Date: Sun, 24 Mar 1996 22:57:00 -0600 From: The Other Immortal To: Multiple recipients of list FORKNI-L I hereby announce the creation of a new challenge: THE EYEBROW CHALLENGE. We've all seen our wonderful Uncle's eyebrows getting more and more absurd lately, possibly due to some strange vamp virus (didn't it really start after Fever?) or a renegade crayon. We are here to cure poor Uncle of his horrible affliction. How? Why, by the same way Tippi gets things done: we write about it (hi, Tippi!). So I bring you the first installment in the Eyebrow Challenge, innocently titled... URS AND THE PRETTY LITTLE BOTTLE Susan "Straitjacket Woman" Schaefer copyright 1996, S. Schaefer part one of one It was a typical night at the Raven. Urs, as always, sat in her private seat by the bar. Vachon had popped by for a bit. As usual, he had Tracy on the brain, and not in a farm-fresh wholesome way either (unless rolling and hay count). _Geez,_ Urs thought, _how can he go for someone like that? She's an even bigger ditz than I am!_ Ah, well. This was Canada. It was never totally normal (as some Americans are prone to believe). She checked to make sure her curls weren't obeying the laws of physics, ordered a glass of plain blood. Frankly, she was getting a bit tired of the stuff. I mean, she never WANTED to be a vamp in the first place. You could only be blonde for so long, and she was undying for a Hershey bar. Urs took a sip of the red stuff. Sigh. Where was the excitement in life? Suddenly she had an idea. Behind the bar was a pretty little bottle. It was clear, with a gold cap and a striped label. EVER CLEAR it said. 190 PROOF. CAUTION: FLAMMABLE. She'd seen lots of mortals with flaming drinks. Maybe she could make one too. She pictured it: THE FLAMING URS. Maybe she could start her own business, selling Flaming Urs' to bored vampyres everywhere. Making sure no one was watching, she snuck behind the bar, grabbed the bottle. She wasn't sure how much it took to flambe blood, so she made sure she added enough. Urs tipped about half the bottle into her drink. The liquid turned a pinky-magenta, oily currents doing a psychedelic dance throughout. Now, to flame it... Damn. No lighter. Urs glanced up, saw LaCroix a couple of seats away. "LaCroix?..." He looked at her. "Yes?" "Uhhhhh... I don't suppose you've got a match or a lighter or something. I need to do something." "I wasn't aware you smoked, my dear Ursula." He moved towards her, digging in his pocket. "Uhhhhh..." His lighter was a Zippo (only the best). NIGHTCRAWLER was engraved in the side. She grabbed it, started trying to get a flame. LaCroix looked at her strangely. "What are you trying to do?" She got a flame, giggled. "Oh, don't be such a ninny, Lucy." Lucy? LUCY?!? That was too much. He reached over, angrily, to retrieve his lighter. At the same moment, Urs lit her glass. LaCroix's head was caught in the resulting torch. For a moment he stood, eyebrows alight, trying to maintain his dignity. The entire club went from silence to the loudest cacophony of laughter Toronto had ever hosted. "Ursula?" he whispered. "Uhhhh... yes?" "What exactly was in that glass?" "Just some... stuff." "What 'stuff'?" He was not happy, and getting moreso by the second. The flames of his eyebrows were beginning to go out, leaving behind two black smears. "Uhhhhh... the stuff in the pretty bottle." She held it up. The bottle, a moment before full, was almost empty. "EVER CLEAR?!?!?!?!? DO YOU REALIZE WHAT THAT STUFF IS?!?!?!?!?" He launched into a string of curses. Two sailors fainted from embarrassment. Urs tried to lurk away. "Oh, no you don't! Not until you've fixed all this." "H-how do I do that?" Her lower lip began to tremble. She shrank from him. "Oh, I have an idea..." LaCroix sat at the bar, checking his new eyebrows in a hand mirror. _Not bad,_ he thought. _Could be a little less flashy, though._ Urs sat nearby, mourning over her carefully-kept curls. Especially the two currently glued to LaCroix's face. THE END (?) Flames, comments, virtual straitjackets and Betty Ford discount coupons may be sent to the address in the sig. Cousin "Susan" Phoenix phoenix@ionet.net **MSTie Mad Scientist Somewhat-Extraordinaire** *I'd be nothing if not cold.* ~~~Nigel THE VAMPYRE GRILLE The Secret's In The Sauce!