I'm a Very Important Man!

They were inside, now, in the Princess' bedroom. Valentine had taken himself a seat on the floor, and Helena was sitting on the bed, musing to herself.

( 'Well, if it was me...' - SPOILERS )

He felt Helena's presence leave-- slip away to somewhere else. He couldn't follow. Not this time.

For the first time in his life, Valentine didn't feel proud. He didn't feel important.

Wherever he was, whatever was left of him here in this darkness... it made him feel small and alone.

And helpless.


(NFB! NFI! Credit to Gaiman and McKean for-- yeah, you know by now. I'm done. And just in the nick of time, too. I'll be busy working and packing this weekend, and then I'm flying off for Vacation until July 12th. Valentine will be trapped in limbo until then! And now I'm gonna COLLAPSE bye!)

"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.' - SPOILERSNESS )

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.)

And so, Valentine and Helena continued to walk, Helena on her quest to save the world (as you do), and Valentine thinking that Helena was completely insane for being on her quest to save the world (as you do).

( 'Enter at your own risk,' the sign said. - SPOILERY )

And really, if he was acting overly flaily and terrified at this point, could anyone blame him? The shadows were no longer chasing them at the moment, but Valentine was not going to simply cease wanting to remain alive. He had too much to live for and all of this was just stupid.

(NFB due to distance. NFI for the same. Once again, I'm recapping the events of MirrorMask using mainly the scriptbook and then the movie from there, and so the content is not mine, it's Gaiman and McKean's. I just crammed in the subtext and changed the point of view to be more Valentine-centric. This recapping will not continue forever, I swear. And, go me, I've gone and forgotten to clarify that this stuff is all backdated to Monday thus far. MirrorMask isn't insanely long, honest.)

When Valentine had finally caught up to the police, they had already arrived at the Palace. Helena, stupid girl that she was, had been taken away into a different room, and Valentine, lucky man that he was, was made to keep the company of a disgruntled chicken and the illustrious Slimy, the slug who was apparently in charge.

( Joy. - SPOILERY )

And if Valentine was trying to hide the fact that he thought that everyone in the bloody room, including the stupid little red-bound book, was completely and utterly off their chair, he was also doing a terrible job hiding it.

He wanted to have this whole mess be finished and over with and get out of there. This was just... just stupid.


(NFB due to disance, NFI for the same. Once again, this is pulled in chunks from the MirrorMask scriptbook (which is why some of this might be new to some of you) and the movie, and only the Fandomy subtext and the fact that this is written from Valentine's point of view is mine. OOC comments are still appreciated, though!)

It was nighttime. Of course it was dark. And despite the knowledge that the shadows were gone, and this was how night was supposed to look, Valentine still found himself searching the skies now and again, just to be sure.

He had met up with his buddies, Bing and Eric, shortly after his friends had headed back to Fandom. One last practice, he had decided, and he'd head back to the island in time for his workshop. Maybe he'd get his pals to tag along. The next term was coming up, after all, and it was so very difficult to find a good juggler... well... anywhere, really. So Valentine figured that he could just bring one or both of his partners back with him, they could sign up for classes, and they'd be all set. What could possibly go wrong?

Eric's fiddling was the only sound that filled the night air alongside Valentine's own directions as he discussed their routine with Bing, who stood by the wall and juggled intently.

( Ah, juggling. -- SPOILERY! )

It looked as though he wasn't going to be making it back to Fandom for his "Dealing With Stupid People" workshop, anyhow. Shame, really. He liked that class.

He wasn't entirely certain if it was fortunate or not that he'd likely be getting in a great deal of practice in that particular department with this girl tagging along anyhow.



(OOC: Not for broadcast due to being in a different world. Not for interaction due to the same. MIRRORMASK SPOILERS, because I've taken all of the actions and dialog straight from the movie, and only the narrative and the fandomy subtext is mine. The rest belongs to Gaiman and McKean. Who I adore. Greatly. And I can only hope I am doing this any justice. Seriously.)

There were certainly better ways to spend a Saturday then flitting off like a pack of idiots to save a world that was probably mostly dead by now, anyhow.

( If Valentine had any say, he'd be sleeping in right now. )


(Not for broadcast due to distance, not for interaction due to the same! OOC comments are SO MUCH LOVE, though, and might keep me from glazing over entirely after spending the past four hours coding this monster. :P Preplayed with the_merriest, 1ordinarygirl, turtle_techie, notawitch, and sarcasm_guy, who all rock like awesome rocking things.)

Valentine checked his voicemail. It was a nervous habit. He had to do something to keep his mind off of certain death, of course.

He wasn't entirely certain that the something that was suggested to him in the new message was the something that he needed, however, so he decided to return the call and possibly let her down easily.

The whole thing got him thinking about sandcastles. No particular reason, really. But perhaps he should give Namine a call regardless...

And felt it mandatory to call Will to give her a piece of his mind while he was still able to hold his hand steady enough to dial numbers. Maybe then, perhaps, he'd get out and take care of business.



(If you have any burning desire to talk to Valentine before he takes off for weeks on end tomorrow, here would be your chance! Quickly, catch him before he heads off to reluctantly save a world! That is, if you don't mind some slowplay. I'm off to the zoo right away.)

Why no, Valentine wasn't sitting on his bed feeling doomed and possibly particularly helpless. Honest.

Except that he mostly was. Because there was no way to weasel out of this 'save the world' shtick that Will had dragged him into. And he didn't much want to die. And he was not hero material. And he hadn't stocked up enough non-perishable foodstuffs to sneak under his bed and hide until this whole thing blew over.

"To starve under the bed, or not to starve under the bed," he asked a mask that he held in one hand.

"Die one way, die the other, what difference does it make?"

His masks were being jerkfaces today. Even if he was the one supplying the voice. He didn't want to talk to them anymore.

(For Rikku)

Valentine had decided a few days back that he actually rather liked the beach.

There was no one particular reason, really, except that it was so huge and different from anything that he had back in his own world. He had decided that, if he ever had to pick any one place to say good-bye to Fandom from, it would probably be this spot, right here on the beach, where there was a sandcastle a few days before that had been carried away by the tide.

The soft roar of the waves and the haze of the sunset and the water that simply seemed to never end all made him feel so very small. But it was a welcome sort of small. A safe small. It suggested that, no matter how huge the ocean might be, it kept whatever might dive from the sky stuck in a place that was far, far away from here.

He didn't want to go back to that. The shadows terrified him. But tomorrow, he would go with Will to speak to her Oracle, and then his fate would most certainly be sealed.

It was entirely possible that Valentine's hands were shaking terribly as he patted some more sand onto a sloppy mound that was probably supposed to resemble a sandcastle.

But he would never admit it.

(For Naminé)

In the past three days I have thrown out half the contents of my bedroom in a series of unfortunate events that began with my cat being locked in my room for a ridiculous stretch without a litterbox and culminated in my falling through my computer desk last night.

Without the half of the desk that is unfortunately sitting on the floor behind me at the moment, making use of my tablet is nearly impossible, so there will be no fairy contest this week, and the five icons that I owe are still on hold.

So sorry, guys. I'll try to make up for this as best I can when I get a desk again.