Wednesday, January 7, 2009

Guffin War: Act 1 Scene 1: A country road. A tree

The ground was quite damp; understandable in the muggy heat. Ruxpin simply lay passively. He hadn't slept in over a day, and despite the threat of being shot, he was tempted to simply doze off in the mud. The voice spoke again, harshly.

"Hände hoch oder ich schieße!" Ruxpin didn't speak German. He simply waited for the voice to remember where it was. Eventually, almost apologetically, the voice spoke in English. "If you please, hands where I can see them." Well, that was said, but not how it sounded. Forty years away from Austria had done nothing to remove the harsh, guttural accent, which rendered the phrase as "If hyu pleas, hends vere hy ken see dem". Ruxpin slowly complied. There was silence, accompanied only by birdsong. Ruxpin finally filled it.

"If you'll forgive my impudence, ma'am, there can only be a limited number of six foot bears wearing pants you've ever met. Now what are the odds that you'd be tracked down by one you've never met."

"Still the wit, I see." The voice replied at last. There was more birdsong. Ruxpin realized that he was, in fact, dozing off in the mud. He struggled to pull himself awake.

"You're a hard woman to find, Fräulein."

"Not hard enough, apparently. You still smoke, I smell."

"And you're still Austrian, I hear. It's kind of wet in this mud."

"Yes. I imagine it would be." A foot was removed from his back. With a weary sigh, he rolled over onto his back.

Mollie Halbmond von Possenreißer looked much- no, almost exactly as she did when Ruxpin had first met her in Huế in 1963. Later in life he had gained access to her security files, where he discovered that she looked exactly the same as when she had reached her full growth in 1915. She was short, about four feet in total. It was impossible to describe her features without using the term 'elfin', but she was hardly childlike. The face was smooth and youthful, but lines around the eyes betrayed the maturity of her character. The hair was jet black, and amateurly cut in a style that hadn't been popular since Colleen Moore has starred in Her Wild Oat. On her right hand was a grubby, dirt stained ring, but other than that she wore no adornment. Her clothing was non-descript, worn but serviceable. She still had her sidearm trained on him, a modified Browning M1911A designed to fit her small hand. She was holding it in a deceptively casual manner that Ruxpin knew from experience not to underestimate. Her lithe frame was unnaturally strong,and more than one opponent had been felled through overconfidence.

"What do you want, Major?"

"It's Col- well, it was colonel, anyways." At this, Molly raised an eyebrow.

"You get too mouthy for your own good?" Ruxpin chuckled.

"Sexual deviancy, if you can believe that." Molly smiled.

"Well, it sounds like you." She uncocked the pistol and holstered it. "Why are you here, N'Ruxpin?"

"Well" he sighed "First of all, I need your help to bury a comrade."

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