The Interlude of Jenny Everywhere (novel): Difference between revisions

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====Chapter Three: The Mage and the Monarch====
====Chapter Three: The Mage and the Monarch====
In [[Universe (Close Encounter of the Bird Kind)|another universe]], dinner at [[Caerleon]] (attened by a dozen [[Knights of the Round Table]] as well as [[King Arthur#Raising chickens|King Arthur]] and [[Gwenhwyfar|Queen Gwenhwyfar]]) is disrupted when [[Jenny Everywhere#Adventures with the Cupids|Jenny Everywhere]] appears out of thin air and lands in the middle of the [[Round Table]] itself, wearing only her [[Jenny Everywhere's goggles|goggles]]. She apologies for the interruption and asks for the loan of [[Jenny Everywhere's scarf|a scarf]] – and other clothes as may be convenient. The knights of the Round Table quickly dress her using whatever they can gather. She introduces herself and explains that she has come to see [[Merlin#Raising chickens]], who bursts in and welcomes Jenny, who he has seen before although she doesn’t know him. After some awkward talk in both directions Merlin proclaims that he knew this day would come and he has prepared the chicken coops.
In [[Universe (Close Encounter of the Bird Kind)|another universe]], dinner at [[Caerleon]] (attened by a dozen [[Knights of the Round Table]] as well as [[King Arthur#Raising chickens|King Arthur]] and [[Gwenhwyfar|Queen Gwenhwyfar]]) is disrupted when [[Jenny Everywhere#Adventures with the Cupids|Jenny Everywhere]] appears out of thin air and lands in the middle of the [[Round Table]] itself, wearing only her [[Jenny Everywhere's goggles|goggles]]. She apologies for the interruption and asks for the loan of [[Jenny Everywhere's scarf|a scarf]] – and other clothes as may be convenient. The knights of the Round Table quickly dress her using whatever they can gather. She introduces herself and explains that she has come to see [[Merlin#Raising chickens|Merlin]], who bursts in and welcomes Jenny, who he has seen before although she doesn’t know him. After some awkward talk in both directions Merlin proclaims that he knew this day would come and he has prepared the chicken coops.


[[Shift]]ing back to the hall of the [[Secret League of the Orange-Bearded Gnomes|Orange-Bearded Gnomes]], Jenny finds all is in chaos and [[the Mad Marquess]] is locked in combat with none other than the elusive [[The Lurigadawne of Tipperary|Lurigadawne of Tipperary]]. Jenny calls for them to stop fighting – but in the confusion the Lurigadawne falls. [[The Nome King]] tries to take advantage of their confusion only for Jenny to warn them that she is armed with a fine egg-laying hen! The lesser gnomes scatter instantly, the Nome King only moments behind them when he learns that [[Bethan]] is not just a regular hen, but one belonging to [[King Arthur#Raising chickens|King Arthur]]. Once they are gone Jenny checks on the Lurigadawne, who is annoyed but alive and being fussed over by the Mad Marquess.
[[Shift]]ing back to the hall of the [[Secret League of the Orange-Bearded Gnomes|Orange-Bearded Gnomes]], Jenny finds all is in chaos and [[the Mad Marquess]] is locked in combat with none other than the elusive [[The Lurigadawne of Tipperary|Lurigadawne of Tipperary]]. Jenny calls for them to stop fighting – but in the confusion the Lurigadawne falls. [[The Nome King]] tries to take advantage of their confusion only for Jenny to warn them that she is armed with a fine egg-laying hen! The lesser gnomes scatter instantly, the Nome King only moments behind them when he learns that [[Bethan]] is not just a regular hen, but one belonging to [[King Arthur#Raising chickens|King Arthur]]. Once they are gone Jenny checks on the Lurigadawne, who is annoyed but alive and being fussed over by the Mad Marquess.

Revision as of 12:16, 16 December 2022

The Interlude of Jenny Everywhere was a three-chapter-long Jenny Everywhere-centric, The Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids prose story by Aristide Twain, serving as an epilogue to Twain's own Family Business and as a prequel to Close Encounter of the Bird Kind, written just a few days earlier by Scott Sanford.

Contents

Plot

Chapter One: The Meadow

Jenny Everywhere appears out of thin air in a meadow in Ireland, “a few miles out from the city of Thurles, in the county of Tipperary”. Met with a thirteen-year-old boy who believes her to be a faerie, she inquires after a local Leprechaun known as the Lurigadawne; she explains that she saved his life in 1876 and wants to call in a favor. But the boy says the Lurigadawne hasn't been seen lately, so Jenny thanks him and asks him to run along so she can try to look for the secret entrance, whose location he wouldn't want a local human to discover. When the boy finds the courage to asks for a boon, Jenny happily shifts directly into his backpack a portion of the gold she'd brought to sweeten the deal for the Lurigadawne, and the two part ways.

Looking around on her own, in a few hours she finds the Lurigadawne's underground home through its glamour and discovers that the Lurigadawne is not there, and neither is his sword; his home is being watched over by a Scottish Brownie who admits to not knowing where he has gone, and explains that she is only watching his house because the Lurigadawne called in “an old favour with [her] clan” before leaving. Jenny thanks the Brownie, tipping her with a gold coin, and departs. Increasingly inconvenienced by the wetness of the grass on her bare feet, but still refusing to settle for anything less than Leprechaun-shoes, she compromises and shifts a pair of thick woolen socks onto her feet before she heads to her next destination.

Chapter Two: The Mad Marquess

Jenny makes her way to what the Crew of the Copper-Colored Cupids called the Home City — not their current home base, but the city where the Creator built the first Clockwork Cherubs, which happens to resemble Jenny's own New Flaversham. She intends to hire the services of the Company of Free Genies, a group of free genies who professionally grant wishes for a fee, being only one of many strange elements barely under the surface of the deceptively normal city.

When she enters the Genies' shop, she finds a rather rude ghost known as the Mad Marquess already there, but as he is not engaging their professional services just yet, Jenny introduces herself, offering payment in the form of a magic wand drawn from the large collection of odd items accessible via her coat pockets. The Genie at the front desk finds this satisfactory (eating the artefact like a candy cane before her and a stunned Marquess's eyes), and wishes to know where the Lurigadawne has gone and to join him there.

The Genie grants this wish, opening a portal to a conference room full of what she soon recognises as Orange-Bearded Gnomes, comprising not just gnomes but other oranged-bearded members of the Little People, such as Leprechauns, Elves, Lutins, Gnatlings, and other small magical creatures; they are not pleased to see a “giantess” intruding on their gathering, but she finds herself unable to close the portal before it deposits her right in the middle of their meeting.

Distressed by her sudden appearance, the Gnomes petrify her clothing to hold her in place. The meeting disintegrates into Gnomes screaming at Jenny and Gnomes screaming at other Gnomes. Jenny recognizes one as King Roquat of the Nomes of Oz, which completely fails to calm him down. Roquat loudly predicts that she will call in allies from other worlds, monsters such as “metal men, and scarecrows, and chickens”. Jenny protests that she is not going to call in allies from other worlds. Just then, due his unwise wording when talking to a genie, a portal from another world appears and ejects a screaming Mad Marquess into the middle of the meeting hall.

Chapter Three: The Mage and the Monarch

In another universe, dinner at Caerleon (attened by a dozen Knights of the Round Table as well as King Arthur and Queen Gwenhwyfar) is disrupted when Jenny Everywhere appears out of thin air and lands in the middle of the Round Table itself, wearing only her goggles. She apologies for the interruption and asks for the loan of a scarf – and other clothes as may be convenient. The knights of the Round Table quickly dress her using whatever they can gather. She introduces herself and explains that she has come to see Merlin, who bursts in and welcomes Jenny, who he has seen before although she doesn’t know him. After some awkward talk in both directions Merlin proclaims that he knew this day would come and he has prepared the chicken coops.

Shifting back to the hall of the Orange-Bearded Gnomes, Jenny finds all is in chaos and the Mad Marquess is locked in combat with none other than the elusive Lurigadawne of Tipperary. Jenny calls for them to stop fighting – but in the confusion the Lurigadawne falls. The Nome King tries to take advantage of their confusion only for Jenny to warn them that she is armed with a fine egg-laying hen! The lesser gnomes scatter instantly, the Nome King only moments behind them when he learns that Bethan is not just a regular hen, but one belonging to King Arthur. Once they are gone Jenny checks on the Lurigadawne, who is annoyed but alive and being fussed over by the Mad Marquess.

Jenny shifts the Marquess home and explains her quest for shoes to the Luridadawne, who explains that he cannot give the same gift twice and so cannot actually replace her Leprechaun-made shoes. Disappointed, Jenny accepts that bizarre magical footwear may be beyond her for the moment – but wherever she ends up next, there will be a shoe store.

Worldbuilding

Jenny Everywhere

Universe

Other

  • Jenny explains a custom of the Fae: “if one of the Fair Folk owes you a debt when they die, you’ve gotta be at their funeral. You’re invited, automatically. So you can meet the heirs, if there are any — work things out”.
  • Leprechauns are considered Fae, as are Brownies — specifically, members of the Little People. Leprechauns are famous for disappearing if a human takes their eyes off them.
  • Jenny stole her gold coins from the Interdimensional Vault.
  • The Company of Free Genies was formed in the 1960s by Genies who escaped from the clutches of the First Horde.
  • Pythagoras-858 describes himself as a “licensed Problem-Solver”.
  • The Mad Marquess gives his full name as “Milord Marin Mausdorf”. According to the Desk Genie, he's actually a Duke, not a Marquess, but prefers to claim to be a Marquess because of the alliteration.
  • Jenny's pockets' contents include “coins from a thousand worlds, multiple wallets and phones, trinkets from seashells to gemstones, and a frankly unreasonable number of keychains” as well as the magic wand she gives to the Genies.
  • The bard Taliesin writes ballads about the goings-on at King Arthur's court, in Caerleon. They tend to begin with the line “In Caerleon, to the Castle, came a lot of strange people.”, which is the origin of the mistaken belief that Arthur's castle is called Camelot, which has even reached “multiple visiting nobles from England and Brittany”.
  • Jenny's shifting is described as producing a “strange wooshing sound” when she materialises on top of the Round Table in an emergency. However, she also displays the ability to shift silently when showing off to the boy in Chapter 1.
  • There is a raised dais in the centre of the Round Table itself, meant to house the “the Grail” should the knights ever find it.
  • Arthur has difficult relations with the apparently fairly-newly-settled Christian clergy because they disapprove of Merlin.
  • Jenny knows of other versions of Merlin who are “time-travelley”, making them “confusing” to deal with.
  • The Lurigadawne of Tipperary tries to send Jenny after a “tribe of cobbler-dwarves of great renown”, who dwell “beyond the seven rivers”; to meet them, Jenny would have “to fight a few Dragons, of course, and to journey through the land of Kalterskelter, the key to whose gate has been lost since the 16th century”.
  • Merin swears “by the Norns”.
  • His version of Morgan Le Fey is known as simply “Morgan of the Fae”. She and Merlin have an “academic partnership” to trade occult lore, and it was Morgan who bestowed the “mage-name” of Merlin upon him, in contrast to his birth name of “Ambrosius”. The two are not-so-secretly lovers. Jenny is aware of other versions of Morgan, many (though not all) of whom turned out to be untrustworthy.

Continuity

Behind the scenes

Read online

The story can be read online here.

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