David's Fanfic

PLEASE NOTE:
       1) It is based on Terry Pratchett's Thief Of Time, from his Discworld series. There's a link to the book in a comment at the bottom if you haven't read it and you want to get a little bit of context for this fic. 
       2) If you haven't read any of the Discworld books, the title of my fanfiction is a line from Thief of Time and refers to Death (the person, not the process). It's about ... a part of the story that I can't really explain well out of context. Sorry. And if you don't like/haven't experienced the quite strange, eclectic humour that characterises Pratchett's work ... this will probably be a disaster. :(
       3) Where the dialogue is in small caps and lacking speech marks, this is on purpose: Death's lines are shown in this way in the books because he does not, technically, speak; rather, his words appear in the listener's brain without bothering to inform the ears. And the same goes for Death of Rats (long story).
       4) There are footnotes (which go to the bottom of the page) so watch out for them.
And that's it. Enjoy! Or not, as the case may be.

And Then There Was One

The ironic part, thought Susan as she looked into the shadows of the library, is that not only is he totally devoid of imagination, he actually likes it that way. The encyclopaedias she understood, but…

“Grim Fairy Tales” she commanded with her best Granddaughter of Death voice, before ducking rapidly as a large, dusty projectile whistled out of the darkness at head height.

Picking herself up and flapping at the liberated dust particles as they danced around madly, she glared at the now slightly battered book. Fiction? Really? Fairytales? She opened it to a random page, and stared down the frustratingly normal illustrations like they had personally insulted her.

But why? Oh, yes, he’d said that it was the whole ‘end of the world’, ‘evil auditors and glass clock’ thing that made him dig this one out, but why did he have it in the first place?

She paused for a moment as the thought of Time first surfaced guiltily, and then angrily, in her brain. After all, he was the one that never visited, apart from occasionally manifesting in the stationery cupboard. It wasn't her fault. Of course, came a little voice from the back of her mind, maybe if you spent less time marking badly spelled essays and more time with people over age nine, you might actually have – it sniggered meaningfully – more Time.

“That is not the issue,” she said sharply.

squeak, a bony voice remarked slyly from a nearby shelf.

“What are you doing there? Go away. And anyway, it isn't. If he doesn’t want to visit, it’s hardly my fault.”

squeak, came the reply.

“Yes, I know he’s the personification of Time. That’s the point.” She shook her head, then grabbed Death of Rats by the robe and stared it in the skull, her hair sparking slightly. “The point is, which you would know had you been paying attention, is that my grandfather, who, in case you hadn’t noticed, happens to be Death himself–”

squeak, said Death of Rats helpfully.

Susan gave it a Look.

squeak?

“I was being sarcastic,” she said in a voice icy enough to make penguins reach for their jumpers. “Anyway, I was trying to figure out why an … anthropomorphic personification with the imagination of your average cobblestone has a library full of novels in his house.” 

Especially, she continued internally, when he can’t even get his skull around the idea of narrative plotline. Yes, the butler did it, the butler usually does it* , but it’s not the end of the book that matters, it’s how you get there … Gods, she thought, next I’ll be standing on street corners in garish knitwear, fundraising for the ‘Save the Rabid Flesh-Eating Cringer of Bhang-Bhang-Duc' Society^†. It’s not the destination, she mimicked, it’s the journey.

“Blasted new age harpies.” She smiled grimly, surveying the room and its myriad of gothic ebony bookshelves, each marked by subject. “They should try rattling their soup cans up here. Then they’d know about extinction…” She set off down one of the dark alleys in front of her, helpfully labeled ‘D: Death to Death ’, and brushed her eyes along the lines of long-undisturbed tomes.

She paused, not noticing the fine layer of pioneering dust motes that began relocating to her shoulders in search of adventure. Maybe that’s it. Maybe this strange fascination of his isn’t with the idea of fiction, per se, but with the content.

“So he’s trying to understand why humans are fascinated with death and … butlers?” No, that can’t be right; sure, there are a few murder mysteries in here: Agatha Crispy^‡, Inspector Horse Mysteries, even seventeen volumes of The Snapcase Assassination – the Untold Story (abridged), but not all of them are death-related. Or butler-related, for that matter.

She ran her finger up and down the spine of one of them, uncovering a faint, barely legible title etched in gold filigree: The Furtive Five.

Pulling it out quickly, and retreating from the dust eruption that resulted, she found some light and opened it.

squeak? inquired Death of Rats, but Susan didn’t notice. She flipped through the thin, well-worn pages quickly as a conversation echoed from the deep recesses of her memory.

“What’s up with the dog?” Little Susan wrinkled her nose in a frown. “Why do they always have a dog? And why does the dog always have to do all the work? All the children ever do is stand around, being completely useless.”

A skeletal voice answered from above: i’m not entirely sure. i prefer cats myself.

“And they were pretty stupid. You’ve got to be pretty stupid to fall down your own well.”

i quite agree, little one. did you remember the moral of the story?

She nodded earnestly. “Don’t talk to strangers, and always carry a poker.”

good girl.

“Susan? Susan? Are you alright?” A thin, wrinkled hand tapped her on the back. “What brings you here? I'm afraid the master's away,” said a thin, wrinkled voice. It paused briefly, adding “on business. I'm sure–”

“Albert,” interrupted Susan.

“Yes?”

“Why does Death have all these books? He doesn’t understand fiction.”

Albert looked around with a proprietorial air and replied: “The murder mysteries were a hobby of his for a while; professional interest, you might say. And the rest, well …” He grinned. “He had to have something to read to you, didn’t he? He’s your Grandfather, after all.”

He turned and rattled off slowly down the hallway, squeaking slightly.

The End

* This is an example of narrative causality, a surprisingly common phenomenon. A certain Dr. Funke once undertook a study on the subject, but shredded it by mistake just before its findings were released, bringing him discwide fame and coining the phrase ‘to funke it’.

† The Cringer is a very large, very unusual carnivorous plant, named for its unique habit of folding over double after every meal in an attack of conscience .

‡So named for her famous, and sadly tragic, fascination with arsonists.