Eye to eye, they faced each other, the silence thick with enmity.<\/p>\n
The linguist spoke first. “I hope you know I’m very disappointed in you.”<\/p>\n
Her antagonist blinked lazy eyes, but said nothing.<\/p>\n
“Slow and steady wins the race, or haven’t you ever heard that before?”<\/p>\n
No response.<\/p>\n
“I stopped several times, handicapped myself to let you get ahead of me, and you didn’t even catch up!”<\/p>\n
There was a soft, whuffling sound almost like a disdainful snort, and Hoshi threw up her hands. Scrambling to her feet, she kicked off one bunny slipper, then the other, and deposited her new Artaxian beach tortoise, Turtle, in his tank before climbing back into bed with the midnight snack of milk and cookies that the four of them had just retrieved from the mess hall.<\/p>\n
Still unperturbed, Turtle splashed contentedly into the water at one end of his home.<\/p>\n
“So much for the Tortoise and the Hare.”<\/p>\n
End Note:<\/strong> Written for the Challenge in a Can at the Linguistics Database: my words were–linguist, enmity, turtle. Thanks to Deb for the title!<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Eye to eye, they faced each other, the silence thick with enmity. The linguist spoke first. “I hope you know I’m very disappointed in you.” Her antagonist blinked lazy eyes, but said nothing. “Slow and steady wins the race, or … Continue reading