Welcome Home, part one of a still-expanding collaboration

“Er… Hi. My name is Visionary. You can call me Vizh. Or, um… dad. Daddy, maybe?” He took a deep breath and winced at the bathroom mirror. “This is going to be a disaster…” he decided miserably. How to explain your entire life to two kids who know nothing about you? That don’t even share a common culture?

How do you tell them that you didn’t mean to abandon them to a monster for eleven long years?

Visionary didn’t feel like a father. He didn’t feel like a hero of the Lair Legion. He felt like a very small and unimpressive man, and now that the end of his quest happened to be sitting politely on his couch in the next room, he had no idea what to do next.

Well, he certainly couldn’t leave them sitting there, alone and baffled. He splashed some cold water on his face from the sink, rubbed it off with a towel, took a deep breath and opened the bathroom door.

The twins stopped their hushed conversation when he reappeared, and Griffin nervously flickered out of sight for a moment before carefully fading back into view with an embarrassed blush. They looked so small on his couch, surrounded by the warm great room of the lighthouse as they looked to him with wide eyes that flickered in the firelight.

Visionary swallowed and puffed out his chest a bit to live up to the image reflected in those eyes. “Um… Hello” he began in an unsteady voice. “In case you didn’t catch it, what with the monsters and witches and the Faerie Queenes and whatnot, I’m… I’m your father. I’m Visionary.” He fidgeted and shifted uncomfortably, then decided to plunge into things. “I’ve loved you… both of you… since I knew you existed. Your mother, our friends and I have been looking for you every waking moment since the day you were born, and I’ve been… I’ve been terrified, and angry and… anguished ever since you were taken from us. And, well, now… here you are” he finished lamely. “Um… any questions so far?”

Maggie broke her gaze with him to look to her brother, then back down to her lap. “Would it… be okay to hug you again?” she asked.

Visionary sniffed back his emotions as he swept them off the couch into an embrace. Maybe this would work out all right after all…

“How do you think he’s doing in there?” Fleabot asked as the rest of the returning party trudged up the sandy path towards the mansion.

“Awkwardly…” Flapjack predicted as he made his uneven way. “…Cluelessly--which some people might term “honestly”, I suppose--and with a decent amount of heart. Which, as personal styles go, isn’t so bad. Worked well enough to get him into being a father in the first place, after all.”

“He’ll do fine” Hallie assured them both, her HED gliding smoothly through the air, the glow of her holographic form lighting the way. “We need to let people know we’re back, and what happened. Plus find out why Parodiopolis is dark… and what they’ve done to screw up my mainframe systems” she added, perturbed.

“Still… it can’t be easy, explaining all of this to the children you’ve essentially just met. Maybe we should have stuck around…”

“No” Hallie said. She looked back towards the lighthouse, her features unreadable. “They need some time together. As a family.”

Fleabot watched her in silence as she turned away and headed back towards the mansion. “So why aren’t you in there too?” he asked under his breath.

“So you’re a knight?” Magweed asked earnestly as they climbed the spiral staircase.

“Well, I don’t know about that…” Visionary answered. “I mean, I work with a couple of actual knights… as well as some kings and such.” He opened a door and ushered the children in. “You’ll get to meet them all when we head up to the mansion.”

“Do we have to know how to bow and curtsey and all that stuff?” Griffin asked. “It’s not really something I’ve practiced… I let Maggie handle all of that back in the forest.”

“Um… they’re not really the formal type of royalty” the Regular answered. “The first time I entered Donar’s court in Ausgard I tried bowing to him, and then had to spend time explaining that I hadn’t lost a contact or something. It got a little awkward after he enlisted half the valkyrie battalion in the hunt for it. Those breastplates they wear aren’t really designed for maximum coverage when they’re crawling around on… um…” He caught himself and looked down at the attentive children. “A handshake will do” He decided. “Honest.”

Visionary flicked the lightswitch a few times, but the results were the same as when they first arrived. Despite the lighthouse beam sweeping the coast from the top of the tower, there was no power inside the old building. “Hmmmm… Looks like we’re sticking with candlelight for a while” he observed.

Maggie was looking at the tiny switch curiously.

“It’s for electricity” Griffin told her. “Like lightning. They keep it in the walls here.”

Visionary cast his son a surprised look. “How do you know about electricity?”

“Griff knows all sorts of stuff” Magweed answered for him. “You can learn a lot when you’re a griffin.”

“I suppose so” Visionary answered as he noticed the boy looking to his human hands with an expression of disappointment. It was a mystery that could keep until morning, the Regular decided. “Well, this is my room… you can both get some sleep here tonight while I work out what’s going on. We had a room made up for Naari… er, Maggie, down the hall, but it still has a crib…” He looked apologetically at his little girl, then forced the issue out of his mind. Smiling, he hoisted her into the air and set her on the bed.

“It’s so big!” she noted. “And soft!”

Griffin gave it a few tentative bounces when Visionary sat him upon it too. “It has to be big…” he reasoned. “What with us having two mothers.”

“Er… that’s not quite how it works…” Visionary began. “And really, it’s not such a big bed. It’s just queen sized.”

“You sleep with a queen too?” Maggie asked.

“I have an idea…” Visionary decided quickly, tucking them both in securely. “Let’s save all the questions until the morning, shall we?”

“This was your idea?!” the holographic woman growled, forming in the communications room.

“Hallie” Mr. Epitome greeted her calmly, not looking up from the stack of hard copy mission reports he was speed reading. “Made it back, I see.”

“I come back to find government lackeys crawling through my mainframe, hacking into my files, all to turn my programming into a virtual prison for the nation’s artificial beings!”

“A relocation center” Epitome corrected with a sigh, giving her his full attention. “For their own safety.”

“An internment camp!” she spat, rejecting the euphemism. “Because the government doesn’t trust them!”

“No… it does not” he admitted. “I take it you’ve accessed enough power to have downloaded reports of what has been happening in your prolonged absence?”

She crossed her arms in front of her. “I have. That doesn’t begin to make this right.”

“Right doesn’t have a damn thing to do with it” he growled. “Every single man, woman and child on this planet is living with the threat of annihilation hanging over their heads, with only some jury-rigged, cosmic, comic-book shield holding back an invasion from an overwhelming and technologically superior force. And even with the enemy held at the gates, resources and manpower are stretched to the breaking point, and the blackouts are hampering our ability to respond to crises while panic among the general populace is on the rise. At this point, we’re expending every Herculean effort just to keep things from going more wrong.” He leaned back in his chair and regarded her sternly. “So now that you’re back from your personal time, you can suck it up and hold that line with the rest of the free world… which in this case means doing something you find repugnant because the other option is to allow Garrick to do something you’d find intolerable.”

Hallie’s face darkened. “There has to be another way. I’ll talk to Mumphrey…”

“You’re not in fairyland any more” he bit back. “You know how this ends if it’s a choice for him between appeasing the Robo Sapiens or having the cooperation of the United States Government in repelling the Parody Master.”

Her eyes never softened, but he could see the fight die within them. “How could you drag me down to this?” she asked. “Jailor to an entire race… the closest thing to my own kind…”

“Who else, in the entire world, should we trust with their welfare instead?” he answered succinctly, returning to his paper work. “Ulz Hagan? This is one of the most delicate, absolutely thankless and completely suck jobs that have come up in this whole god damned mess. But you’re the one who can save those people, just the same. I know it’s not the Legion’s style, but you’ll have to live without the parade and adoration and just do the job that needs doing.”

He saw her stiffen out of the corner of his eye and open her mouth before biting back whatever retort she planned. Ultimately, she simply blinked out of sight with a scowl.

After a few moments of silence, he asked “Well?”

Katarina Allen came around the corner from the next room, where she had been organizing stacks of reports. “You didn’t ask her about Naari” the young weaver stated.

“I didn’t need to” he said, finishing off the current stack in front of him. “If there’s much of anything left of Camellia of the Fey, I’ll be damn surprised.” He closed the reports and handed them to her. “Let’s move on to the next batch.”

Sarah Shepherdson, secret Probability Dancer and sudden auntie: Okay, Vizh, I
just want you to know that if it takes the rest of my life I’m going to hunt you
down and make you suffer.

Visionary, possibly fake man in a lot of trouble: What? Why? Look, if this is
about that cruller that mysteriously went missing from the refrigerator, I
happened to be in another dimension at the time. It was probably the Doom
Gerbil. Or elves. Of spiffy.

Sarah: That’s not what I mean. You *know* what I mean. First you worm your way
into my family, becoming my adopted older brother…

Vizh: I didn’t worm myself. I only did it to avoid having to marry you after we
had sex. Wait… that sounded a lot better inside my head.

Sarah: And now you produce grandchildren for Ma, and suddenly you’re favoured
son #1 and I’m getting text messages every fifteen minutes from her asking when
I’m going to settle down with some nice young man and produce more
Shepherdson-spawn.

Vizh: That really wasn’t my number one motive for rescuing Magweed and Griffin,
honestly. I mean, Ma is threatening to fly out here to see them. With Karl. You
don’t think I’d willingly cause that, do you?

Sarah: Well Karl is very concerned, Vizh. He heard that Griffin got brought up
by fairies. He wants to set him straight.

Vizh: I’m pretty sure I’m needed to fight the Parody War on another continent
now. Perhaps on another planet.

Sarah: Plus, you crept off into Faerie without even telling me! And then you
haul me into your perverted dream sequences out of a perfectly good dream where
there’s me, Sean Bean, and this accidental lock in at a novelty goods shop.

Vizh, shuddering: I’m pretty sure that’s what brothers are supposed to do, Shep.
And I’m sorry I crept off.

Sarah: No you’re not. When Lisa gets here, then you’ll be sorry. Heh.

Vizh: But we did manage to find Naari, even if she is kind of ten years older
than we’d expected, and has a secret twin brother.

Sarah: Yes, you get points for that. And now I can take my awful revenge.

Vizh: Revenge?

Sarah: Oh yes. As an aunt I get to take them out, spoil them rotten, fill their
minds with seditious anti-establishment ideas, then hand them back. It’s the
perfect set up.

Vizh: Okay, I’m just going to hide in this cupboard until they go to college.
Slide food under the door occasionally please.

Sarah: You can’t weasel out as if you’re in the Happy Place, Vizh. You have a
lot to teach those kids. Like not to provoke Enty’s toaster, and never to pet
Lisa’s cat, and not to mix up Donar’s Xena tapes, and never stand too near
spiffy in public in case somebody tries to frag him again. All kinds of stuff
they need to know.

Vizh: I know. But it’s scary. I was prepared for diapers. I wasn’t ready for MTV
and puberty.

Sarah: Well you’d better get prepared fast. You have a lot to teach them and
only a very short time to do it in.

Vizh, puzzled: Short time?

Sarah, folding her arms: What, you think Kerry and the Juniors are going to be
Lost in Space or whatever for long? As if dropping into some kind of
pan-dimensional vortex is going to stop them for more than a few issues. No,
Vizh, you’ve only got a short time to try and set your kids straight… before
they meet Kerry and the others.

Sarah: Vizh? Vizh, come out of the cupboard. Vizh??

“You’re a persistent one, aren’t you?” Jury noted in less than welcoming tones.

“Yes ma’am” Quoth replied with a polite bob of her head. Even disguised as a petite, raven-haired young woman she maintained her professionalism. She was, after all, in the presence of the Shaper of Worlds, the corner of creation for the Triumvirate…

“There is no Triumvirate any more” the cosmic being snapped. “The Parody Master saw to that. Have you come here to chide me as that Waltz woman did for tucking tail and running?”

“What?” the former raven blinked, confused. “No ma’am! I just… I’ve been trying to get into Herringcarp to see you ever since…”

“Yes. I know. Surely it must have occurred to you that I might not care to grant you an audience?”

Quoth turned pale. “Have I… Have I failed the Triumvirate in some way?” she gasped. “I’ve felt… cut off this entire time I’ve been on the run. My perceptions have been fading. I thought it was due to… But if I’ve caused some offense, Mistress, then…”

“Your connection to the office of the Chronicler is withering and dying, and will never be restored” Jury explained clinically. “You’ve been judged unfit for Destiny… Unable or just unwilling to do what must be done to fulfill your duties in light of all that has happened.” Her cold demeanor faltered when she registered the crushing disappointment in the eyes of the girl before her at this confirmation of her worst fears. “I’m sorry Quoth.”

The former raven was near hyperventilating. “I… I don’t…” she gulped. “What…”

“The Ravens are meant to work behind the scenes, but you kept stepping into the narrative, disrupting the balance—acting, instead of chronicling.”

“I didn’t mean to… to cause any harm. Maybe… maybe I can make amends?” she pleaded desperately. “I could… give up my position… start back at… at Junior Raven?”

“When the Hall of Stories fell, you were not at your post.”

“The Chronicler! He sent me…”

“So you blame the Chronicler for your failings?”

The black-haired woman looked miserable. “No ma’am.” She swallowed hard. “I have no excuse for my actions. Please ma’am…! if there is any way I could be given one more chance… Being a Raven of Destiny is everything to me!”

“Indeed. It is everything you were” Jury sighed. “Which means now you’ve no place in the universe. You will gradually fade back into the narrative from which you were spun.” She closed her eyes and shook her head. “It’s the nature of your existence as a conceptual creation of the Chronicler… You have no beginning and no ending… and now you have no tale to tell.”

The image of the young woman literally shattered, an in its place was a small, unimpressive black bird, with feathers drab and unkempt. Quoth swallowed. “What can I do?”

“Without a purpose to hold you together, there’s nothing you can do.” The cosmic being gathered up her robes and swept across the dark marble floors of the Asylum great hall towards the stairs, pausing at the base. “For what it’s worth… I am sorry, Quoth” she offered to the crushed figure standing in shock in the entryway. Without another look back, Jury turned to the stairs, leaving the former Raven (and now raven) behind.

“That seemed especially cruel” The Hooded Hood noted mildly but precisely when she reached the top of the staircase.

“No matter what that bastard Parody Master may do, no matter how he may run me to ground, no matter how many of the tools of cosmic order he may remove from the playing field, I am still the Shaper of Worlds” Jury answered stiffly. “New beginnings are my domain, and I know my job well.”

Visionary, looking suspiciously towards the top of the stairs: Alright you two… you may as well come down here if you’re not going to stay in bed.

Magweed, popping her head over the landing railing guiltily: Griff wanted to go exploring...

Griffin, fading into view on the landing: I think I may be nocturnal. Sorry.

Visionary: Yes, well… I guess we’re all kind of jet lagged. Or whoosh lagged. I’m pretty sure Xander whooshed us here from the Mythlands. In any event, there’s somebody here who is anxious to meet you.

Sarah: Magweed, Griffin, hi! I’m your Aunt Sarah.

Magweed, looking worried: Our Auntie?

Griffin, standing in front of his sister: You keep away from us. We’re not
scared of you, no matter what you eat.

Sarah, checking her breath: It was the fettuccine, wasn’t it? And the pickle.
I’m sorry, I’ll gargle later.

Magweed: Where do you creep off to at night. What do you do to the men you find?

Sarah, shocked: Wow. I didn’t think we’d be having that conversation for
a couple of years yet, Magweed.

Griffin: If you try to hurt my sister I will stop you. I’m pretty sure I
can change into a griffin if I have to. I just need to practice.

Sarah: Hold it. I think maybe we started this conversation all wrong. When I
said I was your Aunt I’d forgotten you got brought up by this monster called
Auntie. What I mean is…

Magweed: Yes, I know now. It took me a while to work out that you have a good
heart. That’s one of my godmother gifts, you know. She’s not a monster, Griff.
She’s a good Auntie.

Griffin, suspiciously: There are good Aunties?

Sarah: There must be, because I’m one. Well, mostly good. But let’s not get into
that whole creeping at night/men I find question again, shall we? I just wanted
you to know that I’m really pleased to have two great kids as my niece and
nephew. When you’ve settled in we’ll have all kinds of fun together.

Griffin: So you don’t eat anything horrible?

Sarah: Well, goat’s milk cheese sandwiches are pretty bad, but there’s this
special diet I saw in Parodiopolis Today…

Magweed: So… you’re more family?

Sarah: I am. So I’ll be there for you, okay? I’ll be looking out for you. This
Auntie’s only a monster when somebody’s threatening my niece and nephew. And if
it’s something I can’t handle, well I happen to know Dancer as well, and she can
help kick whatever it is’s ass. So don’t worry. Look, I’ll just go write down my
phone number so you can call me… um, when somebody’s taught you what a phone is.
Be right back.

Magweed, with a puzzled expression as she watches Sarah and Vizh go: Are we not supposed
to recognise that she’s the Probability Dancer? She was right there being one of
my godmothers back in Faerie.

Griffin: You’re right! It’s her! *shrugs* Oh well, best to pretend we don’t
know, I guess. Grown ups can be really funny.

Griffin, thinks more: Besides, this way she has to get us two birthday presents.

The Lair Legion Labs

Al B. Harper is clambering over an enormous and complex looking series of machinery. Amy Aston is plugging wires into various sockets and connecting tubes extending from the massive structure into data-ports connected to the mainframe.
Kara Harper is sitting at a swivel-chair by the control panel with her feet up, slurping on a raspberry slurpee.

“If I can collaborate the laser-based spectroscopy by relying on an optical frequency comb technique, we should observe an optical coherence tomography, thus allowing us to pinpoint what we’re looking for.” Al B. states in a matter-a-fact manner.

“Sure, no problem.” Amy’s frank reply is belied by her rolling of her eyes.

Kara takes a loud noisy slurp from her drink. “You sure about that Dad?” she asks.

Al B. pauses for a second to look at his daughter from the future who has replaced his son from the future (a result of a complex scenario -- ask the HH if you’re confused).

“By Einstein, you’re right!” Al B. regards his daughter happily, “I’d forgotten about the need for particle detectors in the multiwire proportional chamber! Well spotted Kara.” He went back to his clambering with added fervour.

“No prob!” the lithe young girl smiled at Amy. “So, did you hear that Visionary now has both a son and a daughter who have been advanced in age?”

“Pshaw.” Amy rolled her eyes again. “It’s not like Al B. hasn’t done that already.” She went back to her socket connecting.

Kara resumed her noisy slurps as Al B. muttered incomprehensible equations to himself while he worked.

“Do all of these people work for you?” Magweed asked, wide-eyed. She had never even imagined such a busy place as the mansion in all of her life… even at this late hour, it was filled with people going to a fro. She and Griff had been eager to visit this place the more they had heard about it, until finally their father had relented and brought them along as he came to meet with his fellow adventurers. “Are they all knights and warriors and kings and princesses?”

“Er… I honestly don’t know who these people are” Visionary admitted. “Well, I mean… those ones over there are Naval officers. And I think that might be the Secretary of State coming down the stairs. She looks bigger on television… But I have no idea who that hippo was that frisked me at the door.” He chewed his lip thoughtfully. “I hope he actually works here…”

Maggie looked to her brother, but he was still enthralled with the “Comm. Card” that the friendly hippo man had said Hallie had left for them at the door.

“Look!” Griff noted excitedly, tilting the card back and forth. A little image of himself was displayed in the corner, and as he moved it the picture of the young lad changed into an image of a winged griffin and back again.

“She knows what you really look like” Maggie smiled. She looked to her image on her own card, but the scarred half of her face didn’t go away no matter how she tilted it.

“Yours stays because you’re still our princess” Hallie said, suddenly appearing to kneel besides her. “No matter what. And that’s never changing.” She kissed Maggie on the cheek and hugged both children close. “These cards are linked to me, so if you ever need me for anything, just press this button here and there I’ll be, big as life and twice as green.” She winked at them and smiled. “You’d be surprised by how quickly I can get around.”

“Hallie, what’s going on? This place is a zoo…” Visionary prodded. “Er… that’s not any kind of knock on the hippo, by the way…”

“You wouldn’t believe all that’s been happening while we were away…” she replied. “I don’t believe it, and I’ve read the firsthand reports. But there’s a reason the mansion now has more security than the Pentagon… and twice as many generals.”

“Great…” Visionary sighed. “Another round of memorizing security passcodes. I have trouble enough remembering the ones for my e-mail account.”

“REALdammit42” Griffin said absently, playing with the buttons on his card.

The adults froze and looked at him. “What was that?” Visionary asked.

Griffin glanced up to find everyone staring at him. “Um… sorry… did I say something wrong?”

Hallie tore her gaze off the youngster to give Visionary a worried look. “Uh-oh… I think we need to talk.”

To be continued, with more guest authors and plenty more guest stars!

Post By by Visionary, Dancer and Al B. Harper Thu Sep 14, 2006 at 08:37:48 am EDT	Subject Welcome Home, part one of a still-expanding collaboration

	[Reply] [New] [Edit] [Email] [Print] [RSS] [Tales of the Parodyverse]	Next In Thread >>