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Story Time

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"I need a story."

Garet wasn't normally a violent young man. In fact, he'd go so far as to describe himself as being very friendly and fun-loving, if not excessively so. However, on one particular morning, during which this one particular tale takes place, he was seriously considering changing all of that: starting with his roommate. More specifically, the roommate he was now glaring at with one half-opened eye. "What?"

"I need a story," Isaac repeated, as if that would explain it.

"And I repeat: What?" Garet glanced at his clock. Seven. in. the. morning. Good gods, it was too early for this.

Isaac, meanwhile, was oblivious to the mounting danger to his physical (and perhaps mental) health. "My creative writing class. I've been up all night, but I can't think of a single story topic for the story that's due tomorrow and I don't want to have to write some lame thing that'll be completely stupid and make me want to end my misery." Yes, he probably said all of that in one breath.

Squeezing his eyes shut, Garet considered going back to sleep. Better not, he decided. Isaac would just keep bothering him. Instead, he made an annoyed grumbling sound and propped himself up in his bed using his elbows. "I knew we shouldn't have bought you that coffee thing for Christmas," he finally stated, after getting a good look at his jittery, sleep deprived roomie. Said roomie was now also clinging desperately to the side of Garet's raised, shoulder-height bed, like some valuable lifeline. Garet couldn't help but raise a curious brow at that.

"Why? I've been using it all night."

"My point exactly," Garet mumbled. Good-byyyyye, wonderful sleep. "Alright, let's hear it. What's this about a story?"

Ten minutes later, Garet was wondering just what was wrong with him. Then the pot of coffee finished brewing, and sleepiness was crossed off that list. "Let me get this straight," he stated, pausing to blow on his steaming mug. "The assignment is to write a fantasy fiction story?" Isaac nodded eagerly. "Any topic?" Confirmed by another nod. "Five pages, double-spaced?" Yet another nod. "And you can't think of a single thing to write about?" Depressed nod. "Didn't you ever watch cartoons growing up? Just pick a random animal or prince or something, save a bunny or slay a dragon, and get it over with."

To put it simply, Isaac's expression instantly read, "not amused."

"I'm not writing about bunnies." Oh yeah, lack of sleep was catching up fast. How could Garet tell? Isaac's volume was starting to waver every few words or sentences.

He'd also just said "bunnies" with a deathly serious face.

"Then dragon it is." It was scary how straight-faced Garet could be sometimes in return.

Isaac groaned and slouched in his chair. "How unoriginal could I possibly get?" Oooh, the frustrated temple massage.

"If you're asking honestly, I'd say to throw in a damsel. Dragons love damsels."

"I'm not writing about some dragon and its damsel! You're good with stories, Garet. I need something that doesn't scream, 'Cliché!' all over."

"Old ladies, then?" Garet chuckled at the look he got for that one. "Good luck with that. You're only competing with every story created since the dawn of man."

Isaac gave an exasperated growl, and almost fell backwards out of his chair as he pulled at his hair. "I'm not looking for a masterpiece, just something not overdone!"

"Did you think of trying a fantasy adventure?" Isaac paused to look at his friend sideways.

"Huh?"

"Fantasy adventure. You know, like the games we play?"

"RPGs?" Isaac deadpanned. "Please say you're kidding. There's a gazillion of those things out there."

"And yet, my desperate friend, they just keep on selling." The redhead sipped his coffee, making Isaac wait impatiently for over three seconds. Oh yes, he went there. He eventually lowered the mug again to continue. "Face it, you're not interested in a fairy tale. Sooooo, unless you want to start twisting Harry Potter, or Lord of the Rings, or World of Warcraft, or, heck, some crazy Disney movie, one of the only options you have left is to stick to more familiar ground."

Isaac studied his roommate for a moment, looking for any sign that this might be a bad idea. Or, at this rate, a bad joke. He found none.

"Alright. So, where do I start?"

Perfect. Garet grinned behind the rim of his mug. This would be done in no time.

"First off, you're going to need your hero. Or heroine, whichever floats your boat."

"Hero," Isaac said, without any hesitation. "What about his name?"

"What about it? Just use yours or someone you know."

Isaac rolled his eyes. "I'm not naming my character after myself, and not after my dad, either. Who ever heard of a fantasy hero named Isaac or Kyle?"

"What? It could happen." Garet "hmm"-ed as he stared out through the window. There were a lot of birds out on the lawn that morning. Robins hunting for bugs and worms, especially-

"Robin." He turned back to his confused roomie. "Name the character Robin." Isaac's expression now read, "Do you think I'm an idiot?"

"Shall I partner him up with a buddy named Bruce?"

"Hardy har har." Garet moved back to his half of the dorm room. "I'm being serious. You have any better ideas?"

The silence answered that one. Again, Garet had to grin to himself. He dug out his toothbrush from one of his wardrobe drawers.

"Now what?"

Garet dug around some more. Just where did he toss that toothpaste? "Now you give Robin a goal. No, wait, that's getting ahead, isn't it? Alright, keep that one in mind and start thinking of ideas, but before that, think of where he is and why he's there. You know: setting?"

Isaac really didn't feel like thinking too much anymore. He pushed back in his chair, causing it to roll into the edge of the desk and jolt him slightly. "Ugh. Fine. He's at home in some little village place. Old European, with the thatched roofs and everything."

"Is it peaceful, or about to have all Hell break loose?"

Isaac thought for a moment. "Peaceful." He nodded to himself. "But it's about to get messy. He, um… Robin," Isaac stressed the name, "goes with some friends to a cave."

Aha! Toothpaste! "Why?"

"Heck if I know," Isaac grumbled, and massaged his forehead. "But something messes up, and he then has to go on some insane journey to fix it- OW!"

Toothpaste, meet back of head. Back of head, meet half empty toothpaste tube. "Can't just write down, 'something messes up.' What messes up, and why?"

Isaac was too busy shielding the back of his skull to answer right away. "How should I know? I'm not him!"

"Then who's controlling the guy? Jenna?"

"Oh, gods, no!" Jenna was another friend of theirs, but there were times when even Garet's cheeriness couldn't compare to hers. "Fine, fine, how about… uh… Robin and his friends go in a cave, some bad guys come along to steal something important, and Robin and his friends have to stop them? Better?"

"Getting there. Who are the friends?"

And so, the back and forth, question and answer, idea and suggestion routine continued along. Garet left for the floor's bathroom for almost half an hour during that time, saying something about a shower and "coffee flavored tooth fuzz." Yum.

"Okay, here's what we have. Robin and two friends, Gerald and Jasmine, go exploring in a cave on the border of their home village. While there, they encounter some thieves, who are trying to steal from a vault owned by the village church." Isaac looked up from his notepad. "Well?"

"Well what?" questioned Garet, whose towel-dried hair was still standing up at gravity defying angles. "It's your story! You tell me."

Isaac studied the paper and notes once more, before nodding slowly. "It's better than nothing." He turned his attention back to his laptop on the desk, and set the notepad beside it. "Alight, so, 'Once upon a time, in a little village, there was a guy named Robin.'"

Seriously? Seriously? "Please tell me you're kidding."

Isaac gave an irritated huff. "Well, what's wrong with it now?"

"For starters, call him a man or a young man or something. Saying something as casual as 'there was a guy' will kill your grade from the get-go. Second," Garet snatched up a Latin/English dictionary. As he flipped through definitions and words he'd never remember, he silently thanked himself for stealing the book from Felix the day before. Jenna's older brother had been moping and getting on Garet's nerves for most of the day. Maybe with one of his books for class missing, his friend would take his mind off of whatever was bothering him for at least a little while.

It was also just really funny to watch the guy freak out on occasion.

"The village needs a name. Here," he held out the book, opened to the words starting with "v" in the Latin section. Isaac skimmed the page as Garet clarified. "Vale. Means, 'goodbye.' People love meaningful names and crap like that."

"Why not name it for a word meaning, 'hello?'"

"You want to call a village, 'Salute?'"

"That's French, and it's, 'Salut.'"

"Doesn't matter. Why would you want a village called Hello?"

"Why would I want it to be Goodbye?"

"Better than Salute."

"Salut!"

"Whatever."

Perhaps it would be better to skip to the end of that particular conversation. An online pronunciation guide for Latin led to a lot of confusion as to how to say the word, "Vale," and both parties finally conceded that it should be left until their resident linguist was available. Felix was going to want his dictionary back, anyway.

Some more back-and-forth discussion later (read as: one-sided debate and decision in Garet's favor), and the cave was declared to be named "Sol Sanctum," located on a "Mount Aleph."

Then came the next great debate: why were the main characters going to the Sanctum?

"Some scientist guy put them up to it."

"What scientist?"

"Heck if I know. I'll just name him Kraden."

Garet shuddered at the thought. "You want these people to die young from boredom and information overload, don't you?" Isaac simply smirked.

"You're just sore about all those low test scores in his class. I told you, you should've gone to the study group."

"Since when did Medieval science have anything to do with pre-calc?"

"Stuhhh-dyyy grooop," came the sing-song reply.

"Name the villain Kraden."

"Should I name one of the attacks Review Notes? OW!" Back of head, meet Latin dictionary. "I'll tell Felix you're the one who spilled soda on his physics book!"

"…Sorry."

Isaac grinned at his small victory. "I'll name him Sclater. That's still a scientist's name. I should probably think of names for these thieves next." For a moment, both students sat in thought. Then, "Oh man. I can't believe it."

"What?"

"The name."

"What? What?"

Isaac cringed. "I don't know why I even thought of it. It's… Saturos." Garet stared as though Isaac had grown another head. "Or there's Menardi." Scratch that: Isaac had clearly grown three heads total, and none of them had a brain. "You don't have to look that messed up over it!"

Garet muttered darkly to himself, "Worst. Class. Ever."

"I know! I'm sorry! I won't use it!"

"No, no! It's fitting! But maybe… alter the names some?" Garet looked for all the world like he was eating something really, really awful. "I wouldn't bet against those two being happy for the chance to sue us."

Isaac nodded fervently. In all of their nineteen years, never had the boys met two more horrible, more fearsome instructors. Maybe it was the character traits. Maybe it was the fact that Mr. Saturos had been more of a drill sergeant than a high school gym teacher, and Ms. Menardi had been a home-ec teacher that made students thank every deity possible in the universe that they weren't one of the veggies on her cutting board. Garet still maintained a fear of sewing machines from that class.

In the end, the fictional villains were a swordsman named Satyuros, and a woman with a scythe named Menadi. Not the greatest name changes, but it was enough to start with, and it still sent chills down the spine of both students.

"Can we please just wrap this up already?" Garet asked, one hundred percent not pleading. Isaac, thankfully, agreed with the sentiment. He set to work writing the story itself while Garet focused on some of his own course work. By that evening, the story had been wrapped up, printed, and stashed away in Isaac's binder. The writer himself had even had the chance to pass out and be dead to the world for a few hours. Heading out to meet up with their other friends at the dorm diner for dinner (Garet forgetting about a certain dictionary until he found himself in an angry headlock from an angry Latin student), the two boys happily declared the mission complete.

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Garet paused his typing when he heard the door slowly open. "Hey," he greeted, already knowing it would be Isaac returning from class. He stretched his arms above his head.

"Hey…"

Well, that didn't sound good. Garet swiveled in his chair. "You okay?"

Isaac slumped with his back against the door he had just closed, and sighed deeply. "Yeah… You remember that story I had to write?" Garet confirmed that he did. "I got an A. The teacher loved it."

"Um… o-kaaaaay…?" Confused, Garet's eyes flicked around the room, finally landing back on his friend. "And that's bad because…?"

Isaac squeezed his eyes shut as though in pain, his face aimed towards the ceiling. "I have to write the next chapter for the next assignment."

There was silence in the room. A long, drawn out, poignant pause of silence.

"…What?"

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The End…?

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I love messing with these guys. This was one of those stories I started a while back and tinkered with every now and then, and now I've finally gotten around to completing it. Huzzah!

Speaking of writing, NaNoWriMo is currently in progress for 2012. Serious props to everyone who takes on the WriMo challenge. I got it into my head that this year I would actually try to make an honest attempt, and maybe finally make a dent in the growing list of things I want to write about but haven't yet for some reason or another. To start, I'm focusing on fanfics for some much needed writing practice. More specifically, I'm favoring a complete rewrite of my first story on FFN, The New Kid. It's too early to say what to expect, but if you wonderful readers could spare a few seconds, I'd really appreciate getting some votes in a poll posted in my profile. Right now it's asking about preferred chapter lengths, but it may change as the month and the writing progresses.

Cheers! Bye for now!