Tales Between the Lines

VI.7 - The Trope of Fairytales

The Titanians will hastily put on their discarded coats and readjust their bright caps.
With a disturbing sense of regret, the Arch-Archaeologist will see the six-packs and toned muscles disappear under heavy furs. The distracting views gone, she will lead the way, followed by a row of subdued six-pack bearers.

As will become the unwritten but undisputed rule on their icy planet, rank amongst Titanians will be held strictly by body height/weight. So, the smallest of them will walk directly behind the Arch-Archaeologist, his eyes fixed on the now somewhat ungainly, punky looking wig perched at a precarious angle on her head. The second smallest Titanian will follow and so on, with the largest* of them bringing up the rear.

With their bulky, heavy duty winter wear, red faces and knobby noses, they will look like a row of jolly dwarfs.

This will attract the attention of one passerby after the other, children tearing their reluctant parents to watch the spectacle. Within minutes, a crowd of gawkers will follow the alleged re-enactment of a favourite folk tale, waiting for the sure-to-come encounter with Prince Charming.

Unaware of her growing entourage, the Arch-Archaeologist will keep her eyes straight ahead, determined to let neither the now thankfully invisible six-packs nor the toned muscles keep her from fulfilling the call of duty.

Finally, she will enter the central square of the Howard Carter Entertainment Village, where the SWABM task force will already be assembled and ready to strike.**

Closing in, it will become clear the team surrounds a rather shabby, old, dusty tent of time-darkened canvas.

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* Not the tallest. Though the subject of the perfect order will have been cause for lengthy discussion.

** As befits their profession, the SWABM-team will wield shovels, pickaxes, theodolites, laser scanners, and sample tubes, ready to dig out, measure, scan, and sample whatever was in need of digging out, measuring, scanning and sampling.

The chief of the SWABM team will curtsey* to the Arch-Archaeologist. "How shall we proceed, your Arch-ship?"

"Hmm," she'll say.

"Shall we scan?" He will hold up a scanner. "Or dig?" He will caress his shovel with his other hand, an anticipating smile on his face.

The Arch-Archaeologist will not be one to let others do the scanning and digging for her. After all, there might be an article to be published about this, in Scan & Sample Tomorrow. She'll hold up a hand to stop the chief in his eager tracks. "I'll check this out."

She'll move the tent's flap aside and enter. The interior will be gloomy, details hard to discern. Some cushions will eagerly await being sat upon, a table will be deserted, and Silence, albeit absent, will still rule the place.

Something at the back of the tent will move, trying to settle more comfortably, and the thing under its buttocks will utter a satisfied sigh.

The Arch-Archaeologist will step closer, driven by professional curiosity. She'll reach for a sample tube waiting in one of her pockets.

A cushion, a pink one with green hearts on it, will sense the motion and an approaching client. It will hop from the chair it will have idled upon, and it will crawl the floor to intersect its target's path.

The Arch-Archaeologist will only have eyes for the strange being huddled over a device at the back of the tent. She'll discern corkscrew appendices and orifices and rake her brain for an epoch to place the strange being in, readying her sample tube.

Outside, the smallest one of the Titanians will lift the tent's flap and peek inside, the others—ordered by size—standing beside him. The Trope of Fairytale will be attracted by the sight and close in.**

The cushion will reach the point it will have calculated to intersect its prospective client's steps.

The Trope will waft*** into the tent, curious—and delighted by the scene unfolding there.

The Arch-Archaeologist's left foot will tread on the cushion.

The cushion will squeak.

The Arch-Archaeologist will stumble, arms flailing, sending the sample tube flying.

She'll fall forward.

One of Twisty's orifices will happen to face her way.

She'll open her mouth to utter a squeak.

Mouth and orifice will make contact.

Trope will smile.

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* Yes, curtsey. He'll place one foot behind the other and give her an awkward bow. Not a pretty sight.

** The Trope of Fairytale will be attracted by any seven gnarly, size-ordered beings of a generally smallish stature.

*** The Trope of Fairytale will be manifested as a bluish-gray wisp of smoke, think someone smoking a fat cigar.****

**** Sometimes, the Trope does rings in the air.

With a smacking sound, mouth and orifice will connect, thus considerably slowing the Arch-Archaeologist's fall.

Half a dozen of cushions will see their chance and scurry across the tent, intent on making another customer happy—and gain some long-missed cuddles. They'll heap themselves in the falling woman's projected path and squeal in delight when their customer's body will hit them in its full length, her mouth still firmly locked with Twisty's orifice.

The Trope of Fairytale will coil around the central tent-post, unwilling to miss a second of the drama unfolding, quivering in anticipation.

In the meantime, unprecedented thoughts will flood the Arch-Archaeologists mind. Like soft, fragile tendrils they will sprout and remind her of her long forgotten first kiss, received under the light of the full moon after a joyful day excavating an old lipstick factory.

Captured by the sweet memories of unearthed lipsticks and the fragrance of her fellow diggers earthy lips, she will close her eyes and lean into the contact a bit more, completely forgetting about the purpose of her investigation.

The cushions supporting her will wriggle in the purest bliss simple convenience furniture is able to conceive.

Twisty, on the other hand, will stop his frantic activity mid-tweet, dropping his device to concentrate on the new and intriguing activity one of his orifices will suddenly be engaged in.

The seven Titanians will watch wide-eyed from the entrance, unsure if they would become meant to interrupt the proceedings and unsettled by the linguistic complications of an added subjunctive to the already confusing grammatical situation.
Finally, Trope's patience will wear thin and it will cheat the absent Destiny by sprinkling the two mouth/orifice-locked protagonists with some fairy dust.*

A timid first sprinkle of sparkling dust will settle lightly on the Arch-Archaeologists wig of duty and puff! The wig will turn into an intricate veil of silken bobbin lace, engulfing the Arch-Archaeologists bald head like a precious, shiny gem.

The second sprinkle will float down slowly, twirling in the heat of the prolonged contact between mouth and orifice, but in the end settling on Twisty's corkscrew appendices...

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* An advantage of being the Trope of Fairytales is free and unlimited access to all kinds of fair stuff, like fairness, fair play, fair shares, and fair trade. However, fairy dust is still the Trope's favourite since it comes with a y instead of a bunch of morals.