Chapter 9
Disclaimer: I own nothing. No infringement intended.
A shrill cheer arose from the creatures lined up on the floor beneath Miley as a pipe organ Miley couldn't see began to play a fast-paced baroque dance piece. All the creatures began to dance in an organized manner that reminded Miley of a square dance. Suddenly, a voice sounded inside of her glass cube. "Dance!" ordered the hissing voice of Choroline.
"This isn't the dance we practiced," Miley said, turning around and around, not really sure which direction she should be pointing as she spoke.
"Are you telling me you can't improvise?" replied Choroline's voice.
Miley sighed in irritation. Looking across the Great Hall, she saw that Lilly had already begun to dance, doing her best to mimic the steps of the creatures beneath her. "Fine," Miley growled, and began dancing. Rather than mimic the creatures beneath her, though, she watched Lilly and danced in time with her.
As Miley stepped and turned and whirled in time with Lilly, she couldn't help but notice how graceful Lilly was. She's so beautiful, Miley thought to herself, then shuddered as another thought crossed her mind. Is this the closest I'm ever going to be to her?
The organized dancing went on for perhaps ten minutes before the pipe organ went silent and the creatures lined up and face the Rodent King again, who addressed the crowd.
"Now it is time to enjoy some of this wonderful food that the squirrels have prepared for us," the Rodent King said, his voice still underlain with squeaks and smacking noises. "While we eat, of course, we will enjoy the comedy of Donald the Duck and Sunny the Sunflower!"
Miley turned to the stage and saw that Ronald and Sunny had appeared there, Ronald standing and Sunny sitting on a barstool. Both Ronald and Sunny wore colorful bowties. Unlike the other ball attendees, though, neither wore a mask. A microphone stood between them.
"Good evening everyone!" Ronald said. "Welcome to the Masquerade Ball. We're so glad you could make it. I'm sure many of you had other places to be."
A bitter laugh rippled through the crowd. Miley looked to Krokylus and the Rodent King, but neither seemed fazed by the open reference to everyone's captive state.
"I certainly hope we can give everyone a few laughs tonight," Sunny said cheerfully.
"But if we don't tickle your funny bones," said Ronald, "don't bother throwing fruit; I'll just duck."
The crowd laughed.
"I was just in my dressing room putting on this snazzy tie," Sunny said, "and there was no lamp. I had specifically asked for a lamp, but there was no lamp. I went to Chancellor Krokylus to complain, and what do I get for my troubles? Crocodile tears."
More laughter, louder and freer this time.
"I told him Sunny would be fine," Ronald said, "that one day Sunny's sure to get some sun through a quack in the ceiling."
There was some laughter, but not as loud as before. Ronald nodded his head. "Sunny thought that was about as funny as most of you did."
"But we kid the chancellor," Sunny said. "We don't want to give him too much grief. It wouldn't do for him to be walking around with a long face."
Louder laughter. Miley looked over to Krokylus and the Rodent King. Krokylus stood still and stoic as ever, but the Rodent King was squirming in laughter.
"We're actually lucky to have a stage tonight; this stage is solid wood," Ronald said, tapping a foot against the stage to reinforce the point. "Someone let the woodchucks in here yesterday before dinner, and they ate the corners off the stage!" As the crowd laughed, Ronald extended a wing, and Miley looked closely to where he pointed and saw that, indeed, the corners of the stage were well chewed.
"I got here just in time," Sunny chimed in. "I yelled, 'Timber!' and they all went running."
The crowd kept laughing.
"Just like beavers!" Sunny continued, and the laughter ratcheted up another level.
"Of course, for those of you who haven't been here very long, you probably don't remember the beavers," Ronald said. "They had to leave after too many complaints from the squirrels."
Sunny chimed in. "The squirrels said the beavers literally ate them out of house and home!"
Now the crowd roared with laughter. Miley thought that one was pretty funny too, but she didn't feel much like laughing. Looking back to the Rodent King, she saw that he was now hanging halfway off his throne, laughing hysterically.
The laughter died down a little, and Ronald spoke again. "That's it for now, but we'll be back later in the evening to get you all quacking up again." The crowd laughed again as Ronald and Sunny walked off the stage.
The lights began to dim slowly and the Rodent King began speaking again. "On a deeper note," he said, "every now and then, we all turn to thoughts of love. Love is a beautiful thing, and it's an utter shame when it's wasted. Love should always be expressed, no matter how that expression comes out. Unrequited love, and, indeed, unacknowledged love is both exquisitely painful and exquisitely beautiful. To watch the players in an unrequited love story dance around each other can be both maddening and inspiring. Unacknowledged love is like a rainbow hidden in the dark, bursting with desire to dance in the light, but never allowed to do so. Thus we have two such players performing for you tonight. Their love for each other is pure and eternal, but they have chosen not to speak it. So now they dwell across from each other, seeing one another, dancing for one another, expressing the music of their souls to each other, but never coming into contact. For is that not the definition of unrequited love, to know each other's heart and soul but never touch, never speak that love? So it is with our rainbow dancers tonight."
By the end of the Rodent King's speech, the lights had gone out completely, and Miley could see that her leotard was now glowing brightly in the colors of the rainbow. Looking across the room, she saw that Lilly's leotard was glowing in an identical fashion.
"This is what we practiced for," came the voice of Choroline. She sounded less angry now, like she might be holding back tears. Miley's own eyes were starting to well up.
Is the Rodent King implying that I'm in love with Lilly? Miley asked herself. Much to her surprise, it didn't seem that implausible. Could we really be more than just best friends?
The music started and Miley began dancing as these thoughts flashed through her mind. Her lower lip trembled as she watched the bright colors of Lilly's leotard begin dancing across from her, and as the music's fifth measure ticked over into the sixth, Miley considered that she had always seen these colors when she closed her eyes and thought of her best friend. The seventh measure passed, and Miley began to sing the wordless melody that Cantari had taught her.
In unison, Miley and Lilly danced to the vaulting melody Miley sang. Miley twirled about as Choroline had taught her, and caught a brief glimpse of Krokylus and the Rodent King, who were outlined in a dim, fuzzy light. The Rodent King was standing upright on the platform, having removed his crown and placed it over his heart. Krokylus held his uninjured hand up to his eyes, as if he were wiping tears from them.
More steps and whirls, and Miley watched as the rainbow clad girl across from her matched her every step. Neither made a step without the other. The song's halfway point came, and Miley followed the key change, her voice lifting higher as the forlorn sharps once again brought images unbidden to her mind.
She saw Lilly standing outside on her front porch, the sadness in her eyes asking to be let in. She heard Lilly explaining all over again that Miley was her best friend, not Hannah Montana. She saw Lilly giving her a cake she had baked herself and decorated with pink hearts. She saw Lilly lying asleep as the early morning sun played in her golden hair. She saw Lilly hanging on to her for dear life as she tried to get her up on Blue Jeans. And she saw Lilly waiting patiently in a wheelchair outside the barn until dawn, ready to console Miley if Blue Jeans didn't survive the night. She saw Lilly giving up her college of choice just so she could be with Miley wherever they ended up. She saw Lilly standing just offstage at every show she could possibly make it to, always cheering her on, no matter how many times she had heard the same songs over and over. In every meaningful moment Miley had experienced since she had moved to California, she saw Lilly.
Miley came to the highest note in the song and struck it flawlessly, and now her eyes overflowed ever so slightly, forcing a single tear down her cheek. Somehow, she managed to finish the song without her voice cracking. As the music ended, Miley dropped to her knees, and now her tears overwhelmed her. "I love you," she whispered, knowing Lilly couldn't hear her. But when she looked up, she saw Lilly gazing at her from across the Great Hall, mouthing the very words Miley had just spoken. "I love you," Lilly's lips conveyed. Even though Lilly was too far away for Miley to actually read her lips, she knew what Lilly was saying. She felt it in her heart, and she knew that Lilly could feel it, too.
There was a moment of silence as the crowd processed the emotional impact of the song and dance. Then the Rodent King spoke. "Now, for something a bit more light-hearted, it's time for the Caber Toss!"
"What the heck is a Caber Toss?" Miley wondered to herself.
As if to answer Miley's question, the woodchucks had lined up in two rows next to the stack of logs that sat in front of the stage. Now the woodchucks all wore Scottish kilts. Miley supposed they had changed during the song and dance. The floor of the Great Hall had been cleared, all the attendees of the Masquerade Ball lined up against the walls.
One of the woodchucks from the first row grasped one of the logs and hoisted it upright in his arms. Another woodchuck from the second row grasped another log and did the same. The two woodchucks carried their logs to opposite corners of the Great Hall, one facing in the direction of the Rodent King and standing almost underneath Miley, the other facing in Miley's direction and standing almost directly underneath the Rodent King's platform.
"Go!" the Rodent King shouted in delight, and the woodchucks began running. After running no more than ten feet, each woodchuck launched his log into the air. The logs twirled end over end, finally landing across the room from where they had been tossed.
"How delightful!" the Rodent King said as he laughed jubilantly.
Now two more woodchucks came to the front of the line and hoisted logs. One walked the short distance to stand nearly underneath Miley's glass prison, while the other began to cross the room. Halfway across, this woodchuck turned to look directly at Miley, and she saw that it was Dwayne in his "The Rock" mask. "Hang on," he mouthed, and smiled wickedly.
"Oh no," said Miley, realizing what Dwayne's plan was. "No no no no no!" But there was nothing she could do to stop him now.
"What's your problem?" Choroline hissed over whatever intercom was installed in the glass cube.
"Uh, nothing," Miley said nervously. "Nothing at all." This is not going to end well, she thought to herself.
Dwayne took his position on the opposite side of the room from Miley. "Go!" the Rodent King shouted again, and the woodchucks began running. Miley watched helplessly as Dwayne ran across the room toward her. The other woodchuck launched his log, but Dwayne kept running.
"Throw it, you twit!" the Rodent King shouted, but Dwayne ran several more feet before launching the log into the air.
Miley grimaced as she saw the log flying end over end directly at her glass cube. She stood flat against the back of the cube so that, if nothing else, she wouldn't be hit directly by the log. But she had a long way to fall even if she survived the impact.
With a magnificent crash, the log struck the glass cube, and the entire cube disintegrated into thousands, if not millions, of tiny pieces. Miley felt her stomach lurch up into her throat as she began to fall to the ground below.
At that very moment, though, Miley heard a piercing, birdlike cry, and as she watched the floor of the Great Hall grow closer to her face, she felt claws dig painfully into her back. The floor stopped growing closer, and indeed, got further away. Stunned, Miley looked up.
"Cantari!" she cried joyfully.
Below her, Miley heard an uproar beginning. The Rodent King was shouting, but his voice was drowned out by the excited chittering of the creatures on the floor of the Great Hall. Cantari dropped Miley on a small balcony that jutted out from the wall above the Rodent King's platform. Settling on the edge of the balcony for a moment, Cantari looked Miley in the eyes and spoke.
"You've done your singing and dancing," he said. "Go get the rest of your world."
Miley felt like crying for joy, but she held her tears in for the time being. "Thank you," she said. With that, Cantari flew off and Miley found a staircase to her left that led down from the balcony toward the Rodent King's platform and Lilly's glass cube. Glancing down at the scene on the floor of the Great Hall, she saw that at least half the creatures down there had brandished keys and were filtering out of the Great Hall, presumably to unlock all the doors in the entire structure.
Miley ran down the stairs and found herself on a catwalk, the Rodent King's platform on her right, Lilly's glass cube to the left. Without hesitation, she ran to Lilly's prison. At sight of Miley, Lilly ran to the door in the back of the cube and started banging on it. Miley saw a handle attached to the door and tried to turn it, but it wouldn't budge. She pounded her fist on the door, but to no avail. That was when she felt a tall figure looming over her, and Lilly's expression changed from frustration to fear.
Whipping around, Miley found herself in the shadow of Chancellor Krokylus. He lifted his good arm, claw curled into a scaly reptilian fist, and swung as hard as he could. Miley put her hands up to cover her face, preferring a broken arm to a broken skull. But the blow never came. Instead, she heard the crack and tinkle of shattering glass, and felt the pieces raining down over her head and shoulders. She looked up to Krokylus and saw that his eyes were ringed in moisture.
"Go," he said. "I'm sure they've unlocked the top hatch by now." Krokylus pointed to the hatch through which the Rodent King had entered. Miley nodded and turned to the now broken door to Lilly's glass cube. The handle turned freely now, and the door swung open, and Miley found herself wrapped in Lilly's arms.
"Miley," Lilly cried. "Thank you," she said, tears streaming down her cheeks. "And thank you," she said, turning to Krokylus.
"We're not out of the woods yet, Lil," Miley said.
"You've got that right," said a squeaky voice. Miley looked up to see the Rodent King standing on two legs, blocking the catwalk. "You're not going anywhere."
Something landed on Miley's back, sending her sprawling face first to the ground. She rolled over quickly in time to see Choroline leap atop her, hissing viciously. Miley and Choroline grappled, rolling over and over, each trying to gain the upper hand. Choroline lifted a paw and extended her claws, ready to savage Miley's face. That action gave Miley only a short moment to move her right arm, but she took the opportunity, reaching as quickly as she could inside her leotard and into the bra beneath it, producing the bag of catnip Dwayne had handed her. She pulled her arm back just in time to block Choroline's claws before the ripped into her face.
Struggling with Choroline and with the Ziploc bag, Miley ended up underneath Choroline, only barely able to deflect Choroline's claws. At last, she got the bag open and shoved it in Choroline's face. Choroline coughed and gasped, first in anger and agitation, but after a few moments, her gasps took on a pleasured tone, and Miley felt the cat-woman relax. Now Miley easily shoved Choroline off of her and stood up. Krokylus still stood there, observing the madness that continued on the floor of the Great Hall. But Lilly was nowhere to be seen.
Krokylus turned toward the back of the Great Hall and silently extended his good arm, pointing a solitary claw at the hatch that opened onto the roof.
"Thank you," Miley said, then ran for the Rodent King's platform, where the rope ladder once again hung down. Miley clambered up the ladder and out into the roiling purple night above.
Now she stood on top of the structure that had been her prison for the last few days. The structure was rectangular and made of metal. All around her Miley heard the sounds of the waves of the black ocean that surrounded the structure. But what mattered to her was what she saw straight ahead. At the very edge of the structure, the Rodent King held Lilly in his arms. She squirmed, trying to free herself, but to no avail.
"Get back in there or I'll drop her into the ocean!" the Rodent King squealed.
"If you drop her into the ocean, I'll just have to go after her," Miley yelled back, stepping forward.
"Very well," said the Rodent King. Then he stepped off the edge of the structure, pulling Lilly with him as he plummeted into the water below.
Miley ran as quickly as she could to the edge of the structure, and, without stopping or hesitating in any way, launched herself, eyes open, into the water, executing a graceful swan dive, slipping smoothly into the waves.
Under the water, Miley could barely see anything, but she heard a sound nearby that sounded like underwater kicking. Propelling herself forward with her powerful legs, she soon saw the outline of the Rodent King trying to contain an angry Lilly. So far, the Rodent King had kept the upper hand, but he was obviously struggling.
Suddenly, the entire world was filled with a nearly blinding bright white light. Miley could clearly see the Rodent King and Lilly in front of her. The Rodent King kept swimming away from Miley, sticking his nose out of the water occasionally to breathe. One such time, Miley got close enough to him to grab onto his tail.
The regal rodent's tail in hand, Miley kicked her way to the surface of the water, grabbing a deep breath of air. The Rodent King poked his head out of the water, too, and Lilly came up with him. All three gasped for air, but Miley managed to find enough breath to speak.
"Stop keeping us apart!" she demanded.
The Rodent King dove back underneath the water, and Miley held onto his tail, following after. The bright white light still lit up the water, and the Rodent King turned to look at Miley. Suddenly, the Rodent King sprouted hair from the top of his head. Long, curly brown locks now flowed about the Rodent King's head, and then his face transformed. Miley realized she was looking at herself now, not the Rodent King.
The mirror-Miley that had been the Rodent King spoke. "I was you all along," she said.
The white light that permeated the sea grew brighter and brighter until it flushed out everything else, and the light was all Miley could see.