Previous Post Yes, since nobody is posting anything, it's time for the traditional cleaning out of my hard drive of story snippets left unfinished long past their relevancy. This one comes features Vizh's and Hallie's adventures in the Mythlands in the quest to retrieve Naari (aka Magweed). It follows various chapters of Untold Tales, as well as the posted story where Vizh has a conversation with Dancer (complete with tutu and strap-on fairy wings) in a dream thanks to a feather supplied by Quoth. I believe I scrapped this work in progress because the mood was quite subdued and the narrative wasn't really leading anywhere... it was mostly all recap. Plus it wasn't funny at all. But there's a sweetness to it that's kind of... well, sweet, I guess. In the end, I started over and we got the "Hallie as a centaur" story instead. I don't *think* this ever got folded into another story, but it might have, or it might have been posted in a previous cleaning of the hard drive. If so, I apologize for the repost. And remember... it doesn't go anywhere. It'll just end abruptly. But hey, it's free... “Why don’t you get some sleep…” Visionary suggested as he came up on the nodding woman, curled up against a tree trunk. “I’ll take over the watch.” She blinked to rouse herself with some embarrassment. “Oh! I was just… um… sorry.” He smiled wearily as he eased down to the ground next to her. “Don’t be. It’s been a long… week? Month?” he scratched his head. “I have very little idea of how long we’ve been in Faerie any more. I try to keep track… to count the days Naari’s been gone, but…” “Time keeps slipping away from you” she surmised. “Fleabot thinks it’s in the nature of the land… His theory is that it’s such a primeval place of story that time here is relative to the significance of the narrative. Large passages of unimportant story drift by quickly, while key moments linger and are stretched out. Plays havoc on our mundane perceptions.” Visionary nodded. “Fleabot’s a clever one.” “Mmmm” Hallie answered noncommittally. “For real entertainment, ask him how this might relate to the way the Shoggoth perceives time. He popped a spring just thinking about it.” She glanced over at him. “So… any luck with Quoth’s feather?” The Regular sighed. “No. I’m beginning to think I imagined that meeting with Dancer altogether.” He had been placing the black raven quill under his head every night he had slept in the mythlands, but he had been unable to reconnect in dream with his adoptive sister back in Parodiopolis. “It’s better than thinking about the alternatives.” She laid a hand on his arm. “I’m sure they’re fine… Maybe you both have to be sleeping at the same time for it to work? That right there would narrow the odds of a connection…” “She’s supposed to be good at working the odds” Visionary pointed out. Hallie sighed and rested her head on his shoulder. “I’m afraid she probably has more pressing matters demanding her powers.” She stared out into the darkened woods as they listened to the crickets. “I’m sure they’re all fine” she repeated, more to herself this time. “They’ll be waiting for us when we come back.” Visionary fished into one of the pouches on his belt, careful not to jostle the emerald-topped head that rested so comfortingly on his shoulder or disturb the jade skinned arm that draped warmly across his chest. He withdrew a bundle of wrapped cloth, and unwound it to produce a shard of glass mirror. Hallie watched as he held it this way and that, until it suddenly caught a bright green light, bouncing it back into the woods and illuminating a path through the trees. “No matter where you go in reality, no matter how far away, or how much may stand between you and it, these shards are part of the Lighthouse and will always reflect back the light of the tower” Quoth had explained the night they had all left for Faerie. “Home is never too far away… Don’t you go forgetting that.” Hallie reached her hand into the beam, catching the light in her palm. “Hello you” she said to it fondly. The effect was subtle enough (and Visionary tired enough,) that he didn’t notice it immediately. Nor was it something his mind would normally register as odd. But as the woods grew slightly brighter around him, he blinked in surprise. “Hallie… are you glowing?” The former AI looked down at her legs through heavy eyelids to see that she did indeed cast a slight green glow onto the bed of autumn leaves beneath her. “Huh” she noted sleepily. She waved her hand back out of then into the mirror light, and the glow to her skin faded and returned. “That’s pretty neat” she noted as she rolled towards him, wrapping an arm about his sweatshirt covered chest to use as a pillow. “I guess it knows its own” Visionary suggested to the sleepy woman. The lighthouse was lit with one of Hallie’s own holograms after all… It was, in essence, a part of her that shone back at them through the glass. She sighed. “I… miss glowing” she admitted hesitantly. “I hate needing to sleep, and to eat. I hate smelling like… like a human that hasn’t had a decent bath since who knows when…” “That pool in the river at the foothills of those mountains, remember? The assembled brownies gave you a standing ovation when you emerged.” She leaned back to look at him with a raised eyebrow. "Um... so I heard" he hastily added.

I found this bit tacked on under the story that actually got posted, where Hallie went and interviewed with the Dean in order to get into art school. Apparently, I had originally intended her to take my own track into the profession, which included applying sans portfolio and taking the basic art classes as electives, then transferring to the school of art based on the work produced in class rather than an outside portfolio.

I also recognize the professors...

---

There was a knock at the door, and three figures appeared in the doorway. One was a grey haired woman with what could only be described as a proud Roman nose and a tight mouth on the edge of a perpetual scowl. The second was a towering African American man with a smiling, pitted face. The third was a tall blonde man with handsome features and a casual stance. None of them looked as if they belonged alongside the other two.

“Ah, come in…” the Dean called to them. “Ms. Graham, I’d like you to meet Professors Castlinaggi, Hamilton and Duncan. Ms. Graham here would like to become an artist.”

“Really? Then what’s she doing here?” Prof. Duncan inquired good naturedly as he turned to regard her. “And did she choose to draw the pirate or the cartoon dog for her art test?”

“Quiet, you.” Dean Ensor warned.

“Gotcha. She might have money. Don’t make her wise up and go somewhere reputable.”

“Thank you so much for your help, gentlemen” the Dean replied dryly. “Actually, our admittance standards pose something of a problem for Ms. Graham here. She’s looking to enroll in the School of Art, but unfortunately has no portfolio to submit.”

“With the ink-bottle hair and the pale make-up, she’s certainly wearing the right camouflage to hide out in the halls for the rest of the semester" Prof. Castlinaggi snorted. “Although she’s certainly the first Goth freshmen we’ve ever had wearing Prada.”

Hallie’s hand went uncertainly to her face with the comments on her self-applied makeup and the interview suit courtesy of Samantha Bonnington.

“What, we have a dress code now?” Prof. Duncan asked pointedly. “Don’t mind her…” he said, turning his attention back to the uncertain young woman. “She’s been this way ever since that house fell on her sister.”

“Did you need us for anything, Dean Ensor, or were we just called in to listen to Malcolm’s older-than-dirt jokes?” the older woman asked.

“So you’re saying you heard them back when they were original then.”

“Yes, that will do” the Dean said with a sigh. “In any event, Ms. Graham here will need instructor approval to take your beginning drawing class, Mary, as well as figure and anatomy and basic design."