Disclaimer: Not mine. Well, some of it is. I'm me - Niki, I don't actually come in here much but I do belong to me, and Sally…isn't mine, but she's Sally's. And everything else belongs to Cornelia Funke. Except the lil ole cottage. Don't know who that belongs to, but I'm sure it exists, I think I've been there.
A/N Wooo…well here we go. I'm sorry, but the whole Basta/OC concept is wearing thin with me now. The only way I condone canon/fanon character pairings is in spoof format, and some of the stuff I've been reading definitely incorporates genuine emotion. So, to lighten my mood, I turn to the fan girls themselves. It's always amused me how I (and others) can become so infatuated with imaginary characters, that I simply could not resist writing this. The idea just popped into my head a few hours ago…and here we go. This is NOT a one shot for once, it will have quite a few chapters. And please, it's meant to be light hearted. I love Inkheart and Inkspell, and I especially love Basta, but out of respect for Cornelia Funke I would never dream of pairing myself up with him. Except, as I say, in spoof format. And so, after a few points I need to make, we will proceed.
Sally exists. She is my good friend in real life, and though she likes the books she has no such infatuation with Basta. And she's quite tired of me going on about him. She's also much nicer than this in real life, and not as obnoxious, but she is certainly as resourceful as the character will be in chapters to come.
The cottage up in Loch Lommond: I actually stayed there. Not important to that plot, and it wasn't run down when I was there, but I just thought I'd like to mention it. Because teh cottage ish cool. And trust me when I say that it's not the last you'll hear of it in this fic. Oh no. The cottage pwns you all.
ahem And with that, on with the show!
BASTA'S FANGIRLS
Basta was hiding. He was scared, but for the first time it was nothing to do with ghosts or demons, but a real, living threat. Or rather, threats. The fan girls were getting closer.
His problems had all started when that infernal girl had brought him back. What was her name? N-something. Nicola? Nianna? Something like that. She had been the first. She'd kept him for a while, tied up in some dark room where she would visit him once a day, and since he hadn't been able to as much as lift a knife without nearly passing out from the pain, there wasn't a whole lot he could do. Until, one day, the girl - Niki, that was it - had brought some friends round to see him. It turned out that one of them - don't ask him which, all of these things looked the same - took it into their head to set him free on the condition that he would "go out" with her, whatever that meant. Naturally, desperate for freedom he had replied in the affirmative, and she had released him. And then he had discovered what she had intended to do with him.
It took Basta three weeks to escape the girl - who, though not as repressive as Niki still barely let him out of her sights - but his troubles were far from over. In fact, it was around about then they actually started.
He was recognised when trying to steal some food from a market stall. A group of girls approached him, giggling, and asked him his name.
"Basta," he had said warily.
The girls squealed. One of them had turned to another and said excitedly, "I told you! I TOLD you it was him!"
The girl, who seemed to be the ring leader of the group, regarded him coolly. "I thought you'd be taller," she had said, before suddenly wrapping her self around him.
He had tried not to kick up a fuss, he really had. But after being imprisoned by two people, neither of whom cared to explain what on earth was going on, shortly after being brought back from the dead, being hugged by a strange girl in the middle of a market was just going too far.
"Get OFF me, you crazy creature! What the-"
But it was too late. The other members of the group had converged on him now, pretty much pinning him to the floor. He kicked and bellowed but nothing seemed to deter them. Eventually - he wasn't quite sure, he thought it had something to do with one of the stallholders - he managed to prise them away from his person. He wasn't hanging around after that. He managed to hitch a ride with a man who drove a very large blue automobile, and who seemed sympathetic to his plight, and before dawn the next day he was far, far away.
It wasn't enough. Hundreds of miles from where the trouble had begun, and it didn't seem to make a shred of difference. The same group of girls found him within a matter of days, shortly after he learnt that the place he was now in was called "Scotland". Except…there were more of them this time. Many more. All looking for him.
He didn't get it. Why? Why him? Of all people, why did it have to be he, Basta, who had only just been brought back from the dead, who had lost everything and didn't even know where he was, why was it he who had a crazy band of teenage females following him around?
He sunk to the ground, safe for the moment in his hiding place. It was some run down cottage near a place called Loch Lommond, and it reminded him uncomfortably of the cottage where he had lain, bound, for hours with only a gagged Flatnose for company, when Dustfinger had taken his first amulet. But it was ramshackle, and tucked away, and away from prying eyes of his followers. Or so he thought.
"They're called fan girls, you know."
Basta spun round. "Who are you?" he demanded.
The girl was leaning against the doorframe with a bored expression on her face. "You can call me Sally. I take it you're Basta?"
He narrowed his eyes. "What's it to you if I am?"
Sally inspected her nails. "Oh, nothing - except I can get you away from here safely."
Basta looked at her suspiciously. "How do I know you're not…one of them? And why would you want to help me anyway?"
"Number one: have I leapt at you in a desperate attempt to touch any available part of your body? No. Considering this, do you honestly believe that I am, as you so eloquently put it, one of them? As for why I want to help you…" Sally rubbed her temples, then, lowering her hand, looked directly at Basta. "You remember Niki, I take it?"
Basta flinched involuntarily. "She kept me chained to a chair for nearly a month. She's not someone I'll forget in a hurry."
"Well, I'm her friend. She is, sad to say, a fan girl, and wants you back - under different conditions of course."
"Oh great. Just great. One thing - what exactly is a fan girl?"
Sally laughed. "A fan girl. Well. Those people following you around? They class as fan girls."
Basta stared at her blankly. She sighed.
"When a book is written, it acquires fans, readers who like the book a lot. You understand?" A nod. "Good. Well, some characters acquire a percentage of the fandom - the name given to the society of fans - as their own fans. There are fans for you, for Dustfinger, for Meggie, for all the people you knew in the story you came from."
"What! What story? You mean the book? But then…where am I now? And would you please explain to me why I'm not dead?" Basta slumped to the floor. This girl must be less than half his age and was instructing him in the ways of the world as if he were a child of six.
"In due time. But do you want to know about fan girls or not?"
"Yes" he mumbled, defeated.
"Thank you. Anyway, as I was saying, each fandom is divided up for each character in a story. Some characters are more popular than others. And some characters - male, more often than not - have a following of people who more than like them, they love them. That way."
"Oh."
"Yes. Oh. Anyway, females like this are called fan girls. Sometimes it is used as a derogatory term, other times merely to describe an attitude. However, fan girls don't often expect the object of their affections to come to life and start walking among them. Which would explain the reaction you've been receiving."
Basta stared at her incredulously. "Are you telling me," he said slowly, "that these people, these CRAZY girls following me, are in love with me?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying, well done for catching on so quickly, I always took you to be rather dull."
Basta ignored then insult. He was gazing at the floor, picturing what could happen next. "You've got to help me," he said hoarsely.
"Oh, I will," said Sally. "But don't forget where I'll be taking you."
He remembered alright. Niki. "What does she want with me?" he asked, his throat even drier.
"Funnily enough, nothing the normal fan girls want. She wants to get you read back."
Basta snapped his head up, suddenly alert. "And why would she want to do that?"
Sally snorted. "Don't ask me. She's mad. I gave up trying to follow her train of logic years ago. Shortly after she threw that damn book at me the day she found out you died."
Basta realised that he didn't really want to understand this comment. The mere thought of it made his head spin. He would ask what was going on and where he was later.
"Can you get me out of here?" he asked.
Sally nodded. "Yes. And now, too, because - despite this lovely and scenic hiding place of yours - the fan girls are nearly upon us. I have money enough for a train fare down to Wales. That's where Niki is waiting. She understands this thing better than me, so we'll just make our plans from there.
Basta nodded numbly. "Yes. Good. Wales. Let's go."
But nothing is ever that simple.