"Humanwood, Ch. 4" by Erin N. Conley

They first entered the room for Fan Art, a world entirely foreign to Wil. Having grown up outside the town in a rural area, he had limited experience with the books an other entertainment on which the Fan Art was based. The room was enormous, with walls intersecting at odd angles in a massive maze-like formation, with slim dividers separating each artist's work from the next. These divided areas were grouped into sets of a couple dozen cubicles, each with a number up near the ceiling; presumably this was the gallery number.

"Your gallery is in the Fantasy Art room," Olly commented as though reading his mind. "This is the Fan Art room. It has pictures people have drawn from all the fantasy books and dramas out there." He stepped over to scrutinize the paintings posted in one cubicle. Wil took a closer look himself; a plaque next to one picture identified the subject as a character named "Perry Hotter." It depicted a rather peculiar looking young human boy holding a stick. Wil tried to muster a guess as to what this story could possibly be about.

Olly's head suddenly snapped up, alert. Wil looked around but saw nothing unusual, though he did hear a faint rumble. Was a storm brewing outside?

"Duck!" Olly suddenly shouted, flinging himself at Wil and pinning him against the wall. Wil shouted an instinctive protest, but no sooner were they flat against the wall than the rumbling suddenly crescendoed to a deafening roar, accompanied by screeching and squealing loud enough to force the two elves to cover their ears in self-defense. As the source got closer there were loud shouts and giggles added to the din. Finally a stampede came into view; dozens, maybe hundreds of young girl elves ran and bounced through the room, shrieking at the top of their lungs with rapturous grins on their faces and a bloodthirsty, psychotic look to their eyes. All at once they stopped as the girl in front squealed a warning and pointed energetically to the "Perry Hotter" picture Wil had just been looking at. As one, the crowd descending upon the painting, clawing at it and engulfing it with kisses, screeching their enthusiasm the whole time. When very little remained of the painting but a tattered shred of canvas, the girls flounced out of the room, their screams muffled as the door closed behind them.

"What. . .was that?!" Wil gasped, straining for breath.

Olly pulled back, brushing off his clothes and pulling a shaking Wil back out into the open. He answered with a wry grin.

"Fangirls. Watch out for them, they're a vicious lot."

"Fangirls? What are they?" Wil looked at the closed door.

"Oh, just girls who get obsessive about characters like that," Olly answered, waving at the no longer recognizable painting. "Their. . .er. . .enthusiasm can be rather destructive. That's why I don't draw Fan Art. You can never guarantee its safety. If they like it, they love it literally to death. If you don't draw the characters exactly the way they want them, they'll scream furiously at you until your eardrum shatters. Either way, you can't win."

Wil shuddered. "Can we go to another room?"



Next they entered a room marked "Guided Tours." This room contained no cubicles, but rather four completely open walls that were positively covered with words and small pictures. Standing at attention at various point throughout the room were friendly and attentive looking elves, each bearing a badge that read "Guide." At closer inspection, they appeared to be standing deliberately underneath the words on the wall. Trying to grasp the significance of this, Wil glanced questioningly at Olly.

Olly caught the look and smiled, automatically going into his explanation mode. "Those are the guides." Wil had gathered this much, but kept quiet. "Each one stands under the title of the tour they guide. At their sides are some sample pictures to give you an idea of what the tour is about. Under each title is written the time the next tour will start. We could catch one if you like."

Wil took a closer look at the words now that he knew what they meant. He eyed the one closest to him, which read in bold red letters, "Sexy human warrior princesses." Under the words were the sample pictures, each one depicting a scantily clad human woman in a dramatic, provocative pose, most of them holding absurdly enormous swords or axes high in the air as though about to slay their foe, though no other characters were actually in sight. Most wore metal or leather bikini-like armor; others were nude entirely. Wil wondered vaguely what protection such armor gave them, but for the moment he didn't care. "Wow, can we go on that tour?" he murmured to Olly.

Olly snorted but looked amused. "There's no one in front of it, that means it's not running any time soon. Honestly though, those characters are unrealistic and unbearably cliche, why would anyone want to go on that tour?"

Wil attempted to look dignified. "I. . .er. . .I mean, that is, I wanted to study anatomy a little better. . .You know, so I can apply it to my art. . .That's all."

"I'm sure you did," Olly answered with an innocent cough. Wil gave him a sharp look and he hastily continued on.

Wil read the titles of other tours as they passed. Many were animal based, with names like "Sparrows: Fantastic Fantasy Feathered Friends," and "Pretty, Playful Pigs," and "Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!" Still others were human based, like "Blondes and Brunettes: Exotic Human Hair," and "Humans: The Round-Eared Elves," and the bluntly named "Human Nudes." Wil was attempting to eye the sample pictures of that last one discreetly when a young wide-eyed girl approached him.

"Do U no where hte PH tour is? R U goin there 2?" the girl asked him. At least, he assumed it was a question, since he had no idea what gibberish she was speaking.

"Er. . .sorry?" he replied politely.

"O nm. I c it. Thanx tho! C U L8er!" She said before skipping off to join a group of young girls that was gathering around one Guide across the room.

Wil stared after her. "What. . .What did she say?" he asked Olly in confusion.

Olly chuckled. "Don't worry about it, mate. You're better off not learning her language."

Wil shook his head and continued on. Most of the remaining tours were variations of earlier ones, and he was beginning to lose interest. This was particularly because none of them seemed to be running at the moment.

"Aren't there any tours to go on right now?" he asked Olly impatiently.

Olly looked around thoughtfully. "Well there's one." He pointed to the crowd the girl had joined just a moment ago and gave Wil a mischievous grin. Curious, Wil stepped a little closer to read just what the "PH" tour was. He didn't wait long to find out. The title read "Perry Hotter--The Hottest Slash Tour Around!" Underneath the title, girls were crowding around the sample pictures, giggling over pictures of the character Wil now knew as Perry, most of them involving him being nude and/or kissing other characters he didn't recognize, most of them male.

Wil blanched. "Er. . .I'll pass, thanks," he replied.

"I thought you might," Olly grinned. "C'mon, we'll come back to this later. You'll like this next room."

Glad for the reprieve, Wil followed him through the door marked "New Additions." What he saw behind this door took his breath away. He stared in awe at thousands of translucent floating pictures, forming rows upon rows throughout an enormous room, with ghostly scrawled text floating above them.

"What are these?" he breathed softly.

"The new additions," Olly said simply. "Or rather, links to the new additions. The new additions themselves are in their galleries. These just take you to them."

"New additions? You mean, new pictures? How does it take you to them?" Wil looked around for some form of transport.

"You'll see," Olly winked. "Let's find a good one here. . ." He put one hand on his chin and turned a scrutinizing eye to the pictures in front of him, which shimmered silently in response. "Oh!" he said suddenly. "Well there's a surprise! Well this one will do just fine then!"

"What?" Wil stood on tiptoe to try to see what he was looking at.

"Don't look!" Olly ordered. Wil sighed but obediently covered his eyes. He felt Olly guide his hand upwards. "We'll just touch the picture now. . .Don't get scared."

"Of what?" Wil tried to ask, but suddenly the room lurched around him. He felt the ground give way under him, yet he didn't seem to fall, but rather felt a peculiar floating sensation. He automatically took his hand away from his eyes but saw nothing. He was just about to scream in panic when walls suddenly materialized around him, and he saw a grinning Olly slowly shimmer into view. He lost his balance as his feet once again touched solid flooring and he looked around him, breathing heavily.

"Neat, huh?" Olly said enthusiastically, helping Wil back to his feet. "Welcome to the new additions room!"

Once he had regained his bearings, Wil grinned and marched forward toward the door. "Really neat! Let's do it again!"

"Wait, hold up!" Olly caught the collar of his tunic before he reached the door, jerking him to a stop. "I brought you here because I thought you'd like to see this."

"See what?" Wil turned around impatiently, but his jaw dropped when he saw what Olly was pointing to. "My pictures!" he exclaimed.

"Yeah, it seems the Moderator finished it pretty quickly. That's got to be some kind of record." He stepped casually toward the pictures, looking at each of them in turn. "Say, you're not bad."

Wil slowly floated toward his new gallery, looking in awe at the professional framed arrangement, puffing his chest out with pride as he saw his name in an arc of golden letters across the top. Somehow his paintings and drawings looked better now than they had before, not being viewed next to the spectacular Mod's Choice pictures. There were his sketches of humans. . .There were his horses, his pigs, his dogs. . .His cows. . .Oh no. Wil groaned. In the midst of all his mildly realistic fantasy animals was the finger-painted cow he had made just this morning as an excuse to go back to the house. The fast, harsh streaks only barely even formed the shape of a cow, with no shading at all. He had forgotten to remove it from his portfolio before submitting it, and now it was there permanently. "They weren't supposed to put that up!" he cried in dismay.

Olly followed his eyes and saw the cow, and an incredulous, excited look flooded his face. "What are you talking about?" he exclaimed. "This is the finest abstract I've seen in ages!" He examined the almost-cow up close, muttering to himself the whole time. "Wow, what did you use to get such energetic brushstrokes?"

"Uh, my fingers," Wil answered, shifting from one foot to the other uncomfortably.

"Really? Amazing! You're a genius!" Olly touched the painting almost reverently.

Wil noticed that his friend's exclamations were starting to draw interest from others in the room. A few were beginning to wander over curiously. "Uh, thanks very much, but can we go now? We can look at it later, and um, I'm sure my mom and sister are back by now." He licked his lips and gave Olly's arm a tug.

"Huh? Oh. . .oh, sure." He tore himself away from the picture and trailed after Wil out the door, which Wil noticed with a sigh of relief, had a plaque over it saying "Mods' Choice/Information."

They found themselves back in the familiar entrance room, but, as Wil noticed with a sinking heart, there was no sign of Mum or Gwyn.

"They're not back yet, hm?" Olly was unconcerned. "Well, how about we take a look at today's Mods' Choices then, hm?"

"Sure," Wil answered, glad for something to do other than wait. Slowly they merged into the crowd standing in front of the feather-topped pictures, and Wil got his first taste of artist relations.

The first picture they came to depicted a human man with his sword drawn, facing the viewer and swinging the sword as though about to slice the person standing in front of the canvas in half. Wil found it highly compelling and once again felt a dejected sense of inadequacy about his own pictures. Comfortingly, most other people around him seemed to share his feelings, some of them standing in awed silence, while others gave their compliments to the young elf standing in front of the painting, presumably the artist. Two boys just in front of Wil seemed to be having an argument over it, however.

"That is so a copy of my picture!" one hissed indignantly.

"Oh it is not. This is better than your picture," the other said wearily.

"It is so a copy!" the first persisted. "Look at it! It has a human man in it, doesn't it? That man is holding a sword, isn't he? Look, he even has long hair like the one I drew!"

"But he doesn't look anything like yours!" the second protested again.

"It's close enough!" He raised his voice to a shout. "Mods! Mods! We've got a copied picture over here!"

Wil didn't see the Moderator until he was right behind him. The cloaked man pushed through to the boy who was doing the yelling and looked down at him expectantly.

"That's a copy of my picture!" He handed his membership card to the moderator, who produced an index book seemingly out of nowhere, flipping through it until he found the desired name. Wil couldn't see what he was looking at, but he looked up at the picture and then down at the book again.

"It is most certainly not a copy," he declared. When the boy began to protest, he ripped a page out of the back of the book and handed it to him. Wil caught a glimpse of this one; the headline read "Definition of a copied picture." The boy glared at it with a frown before stalking off, muttering to himself and occasionally shouting senseless insults at the Moderator, who had already retreated back to his table and was ignoring the individual.

Wil regarded the scene for a moment before turning back to Olly. "Wow, the Moderators are pretty cool," he said.

"Yeah," Olly answered, glancing up at the Mods table and then back at the picture again. "You have to hand it to them, putting up with idiots like that. Nearly everyone complains about them. They say pictures don't get processed fast enough, pictures chosen for Mods' Choice don't actually deserve it, they complain when they draw normal things and get told it's not fantasy enough. . .The list goes on and on. But there wouldn't even be a Humanwood without the Mods."

"Wow." Wil regarded the Mods with new respect. "They must get paid through the teeth to put up with that."

"Nope," Olly answered quickly. "They don't get paid."

"No pay? But don't they go broke?"

"Oh, they have jobs too. They do this in their spare time."

Wil vowed to himself to never, ever become a trouble to the cloaked figures in front of the door. Soon they moved on to the next picture, a human female that had exceptionally long arms and legs, with smaller rounded ears than the pictures around it. The painting seemed to have the crowd in an uproar.

"This is dumb!" shouted one voice angrily. Wil looked around and finally traced the voice to a small person with a mask covering his head.

"Way too ugly. My two-year-old brother can draw better than this." This voice, too, came from a masked figure.

"The Mods must be dumb to pick this," stated another. "It's stupid."

"It's stupid and ugly. You're stupid and ugly too. Ha ha." This masked figure seemed even smaller than the others. When the very irritated-looking people around them started moving forward to clobber the small masked people, they ran for the doors, giggling stupidly.

"What were those?" Wil whispered as he watched them go.

"Flamers," Olly answered flatly. "Scum of the planet, those ones. Too immature to make a useful comment, too cowardly to show their faces. Just ignore them though, they're harmless, they just get their kicks out of annoying people."

Wil thought idly that it sounded a lot like Gwyn. "What a pointless existence," he mumbled.

"Totally."

He turned his attention back to the picture, and had to admit it wasn't the best he'd seen. "Well it's not ugly," he said out loud. "But there are a few things wrong with it."

Olly cocked an eyebrow and looked at him. "Oh? And what's wrong, exactly?"

"Well, look at it. It's mostly just anatomy problems," Wil answered slowly. "I mean, the arms and legs for example, they're really long. And the ears are very small compared to all the other pictures. It looks like this person hasn't studied elf anatomy very long."

Olly was silent a moment. Finally he said thoughtfully, "Humans don't necessarily have anatomy identical to an elf's, you know. What if this person is right about how humans look and everyone else is wrong?"

Wil considered this novel concept for a while. Maybe there was truth to it. After all, he realized suddenly, he ought to know this fact better than anyone else, being the only one to have actually seen a human, and he. . .

Bob! Wil started and cried out involuntarily. He had forgotten about Bob!