“Look at that,” I breathe, mentally ticking this off my bucket list.
“Zip up, Peach. Let’s walk dinner off,” Darcy orders me as the array descends to the top of the wall.
This is the best hookup ever.
15
“You know what’s a really great way to ruin a perfectly lovely walk on top of the Great Wall of China?” I’m not asking anyone in particular, but if the people I can hear breathing loudly on the other side of the potato sack my head’s been shoved into happen to understand my question, I won’t be mad about it.
No one answers, but that’s ok, because I’ve got the answer for them right here. “It’s a kidnapping. Kidnapping will ruin a perfectly lovely afternoon stroll along the Great Wall.”
Again, no one replies, but they heard me, I know they did.
How did this happen with a demigod holding my hand during said stroll? I’m not really sure. I was hit in the head before it all went down, and I woke up with a potato sack over my injured head. I definitely probably have a concussion, but it's likely super mild because I’m not experiencing any of the terrible consequences of concussions. My head hurts, yes, but there’s no brain fog or sleepiness or whatever else, just an annoying headache. If my hands weren’t tied behind my back I would activate some pressure points to maybe help a bit with the headache. I know those are mostly placebo, but results are results, right? If the placebo works, then it works.
I heard that if you take regular old ibuprofen and package it as “works for fevers” or “period cramps,” then it works better for those things because medicine works better when the people taking it believe that it does. I actually convinced my younger sister that regular ol’ ibuprofen works best for PMS and that the “menstrual relief” medicine was a scam, and she reported to me that ibuprofen does, in fact, work better than the things branded for PMS. What do you know? Convincing the brain that the medicine works makes the actual medicine work better.
I wonder if I had convinced her that sugar tablets are the best if that would have worked? Too late to experiment with that now.
“So, where are we going anyway?”
I receive a punch to the head for that question. It takes a moment, but my brain decides it would rather not be awake for this, and I faint.
When I come to again,it’s because I’m being dragged out of wherever I was and hauled to my feet. The hands on me are strong and grab-my-entire-upper-arm-from-elbow-to-shoulder huge.
I’m being dragged around by giants. Interesting.
“I’m going to barf,” I warn them as my stomach revolts against the whole concussed, punched, dragged out of a faint thing.
The pulling on my body stops and the bag over my head is ripped off. Before I get much of a look around, I’m shoved over so I can vomit on red dirt. Oh look, I’m in Hell again. Lava floes to my right and left tell me I’ve been brought back here, but why? Who in Hell could possibly want me?
My stomach heaves, and all that delicious food Darcy didn’t pay for finds itself spattered across the dirt, my shoes, and someone else’s size thirty shoes. That’s unfortunate.
Once the dry heaving stops, the potato sack is shoved over my head again and I’m lifted up and tossed over someone’s shoulder. I might be twelve feet off the ground at this height. I’m just guessing, obviously, but I know I’m higher than the average height of a human based on that lift.
A couple of voices grind out some daring whispers, but the universal translation spell tells me exactly what they’re saying:
“Why are humans so weak?”
“Stop asking stupid questions and shut up. Master told you not to say a fucking word.”
“Master’s not here, is he? And he’s not the one with vomit on his shoes.”
“Shut up, Hen. You’re going to get us killed.”
“Only if you snitch,” Hen grouses.
After that exchange they do shut up, but none of what I just heard is very encouraging for them. “You really shouldn’t work for a dude who’s likely to execute you for talking. That’s not really a proportional response, you know? Besides, you’re not children, are you? Talking in the workplace is generally allowed. Freedom of speech and all that, you know?”
I know, freedom of speech doesn’t work that way, but they probably don’t know that, and the point is that their employer is an asshole if they think murder is the commensurate consequence to talking out of turn.
The people transporting me say nothing.
“I bet if you shopped your skills around a bit you could find someone to work for who will let you kidnap innocent humansandtalk on the job. Gossip is really important to society. It keeps us connected to a larger community than we can keep up with on our own. We have our immediate family, and we keepup with them and our close friends, but with gossip, we can keep up with our friend’s friends and their families and their families’ friends. It means that while we may only have face to face contact with twenty to fifty people that we keep up with regularly, our knowledgeability reach is closer to a thousand people.” (That’s an exaggeration.) “And that keeps us connected to the community at large. We know what’s happening in our city, but also in a town in another state or what’s happening in another country. If a disease happens in one place, gossip gets spread to help mitigate the spread of the disease. If there’s a natural disaster, we can come together to help people we might have no real connection to, but we know about it from a friend of a friend of a friend. I bet you didn’t know that, did you? Spreading news through gossip is important to the health and safety of societies.”
“Did you know that?” Hen whispers to the person not carrying me.
“It makes sense that that’s the reason the succies are always talking,” the other voice replies.
