What is it you really want, a Soulmate or just a Perfect Warrior?
Chapter the Fourth
Where we get to see the aftermath of how things looked on Earth (also an assorted selection of Alice's weird dreams)
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The Hospital room was quiet other than the beeps, bleeps, whirrs, clicks and dings of all the tech hooked up to the patient laying comatose and the quiet sobbing of the 6 year old boy sat at the foot of the bed.
“Is she ganna to be okay? They aren’t ganna lock her up again are they?”
“No Ben, they aren’t going to lock up someone in a coma, and they definitely won’t try it when she wakes up if your other mother has anything to say about it.”
~~~~~~
The ballroom is filled with pretty pretty people, wearing pretty pretty clothes. Perfect flawless faces surround me, miles of lace and brocade twisted into vast cyclones of material. Bolts of black lightning blasting from the storm strike at an armoured figure, as they cut their way to me through the crowd of twisted leering visages.
~~~~~~
“Carla, I can’t help if you keep keeping secrets about Hans.”
“Her name is Alice you jumped up, pompous slag.”
“Fine then, what were you and Alice talking about that set her off this time.”
“What do you care, why are you even involved? Didn’t Mr Olo promise to cut your heart out with a lemon if you came near his child again?”
“Unfortunately for him, he is ‘unavoidably detained’ elsewhere, and I am the only child psych on duty tonight, so you are stuck with me.”
~~~~~
“Surely you can move faster than that!” The old master with terrifyingly wide eyes doesn’t let up, launching flurries of blows with his staff, and I am only able to block two out of three of them. “Your purpose is too great for you to fight against yourself while also fighting your enemies.”
“Then what would you suggest, you’re the teacher, teach.”
“You must release yourself to battle, let yourself immerse into the flow of combat, only then can your warrior spirits join with your true self.”
~~~~~
The scared young boy is joined by his big sister, and they curl up together at the foot of the bed. Their mothers watch on, proud of both children for their unconditional love for their unconscious friend.
“Amanda, did they say what’s wrong with her?”
“No, they really don’t know, her brain activity is normal for someone who is actually awake and doing something and they can’t find any reason for her to be out like this.”
“So it’s just a waiting game, keep her alive till she wakes up on her own?”
“Yes, and until then we have to keep our two from being too effected by it.”
“I really hate this.”
“I know Lauren, I do too.”
~~~~~
LETMEGOLETMEGOPLEASEPLEASELETMEGO
~~~~~
“Excuse me, Mr and Mrs Burns-Fields, can we talk a abou-“ the rather stuck up child psych never got to finish what she said before two solid fists are thrown right into her face, the meaty thuds satisfying honour in the only way left since the end of legal duelling.
~~~~~
The water is stormy, and a short figure wearing overly large shoulder pads is smashing oranges resting on the rocks with a flying fish, a figure made of flowing blood with lots of little skulls floating in it, wearing a cloak made from a flag, reaches into the chest of a robed figure, whose head explodes into a mushroom cloud, and rips the sun out from its breast...
~~~~~
“How has that fucking bitch still got a medical licence?”
“Carla! Watch your mouth round your brother.”
"She had Allie Committed over smegging Nair, how rational is that, tried to fight her release too."
"It's going to be sorted sweetheart, she won't be involved again."
~~~~~
I reach into the glowing water in the well, lifting the globe free from the black tendrils holding it down. My arms split open, the tears reaching up my body, my skin falling off into the water in rotting clumps.
~~~~~
“I am terribly sorry, you can be sure that she will not be involved in this matter any further.”
“She had better not, and she had better not have any of the files about it still.”
~~~~~
I’m falling, through a storm, surrounded by all sorts of things, from tiny trinkets to full sized warships, everything moving independently, but nothing hitting anything else, an aerial ballet of debris and chaos.
~~~~~
The room is quiet, the children in the bed asleep or unaccountably unconscious, and the adults sitting together in the largest chair watching.
~~~~~
The cathedral is packed with guests, all looking towards me with affection as I make my way down the aisle towards the altar. As I pass one of the guards with shining armour, I see the reflections of the guests with different expressions, a cruel dehumanising glare. The figure awaiting me at the altar seems... unstructured, faceless shape, just filling a role and-
*BLLLLAAAARRRRPPP*
Who is smegging about with an air horn this early in the morning?!
Authors note: Is what is going on understandable? In this chapter and the story as a whole. I have a niggling suspicion that I've obfuscated things too much and things only make sense to me because I know what is going on.
Comments
I'm not 100% sure........
If I follow this chapter fully. Obviously, the person in the hospital is Alice - or at least her unconscious body. Based on what I read, her brain activity is equivalent to that of a conscious person - yet she lies unresponsively comatose.
This would indicate to me that although her physical body lies in the hospital, her consciousness or her spirit if you will, is in some other realm where she is physically female as well as spiritually. This would be the world where she is the warrior of legend, and I assume the place where she is in the ballroom/training/walking down the aisle. I don't fully follow all of that though.
Nor do I understand the significance of the psychologist and the anger the others have due to the doctor's involvement.
D
D. Eden
Dum Vivimus, Vivamus
Dreams
the blockquote sections are Allie's dreams, and deliberately weird (but important)
the psych is the one responsible for Allie being committed and was misgendering Allie and Amanda
going to add a little bit to clear that up
also I was thinking about the whole story being a bit too obfuscated, not just this chapter
drifting between 2 worlds
interesting. So she left her body behind when she went to the other world? Or is the other world some kind of dreamscape?
Other world
The 'other world', the world of magic (and cute boys), is just as real as that earth
I don't think
Anyone would blame her for leaving the human world entirely
I know who I am, I am me, and I like me ^^
Transgender, Gamer, Little, Princess, Therian and proud :D
Well, what's going on in the
Well, what's going on in the real world is mostly clear (though I didn't catch the misgendering of Carla's parents until the third time through, and at that only because someone else commented about it).
This section:
raises some questions as well. The way she says "unavoidably detained" implies that she had something to do with it. Which is really stupid (but sounds to be par for the course for this "doctor").
Also, if the parents have previously demanded that she not be anywhere near their child, then it doesn't matter if she is the only child psych on duty. Especially with Alice comatose. The hospital would have to get somebody else.
I'm curious about her exact "reasons" for the commitment. also about the "failed suicide attempt" mentioned in the first chapter. My first thought on that was self-castration, but that doesn't quite fit some of the other things going on.
Brooke brooke at shadowgard dot com
http://brooke.shadowgard.com/
Girls will be boys, and boys will be girls
It's a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world
"Lola", the Kinks
Departmental Disconect
Parts of the 'real world' are inspired (but turned up a bit) by my interactions with the hospitals + mental health services local to me
Mental Health barely talks to anyone else, and the only time the Hospital hadn't lost my records from their system was when I went to get my cast off (so only 6 weeks after my last visit)
Basically, the request about her not being involved with Allie anymore was made with Mental Health, and the Hospital didn't have it come up in their system. Also, it might have been about Alice, but she was assigned to talk to Carla and Ben about what happened, so it wouldn't trigger a system warning anyway.
I generally put stuff in 'marks' to "separate" it when it's someone using someone else's words. Allie doesn't see what happened as a suicide attempt, but other people describe it as one, and she finds it a useful euphemism while thinking about it, and 'unavoidably detained' is the reason given to the hospital as to why Mr & Mrs Olo aren't there, not some malicious comment by the shrink.
first time she was committed was over the "failed suicide", second time was because that doctor is a bitch and a transphobe.
Following
Ok for me, Alice's body helpless and dreaming crazily as her adventuring self rests, her devoted nearest defending the one they love. The short intro is a good idea though, so we get straight away that it's "meanwhile, back at the ranch".
"Reach for the sun."