for the record:
• my renos are deformed
• my noins are skewed
• my lagunas are *eeevil*
• my duos are hamster-cheeked
• my fuujins aren't fuujin
• my squalls aren't.

i'll be here in the corner, listening to my brain melt.

In the hours after I saw my parents off on their holiday, going back to bed since I was woozy with something - lack of sleep, morning headrush, whatever - I dreamed.

I dreamt about an unknown saint's sanctuary by a canal where you had to pay a pound into a little machine on a wall and could choose between a little pamphlet on her life, a card celebrating her saint's day or a map of the area. About victorian-dressed kids rafting on beaten brass along shallow shallow waterways which I crossed barefoot, tightrope-walking in anxiety with the undertow dragging on my feet. About a delayed flight in our space-shuttle and the kinds of crap you could buy in interplanetary duty free. About witches and sorceresses and the great difference between them, how they had to keep their talents secret because otherwise they ended up disgustingly wrinkled, the skin on their arms pinched, blue and sagging, with these huge green sucker-enhanced creatures their constant familiars (I think Dorothy Catalonia told me that, while I was colouring in a picture of a sorceress, not very well which implies I was about five in this dream). About a huge talking anthropomorphic rodent (well, he talked to me), cross between an hedgehog and a beaver, with a neat line in gadgets (like a little magnifying glass he could attach to his eye and swivel in and out to focus you).

No Dream Epic! Although I was in the university halls canteen with my roomate at one point.

But still... I've remembered a dream and it wasn't about the hysterical fourteen-year-old and her fear of adulthood/commitment! Break out the champagne!

Or worry what my new kick is in remembering dreams. That's /not/ normal.

i'm in shock.

I'm reading the linked blogs off technomancy, because i *can*, and wander onto this one. And ooh, i'm thinking, me like this person, and they have a pretty pretty layout if rather dark on this monitor, and cool they play all the games i want to play but don't since i'm all about the lacking of a ps or ps2 and being shite at gaming and... nifty. And look! links! maybe they have a site!

No site, sadly, but... *pause for dramatic drumroll* I was linked to! *bounces about, beaming inanely*

so, *wavewave* to mazoku. You just made me unnecessarily happy ^_^

the scene: helicon. Muses have monopolised the lounge. Xu is making notes on something, muttering about irresponsible bloody writers claiming they've got the shakes and thus are unable to type. Sammy (origfic) is occupied with blogs, sniggering. Seifer is propped up on his elbows, reading some book on invasion strategies. Duo is painting his nails and listening to Elastica's Stutter and Poe's Control on repeat, occasionally flicking through a missal. He raises an eyebrow at Farf, who is muttering his way through a rosary, and seems on the verge of making some comment about lapsed!catholic muses. cbSquall is moodily searching the record collection for more songs to justify his existence. Noin is deep in conversation with the only heteronym here, Mnemosyne.

Noin: So why do we get heteronyms in here?

Mnem: It's the way Harpy deals with incipient split-personality disorder. We're all avatars of her at different points... she was the first, then Tiresias, me and Ocypete came along, then Israfel and littlestar, and then a whole host of others, too many to name. Makes it easier to deal with fic writing, because she can just switch over to the heteronym who's paired to the relevant muse - like switching junctions.

Noin: So each heteronym has a muse?

Mnem: Only the loudest ones, the ones who pair well. I don't have one, because I'm the poetic heteronym and Harps isn't big on fanpoetry. We tend to pick favourites.

Noin: Favourites?

Mnem: Yep. You're Tiresias', because he-she is all about the transgender.

Noin: Duo?

Mnem: Ocypete. Destruction, bitching and hatesmut.

Noin: Seifer?

Mnem: Ahh... Astaroth? She used to be a heteronym, but she's now his GF... Sam?

Sammy: *checks charts* She's fully converted to GF status. I think Seifer gets to be Harpy's favourite.

Seifer: *lazily* I'm the superior muse.

Sammy: Nah, Harps is lazy and you're not demanding fic yet.

Seifer: yeah, well, have /you/ got a heteronym?

Sammy: I used to /be/ one. Any point now I could switch back, eric-is-bananaman-ways, in a flash of bright white brilliant light, shiny like halogen, and make you /my/ muse and then you, my sweet, you would suffer eternal the torment of my hyperaxiv m4d pr0s3 5k1ll5.

She beams, watching Seifer turn away, muttering.

Noin: Farfarello doesn't have a heteronym, does he?

Mnem: Sure. Eris. She hates the very idea of fic, and he disturbs Harpy's writing for everyone else while being impossible to write for.

Noin: Xu?

Mnem: Probably littlestar. Although she isn't quite ust. Still, there's a lot of space for end-of-relationship sexual tension in the songs she's chosen. And they're indie-as-hell, which is what star likes to see.

Noin: contrabandSquall?

Mnem stops. And thinks. And thinks some more.

cbSquall has raised his head from the cd rack to hear the answer, and you can feel the waves of disappointment just rolling away from him.

Mnem: Well, /star/ likes him.

Noin: ...but she's got Xu.

Mnem: Yeah, and he isn't sapphic, or ust. Barely even schmind. Damn.

Not that my evil twin and I find it all too easy to pick on our Squalls... I blame that adorable surprised face he makes when he's ice-shafted at the end of disc one. He's keee-ute when he's hurding...

And the facts that i'm writing musefic, listening to muse's 'hypermusic' and being amused are completely unconnected. Honest.

helicon. It is raining, so most of the muses are curled up with hot coffee and books. Duo is outside dancing, in soaked shirt and muddy boots.

Noin: *turns from the window* He'll catch his death out there.

Xu: Well, that's all for the best. After all, he can't do smut if he's got a cold, and if he dies she'll have no excuse not to write me.

Noin: Sadist.

Xu: No, that's Seifer.

Seifer: *looks up at his name* hmm?

Xu: Just discussing your compatibility with bdsm boy over there. Unless you were too busy preening in front of the nearest shiny surface to notice that latest scrap of information.

Seifer: *shrugs* I'm meant to be shocked? The belts are a dead giveaway. Kid couldn't survive without someone giving him orders.

Xu: He's a better SeeD than you'll ever be.

Seifer: Xu, your words, as ever, bruise me.

Noin: You two really don't get on, do you?

Seifer: Ten out of ten for observation, instructor... oh, and that reminds me, Xu, how does it feel to be a Trepie?

Xu stands up, suddenly, and leans over Seifer to make the most of the height advantage she gets while he's sitting down.

Xu: I'm /not/ a Trepie. I. Had. Her. First.

Seifer: You mean, you had her before she was /legal/. And then you lecture /me/ on breaking the rules...

Xu stalks out.

Noin: *looks confused* Um, Harpy's English, right? They traditionally never had any age-of-consent laws about lesbianism...

Seifer: I know that. Just don't tell Xu.

helicon, the lounge. It's stopped raining, at least for the moment. Duo has just got out of the shower, and is sitting at the table with his hair wrapped, turban-like, in a towel. Hilde wanders in with groceries from the 24hour supermarket, drops a kiss on Noin's cheek and goes off to stack the fridge. It's a picture of domestic bliss: or would be, were it not for Seifer and Xu glaring at one another across the table.

A silence.

Duo: Writers probably won't let you. And you two bitching at one another makes quite amusing background noise.

Hilde: *her voice carries through from the kitchen* Better than Linkin Park, at any rate. Who's playing /that/?

Seifer and Xu: *in unison* contrabandSquall.

They shut up abruptly, glaring at each other all the harder, and Xu lights another cigarette.

Noin: You'll kill yourself with those, you know.

Xu: Do I look like I care, /mother/?

Seifer: *jeers* Missing your girlfriend?

Xu: *flares up* And what if i am? At least /I/'m brave enough to admit it.

Seifer: What's /that/ supposed to mean?

Xu: Don't think I don't know why you're so bloody unapproachable at the moment.

Seifer: It's nothing to do with /him/. *feels the need to reiterate* There's nothing going on between me and Leonheart.

Xu: Yeah, not for lack of trying.

Seifer: You don't know what you're talking about, you stupid little bitch...

Xu: Oh, so it's comments about my height, now, is it?

Seifer sneers, not even deigning to comment.

Duo: *looks up from his magazine* What is it about SeeDs when they're not getting any?

Noin: *swats at him, amused* Like /you're/ any better.

Duo: There's a difference. I'm young and jaded. They're just... bitter.

Xu: Seifer's no SeeD.

Seifer: You're right. Which means that /I/'ve never been described as "A SeeD tour guide" on any "comprehensive list of ffviii characters!" sites.

cbSquall: What?

Noin: Um... you've left your room.

cbSquall: *sarcasm* Really? I hadn't noticed. It's alright, if I'm not welcome here I can always go back there...

Seifer: *smirks, suddenly* No, it's fine, Leonheart. Have a seat. *gestures to the one next to him*

The other muses look mystified as he rises to go to the kitchen.

Seifer: Anyone want a drink?

A chorus of suggestions: he brings them through, cheerfully, passing Noin the tabasco for her Bloody Mary and uncorking Xu's bottle of red wine. He serves cbSquall last, with a predatory air, leaning over his shoulder, close, to pour the last drops of bitter lemon into his vodka. Then, with a whisper in cbSquall's ear that makes him jerk his head up, startled and almost blushing, he exits jauntily.

Xu: ...Hyne.