It's the same with spirit guises; show me a sweet little choirboy or a smiling mother and I'll show you the hideous fanged strigoi it really is. (Not always. Just sometimes. *Your* mother is absolutely fine, for instance. Probably.)
Jonathan StroudTag: humor bartimaeus stroud
Me, I was still in the pygmy hippo in a skirt, singing lusty songs about Solomon's private life and a giant stone back and forth through the air as I climbed out of the quarry at the edge of the site.
Jonathan StroudHippo in a skirt: this was a comic reference to one of Solomon's principal wives, the one from Moab. Childish? Yes. But in the days before printing we had limited opportunities for satire.
Jonathan StroudTag: humor bartimaeus
I thought I told you to stop doing that," he snapped.
A thin-lipped mouth opened; the jutting chin and nose knocked together indignantly. "Do what?"
"Taking on such a hideous appearance. I've just had my breakfast."
A section of brow lifted, allowing an eyeball to roll forward with a squelching sound.The face looked
unapologetic."Sorry, mate," it said. "It's just my job."
"Your job is to destroy anyone entering my study without authority. No more, no less."
The door guard considered. "True. But I seek to preempt entry by scaring trespassers away. To my way
of thinking, deterrence is more aesthetically satisfying than punishment."
Mr. Mandrake snorted. "Trespassers apart, you'll likely frighten Ms. Piper here to death."
The face shook from side to side, a process that caused the nose to wobble alarmingly. "Not so. When
she comes alone, I moderate my features. I reserve the full horror for those I consider morally vicious."
"But you just looked that way to me!"
"The contradiction being...?
Fifty years isn’t too bad. With luck you might see it happen when you’re a sweet, old granny, dandling big fat babies on your knee. Actually”—he held up a hand, interrupting Kitty’s cry of protest—“no, that’s wrong. My projection is incorrect.”
“Good.”
“You’ll never be a sweet old granny. Let’s say, ‘sad, lonely old biddy’ instead.
Listen,” I began, “this is an established, traditional form that—”
“Traditional nothing. Where are your clothes?”
“Clothes?” I said weakly. “I don’t normally bother with them in this guise.”
“Well, you could put on a pair of shorts, at least. You’re not decent.”
“I’m not sure they’d go with the wings….” The demon frowned, blinked. “Hold on, enough of this!”
“Lederhosen would. They’d compliment the leather.
He was a worried man (I'm stretching the term a bit here, I know. By now, in his mid to late teens, he might just about have passed for a man. When seen from behind. At a distance. On a very dark night).
Jonathan StroudPardon me, Highness, a women waits whithout."
"Whithout what?
Ah, you coward! Look at you, running."
"Actually, it's called improvising.
Tag: humor cowardice improvising
And sure enough,the youth in question was not his usual dapper self. His face was puffy, his eyes red and wild; his shirt(distressingly unbuttoned)hung over his trousers in sloppy fashion. All very out of charactar: Mandrake was normally defined by his rigid self-control. Somthing seemed to have stripped all that away.
Well, the poor lad was emotionally brittle.He needed sympathetic handling.
"You're a mess," I sneered "You've lost it big time. What's happened? All the guilt and self-loathing suddenly get to you? It can't just be that someone else called me, surly?
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