Talk Nerdy To Me

Continued from last week and partially inspired by this video:



Myra looked around, bewildered. She was standing there just inside the bar she had been planning to visit. Her outfit was torn and dirty. She had blood drying in her hair and a neat row of butterfly Band-Aids holding a three inch long section of her scalp together. And somehow, she'd let the bouncers from the bar drag her inside for a complimentary drink "on the house."

Actually, she hadn't "let" them talk her into it. They had insisted she come inside and had dangled the free drink like a cookie before a screaming toddler. Myra, being somewhat more mature than the average four-year-old, had understood that she could go quietly and have a drink or she could be flung over someones shoulder and carried in kicking and screaming. Considering her state of dishabille, o one would say a word against them carrying a hysterical woman inside for her own good. She decided that discretion was the better part of valor. It had better not be a bottom shelf drink, though.

"What's up with her?" someone asked. Myra peered myopically at the speaker, her glasses now ground to dust in the parking lot.

"She got run over by the helliphant," gnarly bouncer dude said. That's how she thought of them, gnarly bouncer dude and hick bouncer dude. One was dressed like a biker and the other like a giant sized ranch hand. Not very imaginative, but considering that her head was pounding like something huge and prehistoric had run her over--because something prehistoric had!--she figured she could slide on it.

"Really? And she's up and walking around?"

Myra decided sight unseen that she liked the person speaking. His voice was tinged with mild awe and a healthy dose of appreciation. That was not how most people reacted to her skating through her mishaps mostly unscathed.

"I'm flexible like that," she said with the best smile she could summon, knowing it probably wasn't a very appealing one. She just didn't care at this point.

"No, really. How are you still standing?" another blurry person said. Myra shrugged. screw it, she thought. So what if her geek flag was about to fly.

"I do RPGs. You know, roll playing games? Last fall, my game leader decided to write a whole slew of scripts based on giant rampaging monsters. I guess we worked that scenario so many times that, when faced with the real thing, I just sort of reacted instinctively. Not surprising, since Marlo had us doing it over and over again until we'd come up with actual usable kata for surviving battle elephants, dragons, and hydra."

She cringed, waiting for the scorn to flow, but it didn't.

"OH, man, you're in pain! How stupid of me. Here honey, take my seat."

"I'll run up to the bar and grab an ice pack for you," another voice said.

"So, what role do you play? Are you, like, a battle mage?"

"No way, Larry! She's clearly a warrior princess. You are a warrior princess, right?"

"Um," she said, nonplussed. where was the scorn? These guys sounded like they actually knew something about how RPGs worked. "I'm a worgen, actually. We do D&D."

"That is so hot!" the ice pack guy said as he slid said ice pack into her hand.