Previous Post [The Set-Up: Dancer is helping Christmas Fairy Cinderbelle track down her fairy-dust-stealing accidental-husband Zebulon the Elf who is hiding in the dreams of one of the Lair Legion or their friends and family (He’s actually in the dreams of Magweed and Griffin, and if poster-Vizh ever stops partying we might get to find out what’s going on there too). So they’re wandering through people’s dreams trying to find Zeb but only managing to provoke some excellent cross-overs.] [The Scene: A big old gothic castle with a massive creaky front door creaking open. It is a dark and stormy night, windy enough to whip Dancer and Cinderbelle’s thin nighties with the underwired heaving bodices against their shivering… well, you get the idea. In the distance lightning strikes the old windmill. The castle door creaks open.] Flapjack, loathsome hunchbacked major domo wearing questionable hose: Welcome, my pretties! Enter freely and of your own… Dancer? Dancer: Hey, Flapjack. Nice looming. Flapjack: How can you be out here? Er, I mean, what are you doing here? Dancer: Out here? You mean I’m in there as well? Are you dreaming me? Flapjack: No. No of course not. The very idea. No way. No. [He tries to surreptitiously kick a bag of clanking metal accessories behind the door] Cinderbelle, shuddering: Is this… a dwarf? An orc? A radioactively mutated leprechaun? The bastard love-child of a dwarf, and orc, and a radioactively mutated leprechaun? Dancer: This is Flapjack. He’s the Lair Butler. At least in these post-Jarvis days. Cinderbelle: Hold on. You’re saying this… being… is the dreamer not one of the nightmares? Flapjack: This is a dream? Aw, crap! I thought I was getting on rather better with Amber and Yuki than… er, nothing. Nothing at all. [He tries to surreptitiously drop a bundle of lingerie behind the big clanking sack] Dancer: Flapjack is a real person. Well, probably. I’d say realer than Vizh but maybe not as real as, say, Epitome. But real enough. Cinderbelle: But what dreadful deeds has he committed that he punishes himself in his dreams by imagining that he’s transformed into such a monstrous grotesquery? Flapjack: Hey! Some of these body parts have been passed down in my family for generations. Want to see? Dancer: Flapjack always looks like this, Cindy. It’s an aesthetic choice. [She looks a little more closely at the leering hunchback] Well, a choice. Cinderbelle, backing off a little: Okay. Um, do you have an elf in there, Flapjack? Flapjack, guiltily: No. And if I do she said she was overage. She’s 1000 if she’s a day. Dancer, sternly: Step aside, Flapjack. We’re coming in. Flapjack: Er, I can’t allow that! A Carpathian Flapjack will never allow intruders into the master’s castle. It’s a real blot on the resumé, and… Dancer: Flapjack, do I have to go into the village and rouse the mob? With the pitchforks and the burning torches? Flapjack: Well, maybe you could have just a quick look round. But you can’t go into the dungeons. Hey! I said you can’t go into the… Aw, crap. Cinderbelle: Why have you turned that colour, Mr Flapjack? Although I suppose it could be normal for a bastard love-child of a dwarf, and orc, and a radioactively mutated leprechaun. Dancer, emerging from the dungeon: Well now. That was very interesting. Flapjack, cringing: Am I fired now? Are you sure you wouldn’t just like to beat me with a thick heavy stick for hours on end? You can put nails in it if you want. Dancer: No, that’s okay. I’ve done worse than that. Flapjack: Worse? What worse? Flapjack’s Dream Dancer: Oh, she reminded us of what we’re actually supposed to be like. Flapjack: She what? Flapjack’s Dream Yuki: We know who we are now. Or who we’re supposed to be. Flapjack’s Dream Citizen Z: And where you keep the spiky instruments. Flapjack’s Dream Hallie: And how to access the database of things you really wouldn’t like to happen to you. Like washing. Flapjack: No! Nooooooooo!!!!! Cinderbelle: You know sometimes dreams can really screw a person up. Flapjack’s Dream Lisa: Let’s hope so. Dancer: We’d better get out of here. Things are about to get messy. Flapjack’s Dream Dancer: Okay. By the way, you really need to diet. Have you seen our hips from behind? Dancer: Aaagh! Continued… Original concepts, characters, and situations copyright © 2007 reserved by Sarah Shepherdson. Other Parodyverse characters copyright © 2007 to their creators. The use of characters and situations reminiscent of other popular works do not constitute a challenge to the copyrights or trademarks of those works. The right of Sarah Shepherdson to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by her in accordance with the UK Copyright, Designs & Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved.

While Flapjack is creepy enough to work well in a stop-motion Rankin-Bass animated Christmas special, I somehow think his dream deviates from the usual Christmas script. But I suppose even Deviants have their own little traditions to uphold...

Lots of fun, and some heroic action by our star. Although, I have to say that being forcibly bathed by hot heroic women probably isn't the worst punishment that could be metered out.