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"Happiness" Chapter 5 was made by Visionary, with an all-new segment. on 4/1/2003 at 6:31:10 PM.
Asil watched the great man (weasel) as he slept… or rather, as he lolled in unconsciousness after being hit on the head by a plummeting toad. The toad's name was Donar, and apparently he was an acquaintance of Visionary and Fleabot's. Perhaps at one point that would have surprised her, but she was quickly learning that the two of them seemed to keep the company of some rather odd people. That she was counted among them was not lost on her. "Is he going to be alright?" she asked with a concerned nod to the flattened ferret that was Visionary. Currently, the great man was sprawled on his back with one eyelid fluttering and his paws twitching spastically in the air.
"Hmmmm?" Fleabot responded, peeling back one of Visionary's eyelids. "Oh, yeah… sure" he reassured her, looking up. "Both pupils seem relatively normal… I say we just give him a little while to shake it off."
"What about that?" she prodded, pointing to his scrambling legs.
Fleabot shrugged. "Probably dreaming about chasing chickens or something similarly weaselly. Honest, he'll be fine."
Asil nodded, wrapped her arms around herself and leaned back against one of the streetlights that rose from the immense parking lot. Despite the minuscule robot's assurances, she kept staring at the object of her quest with concern. He looked so little and helpless… not to mention so, well... like a weasel. Reviewing her actions, she couldn't see how his current condition was exactly her fault, but she still felt that her task of retrieving the great man was falling down around her like toads from a clear blue sky. He just looked so… small.
"Okay… give." Fleabot insisted, hopping over to where she sat. "What's on your newly-spliced mind? You look like you just found out there is no Santa Claus."
"Verily, tis not true milady…" the toad quickly assured her. "I have met said Claus mineself, and can attest that he doth indeed be that elf most jolly of festive repute."
She sniffed, raising her chin. "I have no idea what you're talking about."
"I think you do…" Fleabot pressed. "Well, okay… maybe not what Toadnar there is babbling about… but that freshly grown face of yours is easier to read than Visionary's copy of 'See Spot Run'. You're clearly bothered about something."
She scowled at him. "Am not."
"Come on… you may as well spill it" he persisted. "We're not going anywhere until the furball wakes up…"
"He's not a furball!" she snapped at the mechanical little pest. "He's a weasel!"
"Are you quite sure…" Fleabot said, regarding her with a shrewd glint in his eye, "… that you don't mean 'mongoose'?"
Asil opened her mouth for an angry retort, but quickly snapped it shut as a look of guilt fluttered across her face. "Yes… of course…" she stammered. "I was just…"
"Not a very impressive sight, when you get right down to it, is he?" Fleabot continued, hopping up on her shoulder to speak directly into her ear. "…I mean, when you really take the time to look at him…"
Her gaze returned to Visionary as a tiny snort escaped his wriggling nose. His whiskers spasmed wildly as a thin line of weasel drool ran from his slack jaw across his fuzzy cheek.
"In the grand scheme of things, when all is said and done…" the insectoid commented quietly, "… don't you think he looks rather… small?"
Asil turned her head even as she felt her face flush with guilt. "I shouldn't… it's certainly not my place to…" she managed in a quiet voice. "I mean… if he's just… then I…"
"I'll tell you what I think…" Fleabot interceded. "I think now would be the perfect time to have a little talk about your so-called 'great man'… especially seeing how he's least likely to screw it up in his current state."
Visionary snorted, sat bolt upright and blinked, his hands going to his face. Thankfully, he found it surprisingly clean shaven and generally shaped much less like a weasel's than he had feared. "Well, that was a much shorter ordeal than I would have guessed" he declared happily.
"That would likely be because you're still asleep, sir" a voice informed him from behind.
Visionary stifled a sigh and turned to face the source of the bad news. "Quoth" he greeted her, nodding slightly. "I don't suppose I'm dead, am I?"
The raven shook her head. "Actually, you were rendered unconscious by a plummeting toad."
"Yes, well... I'm sure that would have been my second guess." Visionary checked out the featureless dream plane that the two of them were standing in. It wasn't really that different from the parking lot, all things considered. "If you're controlling this dream, couldn't you have picked something more appealing?"
"Like the hen house you were raiding in your last dream?"
Visionary crossed his arms in front of him. "Didn't you say you were here to help?" he asked grumpily. "I really have no shortage of people to mock me at any given moment."
"Yes, sir... quite right. Sorry" the bird apologized with a sincere little bob of her head. "In fact, that's precisely why I'm here in the dream. It was getting difficult to explain things with that excitable clone girl always ready to defend you honor, so to speak. Quite amazing loyalty, really."
A look of pain fluttered across the dreaming man's face. "Yes, well... I'm not sure she can help that."
The raven waved that off with a flutter of her wings. "It's always a choice, sir... no matter how we're made" she assured him. "Realizing that is all part of growing up. Why, I myself used to have an over-abundance of hero worship for the Chronicler, really. Kept myself in a tizzy around him... was nearly as spastic as a hummingbird. Surprised he didn't press me in the book of time. Quite amazing patience, he has."
Visionary noticed the hero worship wasn't totally abolished. "So what changed things?"
"I, er... served as head raven to another Chronicler for a day" she coughed embarrassedly. "He, ah... helped me to realize that Chroniclers can be... imperfect... too. Sir."
"Glad I could help" Visionary muttered, rubbing his head. He somehow didn't feel greatly reassured about Asil. "Maybe we should just move on to what the hell is happening with the Happy Place..."
"Ah... Yes, very good sir." Quoth answered. "It's really quite simple..."
"Hold it, hold it, hold it!" Visionary grumbled suddenly, waking up and reverting to his weasel form. "Cut! End scene!... What's going on? I thought production on this story was halted years ago?"
"It has been a while, hasn't it?" Asil agreed, flipping through the script. "I have rewrite notes going back to 1999."
"It never really did get out of developmental hell" Fleabot noted. "There were a lot of creative differences, and continuity problems, and just some general laziness from the writer. Not that lazy writers are surprising, though."
"So why are we suddenly back doing it?" Visionary asked moodily.
"Obviously somebody's idea of a joke" Fleabot noted. "After all, it is that time of the year."
"I bet the doody-head is behind it" Asil grumbled.
Toadnar hopped over to join them. "Verily, mine agent needs be alerted. I doth have a "pay or play" deal."
"Good plan" Fleabot nodded. "I think we can wrap it up here. This thing's never going to happen for real. I'm pretty sure they broke down the 'Avisland' sets years ago. I'm going home." He turned and walked off the sound-stage.
"So does that mean I can stop being a weasel?" Visionary asked hopefully, as the rest followed. "Can somebody reach the zipper on this suit? Guys? Hey, wait..."
As the lights went out, the lone figure of Quoth sniffed quietly on the empty set.
"I was just glad to be working again."