Fiction: Nintendo parody novel extra!

 

As I write this, it's Sunday and I haven't gotten in the post I meant to do this week. So, I decided to post yet another demo for the parody/ fan novel that's been consuming most of my time (see demos 1, 2 and 3 plus the badly edited appendix). This is the first draft of a scene I tweaked a bit to set up themes and references I didn't think to put in the first time, but it's mostly the same in the final draft. All in all, this is the part that was just fun...

King Ajax watched Aeacus’ ship depart through a telescope in the turret that was called the Royal Observatory. It rose to rejoin a modest fleet of ships high above. Meliboia pointed out the different ships. “That’s a Cygnus like mine,” she said, pointing out a familiar twin-nacelled craft. “There aren’t as many as there used to be.” She pointed out a double-hulled craft, and another with three equally spaced wings. “There’s a Gemini medium fighter, and a Trident interceptor.” She focused the telescope on a craft that her father’s ship was in the process of docking with. It was an elegant ship divided into three sections including the lander that had just rejoined, each with a wide pair of sweeping wings. “And that is the Geryon. It’s the most powerful Myrmidon warship there is or ever will be. It wouldn’t look like much next to a Union cruiser, but it has the armament of a ship five times its size. It could blow ships 20 times its size out of space, and it has.”

“I take it, then, I should not upset my in-laws,” Ajax said. He noted Mel's brother Amyclas loitering with a companion.

“That is always the best policy,” said the Dowager Prunus at his side.

 

As lunch gave way to afternoon, they walked with the Dowager in the upper galleries of the Palace, where numerous windows gave the feel of open air. “I am pleased that you came,” Prunus said to Mel. “Frankly, I am pleased with your choice of dress. The people of the Kingdoms have been so scandalized, one might think you were parading around like a nudist. I made my own inquiries. My judgment was that you dress like a Maiden courting rumor. It has its place, but there is a time when a Lady must consider her years.”

“How old do you think I am?” Mel asked coolly.

Prunus laughed. “You will not trap me that way,” she said. “Know this, King Ajax has been in this world 12 of our years. When he came, he was 26 by the reckoning of Earth. When he and his brother first appeared, I had them searched. I personally examined, I believe it was called, his driver’s license.”

“Then he is younger than me,” Mel said freely. “By a little. I suppose that would be a scandal. Maybe almost as much as a man of fifty marrying a woman of twenty.”

“We do not actually have much of that here,” Prunus said. “Our bonds of love are strong, or so others judge. Our bearing is easy, even in our later years. When a man does outlive his first Maiden, or parts from her, he usually finds a widow or Matron preferable in his maturity. The elders do not often compete with the boys for the Maidens. How is it among the Myrmidons?”

“Well, we aren’t really what you would call a self-sustaining population,” Mel answered. “They recruit among the males of the Diaspora and from other Misthioi. Most of the females are orphans and refugees that no one else will ransom or adopt, like me. At any given time, there are 2 or 3 men for every woman of age. It causes fewer problems than you might suppose. Many of the young men that join do so because they do not wish to marry. In Aeacus’ time, there was still a vow of celibacy. The ones who do take lovers do so as a fighting Triad, not a pair. Most often, two men fight with one woman. More rarely, two women fight with one man… Ah, perhaps this is too much for my Lord.” Ajax was blushing.

“It does not sound like a bad way to do things,” the King said carefully.

“Now, there is another matter,” the Dowager said. “There has been talk that Lady Meliboia is unable to bear an heir…”

“If it were so, it would be between her and myself,” Ajax said instinctively.

“Do not misunderstand,” the Dowager said in amusement. “I would have you know, I have your back. I do not care if a man and Lady bear Fruit, by choice or not. I say to all Hells with the `integrity’ of the bloodline. You and your brother have been Kings as great as any born to the noble Houses, and you came to us as landless peons with only your tools, the Music Box and a book of silly stories.”

“Trust me, I know,” Mel said. “I’ve met plenty of kings of high and noble blood. The good ones were dumb as Hydrae. The bad ones only left me alone when I told them I wasn’t going to give them Fruit. Or, I just killed them.” She considered. “Is there any chance I might see the things he brought with him?”

“King Ajax keeps his tools and his book for his own use,” Prunus answered.  “But the rest of the Relics of Ajax have a place of honor in the Palace.”

“Then I would like to see it,” Mel said.

They descended to the lower galleries where visitors wandered at will. A whole transept was devoted to Ajax and Hector. It was divided equally, but it was clear that most of the visitors favored Ajax’s side. A number of them pointed and murmured as the King approached. They passed the trophies of his greatest battles, like an Invader’s exoskeleton and the anchor of Naam’s skyship. At the very end was a cabinet for the relics he had brought with him. As they drew near, Mel covered her mouth.

About half the exhibit was devoted to the Music Box. It was a small, boxy portable tape player. Beside it were the headphones and two batteries, one of them encrusted with crystallized acid. The player was hooked up to two alchemist’s jars for power. A contraption the size of a small refrigerator had been set up to play sound for the guests. “I gave it to the Dowager after the batteries died,” Ajax said. “They had figured out enough physics and chemistry to reproduce its functions. They just don’t have the manufacturing methods to make compact electronics.”

As they watched, an Attendant carefully loaded a cassette and pressed a button. “Leaving On A Jet Plane” and “Walk Away Renee” played through the contraption’s speakers, badly. An old Mushroom Man and a Flower Girl had burst into tears before the Attendant returned the tape to its box. “Let me see that,” Mel said. At a nod from the Dowager, the Attendant handed it to her. It was a 90-minute mix tape with a list of tracks written in pen on the insert. In several places, one title had been scratched out and another written in. All told, there were 23 tracks.

“It’s my brother’s tape, really,” Ajax said. “We used to take turns recording songs off the radio.” Mel considered the two other tapes. They were the soundtracks from Heavy Metal and Krull.

“I want to listen to this,” she said, rattling the Mix Tape. “On the Box, with the headphones. I have my own power supply.”

The Attendants were clearly ready to protest, but again, Prunus intervened. “That was the second playing of the day, is it not?” she said. “Then the guests will be deprived of nothing if the Lady is allowed to use it.”

It took several keys to take out the Box and its components. Mel matter-of-factly produced a power pack clearly designed for similar devices. As she rewound the tape and began to play, she considered the other Relics on exhibit. Ajax could not have said whether the tape or the exhibit made him more uncomfortable. There was his slouch cap, with the letter A in metallic red. There were his tool box, his screw drivers, his plastic thermos. She finally turned one of the headphones. He could overhear “Nowhere Man.” He followed her pointing finger to one of the items.

“We were general maintenance contractors,” he said. “We did a lot of things. Anyway, it was a storage room for the janitors. We were just taking our break.”

“Still,” Mel said, “did you have to use that name?”

“It is my middle name,” King Ajax said.

The item was a blue can with bold red letters on a white field. It read AJAX. “For a while, we used it in the Palace,” the Dowager spoke up. “The Attendants were impressed. So were the Alchemists. We got through half the can before I had it sealed up for further study.”

She gave them distance. Mel looked at Ajax again with a smirk as she pointed at one more artifact. “Now, come on,” she said. “They must have figured that one out.” The object was marked, Expunger of Evil. It was a wooden rod with a large red cup.

“We called it that where we came from,” Ajax said. “It was our father’s.”

“Show me,” Mel said. She stopped the tape. This time, an attendant opened the case without further bidding. Ajax lifted it up with both hands.

“Stagnant water, you will flow,” he said. He went on with a flourish, because there was no way back. “Thing of evil, you will go!!!”

Mel clapped. So did the onlookers, which he belatedly realized included Hector, Daffy, Amyclas, and the High King of the Azure Realm. He smiled and bowed, still holding the Expunger.

Mel listened through the whole tape as they walked the grounds. She tapped her foot to “Popcorn” and “Music Box Dancer”. She started at the snap as the player reached the end of the first side, Ajax knew in the middle of “Total Eclipse of the Heart”. She flipped the tape and resumed listening with a respectful nod. She wiped a single tear at the end of “Big Yellow Taxi”. Finally, she frowned as she reached “Today Could Be The Day”, which lasted barely a minute before the tape snapped. 

“I tried to get that one in at the end,” Ajax said. “Then Hector rerecorded over another song and cut into it. I asked Morrie to try putting the rest together. He was Lady Pruna’s court minstrel. He  ended up creating a whole new song.” (Author's note: Yes, I tried "song fic" chapters in here. And rewriting the song was the most remotely sane way to get around the legal issues.)

“So,” Mel said as she  rose to her feet, “you let me listen to your mix. A lot of guys wouldn’t do that. So what do you have to say?”

He dropped to his knees at her feet and prepared to say what he had intended to wait days, perhaps a week for. Only then did he realize that he did not have the carefully chosen ring. Mel rested her hand on his scalp. “Wait,” she said, “there is another way. You humbled yourself. Now, rise.”

Mel removed the sword and sheath from her belt. “This is a custom of the Myrmidons,” she said. She knelt and held up her sword. “My brother, with Janus as my witness, I offer you my loyalty and my love. Take from me this sword, and I will be your sheath.” She blushed at the innuendo but did not pause. “Be my lover, my captain and my mate, and I will follow you to Heaven or Hades.” By then, her eyes were closed. She smiled as he took the sword, gaping in wonder.

“My Lady,” he said, kneeling again, “be my Queen!” He held out his own signet to her.

There were cheers as they rose. Mel waved. Then Daffy rushed in. “Ohmygosh ohmygosh ohmygosh that was so romantic-! Sorry.”

“I’m okay,” Mel groaned beneath her.

“Welcome to the family,” Ajax said. He reached down and helped her up.

“Welcome to you, too,” Amyclas said. He threw an arm around the King. “By the way, you do know you just married her. Right?”