First, Catch Your Elephant Esther Friesner "Still snowin'?" A querulous voice rose high on the thin, alpine air from one of the many tents clinging to the flanks of the mountain.
The tent-flap shimmied in the piercing wind that had been blowing since before the ages when the gods first discovered how much fun it is to pull the wings off mortals. A sharp, brown nose peeked out only to be withdrawn again hastily into the comparative warmth of the tent.
"Gaaaah, stupid question," the proprietor of the aforementioned nose replied with little grace. "Yer an idjit fer askin'. An' I'm a bigger idjit than that for botherin' to check. "'Course it's still snowin'! Been doin' bugger-all but snow since we left bloody Narbo!"
A third voice now joined the conversation. "I say, fellows, that's a bit of an exaggeration, what? Oh, we may be in for flurry or two, but it's not even winter yet. I say we should count ourselves fortunate, stiff upper lip, put on a happy face and all that. Our situation may be deuced uncomfortable, but we've soldiered through worse than this before. Crossing the Pyrenees wasn't a piece of cake, but we did it, and we fought our way across the Rhone, elephants and all, and it'll take more than these dashed Alps to keep General Hannibal's boys out of Italia. Why, before we know it, we'll being giving those Roman chappies a spot of Carthaginian what-ho they won't soon forget. Now let's all give three rousing cheers for good old General Hannibal and then what say we go scare us up a bit of breakfast?"
. . .
