Private Tales We Just Wanna Have Fun

[Suleiman Askari]

"Girls sneeze differently when boys are around."

Coppo stared right at Suleiman as he said it, and his expression was one of a man conveying pure fact. Suleiman, however, blinked several times, looked about their dorm as he gave a moment's though to it, and then replied: "Nuh uh. No way. That can't...I don't know, that doesn't sound right."

"It's true."

"But how? How do you just change the way you sneeze? You sneeze, you sneeze."

Coppo just smirked a little, held up his hands and wiggled his fingers, and said, "Magic."

"Pffffff! You just made this all up, didn't you."

"I was joking about the magic part. Not about the sneezing part. It's true."

"I don't think it is."

Coppo shrugged, not at all from uncertainty, but from indifference to Suleiman's disbelief. "That's fine. You can think what you want to think. But if you pay attention, you'll come back to me and you'll say, 'Coppo, you were right all along.'"

"Doubtful, man. Doubtful."

* * * * *

OUT AND ABOUT IN THE COLLEGE​

And yet, despite himself, Suleiman found that the relatively simple idea, one he so vociferously denounced in Coppo's presence, kept a firm hold in his mind. It probably wasn't good that he found himself debating the idea inside his head in class, losing awareness of what the Professor or Maester was saying for five, ten, fifteen minute stretches, as though he had skipped over or lost all memory of those periods of time. There was no way Coppo was right. No way. This was stupid. Why was he still thinking about this!? He needed to be learning the arts of magic, and the curriculum of education, not having endless, round and round, mind-fogging debates about this!

Enough was enough. He couldn't think his way out of this, since the splinter quite evidently was difficult to dislodge from his mind. No, what Suleiman knew he had to do was put it to the test. Somehow.

As luck would have it, as Suleiman during the free time on the weekend went about the halls of the College, thinking of this very means of testing Coppo's assertion, he spied the horned twins, Elyon and Eshara. And then...he felt like he was slipping off a cliff. He knew what he was going to do, and knew he wasn't going to stop himself. He'd never really made the acquaintance of the strange twins before, and this might be a weird way to make an introduction.

But Suleiman marched right up to the twins in the hall, like a man on a mission, and said, "Can I ask you two a really dumb question?"

Elyon and Eshara

 

[Elyon and Eshara]

Both twins looked over their shoulders in tandem at the sudden intrusion. Until now they'd been carefully watching around a corner to see if a minor disaster might strike--one they coordinated no less. Now there was attention on them. Perhaps they could still watch and also deal with the bothersome question at the same time, without lookin quite as suspicious. After all, joy felt by one twin was joy felt by both.

The impending catastrophe, of course, was little more than an experiment on the part of the two. A feeling had occurred to both, and the thought was discussed: what if you mixed a grease spell with a minor illusion? Could one feasibly make a slippery surface that appears perfectly normal?

Ely'Esha nodded at each other decidedly, and Eshara popped up and in front of Elyon while the latter continued to peer around the corner.

"Hello Sully! What is your question for us?" the feminine twin asked, smiling brightly with her arms behind her back, trying to maintain an air of innocence.

 

[Suleiman Askari]

What...what was the other twin doing? Oh, nevermind, Suleiman thought, who was he to start nosing into their affairs, when he himself was cooking up some mischief. So Suleiman as yet paid no mind to Elyon and—

—oh hey, as luck would have it, the twin who was perhaps more directly involved in Suleiman's question happened to be the one talking to him. He hoped that the girl twin was Eshara, and not Elyon; she seemed like she would be an Eshara and not an Elyon, but Suleiman did think that Aiko was roommates with Yuebing, and other such goofy follies.

"Hey, uh, Eshara, do you..." the question, now that it was on the tip of Suleiman's tongue, somehow sounded even more dumb than he originally anticipated. Hot sands, just ask it.

"...do you sneeze differently when he's around?" he said, pointing around her and at her twin Elyon.

Elyon and Eshara

 

[Elyon and Eshara]

Eshara cocked her head. She had never really considered such a thing before this moment. She rarely considered anything regarding an absence of her brother. The girl's eyes drifted upwards and she pressed a finger to her chin.

"Hmm...I would not call that a 'dumb' question, but it is a strange one..." she intoned, trying to recall all the times she'd recently sneezed.

"I've only ever heard her sneeze one way," Elyon said without averting his gaze.

"But! But! We are always together! So it is strange to even think that I might do so differently if we were ever apart!" Eshara chirped back, balling her fists in excitement. The twins had such intimate knowledge of each other, and now it was being revealed to her that there might be something she could only learn of in the absence of her other half! "This...this is serious!"

The realization dawned upon her, and Elyon visibly bristled.
"I...suppose that it could be true..." he admitted, his sister's worry and curiosity being shared with him.

 

[Suleiman Askari]

A sort of wonder washed over Suleiman. Man, how could a question so simple be this engaging? It seemed to suggest further that Coppo made it up, or had just heard it as a tall tale and passed it along. Well, even the twins didn't know, and Suleiman could tangibly feel fuel being added to the fire. He just had to know, and maybe the twins were becoming of like mind.

"Listen, listen," said Suleiman, and, for some reason, leaned in a bit closer to them as though sharing secret knowledge, "this is just something my roommate Coppo said: that girls sneeze differently when boys are around. I don't know if that's true or not, I...well...damn, I just don't know."

And this time he specifically motioned to Elyon.

"Have you ever heard a girl sneeze one way, and then sneeze another way when boys were around?"


Elyon and Eshara

 

[Elyon and Eshara]

"You know, now that you mention it--" Elyon started, but cut himself off as he erupted into laughter, for someone had just finally stepped on the invisible patch of floor goo the duo had placed earlier. The horned boy had a perfect view of another student sliding a few yards on one foot before crashing to the ground, a storm of papers pluming from the spot he landed.

Eshara's face went from worried to delighted as the joy her brother experienced flowed through her as well, and despite not witnessing the crash, she found herself laughing too.

"You were right, brother, that was worth the wait," she said with a happy little wiggle. With that, Elyon stepped away from the corner. Suleiman now had the twins' full attention. "You were saying?"

"Oh, just that, yes. Distantly, once, shortly after we arrived in Elbion. Do you recall, at that café?" Elyon reminded his sister.

"Oh! Yes! In spring, that girl with the puffy nose! She was...mmm, perhaps meeting someone?"

"Mm, and we saw them from a distance. She sneezed like--"

"Like a mouse!"

"And when the boy had to excuse himself, she sneezed like--"

"Like a baku!"

The two chattered back and forth before Elyon looked to Suleiman.
"Is there a reason for this? Her sneezing was so cute and polite," he started, before Eshara finished the thought enthusiastically:
"And then it got all messy and loud!"

 

[Suleiman Askari]

Suleiman couldn't see around the corner, but heard enough of the clamor to have his attention diverted. Elyon burst into laughter, and Suleiman, curious and quizzical, made a token effort to lean around and have a look at the mystery mischief. But he gave it up. Ah well. Missed it. Besides, he had bigger mysteries to solve.

Elyon and Eshara were nearly of one mind for a moment, talking back and forth with a fluidity even the best of friends might struggle to achieve.

"What's a baku?" Suleiman asked, but then immediately swatted his own question away with a swipe of his hand. "Nevermind, nevermind, I get the picture. Messy and loud. But see! See! This! This is what's eating me up. That right there. You saw that happen. That girl. Sneezing, like a mouse, and then, sneezing, like a baku."

Suleiman slowed himself down, took a breath and had a little think, and then said, "You're on it, Elyon. Is there a reason for this? Right? And one girl is one thing, but if..."

He had more of a think. He raised his open hands as if holding the very idea he seemed to be formulating.

"...if we can...you know, test this, I think we might be on to something. But the trick is that we'd have to do this in secret, and still be able to, uh...observe the results, you could say."

Elyon and Eshara

 

[Elyon and Eshara]

Eshara let out a sharp gasp.

"A baku is a--!" but Suleiman waved it off and kept going.

She pouted, but Elyon patted her on the shoulder, and the pair focused on listening to where the boy was going with this. They were confused, but not disappointed. After all, the twins were nothing if not inquisative.

"Hmm...so...do you have a plan?" Elyon pondered.

"Yes, yes! How do we do the test?" Eshara asked, hoping that Suleiman already had an answer. Hopefully one that let her and her brother get up to some mischief.

 

[Suleiman Askari]

"Alright, listen, listen..." Suleiman balled a fist and pressed it to his mouth, thinking of the plan even as the twins inquired of it. He drew in a big breath through his nose and let his fist fall and said, "I have a little aptitude for wind magic—and, you know, something's better than nothing. And it kinda surprised me too, I thought I was just going to be terrible at everything."

Then it occurred to him then that maybe, just maybe, he shouldn't utter aloud every little thing that came to mind.

"But nevermind that. The point is: I'm just good enough at wind magic to make this work. I think. Maybe. Probably."

He waved off his own wishy-washy attitude.

"So, I'm thinking, what if...I use my magic to blow...something, I don't know...toward a girl here or a girl there. Something that will make them sneeze. But I don't know what." He pondered the matter for another second. "Anything make you two sneeze? Reliably?"

Elyon and Eshara

 

[Elyon and Eshara]

"Anything make you two sneeze?"

The twins shared a knowing glance.

"Wiggleweed," they declared.

Elyon set down his messenger bag and Eshara began to help him go through it. After a minute of digging, Eshara produced a leatherbound jounral from within and started to flip through its pages.

"We sometimes press odd plants we find in our journeys into its pages," Elyon answered an unasked question, glancing to Suleiman, and a moment later a flattened plant would be thrust into the boy's view, clenched within Eshara's fist.

"Wiggleweed!" she reiterated, shaking the thing before him. A long, dark green stem capped by a flower with petals that must have once looked like a pink corkscrew, and several long filaments brimming with vibrant pollen.

"Dornochi tales say that even gods and spirits are allergic. It's at rest because we pressed it, but if you carried the pollen on your wind..." Elyon smirked, letting the idea hang in the air much like the dried flower before Suleiman's eyes.

 

[Suleiman Askari]

"Wiggle-what?"

Now, when Elyon explained the bit about "pressing" plants into pages, Suleiman took it as a figure of speech, of course, naturally, why wouldn't you. He should have known better. He wasn't in Maraan anymore. Still, he was taken aback when Eshara produced the very plant, Wiggleweed, from the book as though it were a fairy tale come to life.

"How the—"

You know what. Not important, just like the baku. They needed something to make people sneeze and that thing was wiggleweed and now they had it.

Suleiman rubbed his hands together. "Alright, let's hope those Dornochi tales are true. I guess the real trick is going to be getting the right amount of pollen. Just enough, right? Just enough so we don't have everyone sneezing their eyes out."

He glanced around, looking up and down the hall, all in the manner of one up to no good and looking to keep it private.

"Let's test it. On me, I guess."

Elyon and Eshara

 

[Elyon and Eshara]

Blink, blink.

Again the twins shared a look, this time longer. Subtle facial gestures were exchanged, and something like a sigh escaped one of them. An entire conversation played out silently between them in a language Suleiman could not hope to understand.

Suddenly the two turned their focus back to their acquaintance.

"Well...if you're sure!" Elyon said with a smirk he failed to contain.

Eshara muttered some incantation under her breath and a few wisps of ethereal green wove their way around the tip of the wiggleweed. It seemed to rejuvenate itself, and in moments many of the puffy yellow fronds of pollen seemed full of life once more.

Elyon carefully plucked a polyp from the end of the wiggleweed and held it between his fingers, and both twins grinned. So rarely did someone give the pair permission to do a mischief on them. Ely'Esha were not about to turn down the opportunity to pull a prank that had been asked for.

"Breathe deep through your nose!" Eshara chirped before blowing the little cluster of pollen into Suleiman's face.

 

[Suleiman Askari]

"Oh no no, not here," said Suleiman as Eshara started her incantation. He glanced around, over his shoulder, still trying to spy some place covert they could go. "Best not to do that here, right? It'd be better if we—"

Breathe deep through your nose!

He turned his head back around, and, right as funny luck would have it, caught the face-full of pollen and breathed it in deep and immediately set to coughing.

"Ah shit! Ah no!" He doubled over and coughed and but his efforts in coughing were in vain and now a big sneeze un-doubled him over, blowing him back up to standing upright. "I can taste it! Ah Annuk, it's in my nose, it's in my mouth, I can taste—!"

He sneezed again, harder, his arm reflexively coming up—but a second too late. His eyes were nearly pinched shut, and he looked like he had just sucked on a whole basket of lemons; but this bracing wouldn't help.

"Do I have snot running from my—?"

He sneezed again, launching himself off his feet, and he staggered to find his footing again. And yes, he did have two thick ropes of snot dangling (like twins, hey) from his nose.

Elyon and Eshara

 

[Elyon and Eshara]

The twins giggled with each other, just as pleased with the results of this impromptu caper as they had been with their disguised grease trap but a few minutes ago. As quickly as the spell the duo had cast had restored the sprig of wiggleweed, the plant reverted back to its flat, dried state, and Eshara tucked it back into her book for later use.

"You must be quicker next time! We did not realize you wanted to test the wiggleweed in another place!" Elyon laughed, trying to brace his sister.

"You...you look like--! PffffHAHAHAHA!" Eshara exclaimed, pointing, tears of laughter streaming from her eyes as she failed to complete her comparison.

"Here, here: a handkerchief, free of our mischief. It's the least we can do for this joy, Sully," Elyon said as his giggling began to die down, handing the boy a clean cloth to clean himself up with.
"Without continued exposure you should be your normal self within...oh, forty minutes or so? Half that, if you are healthy."

"Hehehehe, yes, yes! Wiggleweed is potent, but not long lasting!" Eshara concurred.

 

[Suleiman Askari]

"Potent??"

Suleiman reached for the cloth and a sneeze, like a malicious little creature, said "no" and he bounced again from the force and his hand missed the first attempt at taking said cloth. Still, at the end of it, he was laughing a little—for some reason he just found "potent" to be hilariously understating it.

"You're telling m—"

He sneezed into the cloth and the arrangement of his hands to his nose and the pressed fabric made a queer, if funny, trumpeting noise.

A brief respite in the sneezing, and he said: "Ahhhhhh, if my soul leaves my body tell the Maesters not to look in my—"

Another sneeze interrupted that thought, and on second thought about that thought Suleiman preferred it to stay interrupted.

"Guys, we gotta get the dose of pollen right, or it'll mess up—"

—the test, is what he meant to say, but another sneeze and a bolt of snot splatting on the floor from under the curtain of the cloth suggested his face was quite the mess too.

Elyon and Eshara

 

[Elyon and Eshara]

The pair's laughter died down, and when Suleiman brought up the plan somehow getting messed up, both twins cocked their heads to one side in perfect sync.

"We are to prove that a girl, when thinking she is unobserved, sneezes loudly and messily, yes?" Elyon asked, and Eshara nodded her agreement.

"Would any amount of wiggleweed pollen not do the trick? Anyone who breathes it winds up sneezing like you are now, Sully," the sister continued.

"Well...we're fairly sure that even in public someone could not contain their full and impolite...goo," Elyon concluded, gesturing to Suleiman's current state. Eshara bounced on her heels and pumped her fists eagerly.

"Mm! That would prove the point also, yes?"

 

[Suleiman Askari]

"Listen, listen," Suleiman said, gasping a little. Ah, hot sands, the whole inside of his nose hurt. "We can't have them sneezing like me. That'd throw everything off!"

He sneezed again, and his balance was thrown off, arms flailing out for a moment, and then like a man who'd stepped onto a frozen lake and by sheer miracle steadied himself on that unsteady ground so Suleiman regained it. Like a stone statue he stood, arms held out long to his sides. Steady. He blew out a huff of air like it was all skill, all intended.

"We don't want the wiggleweed to make the girls sneeze too hard and too much. It just needs to be...a suggestion, ya know? The tiniest bit, I guess. One sneeze'll be enough!"




Elyon and Eshara