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Carry On:
A comic about hyenas – really!
Carry On for Monday, December 3, 2018:
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A: Uri's Bittersweet Story: Prologue
(Uri strikes a storytelling pose)
Uri: It was a dark and stormy night—
(The Brigadiers pelt Uri with rocks)
Brigadiers: Boo! Arrgh! Raar! No! Aw, c'mon man! Hiss! Uri—! Boo! Get to the good part!
Uri: Alright, alright—! It was an overcast afternoon. I was in a bar...
B: UBS: Encounter
Uri (telling story): I was still on transfer hold waiting for assignment after my boot camp graduation. You'd think they wouldn't want me out drinking in uniform, but "we have a reputation to uphold" means something different to the hyena brigade. I had ordered an amaretto on the rocks — so it's not the manliest drink around, but excuse me for wanting to enjoy the flavor of what I'm drinking whilst I have a little leisure time. For once I wasn't just throwing back whatever was handy to get totally sozzled in the most expeditions way possible, and I wanted to enjoy spending seventeen krugerands on a drink for as long as possible. It was then that serendipity took pity on me. Just as I started to think that this liberty would be a waste of time, I saw her. Just a few paces away, lounging in the dive's "nicest" booth, with two smaller hyenas that she seemed to be only barely tolerating. I had to lean over slightly and tuck my tail under my leg to keep it from beating eagerly on the bar stool, that's how overcome with excitement I was at the prospect of seeing someone so exotic in a below-average gin joint. She was a deep, dark brown all the way from the velvety tips of her ears to her shining, polished toe claws. She seemed proud of it, too, as the plunging cut of her dress attested. I'd never seen a hyena so black before, like a panther, her spots nearly blending into her impossibly glossy fur, which took on the colors of the lights in the dank bar. The sheen emphasized the sleek outlines of her tough, toned arm muscles. I couldn't think of anything that would bring someone of such obvious wealth and means into this dive, but I wasn't about to miss the chance to meditate upon and admire her presence. I was counting the pleats in her skirt when I realized her burning blue eyes were fixed on my face; I was being a bit too obvious about inspecting somebody who looked influential enough to have me killed for daring such a thing. I drew my head down into my shoulders and turned back around to the bar, hovering nervously over my drink until I felt like I had once more established my anonymity. When I glanced back, she was gone. I took another long sip, estimating that I'd gotten through about eight or nine Krugerrands'-worth out of it by now. She was out of my league anyways. May as well just sit and drink. No longer thing of the cost, I tipped my glass back and—
Uri (telling story): "Ever heard that it's rude to stare?" came a stern and quietly commanding voice from behind me and a little off to one side.
Uri (telling story): In a perfect world, I would have come back with some witty quip about taking time to appreciate a work of art, but what I actually did was jump in surprise and gag as an ice cube slid down my throat. I leaned on the bar, coughing and gasping for breath as—
Lucius: That would have been a really embarrassing way to die.
Koz: Way to make a first impression, Dude!
Fred: Don't interrupt him, or this will take twice as long!
C: UBS: Introductions
Uri (telling story): Anyways, when I could breathe, I saw that the voice belonged to the dark lady, and she was watching me closely, looking for something— I mean, it felt like her eyes could cut me in half, but more the first thing. I thought I might say something to her, but my mouth didn't work, and anything I might think of to say would probably come out stupid, anyway. So I just waited. After an uncomfortably long moment of considering me in silence, she gave a quick nod.
"I'm going now," she stated plainly. "You will accompany me."
The barstool clattered to the floor as my legs snapped up under me to stand next to her. Not graceful, but prompt, and that seemed to be what she expected. She smiled. Then something I did have to say leapt to my mind, and, rather inelegantly, out of my mouth— "I ate here. And I— The bar, too. Um. I haven't paid—" She gave a casual flick of her wrist, and one of the two flunkies stepped forward with a purse, and left a sizeable deposit on the bar. Without looking at me, the lady whisked past me. "Now. We're going." And indeed we were. We left the bar, and as if summoned into existence by her will, an armored coach appeared from around the street corner, drawn by two zebras in a livery dominated by a crest of some kind of small tree or shrub. Not a very imposing emblem for such an imposing woman, really, but it—
Fred: Wait a moment— royal blue, with a brown tree with gold leaves?
Uri: Yeah!
Fred: She was a long way from home— that livery belongs to the Czhokula family —
Koz: "Hot Chocolate—?!" You got to tap Hot Chocolate?! Way to go, man—!
Uri: Thank you for spoiling my ending, Koz... but yes, she was the heir to a chocolate fortune—
More than just an heir— she is to the confectionary industry what my mother is to... well, everything else.
Uri (resuming story): So we got into the coach. She sat across from me, studying me keenly, and I could feel the sweat trickling down inside my uniform. Finally we got around to introductions, except instead of me telling her who I was, she told me my name, rank, serial number, how I'd gotten a promotion for key technical skills— she even knew about my father having been a tracking star, for Krokutta's sake! It was like she was reciting my file— but when I said "Enough!" she looked at me like she could have finished me in a heartbeat. I told her that she had obviously done her homework, but if she was going to abduct me, she could at least have the courtesy of explaining herself—
D: UBS: Intentions
Lucius: I call bullshit! There's no way you could have said that to her and lived!
Koz: Yeah, you should have died like, six times already!
Uri: Yyyeah, it wasn't smart...
Uri (resuming story): She glared at me for a long time. At some level I knew that she was just showing me how she held all the cards, showing me that I was nothing, the usual sheyena stuff. But I had to prove to her that I wasn't nothing, even if only for an instant. She sat on my remark for a bit before passing judgement. I could even pinpoint the exact moment when her decision was made, but she stayed silent for a few more excruciating seconds, just to watch me strain under the pressure.
"Gaining my respect and losing your head have a fine line between them." She left a long pause for me to squirm in. I didn't move a muscle, even though my shorts were filling with sweat by then. "You walk it well."
Fortunately my guts falling out and scattering along the road behind us is merely a metaphor for how I felt, rather than what actually happened next. She held out her hand to me, as if she expected me to kiss it.
"My name is Countess Kalua of the Czhokula estate ..." I grasped her hand and bowed from the neck. "It's an nonor to meet you, Kalua —" Her claws instantly tightened, piercing holes in my paw. "Countess." she hissed in the stage-whisper that served her for shouting. "Lest you... forget." "Aaagh!" I squeaked, "I promise that if it every slips my mind the puncture wounds OnMyHandWillRemindMeeeee!"
"They. Had. Better." She threw down my hand like it was a piece of trash.
Koz: Oooh, that is so hot—!
Uri & Lucius: Shut up, Koz!
Uri (resuming story): For a few minutes she looked irritably out the window. I didn't dare lick the blood that was beading on my hand, I just sort of rolled it off on my tunic. I imagine she was rethinking her decision to abduct me, and where might be the most convenient alley to dump my body in. Then she looked back at me. "Do you even know who I am?" she asked. I told her, honestly, that I did not, because I'd been kind of busy for the last few years doing push-ups and learning how to be properly intimidated by my superiors. She laughed, and it came out a very proper "Hm." "And yet you are sassing me back," she observed. I assured that I was nothing if not terrified. She smirked. "Well, perhaps I can put your fears to rest. You have earned a proper answer to your questions about my identity, if not my intentions."
E: UBS: Intimations
Uri (telling story): She told me that her family owned a cocoa plantation on the Tiger river, and that when she had inherited it, she parlayed what was a small but profitable agricultural enterprise into a major corporation, by investing the profits from the chocolate crop in a band of mercenaries and selling the protection to the neighboring estates. Not coincidentally, she made her stronghold invincible, and painted it's walls with the blood of those who would seek to oppose her will. Soon "The House That Candy Built" had many times the steel and muscle of its rivals. Farming may be considered a shameful way of life for a hyena, but she had made it yield astonishing wealth and might. Ultimately, it turned out that what finances the blade doesn't much matter when you're facing the pointy end of it. Now she herself was like a fine chocolate— dark, smooth, and incredibly rich.
"And whatever I want... I get," she concluded.
She gave me a solid, close look with those piercing, greedy eyes of hers, and there was a hunger there that she knew unnerved me — I could fairly read her thoughts like they were written on her irises: You're afraid of me. Oh yes, I like that! Then she smiled, her black lips peeling back from gleaming rows of perfect fangs. Reflexively, I smiled too, and she suddenly leaned forward and pushed my flews up to get a good, close look at my teeth—
Koz: Wow, that's getting up close and personal all of the sudden!
Fred: That does seem rather... ahm... intimate...
Uri: Well not so much "intimate" as—
Fred: She was inspecting you. Gauging your health and physical condition.
Uri: Um, yeah, that. Her mention of hiring mercenaries made me think she wanted to offer me a job, so—
Lucius: Seriously? For real, you didn't notice she was—
Koz: More horned up than a rugger match between antelopes and unicorns?
Lucius: I was going to say "in heat" but that works, too.
(Uri strikes a storytelling pose)
Uri: It was a dark and stormy night—
(The Brigadiers pelt Uri with rocks)
Brigadiers: Boo! Arrgh! Raar! No! Aw, c'mon man! Hiss! Uri—! Boo! Get to the good part!
Uri: Alright, alright—! It was an overcast afternoon. I was in a bar...
B: UBS: Encounter
Uri (telling story): I was still on transfer hold waiting for assignment after my boot camp graduation. You'd think they wouldn't want me out drinking in uniform, but "we have a reputation to uphold" means something different to the hyena brigade. I had ordered an amaretto on the rocks — so it's not the manliest drink around, but excuse me for wanting to enjoy the flavor of what I'm drinking whilst I have a little leisure time. For once I wasn't just throwing back whatever was handy to get totally sozzled in the most expeditions way possible, and I wanted to enjoy spending seventeen krugerands on a drink for as long as possible. It was then that serendipity took pity on me. Just as I started to think that this liberty would be a waste of time, I saw her. Just a few paces away, lounging in the dive's "nicest" booth, with two smaller hyenas that she seemed to be only barely tolerating. I had to lean over slightly and tuck my tail under my leg to keep it from beating eagerly on the bar stool, that's how overcome with excitement I was at the prospect of seeing someone so exotic in a below-average gin joint. She was a deep, dark brown all the way from the velvety tips of her ears to her shining, polished toe claws. She seemed proud of it, too, as the plunging cut of her dress attested. I'd never seen a hyena so black before, like a panther, her spots nearly blending into her impossibly glossy fur, which took on the colors of the lights in the dank bar. The sheen emphasized the sleek outlines of her tough, toned arm muscles. I couldn't think of anything that would bring someone of such obvious wealth and means into this dive, but I wasn't about to miss the chance to meditate upon and admire her presence. I was counting the pleats in her skirt when I realized her burning blue eyes were fixed on my face; I was being a bit too obvious about inspecting somebody who looked influential enough to have me killed for daring such a thing. I drew my head down into my shoulders and turned back around to the bar, hovering nervously over my drink until I felt like I had once more established my anonymity. When I glanced back, she was gone. I took another long sip, estimating that I'd gotten through about eight or nine Krugerrands'-worth out of it by now. She was out of my league anyways. May as well just sit and drink. No longer thing of the cost, I tipped my glass back and—
Uri (telling story): "Ever heard that it's rude to stare?" came a stern and quietly commanding voice from behind me and a little off to one side.
Uri (telling story): In a perfect world, I would have come back with some witty quip about taking time to appreciate a work of art, but what I actually did was jump in surprise and gag as an ice cube slid down my throat. I leaned on the bar, coughing and gasping for breath as—
Lucius: That would have been a really embarrassing way to die.
Koz: Way to make a first impression, Dude!
Fred: Don't interrupt him, or this will take twice as long!
C: UBS: Introductions
Uri (telling story): Anyways, when I could breathe, I saw that the voice belonged to the dark lady, and she was watching me closely, looking for something— I mean, it felt like her eyes could cut me in half, but more the first thing. I thought I might say something to her, but my mouth didn't work, and anything I might think of to say would probably come out stupid, anyway. So I just waited. After an uncomfortably long moment of considering me in silence, she gave a quick nod.
"I'm going now," she stated plainly. "You will accompany me."
The barstool clattered to the floor as my legs snapped up under me to stand next to her. Not graceful, but prompt, and that seemed to be what she expected. She smiled. Then something I did have to say leapt to my mind, and, rather inelegantly, out of my mouth— "I ate here. And I— The bar, too. Um. I haven't paid—" She gave a casual flick of her wrist, and one of the two flunkies stepped forward with a purse, and left a sizeable deposit on the bar. Without looking at me, the lady whisked past me. "Now. We're going." And indeed we were. We left the bar, and as if summoned into existence by her will, an armored coach appeared from around the street corner, drawn by two zebras in a livery dominated by a crest of some kind of small tree or shrub. Not a very imposing emblem for such an imposing woman, really, but it—
Fred: Wait a moment— royal blue, with a brown tree with gold leaves?
Uri: Yeah!
Fred: She was a long way from home— that livery belongs to the Czhokula family —
Koz: "Hot Chocolate—?!" You got to tap Hot Chocolate?! Way to go, man—!
Uri: Thank you for spoiling my ending, Koz... but yes, she was the heir to a chocolate fortune—
More than just an heir— she is to the confectionary industry what my mother is to... well, everything else.
Uri (resuming story): So we got into the coach. She sat across from me, studying me keenly, and I could feel the sweat trickling down inside my uniform. Finally we got around to introductions, except instead of me telling her who I was, she told me my name, rank, serial number, how I'd gotten a promotion for key technical skills— she even knew about my father having been a tracking star, for Krokutta's sake! It was like she was reciting my file— but when I said "Enough!" she looked at me like she could have finished me in a heartbeat. I told her that she had obviously done her homework, but if she was going to abduct me, she could at least have the courtesy of explaining herself—
D: UBS: Intentions
Lucius: I call bullshit! There's no way you could have said that to her and lived!
Koz: Yeah, you should have died like, six times already!
Uri: Yyyeah, it wasn't smart...
Uri (resuming story): She glared at me for a long time. At some level I knew that she was just showing me how she held all the cards, showing me that I was nothing, the usual sheyena stuff. But I had to prove to her that I wasn't nothing, even if only for an instant. She sat on my remark for a bit before passing judgement. I could even pinpoint the exact moment when her decision was made, but she stayed silent for a few more excruciating seconds, just to watch me strain under the pressure.
"Gaining my respect and losing your head have a fine line between them." She left a long pause for me to squirm in. I didn't move a muscle, even though my shorts were filling with sweat by then. "You walk it well."
Fortunately my guts falling out and scattering along the road behind us is merely a metaphor for how I felt, rather than what actually happened next. She held out her hand to me, as if she expected me to kiss it.
"My name is Countess Kalua of the Czhokula estate ..." I grasped her hand and bowed from the neck. "It's an nonor to meet you, Kalua —" Her claws instantly tightened, piercing holes in my paw. "Countess." she hissed in the stage-whisper that served her for shouting. "Lest you... forget." "Aaagh!" I squeaked, "I promise that if it every slips my mind the puncture wounds OnMyHandWillRemindMeeeee!"
"They. Had. Better." She threw down my hand like it was a piece of trash.
Koz: Oooh, that is so hot—!
Uri & Lucius: Shut up, Koz!
Uri (resuming story): For a few minutes she looked irritably out the window. I didn't dare lick the blood that was beading on my hand, I just sort of rolled it off on my tunic. I imagine she was rethinking her decision to abduct me, and where might be the most convenient alley to dump my body in. Then she looked back at me. "Do you even know who I am?" she asked. I told her, honestly, that I did not, because I'd been kind of busy for the last few years doing push-ups and learning how to be properly intimidated by my superiors. She laughed, and it came out a very proper "Hm." "And yet you are sassing me back," she observed. I assured that I was nothing if not terrified. She smirked. "Well, perhaps I can put your fears to rest. You have earned a proper answer to your questions about my identity, if not my intentions."
E: UBS: Intimations
Uri (telling story): She told me that her family owned a cocoa plantation on the Tiger river, and that when she had inherited it, she parlayed what was a small but profitable agricultural enterprise into a major corporation, by investing the profits from the chocolate crop in a band of mercenaries and selling the protection to the neighboring estates. Not coincidentally, she made her stronghold invincible, and painted it's walls with the blood of those who would seek to oppose her will. Soon "The House That Candy Built" had many times the steel and muscle of its rivals. Farming may be considered a shameful way of life for a hyena, but she had made it yield astonishing wealth and might. Ultimately, it turned out that what finances the blade doesn't much matter when you're facing the pointy end of it. Now she herself was like a fine chocolate— dark, smooth, and incredibly rich.
"And whatever I want... I get," she concluded.
She gave me a solid, close look with those piercing, greedy eyes of hers, and there was a hunger there that she knew unnerved me — I could fairly read her thoughts like they were written on her irises: You're afraid of me. Oh yes, I like that! Then she smiled, her black lips peeling back from gleaming rows of perfect fangs. Reflexively, I smiled too, and she suddenly leaned forward and pushed my flews up to get a good, close look at my teeth—
Koz: Wow, that's getting up close and personal all of the sudden!
Fred: That does seem rather... ahm... intimate...
Uri: Well not so much "intimate" as—
Fred: She was inspecting you. Gauging your health and physical condition.
Uri: Um, yeah, that. Her mention of hiring mercenaries made me think she wanted to offer me a job, so—
Lucius: Seriously? For real, you didn't notice she was—
Koz: More horned up than a rugger match between antelopes and unicorns?
Lucius: I was going to say "in heat" but that works, too.
Sunday, July 1, 2017:
Fred’s Diaries have won first place in this year's Ursa Major Awards, in the Best Novel category! Many thanks to everyone who voted for us!
Fred’s Diaries have won first place in this year's Ursa Major Awards, in the Best Novel category! Many thanks to everyone who voted for us!
NOTICE: Persons attempting to find a motive in this narrative will be prosecuted; persons attempting to find a moral in it will be banished; persons attempting to find a plot will be shot.
~ Mark Twain
All characters and artwork (C)2004-2015 K. Garrison (carryoncomics@hotmail.com) or their original creators.
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