In September of 2006, I took my two muses to The Tammy Awards together, where they interacted with other muses. I include here all posts by Stephen that I think significant, with enough quotes from other muses to put them into understandable context.

THE TAMMY AWARDS - PRESHOW AND RED CARPET

Hannah hadn't at all been interested in this, as it claimed Professor Dumbledore was kinky and that scared her, but Stephen really wanted to go and had no way to get there and thought it unwise to take Jack as his date, so she agreed to fly her head-mate here and walk in and sit with him. She lands her father's Tinderblast, gets off, adjusts her old pink dress robes which are a little small on her, and her mother's black pearls, now hers, her father tells her, looks around, and nervously grabs onto Stephen's arm.
Stephen stumbles off the Tinderblast. He had thought himself up to flying after spending countless hours in the tops of a ship, but now he is not sure he wasn't wrong. He is on his feet, brushing out his clean black coat, when her nails sink into his sleeve. It may be a long night.
A clown juggles with one hand and waves with the other.
Stephen waves politely, but does not care to approach.

About twenty minutes after the limo disappeared the last time, it reappeared once again. And this time, the door actually opened.
Wes was the first to appear, looking slightly ruffled with the top three buttons undone on his shirt, his jacket slightly ascue, and his hair rather mussed. However, he also looked extremely happy to be there. Or at least, he looked extrememly happy.
After making sure that a set of hair clippers was firmly tucked into his back pocket, Wes straightened himself up a bit, and looked around to see who else had arrived.
Stephen would rather have talked to FannyFae, but she would likely frighten Hannah, or worse, offend her. This newly arrived man looks fairly harmless, so he gently guides Hannah over and extends his free arm. "Good day, sir. I am Dr. Stephen Maturin, and this is Miss Hannah Abbott."
Wes noted that the guy talked a lot like Darius, or maybe Korda, so figured he was one of those old fashioned types. So he smiled and shook his hand, then nodded to the young lady at his side. "It's nice to meet you both. I'm Wes Janson."
Hannah looks at his hair and is reminded of Alfred. This nearly makes her depressed, but then she notices his buttons undone and giggles.
"Hannah!" Stephen says to her, and she quickly quiets herself. "I apologize, sir. Miss Abbott is a little nervous."
Wes glanced down at the buttons and grinned as he reached up to fasten two of them. He left the third undone cause it made him uncomfortable. "Don't worry about it. My bad for not taking care of them before I left the car. I was a bit distracted at the time."
"Really? Are you used to riding in automobiles? I am not, but then, I did not get here in one."
"Well, I've gotten used to them over the past couple of years. I'm more used to hovercars and starfighters myself." Wes looked at him, curious. "What are you used too?"
"Hovercrafts? Starfighters?" Stephen repeats. He met a certain gentleman once from nearly 600 years in the future who might have mentioned something like the latter. "I think you must live many centuries after me, sir. I have travelled a bit in carriages an extensively in sailing ships."
Wes grinned. "I actually live several galaxies away from you, but whatever. Sailing ships huh? I haven't had the chance to go out on the water since I've been here. I might have to give it a try one of these days."
Hannah giggles again and says, "He's not used to brooms!"
Wes blinked. "Brooms?"
For a moment, Hannah wonders if she's accidently spilled the existance of magic to a Muggle. But then again, if they had to worry about that, then she couldn't have taken the Tinderblast here in the first place.
"Yeah!" she said. "And I mean, I'm no ace, but I flew him here! That's my Tinderblast over there, look!" And she points to where she'd placed the broom in its own parking spot.
Wes looked at the broom and then got a rether bemused look on his face. "You mean people actually fly those things for real? I thought that was just in those cartoons with the talking rabbit."
"Cartoon with the talking rabbit?" Hannah's not sure what he's talking about. Must be an example of the Muggles getting it wrong again.
"Yeah, that's what I thought too when I saw it. Some gray bunny that's always calling everyone Doc. Funny though, although I like the duck better."
This sounds vaguely familiar, but Hannah can't quite remember it, even so. "Well, whatever it was, animals don't fly brooms."
Wes nodded. "That I can believe, cause according to everything I've seen, only witches do that sort of thing. Which means of course that you must be a witch."
"Well, yes, I am." And this man obviously wasn't a wizard. But he seemed to be remarkably calm about all this. She didn't quite get it.
Wes just grinned. "I'm an alien. Pleased to meet you." It's easy to be calm about that sort of thing when you know people who can move things with their mind and use lightsabres on a regular basis.
Classifying him as an alien seems to have settled Hannah's mind, Stephen observed. "You look remarkably human for an alien. The other alien gentlemen whom I met seemed largely reptilian in nature."
Wes' grin turned wry. "Yeah well, Terrans seem to like to label people a lot, and technically since I'm not from this planet, then I'm an alien. However, I'm also very much human."
Confused again, Hannah asks, "So they don't fly brooms on your planet?"
Wes shook his head. "No, we fly hovercars, landspeeders, and starfighters."

Atia arrives, dressed to the nines and playfully scowls at Dionysos for being nearly bare ass.
Phoebe is at her side hovering about. Hey, if aliens and whatnot can come as is, what's a flying baby or two?
Rather bemused by the change in her daughter's appearance since he first met them at FannyFae's wedding, but glad to see a familiar face, Stephen comes over. "Miss Atia. Very pleased to see you again. This is my headmate, Miss Hannah Abbott."
It looks to Hannah as if the woman's baby has had a transfiguration accident. She remains silent while trying to figure out how to point this out.
"hello again, Dr. Maturin, it is a pleasure to see you. My apologies for the shock but showing off the wings just didn't seem the right thing to do at a wedding reception," Atia smiled and reached out to shake his hand and then looks to his friend.
"Who are you?" Phoebe blurts out, looking over to the lady with the nice doctor man.
Very startled, Hannah looks down at the girl, and up at her mother. "So the wings are supposed to be there?" she ends up blurting out before she can stop herself.
Greatly distressed by his companions rudeness, Stephen narrowly refrains from slapping her hand.
"Of course, don't be silly!"
"Phoebe!" Atia rolled her eyes at her daughter's rudeness and hugged her daughter close then released.
"Sorry about that."
"Yes, sorry." Phoebe giggled.
"I'm sorry, too," said Hannah, directly to the girl, who seems really intelligent. "it's just that every time I've seen a human with wings, it's been due to a spell gone wrong."
"I've never seen such a thing at all," Stephen adds. "She has much more experience with magic than me."
"It is all right, the both of you couldn't have known. And really, minus the wings, Phoebe is just like any other child, worked up on sugar because it is a big evening."
Phoebe looked up again at the mention of her name. "Mommy says I am an erote!"
"A very pretty word indeed, but what does it mean?" It is quickly clear to Stephen that Hannah does not recognize it, nor did he expect her to.
"Comparable to a cherub. One of Aphrodite's helpers...only Phoebe isn't a child of Aphrodite or Cupid," Atia added to be helpful.
Before Hannah can ask more questions, Stephen comments, "She is very intelligent, I see."
"Thank you, Dr. Maturin. And Hannah, a pleasure to meet you." Atia smiled just as Phoebe yawned a little. Her sugar high was coming to a close.
"Very happy to meet you too, and your daughter."

From the Award Ceremony

Dumbledore wins for Kinkiest Muse.
Hannah asked Stephen for an explanation for this earlier, but while he was able to explain to her about dead people being able to come back here, he was at a loss to explain Professor Dumbledore's nomination. Now she cranes herself about to get a glimsp of this strange alive-again Dumbledore, in a desperate effort to understand.
The great wizard himself ascends to the stage and, beaming from ear to ear, accepts the award.
"Thank you, thank you. This is a great honour and I'm proud and delighted to be here with you tonight. I'd just like to say a few words and they are: nitwit, oddment, blubber, tweak. Know them. Live them. Thank you!"
Popping a sherbert lemon in his mouth, eyes twinkling madly behind his stylish half-moon spectacles, Albus vanishes in a swirl of robes and beard; a moment later, a vast assortment of candy rains down on both stage and audience alike.
Hannah catches a pair of sweets and gives up on understanding.
Hermione Granger is scarred for life. She admittedly snuck into the Tammy's to see the result of this catagory, but to see the headmaster win? Oh. My.
Seeing Hermione, Hannah beckons her over.
Hermione slipped through the crowd, both happy and troubled to see her fellow schoolmate there. She was considering a possible attempt of a memory charm to erase the events of the evening thus far from her mind, but the more thought she gave to that idea, the more she decided against it.
"Hannah," Hermione whispered. "This is absolutely mental! How is he even alive again? And seriously? This seems like highly inappropriate behavior. I'm... I'm so confused."
"So am I. I don't think it really matters here that's he dead; my headmate here, Stephen, tells me that dead people are common here. I was hoping his speech might explain it, or give me some sort of clue, but...I don't know, maybe a lot of the people who voted thought uttering random words right before giving food out is kinky??" She glances over at Stephen to see if he has any comment on this idea.
"I have never heard anyone express such a preference, though to be certain, people rarely talk about such things, even in this place." He had in fact been listening to some of the comments around him, and one by Johnathan Rhys Meyers gives him a possibility. "Though Mr. Meyers seems to be under the impression he engaged in beastiality. Let me remind you that as his students, you two would be unlikely to be aware of it if he did."
"ACK!" Hannah covers her ears, and wishes she hadn't asked.

Winner for Most Sexually Vanilla Muse
Stephen cannot help but turn to Hannah and comment to her, "If more people had known who you were, my dear, I imagine you would have won this one."
"Well, what's wrong with that?" Hannah demands.
Stephen has learnt better than to to get Hannah riled up, and so replies, "Nothing, of course," but privately wonders if in ten years time she will end up like Sophie Williams, which is not entirely a bad thing, but might very well cause her, not to mention any husband she might take, considerable problems.

Elmo and Barney appear as presenters, but run afoul of the electronic equipment and are incapacitated. Cookie Monsters comes on as their replacement.
Hannah didn't recognize either of the other two characters, but on seeing Cookie Monster she bursts into applause.
"Hannah," asks a confused Stephen, "you know this gentleman?"
"I, uh, kind of grew up with him." She decides not to worry that he's not supposed to be real. After all, Dumbledore was supposed to be dead, and he's not.

Emma Frost wins for Biggest Bitch.
Hannah perks up, intrigued.
Emma kisses Scott once more before getting up and walking to the podium. She honestly had not expected this award, considering the fact that she was really and truly "reformed". Her friends knew better, and... oh, what the hell was she thinking? Of course she deserved it.
"Thank you, dears. I feel especially honored considering the four other bitches in this category," she smirks. "And, since I've already sent you a lovely mental image once tonight, I'll simply be the bitch I am and send you all a horrid one of Denny Crane's nipples instead." She blows them all a kiss before sitting down.
Stephen isn't sure he at all likes this strange woman whom Hannah seems somehow acquainted with(though her growing up with Mr. Monster indicates her circle of friends was wider than he initially believed). He makes a mental note to seek out Mr. Crane; he seems very possibly in need of physic.

Win for Best Sex Scene
Instead of a blue-haired former goddess, one blonde-haired human girl takes the stand, instead, and taps on the microphone to get the crowd's attention.
"Hi, hello! I'm Rose. I didn't actually win this award, because my writer has sadly neglected to let me have the kind of fun that would lead to being nominated. However, I do share brainspace with the violent blue lady, and since she was taking too long to compose what she assumed was the perfect speech for this -- which, trust me, you don't want to hear -- her writer decided to send me out to sum things up."
Rose clears her throat, and beams brightly at the audience.
"First, she'd like to thank our writer for finally giving in and writing smut. I can only appeal to our writer that when the time comes I get the same treatment. Second, she'd like to thank Wesley for being a really good shag, because you just can't win this award by yourself -- well, you can if you had a clone, I suppose, and she's self-centered enough that she probably would if--"
Rose is, lamentably, interrupted when the aforementioned violent blue lady shoves her rudely off the stage.
Hannah's disappointment in Scott and Emma losing vanishes in the face of this speech sending an idea to her head. She turns to her much older headmate and says, "Do you think, next year, me, and well, Alfred I hope, our mun...?"
Privately Stephen wonders if that is possible, when their mun won't even let him speak openly for the most part, about a certain section of his sexual activities, but says only, "She may well. Of course you could not do what these nominees here did, but she might let you talk."

Wes Janson and Aidan Hart win for Outstanding Relationship Roleplayers.
It's strange, after all the other awards, to be able cheer for two of the pairs of nominees, especially when she hadn't even realized that the guy she'd met was gay. But never mind. "Oh, I'm glad they won!" she comments to Stephen, quietly enough for noone else to hear. "Too bad we never met Mr. Hart though."
"Yes," Stephen answers vaguely. He is not sure how he would have reacted had she shown any disgust, but he'd gotten the impression already that wizards were not bothered by such things. Overall, his thoughts tend more towards the wistful, towards how such a marriage would never have even been contemplated in his own original time and place. Will those two men ever realize how lucky they are? He feels a pang very deep in his heart.

Welcome to the After Party

Stephen counts himself fortunate he was able to come; there was the delicate matter of his escorting young Hannah. He was not entirely sure why she could not drink here; such age limits were non-existent in his world. But be that as it may, she has gone off to a party for young people and he is at last a free agent. And he shall certainly get himself a drink.
There is an open bar in the dining-room just off the entry hallway, a bartender is standing behind it ready to serve those who approach. Wait-staff are also mingling with food trays. "Could I get you something to drink, sir?" The bartender turns his attention immediately to him at his approach.
"Yes, thank you. If I may ask what is available?"
"You name it and I can probably make it." The twenty something bartender bragged with a laugh. "You have something special in mind that you'd like?"
"Not in particular. Some wine, then." He leaves it up to the bartender what kind of wine. He is rather curious to see what kind of possibly foreign concotion he will be provided with.
"Any preference to type, white, red, sweet, dry?"
"Sweet." He is not sure why. Perhaps it is simply his mood tonight.
"Sweet it is then." The bartender, reaches for a bottle of white wine and uncorks it, pouring a taste into a glass and handing it to the man so he can sample it before filling it the rest of the way. "Give that a taste and see if it's to your liking."
Strange how the sweetness feels on his tongue. Good. He will have to be prudent not to drink too much. "Very pleasing. Thank you."
"I'm glad you like it, I'll fill your glass for you then." The man takes the wineglass back and tops it off before returning it to him. "Enjoy the party, sir."
As the waiter finishes Nic has worked his way over as well and seeing the man he approaches and offers his hand.
"Welcome, I'm Nicolas Kokoris, thank you for joining us this evening."
"Dr. Kokoris? Dr. Maturin, pleased to meet you."
"Dr. Maturin." He shakes his hand then gestures to Ororo. "May I present Ms..."He smiles to the woman. "I'm sorry, I didn't catch your name." He waits for her to identify herself before presenting her to the Doctor.
"Ororo Munroe." She smiled softly, holding out her hand.
"Stephen Maturin." He finds her very intruiging. In all his travels, he's never seen that hair colour. He wonders if she is an alien, like the gentleman he met before the ceremony.
"Nice to meet you, Stephen."
"Dr. Maturin, Ms. Munroe. If you'll excuse me for a moment, I'll get Ms. Munroe her drink and be right back." He excuses himself and goes to get the woman a glass of white wine to start her off, returning in less than a minute. "Here you go." He hands the glass to her with a smile.
"Thank you, Nicolas." She took the glass of wine from him with a smile and took a sip.
"Nic, please." He took a sip from the glass he had gotten for himself before saying more.
"So, Ms. Munroe, what is it you do?" His tone was strictly conversational in nature.
"Nic," Ororo smiled softly again as she took another sip of her drink. "I teach English at Xaviar's Institute for Higher Learning."
"I don't think I've heard of that school, but I'm not originally from the States so that doesn't surprise me. Do you teach a specific age?" He took another sip from his drink as he waited for her response.
"Usually the younger students. The ones in their teens."
"Have you been teaching there long?" He motioned her toward the couches as they talked. "Would you like to have a seat?'
"For quite a few years. I love teaching and I have my plants to take care of." Storm said as she sat down on one of the couches with her wine.
Stephen sits down next to her. "So you are fond of plants, then. I have a fondness for all flora and fauna, though I serve as a surgeon for the British navy."
Nic had nodded in response to Ororo's answer but at Dr. Maturin's he noticeably brightened.
"Really, I'm a surgeon as well, as is Joanna, Dr. Falconiri." He glanced around the room before pointing out the woman to the two guests. "We met through our work with Medecins San Frontieres..um, you might know it as Doctors Without Borders, it's a volunteer program that sends medical teams to countries where there is a shortage of doctors." The surgeon's dedication to the organization was obvious as he spoke of them.
"Actually, I've never heard of it, but it sounds like a fine organization. There are a good amount of physicians in this odd world, I believe. You two are hardly the first I have seen."
"Odd world?" The man's choice of words caught him off guard for a moment but he quickly collected himself. "I take it you're not from here either then, what brought you to the States?"
Stephen chuckles at this. "Not only am I not from your place, sir, I'm afraid I am not even from your time. Unless...what year would either of you say it is?"
It was Nic's turn to laugh and he lifted his glass in a mock salute. "It's a little early in the evening for that question isn't it? However, to answer your question, it's 2006." A smile remained on his face as he waited to see where the man was going with his line of conversation.
As Miss Monroe gives no response, Stephen assumes she is also from 2006. "In my mind," he explains, "it is the year 1816. A very odd phenomenon, you see."
"1816?...ah..." The Greek's mouth dropped open as he tried to process the information and he glanced between the two, clearly at a loss for words. His saving grace seemed to come in a well timed ring of the door-bell and he looked toward it before returning his attention to the two as he rose.
"If you'll excuse me for a second, I should get the door, feel free to talk among yourselves while I'm gone." He smiled to the couple before taking his glass with him as he left to answer the doorbell.
"Very fond of plants. Lilies, roses, and ferns..." Her voice trailed off dreamily.
"I have seen some most fascinating plants in my travels," Stephen tells her after Dr. Kokoris takes his leave. "Often in lands with completely different animals as well, as if God had grown creative in his endeavours to cover the world, and matched plants to animals, and animals to plants."
"What kind of plants? Have you ever been to Africa? It is so beautiful."
"I have. I have been twice to the west coast and once to the cape." He pauses, recalling the the former, and he cannot help but think not only of the plants and animals, but of whom he met there.
She cocked her head looking at him. "Is it not also so romantic there?" Ororo smiled softly as she took another sip of her drink.
Of course she cannot know how such an innocent question shakes him. He dislikes question and answer as a form of conversation as it is, and now he can barely nod his agreement, hoping for the matter to pass.
"I miss home sometimes." She said softly, sensing something was wrong.
So she was from there. Perhaps from some inner part where her unusual hair color was common? "Most people do," he said reasonably.
"Kenya and Cairo, Egypt, too...places I cannot really go home to any longer for some reason or another..."

October 2006-July 2007