dearheart: So Writer's group is still on?
dearheart: I finished my prologue.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Share away!
dearheart: Sad that nobody else is here...
Ariel.of.Narnia: Yeah, I know
dearheart: Okay
Ariel.of.Narnia: I have this theory that people come late whenever I lead.
dearheart: Haha
dearheart: Okay, hmmm... I'm trying to remember how much I shared last time
Ariel.of.Narnia: Little bro on the owl
dearheart: Ohhhh that's right!
Ariel.of.Narnia:Yup. You ended with "But he supposed, as others have, that leaving beautiful things behind is what makes them so special when you return to them."
dearheart: Ohhh thank you. I'll pick up from there, then...
Dearheart shares ~
“Oh no,” Thomas muttered.
“What is it?” asked Michael.
“The dark spot’s gotten huge. Look, to the right. See that thing?”
He turned his head and sat up. Sure enough, right where Thomas had said, a great, dark, yawning space hung in the sky. As if a giant hand had reached up and yanked out a handful of stars.
It was jarring, seeing it in the middle of the sparkling glory around them. Michael couldn’t remember ever seeing it before. “When did it come? Is it bad?”
“No one knows exactly when it showed up, but that spot has been growing inch by inch every night and let me tell you, I’ve never seen it this big. It’s twice the size I last saw it.”
“Are the stars disappearing?”
“That’s what other Wanderers are saying, but I’m not so sure.” Thomas made an uneasy loop-around, maneuvering so that they were flying towards it head on. “Look at it. Does it feel empty to you?”
Michael stared. It was too far off to get near it. It looked like emptiness, but the more he watched it, the more he got the sense of something thick spreading out like smoke from a wildfire. Something heavy and stifling, sinking into the universe. He could feel his heart aching under the weight of it.
“It feels…” He struggled for the word. Words had always been hard for him to grasp. “Sad” came to mind, but it didn’t seem to go far enough.
He said so to Thomas, who bobbed his head in agreement. “I feel it, too. It’s definitely a something, not a nothing. See, I don’t think the stars are actually vanishing. I think they’re being swallowed.”
“The dark stuff is /eating/ the stars?”
“I don’t mean literally swallowed, I mean like…they’re being surrounded. Overcome, smothered, trapped. And it’s not just this world; I’ve been seeing it in other places, too. Whatever the stuff is, it’s not good and steadily getting /more/ not-good. Folks are getting nervous. Rumor’s going around that the fireflies are starting to leave, too — ow! Easy on the feathers, buddy!”
Michael had buried his hands in the downy warmth to keep them busy and unknowingly started pulling. “Sorry,” he said, forcing his fingers still again. “I didn’t mean to. I just...”
“Eh, it’s my fault. Here I am, talking about doom and gloom and making us both all wound up, when we /should/ be enjoying ourselves. You didn’t come for morbid conversation, you came here to escape. So.” The owl glanced back at him, mischief glinting in his eyes. “Shall we do the rollercoaster thing?”
“Okay,” said Michael.
Thomas hooted in delight. “Count us off, captain!”
Giggling, Michael shifted where he sat and braced his knees. He wrapped his arms around Thomas’s neck, gripped as tight as he could, and shouted, “3, 2, 1!”
A flurry of wings propelled them up, and then they dived through a gap in the clouds, whooping and screaming. The darkness and the stars fell away in a blur behind them as they rocketed down, down, down, embracing the rush of gravity; and just when Michael thought he couldn’t breathe anymore, they swooped up again. Looped, spun, dived, climbed. Down and up, back and forth, each turn and swoop a little smaller than the last, until gradually their trackless “rollercoaster” came to an end.
Thomas glided in lazy arcs as they caught their breath, both laughing and dizzy with thrill. The air had a salty tang to it now. Michael felt a cool spray on his cheek and heard waves moving beneath them. He could also hear a strain of pulsating, joyous music on the wind, thumping like a heartbeat.
“Ahh,” sighed Thomas happily, “forget every gloomy thing you saw tonight and check out /that/ view.”
Stretched out on the horizon, glowing as bright as the galaxies above it, the skyline of Owl City welcomed them. The bay was so calm that every skyscraper, every twist of architecture and gleam of glass was mirrored in the water, a near-perfect reflection. The shape of it reminded Michael of soundwaves.
And there was certainly plenty of sound now. The thump of the music grew louder and the city sang with life: Cars racing through highways, beeping to each other in greeting. The murmuring of a million conversations. Laughter. A shriek of excitement. Somewhere, a crowd cheered in a stadium. Somewhere else, a girl whispered, “I love you.” Just a few yards away, an airplane zoomed past and the people inside waved at them. Michael waved back.
Somehow, the clamor of it never devolved into noise or chaos. Every sound had a place to belong. Everything harmonized. Everything fit.
“Beautiful,” said Thomas.
“Yes,” agreed Michael.
“Hey, bud…don’t give up on the idea of your sister getting here. Life has a way of changing when you least expect it.”
“I hope so.”
“I know so!”
Thomas did a brief spin in the air to make Michael laugh again, and the feathery fuzz around his beak lifted in a smile.
“Don’t forget,” he declared, “this is Owl City! /Anything/ can happen here.”
dearheart: ...the end.
narniac101: *readreadread* That's awesome, Dearheart! o.o
Ariel.of.Narnia: Oh, Hi, Nia!
narniac101: Hiya
dearheart: Hello!
narniac101: Hi
dearheart: And thank you!
narniac101: smiley
Ariel.of.Narnia: So... what happens next...?
dearheart: That's the end of the prologue. The first chapter happens a few months afterwards, and it's when his sister inevitably gets dragged into the craziness
Ariel.of.Narnia: Ohhhhhhhhhh!
Ariel.of.Narnia: Okey-dokey!
Ariel.of.Narnia: I'm tracking with you now
dearheart: I do have like...a rough couple pages of the first chapter, if you want to see it...
dearheart: But I don't want to take up anyone else's time smiley
Ariel.of.Narnia: Well, Nia, do you have anything to share before Dh continues?
narniac101: Noooooo
narniac101: I just came to stalk.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Okay. Shoot, Dh!
dearheart: Pfffff haha
dearheart: Okay, here's what I've got of chapter one (warning: it's much rougher than the prologue because I haven't spent weeks tweaking it yet lol)
dearheart: smiley-lol
dearheart: Chapter 1: Ten Thousand Lightning Bugs
Once upon a time, fiction collided with reality. There was absurdity and there was beauty, there was anguish and there was hope. A light shone in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.
And you, Reader, were part of it.
Or, you’re /going/ to be. I’m not sure which tense to use. Tenses and timelines can be so tricky sometimes.
I know it’s tacky and generally frowned upon, talking to the reader like this. (And I swear to never be a pretentious idiot and refer to you as the “gentle reader”. Ick.) I’m only addressing you now because I wanted to let you know ahead of time that /you’re important/. To this story, and to your own world. Both sides of reality will need you, and it will be sooner than you expect. So try your best to be ready for it, alright?
I know you’ll be amazing. I’ve seen the potential, and it is limitless.
Sam and Michael and so many others saw it, too. But that part happened much later, and I have to do this properly. Prologue or no prologue, every good story begins when things get interesting.
The day things got interesting for Samantha Seul-ki Park was the day her little brother told her that his toys could fly.
She would have brushed it off as the rambling of an over-imaginative 11-year-old boy, if it were anyone other than her brother. Michael had never been the over-imaginative type. She wasn’t even sure he understood how to play pretend at all. His autism, mild as it was, came with a number of various quirks she’d learned to navigate over the years – and one of those quirks was that he never played with his toys the way other kids did. Instead of driving his hotwheel cars in physics-destroying flips and crashing them into each other, he would line them up from wall to wall with careful precision.
Instead of making his plastic dinosaur roar and stomp and eat said hotwheels, he would carry it with him everywhere and run his fingertips over the scaly surface.
Instead of flying his toy airplane in trips around the world, he would put it on the floor and spin the propeller for hours.
The one “normal” thing he liked to do was build things with his k’nex set. But even then, he was never interested in building creations of his own. He preferred to google pictures of city skylines, pick any skyscraper that caught his eye, and then replicate it. No instruction booklets needed. His copies weren’t perfect, but they were good.
Sam figured if he had an imagination, it was a very left-brained one. So when he said he’d seen his toys fly that morning, she listened intently.
They avoided the autumn leaves in the road as they walked home together, so that Michael wouldn’t be bothered by the harsh crunching noises. The murmuring of the trees was music enough, and it wasn’t often that Sam got to converse with her brother like this. She wanted to enjoy it while it lasted.
“Trevor flew first,” he said, holding up his dinosaur. “Then the Antonov An-2, and the circle-robot, and then everything all just went…” He stopped and spun in place, waving his free hand around and making little whooshing noises under his breath.
“Careful,” Sam chuckled, pushing back a nearby tree branch so his long blond hair wouldn’t catch on it. (Haircuts were on the list of Things To Avoid with him.)
Michael finished his reenactment and let out a giddy laugh. “They were just randomly flying out of nowhere! I laughed when they were done because I thought it was silly.”
Sam grinned back at him. /Maybe that’s it/, she thought. /Silliness. He’s making a story because he likes silliness./ Michael had always found humor in the absurd and impossible. Perhaps because he took the world around him so literally, turning it upside down was funny to him.
Still, telling a story was something completely new; and Sam hadn’t seen him this animated or cheerful in years. She wasn’t sure whether to be glad or concerned about the sudden change. Dad would probably be happy, if he were here. He saw it as a victory any time Michael initiated a conversation on his own.
(But Dad wasn’t here. Dad was in rehab, two hundred miles and four foster homes away…well, five now. Thank god they’d finally gotten out of that last one. And Mom was…no. She didn’t think about Mom. Ever.)
“I think it was the firefly that did it,” said Michael. Apparently the story wasn’t over.
“What firefly?”
“The one that woke me up. It had lots of magic sparkles, like Tinkerbell in the 1953 Peter Pan movie, but it wasn’t a fairy.”
Playing along, Sam raised her eyebrows. “How do you know it wasn’t a fairy?”
“’Cos I caught it.”
“No way.”
“/Yes/ way,” Michael insisted. “It’s really a firefly. I looked very carefully.”
“But…you /hate/ flying bugs.”
“This one is different. It’s gentle. It doesn’t make my ears angry.”
Sam frowned. It was weird enough he was talking about flying toys and magic. Connecting the magic in his story to an /insect/ was a whole new level of “off” for him. He dreaded anything that buzzed. Hearing just one tiny fly in his room could be enough to trigger a meltdown in him, and she’d dealt with plenty of those. Nothing about this was making sense.
“You’ll see,” he promised. “I’ll show you when we go in the house.”
“You’re gonna show me, huh?”
“Yeah. I told you I caught it, remember?” He held up a reprimanding finger at her. “You need to pay attention, Sam.”
Gestures and body language were other things that didn’t come naturally to him, but he could pick up the obvious cues and imitate them when needed. The pointing finger happened to be his go-to tactic when he wanted to be taken seriously. Sam always felt a little guilty for finding it so cute.
So she stifled the smile, put on her most serious of Serious-Faces, and nodded. “Duly noted, Mike ‘N Ike.”
“I’m /Michael/.”
“Nope,” she teased. She jogged ahead a couple of paces and turned on her heel so that she was walking backwards, facing him. “Right now, you’re Mike ‘N Ike because…” She pulled the prize out of her hoodie pocket with dramatic flair and shook it in front of him. The box of Mike & Ikes rattled enticingly. “Ta-da! Your favorite.”
“Ohh!”
“Don’t eat them all at once,” she said, dropping the candy into his outstretched hands. He nodded, eyes wide and glowing. After ripping open the packaging, he counted out twenty pieces in his palm and gave half of the handful to Sam. In perfect unison, they both closed their fists around the candy, knocked their knuckles together like wine glasses, tipped their heads back, and gulped it down.
He shared his candy every single time. It was one of her favorite quirks about him.
dearheart:...and that's it for now.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Loving it!
dearheart: I know it's rough and kinda info-dumpy...
Ariel.of.Narnia: The bit in which you address the reader wasn't untasteful (and was actually kind of amusing), even if I was kinda all "whoa, what is she doing?"
dearheart: Haha, yeah...it's weird, but it's going to be very important for the climax later. ;0
dearheart: smiley-wink
Ariel.of.Narnia: Haha, okay.
Ariel.of.Narnia: (hello, Will and Ed!)
dearheart: The Fourth Wall is a very important plot device in this story.
Sir-William: Hi back! (is only half here, really)
Ariel.of.Narnia: I guess Owl City's songs do that on occasion too.
Sir-Edward: Indeed
Sir-William: Owl City seems to be all the buzz around here
dearheart: Teehee, that would be my fault. Sorry not sorry.
Ariel.of.Narnia: I only got into him in May
Ariel.of.Narnia: Er... his stuff
Sir-Edward: lol
Ariel.of.Narnia: Anyway. Either of you have any comment for Dh?
dearheart: Yes, feedback would be great. This chapter is tricky because we won't see much of the little brother for a couple more chapters...
Sir-Edward: IT WAS AWESOME!
dearheart: Hence all the info-dump about him
dearheart: *FALLS OVER* THANK YOU!
Ariel.of.Narnia: Heehee
Ariel.of.Narnia: The good thing about the info-dump... is that it didn't feel like info-dump
dearheart: *WHEW* good.
Ariel.of.Narnia: So... what happens next?
dearheart: Spoilers~
Ariel.of.Narnia: Ha!
Ariel.of.Narnia: Either of you boys have anything to share?
Ariel.of.Narnia: 'cause... I don't.
Sir-Edward: Sorry :\
Sir-William: Nope. We wrote some fun stuff, but nothing worth sharing
Ariel.of.Narnia: Haha
Ariel.of.Narnia: Bummer
Ariel.of.Narnia: I started a story, but the emphasis is on "started"
Sir-William: lol
Ariel.of.Narnia: And my Avengers fic only has made so much progress since the bit I shared
Ariel.of.Narnia: *has to figure out why this scientist is in Europe*
dearheart: Ugh, plot stuff. The bane of my existence.
Ariel.of.Narnia: Heehee
dearheart: Why can't I just write fluffy character interactions and let that be enough
Ariel.of.Narnia: Dh, do you have anything else you want to share tonight?
Ariel.of.Narnia: "fluffy character stuff" tends to work nicely in one-shots, especially fanfics.
dearheart: Haha yes
dearheart: Anyone here heard of Ender's Game?
Ariel.of.Narnia: Yes. read the first two books and watched the movie
dearheart: I've got an Ender's Game/Doctor Who crossover I'm working on...
Ariel.of.Narnia: Well, if you'd like to share, go for it.
dearheart: Okay. This one's been hard because I'm not just dealing with ONE angsty genius character, I'm working with TWO.
Ariel.of.Narnia:... uh-oh.
dearheart: I'll share my last chapter. This takes place a few months after Ender comes out of his angst-coma and he's stuck waiting to find out if he can go back to Earth.
Ariel.of.Narnia: "angst-coma"? haha
dearheart: (couldn't think of any other way to put it, lol...)
dearheart: Thou Traveler Uknown, chapter 2
Ender shook the nice young lady’s hand and took the chair she offered him, his face politely blank, as always. She was the third one they had tried to assign to him – oddly enough, she specifically requested to work with him – but she would give up, just like the others.
He hoped it happened soon. He hoped even more that they would take the hint after this and leave him alone. Pushing therapy on him might soothe /their/ consciences, but he had no intention of letting anyone pry open his mind any more than they already had.
The lady smiled at him. She held herself with confidence and her face was honest. If she wasn’t there to prod him with personal questions, he’d smile back. Maybe.
“Would you like me to call you ‘Andrew’ or ‘Ender’?” she asked. Her British accent was bright and crisp.
“Ender,” he said.
“Alright, Ender. You can call me Oswald.”
He nodded, and planned not to say another word to her.
“Let’s cut to the chase,” said Oswald, primly crossing her legs as she studied the desk on her lap. All business now. But the clever smile was still in her eyes. “As you probably know, I’m one of the juvenile psychologists assigned to evaluate you. I’ve also been appointed as your new therapist. But…” She tossed the desk aside and folded her arms. “I think you and I both know that isn’t going to go anywhere. You’ve already sent two therapists away totally exasperated, and you think I’ll be next. But I don’t want to fight any pointless passive-aggressive battles with you. So I won’t bother.”
Ender let nothing show on his face, but he was surprised. The others were never so straightforward with him so quickly. And why had she requested to be his therapist if she never intended to be?
“You don’t even confide in your friends, from what I hear…and if you won’t confide in your friends, you certainly won’t confide in anyone else. Let alone me. You’ve locked yourself up and thrown away the key, and I can’t say I blame you.”
No pitying glances, no pretense of “understanding his pain”, no impatience at his cold silence. Every word from her was frank and undaunted and he could feel himself teetering on the edge of liking her, and that made him all the more wary.
Graff seemed honest in the beginning, too.
I'm not that 6-year-old anymore. If this monologue happens to be some technique to disarm me or win my trust or anything else, whatever it is, whatever they want, it /won’t/ work.
Cynicism was so draining.
“So, Ender, instead of me wasting time trying to get you to talk about your feelings, here is what’s going to happen. Over the next week or so, I’m going to have you take a series of very dull psychological tests. A necessary evil, I’m afraid,” she added dryly. “A lot of higher-ups will get in a lot of hot water if you don’t. It's obvious most of this concerned fuss over your mental wellbeing is just to cover their own backsides. But I’ll try to help you get it all over with as soon as possible.”
Distrust aside, he definitely liked her now, in spite of himself. He wasn't sure how to feel about that.
“And as for the therapy issue – or /no/-therapy issue, rather – I’m going to suggest something a little unconventional. Doctor-patient confidentiality protects us from being recorded, so if we’re careful, nobody will get in trouble. Instead of bringing you in for sessions with me, I’m going to contact a friend of mine to come visit you. ”
“What do you mean by ‘friend’?” asked Ender. It was the first time he’d broken his pattern of uncooperative silence. If Oswald noticed, she didn’t draw attention to it.
“Not a therapist,” she reassured him. “Not a psychologist, not someone paid to be nice to you or poke at your mind…just a traveler, and a good man. He was a soldier himself, once. Dangerously clever, like you. He’s cocky, I’ll warn you, and probably a bit mad. But he owes me a favor, and I think he might be the only person in the universe who can do you any substantial good right now. So I want to have him meet you. Can’t guarantee he’ll arrive on time, though.” She playfully raised an eyebrow as if she just let him in on an inside joke.
Ariel.of.Narnia: (*cackles*)
dearheart: *pauses* any thoughts?
dearheart: Does Ender sound like Ender? It's so hard to capture Orson's character voices...
Ariel.of.Narnia: Is it weird that I want Ender to remain stubborn /and/ that I want Oswald to get through to him?
Ariel.of.Narnia: From what I remember, Ender's sounding fine. Been a while since I read the book
dearheart: You might get your wish.
dearheart: Okay, good...
dearheart: Going on...
dearheart: Unamused, Ender lifted an eyebrow back. “I don’t need another Mazer. What makes you think I’ll agree to this?”
“Simple: you’re bored. /Very/ bored. And the fact that you’re talking to me now tells me this idea has caught your interest, at least a little. Be honest, who would you rather see? Another therapist, or an adventurer with stories to tell?”
“Neither.”
“If you don’t like him, you’ll never have to see him again. But if there’s one thing I can promise you, it’s that there’s never a dull moment when he shows up. At the very least, this could prove to be a welcome distraction for you.”
“I’ve already had plenty of fun surprises in my life. You can keep yours.”
Oswald sighed. Ender smiled inwardly, bitterly. It seemed even /her/ patience wasn’t limitless.
But her face showed neither anger nor pity. She looked…disappointed. Not defeated, but rather as if she had offered a treasured gift and he pushed it away.
In truth, his interest was already overriding his suspicion. Because she was right, he /was/ bored; and he didn’t currently have the energy to care whether her friend was really an adventurer or a potential abductor hired by whichever government wanted him most. He doubted it was the latter. The League War had ended over two months ago. Plus, capturing and/or killing Ender Wiggin via mysterious stranger introduced by therapist wasn’t the most feasible idea out there. This room was a vulnerable spot, due to the lack of recording, but the doctor/patient confidentiality factor would make it far easier for the therapist to do the deed, not a “friend”.
If Oswald wanted to abduct or kill him, she would have done it by now. And if this man was a trap, she wouldn’t have been stupid enough to describe the idea as “unconventional” or make him sound so suspicious.
Something in Ender wanted to be convinced to say ‘yes’. So he waited, and watched to see if Oswald’s belief in her friend was stronger than his aloof rejection of it.
Her voice was quiet when she spoke again. “I won’t presume to tell you what you need, Ender. Only you know that. Or, perhaps you don’t know.” She shrugged, quirked her lips. “I’m not a mind-reader. If you don’t want this, I won’t force you. But I do think meeting him would be good for you. I’m not trying to make a sales pitch. I’m trying to do my job: to help you. And I'm trying to tell you that finding common ground with someone, even a stranger, could help you in many ways. /Could/. I won’t make any wild guarantees. But if you don’t want to be helped…”
Finally, here it comes. The I-can’t-help-you-if-you-don’t-want-to-be-helped speech.
“…well, that’s okay, too. Healing is optional. It is not something you or anyone is ever obligated to do.”
Oh.
Once again, Ender was surprised by her. Nobody else had told him that before. Now that she'd said it, it sounded stupidly obvious, but he felt as if the words just allowed him to let out a breath he’d been holding for weeks.
“Other people may act like it is,” she continued. “But you owe them nothing, and you owe /me/ nothing. If you’d rather not have any more therapists or visitors pushed on you, I can arrange for that instead. I’m giving the choice to you. Right now. Which option would you prefer?”
/What's the catch, Oswald? Why are you so eager for me to see this man? Why are you acting like you care, and why are you making it so convincing?/
“Why are you really doing this?” he asked.
“I know you've had a lot of enemies and puppetmasters,” said Oswald. “And most of them were adults. You have every right to be suspicious of me; especially considering how odd my suggestion is. But I promise, not every adult you meet is an enemy.”
For the first time since their conversation started, he saw pity in her eyes. And for the first time since his "victory", he felt no resentment of it.
“Decent people still exist, and I try my best to be one of them. I am here to be for you, Ender, not against you. I will respect whatever decision you make.” She bent over in her chair to pick up her desk and began typing into it. “I’ll request the legal documents, if you’d like proof.”
It wasn’t needed. He still didn’t trust her – he didn’t trust anyone – but he sensed no malice or ulterior motives in her, either.
No more therapists. No more attempts at prying into his thoughts. No more pressure to “work through the grieving process”. Five minutes earlier, Ender would have jumped at this option without a second thought. He still wanted to.
And yet, he found himself asking, “What’s his name?”
Oswald smiled and stopped typing. “He just calls himself ‘The Doctor’. No, no, don’t worry,” she chuckled, seeing the skepticism return to his face. “I told you. He’s not /that/ kind of doctor, I promise.”
“Then what kind is he?” The vague hints were starting to get on his nerves.
She paused. “You know, that’s a very good question.”
She thought about it, head tilted slightly, and her smile grew soft.
“I suppose the kind of doctor he is,” she said, “often depends on the kind of person you are.”
dearheart: The End
dearheart: (for now)
Ariel.of.Narnia: *grins*
Ariel.of.Narnia: I barely know anything worth noting about Doctor Who, but I approve.
dearheart: Haha, well thanks! Literally the reason why I started this fic was because I saw so many parallels between Ender and The Doctor and it was driving me nuts
dearheart: (in the best way)
dearheart: The only thing better than one lonely compassionate guilt-ridden alien-loving star-wandering genocidal genius is TWO!
Ariel.of.Narnia: If you say so
dearheart: The potential angst-fest was too delicious for me to pass up
Ariel.of.Narnia: Oh the things writers revel in....
dearheart: Oh yes...and now the really hard stuff is ahead of me. Figuring out Ender was hard enough; figuring out how he and the Doctor would act towards each other is going to be...
Ariel.of.Narnia: Yeah... have fun with that
dearheart: asdfghjkl; REALLY REALLY DIFFICULT
Ariel.of.Narnia: *patpats*
dearheart: *slumps over on keyboard and whimpers*
dearheart: Anyway, I'm done talking everyone's ears off now, I promise.
dearheart: Sorry more people didn't show up!
Ariel.of.Narnia: You made up for it!
dearheart: I gotta run and get dinner...
Ariel.of.Narnia: Okay
Ariel.of.Narnia: On that note then, writers' dismissed.
Writer's Group dismissed ~
