By Coral
Disclaimer: Hey, I don't need one! Speak up, tribble, I can't hear you. What!?! Sorry, I stand corrected. Tribbles belong to Paramount. May they be swamped by them.
Coral screamed.
Wouldn't you if a tribble materialised on your desk whilst you were trying to do your physics homework? Luckily, being a fanfic writer, she'd thought about stranger situations in her life before, so she looked at the tribble and said, "What are you doing here?"
Knowing all about tribbles (well, as much as most people know) she did not expect what happened next. The tribble spoke.
"I'm your muse of course. What did you think I was doing here?"
"My muse? I didn't know I had a muse. I'm trying to do my Physics ho - wait a minute. If you're my muse you're responsible for this!" She pointed dramatically at the orange folder with a pile of hair on top of it that was sitting at the other side of the desk.
"What is it?" the muse asked, curious.
"You should know. You're my muse," Coral answered, brushing her hair out of her eyes so that she could see the readout on her calculator.
"Oh. It's your story file."
"Yes. And the hair I've teared out worrying about the ends of the stories!" Coral gave up all pretence of even trying to do her Physics, and looked directly at the gray tribble. "The file is split into four halves. The stories I've found on the 'Net and printed off, my finished stories, my unfinished stories and anything else that needs to go in there." She pointed accusingly at the tribble-muse. "And do you know which section is largest? Do you?"
The tribble squeaked indignantly. "I do. It's the ones you've printed off that other people wrote."
Coral deflated a little. "Ok, apart from those... It's the unfinished ones! There was that wonderful one about a holodeck simulation of New Earth, and I didn't even get past page one. There are ten stories where they get home, and none of them are finished! There's the one where Chakotay loses his memory 'cause Kathryn dies, and he forgets everything since he attacked Gul Evek's ship! And my 60-plus typewritten epic that still isn't finished!" Coral paused for about five seconds to breathe, and the tribble finally got a word in edgeways.
"What can I say? Holidays for muses are cheap this year. Besides, you have finished quite a few stories, haven't you?" the tribble asked.
It was true, and Coral knew it, but she also didn't want to be insulted by a tribble. "If you're my muse, and you're here, how come I can't think of anything new to write?"
"Because you've already got a lot of ideas. That one about your school being an academy prep school in the 24th Century, for instance. And the one based on 'Fiction' in 'Strange New Worlds'."
Coral stared into space. "I'd forgotten about that one..."
"You don't need a muse to come up with ideas."
"So how come I need a muse?"
"To come up with good ideas," the tribble-muse squeaked and rolled across the table, just in time to miss the heavy Physics textbook that Coral threw at it. "I mean, that Tribble story of yours was quite good, and you even had a story outline. You just needed a muse to help you fill in the good bits."
"Like the bit where the Doctor was buried up to his neck in Tribbles?" Coral asked with a nostalgic smile.
"Uh-huh. Now that was funny. In fact, it was my idea."
"No, it wasn't! It was mine!"
"My idea, your idea... what's the difference. It's still your name that goes on the story."
"But I never finished it!" Coral pointed out. "So no one's name is on the story."
The tribble rolled over the story file. "I'll tell you what. If you give me a starring role in the story, I'll help you finish it."
"Really?" Coral asked, interested now.
"Sure. In fa-" The tribble-muse was cut off by a harsh ringing sound. "What's that?"
"Arggh!" Coral screamed in frustration. "It's the bell! I'm supposed to be in Physics and I haven't done my homework - you stupid muse! Why couldn't you have visited me some other time?"
"Umm..." The tribble looked slightly guilty, if it was possible for a ball of fur to look guilty, and started to fade out of existence.
"I am going to bounce you off Kirk's head if I ever see you again!" Coral called out in warning before running out of her classroom towards the Physics Lab and certain doom.
END