DALTON: Dak...something's going on...
(sighs) I know, Charlie...
DALTON: It happened again! (is shocked) OH MY GOD! I JUST DID IT! (terrified) ...Dakki, what's happening?
(sobs) MY ASTERISKS ARE GONE!
DALTON: (horrified) NO!
YES! (wails) I used to express action and adjectives with asterisks but ff.net deletes them all when I upload and now I have to use—
DALTON: Don't say it.
...PARENTHESES!
DALTON: (cowers) NOOOOOO!
(sniffs) ...and that's not the worst part.
DALTON: It isn't?
No! MY SQUIGGLIES ARE GONE! (sobs) My beautiful squiggly lines...I used you so often...to separate text and shoutouts...to show passage of time...and now...you're...GONE! (cries) I'll never let go, squiggly...
DALTON: ...I'll just walk this way, now...
(sobs) Adn now...on width the fbic! (blows her nose on Dalton's tie)
Chinese LanternChapter Three—
Cherry-Blossom Girls
"I'm dreaming! I'm dreaming!" --Spirited Away
To see the country of Möbia from the air is like looking at a box of crayons. Ever since the great separation of five hundred years ago, the country has been divided a spectrum of colors brighter than anything in another land.
In the north lies the great metropolis of Gliss, where everything is white, from the buildings that seem to glow with brightness in the sun, to the paving-stones underfoot, to the very clothing of the citizens: shades of sun-bleached bone and fresh-laid snow, a glimmering incandescence of feathers, from swans-down to the tail-plumes of the mourning dove, used in the lavish head-dresses of the princess's ladies-in-waiting.
And in the south lies Nour, the very mirror-image of its northern counterpart—a haven of wanton lust and addiction, an underground city of ink and pitch coal-burning behemoths, where even the air is dark with ashes and soot; and wrought-iron grates and walls and catwalks keep the sun from touching the faces of all but the richest and most powerful. Everyone is clad in black, with the exceptions of the courtesans, the hothouse roses of the Dall Mansions: dark-haired, soft-eyed girls born for the profession, trained from childhood for their craft, clad from dawn to midnight in exquisite shades of pink, from the ribbons in their hair to the slippers on their feet.
Gliss and Nour: two great cities lying at either end of the country, one dark, one light. Half a millennium ago, villagers from all corners of the land of Möbia picked up their belongings and chose which city they and their children would make their lives in. Few people remained outside either city, living in a world neither white nor black. It was they who made up the rest of the prism that was the country of Möbia.
After five-hundred and eighteen years of equilibrium, Spot Conlon was the first person in half a millennium to successfully infiltrate the high-walled Southern city of Nour. Instead of seeking a way inside through the city gates he had fallen through the spot that opened up, for just an instant, once every five hundred years: a place where the gossamer separating one world from the next wore thin, just wide enough for him to tumble through.
And when he walked between the worlds, he tore a hole that dragged through his time and that of another as well; he brought two universes together, changed lives, and made sure that nothing in either his existence or theirs would ever be the same again.
But of course, Spot didn't know any of this yet…he was still asleep, living in the dreamless slumber of oblivion, a luminous Chinese lantern in shades of deepest cherry set aglow above his head, dreams caught and set ablaze in its fragile, papery trappings.
Maddox liked to think that she reacted well during times of duress. She was known for having grace under fire, even if she was totally without it the rest of the time, and took pride in the fact that she didn't panic easily.
But when, that fateful day, she was roused by the door banging open and a severe looking woman with tightly bound black hair grabbing hold of her and yanking her up—from the silken sheets of the bed she hadn't even known she had been in—it was hardly above her to lose a little control.
The woman, the first thing Maddox had seen since the night before, when—what had happened? What? But there was no time for that now—was talking almost too rapidly to be made out, holding Maddox tightly by the shoulder.
"Look at you! Nearly noon and you're lounging around slovenly as the day clean—"
"But I'm not—"
"Do you expect to make any money like this? Lying about all dressed up and no place to go?" The woman poked her sharply in the collarbone, right where it hurt. "Well?"
Maddox stared at her, fully aware of the fact that her cheeks were burning bright red.
"Got something to say, girl?"
Maddox bit her tongue, looked down, and up at the woman again. "I don't belong here," was all she could manage.
For whatever reason the woman's look softened a little at this, and she relinquished her vice grip on Maddox's shoulder. "None of us do," she said at last.
Maddox just looked at her, for once unable to speak.
"Go get yourself washed up," the woman said at last. "I don't want any more trouble from you, you hear? And find something to eat, too. Skin and bones doesn't sell, child." And with that she banged out of the room, off to check on the other girls.
Gingerly rubbing her temples, Maddox sat up and took a look at her surroundings. It was a plain room, and with its wooden-shuttered windows and whitewashed walls, it was identical in structure to the room in Chinatown where she could last remember being. But that was where the similarity ended. Because while the room last night had been empty and sparse, this one was lavish and richly decorated and—perhaps the strangest thing of all—furnished completely in shades of pink.
The sheets and coverings on the bed where she had been shaken awake were a fine silk the color of pink champagne, and the heavy duvet lumpily heaped over it was laced with a richly embroidered velvet filigree in a dark and luxurious shade of cherry. A stained mauve rug was thrown across the floor, and pink linen screen had been placed next to the door. Even the pale wood of the writing-desk in the corner seemed to have the faintest pink glow from the light cast by the paper Chinese lantern hanging over the bed.
So, Maddox thought. I'm not where I was before; I've fallen headfirst into a time-warp or a rip in the space-time continuum or a weak spot in the twenty-third dimension, and now I'm stuck here, in a boarding-school or a hotel or a prison or—she looked around at her surroundings once again—or a Molly Ringwald movie, or something, with no way to get back home, alone in the world, whatever world this might be (of course she was wrong about that very last part, as you and I know full well that one of the lumps under the duvet was Spot Conlon, still completely unconscious. But she would find that out soon enough).
So, Maddox thought. What would Brian Boitano do?
She was having a rare moment of calm, and she knew that it would dissolve into blind panic if she didn't make a decision soon. Standing there in the middle of the room, drowning in blusher shades, she suddenly remembered the two pieces of advice that Ram's mother Sachi had always given her. The first one was never let your country become a trading-post, and the second one went like this: life always looks better on a full stomach, Maddie. Are you sure you don't want more lamb?
The dining hall that the severe woman had spoken of was on the top floor of the Dall Mansions, one of the few places in the city that ever received natural light. When Maddox arrived up top, around noon, it was as if she was finally breathing again after an eternity if navigating the labyrinthine corridors of the rooms below. The top floor was all glass and fragile pinkish light, the sun slanting down like shards of glass and falling across the high-vaulted rooms in dusty shafts, making the silk and satin trappings of the girls milling around below seem to glister with gold threads shot-through.
Whoever these girls were, they lived in luxury. Without a boy or man in sight they skipped through hands clasped, arm-in-arm, tumbling up the stairwells, giggling with one another over shared jokes as they took their places in the lunch line and loaded their trays down with food—sweet bean cakes and steaming pots of jasmine tea, ceramic bowls heaped with dumplings and egg noodles and perfumed rice. The building was as hot and humid as a greenhouse, warm enough to force flowers into bloom before they had even grown, and most of the girls looked as if they had just tumbled out of bed in short little slips of things ranging from shell-pink to cherry, fine silk pajamas hanging loose around their shoulders and stiff embroidered robes belted at the waist. Some still even had sleep in their eyes.
No one looked at Maddox twice as she went along the lunch counter and filled her tray. To them, she was just another member of their group, another girl scrabbling out her existence in the Dall Mansions—and in her rumpled pink sundress and faded tennis shoes, who could have supposed otherwise when she wore their colors, even if the fabric was strange and the style one unseen outside the blue-skin gypsy encampments up north? After all, who could blame the poor thing—from that nervous look she was probably just starting out, with no money for new silks or satins, but she would make her way soon enough.
The girls didn't think anything of it as Maddox sat down at a small table in a far corner and tucked into her lunch. But when Spot came upstairs a few minutes later, well—that was another story. Even before they started staring in earnest he became more anxious than he had been in weeks, because he didn't know where he was, but with this going on now, and the events of the night before clean in his memory, he realized that this situation simply couldn't be good. But then again, boys never seem react all that well in a room full of pink.
Maddox's table was small and quiet and out of sight, and so Spot sat down there, across from her. She only noticed him when he stole a noodle from her bowl, and then she looked up to see a worried-looking boy with blue eyes who seemed (in the words of Wayne and Garth, and Ram, of course) like he was gonna hurl. He's partied out, man. Maddox suppressed a giggle and took a sip of her tea.
"Wha'?" the boy asked, slightly on-edge.
"Nothing." She smiled at him, and was rewarded when a little of the anxiousness left his face. There was something familiar about him, even though she couldn't quite place it. She extended a hand to him. "I'm Maddie."
"Spot." And then there was a troubled silence for a few minutes, where he looked uncomfortably around him at the girls peering in on all sides. Tracing her finger along the edge of her bowl, Maddox searched for the right think to say.
"So…" she said, uncomfortably. "How 'bout those Red Sox?"
It was possibly the stupidest thing that she could have possibly said—but the conversation just progressed from there. And maybe Spot didn't feel it, but Maddox did—that they were linked somehow, and meeting up not for a first time but as old friends who had simply forgotten each other. At any rate, she managed to tell him everything that happened, toying with the rim of her teacup and keeping her discretion at a minimum, because what else could she do? When she looked up, he was staring at her wide-eyed, grains of rice falling out of his mouth and onto the table. And maybe he still believed it was a dream—but he told her anyway after that, everything he knew, and by the end of that they were in no position to let go of each other.
"I still can't believe this ain't all a dream," Spot murmured, absentmindedly eating one of Maddox's dumplings.
"I know. It's like Labyrinth or something."
"Huh?"
"Y'know…the eighties movie, with David Bowie in really tight pants?" She was rewarded with another blank look. "Sorry, I shouldn't assume. Ram and I are probably the only ones who like that movie, anyway…"
"What's a…what's a movie?"
Maddie stared at him a moment, watching as he took a sip of her tea. "Spot, level with me here--are you Canadian?"
"A what?"
She grinned. "Never mind…"
He looked at her, smiling. She wasn't the prettiest girl in the world, or the most agreeable, or event he type he would have looked twice at—too skinny for one, and with her pointed little face and dark hair she seemed to bear an astonishing resemblance to a badger, although he never would have told her that. But he didn't want to take her home, to get her out of her clothes—he just needed someone as clueless as he was, so he didn't have to be alone, not now.
"Look," he said, for once giving up on pride, and shifting uncomfortably in his seat as he heard what he was saying. "We're in this together now. I figure two heads are better 'n one, so…friends?"
She smiled. "Friends." He hid his smile and reached out to take another of her egg noodles. "But Spot?"
"Yeh?"
"Get your own friggin' lunch."
Fair enough.
After Spot went through the lunch line, walking proud bantam rooster despite his constant wish to physically shield himself from the glares he was receiving from all the girls, he came back to their table to see a girl sitting next to Maddox, trying hard to draw him out of her shell. She was a pretty thing, with glossy dark hair that fell to her shoulders and sweet brown almond eyes, but the overwhelming feature, as usual, was pink—this time in a coral lace-trimmed slip and a robe in a shocking shade of fuchsia that barely reached past the tops of her thighs. As Spot walked over, she looked up, a surprised expression on her face.
"A boy in the top floor the Dall Mansions," she said to Maddox in a stagy whisper. "Off-duty, no less? Pretty risqué, hen…"
"Is he contraband?" Maddox asked.
The girl looked at her a moment. "You're new here, aren't you?" Maddox nodded. "I'm Ershey, by the way. Williams."
"Maddox."
Unnoticed, Spot sat down at the table and began to eat his lunch.
"He's not against the rules, exactly," Ershey was saying. "Girls just resent it, you know, when they're brought into our areas. Where they don't need to be."
This was a relief to Spot. He had been wondering if there was something wrong with his hair.
"I mean, we see enough of them as it is…you understand?"
"Sure," Maddox nodded, even though she clearly didn't.
"Look," Ershey sighed, "why don't I show you around after lunch? You seem a bit—"
"Like a total idiot?"
She grinned, biting her lip a little. "Kind of. And he…" she looked uncomfortably at Spot.
"I'se goin' for a walk," Spot announced. "Always helps me think, y'know?"
"Good luck with that," Ershey murmured. From the look in her eyes, it was clear that she meant it.
[TBC...]
Shout-outs!
Sapphy: Hey, what's a modern-day chapter without as many pop-culture references as possible crammed in? (grin) Oh, and Ram says he'd be glad to marry you, as long as you don't get in the way of his career on Broadway—he intends to be the first-ever male Elphaba...
ershey: YAY! (munches cookies) Mmm...(as Homer Simpson) Macamadamia nut... (distributes the rest to the boys, so none of them will get jealous)
NEWSIES: YAY! (are ershey-worshippers)
Heehee. (grins)
Soaker: G-get...g-get it...published? (faints) (wakes up again) Oh, that makes me all warm and fuzzy...but you know I just could never abandon our boys. (winks)
Coin: Another Bender-lover in our midst? (glomps) Heehee. Just for that, you get your very own polka-dotted socks...just as soon as I knit some for the newsies...(whispers) Racey gets pink!
Ccatt: Oh yes, suspense is a VERY good thing. (winks) Although hopefully not of the Nancy Drew variety...if I start writing like that ("gosh!" Spot exclaimed. "And to think that all this time...), feel free to shoot me.
me lee12: AAH! types frantically Don't shoot!
NEWSIES: (hold water guns threateningly) BWAHAHAHAHA!
Klover: (takes out her legal pad [is there such a thing as an illegal pad?]) ...Mobster hits okay...no death...got it! I'll just TP their houses within an inch of their lives...(wink)
Sparks-a-go-go: Aww...glomps You TOTALLY rock my purple tights. (sighs) I wish I had socks with sparkly Rudolphs on them...might help me update faster...(winkwink) (grins)
Strawberri Shake: YES! (high-five) Gotta love the mobster butterflies! (Not to mention the drug-dealing squirrels.) And since Ram heard you say Grease rocks, he's started singing it all over again, which means that I can listen to him...without even having to feed him a quarter! (high-fives Strawberri Shake)
NadaZimri: (glares threateningly at ff.n admin) (do you see what's happening here? I'm using PARENTHESES to denote action! (sobs) I miss my asterisks! (pause) Oh, wait...this is text.) That's better! (clears throat) And only WE, the caped crusaders, Mattie and Dakki, can put a stop to this travesty! For together we are...(dun-dun-dunnn...) THE PUNCTUATION JUSTICE LEAGUE! (cue nifty theme song...NOW!)
Brownie/Melody: (joins in singing)There are worse things...I could do...then go with a boy...or twoooo (grins) LOVE that movie. I agree—I don't know what I would do if Grease wasn't around. Die, probably. Then, round up the cast members, and make up for lost time...(wink)
Splashey: Haha! No, not all shout-outs...just MOSTLY. (grins) Glad I stumped ya there for a second... (perks up) Chinatown? Tea? (pause) ...Can I come too?
Buttons14: HAHA! Feelin' greasy! Oh my side! (grins) You rule...and I've always wondered about the title too. Isn't it like calling an eighties movie Aquanet? (pause) Whoa. (runs off to pitch the idea) THANK YOU BUTTONS! (blows kiss)
Nani: Nah, not gay...just a Broadway lovin' straight guy (even though I still think they're mutually exclusive). All I know is, I wish my guy friends had a little more Ram in them...honestly! You'd think bursting into song for no apparent reason was a BAD thing!
Moonlights Sundance: Aww! (hugs) Glad you liked! And, yeah, I thought the last chapter was a little wonky too...but the rest are gonna be pretty straightforward...or at least, as straightforward as newsies riding dragons can GET. (winks)
Silver Petra: (tips her hat) (remembers she isn't wearing one) Dammit! Well, anyway...thankee kindly. (grins and goes to fix her bangs)
Checkmate: YAY! (catches bag of Circus Peanuts and does the touchdown dance) Hello little orangey peanut thing...you shall be mine...and I shall call you...INSPIRATION!
BabyXtreme: (sigh) Right there with ya on that one...I love that movie so much. "You know how you say your parents use you to get back at each other? ...Wouldn't I be outstanding in that capacity?" (melts)
Next up: Chapter Four, In Which Dakki Goes All Psychodrama About Her Asterisks Again, Jack Is Discovered To Have A Really Funny Middle Name, And Christina Aguilera Stars As Our Special Musical Guest (Except For The Christina Aguilera Part, Oh Well, Maybe Next Time. (wink))