A/N Don't ask me how I got this idea. I don't know. I simply don't know. I am not sure I want to know. Well, I hope it is understanable.
-oOo-
Baltor tried to concentrate. He really did! But after ninety-six hours without sleep it was almost impossible to focus on the letters written on paper. The fact the things seemed to dance was just the last problem.
He let his eyes wander through the room. The Trix were arguing about something while planning the demise of the fairies. The magical books were built do high towers and artefacts were lined up in the poorly made shelves, which were carved into the stone wall. A movement in the edge of his vision and the stared back into the book.
The dancing letters had been the beginning. It wasn't the first time he was awake more than seventy-two hours. Normally he would go to sleep when the hallucinations started but then witches had come back from their newest lost battle against the fairies and hadn't stopped screaming for hours. At this point he had already seen the letters jumping out of the books to chase each other over the walls, tap dance, do acrobatic acts or simply climb on anything they found.
He should go to sleep. He should just go to sleep. He looked after the letters, which had left the page he had tried to read. "Yes, you should just sleep. It would make everything so easy and normal again, wouldn't it?" The letters reached a deathly pale skeleton hand and jumped and climbed upon the sitting person. "Sleep would make me go away. You know it. And even then you don't sleep. It won't get better," the man smiled at him with a happy smile.
Baltor had never known how he would look in black leather and gothic clothes with hair bleached into a white colour and dark make up and piercings, while on arm was just bones. Now he knew it. He didn't really want to know from with part of his mind this thought had come to create this picture.
"It is getting worse. You should just go to sleep. Shut the noise out and close your eyes. We would even shut up then," the voice was the same but Gothic-Baltor hadn't opened his mouth. Baltor blinked. Then he buried his face in his hands, leaving the book open on his lap. The new appeared hallucination smiled at him, while correcting his formal black clothes and the with silver fur trimmed black coat, before binding his black hair into a ponytail.
"I know, the magic is thrumming in your ears like big building machines working right next to you, but you could ignore it," Elegant-Baltor stated. "I am with him there," threw the next Baltor in, while wearing a straightjacket and the white trousers of a patient of a mental hospital. He stood next to the witches and seemed to try out if the young women reacted to him if he shoved his hand through their heads or backs, before winking in front of their eyes. His hair was cut short. Baltor the original changed the page.
The picture on the next double page glowed and the next moment winged balls with long fur, paws and big eyes in all colours of the rainbow started to fill the cave. A wall crashed in and the whole room was filled with light from a place looking a lot like the fields from the monastery of Light-Rock. The fur balls flew out and started to dance in the light. Insane-Baltor had gotten a stick from somewhere and soon at least two dozen of the things were by him in four rows and had started a choir, while the human hallucination showed the tempo. Baltor cursed himself and his short visit to earth in his mind, when the chair stared to sing the soundtrack to the game 'Tetris' he had tried out while being bored.
"You want me to try to look into Baltor's mind through this dragon-fire connection?" Bloom asked startled. Faragonda nodded. "Yes, there is a small change to find the place he is hiding now. We could try to locate him," explained the headmistress of Alfea. "Everything is ready for it. There is a special spell ready to block the connection if there should be a problem." Bloom shrugged and tried to follow the instructions of Faragonda.
Baltor looked around. Goth-Baltor was playing with the letters while painting slides and different circus things into thin air with a brush that seemed to be nicked from this paint loving boyfriend of the plant fairy. Elegant-Baltor had conjured a leather couch to lay on, while using colourful ropes to bind fluff balls of the same colour together to play 'Tetris' with them. Insane-Baltor was leading the choir. "Did I miss something?" a new voice asked. Black trousers, a short sleeved dark red shirt and hair to his chin coloured in neon blue, black and white. He clapped. A disco ball appeared and coloured light bathed the whole picture.
A shrill beep interrupted everything. Well, it interrupted his thoughts. The choir kept singing and the colourful light was still there. The hallucinations didn't react at all outside of the disco ball, which only sent red light. "Well, I think you should look into it. I think the fairies found you," Elegant-Baltor threw in. Baltor blinked. Yes, something had brushed the spells he had used to protect this place. New letters came dancing out of the hallway to the outside. Goth-Baltor caught them and started to laugh hysterical. The Trix had disappeared to 'greet' the newcomers. A few minutes later Griffin, Faragonda and Saladin appeared in front of him.
"This will be over today, Baltor!" hissed Griffin angry. "Sure," the wizard nodded neutrally and looked to the bare cave wall without blinking. Silence settled around them. "What?" Faragonda got out. "What do you try to do this time?" Saladin shouted rising his staff. Ice blue eyes focused on them again. "I don't really care at the moment. I didn't sleep the last for days and my own hallucinations are a lot more interesting than you," the wizard stated after a few seconds and looked back at the empty wall.
"Oh, really?" Griffin hissed. "And what do you see?" The dark wizard blinked. "I couldn't read a word in the last day because the letters jumped away to dance on the floor and do acrobatics. There are four different versions of me and a lot colourful fur balls flying around, singing and dancing in the red light of a disco ball. There is a whole choir."
Elegant-Baltor smirked when the next complete line jumped away from his game to reform with others to build another pieces to be set. The choir got faster with its singing and Party-Baltor had gotten himself a DJ workstation. "Do you need something?" In a formal shirt and trousers, hair bound back, a vest and glasses anew Baltor looked to him with disdain. "I hate you. Get sleep so I can erase myself and cut every connection to you."
The three school leaders started at their greatest enemy. "What?" Griffin got out in a high squeal. Saladin and Faragonda looked startled at the wizard. "Oh, there is a new version. Five of them are around here, now," commented the wizard, sitting lazily in his stone chair and looking around in the room.
"You won't sleep," Serious-Baltor sighed shoving his glasses up. Baltor ignored him and looked at the leather sofa. It would be a lot more comfy than the stone throne. He hadn't thought about sitting in the thing for long when he conjured it. It wasn't very comfortable in the long run. A piece of paper appeared in front of his face. "This is a spell letting everything you see appear in reality," Serious-Baltor explained. "I didn't found a sleeping spell in your memories and the ancestral withes blocked this one after the last time you didn't sleep for a long time. Some similar hallucinations had been there and they whipped it from your memories."
He looked around again, completely ignoring the nearing fairies and the startled school directors, who backed away from him. A frowning Elegant-Baltor had a huge and complicated construct made from fur balls in front of him. Insane-Baltor was sitting on a group of fur balls, arranging them in patterns while a big pendulum had taken his place of showing the choir the pace they needed to sing. In front of them glowing notes hovered. Goth-Baltor had made a whole circus made from ink. There were animals and acrobats and animal tamers and a few other things. ...was that popcorn? Well, at the moment he played bowling, having cheerfully jumping coloured fur balls as his audience, cheering him on. Three ink hands hovered in the air and braided his hair. DJ-Baltor had gotten a fogger and a dance floor with several levels together with small floating cushions on with the fur balls cuddled. Series-Baltor was rubbing his temples. Insane-Baltor and DJ-Baltor waved at him. The disco ball had gotten more colours again. Serious-Baltor shoved the paper in his hands.
Griffin stared at the paper, which had materialized itself in Baltor's hands. The book resting on his lap fell down on the floor. Ice-blue eyes looked at glowing runes. Bloom blinked. "Why do I hear the soundtrack from the game 'Tetris'?" A plop was hair and suddenly there was a leather couch in the cave. Another plop and a formal clothed Baltor was sitting in, not giving them a single glance. Everyone froze. Another plop and a Baltor in clothes of the gothic-scene appeared. This one winked at them and wrote with a skeleton hand something on a clipboard. Many plops followed. Stella gave a high shriek and fled from the room, taking Layla, Musa and Tecna with her. Flora backed out, while Faragonda, Griffin and Saladin were swapped out in a wave of fur balls, which looked at the remaining Bloom in with big eyes. Bloom squealed and grabbed a few to cuddle them.
The Baltor with glasses looked around and rubbed his temples, before righting his glasses. "Girl, do you know any spells to put someone asleep?" he asked. Bloom blinked and frowned. She knew a few after the disaster in her second year. "Yes...why?" she replied. "Put him asleep," he pointed at the original Baltor, "The spell shows what the one using it sees. He is hallucinating because of too less sleep. The spell doesn't work for long but I can force him to use it again and again and again." Bloom looked around and thought how her friends had disappeared when the hallucinations got reality. "Okay. I will use one on him."
One moment there was a colourful party of fur balls, the next moment everything was bathed away in darkness and sleep swapped over him. He could feel how his strained mind relaxed. He didn't fight it.
"So, he is asleep. Shouldn't you disappear, now?" Bloom asked with a curious glance around. The DJ workstation was still there together with the version of Baltor using it. The living ink was still there and there was still the fur ball in her arms, which liked how she cuddled with it. The Baltor with glasses looked around and then smirked. "I don't like him. But why should I kill myself? There were a few sleeping spells in his memories he could have used on himself but then I would have disappeared," he shrugged. "So...you all are real, now?"
"The dragon-fire can work miracles. It doesn't matter if it's light or dark," the Baltor in straightjacket threw in. The Baltor in formal attire looked around and changed the stone throne into a soft sofa. "Yes, we are real, now. Together with these fur balls," he waved around and worked on his game again. Bloom cuddled her fur ball. "I will keep this one," she decided. The Baltor with glasses shrugged and sat down in a highchair, which hadn't been there before. "Do what you want," he said and grabbed a book.