City of Light, Monday Evening
Jun. 22nd, 2007 01:59 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
dark_slippy_thing"If I tell you something weird, will you think I'm crazy?"
They weren't running anymore, at least. But now Helena was being stupid again, and that was nearly as bad.
"Yes. I expect so." What did she want from him? It wasn't as though he was going to reply with, 'why no, if you start telling me that your mother was a monkeybird or something at this point, I'll think you entirely sane, why?'
"Because when I look through windows," Helena continued, regardless of Valentine's humble opinion, "not all of them, I see somebody who isn't me."
Well, duh.
"How odd," Valentine replied, feigning shock. "I do the same thing. Me. Window! Look through it. Not me! The ones I see me in are called 'mirrors.'"
"No," Helena protested, serving only to make her seem more crazy than Valentine already figured she was, "I mean, she looks like me. But she's not me... She was fighting with my dad..."
They wandered up to the base of the most ridiculously large set of stairs that Valentine never wanted to have the pleasure of climbing. He stared thoughtfully up at the old cathedral that they led to, worn away and battered by frequent shadow attacks. Nasty place, probably dangerously unstable and horrible and it was a good thing that they didn't have to go in there.
"Get higher," Helena mused.
"What?" Ah, bugger. He was going to have to climb.
"The giant statue said "get higher." Do you see anything higher than that place? And look!" Helena held the key up and compared it to the building. The similarity was striking, Valentine couldn't deny that.
That didn't mean he wanted to climb all of those steps any more than before, though.
~~~
Valentine looked around once they finally got inside the cathedral.
"There's nothing here, you know." It took forever to get up those damned steps, too. Ugh. And just look at it! "This place is waiting to collapse into a heap of rubble. And it can't be safe!"
"You're such a coward," Helena scoffed. "It's perfectly-AAAAH!"
Valentine turned around to see a large hole in the floor where Helena had been only a moment ago. He took a moment to gloat as he sauntered over to peer down the hole into the darkness that Helena had fallen into.
"Coward, eh? I prefer to think of myself as prudent. Cautious. And, unlike some people I could name, still up here."
Silence.
...
"I'm not coming down there after you, you know. It's not safe." There, that ought to get some sort of reaction. Maybe. He kind of hoped. Perhaps.
"No, I'm not hurt, thanks for asking," came the reply from the darkness, possibly perhaps maybe sort of to his relief. And then there was the distinct sound of 'bob'ing from below, and Valentine could have sworn he heard someone say 'nicely.'
"Are you having a party down there or something?"
"Valentine, you should come down. I've made some friends."
Yeah. Right on that. Only absolutely not. Silly girl.
Valentine waited a moment, and then he heard screaming.
Seriously, certainly, very most definitely not going down there now! And so Valentine did what Valentines were very good at doing. He hid himself. Under a large piece of debris. There. Nice and saf-
Wait, no. That monkeybird looming overhead was decidedly not pleased looking.
"I can go," Valentine insisted. "I know I'm not supposed to be here! I can go!"
Apparently, that didn't matter much to the monkeybird, who promptly scooped him up and flew off with him, earning an 'aaaaaah' of protest.
It was entirely possible that this was mostly because he was being carried upside-down by the ankles. But at least from this particular vantage point, he could see the shadows, and the source of all the screaming was made painfully clear.
The small entourage of monkeybirds, Helena, and Valentine took off into the wide open sky and soared away from the cathedral, from the shadows, and toward a glint on the border.
Needless to say, Valentine was hating every moment of this.
~~~
The monkeybirds dropped the two of them off on the border, and Helena took a moment to give one she called 'Malcolm' a hug.
... What kind of a name for a monkeybird was that, anyhow? Though Valentine couldn't shake the notion that the blue-beaked critter was vaguely familiar...
"Nicely," the flying ape said before taking off at a run back toward the City of Light.
"What are we doing here?" This was, of course, Valentine, wondering what in the world they were doing hanging around so close to the dream lands and the darkness and he really wanted none of either.
"We're going to get the MirrorMask," Helena insisted. "I know where it is. It's halfway between the night lands and the day lands." She was flailing her own arms about to make her point. Valentine just tapped his fingers together and pretended to pay attention. "I knew I could help! I hate being so helpless! Valentine, look!"
And there she was, off again to stare into the window of some broken down building.
"We call them 'windows,'" Valentine said with a sigh. "They aren't unusual."
... Which, of course, didn't dissuade Helena from freaking out at the window, beating on it, and telling it to stop because it was horrible. Right.
"Hey, hey hey!" Valentine put a hand on her shoulder. "Calm down!" She pulled out of his grasp and stomped away, and he stole a glance into... another junk room. "There's nothing there!"
He turned around to see her ripping one of the wanted posters from a nearby wall, crumple it up, and toss it away. He didn't say a word, but there was something about the gesture that caught his attention.
And then, they kept walking along the border.
~~~
They had stopped at a lake. A puddle, really, something like a large ring filled up with shallow water.
"So, what are we meant to be seeing? It this like the windows thingie again?"
"I know it's here," Helena insisted. "It was so obvious when I saw it."
"We often confuse what we wish for with what is," Valentine mused, looking out over the smooth surface of the pond. "These are the dream lands, on the border," he explained. "It's all wishes, and hopes, and memories." He grabbed a stone, sat down, and tossed it at the water in frustration.
It skipped. That was new and interesting, and it beat tagging along with Helena as she wandered off to be crazy, so he went with it for a while before she came back babbling about how it was her dream, and things would be this way and that way and something or other else if it was her dream, because she was really in control, and why hadn't see seen it before?
Valentine looked up to see what she hadn't seen before. As it turned out, he hadn't noticed it up until this point, either. A little hut right in the middle of the pond, all round and dizzying white. It was so... intriguing, really, that when Helena told him to follow her in, he did.
The inside was more white than the outside, so that everything seemed to be aglow with some sort of bleached-out haze of light.
.... Valentine could think of one person back in Fandom who might like this room. And he still hadn't kept his promise to her. And perhaps now would be a good time to try to figure out a quick way to wiggle out of this whole problem. He'd been nearly swallowed by shadows too many times these past few days and he was running on a tray of cakes and no sleep.
And that pillar in the middle of this shiny room- the one that was entirely covered in keyholes? That didn't look horribly foreboding at all.
Helena had just tried the key in the first hole to no avail and was ready to try the next when the whole room shook. There was a rustling sound, like paper, and Helena peered curiously out the one window in the room for a moment. She seemed to be watching something... and then everything went mad as the two of them were thrown around inside the little dome building like ragdolls.
"Aaah, my arm!"
Everything stopped. Valentine and Helena both were sprawled across the floor, Helena holding her arm tenderly.
An opportunity to get this over with and get out of here if ever Valentine saw one. He had the perfect plan. This would all turn out so very nicely, and he could be back to Fandom and keep his promise and maybe direct another movie and never have to worry about these stupid shadows again.
"You're hurt!" Valentine picked himself up and crouched in front of Helena. "Now stay here. Don't. Move."
"And what about you?"
"Oh, I'm a panther," he insisted. "I shall slip unnoticed through the darkness like a dark, unnoticeable slippy thing."
It had sounded better in his mind, really.
While Helea was looking downward and giggling, he scooped up the key from where it had fallen on the floor and toyed with it idly in his fingers.
"Valentine," she said, still looking off somewhere into space, "I know we haven't always got on, but..." She hesitated thoughtfully. "I'm really grateful for all your help. I couldn't have done any of this without you."
No, he didn't feel rotten at all for wanting to ditch her. Really. That hesitation before he shrugged his shoulders and smiled and insisted that he did his best, that was nothing.
...
He felt rotten. But he wasn't not staying here. Not on this stupid mission to save the world. He should have just left when the shadows got Bing and Eric and kept his promise and not missed his Stupid People class and this whole thing was just ridiculous and he had had quite enough by now.
"Come back soon."
He paused in the doorway and looked at her. He wanted to say something. He wanted to tell her to stop looking at him like that, sitting there all vulnerable in her white clothing, and him feeling terrible that he was walking away...
That seemed to be the trend lately, really...
He raised a hand. He couldn't come up with words. Words might end in promises, and he couldn't possibly keep one without breaking the other.
He stepped outside into the forest.
The forest in the shadow-lands. The building must have been thrown there somehow during the earthquake.
And all at once, he knew how to get out of this place and save the world all in one go.
He pulled the key from his pocket. He grinned at it. He kissed it.
And he only glanced back once as he set off alone into the woods.
(OOC: NFB! NFI! Scriptbooky-movie mishmashings ahoy! Fandom subtext? Mine. Dialogue and actions? Totally Gaiman and McKean. Comments are appreciated. Seriously, this thing will not go on forever, for real.)
They weren't running anymore, at least. But now Helena was being stupid again, and that was nearly as bad.
"Yes. I expect so." What did she want from him? It wasn't as though he was going to reply with, 'why no, if you start telling me that your mother was a monkeybird or something at this point, I'll think you entirely sane, why?'
"Because when I look through windows," Helena continued, regardless of Valentine's humble opinion, "not all of them, I see somebody who isn't me."
Well, duh.
"How odd," Valentine replied, feigning shock. "I do the same thing. Me. Window! Look through it. Not me! The ones I see me in are called 'mirrors.'"
"No," Helena protested, serving only to make her seem more crazy than Valentine already figured she was, "I mean, she looks like me. But she's not me... She was fighting with my dad..."
They wandered up to the base of the most ridiculously large set of stairs that Valentine never wanted to have the pleasure of climbing. He stared thoughtfully up at the old cathedral that they led to, worn away and battered by frequent shadow attacks. Nasty place, probably dangerously unstable and horrible and it was a good thing that they didn't have to go in there.
"Get higher," Helena mused.
"What?" Ah, bugger. He was going to have to climb.
"The giant statue said "get higher." Do you see anything higher than that place? And look!" Helena held the key up and compared it to the building. The similarity was striking, Valentine couldn't deny that.
That didn't mean he wanted to climb all of those steps any more than before, though.
~~~
Valentine looked around once they finally got inside the cathedral.
"There's nothing here, you know." It took forever to get up those damned steps, too. Ugh. And just look at it! "This place is waiting to collapse into a heap of rubble. And it can't be safe!"
"You're such a coward," Helena scoffed. "It's perfectly-AAAAH!"
Valentine turned around to see a large hole in the floor where Helena had been only a moment ago. He took a moment to gloat as he sauntered over to peer down the hole into the darkness that Helena had fallen into.
"Coward, eh? I prefer to think of myself as prudent. Cautious. And, unlike some people I could name, still up here."
Silence.
...
"I'm not coming down there after you, you know. It's not safe." There, that ought to get some sort of reaction. Maybe. He kind of hoped. Perhaps.
"No, I'm not hurt, thanks for asking," came the reply from the darkness, possibly perhaps maybe sort of to his relief. And then there was the distinct sound of 'bob'ing from below, and Valentine could have sworn he heard someone say 'nicely.'
"Are you having a party down there or something?"
"Valentine, you should come down. I've made some friends."
Yeah. Right on that. Only absolutely not. Silly girl.
Valentine waited a moment, and then he heard screaming.
Seriously, certainly, very most definitely not going down there now! And so Valentine did what Valentines were very good at doing. He hid himself. Under a large piece of debris. There. Nice and saf-
Wait, no. That monkeybird looming overhead was decidedly not pleased looking.
"I can go," Valentine insisted. "I know I'm not supposed to be here! I can go!"
Apparently, that didn't matter much to the monkeybird, who promptly scooped him up and flew off with him, earning an 'aaaaaah' of protest.
It was entirely possible that this was mostly because he was being carried upside-down by the ankles. But at least from this particular vantage point, he could see the shadows, and the source of all the screaming was made painfully clear.
The small entourage of monkeybirds, Helena, and Valentine took off into the wide open sky and soared away from the cathedral, from the shadows, and toward a glint on the border.
Needless to say, Valentine was hating every moment of this.
~~~
The monkeybirds dropped the two of them off on the border, and Helena took a moment to give one she called 'Malcolm' a hug.
... What kind of a name for a monkeybird was that, anyhow? Though Valentine couldn't shake the notion that the blue-beaked critter was vaguely familiar...
"Nicely," the flying ape said before taking off at a run back toward the City of Light.
"What are we doing here?" This was, of course, Valentine, wondering what in the world they were doing hanging around so close to the dream lands and the darkness and he really wanted none of either.
"We're going to get the MirrorMask," Helena insisted. "I know where it is. It's halfway between the night lands and the day lands." She was flailing her own arms about to make her point. Valentine just tapped his fingers together and pretended to pay attention. "I knew I could help! I hate being so helpless! Valentine, look!"
And there she was, off again to stare into the window of some broken down building.
"We call them 'windows,'" Valentine said with a sigh. "They aren't unusual."
... Which, of course, didn't dissuade Helena from freaking out at the window, beating on it, and telling it to stop because it was horrible. Right.
"Hey, hey hey!" Valentine put a hand on her shoulder. "Calm down!" She pulled out of his grasp and stomped away, and he stole a glance into... another junk room. "There's nothing there!"
He turned around to see her ripping one of the wanted posters from a nearby wall, crumple it up, and toss it away. He didn't say a word, but there was something about the gesture that caught his attention.
And then, they kept walking along the border.
~~~
They had stopped at a lake. A puddle, really, something like a large ring filled up with shallow water.
"So, what are we meant to be seeing? It this like the windows thingie again?"
"I know it's here," Helena insisted. "It was so obvious when I saw it."
"We often confuse what we wish for with what is," Valentine mused, looking out over the smooth surface of the pond. "These are the dream lands, on the border," he explained. "It's all wishes, and hopes, and memories." He grabbed a stone, sat down, and tossed it at the water in frustration.
It skipped. That was new and interesting, and it beat tagging along with Helena as she wandered off to be crazy, so he went with it for a while before she came back babbling about how it was her dream, and things would be this way and that way and something or other else if it was her dream, because she was really in control, and why hadn't see seen it before?
Valentine looked up to see what she hadn't seen before. As it turned out, he hadn't noticed it up until this point, either. A little hut right in the middle of the pond, all round and dizzying white. It was so... intriguing, really, that when Helena told him to follow her in, he did.
The inside was more white than the outside, so that everything seemed to be aglow with some sort of bleached-out haze of light.
.... Valentine could think of one person back in Fandom who might like this room. And he still hadn't kept his promise to her. And perhaps now would be a good time to try to figure out a quick way to wiggle out of this whole problem. He'd been nearly swallowed by shadows too many times these past few days and he was running on a tray of cakes and no sleep.
And that pillar in the middle of this shiny room- the one that was entirely covered in keyholes? That didn't look horribly foreboding at all.
Helena had just tried the key in the first hole to no avail and was ready to try the next when the whole room shook. There was a rustling sound, like paper, and Helena peered curiously out the one window in the room for a moment. She seemed to be watching something... and then everything went mad as the two of them were thrown around inside the little dome building like ragdolls.
"Aaah, my arm!"
Everything stopped. Valentine and Helena both were sprawled across the floor, Helena holding her arm tenderly.
An opportunity to get this over with and get out of here if ever Valentine saw one. He had the perfect plan. This would all turn out so very nicely, and he could be back to Fandom and keep his promise and maybe direct another movie and never have to worry about these stupid shadows again.
"You're hurt!" Valentine picked himself up and crouched in front of Helena. "Now stay here. Don't. Move."
"And what about you?"
"Oh, I'm a panther," he insisted. "I shall slip unnoticed through the darkness like a dark, unnoticeable slippy thing."
It had sounded better in his mind, really.
While Helea was looking downward and giggling, he scooped up the key from where it had fallen on the floor and toyed with it idly in his fingers.
"Valentine," she said, still looking off somewhere into space, "I know we haven't always got on, but..." She hesitated thoughtfully. "I'm really grateful for all your help. I couldn't have done any of this without you."
No, he didn't feel rotten at all for wanting to ditch her. Really. That hesitation before he shrugged his shoulders and smiled and insisted that he did his best, that was nothing.
...
He felt rotten. But he wasn't not staying here. Not on this stupid mission to save the world. He should have just left when the shadows got Bing and Eric and kept his promise and not missed his Stupid People class and this whole thing was just ridiculous and he had had quite enough by now.
"Come back soon."
He paused in the doorway and looked at her. He wanted to say something. He wanted to tell her to stop looking at him like that, sitting there all vulnerable in her white clothing, and him feeling terrible that he was walking away...
That seemed to be the trend lately, really...
He raised a hand. He couldn't come up with words. Words might end in promises, and he couldn't possibly keep one without breaking the other.
He stepped outside into the forest.
The forest in the shadow-lands. The building must have been thrown there somehow during the earthquake.
And all at once, he knew how to get out of this place and save the world all in one go.
He pulled the key from his pocket. He grinned at it. He kissed it.
And he only glanced back once as he set off alone into the woods.
(OOC: NFB! NFI! Scriptbooky-movie mishmashings ahoy! Fandom subtext? Mine. Dialogue and actions? Totally Gaiman and McKean. Comments are appreciated. Seriously, this thing will not go on forever, for real.)
