It Starts With Understating the Understudy (Quiz 221)

"I used to be a god," claimed the old man. He was crooked and crinkled and he reminded young Alisa of a wadded bit of paper. "When important men died I was the one to take their place. I-" he announced dramatically, "was an understudy!" Alisa blinked at him, her blue eyes held wide and her head tilted slightly causing bits of golden hair to fall in front of them. She tried to keep her hair tied up to prevent this small annoyance, but it always found a way to come loose from her pretty, curly, ribbons. "I delivered the lines. The lines that needed to be declared else the world would stop on its axis!" The other patrons in the bar continued to ignore the old man. But then they also ignored the six year old half-elf indulging his rants with rapt attention. "But then they made rules of the essential! Suddenly fate kept those who needed to say their lines from dying before they could be said! Where did that leave poor old Biff, you may wonder? KNEE DEEP IN A CREEK OF BULL SHI-"

"Alisa!" A half elven boy of about ten, with ruddy brown hair, and wearing a green cloak identical to the girl's, came into the bar and roughly grabbed her by the wrist. He was dirtier than her, but then boys his age tended to be.

"Hi, Gorion." Alisa greeted him with a pleasant smile.

"Mom was looking all over for you." Gorion declared tartly. "We're supposed to be leaving." He yanked her from the bar and dragged her along the cobbled road with little regard towards the fact that he walked much faster than she was capable of. The gruff pulling caused quite a few brown feathers to fall from under her cloak leaving a light trail behind them.

"Aw, more walking?" Alisa groaned.

"Suck it up, sis." Gorion rolled his eyes.

"But I'm tiiireeed." Alisa whined.

"We haven't even started yet, you big baby." The elder brother argued.

"There you are!" Exclaimed the sweet voice of a blonde elven woman. She rushed towards her children with a deeply battle scarred human in tow.

"Daddy!" Alisa bounced over to the man and was swiftly pulled off her feet and into his arms. He smiled at her.

"Alisa went into a bar." Gorion complained to the elf as she promptly started to clean his face.

"Did not!" Alisa snapped.

"Don't go wandering off." The blond elf warned Alisa with a soft curtness that held no intimidation whatsoever.

"Yeah." Gorion petulantly backed her up. The elf then took Gorion by the hand and the group started their way toward the city gate. Alisa, knowing that she would be carried for quite some time now that she was in her father's strong arms, took an opportunity to stick her tongue out at her brother when their mother wasn't looking. Gorion retaliated with an ugly face that was promptly popped off of him by the force of his mother's palm. "Ow." He grumbled and rubbed the back of his head.

"Are the Avariel nice people, daddy?" Alisa asked, as innocent as could be. Her father smiled.

"Your mom is nice, isn't she?" He told her. Alisa nodded. "Then I bet they are too." Alisa cast a look over to her mother who had that sad look in her eyes again. Alisa hated that look, and so did Gorion, but he was the only one who ever did anything about it.

"I love you, mommy." He told her gently. His mother's face practically lit up at the declaration.

"I love you too, mommy!" Alisa chimed in.

"You two are my world." She replied sweetly and the family continued their way towards the slow sunrise.

I was never actually priviliged enough to see Biff perform in any of my games (and that name keeps making me think of Back To The Future...)

Cute kids... remind me of my niece and nephew. I take it their parents are a Bhaalspawn and Aerie, and she let him have a say in naming them for a change. I was never fond of Quayle; the name that is. I'm sure he was lovely, but come on, the kids bound to get picked on with a name like that.

Hi there! One Frost to another, I see. I liked the children, and a story that uses Biff the Understudy. Poor Biff, his presence was especially necessary for so many in BG1 who were accidentally killed before their time!

There were a couple of typos, especially in the dialogue punctuation--commas and no capitalisation of "Something," he said, or "There you are!" exclaimed the voice. Aerie still having issues that her young son sees in her makes me feel sad for both of them. I liked the description of Aerie's "soft curtness" as a parent. I hope you write more fics in this fandom.

I was never actually priviliged enough to see Biff perform in any of my games (and that name keeps making me think of Back To The Future...)

I actually got him to join my party by mistake, and oh boy was it ever a mistake, he makes the worst party member ever. You could conjure him up too with a quick cheat. See, I was trying to activate the Gorian cut scene where he takes you to the field and gets murdered by your brother, but at the time I was constantly confusing his name with Khalids. When I typed that Khalid showed up, but since he needed Jaheira to continue dialogue with him Biff arrived instead. They both then joined my party. When I got to the tavern though the game popped a circuit and I figured, at that point, it was probably best to do a fresh install. Oh the days when weidu wasn't a thing and you had to install mods by hand. d:

I was never fond of Quayle; the name that is. I'm sure he was lovely, but come on, the kids bound to get picked on with a name like that.

I was always expecting the Bhaalspawn to be a little more insistant on naming of his first born son after the man who saved his immortal soul, but he never was. The kid's first name is Quayle, but I like to think that Aunt Imoen made damn sure no one called him that.

Another thing I wondered about the canon endings in the game. Why is Imoen only mentioned in the one she's in directly? Surely she'd be in all of them regardless of the Bhaalspawn's romantic, diefic, or alignmental orientation.

Hi there! One Frost to another, I see.

Ha ha! Yeah, I noticed that too. I do adore your screen name, by the way. Blue is also my favorite color.

There were a couple of typos, especially in the dialogue punctuation--commas and no capitalisation of "Something," he said, or "There you are!" exclaimed the voice.

Oh by all means point those out! I'm generally exceptional at grammar and capitalization, but something in my brain turns all dialogue into setences that should be punctuated accordingly so you'll see that a lot in my writing. I used to hand wave it away as a stylistic choice, but I really shouldn't be doing that when I actually do know the proper rules but just write that way out of habit.


Not sure if I'll write more with these two or not. I was never a fan of Airie (she whined too much for me) or her romance. At the time, however, my only option as a female was *steeped in vitriol* Anomen. (Thank GOD for Laufey, Kulyok and hell even Aeryn.) It wasn't like my choices as a male were better, but at least they were choices. (In case anyone's curious I always went after Viconia until the Edwin mod was made. Not because I wanted to tap that drow booty, but because my options were a whining woobie and a woman who'd just lost her husband to horrible experiments and torture.)

If I do carry this on I'm debating if I should leave the Bhaalspawn's name and occupation vague. With the characters only calling him Daddy or Dad and Airie refering to him by that petname she gave him in the game that I can't remember right now. I'd also probably make the kids much older so that they're more accurately written as I have little experience with kids to draw from. But then that would probably skip them getting to meet the Avariel and seeing Aerie finally start to heal after the horror's she's been through by finding their grandparents (who probably spoil those kids rotten) and hell, maybe a few cousins.

I have always assumed the kids would have wings, so flying lessons are certainly in order as well as niether of their parents could really teach them that properly. Though I don't doubt Alisa there already knows how to fly, as she seems the sort who'd take the initiative to teach herself.

If anyone is still reading this post, I give full and utmost permission to write anything you like with these kids. This actually goes for anything that I write that is fanfiction related. Actually, now that I think about it, it could be very interesting to have an RP where we follow around the second generation of heroes. Ooooooh that gives me a nifty idea......TO THE RP BOARD!

Edited by Serenity Frost, 20 June 2011 - 04:26 PM.