THOSD/Books of Magic: The Realm of Possibilities 1/1
[THOSD/BoM] The Realm Of Possibilities.
By Rossi.
Summary: Follow-up (but not direct sequel) to The Stuff of Dreams. Tim accepts an offer of hospitality at THOSD. Also part of Kielle’s Beyond Subreality Challenge.
Rating: G.
Disclaimers and Credits: see the end.
Thanks to Lise, for jump-starting me with her feedback, and to Rowan, for being my Books of Magic convert.
‘Reality’ in Subreality is flexible. Like chewing gum, the fabric of time and space can be stretched and folded, tied into knots and snapped back into shape. That’s what Tim Hunter was thinking as he swayed along on the back of a bicycle that he’d seen conjured out of thin air, holding onto the waist of a pleasantly intoxicated Australian and listening to her guided tour. She’d already pointed out that several months had in fact passed for her in “Real Life”, while to him it was merely the end of a longish session at the pub known as the Subreality Café. But somehow it was easier to accept that concept than it would have been at the start of the evening.
It was also amusing how a patch of night-time followed them through the narrow twisting streets bathed in early morning sunlight. Rossi had explained at the start of their journey that it was night-time for her, and she wasn’t going to let a bunch of Americans tell her otherwise.
“…and over there is the Imagination Collegium, the Muse school,” Rossi said, waving a hand at the large towered building standing a way back from the city. The movement sent them veering from one side of the street to the other, narrowly missing a large orange rock-creature shambling his way home. He turned and shouted something about a place called Yancy Street as Rossi brought them back under control, smothering her tipsy giggles. The Collegium was more of a castle than a school, with ancient masonry festooned with ivy, and a rainbow-hued bridge of light spanning the two tallest towers.
“It’s… impressive.” Tim was lost for words. Like all architecture in Subreality, the Collegium had a nebulous quality, wavering at the edges like a heat-haze illusion. The result of many different perceptions at once, he supposed, remembering Subreality itself was built on the collective imaginations of the Writers.
“Even more so when you consider it’s only a year or so old.”
“But I thought, Frank said…”
“…That he’d been a student there after the Dark Ages?” Rossi grinned, looking remarkably pixie-ish in the moonlight in their little travelling patch of Night. “He did. The Collegium has been here for hundreds of years. But it was first Written by Farli only last year.”
“I’m confused.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s worse than time-travel for turning your brain inside-out.” Rossi pulled the bike over to the side of the road to explain without ending up in a ditch. “Time’s different here, like I explained. It’s infinitely flexible. And whatever we Write becomes true, unless it’s Retconned away. So if I Write a story about Frank’s school days set in the distant past…”
“Not that disstant,” came a muffled protest from Rossi’s shirt pocket. A small diamond-shaped head poked its nose over the edge of the fabric. “I’ll have you know I’m conssidered youthful for a Musse.”
“You certainly act like a teenager sometimes,” Rossi snickered. “Do you remember leaving the Café?”
“We’ve left the Café? I thought ssomeone had been getting adventurouss with the décor again.” Tim caught the amusement in the lizard’s hissing voice and smiled to himself. Listening to the pair banter was an education in itself.
“So, like I was saying, before His Nibs here interrupted, if I Write a story about Frank’s past, then it automatically becomes history.”
“Provided it’ss read by enough people,” Frank added. “There’ss any number of half-baked concceptss around Sshantytown that didn’t take.”
“So Writing something isn’t enough? It has to be Read too?”
“You catcch on quick, for a kid,” Frank said approvingly. “A Writer can Write anything they want, but for it to take hold in Ssubreality, it hass to take hold in the collective unconsscioussnessssess of the other Writerss. While it sstarted with Kielle, Ssubreality iss more than one persson’ss imaginingss. It’ss the ssum of every persson that particcipatess.” While Tim tried to decipher the string of sibilants, Rossi turned in at a long gravelled driveway. Or at least it was gravel at first. An impatient wave of the Australian’s hand switched it for smooth bitumen.
“Don’t you need a pen for that sort of thing?” Tim asked curiously. Rossi looked oddly shamefaced.
“Technically yes, but there’s a theory going around that Writers don’t actually need to Write to change Subreality, since it all comes from their minds anyway. The writing’s just a vehicle. If you can concentrate well enough, it’s possible to change things on your own.” They glided smoothly past the two rows of large trees on either side of the curving driveway. “And here, at the House, I have a little more… oomph than usual, since I’m the moderator.”
“The what?”
“Glorified landlady,” Frank supplied, ignoring the glare his Writer gave him. “Give her a mysstical Key and sshe thinkss sshe ownss the place.”
“I do not!” The retort was almost childish, as was the pout. “I just look after things, that’s all. And the Key wasn’t _my_ idea. It was Trisha’s.”
“Didn’t sstop you from leaping on that one point, did it? Trissha’ss created her own Frankensstein’ss monsster with that one ssentence.”
“Any more out of you and I’ll feed you to Spike.”
“Try it and it’ss three am insspirationss for the nexxt fortnight.”
“As fascinating as listening to you two argue is, can I ask something?” Tim finally interrupted.
“No worries.”
“Sshoot.”
“What the hell is this place?” Tim indicated the House now looming over them. ‘Gothic’ was a fitting adjective. So was ‘insane’. There were towers, and buttresses and dormer windows poking out at improbable angles. A great glittery silvery sphere hovered over what appeared to be a roof garden, and the whole thing was painted a most un-Gothic shade of blue.
Rossi smiled up at it proudly. “This,” she said, “Is the House of Strange Dimensions. Home away from home.”
“And other assssorted clicchess,” Frank snorted softly. Rossi ignored him, pulling up at the heavy wooden front door and holding the bike while Tim struggled off before passing control of the handlebars to him.
“At some stage, someone- Kielle, I think - decided it would be fun to live in Subreality in a sort of big communal house. Seraph’s had a cottage here for ages, but most of us just hung around the Café, pissing off the Bouncer.” As she talked, Rossi was pulling the Key on its chain from under her T-shirt and unlocking the door. “A bunch of us thought it was a great idea, and the House was created. I took on the job of moderator to take some of the load off Kielle.”
Pushing the door open (it creaked ominously, and she gave it a playful whack, telling it not to play silly buggers in front of the visitor), Rossi waved Tim and the bike inside. “Just lean it up against the umbrella stand out of the way. I don’t want Phil and Dex breaking their necks falling over it when they decide to stagger in.” The entrance lobby was large, but somehow inviting, even with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A broad flight of stairs led up to the next floor, and there were several other doors leading to the rest of the ground floor. “There’s plenty of spare rooms, you can borrow one of those, at least until we work out how to get you back. I don’t _think_ there’s any parties, house cleaning, prank wars or psychologically harrowing horror stories planned for a while.”
“Thanks, I think,” Tim said, following the Australian as she headed past the stairs. He resisted the urge to trot after her. For someone so short, she certainly moved fast.
“Want a hot chocolate? I need something to keep me going while Frank and I settle our artistic differences.” Rossi pushed open a swinging door. “And we can raid the Tim Tam cupboard.”
“Chocolate bisscuit, indigenouss to Ausstralia,” sighed Frank before Tim could ask. “My Writer iss a chocolate dealer. Sshe’ss already hooked half of Ssubreality on thesse thingss.”
“With the help of Raph and Lynx and the other Aussies and Kiwis,” smirked Rossi, waving Tim to a seat at the large kitchen table in the middle of the room. He took a seat gratefully, as the kitchen itself shimmered in a most unsettling way before resolving on a specific décor, mostly plain wood benches and lots of cupboards and a huge stove in one corner. “It’s all part of the Master Plan to take over the world.” To Tim’s surprise, she was making the hot chocolate in the usual fashion, rather than Writing it out of thin air. “I don’t like to get lazy,” she told him, setting a mug down in front of him and fishing Frank out of her shirt pocket. She set the lizard carefully on the table, before climbing onto the kitchen bench and opening a high cupboard. “Good thing this cupboard’s infinite, or we’d be in trouble,” she muttered, pulling out a plastic-wrapped packet. “Looks like Ana’s been raiding the Mocha ones again.” Lightly she jumped down, and took a seat at the table.
“Can I ask you something? Something personal?” Rossi raised an eyebrow at him.
“As long as it’s not my measurements,” she quipped. The question brought her back to seriousness.
“Why do you do this?”
“Do what? Write, you mean?”
“Yeah. I mean, you don’t get paid, and as long as you use other people’s characters, you never will. So what’s the point?”
Rossi was quiet for such a long moment Tim was afraid he’d offended her. The she replied, thoughtfully: “I suppose it’s because it lets me be someone else.”
“Don’t you like being you? Is your ‘Real Life’ that bad?”
“No! Not at all! I like who I am. It’s just, I’m so… mundane sometimes. Y’see, I work as a clerk in a court. Not exactly the most imaginative of places. And while I’ve got my boyfriend, my friends, my karate training, Subreality lets me go beyond that. It lets me take my mind to other places, exercise bits that would otherwise dry up and be lost. If I didn’t have Subreality and Writing, I’d be the same as all the other nine-to-fivers. It’s a chance to break out of character. Or into it.”
“’We like to think we’re unique until ssomeone tellss uss we’re different,’” quoted Frank, giving his Writer an appraising look. “You’re not telling the whole sstory.”
“All right, Mr Smug. Stop quoting my desk calendar at me.” Rossi swirled her chocolate around, gazing into it as if plumbing its depths for answers. Or courage. “A lot of the Writers - hell, _most_ of us - are ‘odd’ in one way or another. The ones who didn’t exactly fit in at school and got teased because of it. The weirdoes. It fits, I suppose, that we’d be the ones who latch onto reading and writing: we felt shut out of the world we lived in, so we created our own, or leapt into someone else’s.”
“Enough of the pssychology, Rossssi.”
“Anyway, through Subreality, we’ve managed to create those worlds again, only this time, we have other people sharing in them, elaborating on them, praising us on what we contribute.” Rossi’s smile grew a touch sad. “For me, it’s like rediscovering those places I used to go to in my head when I was a teenager scribbling down stories in exercise books. A realm of possibilities.”
Tim nodded. “It’s like finding magic isn’t dead after all.” Rossi gave him a searching look.
“Yes, you _would_ understand that, considering who Wrote you,” she murmured. “That’s why I’m such a Gaiman fan. He understands the magic words have. Sometimes I think he’s even visited the Café. Or his version of it.” With a chuckle, Rossi nibbled at the corner of a Tim Tam. “Sure it’s escapism, pure and simple, but no-one wants to be ordinary. We all want to be special, whether by winning untold wealth, or performing in front of thousands, or having someone send you an e-mail saying: ‘That was a really good story.’ And in Subreality, I can be special, in my own small way. Writing is what I can do, and maybe one day I’ll move on from fan-fic, but I don’t think I’ll ever quite forget this place, or what it means to me.”
The moment was spoilt by the sound of a lizard blowing a raspberry. “You were doing really well, but then you let it degenerate into pap,” Frank scolded. Instead of getting angry, Rossi merely shook her head at him.
“Sorry, Frank, didn’t mean to subject you to unabashed sentimentality,” she laughed. “I suppose I still need to watch the purple prose.”
“There’ss nothing wrong with emotion, ass long ass you don’t lay it on with a trowel. Lessss iss more.”
“Says the lizard who successfully emptied the Muse Lounge’s Scotch supplies last week.” Frank merely blew another raspberry, and disappeared with a POP!
Tim found himself reaching for another Tim Tam. “He’s not angry, is he?”
“Frank?” Rossi laughed. “No, it takes more than me getting the best of him to piss him off. Actually, between you and me, I think he likes it when I win. He insists on treating me like a raw kid half the time, and it makes him feel he’s teaching me something.”
“Can I ask another question?” With a roll of her eyes, Rossi nodded.
“None of this is real, right?”
“Right.”
“Including Frank? I mean, he doesn’t exist in Real Life, he’s just something you made up…” Tim leaned back, just in case. He’d seen Rossi do something excruciatingly painful to a bothersome fictive in the Café, a large woman with short dark hair wearing some kind of metallic skin-tight top. It had involved some kind of wrist lock and had made the muscular woman very apologetic. He didn’t like the idea of making Rossi mad at him. Instead, she laughed softly, and a touch sadly.
“Yes, in the most literal sense, Frank’s as much a fictive as anyone else here. But in another way, he’s much more than that.”
“I don’t understand.” Tim finished the chocolate biscuit and discovered he wanted another. Rossi saw his glance at the packet and pushed them towards him.
“Go on. If you’re sick I’ll just Write away the mess.” The twinkle in her eyes reminded him of Zantanna. “Y’see, Frank wasn’t consciously created like my fictives. He just… appeared in my head one day as an annoying presence who kept telling me to write more, and seemed to be behind the sudden flashes of inspiration. As time went on he developed a body, speech patterns, a personality, a history…”
“And a taste for Scotch?”
Another chuckle. Rossi was, Tim was discovering, someone who laughed quite a lot. “You’re getting the idea. Most people would get the nice straightjacket ready if I told them about Frank, but that’s the other thing about Subreality: we all share each other’s delusions.”
Tim finished his hot chocolate as another woman stumbled blearily into the room.
“Heya, Yasmin.”
“’Lo Rossi.” The dark haired Writer headed for the fridge. “Who’s your friend? A little young for you, isn’t he?”
Rossi snorted. “Just a tad. Tim Hunter. You read ‘Stuff of Dreams’, didn’t you?” Yasmin, in the act of pouring out an orange juice, made a face.
“About time you did a follow-up to that.”
“I was waiting on Phil to come back. You look exhausted. The Captain been keeping you busy?”
“And the rest of it. This History essay is driving me insane.” Yasmin came and took a seat at the table and stuck her hand out to Tim. “I’m Yasmin, since Rossi forgot the niceties.”
“Tim Hunter.” The potentially most powerful magician of his era shook hands and looked at Yasmin quizzically. “But you already knew that.” She returned the look with amusement.
“Welcome to Subreality, Tim, I…”
“…Hope you survive the experience, yeah, I’ve heard it already.” Tim glanced at Rossi, who was leaning back in her chair with her own grin. “Do you people always talk in quotes?”
“Only when we’re not talking in cliches.”
“Or quips.” Yasmin reached for a Tim Tam. “These are evil. Yummy, but completely evil.”
“Hence the World Domination Plan.” Rossi stretched. “I should go and do some work, before Frank passes out again. I would like to finish one of the many outstanding fics _one_ day.”
“Chance would be a fine thing. You know he’ll only spark more ideas once you get close to finishing the ones you have.” Yasmin’s dark eyes twinkled. “I think they must teach them that at the Collegium.”
“Driving Your Writer Insane 101.”
“That would be the one.”
Tim yawned, letting the conversation wash over him without taking it in. Most of it was Writer-speak anyway - the people he’d met here all seemed to be linked by some greater subconscious, the way they sometimes finished each other’s sentences. Gradually, he became aware of another need. He had to go to the bathroom. Not wanting to disturb the two women, who were laughing in a slightly wicked way over someone called Voltage and a vat of custard, he slipped out of the kitchen, and into the quiet lobby.
Sunlight streamed in lazily through the large windows, as thick and golden as honey. Tim headed for the stairs, but then a glint caught his eye. It came from the keystone of the arch above the door. A sprig of mistletoe. A locket of some kind. And a key, the twin of which Tim had stuffed into the pocket of his jeans back in the Café, and now dragged out to lay heavily in his palm.
‘A realm of possibilities’, Rossi had called Subreality. And Titania had given him the Key to Worlds. The two fit together. According to Rossi, he was nothing more than a fictive, a fictional character, sprung from the imagination of a man called Gaiman. But here, in the place between reality and fantasy, who was to say he had to remain so? Rossi had told him she came here to be someone else. Perhaps he could do the same.
“A chance to step out of character. Or into it.”
Tim eyed the door speculatively, his full bladder forgotten. From the shadow-hidden ceiling, a small brown owl fluttered down to perch on his shoulder. It hooted gently in his ear. “I wondered where you had gotten to, Yo-yo,” he told the bird. “Ready to go now?” Yo-yo hooted again, and gently pulled his hair.
He fit the Key in the lock, and turned it. Despite the fact the door had been unlocked already, it opened with barely a sound. “Much better,” Tim told the House. “Um, thank Rossi for me, will you? It’s time I was going.” For a moment he felt the strangest sensation of assent, coming from the walls and floor and ceiling around him. Then it passed, and he felt a little silly, talking to a house. With a shrug, he stepped through the door…
…and out of one story, into another.
Disclaimers and Credits:
Subreality is Kielle’s concept, as is the Café and The House of Strange Dimensions.
The Imagination Collegium was founded by Farli
Tim Hunter and Yo-yo are the property of Neil Gaiman and Vertigo.
The Thing is the property of Marvel, as is Yancy Street. Arclight also belongs to Marvel, although this version is one of my Unfinished Legions.
Lots o’ Writers mentioned, some with permission, most not: Kielle, Trisha, Voltage, Farl, Ana, Phil, and Seraph are all mentioned without permission. Yasmin appears with permission, and she let me mention the Captain too.
Frank is mine, although I am pretty relaxed about lending him out. I belong to me, and am quite happy about that.
Spike is Yona’s, and also mentioned without permission.
For an explanation of the Locket and Key hanging from the keystone arch, read the THOSD Holiday Party RR.
Apologies to anyone I’ve missed.
By Rossi.
Summary: Follow-up (but not direct sequel) to The Stuff of Dreams. Tim accepts an offer of hospitality at THOSD. Also part of Kielle’s Beyond Subreality Challenge.
Rating: G.
Disclaimers and Credits: see the end.
Thanks to Lise, for jump-starting me with her feedback, and to Rowan, for being my Books of Magic convert.
‘Reality’ in Subreality is flexible. Like chewing gum, the fabric of time and space can be stretched and folded, tied into knots and snapped back into shape. That’s what Tim Hunter was thinking as he swayed along on the back of a bicycle that he’d seen conjured out of thin air, holding onto the waist of a pleasantly intoxicated Australian and listening to her guided tour. She’d already pointed out that several months had in fact passed for her in “Real Life”, while to him it was merely the end of a longish session at the pub known as the Subreality Café. But somehow it was easier to accept that concept than it would have been at the start of the evening.
It was also amusing how a patch of night-time followed them through the narrow twisting streets bathed in early morning sunlight. Rossi had explained at the start of their journey that it was night-time for her, and she wasn’t going to let a bunch of Americans tell her otherwise.
“…and over there is the Imagination Collegium, the Muse school,” Rossi said, waving a hand at the large towered building standing a way back from the city. The movement sent them veering from one side of the street to the other, narrowly missing a large orange rock-creature shambling his way home. He turned and shouted something about a place called Yancy Street as Rossi brought them back under control, smothering her tipsy giggles. The Collegium was more of a castle than a school, with ancient masonry festooned with ivy, and a rainbow-hued bridge of light spanning the two tallest towers.
“It’s… impressive.” Tim was lost for words. Like all architecture in Subreality, the Collegium had a nebulous quality, wavering at the edges like a heat-haze illusion. The result of many different perceptions at once, he supposed, remembering Subreality itself was built on the collective imaginations of the Writers.
“Even more so when you consider it’s only a year or so old.”
“But I thought, Frank said…”
“…That he’d been a student there after the Dark Ages?” Rossi grinned, looking remarkably pixie-ish in the moonlight in their little travelling patch of Night. “He did. The Collegium has been here for hundreds of years. But it was first Written by Farli only last year.”
“I’m confused.”
“I don’t blame you. It’s worse than time-travel for turning your brain inside-out.” Rossi pulled the bike over to the side of the road to explain without ending up in a ditch. “Time’s different here, like I explained. It’s infinitely flexible. And whatever we Write becomes true, unless it’s Retconned away. So if I Write a story about Frank’s school days set in the distant past…”
“Not that disstant,” came a muffled protest from Rossi’s shirt pocket. A small diamond-shaped head poked its nose over the edge of the fabric. “I’ll have you know I’m conssidered youthful for a Musse.”
“You certainly act like a teenager sometimes,” Rossi snickered. “Do you remember leaving the Café?”
“We’ve left the Café? I thought ssomeone had been getting adventurouss with the décor again.” Tim caught the amusement in the lizard’s hissing voice and smiled to himself. Listening to the pair banter was an education in itself.
“So, like I was saying, before His Nibs here interrupted, if I Write a story about Frank’s past, then it automatically becomes history.”
“Provided it’ss read by enough people,” Frank added. “There’ss any number of half-baked concceptss around Sshantytown that didn’t take.”
“So Writing something isn’t enough? It has to be Read too?”
“You catcch on quick, for a kid,” Frank said approvingly. “A Writer can Write anything they want, but for it to take hold in Ssubreality, it hass to take hold in the collective unconsscioussnessssess of the other Writerss. While it sstarted with Kielle, Ssubreality iss more than one persson’ss imaginingss. It’ss the ssum of every persson that particcipatess.” While Tim tried to decipher the string of sibilants, Rossi turned in at a long gravelled driveway. Or at least it was gravel at first. An impatient wave of the Australian’s hand switched it for smooth bitumen.
“Don’t you need a pen for that sort of thing?” Tim asked curiously. Rossi looked oddly shamefaced.
“Technically yes, but there’s a theory going around that Writers don’t actually need to Write to change Subreality, since it all comes from their minds anyway. The writing’s just a vehicle. If you can concentrate well enough, it’s possible to change things on your own.” They glided smoothly past the two rows of large trees on either side of the curving driveway. “And here, at the House, I have a little more… oomph than usual, since I’m the moderator.”
“The what?”
“Glorified landlady,” Frank supplied, ignoring the glare his Writer gave him. “Give her a mysstical Key and sshe thinkss sshe ownss the place.”
“I do not!” The retort was almost childish, as was the pout. “I just look after things, that’s all. And the Key wasn’t _my_ idea. It was Trisha’s.”
“Didn’t sstop you from leaping on that one point, did it? Trissha’ss created her own Frankensstein’ss monsster with that one ssentence.”
“Any more out of you and I’ll feed you to Spike.”
“Try it and it’ss three am insspirationss for the nexxt fortnight.”
“As fascinating as listening to you two argue is, can I ask something?” Tim finally interrupted.
“No worries.”
“Sshoot.”
“What the hell is this place?” Tim indicated the House now looming over them. ‘Gothic’ was a fitting adjective. So was ‘insane’. There were towers, and buttresses and dormer windows poking out at improbable angles. A great glittery silvery sphere hovered over what appeared to be a roof garden, and the whole thing was painted a most un-Gothic shade of blue.
Rossi smiled up at it proudly. “This,” she said, “Is the House of Strange Dimensions. Home away from home.”
“And other assssorted clicchess,” Frank snorted softly. Rossi ignored him, pulling up at the heavy wooden front door and holding the bike while Tim struggled off before passing control of the handlebars to him.
“At some stage, someone- Kielle, I think - decided it would be fun to live in Subreality in a sort of big communal house. Seraph’s had a cottage here for ages, but most of us just hung around the Café, pissing off the Bouncer.” As she talked, Rossi was pulling the Key on its chain from under her T-shirt and unlocking the door. “A bunch of us thought it was a great idea, and the House was created. I took on the job of moderator to take some of the load off Kielle.”
Pushing the door open (it creaked ominously, and she gave it a playful whack, telling it not to play silly buggers in front of the visitor), Rossi waved Tim and the bike inside. “Just lean it up against the umbrella stand out of the way. I don’t want Phil and Dex breaking their necks falling over it when they decide to stagger in.” The entrance lobby was large, but somehow inviting, even with a chandelier hanging from the ceiling. A broad flight of stairs led up to the next floor, and there were several other doors leading to the rest of the ground floor. “There’s plenty of spare rooms, you can borrow one of those, at least until we work out how to get you back. I don’t _think_ there’s any parties, house cleaning, prank wars or psychologically harrowing horror stories planned for a while.”
“Thanks, I think,” Tim said, following the Australian as she headed past the stairs. He resisted the urge to trot after her. For someone so short, she certainly moved fast.
“Want a hot chocolate? I need something to keep me going while Frank and I settle our artistic differences.” Rossi pushed open a swinging door. “And we can raid the Tim Tam cupboard.”
“Chocolate bisscuit, indigenouss to Ausstralia,” sighed Frank before Tim could ask. “My Writer iss a chocolate dealer. Sshe’ss already hooked half of Ssubreality on thesse thingss.”
“With the help of Raph and Lynx and the other Aussies and Kiwis,” smirked Rossi, waving Tim to a seat at the large kitchen table in the middle of the room. He took a seat gratefully, as the kitchen itself shimmered in a most unsettling way before resolving on a specific décor, mostly plain wood benches and lots of cupboards and a huge stove in one corner. “It’s all part of the Master Plan to take over the world.” To Tim’s surprise, she was making the hot chocolate in the usual fashion, rather than Writing it out of thin air. “I don’t like to get lazy,” she told him, setting a mug down in front of him and fishing Frank out of her shirt pocket. She set the lizard carefully on the table, before climbing onto the kitchen bench and opening a high cupboard. “Good thing this cupboard’s infinite, or we’d be in trouble,” she muttered, pulling out a plastic-wrapped packet. “Looks like Ana’s been raiding the Mocha ones again.” Lightly she jumped down, and took a seat at the table.
“Can I ask you something? Something personal?” Rossi raised an eyebrow at him.
“As long as it’s not my measurements,” she quipped. The question brought her back to seriousness.
“Why do you do this?”
“Do what? Write, you mean?”
“Yeah. I mean, you don’t get paid, and as long as you use other people’s characters, you never will. So what’s the point?”
Rossi was quiet for such a long moment Tim was afraid he’d offended her. The she replied, thoughtfully: “I suppose it’s because it lets me be someone else.”
“Don’t you like being you? Is your ‘Real Life’ that bad?”
“No! Not at all! I like who I am. It’s just, I’m so… mundane sometimes. Y’see, I work as a clerk in a court. Not exactly the most imaginative of places. And while I’ve got my boyfriend, my friends, my karate training, Subreality lets me go beyond that. It lets me take my mind to other places, exercise bits that would otherwise dry up and be lost. If I didn’t have Subreality and Writing, I’d be the same as all the other nine-to-fivers. It’s a chance to break out of character. Or into it.”
“’We like to think we’re unique until ssomeone tellss uss we’re different,’” quoted Frank, giving his Writer an appraising look. “You’re not telling the whole sstory.”
“All right, Mr Smug. Stop quoting my desk calendar at me.” Rossi swirled her chocolate around, gazing into it as if plumbing its depths for answers. Or courage. “A lot of the Writers - hell, _most_ of us - are ‘odd’ in one way or another. The ones who didn’t exactly fit in at school and got teased because of it. The weirdoes. It fits, I suppose, that we’d be the ones who latch onto reading and writing: we felt shut out of the world we lived in, so we created our own, or leapt into someone else’s.”
“Enough of the pssychology, Rossssi.”
“Anyway, through Subreality, we’ve managed to create those worlds again, only this time, we have other people sharing in them, elaborating on them, praising us on what we contribute.” Rossi’s smile grew a touch sad. “For me, it’s like rediscovering those places I used to go to in my head when I was a teenager scribbling down stories in exercise books. A realm of possibilities.”
Tim nodded. “It’s like finding magic isn’t dead after all.” Rossi gave him a searching look.
“Yes, you _would_ understand that, considering who Wrote you,” she murmured. “That’s why I’m such a Gaiman fan. He understands the magic words have. Sometimes I think he’s even visited the Café. Or his version of it.” With a chuckle, Rossi nibbled at the corner of a Tim Tam. “Sure it’s escapism, pure and simple, but no-one wants to be ordinary. We all want to be special, whether by winning untold wealth, or performing in front of thousands, or having someone send you an e-mail saying: ‘That was a really good story.’ And in Subreality, I can be special, in my own small way. Writing is what I can do, and maybe one day I’ll move on from fan-fic, but I don’t think I’ll ever quite forget this place, or what it means to me.”
The moment was spoilt by the sound of a lizard blowing a raspberry. “You were doing really well, but then you let it degenerate into pap,” Frank scolded. Instead of getting angry, Rossi merely shook her head at him.
“Sorry, Frank, didn’t mean to subject you to unabashed sentimentality,” she laughed. “I suppose I still need to watch the purple prose.”
“There’ss nothing wrong with emotion, ass long ass you don’t lay it on with a trowel. Lessss iss more.”
“Says the lizard who successfully emptied the Muse Lounge’s Scotch supplies last week.” Frank merely blew another raspberry, and disappeared with a POP!
Tim found himself reaching for another Tim Tam. “He’s not angry, is he?”
“Frank?” Rossi laughed. “No, it takes more than me getting the best of him to piss him off. Actually, between you and me, I think he likes it when I win. He insists on treating me like a raw kid half the time, and it makes him feel he’s teaching me something.”
“Can I ask another question?” With a roll of her eyes, Rossi nodded.
“None of this is real, right?”
“Right.”
“Including Frank? I mean, he doesn’t exist in Real Life, he’s just something you made up…” Tim leaned back, just in case. He’d seen Rossi do something excruciatingly painful to a bothersome fictive in the Café, a large woman with short dark hair wearing some kind of metallic skin-tight top. It had involved some kind of wrist lock and had made the muscular woman very apologetic. He didn’t like the idea of making Rossi mad at him. Instead, she laughed softly, and a touch sadly.
“Yes, in the most literal sense, Frank’s as much a fictive as anyone else here. But in another way, he’s much more than that.”
“I don’t understand.” Tim finished the chocolate biscuit and discovered he wanted another. Rossi saw his glance at the packet and pushed them towards him.
“Go on. If you’re sick I’ll just Write away the mess.” The twinkle in her eyes reminded him of Zantanna. “Y’see, Frank wasn’t consciously created like my fictives. He just… appeared in my head one day as an annoying presence who kept telling me to write more, and seemed to be behind the sudden flashes of inspiration. As time went on he developed a body, speech patterns, a personality, a history…”
“And a taste for Scotch?”
Another chuckle. Rossi was, Tim was discovering, someone who laughed quite a lot. “You’re getting the idea. Most people would get the nice straightjacket ready if I told them about Frank, but that’s the other thing about Subreality: we all share each other’s delusions.”
Tim finished his hot chocolate as another woman stumbled blearily into the room.
“Heya, Yasmin.”
“’Lo Rossi.” The dark haired Writer headed for the fridge. “Who’s your friend? A little young for you, isn’t he?”
Rossi snorted. “Just a tad. Tim Hunter. You read ‘Stuff of Dreams’, didn’t you?” Yasmin, in the act of pouring out an orange juice, made a face.
“About time you did a follow-up to that.”
“I was waiting on Phil to come back. You look exhausted. The Captain been keeping you busy?”
“And the rest of it. This History essay is driving me insane.” Yasmin came and took a seat at the table and stuck her hand out to Tim. “I’m Yasmin, since Rossi forgot the niceties.”
“Tim Hunter.” The potentially most powerful magician of his era shook hands and looked at Yasmin quizzically. “But you already knew that.” She returned the look with amusement.
“Welcome to Subreality, Tim, I…”
“…Hope you survive the experience, yeah, I’ve heard it already.” Tim glanced at Rossi, who was leaning back in her chair with her own grin. “Do you people always talk in quotes?”
“Only when we’re not talking in cliches.”
“Or quips.” Yasmin reached for a Tim Tam. “These are evil. Yummy, but completely evil.”
“Hence the World Domination Plan.” Rossi stretched. “I should go and do some work, before Frank passes out again. I would like to finish one of the many outstanding fics _one_ day.”
“Chance would be a fine thing. You know he’ll only spark more ideas once you get close to finishing the ones you have.” Yasmin’s dark eyes twinkled. “I think they must teach them that at the Collegium.”
“Driving Your Writer Insane 101.”
“That would be the one.”
Tim yawned, letting the conversation wash over him without taking it in. Most of it was Writer-speak anyway - the people he’d met here all seemed to be linked by some greater subconscious, the way they sometimes finished each other’s sentences. Gradually, he became aware of another need. He had to go to the bathroom. Not wanting to disturb the two women, who were laughing in a slightly wicked way over someone called Voltage and a vat of custard, he slipped out of the kitchen, and into the quiet lobby.
Sunlight streamed in lazily through the large windows, as thick and golden as honey. Tim headed for the stairs, but then a glint caught his eye. It came from the keystone of the arch above the door. A sprig of mistletoe. A locket of some kind. And a key, the twin of which Tim had stuffed into the pocket of his jeans back in the Café, and now dragged out to lay heavily in his palm.
‘A realm of possibilities’, Rossi had called Subreality. And Titania had given him the Key to Worlds. The two fit together. According to Rossi, he was nothing more than a fictive, a fictional character, sprung from the imagination of a man called Gaiman. But here, in the place between reality and fantasy, who was to say he had to remain so? Rossi had told him she came here to be someone else. Perhaps he could do the same.
“A chance to step out of character. Or into it.”
Tim eyed the door speculatively, his full bladder forgotten. From the shadow-hidden ceiling, a small brown owl fluttered down to perch on his shoulder. It hooted gently in his ear. “I wondered where you had gotten to, Yo-yo,” he told the bird. “Ready to go now?” Yo-yo hooted again, and gently pulled his hair.
He fit the Key in the lock, and turned it. Despite the fact the door had been unlocked already, it opened with barely a sound. “Much better,” Tim told the House. “Um, thank Rossi for me, will you? It’s time I was going.” For a moment he felt the strangest sensation of assent, coming from the walls and floor and ceiling around him. Then it passed, and he felt a little silly, talking to a house. With a shrug, he stepped through the door…
…and out of one story, into another.
Disclaimers and Credits:
Subreality is Kielle’s concept, as is the Café and The House of Strange Dimensions.
The Imagination Collegium was founded by Farli
Tim Hunter and Yo-yo are the property of Neil Gaiman and Vertigo.
The Thing is the property of Marvel, as is Yancy Street. Arclight also belongs to Marvel, although this version is one of my Unfinished Legions.
Lots o’ Writers mentioned, some with permission, most not: Kielle, Trisha, Voltage, Farl, Ana, Phil, and Seraph are all mentioned without permission. Yasmin appears with permission, and she let me mention the Captain too.
Frank is mine, although I am pretty relaxed about lending him out. I belong to me, and am quite happy about that.
Spike is Yona’s, and also mentioned without permission.
For an explanation of the Locket and Key hanging from the keystone arch, read the THOSD Holiday Party RR.
Apologies to anyone I’ve missed.