Mission #6, Part 2
“To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe…”
Maria leaned against the closet wall, singing through a mouthful of fruitcake. She was getting very bored waiting for the Sue to fall asleep, and boredom required singing. This would have been a whole lot easier if they could have just portalled into the Dreaming, but the geography of the continuum was so unstable that Crispin didn’t want to risk it. Therefore, Maria was bored, and Maria was singing.
Crispin was not amused. “No more Man of La Mancha. Please.”
“Fine.” Maria thought for a moment. “I dreamed a dream in time gone by…”
“Gyah!” Crispin covered his ears. He had nothing against Les Mis in general, but working with Maria meant hearing it a lot. “Can you go through one mission without singing showtunes?”
“Of course I can.” For a moment, it was quiet. Then the quiet stopped.
“Mr Sandman, bring me a dream
Make her complexion like peaches and cream…”
“Maria!”
“That’s not a showtune.” Maria took another piece of fruitcake. “Is she asleep yet?”
“I think we’ll know when she-”
The closet lurched, and the two agents were propelled into the surreal landscape of the Dreaming, trailing crumbs of fruitcake behind them. Even the spatio-temporal shift could not stop Maria from singing fifty-year-old pop songs.
They caught up with the Sue as she encountered a friend fighting off an army of carrots, after she’d wandered through several dreams belonging to other people. Crispin muttered angrily that she was displaying all the signs of a Vortex, which meant that Morpheus should have been trying to kill her by now.
I frown “that doesn’t make any since, I drifted off while watching television.”
“Really? What were you watching? I was watching Superman.”
“Aw. That was on tonight? I was watching Nerd and the Barbie. Wait. So if I’m not dreaming you. And your definitely not dreaming me than what’s happening?”
“Maybe we are dream sharing.” Suxie suggested.
Maria snickered. “I’m pretty sure that’s supposed to be a clever spelling for ‘Suzie,’ but…Suxie? That’s just wrong.”
Crispin looked thoughtful. “I’m not that good with popular TV shows, but if that was supposed to be a false name for ‘Beauty and the Geek,’ that sets this in the early twenty-first century. Daniel should be Dream, not Morpheus.”
They waited as the Sue continued to get bounced around the Dreaming. After a switch from present tense into past, she at last encountered Morpheus, who should have been dead. Crispin, from the agents’ hiding place behind a conveniently located chair, pointed his CAD at Dream.
[Morpheus/Oneiros/Lord Shaper/Kai’ckul/L’Zoril/Etc. Endless male. Canon. OOC: 72.8888888%. WARNING! CHARACTER RUPTURE! Note: Character should be dead. Character isn’t dead. This is Wrong.]
“Thanks,” Crispin whispered.
“A better question,” he said “would be, what are You doing in everyone else’s dreams. You have been in everyone’s minds tonight, interrupting their subconscious. What are you, Lilac Dusk?” he asked.
I didn’t understand the question. I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant, but the door to the chamber was thrown open and a voice said “She is one of ours Morpheus, and you are not to harm her.”
“One of who?” asked Maria. “One of the Endless? One of these ambiguous ‘three people?’ Who are these people and why do they get to boss Dream around?”
“I don’t know. I don’t think I want to know.” Crispin looked at the ambiguous three people, the Sue, and the OOC Morpheus. “I know I don’t want to know.”
***
Now I was in a maze garden. I breathed in and could smell flowers. I stretched my arms and closed my eyes. When I opened them again I was in the middle of the maze. A man wearing a cloak with a book in his hands stood in front of me.
This was the fifth Realm of the Endless the Sue had entered, not counting the Dreaming, and everyone seemed to be okay with it. Except for Crispin and Maria. And Crispin’s CAD, who was refusing to turn itself back on after it read Desire’s character.
“So, she’s a Vortex…for all the Realms. What part of ‘Vortexes must die’ does she not understand? Has she read any of the comic books?” Crispin glared at the Sue. “Can we kill her now?”
The Sue had returned to the Dreaming, where the mysterious ‘three people’ were explaining that she was some kind of princess. There was still no indication as to who these people were, what their connection was to the Endless, or why Morpheus hadn’t done something nasty to them yet.
“Can we give her to the Corinthian?” Maria asked. “Please?”
“Why would you want to go anywhere near the Corinthian?”
Maria looked away. “Because…he’s cool.”
“He eats people’s eyes. He spent decades on Earth as a serial killer and did all kinds of disgusting and terrible things. And you think he’s cool.”
“Well, the second version of the Corinthian. The nicer one.”
“I still wouldn’t call him ‘nice.’ No, we’re not giving the Sue to the Corinthian. That wouldn’t get rid of the body, anyway. Maybe we could throw her into Hell?”
“Nah.” Maria frowned. “I don’t think Remiel would let us. And that wouldn’t get rid of all of her, either. Let’s kill her, then throw her in the Seine.”
“Why the Seine? Paris is only mentioned…what, once? They visit London and New York a lot more. Why not the Thames? Or the Atlantic Ocean?”
“I like Paris. Since you won’t let me give her to the Corinthian, I want to throw her body in the Seine.”
Crispin gave up. Sometimes, there was no arguing with Maria. “Fine. We’ll throw her in the Seine. But I get to kill her.”
I sat up, rubbing sleep from my eyes. I remembered the words that were spoken to me when I was young; about how the crust in my eyes was actually sand put on me by the Sandman to make me sleep soundly. It felt good to get the sand out of my eyes.
“Hi, there,” Crispin said, emerging from the closet. “Good morning.”
The Sue screamed and tried to get out of bed. Maria thwacked her on the shoulder with her truncheon. “Stay there, please. Thank you.”
Crispin cleared his throat. “Lilac Dusk, you are charged with having hair and skin colors that defy all common sense, gratuitous use of present tense, poor descriptions of the Endless, causing wine to materialize in an ice cream parlor, inconsistent point-of-view, creating pointless ominous visits by beings who have more important things to do, replacing Daniel with Morpheus-who should be dead-displaying all the signs of a Vortex and not being killed, comma abuse, making up stupid names, causing character ruptures in Morpheus, Death, Delirium, Desire, and probably Despair and Destiny as well, but we don’t know because you traumatized my CAD, apparently being a Vortex for all the Realms of the Endless, being a magical princess, annoying PPC Agents, and being a Mary-Sue. For these crimes you are sentenced to death and then to be thrown into the Seine. Any last words? No? Good.”
Crispin threw one of his fire spheres at the Sue, who burned too quickly to scream. Soon she was reduced to a small pile of ash. “Um…I don’t think there’s really anything to throw in the Seine.”
“I’ll throw the ashes in, then. I want to go to Paris.”
***
Dream was garbed in white again, and there was no sign of the ambiguous ‘three people.’ They presumably had vanished when the Sue was killed, being too poorly defined to exist without her. Crispin opened a portal to Paris before someone noticed him.
Maria was looking down into the Seine and eating the last of the fruitcake. She glanced up at Crispin. “Not much of her actually went in the Seine. Ash doesn’t like to fall straight down.”
“Huh. Can we go back now?”
“Fine.” Maria took a last longing look at Paris before stepping through the portal, and sighed.
When they returned to the RC, Repicheep came as close to glomping Crispin as a small dragon can manage. Crispin tentatively patted the Mini. Maybe it wasn’t a horrible anniversary present. There were certainly worse things.
Notes
The TARDIS is from Doctor Who and is the property of the BBC.
Crime and Punishment is by Fyodor Mikhailovich Dostoevsky. The sappy character in question is Sofia Semionovna Marmeladov.
The tradition of lilacs on the Glorious Twenty-Fifth of May is the property of Terry Pratchett.
“I, Don Quixote” is from the musical Man of La Mancha, and it is the fault of certain agents from the Invasion RP that it is the unofficial (and despised) PPC battle song. “The Impossible Dream” is also from Man of La Mancha.
“I Dreamed a Dream” is from Les Misérables.
“Mr. Sandman” was written by Pat Ballard and originally recorded by the Chordettes.
“Beauty and the Geek” is the property of the CW.