Time often moves strangely in dreams ...

[hard_talker]

[Wednesday morning finds Mark sitting in the middle of the Tulgey Wood, rolling over on the soft patch of moss he nodded off on while keeping his still-fairy girlfriend company. he'd gone through the mirror as soon as he'd realized that was where she'd gone off to, and, well.

things were certainly interesting.

he reaches out, trying to find where he'd put his glasses, only to see that they're ... not there]

Okay, where the fuck are my glasses...

[and then a strange-looking bird flutters down from one of the trees and perches itself on his shoulders]

Oh. -- HEY, wait a second!! Get off, you're not -- [SIGH.] Shit. I forgot to broadcast on Monday. ... Then again, that's kinda hard to do with no radio. F'I had a ham radio, I might be able t' do it tonight. Hey, castle! Can y' still hear me? I'll take a ham radio and my damn glasses back, f'you got 'em.

[pause]

Two actual glasses and a glazed ham with pineapple ring dials and bug antennae. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding me.

[he's just going to sit there and stare at the damn thing] This is not gonna fly.

[and then the ham radio sprouts swallow wings and starts fluttering away]

HEY!

... [he's laughing as he says it, but still:] Goddammit!

Comments

[eat_me_beat_me]

[there's a fairy up in a tree sitting behind your glasses, Mark. She's peering through them as she tries to figure out how they work.]

[hard_talker]

[he's never going to catch that ham, now. at this rate he might as well wish up another one and hope it doesn't show up with wings, too]

Nora? You out there?

[eat_me_beat_me]

[Nora still doesn't understand why this boy decided to become her protector. She isn't going to complain, though. He seems nice enough and is smarter than the other newcomers who'd been showing up. She picks up his glasses by the temples and stands, walking around the diameter of the branch, using her wings to keep her balance. She ends up "standing" on the underside of the branch, smiling at him]

I'm up here.

[hard_talker]

... Whoa. [he can't help but grin, as frustrating as this place is - it's weird, too.

and weird, as someone might once have said, is cool]

How're you doin' that?

[eat_me_beat_me]

[She snorts]

They're called wings.

[She grins and lets herself fall, extending her wings to catch the breeze and pull her upright again.]

dictated

[foin]

A broadcast? [Welcome newbie!]

[hard_talker]

Yeah, over the journals and the radio... You new?

[foin]

I am. I was only here a few days before this whole thing started.

[hard_talker]

Sounds about right. That's how Castle Wonderfuck really likes to welcome people. Right after I arrived, there were giant rats, and a room where everything was made of candy.

Dictated forever

[mal_addict]

...You too, Mark?

[hard_talker]

Yeah, I -- I couldn't find Nora, and then I heard her talking to somebody else about stuff, and figured she'd ended up on the other side of that mirror ...

... She did, but ... she thinks she's always been here. [he sounds understandably upset about that]

[mal_addict]

...Oh, so it's playing with people's heads too. Wonderful.



Okay, you're forgiven because at least your stupid thing was done out of concern and not actual stupidity.

[hard_talker]

Please, I don't even go on the expeditions, are you kidding me?

[mal_addict]

Wise move it is, too. Who'd want to willing put themselves through stupidity like that is beyond me.

[courageous_wit]

I think we can forgive you for not broadcasting, given the circumstances.

[hard_talker]

Heh, thanks. You okay? Or did you stay on the other side of the mirror this time?

[courageous_wit]

I'm afraid I'm as much a part of this madness as you.

[forsometimenow]

[There's an audible stifled giggle.]

An actual ham radio. Sounds tasty.

[cyan_maid]

...A radio literally made of ham?

[silentrunning]

[Chell's taking a run. There's just so much to see... And she's never gonna see it all if she's just walking along like this, right? RIGHT.

So there's a girl darting through the woods. Running and running and running. It feels good to run like this. She can't do it in the castle.

She's running in Mark's direction when a ham goes fluttering toward her. She stops to gawk at it for a moment, and then dives, tackling the ham to the ground so she can stare at it more. WTF... Is this a ham?

Chell sniffs at it in utter confusion before standing up, still holding it, trying to keep it from getting away.]