The fellow at the head of the table, when Sidney, Sparky, Mulcahy and
Hawkeye opened their eyes (an interesting fact in and of itself, as they
had assumed, as had we all, that their eyes were already open) had his
hands planted sternly on the sides of the table, his fingers gripping the
wood, his elbows so straight as to be slightly bent in the wrong direction
as he eyed each one of them in turn. His eyes narrowed as his head turned
from left to right. He was bald, with light, wispy white hair around the
top of his neck, long enough to float slightly in a gentle, wafting breeze.
His nose was sharp and severe, as were most of his features, including his
small blue-green eyes.
"Good. Good. Everybody's here, it seems," he spoke. He turned to the right side of the table, where there were three chairs. In the first, closest to the bald man, Hawkeye sat. Sidney sat next to him, and in the third chair was a slight, blond-haired private of no more than 17 or 18, who squirmed in his seat and seemed to blush and grow pale in turns. "Everyone who should be," he smiled, then turned to the left side of the table, where sat, in three similar chairs, Father Mulcahy, Sparky, and a tall, handsome man in olive drab who had his arms crossed and a self- assured smile on his face. The old man's words grew somber, "And some who really shouldn't."
The man stood up and leaned over the table, peering at Sparky. "I'm surprised /you/ got through at all, corpse-taint."
"And you," his words turned to fall onto the priest as he stood upright again and stretched his back, "Well, I'm grateful for your help, and I'll own up to it, but criminy if you didn't give me the most thorough beating I've had since Radar decided to take Randy sledding. Pardon me if I'm slightly hesitant."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, slow down a second so us kids in the back of the class can catch up." Hawkeye stood, pushing the heavy chair back with some difficulty, and came to stare the stern-looking man in the eye. "Where, exactly, is here?"
And the man, in turn, slid back down into the seat of honor, spreading his arms wide in a loose shrug, "You tell US, Hawkeye Pierce. You brought us here, after all."
Hawkeye DID know where they were. He just needed to be reminded of the fact before he could process it properly. He looked down the table, set with teacups and other paraphernalia which he could scarcely name but all of which LOOKED right, anyhow. A fat, round rodent waddled along the table's length away from the stern man before it reached a tray of biscuits and began to grab one. The tray was settled at the left hand of an eighth man, seated on the opposite end of the table from the severe one.
The four visitors from the M*A*S*H unit seemed not to have noticed this gentleman OR his left hand before the dormouse brought their attention to him. His hair was brown and curly, reminding Hawkeye slightly of Trapper's, though much darker, and, oddly enough, interrupted on each side of his head by a round pair of darkly furred bear-ears. His eyelashes were long, his eyes invisible under them as he looked down and stroked the sleeping lamb that curled up in his arms.
Hawkeye broke out into a grin, "Ah-ah!" he turned his head back to the severe man, his voice indicating that he'd proudly found a mishap, here, "If that's true, then where's your--"
The man's hand coming up from under the table, bringing up a large top hat and settling it on his bald crown.
"Hat." Hawkeye finished. "The Mad Hatter-- we're in Wonderland?" He spun his head around toward the other fellow, cradling Radar opposite. "And you must be the... March Bear?"
"Well, darn," Sidney intoned, "Now I wish I'd brought my little notebook and pencil. No thanks," He added, nonchalantly enough holding up a hand of protest to the overstuffed rodent that tried to drop a half-chewed biscuit onto his breadplate.
"Wonderland," smiled the Mad Hatter. "Yes, you can call it a land of wonders, but don't," he warned, "wonder too hard upon it, or else you're like as not to break something. Do pardon if my friend is unresponsive," he added. Indeed, the March Bear hadn't even looked up at being addressed. "He's still tending to our young ward's wounds. But have no fear; Radar will recover, now, and all thanks to your help."
Mulcahy puzzled over the words, wondering why they sounded familiar. Then, as the mists parted easily in this land, he knew. "You're--" is all he began, however, before he was interrupted.
"Bantelhopp, yes, Priest Father. You are suprised to see me in this shape. Well, talk to Hawkeye Pierce about it, it was his idea."
And with that, the man turned his head slightly. From the new angle, it was clear to everyone that he wasn't a man at all, but, in fact, an eight- foot-tall dragon with long, clawed fingers and a whipping tail tipped with a row of ridged spikes, and the head of a large bird of prey, a large, sharp beak curving down between his aquamarine eyes. He continued to speak.
"My friend's name is Qotenmatch. Again, pardon if he doesn't stand up. The forces of Autumn grow strong in your world again. It is the natural order of things, but that doesn't mean that the creatures of summer do not die without pain."
Hawkeye and Sidney, seeming to have the same idea at once, opened their mouths, only to be cut off with a lifting of a long finger by Bantelhopp. "Yes. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm certain my young ward's words misled you into thinking that your Korean war would end 'ere this fall. That is most certainly not the case." The dismay around the table was palpable.
"Well... How do you know?" Sparky, his brow furrowed, questioned.
"Our dear ward only meant that--" Bantelhopp paused. "Uh-oh."
"What?" Qotenmatch looked up briefly, showing his brown, warm eyes, now draped in worry.
"Wait for it--" Bantelhopp muttered, squirming around and climbing up the back of the chair to perch on its back, making his stature all the greater.
It wasn't long before a thundering of hooves was heard, now in the distance, now close by, now here, as out of nowhere an eight-legged horse of snow-white pelt came thund'ring in, rearing its front four legs up into the air as it neighed in discontent, rousing most of the people around the table out of their seats. Atop the horse was a woman in red robes, her hair dark black and spiked in an unnaturally tall thicket that swayed above her head. Her face was lovely, but marred with a sneer as she looked down upon the assembled party.
"WHO?" She asked, the word a question on its own, but, after a haughty pause, followed up by, "Is the Kithain present?"
"Miss," Bantelhopp replied, his own voice suddenly becoming less didactic, more humble. "Our Fae lord is currently recuperating from a close call with a Corpse and an Autumn Man."
The woman coughed and lifted her nose, peering across the table's length at the sleeping lamb. "I see. And does he know you bring these men into the Dreaming without his say on the matter?"
Hawkeye Pierce was so entirely amused to hear anybody -- but ANYBODY -- call Radar a 'lord' that he missed the note of contempt in the lady's voice as she pronounced the word "men" down upon the group, glaring at him, in particular.
"Miss--" the dragon chirped, "These are the dreamers who helped bring Radar around. And they came here under the power of this one, Hawkeye Pierce, whose grasp of the ways of Glamour is formidable among men."
"I'm not so shabby at badminton, either," Hawkeye quipped, drawing the woman's attention back to him, again.
"Bow, mortal, in the presence of the Sidhe," she snapped from atop her mount, and, much to everyone's surprise, most of all his own, Hawkeye executed a perfectly gallant model of one. Sidney, Mulcahy, and Sparky followed suit, equally without their reasoning consent, and they all remained bent double in attitudes of respect while the Sidhe looked over the rest of the chimerae. Qotenmatch was still coddling Radar, though he looked up nervously from time to time. The tall, handsome fellow stood with his arms folded across his chest, and the blond-haired private cowered behind him, peeking out at the noble Kithain.
"Mistress, please," Bantelhopp objected, "We meant no harm. We merely sought to address the dreamers in person, and this... this is how they chose to come."
The Sidhe slipped one long leg about to drape along the side of the horse's neck, executing a bounding dismount and landing in the middle of the table, as if afraid to be on the same level as the rest of the partygoers. "My true and heartfelt sympathies to your master and his problems," she spoke bluntly, nothing true or heartfelt in her tone. "But you simply can't go bringing people into the Dreaming. Especially," she pointed a finger accusatorially at Sparky, glaring at Bantelhopp, "Those that reek of corpse."
Sparky tilted his head to sniff under an arm, then shrugged innocently at Hawkeye.
The Red Queen paused as Bantelhopp shamedly hung his head, "My apologies, miss, I didn't think--"
"You're right. You didn't think. And what in the name of the returning Spring is THAT thing?"
Father Mulcahy had, through concerted effort, thrown off the compulsion to bow that had been imposed upon him by the Sidhe, and was glowering up at her by the time she noticed that he wasn't quite an everyday Dreamer.
"I-- I don't know, Miss--" Bantlehopp stammered.
"Ignoramus! Get it out of here! Not in five minutes, not in two. Not even now! Yesterday! Or you'll compel me to remove its head from its shoulders!"
Her vibrant eyes met the Hunter's gaze, and saw that he was not afraid. Covering the ounce of timidity that crept into her own soul from his presence with a gallon of flair, she bent her knees and leapt off of the table in a swirl of her glistening red robes. A swift flick of the reigns, and the woman and horse disappeared as quickly as they'd appeared in the clearing.
Sidney peered after the Red Queen in the direction he thought she might have gone. "Who was she?" He wondered.
"Yes." Bantelhopp replied. "She was Sidhe." (Sidhe, pronounced She)
"Huh?"
"Anyway, pay her no mind, we will be leaving soon enough. You can--" The dragon coughed, "Stand up, now... we've got to focus on the matter at hand." The three who had remained bent for the better part of the encounter now stood.
"Well I, for one, am for NOT BEING HERE when she gets back, /whichever/ she she is." Hawkeye informed the table, round-eyed.
The dormouse crept out from under an overturned teacup, and squeaked.
Sidney nodded, "Me, three."
"Me, four, and five, and six!" Sparky muttered.
Father Mulcahy would probably have been just as fascinated with the prospect of finding that woman again and showing her just what he thought of her forcing her will on others, for the purposes of the moment, he just nodded.
Bantelhopp looked desperately down the table, and chirruped at the tall, handsome fellow who was ruffling the hair of the short, blond private. The man nodded and stepped forward, smiling pleasantly.
"Hawkeye," he started, in a startlingly familiar voice. He sauntered around the table to put a hand on the captain's shoulder. "Come on, sit down, we've got things to go over. Don't worry about her, your priest over there scared her nearly off her saddle. And besides, I haven't seen you in a while. We've got a lot to catch up on. What's all this I hear about my being dead?"
Hawkeye gaped. The voice-- he knew that voice, slightly tinged with a German lilt. He knew this man; the man stood about six foot four... was stunning with a smirk of a smile, auburn hair, and hazel eyes. "Tuttle?"
Tuttle grinned and threw his arms around Hawkeye ecstatically. "Hawk! You remembered." He laughed and withdrew from the hug, holding one of Hawkeye's shoulders with one hand while clapping him firmly on the other. "Well, I suppose it's the least you could have done to remember, after I forged those requisition forms for you, huh?"
Hawkeye grinned widely, unreasonably pleased by coming across his old friend. "And after I forged a /reality/ for you, huh? Oof!" he gaped, getting clapped on the arm by the tall, strapping solider. "A lesson for the ages. Never make up somebody who can probably beat you up."
Father Mulcahy skirted around behind the dragon to join the other two. "Tuttle? /The/ Captain Tuttle? I've heard so much about you from the children at Sister Theresa's orphanage."
Hawkeye laughed, "Father, it was all a ruse; Tuttle was my imaginary friend when I was small. I made him up, he's not r---" A chimerical screeching that seemed to make the air twitch in pain filled the clearing, cutting off Hawkeye's explanation.
Tuttle was staring at him, his expression one of indignant pain.
Qotenmatch was holding his hands cupped over the sleeping lamb's ears. He looked up in similar pain, his brown eyes flashing with the anger of a mother bear protecting her cubs.
Bantelhopp shut his beak again when he was certain he'd shut the Captain up. "Never," he spoke softly, his words almost lost in the fierce ringing that occupied Hawkeye's ears. "Say that," he finished. "Especially not here. We are as real as you are. Here you may feed your greedy senses on the 'fact.' It is the very notion that, since some people choose not to see us, we do not exist, that is our Undoing."
"I thought I meant something to you, Hawkeye." Tuttle murmured, wounded in a way that no jump from a helicopter sans parachute could match.
"You did! I mean, you do... I mean--" Hawkeye blathered, trying to find words to express what he felt for his long-lost childhood friend, only ever revived to help them con the army and help the orphanage. "What do I mean?" He muttered to himself.
"What you mean, Hawkeye Pierce," Bantelhopp leapt from the top of the head chair to land on the table, scattering tea-trays in every direction and sending the dormouse scurrying, "Is that once upon a time you were able to see Tuttle, and know that he was alive, and real. And then... you shut your eyes. Or had them shut for you."
Hawkeye peered distrustfully at the mind-reading dragon, who continued: "And it's like that all over the world. At younger and younger ages children are being forced to close their eyes to the reality of Dreams. Our kind are dying, Hawkeye. We term the final day when man will cease to know of us at all "the Winter." But we are uncertain as to whether spring will come again. We will all be dead. Man's disbelief will Undo us, as Ferret Face, Winter Incarnate, has nearly Undone Radar. And man will no longer dream."
Sidney leaned on the back of the chair he'd been sitting in, assuming a casual stance as his forehead wrinkled slightly in confusion. He looked up into the dragon's eyes without any fear or hint of being intimidated by the mythological creature. "But that's impossible. Dreaming is an integral part of humanity's psyche. Without it, I don't even think we'd qualify as being human anymore."
Bantelhopp snapped his beak irritably at the psychologist. "Think of that the next time some poor childling's parents come to you and ask you to cure their little boy's delusion that his favorite blanket speaks to him at night! Or when you counsel 'troubled youths' to stay in school instead of running away to try their chances at being a famed musician! Or when--"
"Calm down." Mulcahy quietly commanded. "There's no sense laying the blame for this... "Winter" coming on any one man or profession."
Bantelhopp whipped his long, spiked tail around in the air irately, but shut his beak, nonetheless. With a firm *clack.* When tempers had had a second to cool, he continued.
"The Fae-- the Kithain-- when the summer first began to wane, had to take on mortal bodies not to be killed outright by man's disbelief. Some-- the Sidhe, for example, have stayed here, in the Dreaming, exclusively." The falcon head turned after the lingering scent of the horse, a note of timid disdain in his voice. "But most travel again and again to earth to take on mortal form and re-introduce mankind to the wonders of Glamour."
It was Sidney's turn to look incredulous, "By putting Grape Nehi in the camp showers?"
"In any number of ways. The Pooka, yes, through humor. The Eshu, through exoticism. The Satyrs, through eroticism. The Redcaps, through terror. There are many passions, no one greater or less than the other."
Hawkeye crossed his ankles, and, leaning casually against a chair with one hand, rubbed the other one up through the back of his hair. "Between all the different sorts of kindred, and all the different sorts of kithain, I'm going to need to start taking notes." He then spread the hand out, gesturing to the other side of the table, where the little blonde soldier boy was still kind of cowering, hovering over Qotenmatch's shoulder. "But now I'm curious." His hand fell to his thigh, slapping there as punctuation. "If you're Tuttle," he pointed to his onetime best friend, "Then who are you?" he queried.
The boy looked up, deer-in-headlights with his mouth gaping open as he was addressed. "Uhh-- I, uhh..."
Tuttle grinned and hiked himself up on the table, settling there next to Bantelhopp. "Oh, it's no wonder you don't remember him, at least... you only met him once... though you did make a wonderful portrait of him later. Come on, Charlie, don't be afraid. These guys are okay."
"Charlie?" Hawkeye furrowed his brow in thought as the young man timidly skirted his way around the table, blushing like a maniac.
"Private-- Private Charles Lamb, sir." Lamb did a curious sort of half- salute.
It took a moment. But Hawkeye's neck lapsed backward and his mouth opened in a cackling guffaw of uncontrollable laughter. "Radar's little brother, right?" he gasped out in between peals.
"Aah!" Sparky suddenly shouted, having been looking on and not having noticed a thin, short Korean man sneaking out of the woods and reaching around to pickpocket him of a piece of Wrigley's. "Who's this guy?" He demanded nervously.
The Korean man lifted his hands helplessly, grinning like a fool or a madman. "Kim Luck, number one G.I. Joe man. Kim Luck; got something for sister? Kim Luck;" He leaned down to the dormouse and pointed at a biscuit. "You want that?"
The dormouse squeaked and rolled it towards the gentleman, who stuck it into a pouch that bulged with the impression that it carried more stolen gear than Harpo Marx's pockets.
Hawkeye's laughter redoubled. Lamb and Tuttle began to snicker along. Soon even Sparky, who had no idea what was going on, and Father Mulcahy, who finally put aside the cold Hunter mask he'd been wearing, were laughing. They all laughed until their guts ached, and sat back down at the table, where an extra chair had appeared for Kim Luck without anybody really questioning it.
'Cause the Dreaming is a funny place, like that.
~
"Good. Good. Everybody's here, it seems," he spoke. He turned to the right side of the table, where there were three chairs. In the first, closest to the bald man, Hawkeye sat. Sidney sat next to him, and in the third chair was a slight, blond-haired private of no more than 17 or 18, who squirmed in his seat and seemed to blush and grow pale in turns. "Everyone who should be," he smiled, then turned to the left side of the table, where sat, in three similar chairs, Father Mulcahy, Sparky, and a tall, handsome man in olive drab who had his arms crossed and a self- assured smile on his face. The old man's words grew somber, "And some who really shouldn't."
The man stood up and leaned over the table, peering at Sparky. "I'm surprised /you/ got through at all, corpse-taint."
"And you," his words turned to fall onto the priest as he stood upright again and stretched his back, "Well, I'm grateful for your help, and I'll own up to it, but criminy if you didn't give me the most thorough beating I've had since Radar decided to take Randy sledding. Pardon me if I'm slightly hesitant."
"Wait a minute, wait a minute, slow down a second so us kids in the back of the class can catch up." Hawkeye stood, pushing the heavy chair back with some difficulty, and came to stare the stern-looking man in the eye. "Where, exactly, is here?"
And the man, in turn, slid back down into the seat of honor, spreading his arms wide in a loose shrug, "You tell US, Hawkeye Pierce. You brought us here, after all."
Hawkeye DID know where they were. He just needed to be reminded of the fact before he could process it properly. He looked down the table, set with teacups and other paraphernalia which he could scarcely name but all of which LOOKED right, anyhow. A fat, round rodent waddled along the table's length away from the stern man before it reached a tray of biscuits and began to grab one. The tray was settled at the left hand of an eighth man, seated on the opposite end of the table from the severe one.
The four visitors from the M*A*S*H unit seemed not to have noticed this gentleman OR his left hand before the dormouse brought their attention to him. His hair was brown and curly, reminding Hawkeye slightly of Trapper's, though much darker, and, oddly enough, interrupted on each side of his head by a round pair of darkly furred bear-ears. His eyelashes were long, his eyes invisible under them as he looked down and stroked the sleeping lamb that curled up in his arms.
Hawkeye broke out into a grin, "Ah-ah!" he turned his head back to the severe man, his voice indicating that he'd proudly found a mishap, here, "If that's true, then where's your--"
The man's hand coming up from under the table, bringing up a large top hat and settling it on his bald crown.
"Hat." Hawkeye finished. "The Mad Hatter-- we're in Wonderland?" He spun his head around toward the other fellow, cradling Radar opposite. "And you must be the... March Bear?"
"Well, darn," Sidney intoned, "Now I wish I'd brought my little notebook and pencil. No thanks," He added, nonchalantly enough holding up a hand of protest to the overstuffed rodent that tried to drop a half-chewed biscuit onto his breadplate.
"Wonderland," smiled the Mad Hatter. "Yes, you can call it a land of wonders, but don't," he warned, "wonder too hard upon it, or else you're like as not to break something. Do pardon if my friend is unresponsive," he added. Indeed, the March Bear hadn't even looked up at being addressed. "He's still tending to our young ward's wounds. But have no fear; Radar will recover, now, and all thanks to your help."
Mulcahy puzzled over the words, wondering why they sounded familiar. Then, as the mists parted easily in this land, he knew. "You're--" is all he began, however, before he was interrupted.
"Bantelhopp, yes, Priest Father. You are suprised to see me in this shape. Well, talk to Hawkeye Pierce about it, it was his idea."
And with that, the man turned his head slightly. From the new angle, it was clear to everyone that he wasn't a man at all, but, in fact, an eight- foot-tall dragon with long, clawed fingers and a whipping tail tipped with a row of ridged spikes, and the head of a large bird of prey, a large, sharp beak curving down between his aquamarine eyes. He continued to speak.
"My friend's name is Qotenmatch. Again, pardon if he doesn't stand up. The forces of Autumn grow strong in your world again. It is the natural order of things, but that doesn't mean that the creatures of summer do not die without pain."
Hawkeye and Sidney, seeming to have the same idea at once, opened their mouths, only to be cut off with a lifting of a long finger by Bantelhopp. "Yes. I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I'm certain my young ward's words misled you into thinking that your Korean war would end 'ere this fall. That is most certainly not the case." The dismay around the table was palpable.
"Well... How do you know?" Sparky, his brow furrowed, questioned.
"Our dear ward only meant that--" Bantelhopp paused. "Uh-oh."
"What?" Qotenmatch looked up briefly, showing his brown, warm eyes, now draped in worry.
"Wait for it--" Bantelhopp muttered, squirming around and climbing up the back of the chair to perch on its back, making his stature all the greater.
It wasn't long before a thundering of hooves was heard, now in the distance, now close by, now here, as out of nowhere an eight-legged horse of snow-white pelt came thund'ring in, rearing its front four legs up into the air as it neighed in discontent, rousing most of the people around the table out of their seats. Atop the horse was a woman in red robes, her hair dark black and spiked in an unnaturally tall thicket that swayed above her head. Her face was lovely, but marred with a sneer as she looked down upon the assembled party.
"WHO?" She asked, the word a question on its own, but, after a haughty pause, followed up by, "Is the Kithain present?"
"Miss," Bantelhopp replied, his own voice suddenly becoming less didactic, more humble. "Our Fae lord is currently recuperating from a close call with a Corpse and an Autumn Man."
The woman coughed and lifted her nose, peering across the table's length at the sleeping lamb. "I see. And does he know you bring these men into the Dreaming without his say on the matter?"
Hawkeye Pierce was so entirely amused to hear anybody -- but ANYBODY -- call Radar a 'lord' that he missed the note of contempt in the lady's voice as she pronounced the word "men" down upon the group, glaring at him, in particular.
"Miss--" the dragon chirped, "These are the dreamers who helped bring Radar around. And they came here under the power of this one, Hawkeye Pierce, whose grasp of the ways of Glamour is formidable among men."
"I'm not so shabby at badminton, either," Hawkeye quipped, drawing the woman's attention back to him, again.
"Bow, mortal, in the presence of the Sidhe," she snapped from atop her mount, and, much to everyone's surprise, most of all his own, Hawkeye executed a perfectly gallant model of one. Sidney, Mulcahy, and Sparky followed suit, equally without their reasoning consent, and they all remained bent double in attitudes of respect while the Sidhe looked over the rest of the chimerae. Qotenmatch was still coddling Radar, though he looked up nervously from time to time. The tall, handsome fellow stood with his arms folded across his chest, and the blond-haired private cowered behind him, peeking out at the noble Kithain.
"Mistress, please," Bantelhopp objected, "We meant no harm. We merely sought to address the dreamers in person, and this... this is how they chose to come."
The Sidhe slipped one long leg about to drape along the side of the horse's neck, executing a bounding dismount and landing in the middle of the table, as if afraid to be on the same level as the rest of the partygoers. "My true and heartfelt sympathies to your master and his problems," she spoke bluntly, nothing true or heartfelt in her tone. "But you simply can't go bringing people into the Dreaming. Especially," she pointed a finger accusatorially at Sparky, glaring at Bantelhopp, "Those that reek of corpse."
Sparky tilted his head to sniff under an arm, then shrugged innocently at Hawkeye.
The Red Queen paused as Bantelhopp shamedly hung his head, "My apologies, miss, I didn't think--"
"You're right. You didn't think. And what in the name of the returning Spring is THAT thing?"
Father Mulcahy had, through concerted effort, thrown off the compulsion to bow that had been imposed upon him by the Sidhe, and was glowering up at her by the time she noticed that he wasn't quite an everyday Dreamer.
"I-- I don't know, Miss--" Bantlehopp stammered.
"Ignoramus! Get it out of here! Not in five minutes, not in two. Not even now! Yesterday! Or you'll compel me to remove its head from its shoulders!"
Her vibrant eyes met the Hunter's gaze, and saw that he was not afraid. Covering the ounce of timidity that crept into her own soul from his presence with a gallon of flair, she bent her knees and leapt off of the table in a swirl of her glistening red robes. A swift flick of the reigns, and the woman and horse disappeared as quickly as they'd appeared in the clearing.
Sidney peered after the Red Queen in the direction he thought she might have gone. "Who was she?" He wondered.
"Yes." Bantelhopp replied. "She was Sidhe." (Sidhe, pronounced She)
"Huh?"
"Anyway, pay her no mind, we will be leaving soon enough. You can--" The dragon coughed, "Stand up, now... we've got to focus on the matter at hand." The three who had remained bent for the better part of the encounter now stood.
"Well I, for one, am for NOT BEING HERE when she gets back, /whichever/ she she is." Hawkeye informed the table, round-eyed.
The dormouse crept out from under an overturned teacup, and squeaked.
Sidney nodded, "Me, three."
"Me, four, and five, and six!" Sparky muttered.
Father Mulcahy would probably have been just as fascinated with the prospect of finding that woman again and showing her just what he thought of her forcing her will on others, for the purposes of the moment, he just nodded.
Bantelhopp looked desperately down the table, and chirruped at the tall, handsome fellow who was ruffling the hair of the short, blond private. The man nodded and stepped forward, smiling pleasantly.
"Hawkeye," he started, in a startlingly familiar voice. He sauntered around the table to put a hand on the captain's shoulder. "Come on, sit down, we've got things to go over. Don't worry about her, your priest over there scared her nearly off her saddle. And besides, I haven't seen you in a while. We've got a lot to catch up on. What's all this I hear about my being dead?"
Hawkeye gaped. The voice-- he knew that voice, slightly tinged with a German lilt. He knew this man; the man stood about six foot four... was stunning with a smirk of a smile, auburn hair, and hazel eyes. "Tuttle?"
Tuttle grinned and threw his arms around Hawkeye ecstatically. "Hawk! You remembered." He laughed and withdrew from the hug, holding one of Hawkeye's shoulders with one hand while clapping him firmly on the other. "Well, I suppose it's the least you could have done to remember, after I forged those requisition forms for you, huh?"
Hawkeye grinned widely, unreasonably pleased by coming across his old friend. "And after I forged a /reality/ for you, huh? Oof!" he gaped, getting clapped on the arm by the tall, strapping solider. "A lesson for the ages. Never make up somebody who can probably beat you up."
Father Mulcahy skirted around behind the dragon to join the other two. "Tuttle? /The/ Captain Tuttle? I've heard so much about you from the children at Sister Theresa's orphanage."
Hawkeye laughed, "Father, it was all a ruse; Tuttle was my imaginary friend when I was small. I made him up, he's not r---" A chimerical screeching that seemed to make the air twitch in pain filled the clearing, cutting off Hawkeye's explanation.
Tuttle was staring at him, his expression one of indignant pain.
Qotenmatch was holding his hands cupped over the sleeping lamb's ears. He looked up in similar pain, his brown eyes flashing with the anger of a mother bear protecting her cubs.
Bantelhopp shut his beak again when he was certain he'd shut the Captain up. "Never," he spoke softly, his words almost lost in the fierce ringing that occupied Hawkeye's ears. "Say that," he finished. "Especially not here. We are as real as you are. Here you may feed your greedy senses on the 'fact.' It is the very notion that, since some people choose not to see us, we do not exist, that is our Undoing."
"I thought I meant something to you, Hawkeye." Tuttle murmured, wounded in a way that no jump from a helicopter sans parachute could match.
"You did! I mean, you do... I mean--" Hawkeye blathered, trying to find words to express what he felt for his long-lost childhood friend, only ever revived to help them con the army and help the orphanage. "What do I mean?" He muttered to himself.
"What you mean, Hawkeye Pierce," Bantelhopp leapt from the top of the head chair to land on the table, scattering tea-trays in every direction and sending the dormouse scurrying, "Is that once upon a time you were able to see Tuttle, and know that he was alive, and real. And then... you shut your eyes. Or had them shut for you."
Hawkeye peered distrustfully at the mind-reading dragon, who continued: "And it's like that all over the world. At younger and younger ages children are being forced to close their eyes to the reality of Dreams. Our kind are dying, Hawkeye. We term the final day when man will cease to know of us at all "the Winter." But we are uncertain as to whether spring will come again. We will all be dead. Man's disbelief will Undo us, as Ferret Face, Winter Incarnate, has nearly Undone Radar. And man will no longer dream."
Sidney leaned on the back of the chair he'd been sitting in, assuming a casual stance as his forehead wrinkled slightly in confusion. He looked up into the dragon's eyes without any fear or hint of being intimidated by the mythological creature. "But that's impossible. Dreaming is an integral part of humanity's psyche. Without it, I don't even think we'd qualify as being human anymore."
Bantelhopp snapped his beak irritably at the psychologist. "Think of that the next time some poor childling's parents come to you and ask you to cure their little boy's delusion that his favorite blanket speaks to him at night! Or when you counsel 'troubled youths' to stay in school instead of running away to try their chances at being a famed musician! Or when--"
"Calm down." Mulcahy quietly commanded. "There's no sense laying the blame for this... "Winter" coming on any one man or profession."
Bantelhopp whipped his long, spiked tail around in the air irately, but shut his beak, nonetheless. With a firm *clack.* When tempers had had a second to cool, he continued.
"The Fae-- the Kithain-- when the summer first began to wane, had to take on mortal bodies not to be killed outright by man's disbelief. Some-- the Sidhe, for example, have stayed here, in the Dreaming, exclusively." The falcon head turned after the lingering scent of the horse, a note of timid disdain in his voice. "But most travel again and again to earth to take on mortal form and re-introduce mankind to the wonders of Glamour."
It was Sidney's turn to look incredulous, "By putting Grape Nehi in the camp showers?"
"In any number of ways. The Pooka, yes, through humor. The Eshu, through exoticism. The Satyrs, through eroticism. The Redcaps, through terror. There are many passions, no one greater or less than the other."
Hawkeye crossed his ankles, and, leaning casually against a chair with one hand, rubbed the other one up through the back of his hair. "Between all the different sorts of kindred, and all the different sorts of kithain, I'm going to need to start taking notes." He then spread the hand out, gesturing to the other side of the table, where the little blonde soldier boy was still kind of cowering, hovering over Qotenmatch's shoulder. "But now I'm curious." His hand fell to his thigh, slapping there as punctuation. "If you're Tuttle," he pointed to his onetime best friend, "Then who are you?" he queried.
The boy looked up, deer-in-headlights with his mouth gaping open as he was addressed. "Uhh-- I, uhh..."
Tuttle grinned and hiked himself up on the table, settling there next to Bantelhopp. "Oh, it's no wonder you don't remember him, at least... you only met him once... though you did make a wonderful portrait of him later. Come on, Charlie, don't be afraid. These guys are okay."
"Charlie?" Hawkeye furrowed his brow in thought as the young man timidly skirted his way around the table, blushing like a maniac.
"Private-- Private Charles Lamb, sir." Lamb did a curious sort of half- salute.
It took a moment. But Hawkeye's neck lapsed backward and his mouth opened in a cackling guffaw of uncontrollable laughter. "Radar's little brother, right?" he gasped out in between peals.
"Aah!" Sparky suddenly shouted, having been looking on and not having noticed a thin, short Korean man sneaking out of the woods and reaching around to pickpocket him of a piece of Wrigley's. "Who's this guy?" He demanded nervously.
The Korean man lifted his hands helplessly, grinning like a fool or a madman. "Kim Luck, number one G.I. Joe man. Kim Luck; got something for sister? Kim Luck;" He leaned down to the dormouse and pointed at a biscuit. "You want that?"
The dormouse squeaked and rolled it towards the gentleman, who stuck it into a pouch that bulged with the impression that it carried more stolen gear than Harpo Marx's pockets.
Hawkeye's laughter redoubled. Lamb and Tuttle began to snicker along. Soon even Sparky, who had no idea what was going on, and Father Mulcahy, who finally put aside the cold Hunter mask he'd been wearing, were laughing. They all laughed until their guts ached, and sat back down at the table, where an extra chair had appeared for Kim Luck without anybody really questioning it.
'Cause the Dreaming is a funny place, like that.
~