"Today is the day!" "Pardon me, Patricia?" the AI said, a tone of confusion evident in his voice."Today is the day!" "Pardon me, Patricia?" the AI said, a tone of confusion evident in his voice. "Today's the day I go through the Great Hall, Dave!" I shouted, bouncing up and down happily on the large bed. Why these things are so big, I guess I'll never know. "Oh yes, it is!" Dave - that was the AI's name - said, picking up on my excitement. Strange that he was acting like he heard nothing about it, since I had told everyone, including him, at _least_ a few thousand times. Dave continued, "Well, hurry up and get ready, then!" "It's not until mid-day - I just wanted to walk around, and see everyone for the last time in this form." Dave emitted an "mm-hmm" and left me alone, verbally anyway. But, 'until mid-day' meant a while to wait. One thing I liked about Pendor - the days were long. While there are 292 days in a Pendor year, the Ring orbited Pin, the local sun, in almost the same time Earth did around Sol. But that's 292 days in the space of 365, so - longer days. And if you think that's confusing, just think about how seasonal changes work on a torus. Also, Dave isn't as bad as I make him out to be, he's worse. Seriously, he helped me learn the Pendorian languages. Yup, every single one, even though Quen would have served me - I just like learning different languages. The Uncia vocabulary was my particular favourite - I was spitting everywhere when I first started. So, I got dressed on this clothing-optional world called Pendor, and I - I suppose I should tell all about myself, even though this is going to be erased. My name is Pat, short for Patricia, Chalnick, I'm a femHuman of ten Terran years, have long red hair on my head (and short red hair somewhere else, hee-hee) and freckles on my nose. That'll probably all change, of course, when I go through the Hall. I came to this world a few months ago, during a vacation that took slightly longer than I expected. When I first came to Pendor, I was envisioning a place where everyone gave tourists a wide berth, like they did in the Terran places I've visited. Actually, it was quite the opposite. Pendorians are friendly - too friendly, sometimes - and visitors gave the locals a large leeway. Suffice it to say, I like the place - Yup, I'm the victim of the "Well, it kinda grew on me. |