Written by Falconempress. Posted on Apr 8, 09:52 AM.

"You Slay Me" Spork: Chapter 3

When we last left Aisling she just got arrested by the French police, when they caught her with a bloody murder weapon in her hands. This should be fun! I can’t wait to read what happens next! So what do they do? Do they beat the shit out of her in the interrogation room? A little waterboarding, maybe?

“Hi. I’m Aisling Grey, in room twenty-three. Are there any messages for me?”

The hotel clerk on graveyard duty looked up from his magazine and gave me a martyred sigh before reluctantly setting down his Paris Match and hoisting his bulk out of the chair. “It will require me to check,” he said, his voice rich with accusation.

What? Where is the police violence? Don’t tell me they just let her go.

Yes, they did. She is now back at the hotel. It is six in the morning and the hotel clerk can apparently see what kind of person she really is because he immediately dislikes her. There is a message for her and he gives the paper to her, but the whole time he acts like it was the most bothersome thing anyone ever asked him to do. Aisling, being the saint she is, bears with his rudeness, despite the fact she had absolutely no sleep in over thirty hours and has just returned from being questioned.

The note is from her uncle Damian who demands that she checked in with him to report on how the delivery went. Aisling crumples the note and heads for the elevator which doesn’t work, which means she would have to climb five flights of stairs to get to her room. Poor Aisling! The torture she endures! She truly is more than a mere human, bearing with all these inconveniences!

In her room, she discovers her bags were stolen, which totally ruins her day and since the dress she is wearing is unwearable because of all the blood stains (“Does all this innocent blood make my butt look big?“) which means she would have to go shopping. She washes the dress as best as she can and heads downstairs to complain to the manager that her bag was stolen. The manager, too, is very hostile, and says that Aisling probably just left the door open and therefore she is not liable. Heh. I love this hotel. It’s is as if every single part of it had something against Aisling. I can relate.

Aisling then orders some breakfast and the manager reluctantly agrees to send her some in the dining hall, that looks out to a “petite little garden“, which sounds horribly pretentious.

Over her breakfast, Aisling thinks about the interrogation, which ushers us into her flashback.

She is interrogated by inspector Proust (huh?) who does not seem to believe a single word she says and informs her that Interpol does not have detectives, since it’s an organization centered around sharing information concerning various international investigations. She is mostly mad at Drake because it’s all his fault. But then they let her go, even though it seems that there is a considerable amount of evidence against Aisling. Why do they let her go, you ask?

“You say you had nothing to do with Mme. Deauxville’s death, so I have no grounds to charge you.“

They let her go because she, the suspect, says she has nothing to do with the murder. Why of course! Because if she were guilty, surely she would have confessed immediately! No criminal ever lies to the police because lying is wrong, children.

headdesk

Ouch.

Aisling then blabbers for a change:

I smiled at the question in his soft brown eyes. “I didn’t kill her, honest. I don’t know who did, unless Drake murdered her, and he says he didn’t, but then, he lied to me about being an Interpol agent, and he stole my dragon, so how much of what he said can I really believe? Besides, he’s too handsome. I don’t trust handsome men like that. They think they’re god’s gift to women, and they go around grabbing you and kissing you and smelling really nice, and making your legs turn to mush when you’re pulled up tight against them, not to mention filling your head with all sorts of really wicked thoughts about what you’d like to do to them with a small bowl of ice cream and your tongue. Well, not your tongue, my tongue. And speaking of that, just how did he know the aquamanile was gold?”

I put her word vomits here because they have to be seen to be believed. She acts like those obnoxious heroines of your insufferable generic romantic comedy when the writer is trying to make them seem lovably scatterbrained. Oh, never mind.

No ratty damp jail cell for me, woo-hoo!“

When you get arrested on suspicion of murder, the comfort of your cell should always be the biggest of your worries. Also, all cells in Paris are damp and have rats in them, mostly due to the fact that the prisoners have to sleep on bundles of hay. Since, you know, we are in France.

Please, somebody make the stupid stop.

She asks the inspector to let her know when they find Drake and her dragon (which suddenly stops being an “aquamanile“) and he says yes. Then we cut back to Aisling staring and talking into her coffee as she realizes the inspector did not believe her.

Since the police took her passport upon arrest, which I think, although am not quite sure, is pretty illegal here in Europe, she has no other option but to stay put. But she is not going to do that with blood stains all over her dress. She decides to go shopping and calls Rene, the cab driver from Chapter One.

Because Rene is supposed to be a likable character, he is terribly concerned about what happened to Aisling and demands that she told him. Aisling is low on money so she cashes in her plane ticket and then it’s SHOPPING TIME!

Rene drives her to a place that belongs to the wife of his cousin or some other relative, I don’t care, because that way Aisling will get a discount. But no! There are two outfits she likes! The cutest cream – colored tunic that goes with a matching pair of pants and a slinky black dress with red poppies on it, which will certainly turn quite a few heads. But with her tight financial situation, she cannot afford both! However is she going to solve this brain – wrecking dilemma? The tension is killing me!

Aisling does not let the reader down and uses her sharp intellect. She figures that hey, it’s authentic French fashion! From Paris, nonetheless! So if she eats less, she can get both fabulous outfits! Yay!

headdesk

headdesk

headdesk

Whoa… I think I can see music now… faints

wakes up and rubs eyes

What happened?

looks at screen

AAAAAAAAAARGH!!!!!

reaches for a bottle of vodka and downs half of it

There, that’s much better.

hiccups

No, that wasn’t me.

Aisling pays up and in the taxi, she and Rene agree that if she were to clear her name, she should find whoever drew the circle, since the person who did it is undoubtedly the killer. She does not think Drake was the one doing all the murdering because he did not look like a murderer.

sigh

Investigation 101 – Murders: There is no profile for a murderer. Anybody can kill anybody else. Men, women, young, old, well – off or not so well,– off ugly or attractive – anybody can have a motive to murder somebody and anybody can do it, regardless of who you are or what you do. Murder is the only true equal – opportunity employer and this is where the basic and, might I add, very correct mindset of a homicide detective “everybody is a suspect“ comes from. This is also why the rate of solved murders is so high – the percentage is generally in high 80s – lower 90s. Murder really doesn’t pay, if you think about it.

Rene soon turns into an idiot as well because he admits that Drake really doesn’t sound like a killer. Rene is officially uncool from here on. If only the modern police realized the potential of using subjective impressions in their investigations. Aisling then talks about the circle drawn on the carpet and we are treated to yet another excourse into her knowledge of demonology. Her explaining these things to random people is not only bad exposition, it’s also a painfully horrible excuse for an exposition. He is just a cab driver! Why do you tell him such things!

“It’s my hobby. I study medieval demon texts.“

At this point, he should just toss her out of the car, 50 euros or not. I know I am bitching about it a lot, but this “reading ancient demonology texts“ excuse for not only exposition, but a lot of random knowledge Aisling has I find simply jarring. Although still not as bad as “I saw it on Detection Channel“.

Anyways. Since the circle seems to be the only lead Aisling has, she figures she could visit some book shops that deal to people interested in the occult and ask around. How is she going to go about it is beyond me. Is she going to go around asking everybody “Oh, hello, didn’t you sell a book on demon summoning to this guy, he was probably dressed all in black, laughed maniacally at everything and had a bloody knife on his person? He could also mention something about offering the immortal soul of a certain rich lady to the lord of darkness?“

This is also why my sporks have been so long so far – everything about this book is simply retarded.

Oh and Rene of course knows where all the occult stores are in Paris. Have you ever been to Paris, author? Do you have any idea how gigantic it is? As somebody who lives in a large city, albeit not even half as big, I can tell you that I know people who, throughout their whole lives, almost never set foot out of the district they live and work in. If I asked a cab driver something like that he would tell me he is not a fucking tour guide and that I should look into a fucking map or do an internet search.

Sorry, rant over.

So after teaching her another handy phrase used exclusively to insult people around her, Aisling goes to visit a bunch of occult bookstores, all of which are “dark, murky occult bookshops, shops that seemed to thrive on dirt and the merest hint of sunlight through grimy, unwashed windows“. Not only does MacAlister use ever cliché in the book, she also WROTE the bloody book.

She finds one that is shockingly light and has some pots with some pretty flowers on the windowsills under the windows which are – gasp! – washed clean. The shopkeeper is a woman with eyes “pale, pale blue, the kind of blue you see on Siberian huskies.“ Since Aisling never bothered to learn any phrases that do not involve ridiculous insults, she asks the woman whether she speaks English and of course she does and not only that, she is absolutely delighted at Aisling’s visit.

The shopkeeper’s name is Amelie and she has an old Corgi which is a living proof that dogs have a strange sixth sense about people, since the dog dislikes Aisling immediately and even snaps at her hand. This startles Aisling so much, she drops the shopping bag, spilling out the contents, one of which is her blood – stained dress. Amelie snorts at what a bother dragon scales are, getting everywhere, and thus she informs Aisling that she had to be with a dragon recently, since her dress is covered in them. To Aisling they look like slight iridiscent powder – ewwww. Anybody else thought of seeing all sorts of bodily fluids under a black light? Coupled with “You must have been with a dragon recently,” the whole thing sounds very, very wrong.

Aisling asks if Amelie means the huge, firebreathing, flying reptilian monster kind of dragon, which amuses Amelie, because if dragons walked around in their “animal form“ people would stuff them in laboratories and turn them into needle pillows soon after.

Amelie then asks what sept the dragon is from and where is Aisling’s portal, since she is a Guardian. Aisling plays dumb on the Guardian thing but mentions Drake’s name which causes Amelie to shit bricks since it turns out that not only is Drake a dragon, but he is also the wyvern of all green dragons.

“Wait,” I said, shaking my head and gripping the counter so I wouldn’t fall over. “Isn’t a wyvern another name for a two-legged dragon? One with wings and a barbed tail?”

Aren’t Horde flying mounts in WoW called “wyverns“ as well?

“Yes,” she said slowly, her blue eyes growing darker. “It is also the name for the leader of a dragon sept. His name explains that.”
I rubbed my forehead. “You’ve lost me.”

Yeah, me too.

“Drake—a modernization of the Latin draco, meaning ‘dragon.’ Vireo is also Latin. It means ‘green.’ Only wyverns are allowed to use their sept color as a name.”

Okay. Here I had to take a moment to rummage through some of my books (since I am writing this at home, offline), since I am in no way learned in the matter of dragons. I hoped to gain some clarification, and I don’t know if I am any clearer on the subject but this is what I have come up with:

Natural history and legends do not equate wyverns with dragons. In Dragons: a natural history, Dr. Shuker lists them among semi – dragons and therefore not “true“ dragons as such. They are much smaller and less threatening, although they can make quite a mess of things as well. They have two legs, two wings, basically four limbs, like, let’s say, a pterodactyl or a bat. D&D Draconomicon lists them as relatives to drakes, who are very distant relatives of true dragons, but again, not real dragons. Draconomicon actually says something along the lines that wyverns and drakes are more closely related to each other than to true dragons. Which also brings out the problem of trying to find defining lore concerning a creature that is a character in so many mythologies, older and newer alike, and that none of what is said about dragons, can be said for sure.

And “drake“ is also a male duck for some reason. snigger I think I like this one best.

One conclusion I did arrive to, however is that wyvern equal dragon does not.

Moving on.

Aisling takes the whole Drake being a dragon thing her own way:

“Can we go back to the part about Drake being a mythical creature who breaths fire and consumes virgins and all that? Because I just can’t seem to wrap my brain around that idea. He was … He was so masculine. Gorgeous. Sexy as hell.”

If somebody wants to punch her, you have my whole – hearted support.

Amelie says that immortals need not wear human suits, they merely change shape. She then adds, with “eyes dreamily closed“ and while stroking Aisling’s hair:

“You are untouched by the dark powers, and yet you were born to harness them. You are a wyvern’s mate, and yet he did not claim you. You are a puzzle that has no end and no beginning.”

Yawn.

Okay, so Aisling is Special ™ and it’s her Destiny ™ to be with Drake which is both unsurprising and stupid. And this is the second time she’s been called a puzzle. Gee, I wonder why is that?

“Whoa,” I said, my muscles all stiffening at the words “wyvern’s mate.” “Let’s just take a step back from that idea, shall we?”

“Because the very idea of me having a boy/girl thing for him is ridiculous. I have no feelings towards the absurdly powerful man who manhadled me so roughly, it was basically abuse, whatsoever. No. And the more I repeat it, the more obvious my utter lack of sexual interest in him is, even if I am on the verge of orgasming every time his name is even mentioned“.

Aisling then asks whether Amelie knows where to find Drake and she tells her about this bar called G&T which translates into „Goethy and Theurgy“, ergo “black and white magic“. Subtle. Amelie also does not find the fact that Drake robbed Aisling the least bit odd, since, as she says with a mischievous grin, “dragons hoard treasure“ and green dragons are especially good thieves. I am sure Victor would have a word or two to say about the whole hoarding thing.

As Aisling leaves, Amelie tells her to keep her mind open to possibilities, since she would hate to miss Aisling’s entrance to something called “Otherworld“. Asling leaves without saying anything, since there is nothing left to say.

I agree with that and I bid you adieu for now.

Tagged as Aisling Gray, Falconempress, Paranormal Romance, Spork.

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