A/N: I got stuck. I'm sorry. It's just hard to write things sometimes, y'know? I finally found a way to make this pass the dreaded thousand-word baseline. It's not my best idea, nor my best writing, but it is certainly passable... I hope.
Perhaps warpaint was not the best choice of clothing. And maybe the stereotypical medieval knights' armor was a bit awkward. But the unicorn? One does not simply dis a unicorn, nor the one riding it. Unicorns were obviously far too superior for such incrimination. Especially when said unicorns were Baljeet's only way of escaping his own mind.
That made unicorns especially cool.
"Do you wish to complain further?"
Baljeet spoke of course to his latest obstacle: the ravens of self-doubt.
And why, might you ask, would his self-doubt be represented in the form of a flock of rabid-looking ravens? Baljeet's one failure, of course. The one time that he got less than an A+ on an assignment: the poetry recitations. Now, this was no failure of his memory. He had certainly memorized the poem. It was his nerves that had gotten the better of him. In the middle of a stanza, right after the section about burning incense, he just stopped.
And stood.
Breathless.
He tried to speak, no doubt about that, but the thirteen agonizing seconds of terror felt like an eternity. He recited the rest as quickly as he could to keep from pausing again. His teacher marked off a whole five points, well below his standard and even some of the other students.
He hated ravens.
"Your hair is too curly, never more!"
"Your limbs have no muscle, never more!"
"Even Phineas Flynn could beat you up, never more!"
They each took a turn mocking him, like a deranged group of parrots trained by sadists. Inevitably, Baljeet had to reach a breaking point soon enough. "That is enough!"
"You yell to loudly, never more!"
"Your breath smells like cabbage, never more!"
"It does not!" Baljeet responded boldly as he could, before conspicuously checking his breath. "I... Uh, I withdrawal the previous statement..."
The ravens seemed to cackle, knowing they were gaining an advantage. "You got a 95% on your recitation exam, never more!"
"Shut up, shut up, shut up!" Baljeet shouted.
"You are afraid of contractions, never more!"
"As well I should be!" Baljeet had a perfectly logical fear, and he knew it. Perhaps it was unique, but definitely justified.
"You have been trapped by your own intelligence, and you cannot seem to best it, never more," one perched on his shoulder and whispered in his ear.
"Well it would be helpful if my brain was not trying to kill me!" Baljeet exclaimed angrily. "Really, I ask for a way out and you give me impertinent ravens?! What kind of aid does that offer me?"
"ROAR!" Something roared in a tone that did not in any way resemble the Katy Perry song.
Baljeet's eyes widened in fear. He sort of felt like wetting himself, even if he was seventeen. "It is my Id!"
"You are scared of your own thoughts, never more!" Even as the ravens said it, they were shaking in their feathers, and many flew away.
"DESTROY..." Id growled.
"No, no; no destruction today. Now why don't you just come out so I can defeat you, leave, and we can all have a nice day?" Baljeet squeaked.
"BUFORD..." The creature finished. "You interrupted me."
"Oh- oh, I- sorry, Id, I-"
"Stop, you are making a fool of yourself. Let me come out..." It emerged from wherever it was before, and Baljeet realized it looked absolutely nothing like Candace's Id. His Id was clothed entirely in black, save for a few button-looking things on his chest. His black cape draped off his shoulders and flowed majestically down to the ground. His face wasn't visible, it was covered by a black helmet that made his breathing much louder and wheezier than it should have been. He wielded a light saber with a red blade. "Okay, now let us talk like civilized beings."
"Oh my gosh!" Baljeet fangirled feverishly. "You're Dark Saber!"
"Yes, yes I am."
"Oh... I need to leave my brain."
"That is much more difficult. You must answer my question first."
"Okay, what is it?" Baljeet figured that since this was his brain coming up with the question, he must know whatever it said.
"How does the fifth stanza of "The Raven" by Edgar Allen Poe go?"
... Except for that one.
"Uh… Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there wondering, fearing,
Doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before;
But the silence was… But the silence… Um… I do not know the rest."
"But the silence was unbroken, and the stillness gave no token,
And the only word there spoken was the whispered word,
"Lenore? This I whispered, and an echo murmured back the word, Lenore! —
Merely this and nothing more."
"Fair enough, I will give it to you."
"What? Really?"
"Well, why not? Obviously you knew it somewhere in your brain; I could repeat it back to you. Go ahead. Leave."
That's when Baljeet started floating. Because that, of course, was the logical thing to do. He floated, and floated, and then everything went black.
"You gotta be kidding me, pink's, like, totally better than black," Brittany groaned. She sat atop Buford's lap, her head leaned back onto his shoulder, her hair invading his face.
"Why'd'ya think that?" Buford asked, an eyebrow cocked in genuine curiosity.
"Black's too dead; pink's more... Romantic..." She smiled, determined not to mess this moment up.
Buford, delicately as he could manage, lifted her blanche locks, and swept them all to one side, revealing her whole face to him. "Now?"
Brittany nodded.
Buford leaned in, and finally, for once in his life, he was kissing a girl on the lips. He wrapped his arms around her, and slowly lowered her down onto the couch, him on top.
Then, for some reason, she started thrashing, and kicking, fighting to escape. Buford opened his eyes.
And promptly ran to the bathroom and wretched.