Time: 12:30am, Monday 4 May, into Tuesday 5 May
Place: The Fiendish Glow
Follows: Support Your Local Pub/Cantina
[Monday 4 May, 12:30 AM]
Lora bounded down the back stairs. She wasn't late, but she loved the exercise, and she just felt good. She'd had the night off -- Brenda would get hers the next evening -- and intended to rewatch the Pretender eps she'd recorded Saturday night, but she discovered that she'd also recorded Psi-Factor that morning (ever hoping that LaCroix-look-alike actor would show up). Success! So she'd spent her evening watching and rewinding and rewatching. As she rounded one corner to head down the last flight of stairs she thought about a convention she would soon be attending, in Las Vegas.
Yes, she thought, leaping down the last few steps and spinning so she'd land with her back against the fine wood paneling on the wall opposite. He would be there. She'd already sent her registration check in and a friend out there was working on inexpensive hotel space. "Oops, gotta buy a new tape," she reminded herself -- she'd worn out the first copy of the actor/author's audio book and needed to get another because she wanted a signed one.
"What a voice," she sighed. She turned around to face the paneling and lovingly ran her hand along it's grain. But even the lovely oak couldn't distract her from thoughts of Vegas -- city of sin, playground of adults, and that balding beauty, she thought. As she leaned against the wall, she playfully tapped three separate panels, saying, "Yes, YES, YES!!"
The third panel depressed, causing the section of wall she leaned against to open; down she tumbled into darkness.
[Meanwhile, upstairs in the cantina area]
Brenda finally found Ronnie at the metro entrance/exit.
"What can uy do for ye, lassie?" he said at her approach.
"Have you seen Lora?"
"Not ye, but she's not due back fur an hour."
"Well, when you see her, tell her that her parents called and she's to call them," Brenda said, then headed upstairs to the cantina kitchen to talk to Patrick about Tuesday's festivities.
Lora's head hurt. In fact, her whole body hurt. She opened her eyes to discover she was in total darkness. She tried to move, but her whole body felt sluggish. "Ah, the pains of turning forty," she said out loud as she pushed herself into a seated position. "Omigod!" she exclaimed looking down at herself, "I'm glowing!"
"Yes, you are," came a voice out of the darkness.
She tried to get up and turn to face the voice, but her movements were sluggish, like she was moving through molasses. Something in her mind said, "UFfer".
"No, that's honey," the voice said to her thought.
"What?"
"You were thinking of the Unnamed Faction when you thought of molasses, but they prefer honey."
"Who are you? What do you want?" she asked too quickly to realize those were Babylon 5 questions.
"Wrong show. This is Forever Knight fanfic, and we don't do crossovers during War."
"What the heck are you talking about, and how do you know about Forever Knight and War?" she cried out to the distant voice. This moving-in-molasses feel was getting on her nerves, and so was the voice. "Show yourself!"
Three glowing objects approached her, but she could see more in the distance. The closest glow coalesced into a figure. "We are the fanfic fairies," it said, "and you've been a very naughty girl."
"Fanfic fairies! Are you nuts?"
The light-being continued calmly. "You have used us and abused us, which alone really isn't bad. However, you forgot the most important thing." Its voice suddenly took on a menacing tone as the shape leaned toward her. "You forgot to give us chocolate!"
Lora turned and tried to run, but the moving-in-molasses feeling caused her legs to not respond, and so she fell, again.
Lora's eyes opened. The mist that surrounded her was eerie, illuminated only by her glow. Well, I'm still glowing, she thought, afraid now to speak for fear that the "voice" would come back. She wasn't sure if she dreamed that or not, but was taking no chances. The floor felt damp, but she didn't smell any musty odors. Her clothes clung to her, but she didn't feel particularly cold. She shakily rose to her feet and tried to check her watch; her "glow" barely illuminated the time. I haven't been out very long, she thought in amazement, then her heart sank when she checked the date. "Omigod," she said. She'd been out a whole day!
She tried to survey her surroundings, but the mist and the darkness obstructed everything from view. The Glow Worm walked a few tentative steps. Still nothing. She walked a few more, then heard a distant *squeek* behind her, causing her to spin around. She listened a moment, but didn't hear it again. Lora searched her memory trying to identify the sound she'd heard. Possibly a muffled floor board creaking, she finally decided.
Excited that if she could hear a floor board someone might hear her cry out for help, so she did.
[1:35am]
Lora wasn't sure how long she'd been yelling, only that her throat was too sore and she was too thirsty to cry out anymore. She'd moved toward where she thought the sound came from and found a wall. It was just as damp as she was. She decided to follow the wall to see if she could somehow find an exit, a door, a window, a vent, anything to give her hope of getting out of here. The Glow Worm's fingers felt nothing but damp concrete. Suddenly she heard another squeak and in her excitement turned and moved toward it, promptly hitting her head, again.
Blackness engulfed her for a moment, then the glowing figure loomed before her eyes. "Now you've done it," the voice said.
Lora's Bank of Glowwing card loomed inches before her eyes. She tried to grab at it, but it dissolved into nothingness. "Hey!" she cried out.
"What the fanfic fairies giveth, the fanfic fairies can taketh away," the voice said calmly. "You owe us chocolate. Lots and lots of chocolate for what we've done for you." The glowing figure loomed close and menacing. "Where's our chocolate?" it demanded in a loud booming voice.
"You're nuts," Lora replied defiantly. "I don't know what you're talking about!"
Off to Lora's left a scene appeared, as though out of a movie, but no movie she'd ever seen before. With a sinking feeling, Lora knew what it was. "Hey, that's the opening to Chapter 15," she said, recognizing it from the massive piece of fanfic she'd been working on for the past five months -- her own Last Knight resolution.
"Of course it is," the voice said with a laugh. "Bought and paid for with M&Ms™."
The Glow Worm was confused. "Huh?"
The scene vanished and Lora was again forced to face the glowing figure. "Do you actually think you ateall those M&Ms™ you kept next to your computer?"
"Sure. I also shared 'em with my online friends. You know, the 'passing M&Ms™ out to all' type thing one does in chats."
"WE ATE THEM!" the voice boomed, causing Lora to stagger back at the force of its frustration.
Lora's legs took on the moving-in-molasses feel again. "I don't understand," she finally said in resignation.
"But you will," the voice replied, calmer now.
"Ha -- caught you!" Lora exclaimed, pointing a sluggish arm toward the glowing figure. "That's a line from B5!"
"It's also a line from Star Wars, so there," the figure said, sticking out a glowing tongue (at least that's what Lora thought it was) at her.
"Okay," Lora agreed with a sigh. "So what you're telling me is that Brenda and I forgot to give you guys chocolate?"
"BRENDA IS NONE OF YOUR CONCERN," the voice indignantly boomed at her. "This is about you," it continued more calmly. "You are to provide us with chocolate immediately, or you can never have that."
The glowing figure pointed to a scene that was forming off to her left. As it solidified, Lora recognized it as a fantasy she'd held since she'd volunteered for "door duty," before War 9 ever started. "Yes," she sighed.
"Then you will get us the chocolate?" the voice asked.
"I . . . I can't," she began, pleading with the voice. "I'm trapped somewhere below The Fiendish Glow. I can't get out."
"That is your problem, not mine," the voice replied softly. Then, in a more menacing tone, it said, "If you don't, this could happen."
The scene shifted, altered, wavered, then solidified. Lora's jaw dropped as she took it in: in place of the tall vampire who looked like that actor/author she so much wanted to meet was a shorter vampire -- balding, yes, but the total antithesis of the one she wanted -- Screed -- and he was enjoying himself!
The Glow Worm screamed and tried to turn and run, but her legs pulled their "molasses" stunt. Once again, she fell into darkness.
Awareness once again came to the Glow Worm. Moisture. She smiled, remembering that in the mist, there was no "voice." She desperately hoped that this misty existence was indeed reality, rather than that nightmarish world of fanfic fairies.
She also wished she had her Bank of Glowwing card on her so she could prove to herself that it was also real. She shook herself at the thought, then chuckled. She'd received an application from Bank of Glowwing card shortly after joining the Celtic Glow Worms. Lora wondered if the bank found the Celtic Glow Worm site during an Internet search right after Pen got it up and running, then sent out applications for their credit card to all its members. They gave a very attractive interest rate. Several Glow Worms proudly carried the card, she recently discovered, and it was definitely her "card of choice" for this trip.
This fanfic-fairy business had Lora worried. Of course, she hadn't quite been feeling exactly normal since she fallen into this place. Thoughts of Gaelic faeries ran through her mind as she rose to her feet to figure out where the wall was once again so she could continue her search for an exit.
Then she remembered the mist that separated the "land of faery" from the real world. The Glow Worm wondered if perhaps she'd found some kind of "faery ring" under The Fiendish Glow.
"I must have really hit my head," she muttered as she shook off the thought. Yet for the first time she got a chill. She was torn between wondering if she'd found a draft and whether her psychic senses had kicked in. A part of her wished she'd paid better attention to tales of faeries in Celtic lands.
Lora was of northern European descent, but her Celtic blood dominated her appearance. Her reddish hair, green eyes, and pale complexion marked her as Celt, she knew, and she started to wonder if perhaps she'd acquired a "faery sense" as well.
The Glow Worm again thought about her dream, and the fanfic fairies that haunted her. Perhaps they were trying to tell her something -- were the faeries trying to contact her subconsciously through her dreams? Lora again got a chill.
"This place is getting to me," she said, rubbing her arms vigorously to shake off the feeling. As she continued to rub her arms she was again grateful she wasn't wearing any rings; she didn't have any to go with her pearl jewelry, and she'd definitely been in a "pearl" mood Sunday morning. She wondered how long she'd been out and was afraid to check her watch again. For all she knew she'd spent several days in the same clothes and jewelry; she wondered idly why she didn't smell.
She looked down at her hands. Oh how she felt naked without rings! 'Rings,' she thought idly, remembering her earlier ruminations on faery rings.
Lora had always had a thing for symmetry -- rings, circles, triangles, and squares. And she worked in the Pentagon: one of the biggest "rings" around, and it also had rings within rings, within rings; it was even layered in rings. But what did all this mean?
She thought again about the fanfic faeries of her dreams, about what they said about her chocolate, and realized that the M&Ms™ combined with her rocks and figurines made a ring around her computer!
"They were trying to tell me something," she muttered. "But what?"
The Glow Worm gazed into the mist, thinking long and hard before making a decision; in the end, she thought, What the heck?
"Okay, fanfic fairies," she said loudly into the mist. "I swear that when I get outta here, I'm breaking out the Hershey's Nuggets™!" As her voice echoed, she wondered about the stupidity of her statement. The eerieness of the place had definitely gotten to her, and for all she knew she was going nuts. Then she heard another floor board squeak.
"Hey!" she yelled, thinking perhaps maybe she wasn't so stupid after all. "Hey!" she yelled again when she heard another board squeak. She continued to yell as she moved quickly toward the noise. Within seconds of picking up speed, she banged her head against a free-hanging piece of metal. This time before crumpling to the floor she had time to think, Not again!
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PARALLEL STORIES: THE LIGHT COUSINS
TAKE ON A FIENDISH GLOW
WINKEN,
BLINKEN, AND. . . TINKERBELL?!
and
BACK TO THE FIENDISH GLOW
NEXT
STORY IN TIME: UNO, DOS, TRES, QUATRO, CINCO
NEXT STORY IN THREAD: FAERY RINGS
AND OTHER THINGS
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