Tales of the Parodyverse

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CrazySugarFreakBoy!
Sun Mar 12, 2006 at 10:50:20 pm EST
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The Fremen and the Empress: Showdown on Arrakis (Tie-In to Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #261: Choose Your Next Words Very Carefully)
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The Fremen and the Empress: Showdown on Arrakis (Tie-In to Untold Tales of the Lair Legion #261: Choose Your Next Words Very Carefully)

“So, what’s her name?” April Alice Apple wondered aloud, as she cradled the sleeping baby girl in her arms.

“I am not sure that I understand the question,” the Priestess Pelopia, Disciple of Logos, acknowledged haltingly, as she crossed her arms over her chest. “Why should the infant require a name?”

“You don’t understand …?” April challenged incredulously, a rueful chuckle creeping into her voice. “You decide to stop by the Lair Legion mansion, after your last dealings with these people included you beating my boyfriend so badly that he would have been crippled or killed if he didn’t have a Wolverine-level healing factor as one of his super-powers, because your Ra’s al-Ghul father figure got killed by the Parody Master’s minions and you supposedly have no one else to turn to, so now, you’re telling everyone who will listen that my Dream got you knocked up when you two were stranded in some sort of Dungeons & Dragons Forgotten Realms campaign setting together, I’m guessing since you expect this to draw out our sympathies, except that your story hangs together about as well as a Bendis-coordinated Marvel crossover, because you could have ended the pregnancy before it even started, since lest we all forget, you have such leet Super Saiyan skillz over your own body’s autonomic processes, and besides, the fact that you never told my boyfriend about the child you two conceived makes it look a lot less like Dream is a deadbeat dad, and a lot more like you’re just a cold-hearted, manipulative bitch. So, yeah, I’m supposed to suspend my disbelief and keep up with all of this exposition, no matter how much of it doesn’t even make sense on its own terms, but you’re such a Borg drone that you can’t even pretend to care about your own kid enough to understand why she needs a name.”

“I am willing to overlook your histrionic outbursts, because it is obvious to me that you share Foxglove’s flaw of allowing your emotional attachments to override your reasoning faculties, but do not question my commitment to the welfare of … this child,” Pelopia instructed, her characteristically clinical tone betraying a touch of what almost could have been classified as maternal concern. “As you say, I allowed myself to ovulate, and I permitted Foxglove to fertilize me, when I could have compelled my uterus to menstruate at any time, flushing our shared genetic material out of my body with a simple act of will. I did not, even though I knew such an act could represent a contradiction of The Word of Order, because I was so weak that I could not bring myself to relinquish the only tangible evidence that I knew I would have, of the union between myself and Foxglove. The embryo was surgically extracted from my womb and implanted in a purified artificial incubator to gestate into a fetus, and after undergoing a deliberately accelerated rate of obligatory prenatal development, the infant was transferred to a sterilized and secure stasis pod, where it would have been prevented from aging any further and kept safe from any possible infections or other adverse environmental conditions, if the Parody Master’s Doomherald had not demanded its termination. My father sacrificed his life, to save the lives of myself and … my child. I did not wish to involve Foxglove in this matter, in part because I do not believe he is mature enough to be capable of providing the proper parenting to this infant, but the alternatives immediately available to me were limited.”

“Maybe you’re right,” April shrugged after a silent moment, turning to gaze at the baby girl in her arms, as she slowly stirred from her slumber. “Maybe Dream isn’t ready to be a dad yet. I definitely don’t know if I’m ready to be a stepmom. What I do know is, this little Rainbow Brite needs all the unconditional love she can get, which is one part of proper parenting that Dream and I can give her, and she needs all of us to set aside our interpersonal dramas enough to focus on fulfilling her needs, which is more than my parents ever got around to doing for me. Don’t get me wrong; I don’t like you and I don’t trust you, but you are her mother, and in your own detached Vulcan way, I suppose you’ve protected her as much as you could, which buys you the benefit of the doubt, for a limited time anyway. I’m not so sure that you actually love her, because I’m not even sure that’s something you’re capable of providing, if the abuse you’ve subjected Dream to is any indication of how you treat someone you ‘love,’ but maybe it’s something you can learn. Get this straight, though; I even think you’re about to hurt my boyfriend again, or do anything to harm his defenseless daughter, I will break your skinny Moondragon ass in half, Lt. Ilia.”

“I shall consider myself thus informed,” Pelopia nodded curtly, content to let April vent. “How do you propose we start supplementing my methods of mothering to your satisfaction?”

“Iris,” April considered, softly caressing the baby’s cheek. “I’m betting you had the benefits of a classical education, Sinéad O’Connor. Iris was, like, the Greek goddess of rainbows, wasn’t she?”

“In ancient Greek mythology, Iris was the daughter of the sea god Thaumas and the ocean nymph Electra, as well as one of the Oceanids, according to the poet Hesiod,” Pelopia recalled automatically. “And yes, she also served as the personification of the rainbow and the messenger of the gods on Mount Olympus. Just as the rainbow was thought to unite Earth and heaven, so too was Iris considered the go-between of the Olympian gods, Hera in particular, to the mortal world, in which role she was mentioned frequently in the Iliad, but never in the Odyssey, where Hermes assumed her duties. She was married to Zephyrus, god of the west wind.”

“It’s no wonder Dream fell for you,” April grinned, surprising herself and Pelopia both with the confidence of her admission. “You’re more of a geek encyclopedia than him and me put together. If you’d been a real match for him, though, you also would have known that Iris West was the wife of Barry Allen and the aunt of Wally West, which makes her a double ‘Flash Family’ legacy.” April met the baby’s wide-eyed stare and addressed her directly. “We’ll ask your daddy – I’m going to have to get used to calling him that - when he gets back, but for now, how do you feel about being Iris, the superhero goddess?”

It was the first time Iris had ever seen a smile, but something about the new facial expression, as well as the sound of the woman’s voice who was holding her, made the infant feel happy, an emotion she’d never experienced before, which she showed by returning the smile and emitting a cheerful squeal, while reaching out with her tiny hands to touch the new woman’s smiling, colorful, beautiful face. Pelopia stiffened her spine and inhaled sharply in response, but if she felt even a twinge of jealousy, at the almost instant closeness and affection of the bond between her daughter and April, she betrayed no other signs.

“Your choice of a name for the child is so arbitrary as to be meaningless,” Pelopia sniffed dismissively. “Infants cannot comprehend adult speech, and your attempts to justify your selection smack of rationalization rather than rationality. Such willful silliness only serves to confirm my suspicions that you, much like Foxglove’s mother, are merely another obstacle to be removed from his predetermined path, a fetter preventing him from ascending to his intended level of transcendence. In spite of the shortcomings of his misguided mission, as an Agent of Chaos, even I would concede his position as a being of narrative significance and consequence, on a par with a Force of Order such as myself. By contrast, you are a sadly trivial distraction, whom circumstances will soon conspire to displace from his corrected trajectory.”

“I picked the goddess of rainbows because she’s a colorful kid,” April countered with a frown. “She’s got highlights of autumn leaf red and corn silk blonde in her peach fuzz hair, and her eyes are a turquoise gem blend of blue and green. But if you want to try and play the power-and-destiny punk card on me, then fine, let’s bring it, bitch. A religion-and-politics freak like you is probably a big fan of Frank Herbert’s Dune saga, just like my son-of-a-shaman boyfriend, so let’s cast it in those terms. If Dream is Muad’Dib, the metaphysical messiah declaring jihad on the cosmos, and you’re Irulan, the perfect princess of the known universe whose status sets you up as his equal opposite, that still makes me Chani, the kick-ass weirding warrior who’s his true love and his shelter from the storms. See, between me, his mom, his dad, his aunt and uncle and friends and teammates, and everyone else who loves him and is loved by him, we don’t hold him back or tie him down. We help him stay centered and give him a home to come home to, so that he can always find his way back from his quixotic quests, no matter how far out he’s gone. Honestly, he pisses me off so much sometimes, because I’ll feel like Blair Brown’s character in the movie version of Paddy Chayefsky’s Altered States, struggling to pull him out of, like, this swirling soup of primal consciousness, and back to some semblance of sanity after his head trips into the black light fantastic, but even though we can frustrate the hell out of one another, we’ve made each other more well-rounded people with richer lives, through the tug-of-war of that balancing act, between a Jedi Knight with his head in the clouds and a Starfleet Officer with her feet on the ground.”

A short squeak from Iris brought April and Pelopia out of their shared reverie. April tended to the squirming infant’s unspoken but clearly expressed desire for cooing and cuddling, and turned toward Pelopia as she exited the kitchen. “I’m going to educate Iris about real life now, by watching some cartoons with her, and as her mother, you’re more than welcome to join us. Who knows, it might even teach you a thing or two.” April rubbed noses with the baby in her arms, as she left for the living room. “Do you want to see Space Ghost: Coast to Coast? Believe it or not, your daddy was best friends with Space Ghost, back when he was on the Lair Legion lineup …”


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