“What are we doing here?” Stephen asked as he followed Michael up the litter-strewn staircase of the east side tenement. “Do you know somebody here? Are we getting another place to crash?”
“I thought you weren’t tired,” Michael reminded him.
“I’m not,” Stephen said. “But I wouldn’t mind having some walls and a ceiling around me until the sun comes up again.”
“Floor optional?” Michael said. “At least you’re not picky. To answer your questions in reverse chronological order: no, sort of, and we’re looking for the witch.”
“The witch?” Stephen echoed. “What witch?”
“Which,” Michael said.
“Yes, but what witch?” Stephen asked.
“No, not ‘what witch’… ‘which witch’,” Michael said. “How many times in your life are you going to get a chance to ask somebody ‘which witch’?”
“Fine… which witch, then?” Stephen asked.
“The witch,” Michael said. “There are many witches, but in this part of town, only one is definitely deserving of the definite article, you know. We’re looking for her so we can find out what’s happening and maybe get in on it.”
“I thought you said we were going to stay away from anybody and anything important so we’d be fine,” Stephen said.
“Actually, what I said was more like if we stay away from anybody and anything important, then we would be fine,” Michael said. “I never said we’d actually do that. In fact, I’m fairly certain I asked you, in so many words, if you were feeling adventurous.”
“I hate you,” Stephen said.
“That’s a strong word to use,” Michael said. “‘Hate’.”
“Yes, and that’s why I’m using it,” Stephen said. “Because it is strong enough to be an accurate measurement of my feelings towards you.”
“Look, forget that Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, creeping around the margins stuff,” Michael said. “Something really bad is happening, and when bad things happen, the extras always get killed off first.”
“So now we’re extras?” Stephen asked skeptically.
“No,” Michael said. “We were extras. Now we’re main characters… now we’re protagonists.”
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WOW!
Woops… WOE!
…aaaand cue the detractors for multiple protagonists
I wonder if either character will get the opportunity to ask “Which witch is which?” ?
Rosencrantz and Guildenstern didn’t pick up on that transition, which is why they spent most of the play arguing semantics and playing at questions.
Yay, update!
I was just MUnkeying around, and decided to check this next and well… here it is! Yay!
Sadiana you might want to try http://www.alexandraerin.com/stories/ as your portal to MU and Tribe fixes.
Yay, Michael wants to be a protagonist. He’s a brilliant character. Probably reads too much, which is why he’s so cool.
Ummm…. isn’t that the definite article? “The” isn’t a pronoun, at the very least. Usually I don’t nitpick grammar, but it is, shall we say, the subject of the discussion above.
I suppose our characters might not be fully qualified grammar Nazis, either, in which case, we can ignore their error.
–Maeglin
They may be working their way to protaganist, but they aren’t hero’s yet. That means they can still die messily
@Maeglin: AE usually means exactly what she says. In this case, I think she meant that “which” is a pronoun. A punne, if you will.
No, that was actually a mistake. I meant article.
Chalk it up to hurrying to get this chapter done before midnight.
Ooh, I didn’t know that existed, Morten. Thank you. Normally I just go straight to Tales of MU, and if I see that it hasn’t updated yet, I come check here. But that is good to know.
I think that “this part of time” should have read “this part of town.” Then again, that may have been intentional.