Lytton Things Get Out of Hand

The Holy Ground Highlander Forum Midweek Challenge

Archivist’s Note: The stories and vignettes offered here from various Forumlanders have not been edited or changed other than having a spell-check performed and being reformatted for this website.

Contents

The Challenge by Leah CWPack
Hardboiled then Chilled by Leslie Fish
The Old Guy, the Young Guy and the Tall Boy by Wain
White Hot Lyttony by Ghost Cat
Don’t Lose Your Head by Wain
Reworked Lyttony by Tikasmom
Sultana by Palladia
Weather You Like It or Not by A.
Lytton It All Hang Loose by HonorH
Oops by Ysanne

MID-WEEK CHALLENGE: LYTTON THINGS GET OUT OF HAND

Posted By: Leah CWPack <bizarro7@aol.com>
Date: Thursday, 16 May 2002, at 7:50 a.m.

Palladia writes: "Today is the birthday of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, of rather unfortunate writing fame.

It was he who began a longish novel, "It was a dark and stormy night. . ."

Perhaps we might use this to for an MWC. (Evil grin)"

Your assignment, should you choose to participate, is to write an scene or story of NO LONGER THAN THREE insufferably run-on paragraph sentences, incorporating as many foul, overused clichés employed by bad writers as can possibly be used at one time. They must be in the HIGHLANDER universe.

And don't forget the "MWC" at the front of your subject line, if you wish to have your...er, gem preserved for the archives.

MWC: Hard-boiled, then chilled.

Posted By: Leslie Fish <lesliefish@earthlink.net>
Date: Thursday, 16 May 2002, at 3:33 p.m.

Cold, gritty, gray-eyed dawn came fumbling out of Lake Michigan like a bum who'd been pushed off Navy Pier -- much as Duncan MacLeod was doing at the moment. He paused on the garbage-and-dead-alewives-strewn shore to pour reeking lake-water out of his pockets, scabbard and shoes, checked his wallet, flicked a dead alewife out of his hair, and grumbled sourly -- knowing that no nearby ear could hear him:

"Dammit, Fitz, that's the last time I go fishing with you!"

--Leslie <;)))><

MWC: The Old Guy, the Young Guy, and the Tall Boy

Posted By: Wain <wamba.wamba@verizon.net>
Date: Thursday, 16 May 2002, at 10:26 a.m.

Richie watched the life-giving liquid make a slithering trail down the silver blade, ending in a puddle that reflected his perplexed face back at Methos, who shook his head from side to side, his finely chiseled nose flaring to inhale the aroma that rose from the precious golden waste on the floor, and chided, "What in the name of all that's holy did you think would happen when you tried to open a tall boy with a rapier?"

Waving away the proffered bottle, new and virgin, sparkling with condensation that promised a sudden, cold shock of refreshment coursing down his throat, Richie sighed and winced at the Ancient Immortal's glowering face, saying, "It would have been cool if it had worked."

"What's going to be cool, my young friend," Methos said in a dry tone, "is the reception that our Scottish Immortal host will give you when he discovers that you've baptized an eighteenth-century hand-knotted Persian rug with beer," and with that, he stopped, as did Richie, both shaken to the last fiber of the very innermost core of their beings by the tell-tale vibration--not a hum nor a thrum, neither a whistle nor a screech, but a definite Buzz--that warned them that at any moment, the peace of the loft would be as shattered as the beer bottle, and there would be h*ll to pay to the towering Scot who had purchased the Persian rug that very morning.

MWC: white-hot lyttony

Posted By: Ghost Cat <ghost_cat@hotmail.com>
Date: Friday, 17 May 2002, at 3:49 a.m.

There is a certain savage beauty in a properly executed kata (and the phrase “a properly executed kata” didn’t begin to describe what Duncan MacLeod could do with an empty room and a practice mat) that a visually-oriented person such as Deb Campbell found irresistible: the smooth, feline grace; the Zen-like precision that allowed no motion that was without purpose; the delicate ripple of each muscle, perfectly demonstrating the human body as a union of Form and Function (which only a former anatomist could truly appreciate) – it all combined into a gut-level reaction that was more than she could take; the hushed words sighed from her lips like a prayer, spoken before she was even aware of them: “Mo Sgian Dhu.”

A few words, spoken crudely in the language of his ancestors, penetrated Duncan’s meditative state, bringing him back to reality in an instant; his head whipped around quick as lightning, his dark eyes when they found her smoldered like banked coals, “Do not play with words you know nothing about!”; Deb shrugged, unrepentant, striding boldly toward him, “I call you my Black Blade if I wish; I know enough: I know it is a blade of black iron (her fingers knotted in a sweat-curled tangle of dark hair); that it is often quite beautiful, in a lean and practical sort of way (her fingers wandered , following the smooth definition of each muscle); I know that, though it can be quite deadly, it is mostly used for ceremony and defense (she rested her hand, almost reverently, over his heart, feeling the exertion of which he showed no outward sign); I know that it is highly personal, and very private (she looked up into his face, her own heart racing; her voice almost faltered for a second) and it is something that you—that I—would never want to leave my side.”

Duncan halted the restless wanderings of her eager hands before they drove him to distraction; gripping her firmly with both hands, he forced her a step back, looking sternly down at her face; “and do you know that it is a very *small* blade indeed?” (So that’s the problem, Deb thought, stifling a giggle, Male Pride rears its head…); the expression on her face would have rivaled a certain literary feline from the region of Cheshire, hopefully softening her words, “Oh, don’t worry yourself; a dirk can work as well as a sword, if it is used properly…” she tilted her head inquiringly, her eyes sparkling with mischief, “unless of course you want to prove otherwise.”

MWC: Don't Lose Your Head

Posted By: Wain <wamba.wamba@verizon.net>
(IP: 209.74.13.2)
Date: Friday, 17 May 2002, at 10:36 a.m.

---

He smothered an oath in a language long unspoken and asked himself why, why had he decided to yell, "Surprise!" so very loudly at the birthday party he had planned for his new, twitchily nervous young student, then let the oath crawl up his throat, fill his mouth, and burst from his lips anyway, because sword practice was, he realized with twenty-twenty hindsight, probably not the best time to have host and guests alike jump from hiding places tooting party horns, tossing confetti, and yelling at the top of their lungs.

The oath had barely escaped his not-Immortal-for-much-longer lips when every waking and pretty-close-to-waking moment of his life passed before his eyes in double-time march, a bright, richly textured, and deeply meaningful parade: his chubby, dimpled fingers entwined in his father's beard, yanking just hard enough to cause the stern but loving old man to put him down and let fly a cuss word that would grow hair on your chest; the first taste of his mother's rather chewy and indigestible rice pudding; his first love--sweet Leona, now reduced to dust, but until that time undoubtedly the loveliest food that worms had ever been blessed to feast on; his first death, at the hands of the one he had long imagined, but obviously was way off base here, to be his very best friend in the world; and his first teacher, that hot Immortal babe who was even now standing among the assembled surprise party guests, looking hotter than sitting on a radiator with no undies on.

His head neatly unzipped from his neck like one of those old pop-top lids on the aluminum soda cans that they don't make anymore because somebody swallowed one and sued the manufacturer, and tumbled across the floor, mercifully rolling so that his eyes were up when passing between the legs of his hot Immortal babe of a first teacher, providing him with a view that was one heck of a send-off into eternity, and came to rest against the dining room cabinet, under which he looked and then formed his last thought, which fragmented into a zillion little blue bits of energy that arced over the heads of the party-goers and into his hapless student: "Oh, so that's where my brown sock went."

MWC: Reworked Lyttony

Posted By: Tikasmom
Date: Saturday, 18 May 2002, at 10:46 a.m.

It had been a dark and stormy night, followed by fog that had crept in on cats feet and was so thick that one could barely see their hand in front of their face, which lifted as the sun bravely attempted to shine through the golf ball sized hail that was falling as thick as snow as Amanda, running her long, sharp as daggers, perfectly polished red nails, through her cunningly tousled hair, realized that, yes, it was, indeed, a cold day in Hell.

luv and warm purple fuzzies

MWC: Sultana

Posted By: Palladia <cmcintyr@alltel.net>
Date: Sunday, 19 May 2002, at 8:34 a.m.

It was a dark and stormy night, and the rain was sheeting into the cliff face, driven down the river by the relentless winds howling out of the south which almost drowned the screams of the woman who stood at the opening of the cave shaking her fist at the storm, her wet hair and clothes plastered to her skin.

Duncan had taken the rest of his train of escaped slaves on into Pennsylvania, and had returned to the cliff over the Potomac on his way back, never expecting to hear a madwoman shrieking terrible imprecations at the skies near this cave which had been a place of refuge both for her daughter with the hidden horse, and the exhausted slaves.

He and Enos approached her gingerly, wanting to draw her away from the cliff face, but she turned on the black man, hands raised to claw his face, screaming, "You, you, it was all for you, my husband and his brothers went off to fight for you, and he survived all the battles, then Andersonville, and was killed when the stupid overloaded boat went down; my daughter and I will have to go on without him," her voice hoarse, stripped away in the wind, her tears diluted by the rain as the men eased her into the shelter, let her collapse in the dry dust of the cave.

Palladia

Weather You Like it or Not

Posted By: A.
Date: Sunday, 19 May 2002, at 12:26 p.m.

In response to the mid-week challenge...

It was a not quite dark yet early evening with a ninety percent chance of showers in Paris. With the dog days of summer lingering like gym socks you haven't taken home to wash in three weeks the humidity, was almost unbearable but, of course, if you lived there you had to just grin and bear it. At times like that, being Immortal was just not what it's cracked up to be because you had to wear a long coat to hide your sword since you really had no choice in the matter (that matter being one of life and death). Female immortals lucked out because they could wear more of a light jacket and somehow their swords would appear when you need it and there's no need to explain how it works, just go with the 'it's a kind of magic'. It was definitely no picnic being a male immortal in Paris. Fortunately for Duncan MacLeod, he was living in Seacouver at the time.

MWC: Lytton it all hang loose

Posted By: HonorH, Keeper of the Lyttony <ksheasley@yahoo.com>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002, at 2:39 a.m.

"Duncan," Amanda wheedled, her voice sweeter than honey, sweeter than sugar, sweeter even than fructose, which is a natural fruit sugar about two and a half times sweeter than refined white sugar and far easier on your system, as it's not a refined carbohydrate, "do this one little thing for me, and I swear I'll be good--or bad, depending on what sort of variation you'd like to put on our much-speculated-upon sex life--the point being that we'll have all sorts of fun."

Duncan heaved a heavy, brooding sigh, something he'd practiced much throughout the centuries, particularly when confronted by this mad, irresistible creature who both made his heart glad and his mind mad, this puck with a body that could stop traffic and eyes that could steal your soul, this fey being with fingers that could rob you blind or make you blind with ecstasy, this woman who defined, for Duncan, all attributes of womanhood, from the ridiculous to the sublime, and the Highlander wondered if this time he would be able to resist her not-so-subtle charms, and he resolved to do just that, and for once stick to his guns.

"Amanda," he said firmly, even as she sat in his lap, mussing his hair, pouting adorably, and wrinkling her pert nose in such a way as once stole the heart of a young man from Indiana, "for the thousandth time, if you want to see the new Star Wars movie, go by yourself; I refuse to see anything with Jar Jar Binks in it."

MWC: Oops

Posted By: Ysanne <ysanne_1@yahoo.com>
Date: Monday, 20 May 2002, at 1:55 p.m.

As his strong, efficient heart pushed his life’s blood out in free-fall, spattering pulses that gleamed wetly on his clean kitchen floor, Duncan MacLeod groaned in embarrassment, vainly trying to stem the flood with his large, fuzzy-knuckled hands, even as he knew that he would soon be pale, sweaty, breathless and weak, all symptoms of shock and the loss of a great deal of blood, along with the unconsciousness that would soon follow.

If only he had remembered to unpack his cutlery, he thought hopelessly, feeling his knees give way and falling heavily to the oak planks which he had recently installed himself, feeling the need to keep busy and occupy his mind, then he would not have been tempted to use the katana for slicing the damn veggies, which was a stupid idea at any time, but especially when his attention had been divided between food prep and perhaps taking on a new student, the first one since Rich’s untimely and tragic death from the very same katana held by the very same hand which had accidentally slipped and gutted him like a fish.

The only thing that could possibly be worse than dealing oneself a death blow with one’s own weapon, Duncan thought muzzily, his brain starving for the oxygen that was now leaving his body at an alarming rate, was offing oneself, however temporarily, with company coming for dinner, and the only thing worse than that was that said company consisted of one’s nosy Watcher, who would no doubt write the whole mortifying incident up, and Methos, who would never let him forget this for as long as they both lived, and, knowing Methos’ penchant for insisting that that both stay alive, that could be for another....five......thousannnn........

Ysanne