After a week in Venice, Deona talked to Quatre, mentioning that she would be heading out, going to the border between Spain and France... namely, the Pyrenees Mountains. He had looked at her in surprise, reminding her that as far as he knew, she had never gone mountain climbing in her life. At this, her muse stuck out his tongue and gave the blond-haired Arab a raspberry, which earned him a frosty glare from his mistress.
“The nutcase here’s been teaching me,” she replied, “With any luck, I’ll find the Secret Lair soon. The Pyrenees is relatively close, so it makes for a good start.”
“I’ll keep on the lookout for any more clues,” he answered, “If anything comes up, I’ll call you.”
“Thanks lots,” she said with a grin.
Now, a few weeks later, the young woman found herself in those mountains, cooking dinner over a campfire. The sun had already set and the stars were appearing.
“It’d be nice if Citan Uzuki was here,” she sighed, “Now there’s a handsome man…and he knows his way around mountains.”
The muse that accompanied her began to make mocking noises, the same kind that he had done when she was with Quatre in Venice.
“Oh, shut up! Citan’s a lot closer to my age than Quatre.”
At this, he cackled, to which she coolly said, “Hmm…maybe I should write that the Founders and their Jem’Hadar come to take you a captive…or a Borg comes to collect you.”
The mocking noises stopped and became more frightened as well as placating. He really didn’t like the Jem’Hadar or Founders, but the ones he really was scared of were the Borg.
She nodded and asked, “You’ll lay off, then?”
More affirmative sounds.
“All right, then.”
Both were quiet as she gazed up at the stars. It was this kind of scenery that made her wish that Devon and Michael were here.
“This really is a great place,” she said quietly, “more than what was mentioned in that show I watched as a kid. Half the time, I expect to see a big, white, shaggy dog that people mistakenly call The White Monster and his little boy for a companion.”
After a few more minutes, she heard a pair of sniffs, as well as a familiar, rough voice ask, “Heeey there, cutie, what’s cookin’?”
She looked up and said, “Just some chili and I told you before, I’m not cute. What’re you doing here, Herc?”
At this, a rather arrogant man with black hair and dark eyes, a rather muscular frame (What do you expect with a space mercenary? She had thought) came out form behind some bushes. Next to him was a young man with reddish-brown hair that had a white stripe through the middle, a not-so-muscular body that held a hidden strength. He wore a circlet on his head that had a garnet in the middle, as well as fancy-ish white and blue clothes (complete with blue tabard).
“I was about to ask you the same thing,” the younger one said, “You’re pretty far from home.”
“Me? I’ve been traveling for a while now, Jayce. I’ve gone looking for a gathering place for writers, one that’s hidden. My only clue is that it’s in a mountainous region. I was last in Venice, taking a small vacation, so I figured these mountains would be a good place to look.” She took a breath and added wryly, “Your turn.”
“We’re here, looking for father. We got a hint that he might be in the area.”
“You meant that Root of yours went off?”
“Yes.”
She sighed and shook her head, saying, “I don’t know if Audric would be here, Jayce. Maybe something of his is here…though how, I have no idea. I mean, this would be the distant past, right?”
He peered at her and answered, “You’re a writer. I don’t think my creators ever stated if this was merely in another galaxy or if this would be the past. What would you think?”
She chuckled as she said, “I see your point. Wish it could be as simple to write that you find him…and have it happen for real. Even writers have their limits.”
He sighed sadly and nodded.
“If I find anything, especially him, I’ll let you know. I just hope that Saw Boss and his lackeys don’t show up here. I don’t know if Earth could handle it if they do.”
“Thanks,” he replied and started to head back.
“Hey,” she called out, “Tell Flora I said hi.”
The two men nodded and left.
~*~*~*~ A couple of days later, the young woman was still in the mountains when she came across something.
On one of the actual mountain paths before her was a young man with soft, white hair that had a little tuft on the top, blue-green eyes that reminded her of Quatre, wore a black bodysuit, yellow and blue safety vest, matching yellow boots and black and yellow gloves.
At the moment, he was throwing lightning into the sky, then doing cartwheels before throwing some more and laughing insanely. Beside him, an amorphous creature was first whispering, then rolling in the air, howling with laughter.
Deona recognized the young man immediately and didn’t like what she was seeing. Sure, his name might be chaos, but this wasn’t really like him at all.
“Do characters have muses?” she asked her own creature, which had turned into a silver boy.
“They definitely do not,” he replied, and this time, the voice was one she immediately recognized and thought it fitting: he sounded exactly like Peter Pan.
“Thought so. You know what to do,” she said grimly.
Her muse nodded and flew over to the strange pair, then whistled.
The strange muse looked up and saw the silver boy, then started chittering.
He chittered right back and then gestured by crooking a finger in a come-here motion.
After a few more minutes of chittering, the second muse took the shape of a silver girl and floated away from the young man, who started regaining composure instantly.
“Thanks a lot, Deona,” chaos said as her own creature whispered to her, “It’s a bit embarrassing to be caught in the grip like that. You said it was a muse?”
She nodded, “And from the sound of what this little guy says, it’s either a runaway muse, a rogue or a wild. Are you going to be okay?”
“Yeah, I think I will,” he replied as he dusted himself off and readjusted his gloves, “I was going through here with Shion and MOMO when I saw that muse and went after it. Before I knew it, I was under the influence.”
She smiled and said with a laugh, “Sheeze, chaos... as long as you’ve been around, one would think you’d know what a muse would look like.”
He had a bit of a hurt look on his face as he answered, “I may be long-lived, but I don’t know everything.”
“Too true,” she chuckled, then asked, “Are you sure you’re going to be okay?”
“Now that you’ve got the muse away from me, yeah,” he answered, “I’ll go find Shion and MOMO. Be careful, okay?”
She smiled and nodded, “Oh I will.”
Once chaos left, she turned to the two muses. On one hand, she didn’t think that a writer having two muses was heard of, a source of both envy and trouble. On the other hand, if this new one was a runaway, Deona would have to take care of it until the rightful owner could be found. If it was a rogue or a wild... well, she would have to deal with that as things happened.
“So looks like the three of us are going to be traveling together, at least for a little while,” she said, “I better introduce myself. As you guessed, I’m a writer. The name’s Deona. This one…well, I don’t know if I can pronounce his name, even if he has one.” The silver boy stuck out his tongue at her.
The second muse chuckled and smiled innocently at the human.
The human woman sighed lightly. This search of hers would be getting very lively from now on, and she knew it.
~*~*~*~*~*~