"Hello, Solo," a snickering voice said.
Han gave himself a three-count before turning casually to face the voice. "Well hello, Dravis," he nodded, "Long time no see. Have a seat."
"Sure," Dravis said with a grin. "Soon as you and Chewie both put your hands on the table."
Han gave him an injured look. "Aw, come on," he said, reaching up to cradle his mug with both hands. "You think I'd invite you all the way here just to shoot at you? We're old buddies, remember?"
After reading the first chapter, Riley had been called in for dinner; now it was about an hour after dinner ended, and Riley had been reading the entire time. She was now lying sideways on her bed, the book propped up on one arm. The emotions similarly had slowly assumed the most comfortable positions they could while remaining at the console, almost all with variations of the same theme: Joy leaned forward with elbows on the console and chin resting in her palms, while Disgust used the backs of her hands and Fear propped his head with only one arm; with the other, he fiddled with a bit of string unravelling from his shirt. Sadness went further, resting her chin directly on the table, and Anger assumed the precarious position of reclining back and resting his feet on the console. As it still early in the book, the emotions only had to occasionally tinker with the console to produce subtle mood shifts.
"Sure we are," Dravis said, throwing Chewbacca an appraising glance as he sat down. "Or at least we used to be. But I hear you gone respectable."
Sadness and Fear touched their controls; a little tension, and a bit of confusion.
Han shrugged eloquently. "Respectable, such a vague word."
Dravis lifted an eyebrow. "Oh, well, then let's be specific," he said sardonically. "I hear you joined the Rebel Alliance, got made a general, married a former Alderaanian princess, and got yourself a set of twins on the way."
Han waved a self-deprecating hand. "I resigned that general part a few months back."
Dravis snorted. "Forgive me."
Joy twisted a do-dad, both for the dialogue, and because she realized why respectability would not be a good quality for a smuggler's friends. She glanced to the side, and noticed that Sadness was dialing down the confusion at the same time; she smiled (wider) at how they were able to act in concert now.
"Riley! Time to get ready for bed!"
At Mom's voice, muffled as it was coming from downstairs, Anger was startled enough to fall backward in his chair, and Fear's jump ended with his face in his panel, making Riley jump slightly in turn. Joy tried and failed to contain a giggle, and Disgust openly sniggered. Meanwhile, the visualization overlay faded, and Sadness had the presence of mind to prompt Riley to blink, sit up, and begin to look for her bookmark, with a bit of disappointment at being pulled out of the scene. Anger, now smoldering slightly as he chafed at his humiliation reached up and pulled a lever, just in time for Riley to say "Okay, Mom!" in a loud sort of groan. This kind of put Disgust out of her amusement, since that sort of petulance was supposed to be her domain, even if the motivation was different. Fear straightened his bow-tie, and suddenly pressed three buttons in rapid succession; it seemed one of Riley's legs had fallen asleep, and she had begun to trip. Any tension dissolved as the other emotions applauded his quick response. After that died down, Joy got everyone back to business.
"Alright everyone, prepare for bed time! Disgust, make sure Riley's clean, sparkly, and good smelling!"
"On it!" she replied, then to herself, "hmmm, maybe try brushing teeth first? Might be able to remember better, but then in the shower water runs through the mouth, so..."
"Great! Anger, get ready in case we see another spider!"
"Shouldn't I be watching for the spider?"
"No, Fear, you need to make sure Riley doesn't slip on the wet tile. Let Anger get his crack at spiders."
"Heh heh, yeah!" The red emotion rolled up his newspaper and slammed it against his hand a few times with loud THWACKs, his eyes seeming to burn with anticipation. Fear just sighed and rolled his eyes, wondering what he had done to deserve this.
"Sadness, that leaves you and me to review the story so far!" Joy clapped her hands and quickly called up one of the recent memories of the events. As they were in short-term memory, they projected almost instantly. Sadness quickly adjusted some settings so the memory under consideration would only cover a small portion of the screen; everyone else still had to do their jobs, after all. "Alright, how about that space battle! That admiral is really smart, huh?"
"Yeah, he'll probably cause a lot of trouble for the protagonists." Sadness agreed, but in such a way as to change the meaning.
"I don't know; with all the art, maybe he'll end up allying with the Republic?"
Sadness pushed up her glasses. "That would require an even worse villain."
"Maybe, but..."
They continued as Riley grabbed her only set of bed-clothes, and Disgust brightened at the thought of the rest arriving with the truck, then by gently nudging a slider she managed to bring an almost smug grin to Riley's face. Sighing for a moment, she looked pointedly at Joy, who stopped trying to argue the merits of the Grand Admiral long enough to twirl a knob and upgrade the smugness to anticipation. Fear juggled watching the floor, making sure no clothes had been dropped, and getting ready to avoid scalding or hypothermia in the shower. Anger scanned the periphery of the screen for movement, slightly twisting his still-rolled newspaper and daring any creepy-crawly to show its face.
Riley quickly showered, dressed, brushed her teeth and hair, and finally walked back into her room. Disgust made sure the dirty clothes made their way to the big spring-hamper in the hall on the way, and Anger began to despair of getting to smash a bug tonight, as he had only been able to find a false alarm cause by a tangled knot of hair dislodged from the hairbrush at some point. Fear withdrew from his ready position as soon as Riley hopped in bed, and Joy wiggled the controls to get Riley comfortable under the cool sheets.
Finally, the parents came in, said their goodnights, and then the lights were out and Riley began to drift to sleep.
"Whose turn is it for dream duty?" Disgust asked halfheartedly, filing her nails as she stood to begin the trek to her quarters.
"Welp, looks like no one's getting any sleep tonight," Anger deadpanned, "it's Fear's turn."
Joy shook her head, slightly amused. "Oh come on, Anger! Fear doesn't wake us up every time."
"Oh yeah? Well no skin off my back; you all have to deal with it anyway. Tonight, I'm packing ear-plugs!" He then turned and marched up the stairs, following Disgust.
Joy noticed Fear staring at his shoes, looking unsure of himself. "I'm sure Anger didn't mean it," she tried.
"No, no, he's right," the other sighed. He then straightened looking more determined. "But tonight, there's nothing to worry about! Right?"
"There's the spirit!" Joy jumped and clicked her heels. "Go ahead and get your tea, and I'll get out of your way. Anger said we got a fresh shipment of chamomile on the Train this morning." She turned to Sadness, who was halfway to the window from her place at the console. "Coming, Sadness?"
"In a little bit; I want to look at Fiction Island for a while, see if anything new is in," Sadness said with all the enthusiasm of a wet mop.
"Okay, don't be too long!" Joy called out from halfway up the ramp to the sleeping room. "I don't want you keeping everyone up all night reading that manual again!"
"Don't worry, Joy."
"Of course not, that's Fear's job! Haha, get it, 'cause- never mind." She skipped up the rest of the way and around into the sleeping quarters. A few minutes later, Riley began the transition to REM sleep, and Fear took his position at the console, teacup and saucer in hand. Sadness trudged up the ramp and entered the sleeping quarters; soon enough a reading light came on. The first bit of dream began; it looked like an abstracted library, with endless rows of books. Apparently a book was missing for some reason or something like that, Fear really couldn't tell. Fear looked around and carefully moved to Joy's seat. Joy had a more comfortable seat than his, at least as far a reclining during dream duty went. His was harder, and kept him slightly more alert during the day, as he liked it, but staying up all night calls for a softer seat. Technically, Sadness had the softest in terms of padding, Anger's was heated, and Disgust's had the best cover, but those were all too short for Fear to sit in for long periods without developing a crick in his neck.
He settled back and watched the scene change, the endless stacks becoming a field of books growing on berry bushes.
"Oh. Newberry awards. What will they think of next." Fear had developed quite a knack for sarcastic humor on dream duty, and though he knew he would never rival Disgust in that area, he was proud of branching out a bit, becoming a more well-rounded emotion.
The faint light from Sadness' reading went out in the wee hours of the morning, around the time the dream shifted once more. Now Riley was watching a road from the porch of her house. Of course, the road was extremely large, and the house small, and they stood in the middle of nowhere. Fear chuckled nervously at the artistic license, lightening up again as he saw what appeared to be a semi-truck approaching; Dream Productions was doing one on the move. As it got closer, Fear saw it had livery like a jet-liner, and was going super fast. Then, when he began to fear it would hit the camera, it flipped around with no explanation and stopped right in front of the house, with the back facing the dream camera. Fear began to get excited about the reveal of the contents. Then the huge rear door opened.
Fear gasped. The trailer was completely filled with inky black darkness. He held his breath as the void began to dissolve, slowly revealing an empty truck. When it was almost all revealed, he began to sigh in relief; it was just one about not getting the delivery. Then the breath caught in his throat.
The last bit dissolved to show glowing red eyes, followed by a blue visage over a white uniform. The camera zoomed in on Thrawn's face.
"Greetings."
Fear's hair stood on end. He began to babble incoherently.
"The real truck will arrive as expected, containing your possessions."
"What?" Fear was so baffled, all his anxiety disappeared.
"Goodbye." And with that, Thrawn's face dissolved into the static of a lighter sleep phase.
Fear blinked and looked around, realizing it was almost wake-up time.
"Well, that was weird even for Dream Productions!"