Bed of Roses 2

[rix_scaedu]

This is a few months after Bed of Roses 1.


“So, how’s things going?  Last time I saw you there was a sour taste in your mouth about everything.”

“I was out of sorts with the world wasn’t I?  Let me buy you a drink for unloading on you last time.  What’ll you have?”

“Thank you!  The usual please.  So did something happen to make you feel better?”

“Two vodka and limes, please Jeremy.  Thanks.  Well, the salary’s still not much and the cost of living is still high, but work is better than I thought.  A lot of it was shoved away into storage because it wasn’t made of gold when everyone was after kingly treasures, although there are a few expeditions’ worth of stuff that made it back here when the expeditioners didn’t.  That stuff went into storage to wait for people who never turned up.  Except, it turned out, for Professor Trevallen.  All these years he’s been listed as missing when he was in that sarcophagus and the canopic jars from Upper Punt the whole time.”

“What?”

“Yes, exactly.  And Professor Liversey wasn’t ignoring me, he’s deaf as a post!  Can’t hear anyone after all those explosions, poor man.”

“He could wear hearing aids.”

“The explosions are an ongoing issue.”

“Oh.  And Richard?”

“Came by to bother me at work about something, picked up a thing he was told not to touch, and turned into some sort of hippogriff-centaur.  I think he looks better with feathers, but….”

“But?”

“I still refuse to be his girlfriend.”