Well, I read the Arrows trilogy from Mercedes Lackey, and it inspired me to try my hand at a nanostep. It's probably too long, but oh well.
----
When I first woke up in the new world, I was lying in a pleasantly warm grassy field, surrounded by an old stone wall. There was a large tree in the center of the field and a big pile of junk near a farmhouse. An old blue tractor sat near the utility wires, from which I guessed that it must be some time in the late twentieth century in this world.
I turned around, and saw a sheep standing on two legs with a puff of wool over his face, bleating a warning about me to a yellow sheepdog wearing a blue knit cap. The dog peeked over his magazine and finally noticed my arrival, and began barking at my intrusion in order to protect his flock of sheep.
I had a bad feeling that this world was going to turn out as strange as that trip to Manor Farm. I reflexively pulled God's Toothpick out of its holster, just in case, though in hindsight I doubt the dog could have bit through my armor.
It was just as well, though -- the dog's demeanor instantly changed, as he sat down and panted happily while staring at the hunk of wood. "Oh, you want the stick?" He nodded emphatically. Not wanting to grant divine power to a canine -- intelligent or not -- I picked up a small broken tree branch off the ground, and threw that instead. As the sheepdog fetched, the sheep that had warned the dog rolled his eyes and covered his face with a hoof.
I ended up having a pretty good time with the farm animals, once they calmed down. Which is not to say it was dull. The most massive of the sheep -- the one that looked like it had evaded the shears for over a decade straight -- tried to eat my helmet whole.
It always surprises me when I find a use for the most obscure songs. When the little lamb got ahold of a cup of coffee and blitzed across the farm, I had just the thing to make his mother (a sheep in hair curlers, of all things) a happy ovine.
"System: Load song Holderkin Sheep Song. Play song." Thanks to my metagift, the silly little sheep drifted right off to sleep.
-- ∇×V
----
When I first woke up in the new world, I was lying in a pleasantly warm grassy field, surrounded by an old stone wall. There was a large tree in the center of the field and a big pile of junk near a farmhouse. An old blue tractor sat near the utility wires, from which I guessed that it must be some time in the late twentieth century in this world.
I turned around, and saw a sheep standing on two legs with a puff of wool over his face, bleating a warning about me to a yellow sheepdog wearing a blue knit cap. The dog peeked over his magazine and finally noticed my arrival, and began barking at my intrusion in order to protect his flock of sheep.
I had a bad feeling that this world was going to turn out as strange as that trip to Manor Farm. I reflexively pulled God's Toothpick out of its holster, just in case, though in hindsight I doubt the dog could have bit through my armor.
It was just as well, though -- the dog's demeanor instantly changed, as he sat down and panted happily while staring at the hunk of wood. "Oh, you want the stick?" He nodded emphatically. Not wanting to grant divine power to a canine -- intelligent or not -- I picked up a small broken tree branch off the ground, and threw that instead. As the sheepdog fetched, the sheep that had warned the dog rolled his eyes and covered his face with a hoof.
I ended up having a pretty good time with the farm animals, once they calmed down. Which is not to say it was dull. The most massive of the sheep -- the one that looked like it had evaded the shears for over a decade straight -- tried to eat my helmet whole.
It always surprises me when I find a use for the most obscure songs. When the little lamb got ahold of a cup of coffee and blitzed across the farm, I had just the thing to make his mother (a sheep in hair curlers, of all things) a happy ovine.
"System: Load song Holderkin Sheep Song. Play song." Thanks to my metagift, the silly little sheep drifted right off to sleep.
-- ∇×V
![[+]](/images/collapse_collapsed.png "[+]")
Spoiler