A/N: Well, will you look at that. I'm not dead! Haha, I was bored one day and Muse has been bugging me ever since I found an old drawing I did of her, so I'm back, and the show that never actually goes on will continue to well… go on. In a way. Sense. Thingamajiga.

OH AND READ THIS CAUSE I'M NOT TELLING YOU IN THE ACTUAL STORY – THE POV FROM WHICH THIS IS NARRATED HAS CHANGED AGAIN. IT'S NOW GEN-U-INE THIRD PERSON OMNESCIENT, PEOPLES. But Muse is still the main-ish character.

Also, I highly recommend you read 'Crazy Creatures of Mossflower' first if you want to understand this fic. The writing in CCOM isn't really good, and I'm not that proud of it, but you it would really help if you read it. :)

Welcome to Chapter Seven, my friends, better known as the beginning of the end.

"I. Am a bloody. Flickering. Humanoid-shaped. Light. Bloody flickering humanoid-shaped lights. Do not. Get the common cold."

At least, that's what Muse was telling herself, sitting alone on the stage of a sad-looking empty theater, flickering feet propped up on the dusty surface of the desk in front of her. The swivel chair in which she sat squeaked softly as she rocked it back and forth, tapping her fingers on the armrest impatiently and staring at a laptop screen. A pile of used and re-used tissues had built up around her, spilling out of the wire wastebasket perched precariously between the desk and a hole in the stage floor. As she watched, bored, a few of the tissues fell from the wastebasket into the hole.

Muse turned her face to the ceiling, yelling and pointing one flickering had up towards the sky, talking to someone who wasn't there. "This is all YOUR FAULT YOU KNOW! You stupid authoress, you bloody forgot I EXISTED! Criminal negligence, that's what this is! NEGLIGENCE!"

Muse's angry, shrieking voice resounded through the dark theater, bouncing back from the faded walls with their peeling paint and the torn upholstery of the chairs. The theater really was a sad place now. After a few weeks, even Bob had left to find someplace else to go. "Anywhere's better than hanging around this deserted place waiting for something to happen." He'd said.

"Heh. I should've gone with them, when they left…" Muse said to herself, tapping out a sentence on her laptop, snorting in frustration, and deleting it. She leaned forward to the desk, grabbed yet another tissue and blew her nose loudly. "Geezes, I'm a bloody MUSE and even I can't come up with any ideas to write life into THIS place. Lost cause."

"I wouldn't be so sure of that, if I were you."

Muse jumped, knocking the tissues off the desk in her haste to get her feet down and sending her laptop crashing loudly to the wooden stage floor. She whipped around, the poor abused chair screaming in protest at the sudden motion. "YOU!" She yelled angrily, pointing one pale pulsating finger at the intruder.

"Me." Said the newcomer with a smirk. Unlike Muse, the newcomer didn't give off her own light, nor have a flickering insubstantial form. But there definitely was some similarity, if only in the atmosphere they both exuded. The newcomer was leaning casually against the wall behind the dust-laden, moth-eaten curtain, tossing an old black microphone up and down easily. Her skin and hair were unnaturally pale, both practically snow white. The eyes she turned on Muse were also pale, such a light blue as to be almost not a color. They were wide and had a distinct look of madness to them – maybe because of the bags underneath them, or dark ring that went around the lower lid. And though the intruder wasn't her own personal light source, she made up for it by wearing obscenely bright, neon, I-will-burn-your-retinas-out colors of green and orange mixed together. A bright green hoodie, neon orange jeans and green sneakers with orange laces, she resembled some kind of mutated, insane citrus fruit.

"What do YOU want, Lime?" Muse asked coldly.

"Me? Nothing. Just to not be here." The newcomer, Lime, said with a smirk, taking the microphone, weighting it, then chucking it as far as she could across the theater. She gave a little satisfied smile when it landed. "Ooh, row twenty, I'm improving."

"If you don't want to be here, than why ARE you here?" Muse asked, blowing her nose for what seemed like the millionth time.

"Because, Muse, our beloved authoress saw fit to send me to pay you a visit."

"Oh, how kind of her. I'm so very flattered." Muse's icy voice was literally dripping sarcasm.

Lime gave her another crooked grin, shoving her pale hands in her pockets and ambling across the stage. She stopped at the hole and looked down into it. "How exactly did this get here?" She asked, cocking her head to the side.

"I really don't know. You'd have to ask Aster."

Suddenly Lime perked up, clapping her hands together. "Oh, right! Aster! Now I remember!"

"Remember what." Again. Nose blowing. Stupid common cold.

Lime grinned a wide, Cheshire cat grin. "I'm here as a convenient plot device to deliver you a message. The show must go on!" She exclaimed, striking a dramatic pose and casting her hands to the sky.

Muse stared.

And stared.

And stared.

Lime's grin faltered and she lowered her hands. "Well?" She asked.

"Well what?"

"You're the muse for these situations. It's your job to get the show on."

"Tch!" Muse said, and swiveled away from Lime, facing the back wall of the stage. "That ship sailed a long time ago. Two or so YEARS, actually."

"But… but… but…" Lime stuttered, her cheerful demeanor taking a blow. What was wrong with Muse? Muse used to be so nice. "Two years is ages! C'mon, Muse, I know you! I bet you must have hundreds – thousands – of ideas cramped up in that glowy little head of yours!" Crossing the floor to the chair, Lime knocked her knuckles on the top of Muse's somewhat-there somewhat-not head none to gently.

"Ow! Lime, cut it out!" Muse yelled, swatting her hand away. "I don't care about that stupid little story anymore, okay? So leave me alone."

Lime backed off, looking hurt. "But Muse… You're a muse."

"Pssh! That's easy for YOU to say. YOU'RE the original fiction muse. YOU'VE been plenty busy. I'm just the fan fiction Muse."

"But… You helped me Muse. I wouldn't be a muse without you."

Muse blew her nose again and threw the used tissue over her shoulder. It fluttered to the ground at Lime's feet. "Yeah, well, you are. So I'm not needed anymore."

Lime thought for a moment, and then her smirk slowly returned. "Actually, Muse… you are."

"Oh really? Please, do tell."

Lime grinned wickedly. "Dear Paths still wants reviews and feedback. I can't provide them. YOU can."

For a while, Muse said nothing. Then, slowly, with one long creak her chair turned around. Her eyes- slightly brighter spots in her glowing face- locked with Lime's. "You're telling me… that Paths is still a reviewwhore?"

"Yup."

"ASTER!"

"The resounding clatter of pots and pans and the shrieking of an irritated squirrel maid rang through the kitchen of Redwall abbey.

"Uh… Hehehehehe?" Aster said with a sheepish grin, peeking out from beneath the tumbled-down bowls. Her face was streaked with dough, flour, and frosting – frosting which Milfoil had labored over for the better part of an hour that afternoon, preparing it for her cake. It had taken her ages to get it perfect.

And now, thanks to one stupid, bumbling mousemaid, that was ruined."

Milfoil sighed, wiping her paws off on a dishrag and helping Aster up. "Uh… sorry about that Millie… I couldn't resist, the frosting looked so good."

Milfoil sighed. "Yes, well, I guess it was only a matter of time before something went wrong. It's not every day I have to prepare the feature dessert for the Abbott's biggest feast this YEAR, because the REGULAR cook went and got sick so of COURSE with MY luck, it'd fall to ME…" She mumbled to herself, bustling around and cleaning up, taking the catastrophe in a stride and preparing to start all over again. It was hard to stay mad at Aster. And Milfoil knew Aster couldn't help it, it was in her nature to be an annoying klutz. In fact, Aster was the only one who'd really managed to learn nothing since they'd relocated from the studio to the Abbey, after Milfoil had finally given up on her show. They'd settled in well at the Abbey, even the vermin who'd worked the set had found someplace they fit in.

'It's not like the ABBEY isn't different from what it should be.' She thought to herself. 'There's people from ALL of the books here, all at the same time, and nobody thinks it's weird at all. I guess they wouldn't. The studio was weirder.'

Really, the only difference at the Abbey was the lack of Muse, the authoress, and random things appearing from nowhere due to convenient holes in the space/time continuum. In fact, things had stopped turning up out of nowhere only a few weeks after they'd arrived. All the paperclips – which Aster had brought, for some strange reason – disappeared too. The only really weird thing left from the studio…

"FOUR PLUS FOUR EQUALS EIGHT!"

…was Bob, the amazing talking coffee bean.

"Yes, Bob, we KNOW already. Now please tell me the first ingredient I need for the frosting." Milfoil said with a sigh, setting down a bowl by where the little coffee bean lay atop an open cookbook, next to the recipe.

"Oh, uh… you need some butter."

"Thank you, Bob." Milfoil said.

Aster dragged a stool over and sat down, watching Milfoil cook. "Hey, did you know that Wakka tried to cut down one of the oldest apple trees in the orchard yesterday? It took both Martins, Matthias, AND Mattimeo to drag him off. He had a lumberjack relapse."

Milfoil snickered. "Oh, really? Where is he now?"

"They're keeping him locked in a solitary, interior, windowless room in the infirmary 'for his own safety', until the relapse passes."

"Well, I hope he's out by tomorrow. We wouldn't him to miss the feast."

"Yeah, where else would find someone psycho enough to declare war on Salamandastron because one of the hares ate the last piece of peach pie?" Aster snickered, munching on a candied chestnut.

"Yeah, I know, right?" Milfoil, laughed, turning to go get some sugar…

…only to find that there was some on the table, right in front of her.

Where there had previously been no sugar.

"Uhh, Aster? Did you see where that came from?"

"Huh? Where what…?" She turned around, and saw the sugar Milfoil was pointing at. "Whoa. That's weird…"

"Bob, did you…Bob?" Milfoil turned to ask the coffee bean if he knew (she couldn't really say seen, because Bob had no eyes, but somehow he always knew exactly what was going on just as if he had eyes, ears, and a nose.) where the sugar came from.

Only there was a problem.

The coffee bean wasn't there.

"Bob? BOB? Where'd you go? Bob?"

Milfoil was looking around frantically, but the coffee bean was nowhere to be seen. Aster, however, was frozen in shock, staring at the doorway. She tugged on Milfoil's sleeve.

"Uuh, Millie…"

"Aster, BOB'S GONE! HE'S GONE!"

"Millie…"

"Oh, no, what if he disappeared like the paper clips? He was ALIVE! It's not FAIR, they can't just take-"

"Millie…"

"WHAT? WHAT IS SO IMPORTANT THAT YOU DON'T CARE THAT BOB IS GOOONE?" The squirrelmaid screeched, rounding on Aster.

Aster just pointed to the door.

"Millie, we have a visitor."

Slowly, cautiously, afraid of what she might see, Milfoil turned around.

"I'm flattered you were so worried about me, Milfoil, but really, I'm fine!" Bob called from the doorway. "And wasn't it nice of her, she gave you the sugar you were looking for, after all this time…"

Bob was indeed fine. He was sitting in a hand – not a paw, a hand, a glowing, flickering hand – attached to a glowing, flickering figure leaning casually in the doorway.

"Oh, no…" Milfoil breathed.

"Heeeey, Millie!" Aren't you glad to see me?" Muse called cheerily, waving a flickering hand.

Milfoil moaned and dropped her face into her paws. "My life. It just got a whole lot weirder, didn't it?" She asked.

"Yup." Muse responded cheerfully. And when she looked up, Milfoil could've sworn that somehow, with her indistinct features, Muse was grinning a Cheshire smirk.

A/N:And that's where it ends for now, folks! Please review, Kay? It'd make me veeeery happy.

Sorry for the lack of my former random humor, but I think this little fic is going to take a more serious turn in the future. I have an idea, something epic and possibly dark, possibly involving Mary Sues, brewing in my mind. There'll still be humor, it'll just be more grim and less random ZOMG!11!1!LOLOLOLOLOLOL humor.

So, MUSE, LIME, MILFOIL, ASTER, AND BOB THE COFFEE BEAN ALL BELONG TO ME KAY? Everything else is the intellectual property of the amazing Brian Jaques.