Hyaell isn’t your typical reality television show contestant. There are several reasons for this, the foremost being that she is a sphinx. Part lion, part eagle, part human, she’s 2 metres in height, 4 metres long with a 3 metre tail and an 8 metre wingspan. More than twice the size of a human, Hyaell has found it quite difficult to adapt to a world that is utterly ill-shaped for her.
It was a lot easier back at the temple she had been charged with guarding. For the first few centuries there seemed to be a regular supply of heroes and thieves looking for glory or treasure, none of whom had the wits or knowledge to make past Hyaell’s riddles and claws. Then there was an earthquake and a solar eclipse and then darkness. When Hyaell awoke, roused from her shrouded slumber by the sound of music, she found a strange young woman in even stranger clothes stood before her. No matter what riddle Hyaell gave her, this woman called Lara either knew the answer or quickly found it on some kind of glowing tablet in her hand. Beaten by the rules of her contract, she let the woman go onward but also found herself finally free to leave the temple. Outside, Hyaell found not meadows, but farms and on the horizon, a city made of gleaming glass.
Her first encounter with the authorities was successful in that their weapons didn’t hurt her and she didn’t kill any of them. Once the language barrier was sorted out, a penthouse and a credit card were arranged for her. Her appearance was originally a massive news story and she found herself deluged with requests for interviews from scholars and gossips. The gossips quickly went away once her total lack of interest in their noise became evident, but she keeps in regular contact with a few of the scholars as they at least were able to match her intellect and they had a genuine interest in her and her history. Despite this, and access to this internet thing, Hyaell is quite bored and more than a little lonely, as whatever spells the temple had to cause time to pass no longer affect her.
Episode 1: Bodyguard: Thus, somehow, she’s ended up on a reality TV show trying to find herself a job. The producers have assured her that after they’ve filmed the five commissioned episodes, if she’s unable to find a job she likes that the production studio will continue to help her find fulfilling employment. For the first episode, she was given a week’s worth of bodyguard training and then tasked with being the actual bodyguard for something called a popstar. This deeply narcissistic woman seemed unable to communicate in any way other than abuse and negativity. Hyaell joined her security detail as Princess Candy Drop went shopping, went to the beauty spa, and prepared for her sell out concert in Athens. Despite Hyaell insistence that she would be better suited as air support, the producers had her as the close protection, deliberately putting the conflicting personalities right in front of the camera. The resulting arguments were exquisite but resulted in Hyaell missing the takedown of a stalker at rehearsals as she was stuck waiting for PCD to choose which shoes best matched her eyebrows. This was not the excitement Hyaell was looking for, so onto the next episode.
Episode 2: Librarian: The production company, always looking for a way to save money, decided to take advantage that one of their expert advisors was a university professor with a slightly antagonistic relationship with Hyaell from her first interviews. So they arranged for Hyaell to work in the university’s library. In principle this would be a job the sphinx was suited for, with her intelligence and cat like grace, but she was just too large to easily fit between the bookshelves. This led to a continuing series of embarrassing moments of getting stuck and knocking things over. The wanted conflict with Prof. Westchester also didn’t make good TV as the academic turned out to be off site at a archaeology dig several time zones away during the placement. The editing team did the best they could out of the footage and the production team spiced things up with a few partially staged interactions with students.
Episode 3: Labourer: A not particularly subtle leak of Hyaell chewing out the assistant director, caught on an intern’s phone camera, made sure that this episode got plenty of gossip website coverage. The source of the sphinx’s ire? Dust and fur do not work well together yet here she was working as a labourer on a building site. Whilst Hyaell’s easily strong enough to carry out the work and her ability to fly was put to good use by the supervisors for carrying loads up the tower in progress, the long hours and physical effort soon left her exhausted and tetchy. Her bad mood was further antagonised, as the production company hoped, by the regressive attitude of some of the other builders, who despite the obvious danger the Hyaell could pose, still could not resist treating her poorly due to her gender. Hyaell being questioned by the police after she held a foreman by his ankles from the 50th floor made excellent footage for the teaser and the move to a second building site helped further fill the episode. Of the experience, Heayell only really enjoyed getting to perch on the roof for her lunch breaks.
Episode 4: Office Temp: Pengali Administrative Services is a subcontracting company that offers off-site clerical services for streamlined productivity. The MD took up the production company’s offer to place Heayell as a way to show off their particular brand of office culture. Said culture includes mandatory milkshake breaks, daily online seminars on vision and values, and non deterministic and holistic work validation process. The actual work itself was dull data input that Heayell found trivial, though the episode did get some good establishing shots of the sphinx arranging her cubicle and installing her custom keyboard. The rest of the episode was filled with her efforts to get her time sheets properly signed off on the Friday evening, a task that became an absurd quest through PAS’s bizarre administrative dogma. The final shot was Heayell dragging an impertinent photocopier into the car park and ritually disemboweling it.
Episode 5: Park Ranger: Of all the potential options Hyaell was the least interested in the park ranger episode. Having spent most of her adult life guarding a temple, she was somewhat wary of a job that would involve quite so much time in the countryside and away from the comforts of her penthouse. Her opinion slowly came around, in part thanks to the mentoring of Lewis Stants, the senior ranger at Holonodto National Park. She showed Hyaell the beauty of the park’s wilderness and how her skills and abilities could uniquely benefit it. This could have made for life affirming but tame TV if it hadn’t been for the illegal loggers, the family in need of rescue, and an out of control bonfire. The production company ended up having to negotiate with the broadcaster to run an extended length episode to fit in all the key scenes so they could tell the narratives they wanted. Hyaell now lives in a refitted cabin in the nearest town to the park and the series closed with her flying off to take aerial photographs of the park.
Though the executive producers were a little disappointed that Hyaell did find a job and thus the series ended, they have caught word of some kind of Taurine fellow in a labyrinth…
Image Credits – A Esfinge By eDufRancisco CC-BY-NC-ND-3.0, Frey Trail through Gutiérrez by Elias Rovielo CC-BY-NC-SA-2.0