488AN: It's 11:30 p.m. on Christmas Eve, which means that I was able to keep my promise to my gentle readers. Just barely, anyway. (Collapses)
I hope y'all have a wonderful holiday, and as always, please feel free to point out any grammar errors or fiddly bits I might have missed. I need all the help I can get. :-)
AN2: A huge 'Thank you!' goes out to Reinbeauchaser and KameTerra for their sharp eyes and invaluable help with this chapter. (Hugs)
The arc and flare of candles highlighted my dreams, perfuming the air with the scent of warm candle wax and smoke. A figure moved just beyond the line of flames, revealing in quick bursts of reflected light a glimpse of its shape. The thin, sliver curve of a sharp talon; a flash of graying hair; and a slice of a brown iris, nearly swallowed by a wide, dark pupil. Little pieces of a being that my mind would not let me recognize, but the curious ache in my chest prompted me to reach out.
The candles flared up like blowtorches, but still I tried, forcing my arms through the candlestick bars. Flames danced malevolently an inch from my face, burning bright and hot as the sun, and I could swear my fingers brushed against coarse fur an instant before a strange sound cut the dreams into ribbons of light, and heat, and familiar, aching eyes.
I snorted and jerked upright, clapping a hand over my eyes in defense against the daylight, which filtered through the window and stabbed at my pupils like knitting needles. My face was hot from the sun, and as the last shreds of the dream fell away, I heard that sound again. A muted whimper and a soft, sudden gasp. The quiet sounds of pain.
My head snapped to the left so fast it actually made me dizzy, and I had to blink rapidly to chase away the sudden frost over my eyes. I grabbed Leo by the chin and turned his face towards me, studying that blank expression with probing intensity. Aside from the slight, seasick sway of his body, he seemed to be in no distress, which left me with only one other option.
I unbuckled my seatbelt and leaned forward, propping my forearms on the headrests of the front seats. April was still driving, the tree-lined roadway passing by serenely on either side of the car, but her right hand was clenched so tightly around that steering wheel that the knuckles had taken on the shade of old ivory.
I immediately reached out and pressed my fingers against the wheel beneath her hand, ensuring that it remained steady. "Pull over, April. Right now."
"I'm trying," she said in a tight, breathy voice. "There's a turnaround just ahead."
Hoping that the glare would shield my face from incoming traffic, I squinted through the windshield. Sure enough, there was an extension on the side of the road about a hundred yards away, bulging out from the two lane road and into the tree-line like a tumorous growth. I shifted my grip on the wheel and touched April's shoulder with my free hand, giving it a brief squeeze before saying, "Okay, then. Just take it easy and coast. You got this."
She nodded once, took a deep breath, and then eased off the accelerator, letting the car's momentum carry us forward and into the turnaround. The shadow-dappled car lurched a little as she hit the breaks and turned off the ignition, the car settling with the rapid horseshoe click of a hot engine. I was out of the back seat and rounding the vehicle in seconds, my face carefully turned away from the road as the occasional car roared passed. I opened the driver's side door and leaned in, taking in her drawn, tight-lipped expression. "What happened?"
April reached down between the bars of the leg brace and pressed her knuckles against her thigh. The caged muscle twitched and writhed, a little involuntary dance that made her gasp again, before it seized so tightly that I could actually see the outline of it through her pant leg. I wasn't a medic by any stretch of the imagination, but the diagnosis was an obvious one. She had a cramp, probably from sitting too long in a fixed position.
Damn her stubborn hide, I know the doctors had warned her about this…
"Oh, never mind," I sighed, dropping down on one knee. After casting a quick glance through the back window to make sure Leo's face was still hidden, I gently gripped April's afflicted leg. "Can you swing sideways in the seat?"
Biting her lip, she green eyes clouded, she nodded and began to twist her body around. Her leg trembled spasmodically as I levered it out from beneath the steering column, moving slowly until she was sitting with her back pressed against the center compartment, her sneakers brushing against the gravel-strewn asphalt. Her hand gripped the wheel as I carefully unstrapped the brace and let it aside, before once again laying my hands on her thigh.
A lifetime of heavy exercise had ensured that I was no stranger to leg cramps, and my hands moved surely over the stricken muscle. Even though the back of my neck crawled every time another car passed us, I took my time, kneading carefully and keeping my eyes on her face. It was difficult to know the right amount of pressure to use with my numb fingertips, so I had to rely on her body language; applying firmer pressure when she relaxed and drawing back whenever she winced. A good thing April had always been an open book, otherwise this would've been a lot more difficult.
Once the muscle began to loosen, the tendons near her knee relaxing as the trembling died away, I looked down at my hands. The sun's heat seeped through the back of my hood as I asked, seemingly mesmerized by the circular motion of my fingertips, "It's been a while since I nodded off, hasn't it?"
"Almost four hours," she admitted. Gently pushing my hands away with a murmured "Thanks," she wrestled with the brace until it was fastened around her leg again. Task completed, she glanced up and got an eyeful of my thunderous expression.
Her mouth curved into a small, sheepish grin. "You were sleeping so peacefully. I couldn't bear to wake you."
It took a heroic amount of effort not to smack her upside the head like I used to do with Mikey, but I somehow managed to restrain myself. Settling for the next best thing, I sat back on my heels and crossed my arms. "You were a scientist before you met us," I said conversationally. "Supposedly one of the best in your field. So for someone who's so damn smart, how'd you get to be so stupid?"
A decade ago, a comment like that would have been enough to make her quail, but years of dealing with my charming personality had given her a skin as tough as reinforced concrete. Her temperament had become a bit unpredictable these past few months, but I wasn't about to start reining in my tongue. If she still insisted on being my conscience during my own moments of idiocy, then I sure as hell could do the same for her.
Fortunately, she didn't seem to take it to heart, for she merely rolled her eyes and poked me in the forehead, announcing in no uncertain terms that she wished to stand. I grumbled and swiped halfheartedly at her hand, but stood without further complaint, backing away as she carefully levered herself to her feet. My heels were nearly brushing the solid yellow line as I gave her a little space, watching as she hobbled in circles around the car, stretching out her stiff leg. I felt the breeze of a passing car ruffle my hood, and I hunched my shoulders instinctively, feeling terribly exposed.
Seemingly oblivious to my discomfort, she came to a halt on the opposite side of the car and pressed her hands against her back. Her spine arched and cracked, and April's expression quickly morphed from a grimace to one of muted bliss. "It's not like you would've done anything different in my place," she said finally.
There was some truth to that, but I was in no mood to be reasonable. Marching forward to put a little distance between myself and the road, I propped my arms on the car's roof and waited for the clawing discomfort on the back of my neck to subside. The metal warmed my skin beautifully beneath the sweater, and the steady throb in my wounded arm began to slow. Sighing a little, I leaned my covered plastron against the rear passenger window, hiding Leo entirely from view.
April squinted against the light that set her tousled hair on fire, and I was suddenly struck by how different she looked beneath the glare of the sun's eye. Without moonlight or dying fluorescent bulbs to smooth out the imperfections, I could see lines on her face that I'd never noticed before. Little track marks that had been scored around her eyes and mouth; the wrinkles like time's signature etched into her skin. The scars that textured her flesh shined in this new light, the delicate tangle of damaged tissue coiling up a neck that already seemed fragile, birdlike, and too easily snapped.
Something passed over me then; something cold and terribly familiar, like a blade brushing across my skin. It unnerved me in a way that I couldn't describe, and as what often happened when I was accosted with an unfamiliar emotion, I grew angry.
"That doesn't change the fact that you put us at risk," I said, the sporadic drone of traffic becoming distant and unimportant. "What if you'd caused an accident, or gotten us pulled over? How would you explain your mutant hitchhikers to the cops?"
"Like you could've shown them your license if you'd been the one driving," she replied, her thin shoulders hunching, as if preparing for an attack. "I didn't plan to cramp up, you know, and I started pulling over as soon as it happened. What's with you?"
I couldn't explain what had set me off, since I didn't fully understand it myself, but fortunately I had a whole laundry list of other complaints to choose from. "What do you think?" I snapped. "You're neglecting yourself for no good reason. I've been unconscious more in the past two nights than I've been in a month, and I'm still fucking tired. We're on the run from the Foot clan again, and Leo's still off chasing comets with his mind."
I pushed away from the car and stabbed a finger at Leo, who was rocking like a depressed teeter-totter in the backseat. "I mean, what's this? What the hell is this? I thought he was getting better, and now suddenly he's a dumbed-down version of the Rain Man? Is this God's idea of a sick joke? Let's give that fucktard Raphael a little hope, and then-"
My meltdown was silenced abruptly by the mechanical shriek of breaks, as sudden and shocking as a kick in the balls. I whirled around like a top, my arm automatically lifting up to hide my face. It was a bit late for that, though, since it was obvious that the driver had seen me.
Standing there like an idiot with my hand outstretched, skin gleaming emerald for all the world to see. Stupid, stupid turtle. Splinter was probably spinning in his grave right now…
The driver forced his vintage yellow Camaro into a squealing, skidding stop just beyond us, and I got a glimpse of a young man ogling me through the tinted side window. With my free hand, I reached for my sai through the hole in my sweater pocket. Slaughtering innocent passersby was really bad for my karma, so that I wasn't sure what I was going to do with it, but luckily I didn't have to decide. The familiar, threatening move jolted the human into action, and the engine roared as he planted a foot on the gas and made an illegal U-turn, his tires leaving black lines on the asphalt as he barreled back the way he had come.
With the smell of burning rubber setting up shop in my nasal passages, I turned around and exchanged a wide-eyed look with April. The surreal moment stretched and twanged like a bow as the Camaro disappeared around a bend in the road… and then suddenly we remembered how to move again.
I dove into the driver's seat as April scrambled into the back, all but falling into Leo's lap as she landed clumsily. I didn't give her time to straighten, but merely started the car and stomped down on the gas pedal. We shot down the road like a powder blue rocket, April fighting with her seatbelt as I tried to put as much distance between us and the turnaround as possible. Belatedly, I pulled my hood down low over my brow and pressed my chin against the bridge of my plastron, attempting to make myself unobtrusive.
No mutant motorists here, folks. Just move along.
Realizing that screeching down the highway at seventy miles an hour was not a good way to go unnoticed, I reluctantly eased up on the gas and turned off at a feeder road. A few right turns brought us into a stretch of pastureland, the vast expanse of yellowing grass dotted with the occasional cow. I pulled into a pothole-riddled gravel road, which ambled drunkenly towards a distant farmhouse, and parked the car beneath the shade of a few scraggly trees.
The silence in the car was deafening as I pressed my back against the seat and waited for my panicked heart to calm. My mind wasn't in much better shape, for it was busily pulling up random snatches of childhood memories; blurry recollections of four small forms wrapped in blankets, attempting to frighten each other with whispered tales in the candlelight. Mikey's stories had usually involved ghosts, werewolves and a plethora of slimy, crawling things. Mine had always been about metal slabs, gleaming scalpels, and blank-eyed men in white surgical masks.
It took me a while, but I began to accept that the guy probably wasn't interested in hunting us down with a tranq gun and a traveling surgeon's kit. My heart began to slow to a more normal pace, and the adrenaline twitching in my muscles eventually gave up and went on a coffee break. Relaxing by inches, I looked out of the side window, where an oversized cow chewed its cud and stared at me with worrying intensity.
I was debating on favoring the hamburger-waiting-to-happen with a rude hand gesture, when my musings were interrupted by the sound of a low chuckle. A quick glance into the rearview mirror confirmed it was April, who had finally managed to straighten properly in her seat, the belt draped loosely across her torso. Her face was stretched into a Cheshire cat grin, and my perfectly reasonable question of "What the hell?" only seemed to amuse her further.
She threw her withered arm over Leo's shoulders and touched the side of his head with her own, giggling in a way that I hadn't heard in far too long. "Did you see his face?" she gasped.
Memory helpfully conjured a snapshot of the guy's moon-round expression; slack-jawed and shell-shocked, as if the President had walked up and smacked him with a trout. I imagined the therapy session that would surely follow -"I'm not making this up, Doc! I'm telling you, it was a giant turtle! On two legs! Wearing a hoodie!"- and I found my mouth stretching, unbidden, into a crooked grin.
As if to punctuate the absurdity of the moment, the cow lifted its tail and did its part to improve soil quality. From the rearview mirror, I watched as April flipped off the offending animal, unconsciously mirroring my earlier thoughts. I barked out a surprised laugh, bending my arm back over the seat so we could exchange a high five. The whole thing was sublimely stupid, and we both knew it. Wanna guess how much we cared?
In much better spirits, I took a few minutes to refuel the car with one of the gas cans stored in the back, and then we were on the road again. I stuck to the feeder roads as often as possible, and whenever I was forced to venture onto the freeway, I made sure to keep my speed down and my hood pulled low. As unintentionally amusing as our last encounter had been, I was in no hurry to repeat the experience.
The miles passed by steadily beneath the wheels of our commandeered station wagon, and I helped to pass the time by telling April everything she had missed after our disastrous walk to the bus stop. I wasn't much of a storyteller, but I did my best to leave nothing out. Not even the embarrassing bits, like Karai bitch-slapping me with a cage bar.
The long stretch of feeder road had given way to several winding, one lane streets, which seemed to exist only a dividers between one farm and the next. It had been several minutes since I had seen another car, and I began to relax as our destination grew inexorably closer. There was a long moment of quiet when I finally ran out of words, and I glanced at April with my trusty rearview mirror. She was staring out the window, seemingly in deep thought, as the broken shadows of the overhanging trees strobed over her face.
Seeming to buckle under my expectant gaze, she finally asked, "What will you do?"
"Dunno, really," I admitted. "She seemed sincere, but I got twenty years of training telling me it'd be suicide to trust Saki's kid, biological or not." I shrugged, even though she couldn't see it. "Once I know you two are safe, maybe I can start figuring this shit out."
She leaned forward as far as the seatbelt would allow, her fingertips brushing against my shoulder in the briefest of touches. "I know you will," she said, with a perfect faith that made me feel vaguely ashamed, "but until you do, it'll be nice to visit the farmhouse again."
I made a noncommittal noise and turned left, swinging onto the last road before we would reach the farmhouse. It had been a while, now that I thought about it. The seven of us had come here last Christmas for some family bonding time, as well as the observation of such sacred rituals as tree decorating, gift exchange, and the consumption of copious amounts of eggnog. In the span of our three day trip, Mikey had caught April under the mistletoe no less than seven times, and Leo had gotten a little tipsy, somehow managing to coax Donnie into singing 'Grandma Got Run Over By A Reindeer.' Splinter had gotten tangled in the Christmas lights, and Casey and I had managed to set fire to the hayloft.
It had been a fun holiday. Our last, as it turned out.
'Last' seemed to color a lot of my memories lately, and I was beginning to hate the word. The finality of it was always so damn depressing.
April and I let out a simultaneous sigh of relief when the gravel pathway burst through the trees framing the road. It was barely more than a footpath, but I followed it dutifully until we were swallowed up by the trees. The farmhouse loomed up ahead in all its geriatric splendor, its peeling, gray paint and shedding roof tiles like something straight out of a storybook. Weighted down by history and time, it's drooping porch and dual windows stared at us sleepily, like the weather-beaten face of an old man.
I had to agree with April. It was good to be back.
I parked the car in the barn, its dim interior still smelling faintly of hay and horse manure, and told April to hold tight while I checked everything out. I stalked around the house for a while, just for the look of the thing, and then fished out the key from a flower pot beneath the porch. The door was sticky, so I had to put my shoulder into it to force it open. The musty aroma of dust and mildew was almost as good as home, and I smiled briefly before systematically checking each room in the house. To my complete lack of surprise, I encountered nothing, and soon headed back to the others, flipping on the lights as I went. Casey had left the house to April in his will, along with a long term account with the local water and power company. Keeping such a large place running year round was expensive, but thanks to Casey's foresight, April wouldn't have to foot the bill for another five years.
God, I missed that clumsy, oversized primate. Every old picture and stick of furniture in this place reminded me of him.
It took only a few minutes to round up April and Leo and herd them into the house. I left April puttering around in the kitchen, and my brother seated on the rocking chair in front of the cold fire place. He seemed to take to it immediately, and steady squeaking of antique wood accompanied me back outside.
I let my hood puddle at the back of my neck, deriving an amusement park thrill at leaving myself exposed to light. Multiple visits to this place had assured me that it was safe, for the nearest neighbor was old man Finnegan, who hadn't stepped beyond the bounds of his land in twenty years, as far as we could tell. Still, I threw the duffel bag over my shoulder and gathered up Leo's swords, tottering back to the house as swiftly as I could. It didn't matter how isolated this place was, the paranoia was so ingrained that it would never entirely leave me. I'd feel a whole lot better once it was nightfall again.
I had barely made it through the door when the peace was shattered by an unholy clatter and the sound of an abortive scream. The duffel crashed unceremoniously to the floor, and I had one of Leo's swords out and glittering in my hand a second later. I dropped the over-arm harness and remaining sword in a careless heap and charged into the dining room. Nearly colliding with the table in my haste, my eyes raked over the small kitchen, searching for any sign of a threat.
What I found instead was April surrounded by a half dozen pots and pans, staring into the cabinet beneath the stove in horror. Shooting me a hunted look, she pointed a shaky finger at the confines of the dark cabinet. "It's in there," she squeaked. "Get it! Kill it!
I lowered the sword with a longsuffering sigh. "You've helped us fight the Shredder, the Purple Dragons and the Foot in the ten years that I've known you. Isn't freaking out over a spider a bit ridiculous?"
"I don't care," she shot back. "It's big and hairy and disgusting, and it tried to eat my hand!"
I groaned and rolled my eyes at the ceiling, as if asking for help. Receiving none, I gave myself over to the inevitable and handed April the sword. "Here. You can watch my back just in case the cockroach hordes decide to mobilize."
She held the sword carefully, the blade tip pointed down in the proper resting position, but the effect was somewhat ruined when she stuck her tongue out at me. Deciding to be the mature one for once, I let the insult go and fished the small, shy, and utterly harmless garden spider from its web in the bowl of a cast iron skillet. Holding it carefully cupped in my hands, I left the kitchen, snorting when April backed away hastily, as if I was clutching a pit viper.
I couldn't feel the skitter of its legs against my palm as I opened the door with my elbow and stepped out into the grass, and for a moment I was afraid that I'd crushed it. My worries were allayed a moment later, however, when the spider forced itself out from between a gap in my fingers and made a daring leap for freedom. It landed in the grass and disappeared between the blades, no doubt anxious to avoid another encounter with its giant, green abductor.
Back inside, April was clanging about in the kitchen, cleaning out the dusty pots and staring suspiciously into every dark corner. I helpfully drug the duffel into the kitchen and shoved the whole thing into the pantry, before cracking open every window and blind in the bottom floor. The stale, neglected smell gradually began to dissipate, replaced with the aroma of sun-warmed grass and the eternal drone of insects.
My next chore involved stripping and changing the beds in the first three bedrooms. I did it mechanically, my mind drifting of its own accord back to last Christmas, when Leo had helped me with this particular task. He had insisted on hospital corners, while I had championed the classic 'throw and go' method. The debate -and ensuing shouting match- had spilled out into the living room, where Splinter had ended the fight abruptly by smacking us both with a couch cushion.
Good times, good times.
If nothing else, my style of bed-making meant that the task was done quickly. I gratefully stripped off my B.O. soaked sweater and walked by the kitchen with it slung over my shoulder. April had broken into the duffel and was laying waste to several cans with an old-style can opener, humming under her breath in a fit of happy domesticity. I grinned at her turned back and stepped into the den room-
Only to draw up short, the sweater slipping unnoticed off my shoulder.
My brother had left the rocking chair and was now standing beside it, the hood of his jacket thrown back to expose his scarred face. The over-arm harness and sheaths were still lying in a jumble at his feet, and one sword was resting on the mantel. Probably placed there by April.
Leo held his last remaining weapon in both hands. The blade was tilted sideways in a classic defense pose, its tip glinting in the overhead light like a diamond shard.
My personal universe reeled, seeming to tilt sideways and constrict. It squeezed the breath from my lungs and shot adrenaline through every nerve ending, making my stomach churn. Feeling both elated and sick, I took a careful step forward, half expecting the floorboards to rip away and send me tumbling into a Lewis Carol opium dream.
Leo's weird, full-bodied sway had disappeared completely, and he now stood stock still, his expression twisted into a look of concentration that I remembered from a thousand sparring matches. He didn't seem to be aware of my presence, but when I took another shaky step, he suddenly spoke two words, "I remember."
"What, Leo?" Distantly, I realized that my voice was almost as hoarse as his. "What do you remember?"
"I remember being whole."
Four simple words, spoken in a flat monotone, and my heart was broken all over again.
"You still are," I said, swallowing around the sudden splintering in my throat. "You're just a little lost, is all."
Summoning up my courage, I closed the final distance between us and reached out, folding my hands around his own. His tendons flexed beneath the pads of my fingers, and his sword bisected the narrow space between us, its razor edge a hairsbreadth from my plastron. "But if you let us, we'll help you find your way back. Stay with us now. Stay with me."
"I'm trying." His eyes finally flicked up to my face, and in their depths, a battle waged. "It hurts."
"Of course it does," I replied, my voice soft but intense, willing him to listen. "It ain't exactly fun for me or April, either. But we're toughing it out, and if we can do it, then you sure as hell can. Just don't bail on me any more, bro. It's getting too hard to take."
His grip on the hilt loosened, and his eyes fogged over in a familiar way that made me want to scream. "Things fall apart," he breathed. "The center cannot hold…"
The words sounded familiar, like a quote I had heard a long time ago, but I didn't care to try and figure it out. I released his hands, and the sword dropped to the floor, its blade glancing off the steel toe of my boot. I barely noticed.
I gripped him by the shoulders and squeezed hard, attempting to ground him, to force him to stay. "What does that mean?" I rasped, my face an inch from his own. "Talk to me, Leo. What the hell does that mean?"
His ruined mouth curved; the expression sad and familiar enough to sear the soul.
"Sorry."
And just like flipping a switch, he was gone again. With horrific slowness, his eyes as lifeless as a doll's, he began to rock beneath my hands.
My world greyed and crumbled to ash, and I backed away from him as if struck. My shell hit the wall with an audible thud, and I stared dumbly down at the slit in the leather of my boot. The steel shown through it, a sliver of brightness against that dark hide, and for a long moment, I could think of no reason to move and nothing to say.
I might have stayed like that all afternoon, both of us frozen like two warped statues in a nightmare house of wax, if I hadn't been saved by the sound of April's voice.
"Well, the pans are clean, and the food's heating up. We'll have a prepackaged feast in just a few-" She hobbled into the room with a rag in her hands, her fingers shiny with water, and abruptly stopped speaking. Her gaze passed over us both, before settling again on me, her expression suddenly worried. "What happened?"
Her words were like a patch of green in the Pompeii landscape of my thoughts. I grimly lunged for that scrap of color, and in it, I found a measure of clarity.
"I don't know," I said, my voice distant and strange to my own ears, "but I think it's time Leo went to bed. It was a long trip." I looked at her quickly and then away, unable to bear her questioning eyes. "Fix yourself something to eat, if you want. I might be a while."
I gripped my brother by the wrist, snapped out a command, and walked away without another word, giving Leo the choice to follow or be dragged. He stumbled and nearly fell, but eventually righted himself and followed behind obediently. I pull him like a tugboat into the first bedroom and forced him to sit on the paisley comforter at the foot of the bed. Feeling savage and robbed, I dropped to one knee and began to undress him with an abruptness that stopped just short of rough. I put him to bed afterward and pulled the covers up to his shoulders, tucking him in until the constriction around his body made the rocking die away.
"You may have given up, Leo," I said grimly, closing his eyes with two fingers, like a priest performing the Last Rites, "but you seem to have forgotten one thing. I'm more stubborn than you'll ever be."
I left the room and returned a moment later, one hand weighed down by the book I'd stored in the duffel bag. I plopped down on the hard wooden top of an antique trunk, which had been shoved against the wall beside the bed, and let the worn, hardback book fall open. A Snicker's wrapper fluttered to the floor, and I kicked the makeshift bookmark away, where it skittered beneath the faded cream dust ruffle.
When Leo was still sane, he had loved to read. He didn't have a lot of time to himself for such things, but he had tried to set aside a few minutes every night to indulge. Even after everything went to hell, it was just about the only way I knew to get him to sleep. This particular book had been a gift from Donnie on our birthday last year. It was one of his favorites.
I was about to start where I'd left off, but then abruptly flipped back to the first chapter. The pages draped limply over my fingers as I cast a sideways glance at Leo, who was still breathing too rapidly for sleep.
I sighed and looked back down at the book, where the first letter curled in the left corner of the page in elegant, oversized print. Perhaps this was what was necessary. Beginning an old story anew, every day, until the ending turned out differently.
"Go to sleep, bro," I said quietly, "and when you wake up, we'll try again."
Straightening in my seat, the open blinds casting bright lines of midday light across the pages, I cleared my throat and began to read:
"'Camelot - Camelot," said I to myself. 'I don't seem to remember hearing of it before. Name of the asylum, likely.'
It was a soft, reposeful summer landscape, as lovely as a dream, and as lonesome as Sunday…"
AN: I'm terribly sorry to post yet another bridging chapter to this novel-length monstrosity, but if y'all will just bear with me a little longer, then I promise things will start getting interesting again. Like, in the next chapter. (Attempts to look endearing)
The quote that Leo used is from a poem by W.B. Yeats, and the book excerpt is from Mark Twain's A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court. Both are now considered to be public domain, and both are recommended reads.
It's pretty late here, and I need to catch some sleep, so there won't be any review responses right now. But when I do post them tomorrow, all you have to do is go to my profile and click on the homepage link. :-)