The hillside was the sort of terrain which invokes words like ‘bleak’, ‘merciless’, or ‘desolate’. It was the kind of slope on which nothing ever happens – a bleak (there it is), soul-crushing nothingness that makes one want to scream just to feel something.
On this occasion, the sole occupant felt like screaming for another reason entirely. He’d been assured that however long his quest took, it would be less than five seconds in the present. That was all well and good, but in his personal timeline it had been closer to five months…
But this was the last. He had tracked this particular air current across a dozen miles before it had finally approached ground level, and now here he was. Staked out on the ground at his feet was a massive bedsheet, ready to catch the wind’s precious cargo. With a long-practiced eye he watched the wisp of black dust descend through the clear air, aimed directly at the sheet.
He was barely even surprised by the last-minute gust which shunted the powder sideways, onto bracken-covered ground.
With a weary curse, he pulled a bottle from his pack and glared at it. “You would have to be difficult,” he told it. “But I’m not playing anymore.” He uncorked the bottle and tipped the contents unceremoniously onto the ground. The black dust drifted down, coating a handful of flowers as he retrieved a far smaller, red bottle.
One drop of blood was all it took. The dust congealed, then burst upwards from the soil like the world’s largest earthworm. In seconds, a young woman stood on the hillside. She wrinkled her nose and looked down at herself distastefully.
“Why,” she began, “and I ask this with great trepidation, do my clothes smell of heather and fox droppings?”
The Administrator of OFUDisc sighed. “Yukimona,” he said tiredly. “Welcome back. It’s time to go home.”
Disclaimer: The Discworld is the creation of Sir Terry Pratchett. The Official Fanfiction University concept is the creation of Miss Cam. Yukimona is based on an application to OFUDisc. All details of (and mistakes in) plot, narrative and dialogue are mine. Thanks to the Irish Samurai for betaing.
Author’s Note: And so it ends. With Time’s assistance, all the students of OFUDisc have been recovered – and since this iteration of the Discworld is now under Ispace control, the year has been terminated. The Administrator has gone into hiding, and all students have been sent home.
Well… perhaps not all. Stay tuned for The Ispace Wars. And thank you for reading!
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