TMDRound1- Songs of the River

At least there was a little more definition to this dreamscape, thought Luna with a sigh.  She and Johnny had been sent- well, perhaps that wasn't the right word- to a new location,  though they hadn't physically moved.  They had just stood, and the world had dissolved and reformed around them.  Quite bizarre.  

Johnny hadn't said anything to her in a long while.  Mostly they kept away from each other, he nonchalantly pulling a packet of filterless cigarettes out of his jacket pocket and lighting it up with a flick of a silver lighter, and she too shy to approach him and try and figure out what the strange dream-figures wanted them to do.  So far, they hadn't seen anyone else in this place- the new place, that is.

Luna ran her hands up and down her arms.  This level of definition in a dream was rare for her- for all her practice at lucid dreaming, she usually didn't see things or feel things quite this clearly.  It was like she'd never seen dirt before, for she knelt down and ran her hands through it, and then, following the sound of rushing water, discovered a river.  With a small, quickly suppressed flicker of delight, she ran over to the bank, finding it deep and clear, with cattails and soft mosses on the bank.  

She splashed her hands in the water to wash off the dirt, and then, after a moment's recollection, she slipped her shoes off and dipped her feet in the cool water.  Exactly the way a river should be, she thought, and then, scared by this revelation somehow, she pulled them back out and sat on the moss, trying to see if there were fish or frogs.  Not so- it was beautiful, but empty of life somehow.

"So, girlie-god, tell me why we're here."  Johnny said, flicking away the ash of a cigarette.  She jumped.  Somehow, she didn't notice that he'd followed her over to the river, and her cheeks flushed angrily as she tried to look as though she hadn't just almost fallen in the river.    "Or did Coyote just toss us here for a lark?"

"You're not even-" spluttered Luna, and then sighed and shook her head.  "First of all, I'm not a god, so you can knock that off. And second of all, you don't even BELIEVE in Coyote, so you can drop the act."  She put her small hands on her hips, a defiant gesture much ruined by her ineffectively pursed lips and small stature  

Johnny just laughed.  "I don't believe in you either, doll, but I figured I'd go with it.  Makes more sense than anything else I've seen so far today."  He flopped down next to her and stretched out, all long legs and ragged grace.  

Nothing stings like having your characters deny your existence.   "I already explained myself." Luna said sulkily.  "I don't know any more about this than you do."  She put her feet back in the water, delicately pulling her skirts up to keep them from getting wet.

Johnny lit another cigarette, flicking the stub of the first one into the reeds.  Luna winced,  sneezed and rubbed her nose.  She didn't want to ask him to stop…. after all, she was the one that had written him to smoke, though the tall man at her side didn't seem like anyone she could have written. But how could he be so callous? They might have been the first people ever to see this spot, and he was flicking cigarette butts around.  

"Litterbug." she growled under her  breath, and Johnny heard and laughed.

There were a few minutes of grouchy silence, and in that quiet, Johnny stiffened and looked around, suddenly alert.  

"What are you-" Luna asked, and was silenced with one hand over her lip.  "Mmph!"  Johnny glared, and jerked his head,  trying to indicate the sound of footsteps.

He didn't really have to try.  There was a yelp and a splash, as though the approacher had stepped in the river, and then laughter.

Luna jumped horribly, and Johnny let his hand off her mouth so she could breath. "O-oh!" gasped the girl, one hand clutched to her chest.  "We're not alone!" she whispered, trying to keep to an actual whisper.

"About time." said Johnny, and tapped his lighter against his lips.  "I s'pose we should check it out.  Keep behind me, sugar.  You look like someone could tap you and you'd fall over."  

"I am not that-  Johnny- goddamit it!" stammered Luna, but dutifully fell into step behind him, eyes stubbornly trained downward.  She picked her laptop bag up off the ground and  gathered her skirts into one hand, the better to keep them from snagging  on anything or falling in the water.

"Hell-oooo!" shouted Johnny, holding one hand to the side of his face (and holding the cigarette in that hand).  "Who's there!?"  

Luna, ashamed to realize she was scared, crept a little closer in behind Johnny.  He was reassuringly big, even if he did smell like leather and cigarettes, and she peeped from behind him, looking around to find the source of the voice.  "H-Hello?" she called timidly, adding her voice to his.  "Anyone?"  

There were two men- twins? - standing on the other side of the river.  They were perfectly identical- tall, lanky, and short haired, with glasses.  They turned, surprised and a little defensive, though neither of them really seemed all that concerned.  One of them flexed his hands, not-quite closing them into fists.

Luna squeaked and cowered without realizing she had moved, clutching her laptop bag to her chest.  Johnny raised his hands.  "We're not armed, 'less you count my cigarette lighter or my scintillating good looks as a weapon." he said smoothly.   

The others nodded and smiled charmingly, and both of them held their hands up to show that they, too, weren't armed, so far as anyone could tell.   "That's good, 'cause we're not either!" they shouted.  "Have you seen a bridge?

Scared as she was, Luna couldn't help whispering "I didn't think you'd even know what scintillating meant."  

"You're a terrible creator, y'know that?" Johnny added, rolling his eyes.  "I'm not stupid, darlin'."  

"I'm not saying you are!" she huffed.  "Just… just talk to them, please."   Johnny shook his head.  

"I did my part, 's your turn now."

"FINE." she hissed, and edged out from behind him, biting the nail of her left ring finger and still clutching her laptop bag to her chest.  

"I haven't seen a bridge… " she said shyly, and then, clearing her throat, asked, "Are you- authors?" Only in a dream world would that be the kind of question I'd have to ask, I think she thought, wryly in spite of her mild panic.

The two twins turned and looked at each other.  "One of us is, and I don't know how we'll get over, otherwise." said one, the one on the right.  

"Then the other is-"

"You got it!"  They were both grinning at her, and she relaxed a bit.  They seemed nice enough, really.   

"Wait, I don't get it." Johnny said, frowning.

"Remember how I'm the Author and you're the Character?" Luna asked in a low voice.  

"Yes and no." Johnny said, with a sly look.  "I'm still sure it's crap."

Luna groaned.  "What-ever you believe- which seems to be nothing right now- they're Author and Character too! It's just... they're the same so..."

She suddenly burst into laughter.  "Self-insert!"

The 'twins' tooked sheepish, while Johnny just looked confused.  "The author wrote a story about himself. So now he's his own character."  Johnny still looked a bit blank, but shrugged, and when she opened her mouth to further explain, he just shook his head.  

"Never mind, darlin', I don't care anymore."  

The men on the other side were having a whispered discussion coupled with the exchange of small bits of paper, and Luna bit her lips, hoping that they could reach some kind of peaceful conclusion.  She didn't think the two others were the fighting type.  Were they?  She only knew a few writers that were both authors and MMA fighters, and it would be very nice for everyone if they could... just work something out.

"Look, Luna." said Johnny, his voice suddenly serious, and flicked his hands upriver.  There, hovering just about the surface of the water, was the same robed figure from before- the Editor- and though they couldn't see his face, it was clear that he was watching them.    

There was a long pause, in which no one knew what to do, and then the other two stopped their whispering- their faces giving absolutely no indication of what might have just transpired- and then there is just the slightest hint of movement and one of the others- author or character, she couldn't tell which- fairly jumped into the water, not very gracefully.  

"The least you could have done was give us a bridge, Mr. Big Editor!" he shouted, and though there was no response, he kept shaking his fist in the direction of the robed figure.  "I mean, really, this is just cruel, now my jeans are all wet…"

Luna couldn't help herself and started giggling, and the Editor, voice tinged with irritation, boomed  "The landscape is the jurisdiction of the Muse- and she is watching.  Do not disrespect her."

"Sorry, sorry," mumbled the man in the river.  He was almost over to the other side, now, and Luna offered her hand to help him out.  "Wouldn't want the Muse  to get her feelings hurt by me insulting her river, would we?"

Johnny smirked.  "Y'know, kid, I like you.  You got a name?"

"I'm TJ." was the answer, and then TJ poked a thumb at the other, standing on the other side with his hands tucked in the pocket of his jacket.  "So's he."

"I like your shirt," ventured Luna shyly.

"Thanks," he said, with a smile.  "So I'm guessing you're the Author, and you're the Character?" he asked, pointing to Luna first and then Johnny.

"Yep!" she answered, perkily.  Johnny just rolled his eyes and offered a hand to shake.  "Johnny Rises-from-the-City, atcher service."   TJ, after what might have been a moment of hesitation, shook it with a grin.  

"Quite the name."  he said, and Johnny, with a skeptical roll of the eyes and a smirk, said "Ask her about it.  

"I think I can make a bridge."  Luna said, not really listening to the conversation.  "This is a dream, right? I'm a lucid dreamer- I practice manipulating dreams all the time. "

"You should have said something earlier, before I got my pants wet," laughed TJ.  "All right, go for it."  

She knelt next to the water and concentrated.  The surface of the water rippled, but nothing more.  "Dammit!"  she exclaimed.  "Let me try that again."   

She hummed tunelessly to herself and made gestures with her hands, trying to coax a bridge up from the ground as if growing a seed.  "It's never- this- hard in- my- dreams-" she muttered haltingly, body clenched tight.  "Come on!" she shouted,  frustrated that somehow she'd managed to get a framework of sand,  but no real bridge.  All this did was collapse it into the water.  She cursed.  

"I'm sorry-"  she started to call across the water, and then realized that the other TJ was gone. How long had he been gone?  She jumped to her feet, frantically looking around- and suddenly a pair of strong arms grabbed her around her shoulders.  Johnny and TJ had disappeared while she'd been too focused to listen to them!

She screamed and kicked, but he'd twisted her arms around behind her somehow, and she could no more get out than she could suddenly manifest marmalade out of thin air.

There was a sudden pop, and a jar of marmalade appeared in front of her and plummeted to the ground, as if just to prove her wrong.

"Oh so now you work!" she yelled, unhappily.  "I get it! My metaphors are stupid! Johnny, help me!" she pleaded, and realized that her captor- TJ, one of the TJ's, it had to be- was laughing.  

"Y'know, I don't think I could just get marmalade like that.  If that was you."  he said, in too warm, too friendly of a tone for someone who'd just effectively immobilized her.  "Very clever."

Luna tossed her head furiously and uselessly, though she did manage to clip him in the face with her bun.  He let out a soft noise of pain.  

"Calm down, will you?" he asked, and then, before she could scream how could you ask me to calm down  right now how dare you I'm going to end you, he continued, "I'm sorry, but you heard the robed guy.  This is a fight… but if you'll just stay still, I won't hurt you."  He sounded genuinely apologetic, and Luna stopped struggling for a minute, though she still contemplated biting him.   "We tie you and your Johnny up, and we figure that'll count as a victory for us, and we don't have to hurt you…"

"Johnny- what did you do with Johnny?!" Luna gasped.  TJ gave her a little shake.

"Don't worry, he's fine.  TJ- the other TJ- just asked him to show off his guitars, they're over there… once I've got you tied up, I'll go try and reason with him.  Both of us can probably take him, anyway, but all you have to do is just be good and sit still, and we won't have to fight."  She realized that he was completely wet, and realized that this TJ had been the one on the other side of the river

"Like hell!" shrilled Luna, trying to make contact with his shins by kicking her heels back.  It didn't really work- she was being held too high.  "Let me go!"  Tears bit her eyes, and she angrily bit her lip to try and control it.  

"Look, we'll… we'll just forfeit, can we do that?" she pleaded.  "Just don't… don't tie me up."  She shuddered.  There was a creeping horror that was making its way down her spine, reminding her that to be tied up was to be stuck…  Luna feared being trapped or stuck in anything, and she remembered vividly the  time she'd had to pay for a formal dress that hadn't fit, just because she'd panicked and torn it because she couldn't get it off….

"That sounds all right" said TJ, with a note of relief in his voice.   "But… but I'm going to just tie your wrists to be sure, kay?"

"No… no!" she wailed, but she was already being lowered to the ground, and the second her feet touched the earth, her legs buckled under her and she flopped over.

Run… run… get away! her mind screamed at her, and she struggled to get to her feet, to no avail.   TJ planted one of his booted feet squarely on her skirt, and she couldn't move…

"It's only for a moment."  TJ said, soothingly, and she twisted to see him holding her laptop cable in his hands. He must have gone through her bag while she was distracted trying to make a bridge…  Luna kicked her feet, hindered by the skirt, as TJ continued to explain "Then we'll just walk over to the Editor and tell him you forfeit-"

"TJ! Watch it!" yelled the other TJ, from somewhere behind, and both captor and captive turned to see a streak of black leather jacket fly into the other man's side.  TJ- the one who'd been trying to tie Luna up- let out a surprised grunt, and they both hit the ground hard.  The TJ who'd been assigned to distracting Johnny was getting up off the ground with a surprised look, wiping blood from his lips.  Luna, now that her skirt wasn't pinned, scrambled away from the two men wrestling like cats in the dirt.   The TJ that wasn't fighting stumbled over to her, and gasped "Out of nowhere, he just punched me! We were talking about music, and he just punched me!"  

Luna blinked.  TJ seemed outraged and a little shocked, but okay, and at least this one wasn't trying to tie her up.  He just stared, like he was waiting for an explanation.  Unfortunately, that wasn't really something she had to give.

The combatants olled over and over, each furiously trying to pin the other, until with a scream and shout of warning from Luna and the other TJ respectively, they rolled right into the water.  The fight momentarily forgotten, Luna and TJ dashed over to watch them, still struggling, be dragged down by the current.   

They were mostly even in muscle and skill, and when they surfaced, it was anyone's game- or so it seemed, until electricity arced from Johnny's fingers, charging the water and knocking TJ completely out.  With a disgusted look,  Johnny- somehow unaffected by the electricity- dropped him and clambered out.  

"Oh, hell… now my jacket's all wet."  he muttered, and glanced up.  There was a moment of stunned silence, and then TJ went rushing into the water, trying to grab the other's body before it floated too far downstream.  Johnny muttered "Knew we shouldn'ta trusted him…. smarmy ass.  He was too goddamn nice."  Luna stared at him, and then nodded.  

"I knew it…" she breathed, and Johnny rounded on her.

"What, princess?  How could you have known that was going to happen? What the hell did I just do?"  He stared at his hands in shock, and Luna realized that what she had taken for nonchalance was really just a delayed reaction.  "Did I kill the bastard? Where did- what-"

As gratifying as it was to see him a little off balance for once, Luna just said "Thunderbird," and ran off, down the river, to where the still conscious of the two TJ's was dragging the limp form of his double out of the water.

"Is… is he okay?" she asked, and was rewarded with a blank stare.   She dropped to her knees and felt his wrist, grateful that Jillian, the dutiful nursing student, had taught her, once, how to feel a pulse.

It was there.  She couldn't tell how fast it was supposed to be, but he was alive, and she sighed in relief.  Johnny's  God-given powers- the ones she'd written for him- hadn't killed one of the other authors.  Or was this one the character? She didn't even know, had never even gotten to find out.

"I'm… I'm sorry." she stammered, and backed off, fleeing back to Johnny's side.   TJ hadn't reacted yet.  He was still kneeling by the unconscious body of… himself, looking as though he was trying to sort something in his head.   

"What the HELL did you mean by that!?" snapped Johnny, meeting her halfway.   "Just "Thunderbird"- what the hell kind of crazy thing is that supposed to be!?"

"Learn your myths." she said, shrugging her shoulders at him.  She really wasn't in the mood to get into the  whole "I-wrote-you-to-have-god-given-abilities-even-though-you're-atheist" thing again.   Johnny cussed and spat in the dirt.

Conscious TJ had gotten up,  leaving the unconscious one lying there, breathing shallowly.  He looked angry, but  Luna held up one hand.  "Please… just don't. "

"Or I'll zap you too."  Johnny said halfheartedly.

TJ considered this, and then he sighed, and laughed.

"Guess you have the advantage of me- Y'know, I think lightning is cheating." he said.  Luna bit her lip apologetically.

"Sorry." she said, for what might have been the fifth time, and then, she bent and scooped the squat little jar of marmalade up.  "Here, have some marmalade?" she offered.

TJ laughed, more out of surprise than anything, and she tossed the jar to him.  

The Editor nodded imperceptibly, and Luna could only assume that meant they'd won.  She tucked her things back into her bag, and Johnny shouldered his guitar, muttering angrily about how wet his cigarettes had gotten.

The world dissolved around them again.