was a good or a bad thing, but there was an undeniable fact: turning one kingdom into upwards of a hundred increased the number of princesses almost exponentially. This was good news for the knights of the region, who suddenly had a lot more to do with their lives, because those princesses sure were not going to rescue themselves. There were, honestly, more princesses than anyone knew what to do with. The sudden increase in knightly activity resulted in the creation of an agency to keep track of them and the princesses they rescued, and while it wasn't strictly necessary to go through those official channels, the simple fact of the matter was that nobody would take a knight seriously if he didn't, or if the agency rated him poorly. They also wouldn't take him very seriously if he was not, in fact, a 'him', but this did not become an issue until many decades after the agency's formation, and even then, most everybody ignored the issue anyway. After all, the mere concept of a female knight was silly and of little consequence. XxX It was a dark and stormy mid-afternoon. There really wasn't any reason for it to be, but that was weather for you. It was supposed to have been a decent day, but the immediate area was void of any good weathermancers; 'supposed to have been' was hardly more than a guess from one of the local farmers. Anyway, it wasn't quite raining yet, just windy with a lot of dark clouds blowing about. So, the knight that was struggling up the hill was luckily not having to slog through too much mud, which was good, because the wind was proving enough of a challenge, given how steep the hill was. Before terribly long (and after only a few times being whipped across the face by thorny branches), the knight reached the apex of the hill, upon which stood quite a tall stone tower. (That wasn't a surprise or anything, no. It was, actually, exactly the reason the knight had been climbing the hill in the first place.) Also luckily, the massive wooden door into the tower was not locked or barred, although it was awfully heavy. The bottom level of the tower was entirely empty, as long as you didn't count piles of bones and rotting corpses as anything. The knight did not, since skeletons were fairly irrelevant when considering any of the few reasons one would bother to come to a tower like this, those reasons being treasure and princesses. (If one was a necromancer, now, that would be a different story. However, this knight was not a necromancer, nor was any other knight in the history of the agency (at least so far as the agency knew; the exception would be a story for another time, if, indeed, there was an exception).) A few boxes and pieces of furniture littered the second floor, but they were all picked clean of any useful, interesting, or otherwise worthy items. And this was alright, anyway, since really the knight was not here to pilfer some noble's second-best miscellany. The third floor was essentially the exact same as the second, in the ways that counted. On the fourth floor, there was a dragon.

Now, the knight was rather good at swordfighting, but dragons are terrifying. Certainly some people liked them, but those people were at least a little crazy. Fighting a dragon was also a little crazy, so the knight did sort of a bare-bones version of a duel, which mostly involved barely dodging a blast of fire-breath and a couple of swipes of the dragon's inordinately sharp claws, and slashing at the dragon's tail just enough to make it screech in pain and leave off the chase, allowing the knight to climb to the final floor (attic notwithstanding). The fifth and final floor held the prize. At least, it was supposed to, based on everything the knight knew about princess towers. As was implied by the name, they typically held princesses. This one, being home to a dragon as well, was sure to hold quite the princess. The princess was not waiting at the top of the stairs for her valiant rescuer, so her valiant rescuer had to do a little searching before getting properly to the rescue part. The ornate bed was around the corner, which seemed a likely place for the princess to be hiding. Or, well, not hiding. Taking a nap, maybe; it was a dark and stormy mid-afternoon, after all. So the knight approached the pretty drapery-hung four-poster, took hold of the edge of the curtain, and tore it (gently) open. What was presented was pretty clearly not what either party had anticipated. “Are you kidding me?” the knight whined, glaring down at what ought to have been a princess, but which definitely had an Adam's apple. Aside from that, the person also had a slightly squarer jaw than was usual for a princess, somewhat less manicured eyebrows, and a little bit more sideburn. It was only a hint, but a hint of sideburn was still too much for a princess, as they were typically girls. The knight wasn't the only one in the room who had an issue with what they saw. “I can't believe this,” said the person formerly assumed to be a princess. He rose up on his elbows, out of the traditional sleeping-princess pose, and glared right back at the knight, who was clearly (by his estimation) an impostor. After all, knights were tall and had swords and wore armor and were male. The person standing before him was not male; ergo, this person was not a knight. “What the hell is a boy doing in a princess tower?!” the knight asked, seemingly rhetorically before asking again in a more direct and less rhetorical fashion. “What are you doing in a princess tower?!” The boy (call him a prince) scoffed. “What am I doing? What are you doing? I was waiting for a knight to rescue me, a real knight! Do you know how long I've been waiting?! It's been... I don't even know how long, it's been so long!” He sat up more fully, pulling himself into a cross-legged position on the mattress. Then he sighed. The knight huffed in frustration and crossed her arms. “I am a real knight! You're the liar in this situation. And of the two of us, I think I'm the more inconvenienced right now. Nobody is ever going to take me seriously if I come back with a boy and try to claim he's a princess.” “I never said I was a princess,” the prince said. “No, but it's kind of implied. Towers like this only hold three things: treasure, princesses, and the dragons that guard them, and there wasn't a hint of treasure in the whole rest of the tower.” “Yeah, well, how do you--” the prince began, before trailing off with a concerned look on his face. He narrowed his eyes at the knight, looking very young and confused and, admittedly, not all that un-princesslike. “The dragon, she was here earlier. How did you get past her?” “I fought it, of course,” the knight said, standing taller and putting her hands on her hips. “What sort of coward do you take me for?” The prince didn't bother to give an answer. Instead, he hopped up out of the bed and ran to the stairwell, his bare feet slapping the hard stone floor, the long end of his tabard robe trailing behind him. The knight followed after him, rounding the corner of the stairwell just in time to see him run up to the dragon, which was huddled up in a pitiful little (well, relatively speaking) lump on the opposite side of the room, licking its tail wound. “Oh, Teresa,” the prince cooed. “You poor thing, are you alright? God, you're bleeding. Here, here, let me--” He crouched down over the dragon's tail and hovered his hands above the gash. “How did it go?” he asked himself, before hurriedly murmuring an incantation of some sort. A white light flared in the wound for a moment, and then he stopped, apparently satisfied. “I think you'll be fine now. But don't let yourself get hurt anymore by these terrible knights. Just eat them next time, okay?” “Sorry I didn't give it a chance,” the knight called sarcastically. The prince stood and came over to where the knight still stood in the doorway. “'She',” he said. “My dragon is a girl. You're not very good with genders, are you?” “You're one to talk,” the knight said, stepping back into the safety of the narrow stairwell, in case the dragon decided it wanted to come after her again. Or, fine, unless the dragon decided she wanted to come after her again. She was just slightly too big. “I told you, I never claimed to be a princess or a girl,” the prince said, glaring up at the knight, and now she could see that he was fairly short for a guy. Actually, she realized, he was probably pretty young. “How old are you, anyway?” she asked. “Seventeen,” he said, looking a little defiant. “Why? Is that gonna affect whether or not you decide to rescue me?” The knight shook her head, messy reddish hair flying around her face. “No,” she said. “I'll rescue you anyway. I mean, it's not gonna count, but I'll still do it. Unless you wanna stay here?” The prince scowled. “Not really,” he said, a cross between adamant and resigned. “I don't think my family will be too pleased I was rescued by some girl, but it's better than hanging around here any longer.” Nodding, the knight said, “Fine then. Get your stuff and let's go.” She followed the prince back upstairs, but not before casting a nervous glance back over her shoulder at the dragon. (It was now sleeping quite peacefully. She. She was now sleeping quite peacefully.) The prince looked around for a minute, seeming a bit lost, and then dashed to what must have been a closet. He emerged a minute later wearing some small flat shoes and a sleeveless overcoat on top of his tabard robe. “Um, alright,” he said. “You're not taking anything else with you?” the knight asked, raising a skeptical eyebrow at him. “Um, no? Unless you want something from here? I mean, it's all pretty good stuff, I guess.” “Thanks, but I'll pass.” Although the blankets and tapestries and books all looked like they might be worth something, or even just nice to have as a sort of trophy, she hadn't come prepared to take treasures with her, and the idea of carrying a bundled-up rug under her arm all the way home just wasn't appealing. They stopped to check on the dragon again on their way out (well, the prince did; the knight stayed out of striking distance, in case it snapped out of the apparent trance the prince's presence put it in. ...Put her in). “Are you gonna be okay by yourself for a while, Teresa?” he asked. The dragon nudged her snout up into his outstretched hand in a way that was really cute and almost made the knight a little sick and also made her miss her own dog, who was probably at home, chasing mom's turkeys in her absence. Satisfied that the dragon was able to fend for itself, the prince led the way down to the first floor and out into the day... where the stormy winds had subsided and left the sky a pale wisp-strewn late-afternoon blue. He took a deep breath and turned to face the knight, his arms swinging slightly at his sides and a cheerful smile on his face. Apparently all he'd needed was a little fresh air to set his mood to rights. “So, where are we headed?” he asked. “I've never been rescued before, so pretty much all I know is about riding off into the sunset. I've got no clue what comes after that.” The knight smirked. “Well, first of all, we're going south-east, not west, so we'll have the sun at our backs, mostly. Second of all, I, um, didn't bring a horse, so we won't be doing any riding at all. I hope you like hiking!” “Oh,” the prince said, deflating a little. “Okay then. Lead the way, I guess, Miss...?” “Addisson,” the knight said. “Addisson Marianne Lillith MacMurray. And seriously, don't call me 'miss'.” “God, that's a long name,” the prince said, looking a little horrified. “Is it?” Addisson asked. “What's yours then?” “Ellery,” the prince replied shortly. “Ellery...?” Addisson waited, assuming there would be a few more names to follow the first. “...Mmm... yeah,” Ellery said. “It's Ellery.” He nodded. Addisson laughed, a little disbelieving. “Just Ellery, huh? What kingdom are you from where they don't give people middle and last names?” “The South,” Ellery said with a shrug. “Ahh,” Addisson said, as if that explained it, when, in reality, she knew next to nothing about the South except that it was big and sandy and they made nice fabric. Oh, and that it was south of here. “Well then, uh, Prince Ellery. Let's get going. It's a bit of a walk to the next town and I-- wait, you are a prince, right? I just sort of assumed.” “I'm a prince,” Ellery confirmed, following as Addisson led the way down the hill at just barely too brisk of a pace to keep up with easily. (She was wearing boots, after all, and had experience with climbing and un-climbing hills. He, on the other hand, was wearing flats and had perhaps never climbed anything more treacherous than the occasional sand dune. Sand dunes could be dangerous, yes, but they didn't have big rocks and roots to trip over, and if you fell then you'd usually slide down, instead of tumbling down to break your crown on a tree stump.) “So, in the South, do they usually put princes in towers?” Addisson asked from some yards ahead of him. “Because up here, it's typically just princesses.” “Oh, um, no,” Ellery said. He was a little distracted, trying not to break his neck, but he tried to give as coherent an answer as he could. “I'm probably the first. You see, I have an older sister, but by the time she was old enough to go in a tower, she was already a clear favorite to be the next leader, so everyone thought it would be a waste. Besides, she had a fiance already. Actually, they'll probably be getting married any day now.” Addisson waited at the foot of the hill for Ellery to catch up, and then set off again at her practiced pace. “Okay, but why put you in the tower?” she called over her shoulder. “Why not just... sell it or something?” “It's customary for a monarchy to put one of their heirs up for rescue, isn't it? I think it's-- ahh, damn.” He stopped for a minute as his shoe came loose. Addisson waited for him some feet away, though she looked a little impatient. As soon as he got the flat jammed back on his foot, he hopped along after her and picked up his explanation. “I think it's written down in one of our treatise or something, that all participating countries had to do it. It's supposed to foster cooperation and partnership between families, or something like that.” “Really,” Addisson said, as if she wasn't actually all that interested or sure Ellery knew what he was talking about. “I'm pretty sure there are ruling families around here who don't bother, so you guys probably could have gotten away without doing it.” “Oh,” Ellery said, which effectively ended their conversation for the next hour or so. It was getting to be dark by the time Addisson decided Ellery couldn't go much farther, so they decided to settle for the night. “What? No, I can keep going,” Ellery insisted, at which Addisson scoffed. “Can you, now? Because it's been daylight out so far, and you've already lost your shoes more times than I've bothered to count. If you did that in the dark, we'd never find them.” She pointed at the knees of his calf-length pants, which had been torn up from the number of times he'd stumbled. “And you're beginning to look like a beggar. I think we ought to stop for the night.” Reluctantly, Ellery agreed. (Not that he had much of a choice in the matter. She was his guide, and he'd probably get himself eaten by wolves if he tried to wander off without her. ...Which necessarily made him feel very trusting of her, all of a sudden.) So they found a dry dirt clearing between a cluster of trees, and Addisson set about making a campfire, while Ellery mostly watched. She dug around in her pack and produced a little bag of food-strips of some sort, along with a thin, rolled-up blanket, which she handed to Ellery. “Sorry, all I've got for dinner is this turkey jerky,” she said, handing him a few pieces as they sat down around the fire. “It's pretty fresh though. My mom made it right before I left home, which was... I guess about a week or two ago.” “A week or two is fresh?” Ellery asked, looking dubiously at the dried bark-like food he was holding. “Well yeah,” Addisson said. “For jerky. This stuff can last for months.” Ellery considered the stuff, then took a bite out of it-- or tried to. It was really quite tough, though it had a savory flavor, once he got to chewing it. “Huh. It's not so bad,” he mentioned. It wasn't a familiar flavor, though, and it left him wondering what kind of strange Northern plant this 'turkey' could possibly be. He guessed it might be a type of mushroom, but he didn't bother to ask. After eating, Ellery laid down by the fire, trying to get a good amount of blanket both beneath him and covering him. It wasn't easy, and he didn't sleep especially well. He did fall asleep eventually, though, as he was shaken awake by Addisson once the sun had begun to peek through the trees. He shivered and tried to pull the blanket closer around him. “Cold...” he complained, watching his breath turn a little white in the chilly morning air. “What, like it was much warmer in your tower?” Addisson asked, looking down at him with her arms crossed. “I don't recall any central heating pipes.” “Dragon's breath kept it warm,” Ellery explained shortly, huddling further under the thin blanket, trying to adjust to the cool air before subjecting himself to it fully. Addisson responded with a 'meh' and left him for a few minutes while she cleaned up the campsite. “Alright, prince,” she said, nudging him with the toe of her boot after she felt he'd had long enough. “Let's get going. The town's just a few hours from here, and if we get there before midday we might be able to get some warm food before handling our business. What say you?” Ellery peeked out from under the blanket, looking vaguely miserable but also a little excited by the prospect of warm anything. “I say 'will you let me carry the blanket'?” With a short huff of amusement and a wry smile, Addisson nodded. “It's all yours,” she said, before she reached down and hauled him up by the forearm. “Now, onward. I'm tired of sleeping in trees.” “You slept in a tree?” Ellery asked, cocking his head to the side in a birdlike way as he trotted up beside her. They spent the next few hours discussing basic survival strategies, and by the time they arrived at the town, Ellery felt like he'd learned more in the past day than in the past year about living in the North. It was a strange and cold place, but the more he saw and heard of it, the more it grew on him. Now the town they came upon was hardly more than a dirty trading post, situated at a crossroads of two popular routes. Seven or eight wooden buildings lined the churned-mud path that served as the town center, and a handful more were stacked behind them. “Well, this place is... rustic,” Ellery commented, following Addisson to the largest of the buildings. “It's damn near heaven, is what it is,” she responded, laughing. “You haven't been traveling long enough until a place like this nearly sets your heart on fire.” Ellery choked on a laugh. “You take this knight thing pretty seriously, don't you.” She didn't respond, but Ellery got the feeling she wasn't offended. She held the door for him when they entered her chosen building. TBC whenever I get around to it. (Although I could dredge up the old version for you, if you wanted; that’s like 20k and is only, oh, 8 years old.)

#elo fics #elo talks #Damselco #wordcount 3500 #original fiction WIP #lol am I ever going to actually sit down and write this whole story?#one day maybe

5 notes · View notes

sarcasticgaypotato · 8 years

Note

I really like the theme of trust when it comes to ChellDOS. Chell needs to trust that GLaDOS won't try to kill/hurt her just like GLaDOS has to trust that Chell wont murder her again. Can you use your gay magic— I mean writing skills?

(( Of course! I am always happy to use my gay magic for the sake of ChellDOS! ))Chell never thought she would come back.She struggled for so long to leave, to be set free, only to be met with disappointment. The world above Aperture was dead. She could not find a single living human, buildings were destroyed and overrun by plants, and even animals seemed to be in scarce numbers. The world had aged while Chell had remained the same, frozen in time as the world wasted away.There was nothing for her here.

And regardless of this fact, if she had escaped Aperture before she was thrown into the depths of the facility’s past with nothing but her portal gun and a talkative potato, she would’ve stayed on the surface. Let herself die up here alone, rot away knowing that she was, at the very least, free from Aperture’s grip.

But things were different now.Chell still had no affection for Aperture, nor what the company had done or stood for, even back in the day.No, she had no positive feelings for the facility itself, it was the ruler of the facility that she had grown a soft spot for.GLaDOS, of all creatures, had earned Chell’s respect, at the very least. And, in a way, they had formed a strange bond while traveling old Aperture.Chell had seen the change in GLaDOS, and that was what changed her own opinion of the core.Maybe it was the sudden realisation and understanding of the core’s past, or maybe it was watching the AI evolve.She saw the seemingly cold, unfeeling core soften and open up, bit by bit. She was no longer in control, she was humbled, and was forced to see the world through different eyes.In a moment of sheer curiosity, Chell had looked down at the potato, staring into the golden optic that had become something she had only ever seen as belonging to an unfeeling enemy, yet now… She saw a person. Not a robot, not a machine, a person.And while she never could be sure, Chell believed that GLaDOS had done the exact same thing, in that same moment.However, this newfound partnership hadn’t meant that they were suddenly as thick as thieves. GLaDOS had willingly let her go, and Chell was happy to leave. They both wanted as much distance as possible. Staying too close brought up questions and feelings that neither of them wanted to address. Yet here Chell was, standing once more in front of the old metal shed, staring at its rusted door.The outside world had nothing left for her, but Aperture did. Now it was just the question of whether or not GLaDOS would even let her in.Believe it or not, she did.And Chell was soon face to face with an old enemy. Though that term hardly applied to them anymore. When she descended into Aperture, she was met with the core’s usual sarcasm, yet it was almost endearing this time. Almost.“I didn’t think you’d come crawling back so quickly. Miss me already?”Chell held her head up high, refusing to let the comment shift her stony expression, despite the slight urge to let it shift upon seeing the core. No longer was she hanging off the ceiling, but instead, standing in front of the elevator in an android body that looked far too human for being made of metal.The elevator door slowly opened, and neither of them moved an inch.“…Well, if you’re going to stay here, you might as well step out of that elevator, you can’t stay there.”GLaDOS backed away, never turning her back on Chell as she moved. And once there was a good amount of distance between them, Chell exited the elevator. Trust was not something that they possessed for each other yet. But today was the start of a very long journey.It had not taken long for the two of them to end up staring each other down once more, dancing on the brink of confrontation. Chell had been messing around and got her hands on the portal gun, and had brought it into GLaDOS’s chamber without a second thought.GLaDOS had practically freaked. She concealed it to a certain extent, but Chell saw the change in expression on her newly crafted face. She had drawn back defensively, and her eyes looked positively icy. She still remembered all too well what Chell had done with that portal gun in the past.Chell hadn’t caught on at first. Instead, she too found herself getting defensive, assuming that GLaDOS was getting ruffled for no reason, and taking the core’s defensive stance as a warning before an attack. Chell too had plenty of reasons to be skeptical of GLaDOS, as the murder attempts were still fresh in her brain whenever they ended up like this.“…Get that gun out of here.”GLaDOS hissed, not daring to move.Chell narrowed her eyes, confused for a moment.“…Now.”The core was not screaming at her, nor was she threatening Chell with turrets or deadly neurotoxin. She was uneasy rather than particularly angry, and appeared almost… afraid? That was not something Chell had come to associate with the AI, though the pieces were starting to come together in the human’s mind. GLaDOS had proven herself to be more than capable of showing emotion, and fear had definitely been one of them.Chell looked down at the gun in her hands, and it finally clicked. She quickly glanced up at GLaDOS, wondering for a moment if she should apologize. Instead, she quickly rushed out of the room, not looking back.More time passed, things were getting better. They had actually sat down and talked. About… everything. But mainly, what their relationship would be. Chell-who wasn’t actually talking, but instead preferring to write things down and show them to the core- had finally been able to get some answers from GLaDOS, who admitted to her uneasiness around the girl, and Chell agreed likewise. At least now they knew, and could try to work on it.They both expected this to take time, and thankfully time was something they had a lot of.What neither of them expected however, was the rather… confusing feelings that had started to surface regarding one another.Chell would never know this, but GLaDOS had harbored an… interest in Chell for a long time. But that interest was far, far from anything… safe. It had been a hatred, an obsession, a craving. It had died down after her time in a potato, and she assumed she’d be able to be rid of the feeling completely. And that was partly true. The obsession and the hate started to disappear as time went by, but they were replaced by different emotions. Something warm and strange feeling, like a tightness in her chest. Something she had no idea that Chell was experiencing at the same time.Of course, this matter, did not get discussed. Not verbally anyway.It grew stronger as time passed, and eventually, Chell grew tired of simply letting it be.They had both tried to practice touching each other as a part of their trust building, even though each interaction had been very brief, and barely more than a brush of the fingers against each other. Chell decided to change that.She approached GLaDOS carefully, making herself known by walking towards the core head on, having learned to never sneak up on her. She cleared her throat a little, looking up at the AI and gesturing with her hand for the robot to come closer. “What is it now? You’ve already had dinner, you aren’t getting seconds.”Chell rolled her eyes, scoffing slightly under her breath. Once the core had gotten close enough, she rummaged through her jumpsuit pockets to find the pre-written note that she made for this.‘Can I try something?’“Well you’re going to need to do a better job of explaining, for one.”GLaDOS responded with snark, though her tone held no bite. It hadn’t for awhile actually, now that Chell thought about it. Instead, the sarcastic comments and remarks that many people would find quite rude had shifted. Chell wasn’t offended by them, yet she didn’t need to ignore them anymore either. She found herself smiling at half of them, like this was an old joke between her and the core.Still, GLaDOS was right. She ought to explain herself better.She pointed to her hand, then gestured to GLaDOS.To her surprise, the core caught on instantly, her eyebrows raising slightly as her golden optics studied Chell.“…Alright, try whatever it is you want.”That came as even more of a surprise, though it was quite the pleasant one. It wasn’t often that GLaDOS put that much faith in her. She didn’t want to mess this up.

Like many times before, she carefully reached out and touched GLaDOS’s hand. The core tensed for a moment, before relaxing. This was not uncharted territory. Slowly, Chell moved, lacing her fingers with the AI’s, constantly watching the android’s face for any signs of discomfort.She found none.Instead, the core looked at her with surprise, and a hint of something else. Contentment maybe?Chell wasn’t sure. But she held this touch for awhile, liking the warmth that roared up in her chest that it caused. Aperture was often so cold, and it had been so long since Chell had been around other humans, she had forgotten what physical affection had felt like.Minutes went by, maybe even hours. It was so hard to tell time down here, but it felt like years had passed when GLaDOS pulled away. She was slow in her actions instead of her usual jerky movements when it came to this sort of thing. She was relaxed. A relaxed GLaDOS was NOT something Chell saw often. Even if the core was in a good mood, she was hardly relaxed.“…That… wasn’t as horrible as I had expected. Perhaps… we should continue to study this tomorrow.”Chell smiled. That was the best reaction she could possibly hope for.And study it they did. Step by step, they put themselves on display for the other, showing their weakness just long enough for the other to study it, and try to learn how to adapt to it.A little over a year later, they were both surprised with their progress. They weren’t perfect, they knew that. Chell was rather jumpy about her neck being touched, and GLaDOS was still a little uneasy whenever Chell was holding a Portal gun or anything that could be used as a weapon.But despite that, they were proud enough of the steps they had taken as is.Chell found herself standing in her room, waiting for the core. They had planned to spend some time together, and GLaDOS promised to meet her here. And, perfectly on time, a knock on the door sounded, before it opened on its own. Knocking wasn’t necessary for someone who controlled the whole facility, but Chell liked to know where the core was if they were going to be interacting. No surprises.And so, as GLaDOS approached her, she’d give a brief, verbal warning before touching the girl.The AI carefully wrapped her arms around Chell’s waist, keeping her grip loose and relaxed, as to not make the human feel trapped. Gently, she pressed her forehead against the ex-test subject, giving her a sort of nuzzle that Chell quickly returned.“…Hey.”The core smirked, looking down at Chell as she spoke.“Is this all you had planned? When you said you wanted to spend time together, I didn’t think you meant you just wanted to stand here.”Chell rolled her eyes, a smile tugging at her lips. She didn’t want to pull away to grab a pencil and paper, so instead she simply mouthed the words, knowing full well that GLaDOS could read her lips very well.‘Well I wasn’t planning on standing, but I have a perfectly nice sofa that we could move this to.’Chell watched as the core’s optics seemed to gleam, almost sparkling with amusement.“…Can I pick you up?”Despite the affection that was being shared between them, both of them never failed to ask before changing their position or form of affection. They cared for each other, no doubt, but sudden movements could be unnerving for both, especially ones that involved direct physical contact. However with proper warning, it was welcomed.Chell nodded, very carefully moving her arms to loosely wrap around the core’s neck as she found herself scooped up into the cool metal arms of her partner.It was strange in a way, to finally be able to give her trust to someone who, many months ago, she wouldn’t have let touch her. She supposed GLaDOS felt the same.Yet, as she found herself being set down on the soft cushion of the couch, and she moved closer to the core who joined her moments after, she found that she didn’t care. What did it matter how things had been? It was time to enjoy the now. She wasted little time joining the metallic woman’s hand with her own, and gently resting her head against the core’s chest, who let out a soft hum of contentment at her actions.Trust had taken time to begin, and it would take even longer to keep going, but it had been worth it.

#chelldos #chell #glados #portal #portal 2

26 notes · View notes

readbookywooks · 8 years

Text

THE WRONG DOOR

This is a story about something that happened long ago when your grandfather was a child. It is a very important story because it shows how all the comings and goings between our own world and the land of Narnia first began. In those days Mr Sherlock Holmes was still living in Baker Street and the Bastables were looking for treasure in the Lewisham Road. In those days, if you were a boy you had to wear a stiff Eton collar every day, and schools were usually nastier than now. But meals were nicer; and as for sweets, I won't tell you how cheap and good they were, because it would only make your mouth water in vain. And in those days there lived in London a girl called Polly Plummer. She lived in one of a long row of houses which were all joined together. One morning she was out in the back garden when a boy scrambled up from the garden next door and put his face over the wall. Polly was very surprised because up till now there had never been any children in that house, but only Mr Ketterley and Miss Ketterley, a brother and sister, old bachelor and old maid, living together. So she looked up, full of curiosity. The face of the strange boy was very grubby. It could hardly have been grubbier if he had first rubbed his hands in the earth, and then had a good cry, and then dried his face with his hands. As a matter of fact, this was very nearly what he had been doing. "Hullo," said Polly. "Hullo," said the boy. "What's your name?" "Polly," said Polly. "What's yours?" "Digory," said the boy. "I say, what a funny name!" said Polly. "It isn't half so funny as Polly," said Digory. "Yes it is," said Polly. "No, it isn't," said Digory. "At any rate I do wash my face," said Polly, "Which is what you need to do; especially after - " and then she stopped. She had been going to say "After you've been blubbing," but she thought that wouldn't be polite. "Alright, I have then," said Digory in a much louder voice, like a boy who was so miserable that he didn't care who knew he had been crying. "And so would you," he went on, "if you'd lived all your life in the country and had a pony, and a river at the bottom of the garden, and then been brought to live in a beastly Hole like this." "London isn't a Hole," said Polly indignantly. But the boy was too wound up to take any notice of her, and he went on "And if your father was away in India - and you had to come and live with an Aunt and an Uncle who's mad (who would like that?) - and if the reason was that they were looking after your Mother - and if your Mother was ill and was going to - going to - die." Then his face went the wrong sort of shape as it does if you're trying to keep back your tears. "I didn't know. I'm sorry," said Polly humbly. And then, because she hardly knew what to say, and also to turn Digory's mind to cheerful subjects, she asked: "Is Mr Ketterley really mad?" "Well either he's mad," said Digory, "or there's some other mystery. He has a study on the top floor and Aunt Letty says I must never go up there. Well, that looks fishy to begin with. And then there's another thing. Whenever he tries to say anything to me at meal times - he never even tries to talk to her - she always shuts him up. She says, "Don't worry the boy, Andrew" or "I'm sure Digory doesn't want to hear about that" or else "Now, Digory, wouldn't you like to go out and play in the garden?" "What sort of things does he try to say?" "I don't know. He never gets far enough. But there's more than that. One night - it was last night in fact - as I was going past the foot of the attic-stairs on my way to bed (and I don't much care for going past them either) I'm sure I heard a yell." "Perhaps he keeps a mad wife shut up there." "Yes, I've thought of that." "Or perhaps he's a coiner." "Or he might have been a pirate, like the man at the beginning of Treasure Island, and be always hiding from his old shipmates." "How exciting!" said Polly, "I never knew your house was so interesting." "You may think it interesting," said Digory. "But you wouldn't like it if you had to sleep there. How would you like to lie awake listening for Uncle Andrew's step to come creeping along the passage to your room? And he has such awful eyes." That was how Polly and Digory got to know one another: and as it was just the beginning of the summer holidays and neither of them was going to the sea that year, they met nearly every day. Their adventures began chiefly because it was one of the wettest and coldest summers there had been for years. That drove them to do indoor things: you might say, indoor exploration. It is wonderful how much exploring you can do with a stump of candle in a big house, or in a row of houses. Polly had discovered long ago that if you opened a certain little door in the box-room attic of her house you would find the cistern and a dark place behind it which you could get into by a little careful climbing. The dark place was like a long tunnel with brick wall on one side and sloping roof on the other. In the roof there were little chunks of light between the slates. There was no floor in this tunnel: you had to step from rafter to rafter, and between them there was only plaster. If you stepped on this you would find yourself falling through the ceiling of the room below. Polly had used the bit of the tunnel just beside the cistern as a smugglers' cave. She had brought up bits of old packing cases and the seats of broken kitchen chairs, and things of that sort, and spread them across from rafter to rafter so as to make a bit of floor. Here she kept a cash-box containing various treasures, and a story she was writing and usually a few apples. She had often drunk a quiet bottle of ginger-beer in there: the old bottles made it look more like a smugglers' cave. Digory quite liked the cave (she wouldn't let him see the story) but he was more interested in exploring. "Look here," he said. "How long does this tunnel go on for? I mean, does it stop where your house ends?" "No," said Polly. "The walls don't go out to the roof. It goes on. I don't know how far." "Then we could get the length of the whole row of houses." "So we could," said Polly, "And oh, I say!" "What?" "We could get into the other houses." "Yes, and get taken up for burglars! No thanks." "Don't be so jolly clever. I was thinking of the house beyond yours." , "What about it?" "Why, it's the empty one. Daddy says it's always been empty since we came here." "I suppose we ought to have a look at it then," said Digory. He was a good deal more excited than you'd have thought from the way he spoke. For of course he was thinking, just as you would have been, of all the reasons why the house might have been empty so long. So was Polly. Neither of them said the word "haunted". And both felt that once the thing had been suggested, it would be feeble not to do it. "Shall we go and try it now?" said Digory. "Alright," said Polly. "Don't if you'd rather not," said Digory. "I'm game if you are," said she. "How are we to know we're in the next house but one?" They decided they would have to go out into the boxroom and walk across it taking steps as long as the steps from one rafter to the next. That would give them an idea of how many rafters went to a room. Then they would allow about four more for the passage between the two attics in Polly's house, and then the same number for the maid's bedroom as for the box-room. That would give them the length of the house. When they had done that distance twice they would be at the end of Digory's house; any door they came to after that would let them into an attic of the empty house. "But I don't expect it's really empty at all," said Digory. "What do you expect?" "I expect someone lives there in secret, only coming in and out at night, with a dark lantern. We shall probably discover a gang of desperate criminals and get a reward. It's all rot to say a house would be empty all those years unless there was some mystery." "Daddy thought it must be the drains," said Polly. "Pooh! Grown-ups are always thinking of uninteresting explanations," said Digory. Now that they were talking by daylight in the attic instead of by candlelight in the Smugglers' Cave it seemed much less likely that the empty house would be haunted. When they had measured the attic they had to get a pencil and do a sum. They both got different answers to it at first, and even when they agreed I am not sure they got it right. They were in a hurry to start on the exploration. "We mustn't make a sound," said Polly as they climbed in again behind the cistern. Because it was such an important occasion they took a candle each (Polly had a good store of them in her cave). It was very dark and dusty and draughty and they stepped from rafter to rafter without a word except when they whispered to one another, "We're opposite your attic now" or "this must be halfway through our house". And neither of them stumbled and the candles didn't go out, and at last they came where they could see a little door in the brick wall on their right. There was no bolt or handle on this side of it, of course, for the door had been made for getting in, not for getting out; but there was a catch (as there often is on the inside of a cupboard door) which they felt sure they would be able to turn. "Shall I?" said Digory. "I'm game if you are," said Polly, just as she had said before. Both felt that it was becoming very serious, but neither would draw back. Digory pushed round the catch with some difficultly. The door swung open and the sudden daylight made them blink. Then, with a great shock, they saw that they were looking, not into a deserted attic, but into a furnished room. But it seemed empty enough. It was dead silent. Polly's curiosity got the better of her. She blew out her candle and stepped out into the strange room, making no more noise than a mouse. It was shaped, of course, like an attic, but furnished as a sitting-room. Every bit of the walls was lined with shelves and every bit of the shelves was full of books. A fire was burning in the grate (you remember that it was a very cold wet summer that year) and in front of the fire-place with its back towards them was a high-backed armchair. Between the chair and Polly, and filling most of the middle of the room, was a big table piled with all sorts of things printed books, and books of the sort you write in, and ink bottles and pens and sealing-wax and a microscope. But what she noticed first was a bright red wooden tray with a number of rings on it. They were in pairs - a yellow one and a green one together, then a little space, and then another yellow one and another green one. They were no bigger than ordinary rings, and no one could help noticing them because they were so bright. They were the most beautiful shiny little things you can imagine. If Polly had been a very little younger she would have wanted to put one in her mouth. The room was so quiet that you noticed the ticking of the clock at once. And yet, as she now found, it was not absolutely quiet either. There was a faint - a very, very faint - humming sound. If Hoovers had been invented in those days Polly would have thought it was the sound of a Hoover being worked a long way off - several rooms away and several floors below. But it was a nicer sound than that, a more musical tone: only so faint that you could hardly hear it. "It's alright; there's no one here," said Polly over her shoulder to Digory. She was speaking above a whisper now. And Digory came out, blinking and looking extremely dirty - as indeed Polly was too. "This is no good," he said. "It's not an empty house at all. We'd better bunk before anyone comes." "What do you think those are?" said Polly, pointing at the coloured rings.' "Oh come on," said Digory. "The sooner-" He never finished what he was going to say for at that moment something happened. The high-backed chair in front of the fire moved suddenly and there rose up out of it - like a pantomime demon coming up out of a trapdoor the alarming form of Uncle Andrew. They were not in the empty house at all; they were in Digory's house and in the forbidden study! Both children said "O-o-oh" and realized their terrible mistake. They felt they ought to have known all along that they hadn't gone nearly far enough. Uncle Andrew was tall and very thin. He had a long clean-shaven face with a sharply-pointed nose and extremely bright eyes and a great tousled mop of grey hair. Digory was quite speechless, for Uncle Andrew looked a thousand times more alarming than he had ever looked before. Polly was not so frightened yet; but she soon was. For the very first thing Uncle Andrew did was to walk across to the door of the room, shut it, and turn the key in the lock. Then he turned round, fixed the children with his bright eyes, and smiled, showing all his teeth. "There!" he said. "Now my fool of a sister can't get at you!" It was dreadfully unlike anything a grown-up would be expected to do. Polly's heart came into her mouth, and she and Digory started backing towards the little door they had come in by. Uncle Andrew was too quick for them. He got behind them and shut that door too and stood in front of it. Then he rubbed his hands and made his knuckles crack. He had very long, beautifully white, fingers. "I am delighted to see you," he said. "Two children are just what I wanted." "Please, Mr Ketterley," said Polly. "It's nearly my dinner time and I've got to go home. Will you let us out, please?" "Not just yet," said Uncle Andrew. "This is too good an opportunity to miss. I wanted two children. You see, I'm in the middle of a great experiment. I've tried it on a guinea-pig and it seemed to work. But then a guinea-pig can't tell you anything. And you can't explain to it how to come back." "Look here, Uncle Andrew," said Digory, "it really is dinner time and they'll be looking for us in a moment. You must let us out." "Must?" said Uncle Andrew. Digory and Polly glanced at one another. They dared not say anything, but the glances meant "Isn't this dreadful?" and "We must humour him." "If you let us go for our dinner now," said Polly, "we could come back after dinner." "Ah, but how do I know that you would?" said Uncle Andrew with a cunning smile. Then he seemed to change his mind. "Well, well," he said, "if you really must go, I suppose you must. I can't expect two youngsters like you to find it much fun talking to an old buffer like me." He sighed and went on. "You've no idea how lonely I sometimes am. But no matter. Go to your dinner. But I must give you a present before you go. It's not every day that I see a little girl in my dingy old study; especially, if I may say so, such a very attractive young lady as yourself." Polly began to think he might not really be mad after all. "Wouldn't you like a ring, my dear?" said Uncle Andrew to Polly. "Do you mean one of those yellow or green ones?" said Polly. "How lovely!" "Not a green one," said Uncle Andrew. "I'm afraid I can't give the green ones away. But I'd be delighted to give you any of the yellow ones: with my love. Come and try one on." Polly had now quite got over her fright and felt sure that the old gentleman was not mad; and there was certainly something strangely attractive about those bright rings. She moved over to the tray. "Why! I declare," she said. "That humming noise gets louder here. It's almost as if the rings were making it." "What a funny fancy, my dear," said Uncle Andrew with a laugh. It sounded a very natural laugh, but Digory had seen an eager, almost a greedy, look on his face. "Polly! Don't be a fool!" he shouted. "Don't touch them." It was too late. Exactly as he spoke, Polly's hand went out to touch one of the rings. And immediately, without a flash or a noise or a warning of any sort, there was no Polly. Digory and his Uncle were alone in the room.

#MagiciansNephew

0 notes