I saw a roach the size of the palm of my hand the other day. A few things became readily apparent.

1. I am able to leap across the room from a sitting position without either tripping or launching myself into a wall.

2. I am able to nail a moving target with a book.

3. I am able to do these two things in one smooth motion so that the entire incident took less than five seconds.

4. I now need a new copy of Harry Potter Book 4 in paperback.

5. I need to move. Now.

While my finances such as they are do not support item 5, they did extend to several roach traps and a can of raid, which my entire apartment now reeks of.

The following is a fan-fiction. Specifically, of Terry Pratchett's Discworld series.

Eskarina of Lancre was unique in many respects. The first, (only so far) wizard to be female, and the only one to be trained by a witch, she was at a severe disadvantage trying to fit into the circles of wizardry at Unseen University. She tried, but as she grew past her teenage years and into the first part of her twenties, it became increasingly impossible. It did not help that she'd somehow missed the extra padding that was one of the few common grounds a maiden of the Ramtop Mountains and a wizard of this delta city had. Nor that she moved, not like a dancer, but as silently and as smoothly as any predator in the forests of her youth. Her childhood stubborness had grown into a steady, quiet determination. She'd perfected the squint, and found a soft voice and cool eyes were almost as effective. She'd never be attractive, but in these halls she was arresting, and that doomed her to far more attention than she needed at her time of life.

Despite all that, she walked the hallways alone and unnoticed.

Eskarina thought. About her life, growing up under the tutelage of the finest witch in recent history, not that any other witch would ever admit such a thing. About her life here, that was mostly books and talk and an entire world of old men who's smiles did not reach their eyes. About Simon, who'd rediscovered his stutter about when she turned seventeen, though only in her prescence, and so had not been able to say her name in almost four years.

She'd almost started to smile then, when she thought about Simon, but it faltered when she remembered he'd not been included in this night's plans. She couldn't. Not when she didn't stand a prayer of success.

That brought other memories. Of waking up from an afternoon doze every sense twanging all at once. It'd been her witch training, she'd decided, that gave her any warning. Witchcraft was about subtle things, small magics, after all. It'd been her university schooling and all those years of thinking like a wizard that kept her quiet during that fateful dinner, kept her from trusting her instincts and saying, "Wait, man, there is something very strange about that boy." Eskarina knew it was the wizardry that'd kept her quiet, since wizards don't tend to see small things as real threats. She hesitated at the sight of one, small boy, said nothing, and so watched the deaths unfold.

Eskarina shook herself. She was thinking like a witch now.

Come any disaster you could name, it was said, and dinner would still be served on time at Unseen University. This was proving true. The ranks had winnowed, though it had only been a week since Coin had declared himself master of magic and the University. The wizards in the rest of the world had not yet reacted, waiting to see if it would take care of itself, but everyone knew the towers would come, and the skies rent by lightning and fire. None here, the survivors, doubted for a moment what the outcome would be. It made for uneasy stomachs, as uneasy as their well-practiced gullets could manage.

Since the not quite as crowded as they'd once been wizards were either lost in their own thoughts, meals, or covert glances at what Coin was doing next, hardly any noticed the slender figure of Eskarina enter the room. After a moment's focus that almsot pulled her face into the well-worn path of her squint, none of these men were still paying attention. It wasn't quite magic, Granny Weatherwax had explained. "More a trick of the mind. And no, it's not a matter of wanting to not be noticed. Might as well come out dressed all in red and playing a herdy-gerdy if you're going to want not to be noticed. You simply decided this is how it's going to be. And then it will be." There was more too it, of course, but witches hardly ever bothered to explain themselves. And Esk had understood.

'This is suicide,' a thin, piping voice told her, inside her own mind. 'This is insanity! If you don't pull this off, you're dead. There won't even be a body left, you saw!' But since she'd long realized she was dead anyways, one way or another, the voice held little weight. She knew she'd have only one chance, one moment that her unnoticement would give her to cross the great room, come within arms reach of Coin, and end the matter with the sharpest blade she'd been able to come across. It was not likely to succeed. And she was not likely to survive the experience even if she did, of that she was quite sure. But it needed to be done, and no witch for as long as the Ramtop stones held memories shirked from what needed to be done.

She wished she'd been able to tell Simon goodbye. She shook that weight away too.

Perhaps it was that one thought of Simon that allowed him to pierce her illusion. No one would ever know. But the sudden gasp he made as he realized what she, his beautiful Eskarina was about to dare filled the room and suddenly everyone could see what he was seeing.

Including Coin.

Eskarina was too far away still. She was fast, mountain air did that to a growing child, but she was too far and Coin was fast too. She saw her own doom in his eyes as he lifted a hand to blot her out of existence. But if he and Esk were fast, Simon was faster still.

Octorine shot out from Simon, a blast of pure magical energy what no human should have able to cast slammed into Coin's defenses. It distracted him, forced the boy to split his attention from the death coming from his front to the one from his side. He fired back, but Simon ducked and poured another spell out. All the wizards had been able to cast like that since Coin arrived, which had been the cause of no few of the deaths over the last few days. Simon knew he was no match for Coin in skill, but years of Eskarina's influence must have taken. He couldn't kill, but he could distract, and die as hard as possible for his love.

It would still have been over in an eye blink if more wizards had not suddenly begun casting as well. Many at Coin. Some at each other, fumbling to protect the giver of more power than they'd ever dreamed. The entire room was at once a spectacle flashing magical death, knotting around the embattled Coin. Sprinting across, ever closer, hoping for just another three feet was Eskarina.

Fire struck her from behind. It was never discovered whose. She fell forward, too gripped in frustration, and the awful realization that she'd failed, to even be surprised. Even in death, she maintained her grip on her knife, as if, somehow, she could still make her strike.

As quickly as it'd started, it was over. Simon was half-melted into the wall behind his chair, hit by some many magical attacks that the slower reacting wizards he'd been sitted next to had been killed as well. The wizards of Unseen University shook themselves, took stock of the new gaps in their ranks, and watched in fascinated comprehension as the smoke cleared around the head table to reveal Coin, unhurt, though at least one wizard had been as unlucky as those seated next to Simon.

Silence reigned, as profound and as eloquent as any speech. The wizards returned to their unfinished meal.