The Universe's Mixer

Jesus, couldn't a girl even get to work without being accosted by Valentine's Day crap?

Anita dodged the guys selling red roses on the corner, silently cursing them and every other reminder that she was alone, without her boyfriends. It wasn't like she wasn't occasionally getting 'taken care of' here, but it just wasn't the same as having someone who knew your likes, your dislikes, your every inch.

Suddenly she felt like she was being watched. It was an uncomfortable, prickly feeling that raised her magic along with her hackles. Her eyes darted around at all the people crowded on the street nearby. Suddenly, a whirring sound had her looking up.

Fucking Cupid! Are you fucking serious? The City had lost it this time.

She tried ducking the barrage of arrows it shot into the panicking commuters, but it was no use. She tripped over a slow-moving teenager and felt a pink (why did it have to be fucking pink?!?) arrow wiggle its way into her shoulder.

She decided to stay face-down on the sidewalk for a little while. Maybe if she ignored it, it would all go away.

Wes had been resisting the urge to visit Madame Xanadu's shop again. He didn't want to bother her day in and day out, but he had this uncontrollable need to see her. He always wanted to be assured she was all right, she didn't need anything, she didn't hate him and so on. He should have found it annoying, but he was glad to do it.

He was so focused on getting to the shop that he wouldn't have noticed if a train derailed itself in the middle of the street, got hit by a falling plane and exploded pinatas all over the City. He sure didn't notice the onset of immediate lust and love taking place on the very streets he traversed.

His focus wavered as he caught sight of a brown-haired strong woman. He kept trying to walk through the crowd towards where he thought the shop was, but his head kept turning towards the elusive woman. He bumped into people left and right, trying to get another glimpse of her face.

"Sorry, excuse me, I....well, why don't you two just get a room?"

Rincewind had not met any other actual magic practitioners in the City yet other than Schmendrick. When he felt the familiar feeling of gods start to work its way through the City, he knew at once it had not been the hapless magician.

"This is far greater than anything I've seen here," the wizzard muttered to himself. "There must be Discworld powers at work!"

He scoured through the books that the Luggage had thankfully carried to him and stored an anti-god spell in his staff. Well, it wasn't really anti-god, as in would make them disappear, but it could fight off their believers or the effects of their believer's beliefs. Like, it would keep your household goods from disappearing in the face of a follower of Anoia, Goddess of Things That Stick in Drawers.

Rincewind strode out of Serenity, confidently swinging his staff around like....well, a staff.

He managed to shoot down a few arrows and he singed one of the little flying gods. However, he just managed to make it mad. It hit him with a barrage of arrows, which he quickly magicked away.

He ran off after the little flying thing, which giggled and did a little loop in the air before disappearing, leaving his standing in the same park he had fallen into upon his arrival.

"Damn the gods!"

Wilson felt bad that he had gotten to wrapped up at the hospital that he had neglected to check up on Violet. He had grabbed some nice journals for her this morning on his way to work. He made an effort to clear up his lunch break to go find her, since she had disappeared the other day after leaving him a note that she was going to visit friends at the youth hostel.

He had assumed she had just stayed over there with the friends, who were sure to be far more fun than hanging out with a middle-aged doctor, and that was a good thing. He just wanted to give her a little gift to make started college easier when she finally got matriculated.

He knocked on the door of the hostel, but no one was at the front desk.

"hello? Is anyone there?"

"Happy Thoughts!" Betty had said, taking a picture with her new Polaroid before brushing her hand along the back of the man whose picture she's taken and watched him walk off to his doom. It never made her sad, never really concerned her much, the deaths of those whose souls she'd taken. It was meant to be horrific, so so she figured given that the man was haphazardly walking through traffic when she met him. Something painful that his carelessness would have gotten him into.

In fact, Betty had thought he was going to be hit by a car. Except as she watched him further, he moved into an alley and his soul appeared beside her. She never saw what happened and frankly, didn't care to. She just knew that she had done her deed and now she was going to have to wait until the man got his closure before she escorted him away.

But the bugger kept asking her questions. Such as did she hear what was going on in that alley and why shouldn't they try to call the cops to stop whatever it was? Then, when Betty stopped at a street vendor for a hot dog, the man tried to place an order and all she was left saying was, "they can't see you, Sweetie. You're dead." It was spoken very matter-of-factly, with little room for argument.

"But.. how?"

"In that alley, I'd assume. Probably not pretty."

Jeannie paused on the street, holding the door open for a darling elderly couple that was leaving the diner. They were holding hands, smiling at each other, and the djinn did not wish for them to stop doing so just for something as silly as opening a door. She was, in fact, in a very light frame of mind due to the holiday.

More than one person that day had made the assumption that because she favored pink and red in her wardrobe, that she was enthusiastic about Valentine’s Day. That was not why she wore the colors, but she did very much like to see people being kind and helpful to one another. It was a little bittersweet, as Christmas was. Why could mortals not do that all the time, rather than just once in a while? She understood why they could not continually give extravagant gifts, but the little considerations could and should happen all the time.

( She was also very in favor of being given chocolate on a regular basis. )

Jack was rather ambivalent about Valentine's Day. He liked it, because when he had a long term significant other -long term meaning a couple weeks, he received gifts and Jack liked receiving gifts. However, when Jack was painfully alone, as he was now, it was just depressing to watch the slew of straights wander about gushing over chocolates, candies and shades of rouge. Maybe it was because he was lonely, but he stood out on the street corner, looking out over the City with a certain degree of frown on his features.

This, to be plain about it, sucked. Valentine's Day alone sucked. But Jack would endure, he always had before. He'd just order some flowers, have them delivered to himself with a mystery note attached and make it look to all around him like he was involved.

He didn't feel it at first. The shift in his emotions and a sting in his heart. He didn't notice it until his eyes caught sight of a young girl crossing is path. "Hello," he said, trying to draw her attention. Something was off, something was not right.

Elizabeth had found herself in this place in a state of bewilderment. She was an astute and clever minded woman but even her notions of propriety were challenged by being here alone with no connection, no one to properly introduce her to society. In some respects it had been a freeing experience, liberation of a kind she would never have dreamed possible. Women walked about and made themselves known to men with no chaperone. Men walked about with little or no regard for the ladies around them. People spoke most plainly about matters and had no issue with the so called delicacies of the fairer sex. How decidedly queer.

It had taken her days to settle in, she was still trying to understand so much but the boarding house she found for young ladies, was accommodating enough. Though she missed her family terribly, Jane most of all. Her beloved sister was her best friend and there was no other that could replace her in Elizabeth's bereaved and empty heart. How shall she ever manage? No pap to laugh with at the silliness of her sister, no Jane to be her confident and most trusted friend. No Charlotte to chat with over tea...tea..that would make her feel a bit better.

The boarding house had given her excellent directions to a tea shop a short walk away, walking for Lizzy was a joy. She had no mind about the short jaunt and took to it with great enthusiasm, her long skirts sweeping the paving stones as she made way to the shop. It was a store which sold only books, and they would allow one to read there! She was delighted with the place, in purest heaven to find such an escape.

The dark haired woman took her tea and sat at one of the outer tables while she sipped and enjoyed the works of a rather good writer. She was of no mind to read some of the more modern works, as they had been called. Filled with fright and subjects not fit for a gentlewoman to read. So sitting with her tea and her book Lizzy was quite content, for the moment.