A/N: Whoooo! I actually got it done in time! But I'm afraid this time it's short'n'sweet. Though it's not really sweet… Maybe just short. And, there will be no update on Saturday, because I won't be here! I'm going down to my Nan's caravan in Hereford for the weekend nanananana! So, the next update will be next Wednesday- The day before my Birthday! Whoooooo! Thankyou AGAIN to Willowwind, who is probably the only reason I continue to put this up on the net, and to Scooby2408, the unseen reader, who isn't as good as Willowwind because she doesn't review, (Yes, once again, I'm going to ignore the complete pointlessness of her reviewing because I see her everyday!) is none the less appreciated! So, just for the two of you who bother to read this, here's chapter 9!
Disclaimer: Don't own YGO. Shameless take-off of 9th Elsewhere, I can't be bothered to explain again… See my bio or previous chapters for details and the addy! You are compelled to read the web-com of uber coolness! Azreal, however, is my OC and was around looooong before I read 9E, so no use without permission! (Yes, I know, flattering myself… Shall we move on?)
Chapter Nine: Dreams Under a Fantasy Door
Azreal breathed the faintly-scented air in deeply and gratefully. She felt more in control then she had for days. Solid for the moment, but purposefully this time. She couldn't go in her usual form… She could only enter in mind. She needed some sort of an anchor to stay firmly put in this world so she could find her way back if she somehow ended up trapped. You never knew what to expect when entering someone's subconscious.
But enough dawdling. She had put it off for long enough anyway, waiting till late at night and choosing the exact room she wanted. Though perhaps the pickiness was worthwhile this time. She had found a seldom-used room which contained only a thread-bare sofa, which she was now sitting cross-legged on. However, the room had large French doors which lead onto a small- perhaps only a metre and a half out- balcony, which seemed to be directly over the dilapidated rose garden. Azreal had thrown these doors wide open, and the faint scent of dying roses reached and relaxed her. Had her eyes been open, from the position she was in Azreal would have seen a spattering of stars, half hidden by clouds. But the moon was bright and silver as metal, so it gave an eerie sort of twilight to the room.
The light was made even stranger by the doors themselves. Evidently once the room's crowning glory, the doors were made of an intricate stained glass, in all the colours of the rainbow. On close inspection, these doors had more then just random squares of coloured glass. There was a fantasy world depicted on the doors, that showed a dragon flying majestically up through some clouds, with creatures swirling up and around and below him, centaurs and unicorns, fairies, Sprites, pixies… As the moon light hit the doors and flowed through them, it transformed into colours spreading over the floor, as if the world shown on the doors was having it's very own Northern Lights.
You can see why Azreal had wasted so much time here, but also why she had chosen it. The whole room had the feeling of forgotten beauty and hidden secrets to it, especially in the quiet of the night. However, it seemed as though this room kept and maintained a prolonged silence, holding it's breath for some kind of climax. And Azreal knew that when the climax came it would be something wonderful and miraculous. She could almost feel the creatures of that world around her and if not exactly welcoming her, that they were accepting her and wishing her luck.
For the past few minutes, or hours, or days, Azreal had sat so still and quiet that it was almost as if she was made of glass herself. When she felt herself completely relaxed, she stood, walked across the room and touched each pane of the oddly cool glass in turn. She wasn't naturally superstitious, but it sure seemed as though they were watching her, so she might just as well acknowledge their presence.
"Wish me luck." She whispered, her voice sounding odd in the curiously muffled air. Then, smiling at her own folly, she went back to the sofa, closed her eyes, breathed deeply and slid into Joey's dreams in the same way as one might slip into a hot bath and with a much greater ease then she had ever gone into anyone's dreams before.
Back in the room with the stain glass doors, Azreal's breathing slowed and her body slumped over sideways.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Azreal caught a brief glimpse of Joey sleeping in his room but no more as she mentally slipped into his dream, where she looked around in interest.
At first she thought she hadn't gone into his dream at all, but was then disappointed to discover that Joey was apparently dreaming about sleeping, for it was just his room with stuff all over the floor and previously all over the desk (Before Azreal had unintentionally landed on it) and him spread-eagled on his bed, snoring.
"What kind of person dreams about sleeping?" Azreal wondered aloud as she crossed the room. She calmly began to poke Joey on the shoulder. "Yo, wake up, we've got stuff to do and the night is almost over!"
No response. Frowning, Azreal shook him.
"Wake up! C'mon, you're already sleeping in reality! What a waste of a dream!"
Still no response. Frustrated, Azreal jumped on the bed and kicked him a couple of times in the hip, punctuating each kick with a word.
"Wake-up-Joey-or-I-will-be-forced-to-take-extreme-measures!"
How he could not respond to that was anyone's guess, but Joey did not. Azreal was wondering if he was this hard to wake up in real life… She lifted her foot and stamped on his head, reasoning that it would only hurt till he woke up.
As she brought her foot down for sixth or seventh time, hard, Joey mumbled slightly, swatted at her foot, rolled over, and went back to sleep. Azreal stared. "Unbelievable…" She said, stunned, but then pulled herself together. (A/N: Hmm, Joey's so hard to wake up… I wonder why this scene seems so familiar? You know who you are…Coffee pots...)
"Oh, how I love casual violence in the middle of the night." Azreal sighed as she flipped the mattress off the bed- Joey was bigger and heavier then her, so it would've been much harder in real life, but in a dream only the most basic rules applied. Joey hit the floor with a thud, the mattress and the blanket on top of him. As the last of his quilt slithered off the recently vacated bed, the corner of it snagged Joey's alarm clock which fell to the floor and which started to sound for some incomprehensible reason known only to clock makers and those who can read German instruction manuals.
Azreal couldn't believe how quiet Joey's alarm clock was. It just gave a small, half-hearted 'beep-beep' sequence for a few seconds and then gave up. No way that would get Joey up in the morn-
But sure enough, it did. Joey sat up, pushing the remnants of his bed off him.
"What the…" He murmured, looking at his room being in an even worse state than usual and the time his alarm clock claimed it to be. Then he saw Azreal. "Azreal!" He yelled "What are you doing in my room!" No response. "Azreal? Um…Azreal? Yo!"
"Unbelievable…" Azreal muttered, then turned her attention back to Joey. "Oh, sorry… Hi."
"Azreal…" Joey said in a warning tone. "What are you doing here and what have you done to my room!"
"Oh, this isn't your room." Azreal shrugged. Joey looked round. It sure looked like his room. "This is a dream."
"Oh good." Joey replied, reassembling his bed "Then that means I can go back to sleep."
"You are asleep, muppet." Azreal rolled her eyes.
"If I'm asleep, then how am I talking to you?"
"You're really not getting the hang of this, are you? But don't worry, you won't remember when you wake up!" Joey groaned and sat down on his bed. Azreal swerved round a pile of clothes, knocked the rest of Joey's stuff off his desk and sat down on it.
"There's a chair…" Joey muttered indcredously, not quite sure why he was suddenly bothered about mess in his room.
"Where?" Azreal asked, looking round the room. "Oh, wait, no worries, I've got it." She added the pile of clothes to the possessions currently residing on the floor and sat on the chair they'd been hiding.
"Azreal." Joey said more calmly then could be expected "What are you doing here?" Before Azreal could answer, however, there was a knock at the door. Joey went pale. He knew where this was going…
The person at the door did not wait for an answer but rather came straight into the room, revealing themselves to be none other than Mai Valentine.
Azreal looked back and forth between Joey, who shrugged in a sheepish way, and Mai, who stood still in the doorway as though she was waiting for something. After a few minutes of looking back and forth between them, searching for an answer, Azreal had to stop, feeling dizzy. Once the dizziness had passed, however, Azreal finally cottoned on to just what was going on. It was not a revelation she desired.
"Urrgh…" She groaned in distaste. She turned to Joey and yelled "You little pervert!" She began firmly pushing Joey's dream-Mai back out the door. "Forget not tampering with dreams more then absolutely necessary, I refuse to be a witness of…of… oh, I don't know! I don't even wanna think about it!" Having got dream-Mai outside the door into the nothingness that seemed to have manifested itself outside Joey's door, Azreal shut it behind her and looked sternly at Joey.
"And I'm sure that if that had been the real Mai, she would thank me for protecting her integrity!"
Joey squirmed embarrassedly "Um… It's not like I can control what I dream… not normally, anyway. Right now I guess I'm kinda…but usually-"
Azreal held up a hand "I don't want to hear it. Let's just pretend that this never happened and forget all about it."
"Easier said then done." Joey snorted.
"It is for me…" Azreal groaned "You're lucky, you won't remember this is in the morning…"
"If I'm not going to remember this in the morning, it brings us back to the original question…What's the point in you being here?"
"I'm getting to that!" Azreal huffed, reassuming her original position on the desk, neglecting the chair. "I'm here for one simple reason, and one only: To tell you to get your butt in gear!"
Joey blinked.
"You heard me, Joey!" Azreal said "That comic of yours has been waiting for what, a week and a half now? And it used to be daily! People depend on that comic, man, it sheds a little sunshine into their day. So why have you stopped?"
Joey shrugged.
"Why have you stopped!"
"I'm out of ideas." Joey sighed, flopping onto his back to lie on his bed. "That's it, nothing else to it. I'd love to continue it, really I would, but without any ideas… I'm going to have to stop the comic."
"What! I happen to know that comic's been a major part of your life for going on two years now! You wouldn't just be losing a hobby if you stopped, you'd be losing part of yourself! You've never given up before, in anything, so don't give up now!"
"It's not a question of giving up! It's a question of if and how to continue!"
"What about all those ideas Yugi and the others gave you?"
"I tried! I just couldn't make it… real! I couldn't make it real, and I'd rather have no comic then a sub-par one!"
"Well, in that case, I guess I'm just gonna hafta beam you."
Joey was taken aback. "Huh? Beam me?"
"Uh-huh." Azreal shrugged "Beam you. Pump some good ole' raw inspiration out into the air. That should get you going again!"
"Um…Alright…" Joey replied.
"Great!" Azreal held her hands out in front of her, and got pumping, looking on in interest to see how the Inspiration would manifest itself in this particular dream. "Hmm…" She said, watching a wisp of blue-green sea-scented smoke curl round her wrist. "That's a new one. Usually it's just golden sparkles or something…" Then she closed her eyes, and Joey closed his as the room began to quickly fill with the oddly refreshing smoke.
It wasn't really raw Inspiration, of course. There was no such thing. All it really was was special effects and a feel-good, uplifting, but relaxing vibe. Muses couldn't even do it for real, only in dreams. However, people seemed to respond better if they thought it was Inspiration due to some technical/physiological thing which Azreal was probably supposed to know but didn't. All she knew was, people were more creative when they were relaxed, or, alternatively, they created to help them relax. Either way, it was generally successful, and as long as it worked, who cared why?
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
Joey was more or less out-cold on his bed when Azreal was done. Perhaps she'd over-done it a bit… Oh well. At least she knew that he was defiantly relaxed now! Time to return to her own body and wake up herself, before Joey did and she was trapped in a dream that didn't exist.
Which was shortly discovered to be easier said then done. Azreal cursed aloud. She must've been worse off then she thought… She hadn't noticed how weak her powers had become outside of her own body. Or had refused to see. Either way, perhaps this was not such a good idea.
In a combination of sheer panic and determination, Azreal shoved, forced, and slid back into her body, but with no great ease. It was the first time it had ever hurt to do so. The pain was intense, as though it was trying to push her back, but if she stopped, she would be stuck here in limbo forever. Better to make it back to her body and possibly die after the strain then that.
Eventually, she prevailed and, in what can only be described as a mental falling movement, she got through the final resistance and back into her body. But she did not wake. Merely jerked, and went back into a fitful sleep somewhere between death and life.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
The next morning, Seto was glaring at a door. Or to be precise the door. Azreal had disappeared, but in order to tell weather she'd done another runner, he'd first have to check the entire mansion systematically. Which meant this one came now. He certainly wasn't going to come back to it. Gritting his teeth, he opened the door and stepped through.
The first thing that struck him was the cold. And it was no wonder, he saw, as the stain glass doors had been flung wide open and had presumably been all night. He shut them, glaring at a set of doors for the second time that morning. He had never liked those doors… He didn't think his step-father had, or Mokuba did either. They were just creepy. Like they were always… watching. And yet every time he went with the intention to take them down, he remembered something that needed doing right away. Every single time. So, the room had been left to rot alone. Until now, it seemed.
Azreal was lying on the sofa, sleeping. If it could be described as that. It seemed more of a tossing, turning and writhing activity then sleeping. Even half way across the room, Seto could see the sweat breaking out on her face and body.
And it worried him.
Sighing, he went to fetch a blanket and returned to cover her quivering form. She looked do small and fragile, curled up around herself like that…
And she had claimed not to be sick.
o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-
A/N: Well, chapter nine is done, and even though it is at the most inopportune time, there will be no update on Saturday. The next update will be next Wednesday- the day before my Birthday and the day before my sleepover! Yay! Excited here! Especially as my brother and sister are threatening to buy me… POCKY! They finally found a place that sells it! Now, I've never tried any, but it looks so delicious…
But I divulge.
Ahem.
So, all that remains to be said is: remember the true meaning of Easter, when Christ rose again to give all his Disciples chocolate eggs.
Wait.
Oh, screw it. You all know what I mean, and if you don't, convert to my religion and learn! There's eternal salvation in it for ya, you know…
Happy Easter everyone:-)
