TBAY/SHIP: _She_

[derannimer <susannahlm@yahoo.com>]

No: HPFGUIDX 52801

(Apologies in advance to Angua for the Room of State, and to H. Rider 
Haggard for the title.) 


---------------




It is a lovely day. The sky--the half of it not obscured by large 
black clouds, anyway--is bright and the seabirds wheel through the 
clear blue and the breeze blows gently. 

The Big Bang is moored now, the crew off on R&R, and a small figure 
may be observed strolling down the gangplank. 

The figure steps down onto the sand and stands indeterminate for a 
minute. Not a lot to do. . . 

hmm.

There have been a lot of break-ins at the Safe House recently--maybe 
she should try to break in herself. 

Derannimer nods to herself and then starts walking. Yes, a break-in 
would be an interesting thing to attempt. She wonders whether she 
ought to break a window, or impost, or bug the eaves, or stand silent 
in her Invisibility Cloak, or bribe the garden gnomes, or maybe--

"Derannimer, DEAR!" comes a sudden, very loud voice.

Derannimer stops and turns around, and, to her horror, recognizes the 
woman calling her. It is Mary Suzanne Jenkins, the catastrophic 
interior decorator responsible for much of the current pinkness of 
Derannimer's SHIPping Wing! 

Not the first person Derannimer would have chosen for a friendly 
chat, but what could you do? The woman had obviously seen her.

Derannimer stands resignedly as Mary Suzanne comes towards her over 
the beach, and idly wonders how any human being could *move* like 
that over sand. Mary almost seems to be *skimming.* Which hardly 
seems to be likely.

Yet skim she does. She reaches Derannimer in just a few seconds, and 
abrubtly stops in front of her. She grabs Derannimer's arm in an 
affectionately limpet-y sort of way. 

And smiles suddenly at her.

"Would you please come with me into the town?" she asks, very 
politely. "There's something I must speak to you about."

Derannimer allows herself to be walked off towards town, although she 
has some pretty intense misgivings about all this. 

There was something she really didn't like about that smile. 


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Once the two women arrive in town, Mary ushers Derannimer into a 
strange neighborhood. The streets are narrow here, and poorly lit. 

"Where are we *going?*" asks Derannimer. 

Mary smiles that rather alarming smile again. 

"You'll see." she says simply. 

No, Derannimer suddenly decides. This was a *really* bad idea. 

Derannimer has no idea what is going on here--she cannot *believe* 
that anyone as well dressed as Mary Suzanne would want to *mug* her--
but she doesn't care. There is *something* weird about this woman.

She walks along for another few feet, then suddenly lunges to her 
right, breaking her sleeve out of Mary's grasp and wheeling around. 
She starts to run back down the way she came, but she hears a sudden 
shout from behind her: "STUPEFY!"

And then, everything went not so much black as a rather effeminite 
purple, and she knew no more. (1)


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Derannimer woke very suddenly. Her eyes snapped open, and she quickly 
scrambled to her feet, looking around. 

Well.

This is not a narrow alleyway. That much is certain. 

She seems to be standing in some kind of throne room. The walls, 
ceiling and floor are all made of some light, warm-colored wood. The 
light lancing in through the small, high windows strikes them into 
gold. There are palm tree in the corners, and a richly gorgeous woven 
carpet in the middle of the room. 

And a carved wooden throne. 

Behind the throne are thick shadows. 

On the throne is a woman, with an awful lot of dark hair, who is 
looking at Derannimer in a rather sniffy sort of way.

Derannimer is feeling irked.

"WHO IN THE [Editor's note: Well *that's* crude.] ARE *YOU*?!" 

The woman frowns slightly. "Well, if you're going to be like *that* 
about it."

"YOU KIDNAPPED ME! YOU SENT YOUR LITTLE GOON-ESS TO *KIDNAP* ME!" 

"My little. . . oh! Mary? She's not one of my people."

Derannimer is startled by this. "No?" she asks, in a more regular 
volume. 

"No. She's a mercenary."

Derannimer is even more startled. Not to mention skeptical. "She's an 
interior *decorater,*" she points out. "What do you *mean,* she's a--"

The be-throned woman waves an impatient hand. "Yes, yes, I know. She 
*is* an interior decorater. But she's also a mercenary. She does odd 
jobs for people from time to time."

"Odd jobs." Derannimer's countenance is not particularly sunny. "*Odd 
jobs?*"

"Look, I'm sorry."

"I sincerely hope so." 

The woman, apparently picking up a certain less-than-congenial tone 
in Derannimer's voice, pauses for a minute before she speaks again. 

"My name is Angua."

"*WHAT!*"

"Yeah. You're on board the Good Ship R/H." 

Derannimer looks around her again. She'll check, of course, but she's 
pretty sure that, say, *Ebony* doesn't have quarters like this. 

Angua, noticing the other woman's obvious confusion, adds: "I'm the 
Captain. This is my Room of State."

"Ah." says Derannimer. She turns her attention back to Angua. "So, 
why am I here, exactly?"

Angua pauses again. "I wanted to talk to you. I figured you weren't 
just going to hop on the Good Ship at my request, so I thought it 
made more sense to send Mary Suzanne after you. 

"Tea?"

Derannimer hesitates, but only briefly. Hey, why not?

"Yes, thanks."

Angua twists around on her throne, and shouts out into the 
shadows, "Hey, Pippin, would you mind putting the kettle on? Thanks."

Derannimer thinks for a moment that she must have heard wrong, but 
then a form emerges from the shadows--

It *is* Pippin.

"Pippin!" Derannimer cries.  "What are *you* doing here, consorting 
with a Supreme Evil Overlordess! Don't you--"

"A *what,* exactly?" asks Angua angrily.

"A Supreme Evil Overlordess," repeats Derannimer impatiently, then, 
seeing the outraged look on Angua's face, adds: "Well, how do you 
*expect* me to feel?"

"Err. . ." comes a soft voice. 

Derannimer, Angua, and Pippin all turn to look at the shadowy space 
behind the throne again. There's someone else standing back there. 

Angua and Pippin look at each other. Pippin moves a step sideways to 
whisper something in Angua's ear. Derannimer can just catch the 
words "not gonna like this." 

Angua nods once, then shrugs. "Might as well," she calls.

The mysterious "err"-ing someone steps quietly out from the shadows.

"*Eileen!*" Derannimer gasps. "But we've--we've had *drinks* 
together! I've made you tea in my *SHIPping wing!* How--" 

"Yes, well," says Eileen, looking really quite unhappy. "I'm sorry 
and all, I didn't know she was going to kidnap you, and once I found 
out I told her she was being silly, but--"

Derannimer suddenly decides that it doesn't matter. What *really* 
matters is. . . 

"Pippin?" she says. "How 'bout that tea? It's been--" she shot a dark 
look at Angua-- "a weird day." 


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A few minutes later, the four theorists are comfortably sitting on 
the carpet, circled 'round the teapot. Even Angua is on the floor, 
as, as she said, she didn't want to get tea on her throne. 

Derannimer surveys her teacup critically for a moment, then speaks.

"Well. You've gone to a fair bit of trouble to get me here. What do 
you want to talk to me about?"

"Ron and Hermione," says Angua immediately.

"Duh." Derannimer points out. 

"Yeah, duh," agrees Angua. "But anyway, basically I wanted to talk to 
you about how we read Hermione--" Derannimer groans loudly--"and what 
she knows about Ron, and what she *thinks* about what she knows about 
Ron, and a few other things, and I thought it would be easier to talk 
to you here than to try to yell all the way to that H/H thing you 
seem to frequent. 

"And I certainly wasn't about to go over *there,*" she adds as an 
after-thought. 

"So," she continues cheerfully. "Hermione. Look here, if she 
*doesn't* like Ron, why doesn't she just *tell him* whether or not 
she's going to Bulgaria?"

"Well--" 

"*You* might not tell him. But *I* would. I would look him straight 
in the eye and tell him about Krum, giving him the bad news as soon 
as possible. I would *never* act like Hermione does, and refuse to 
tell him whether or not I had accepted Krum's invitation, leaving him 
in suspense for months. If Hermione knows Ron likes her and doesn't 
like him, I think that is cruel. 

"Of course, if she likes him and is frustrated because he won't admit 
he likes her, I don't think it's cruel at all, but perfectly 
understandable." 

Angua sets her cup decisively down in her saucer. "Over to you," she 
says, and smirks. 

Derannimer sets down her own cup in her own saucer. "Well, to begin 
with, I think your entire premise is flawed." 

There is a moment of silence. "*What?*" asks Angua, her voice tart. 

"You say she "refuses" to tell Ron, leaving him "in suspense for 
months." I mean, it's a tad hyperbolic to say the least, and simply 
*incorrect* to say the most."

Angua looks ready to say something unkind, but Eileen hastily cuts in 
before she gets the chance to. "Ah--what do you mean, Derannimer?" 

"Well, I mean, honestly, she *didn't* refuse to tell him.

"The first time he asks her, she was too embarrassed talking about 
Viktor to even *notice* Ron's question, and the second time, she's 
interupted by Snape." 

Angua, who has been frowning, suddenly breaks in. 

"I don't believe she "didn't notice" it." she says flatly. 

Derannimer stares at her. "Well, okay. So what *do* you believe? 
After all, he interupts her in mid-sentence, and when she resumes 
speaking, the text says that she "went on." Which, to my mind, 
indicates that she is simply, well, *going on.* *Continuing.* 
Speaking as if she had not been interupted. She gives no indication 
of having heard him--she simply *ignores* him. And I honestly thought 
that she ignored him because she hadn't noticed him. There isn't any 
other reason for her to ignore him, considering that she starts to--"

"Yeah there *is*," snaps Angua, "she doesn't want to answer the 
*question.*"

"No there *isn't*" snaps Derannimer back, "she *starts* to answer the 
question."

Angua blinks. "What?" she asks, seemingly confused. "Where?"

"The second time Ron asks," says Derannimer. "She says: 'Well, I was 
too busy seeing whether you and Harry were okay to--' and then Snape 
cuts in."

"So?"

"So *think* about it for a minute." Derannimer angrily folds her arms 
and waits. 

After a minute, Eileen says, quietly: "Too busy to *what?*" 

Derannimer beams at her. "Precisely." she says. "Here's what I think: 
too busy to *answer.*

"Look at the chronology of the Second Task," she says. "Krum is the 
last one away from the hostages except for Harry. As soon as Krum 
leaves, Harry thinks 'Now what,' threatens the mer-people, grabs 
Gabrielle, and starts swimming towards the surface. 

"As he is swimming towards the surface, the other champions are being 
seen to by Madam Pomfrey. Krum is being de-sharkified, which, as 
Bagman calls his transformation "an incomplete form of 
Transfiguration" and it sounds rather botched, may have taken a 
while. 

"Then Harry gets to the surface, and is quickly grabbed and hustled 
over to the other champions by Madam Pomfrey. 

"Then Hermione starts talking to Harry, and Krum starts trying to 
pull her attention back to him. Rather clumsily, if I might say so. 
Then Hermione ditches the reporter. Then the marks are awarded, and 
*then*--here, look here: 'Fleur was clapping very hard too, but Krum 
didn't look happy at all. He attempted to engage Hermione in 
conversation again, but she was too busy cheering Harry to listen.'"

Derannimer pauses for a minute. "Why is Krum so unhappy, and why is 
he trying so hard to talk to Hermione, and why doesn't the Witch 
Weekly article *say* whether or not Hermione accepted the invite--if 
not for the fact that Hermione simply hadn't *answered* Krum's 
question one way or the other. That's why Krum's miffed--he asked her 
the question, and then he didn't get an answer. Hermione was too busy 
seeing whether Harry and Ron were all right to answer.

"Which she was telling Ron. But then she was interupted by Snape. So 
she couldn't tell Ron. But she wasn't avoiding the question. And 
since she wasn't avoiding the question when Ron asked it the second 
time, I don't she why she would be avoiding answering it the first."

There is silence for a minute. Then Angua speaks. "Well, okay," she 
says. "But even if she didn't answer Krum right after the Second 
Task, who's to say she didn't answer him at some other point?"

Derannimer shrugs. "Who's to say that Krum wasn't suspicious at the 
fact that she didn't answer him and the way she kept cheering Harry 
instead? Who's to say that *that's* not when he started wondering 
about Harry and Hermione? Who's to say that he just kept quiet about 
it until he could confirm whether or not Hermione is Harry's 
girlfriend? Krum's older than she is, and more experienced in such 
things, presumably--he's quite capable of figuring out that, if 
Hermione *does* like Harry, it would be awkward for both himself--
Krum, I mean--and her, if he were to ask her over to Bulgaria. So he 
waits to ask her again until he can talk to Harry." 

Derannimer pauses. "I really *like* that, actually," she said. "I 
mean, if Hermione's initial reaction to the invitation is what made 
Krum suspicious. It's just neat somehow. It gives Krum a 
definite 'turning point' for his suspicions."

"So?" points out Pippin.

Derannimer shrugs. "I dunno. I just like it somehow. If it works like 
that. Gives *us* a time-line, too. Before he asked her to go, he 
hadn't considered that she might have another boyfriend--then she 
wouldn't pay any attention to him, then he started wondering about 
all those comments she's apparently made about Harry, then he decides 
to put off asking her again until after he talks to Harry about it. 

"So he may well have asked her again at some other point--and she may 
well have accepted, I don't know. But he may well have asked her 
again *after* she had her conversation with Ron." 

"Well then," says Angua, "even assuming that your Second Question 
Chronology is true--which I don't, necessarily--Hermione *still* 
should have told Ron what her plans were. After she knew, whenever 
that was, she should have let him know."

Derannimer frowns. "Why?" she asks simply. 

Angua's eyebrows shoot heavenwards. "Well, it would be charitable, 
for a start."

"Why would it be charitable?"

"Because, whether or not she cares about him, *he* obviously cares 
about *her*--and she knows that, *you* even said she knows that--and 
he's got a stake in knowing whether or not she's gonna be spending 
her summer in Bulgaria with some other guy." Angua stands up and 
starts to pace impatiently. "I mean, *oy vey,* *Derannimer!* Even if 
you can say she Can't Stand To Tell Him because she's ohhh sooo 
embarrassed--" Angua's voice is dripping with sarcasm now-- "surely 
you, even *you,* can*not* say that she *SHOULDN'T* tell him! Are you 
*SAYING* that? Are you *saying* that she *should* leave Ron in 
suspense *for the next *six months,** when she **knows** he has those 
feelings for her?"

"No."

"Well then *what*--"

"I'm saying that Ron isn't *in* suspense for the next six months."

Angua stops pacing. She glares at Derannimer. 

Derannimer starts giggling. "I'm sorry, you know," she says, "but he 
never mentions Hermione's summer plans once after that conversation. 
Maybe he doesn't care that much." 

Angua, Eileen, and Pippin all stare at her. 

Derannimer stops giggling, and says: "No, I don't really think that 
he doesn't care. He obviously does. But he really doesn't ask her 
again--even when she mentions her conversation with Viktor, at the 
end of the book--in the train compartment, you know, when she's 
explaining about Rita--even when she mentions it, he doesn't say 
anything about it."

She frowns. "Which bothers me, by the way. You'd think he *would* 
make some sort of a comment about it. It seems a little out of 
character for him not to, somehow--even a little FLINTy. But, be that 
as it may, he doesn't bring it up again. And I can't imagine that 
Hermione would bring it up, if Ron didn't. Answering a question about 
it would be hard enough for her; bringing it up herself would be even 
worse. 

"Also unnecessary."

"Un*necessary?*"

"I mean that if he asks her, she's got to say *something.* If he 
doesn't ask her, she doesn't have to bring it up. If she doesn't have 
to bring it up, then I don't think she's going to. It's too confusing 
and painful.

"When I said 'Why?' I didn't really mean 'why should she.' I 
meant 'why *would* she.' And really, Angua, *why* would she?" 

"Well," counters Angua, "why wouldn't she bring it up? Why wouldn't 
she tell him? It would be far kinder in the long run. If she doesn't 
like him back, he should be an object of pity to her and she should 
treat him kindly, just as she seems to have treated Neville kindly 
when he asked her to the Ball. As far as I can tell, Hermione and 
Neville are still friends, so she knows it can be done."

Derannimer shakes her head. "That parallel doesn't really hold," she 
says. "Neville and Hermione are nowhere *near* as close as Ron and 
Hermione are; they don't see as much of each other; and Neville, I 
always assumed, is not as serious about Hermione as Ron is anyway. It 
would be easier to let a classmate/acquaintance down--and I don't see 
Hermione and Neville being much closer than that--than it would be to 
let one of your two best friends down."

"Well, yes, but then, her *responsibility* to one of her best friends 
is also much greater than it would be to a mere 
classmate/acqaintance. Right?"

Derannimer hesitates for a minute before speaking. "Yes. It is."

"Hah! Then she should tell him; in fact, the only way I can see that 
it's all right for Hermione to *not* inform Ron about the Bulgaria 
trip, is if she *wants* him to feel jealous and thus realize his 
feelings for her. I *don't* consider that manipulation. Well, I 
suppose it is, but Ron deserves it. If she likes him back, I mean."

"Well, obviously, I don't think that's what's going on."

"But that's the only way it's all right."

"Well--look, frankly Angua, I don't consider your scenario to be *at 
all* all right. It reminds me of Mr. Collins's 'elegant females,' 
actually. I would find it much more forgivable if she refrained from 
telling him because she *didn't* like him--because it was awkward, 
and painful, and she didn't know how to deal with it, and she really 
*really* didn't want to talk about it, and she just figured that if 
*he* didn't bring it up, *she* sure wasn't going to. I would find 
silence out of uncertainty, out of weakness, a *lot* more sympathetic 
than silence out of revenge. 

"And the 'uncertainty' scenario is also what I think is actually 
going on, anyway--she doesn't want to let him down, she doesn't want 
to acknowledge his feelings for her. So she's not going to go around 
initiating a conversation about why she's going or not going to 
Bulgaria for the summer with another guy."

Angua frowns. "Yeah, but I don't think that she *would be* all that 
uncertain, if she didn't like him." She snorts and 
continues. "Derannimer, are we talking about Hermione Granger here? 
She's not much of one for just ignoring things and hoping they will 
go away! She's more the blunt confrontation and action-taking type. 
*Ron* is the one who ignores things and hopes they will go away."

Derannimer stares at Angua. "What? Hermione doesn't refuse to face up 
to unpleasant truths? Hermione doesn't stay silent and stubborn and 
stiff-upper-lip and wait for the facts to change so she doesn't have 
to admit them?"

"No!"

"Her late and unlamented refusal to believe that a teacher could be 
Up To No Good. Crookshanks. The *Time-Turner.* No, really, House 
Elves *want* to be freed!" Derannimer cocks an eyebrow at Angua and 
continues. "The Crookshanks affair may be the best example of 
Hermione's refusal to face up to What's Really Going On in favor of 
What She Wishes Would Be Going On, but it's not the only one. It's 
not a dominant behaviour pattern in her, but it does *exist.*" 

"Well," points out Eileen, showing some degree of uncertainty 
herself, "*in a way,* she was right about Crookshanks."

Derannimer shakes her head. "Nah. I've always had a great deal of 
sympathy for Hermione in that fight, and very little for Ron, but 
Hermione was wrong as regards the facts in the matter--Crookshanks 
*was* out to get Scabbers. He had an excellent reason for doing so, 
of course, but he was out to get Scabbers.

"See, Angua, I actually have no difficulty believing that, in an 
extremely delicate and painful situation such as "One of my two best 
friends is in love with me and I'm not in love with him," Hermione 
*would* try to ignore it--even after she was forced to realize it, 
she wouldn't necessarily be leaping to confront it. I think that 
Hermione could rationalize very easily about such a matter--tell 
herself that Ron had been her friend for ages and this was silly and 
he wsa bound to snap out of it, etc. I don't think she *would* be 
able to tell him."

Angua starts pacing again. 

The light streaming through the small high windows now only hits the 
tops of the walls, and the ceiling; and the light is bronze now, and 
not golden.

Derannimer speaks up. "You know, we may simply have to disagree on 
this one. I'm really beginning to think that my entire *reading of 
Hermione is at odds with yours." Derannimer rather helplessly waves 
her hand. "I mean, you keep saying these *things* about her that I 
just never *thought of.* And the ways you seem to think she'd behave 
in a given situation are just so radically different from the ways I 
think she'd behave in a given situation. . . " Derannimer drops her 
waving hand to her lap and trails off. "I just don't think I can 
convince you on this one," she finishes simply. 

A minute goes by. 

Angua speaks again. "You know, say you're right."

She turns and looks at Derannimer. 

Derannimer looks back, warily. 

"Say she can't or won't bring herself to talk to Ron openly about the 
situation. Well, the easiest way out of this situation is to have a 
different boyfriend. If she's dating Krum, she can let Ron's hopes 
down without the embarrassment of 'there's just something about you I 
don't like.' It's the obvious and simplest way to say no to someone, 
which is why it's so incredibly popular: 'I'm sorry, I'm going with 
someone else.' 'I'm sorry, I'm married.' 'I'm sorry, I'm busy that 
night.' It works great. Why wouldn't she just do something like that?"

Derannimer stares at Angua.

There is rather a long silence.

"Anybody want any more tea?" asks Pippin.

Derannimer stands up herself and walks over to Angua. 

"There is absolutely no point in continuing this conversation." She 
pauses. "But I'm going to anyway. 

"First of all, *first* of all: It's *not* 'the embarrassment 
of "there's just something about you I don't like."' It's *much* 
worse than that! It's the embarrassment of 'one of my best friends is 
in *love* with me!' It's the embarrassment of 'and things can't go 
back to the easy way they were when we were eleven!'" 

Angua starts to say something, but Derannimer, now pacing herself, 
keeps talking. "It's the embarrassment of 'We've risked our lives for 
each other and fought evil together and now everything is *changing!* 
Yikes, what do I do?' 

"Hermione isn't embarrassed because there's something she doesn't 
like about Ron; she's embarrassed because there's *something Ron 
*does* LIKE ABOUT HER!*" Derannimer shouts. She glares at Angua, and 
stamps her foot. Eileen giggles. 

Derannimer shoots Eileen a very nasty look indeed, and continues, 
albeit rather more quietly. "And pretending to have a relationship 
with Viktor Krum is not going to remove that essential difficulty."

"Who says she has to pretend?" queries Pippin. "What if there 
genuinely is something going on?"

Derannimer frowns for a minute, thinking. "Well, yeah, but there 
isn't. I don't think so anyway. Any closet Krum/Hermione shippers 
here?"

There is a general non-confirmatory mumble. 

"Right. Thought not. 

"So she would have to pretend. And the problems--some of the 
problems, anyway, I may have missed a few--with that solution are:

a: Like I already said, given the nature of the problem, it wouldn't 
really do any good, and, 

b: I don't think that such a bizarrely manipulative solution would 
ever *occur* to Hermione."

"Tchah!" says Angua. "*Everyone* knows that trick! Any woman would 
think of that one!"

"Not any girl growing up in a more socially-and-culturally-
conservative-environment, though. Also, not, well--" Derannimer 
hesitates-- "not me. Actually, it never even occurred to *me*--before 
you mentioned the possibility, Angua--that Hermione might have had 
that option open to her. I'm not a particularly elegant female, mind. 
But I've never really thought of Hermione as one, either."

Angua looks at Derannimer for a minute, considering. "So basically, 
you see her reaction to Ron's questioning in this scene as simple 
awkwardness and embarrassment."

Derannimer nods. "Actually I see it as immensely *complicated* 
awkwardness and embarrassment, but, basically, yes."

"'K, see, I see it as a little stubborness, a little revenge, a 
little 'make him jealous,' and a little typical Hermione secrecy, all 
wrapped up together. I think the Ron/Hermione subplot still has a 
LONG way to go."

Derannimer simply shakes her head. "I really don't read her the way 
you do, then. I don't think that Hermione is typically secretive--she 
never told the boys about the Time-Turner because she had given her 
word that she wouldn't, and she never told them about Lupin, partly 
because they weren't speaking, and partly to, as she said, to cover 
up for him. She can certainly keep secrets--but generally for pretty 
darn good reasons. I wouldn't call her secretive."

"Well," points out Eileen, "she also keeps her date a secret."

Derannimer laughs. "Oh, Eileen," she says simply. "I'm getting to 
that one. Oh yeah."

She turns and frowns at Angua. "Or at least, I'm *going* to get to it 
if I can ever get back to the H/H. Hint. Hint."

"Ah." says Angua. She walks over to her throne, then stops, turning 
back to Derannimer. "Wait a minute, Derannimer, hang on a minute. 
Let's talk. I'm sure we can work--" 

"No. We can't." Derannimer sounds pretty positive on this point. 
Angua looks to Eileen, who looks to Derannimer and then says: "No, I 
don't think you can either."

Angua looks to Derannimer as well, before finally simply nodding. She 
turns back to the throne, and taps something--Derannimer can't quite 
make out what--on one of the arms. 

"Nav," says Angua, talking at the throne, "set us over the middle of 
the Bay. We'll be making a drop-off."


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Derannimer looks dubiously down at the grey water below her. "You 
sure about this?" she hollers to Eileen. It's quite windy up here on 
deck. 

"Yeah! Done it myself! It's easy, just let go!"

Derannimer nods at Eileen, to show she's heard her, and swings 
herself forward, rigging stretching out over the side of the 
ship. "If you say so," she mutters to herself, and lets go. 

She hits the water with a splash what feels like about fifty-two 
*hours* later, and paddles wearily up to the shore. 

She stands there on the sand for a minute, looking at the water, the 
forest, the beach, the blessed lack of interior decorators on the 
beach. . . it all looks so peaceful. 

Then she turns, and sets off back towards the Big Bang. 

Duty, after all, calls. 

Even if this wasn't what you'd call your typical day of R&R. 




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(1) "Everything went not so much black as a rather effeminate 
purple." --Douglas Adams' Starship Titanic