LJIdol 3 Strikes - Week 6 - Pursuit
Apr. 26th, 2022 04:27 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
hwangoOh, hello children. I have an awful lot to do today, so I'm not sure I have time to tell you a story right now. So much to do. Busy, busy, busy. Although, that actually reminds me of a story.
There once lived a particularly malicious faerie called Caramel Antithesis Mangletusk. Faeries are wicked and cruel almost without exception, but Caramel's zeal for dispensing wickedness and cruelty made other faeries feel tired just watching him. Caramel, on the other hand, put off feeling tired until he was done with his day of evil and depravity. One Tuesday night after a particularly exhausting day of poisoning wells, replacing children with enchanted puppets, and overturning tortoises, Caramel yawned theatrically, climbed into his bed, and dreamed.
Or at least that had been the plan. But once asleep, Caramel found that his dreams were missing. He spent several hours searching for them, but they didn't appear to be anywhere in his sleeping mind. All he found was one shabby little nightmare, and it squeaked and ran away when it saw him coming because it could tell when it was clearly outmatched.
Some time later, Caramel awoke to a beautiful sunrise and the musical chirping of birds. Outraged by this shocking disregard for his personal distress, he immediately stole the birds' voices and shoved some dark clouds in the sun's face. That done, he took stock of the situation. Had someone stolen his dreams? No, there was no one who would dare. But what else could have happened to them? Caramel checked around his bed for clues, and quickly discovered some tracks leading away from his bed and out the window. Caramel's dreams had run away.
This was unacceptable. Caramel couldn't have his dreams out wandering about where anyone might see them. Some of them were incriminating, or embarrassing, or would give his enemies forewarning of the terrible things that he planned to do to them. And so, deciding to follow in the footsteps of many idealistic youths, spiritually enlightened visionaries, and megalomaniacal supervillains, Caramel set out to follow his dreams. He didn't literally follow in the footsteps of those people, though, since he had these other footsteps to follow.
Like many people attempting to follow their dreams, Caramel encountered setbacks - in fact, an entire pack of setbacks. The alpha setback of the pack was a particularly intimidating specimen with massive brass antlers and several pairs of luminous crimson eyes. It drooled molten glass as it snarled a command for its packmates to attack. Caramel wasn't about to let a few setbacks stop him from chasing his dreams, though. He had tenacity! Resolve! And, most importantly, he had Hubris, which was the name he had given to the knife he had forged from the heart of a dead star.
The fight that ensued was extremely violent and not at all appropriate for children your age to hear about in detail, so I'll just tell you that Caramel eventually prevailed. After Caramel finished wiping off a great deal of blood, viscera, and rapidly cooling molten glass, he resumed his chase. Cutting his way out of a setback's stomach had cost him valuable time though, and he needed to hurry.
The trail he followed led him into Adversity, which is an ugly, disreputable little town with poorly maintained streets, a public garden filled with nothing but poison ivy, and only one decent tea house. I don't recommend visiting. Anyway, Caramel knew the then current mayor of Adversity quite well, and through the simple expediency of a large bribe was able to continue on with little delay. He did not even stop for tea, since he did not know which tea house was the good one.
And so Caramel's pursuit of his dreams continued, including an arduous, steep uphill walk through Hardship, and a most unfortunate and time-consuming detour through the maze-like streets of Distraction. He did at least manage to take a shortcut past Doubt due to his enormous ego. And of course, like anyone following their dreams, he had to fight a hydra.
At last, though, he caught up to his dreams just outside of Success, and was very grateful that they didn't make it into the city proper, since the place was filled with insufferably smug jerks. Also, he was getting tired of walking.
Alas, Caramel was uncertain what to do next. Many people will encourage you to follow your dreams, but significantly fewer of them will have any good advice about what to do when you catch them. Caramel's dreams looked a bit bedraggled from their lengthy adventure outside of his head, but he was still fairly certain he wanted them back. After all, not dreaming enough can lead to madness, hallucinations, or becoming a menial drone toiling away in aid of some else's success.
And so Caramel reclaimed his dreams through an arcane and complicated process that certainly didn't involve simply jamming them back into his head through one of his ears. That would be ridiculous.
The lesson to be learned here is that if you allow yourself to be distracted you can waste a lot of valuable time telling a story to children who will misinterpret your entirely factual historical anecdote as an extended metaphor and subsequently make poor life choices, end up fighting a hydra, and eventually turn into a bunch of artists, astronauts, and marine biologists instead of valuable menial drones. Also, there's an excellent chance that at least one of you is actually an enchanted puppet.
Now, all of you should get home. I have a lot of menial tasks left to do today.
There once lived a particularly malicious faerie called Caramel Antithesis Mangletusk. Faeries are wicked and cruel almost without exception, but Caramel's zeal for dispensing wickedness and cruelty made other faeries feel tired just watching him. Caramel, on the other hand, put off feeling tired until he was done with his day of evil and depravity. One Tuesday night after a particularly exhausting day of poisoning wells, replacing children with enchanted puppets, and overturning tortoises, Caramel yawned theatrically, climbed into his bed, and dreamed.
Or at least that had been the plan. But once asleep, Caramel found that his dreams were missing. He spent several hours searching for them, but they didn't appear to be anywhere in his sleeping mind. All he found was one shabby little nightmare, and it squeaked and ran away when it saw him coming because it could tell when it was clearly outmatched.
Some time later, Caramel awoke to a beautiful sunrise and the musical chirping of birds. Outraged by this shocking disregard for his personal distress, he immediately stole the birds' voices and shoved some dark clouds in the sun's face. That done, he took stock of the situation. Had someone stolen his dreams? No, there was no one who would dare. But what else could have happened to them? Caramel checked around his bed for clues, and quickly discovered some tracks leading away from his bed and out the window. Caramel's dreams had run away.
This was unacceptable. Caramel couldn't have his dreams out wandering about where anyone might see them. Some of them were incriminating, or embarrassing, or would give his enemies forewarning of the terrible things that he planned to do to them. And so, deciding to follow in the footsteps of many idealistic youths, spiritually enlightened visionaries, and megalomaniacal supervillains, Caramel set out to follow his dreams. He didn't literally follow in the footsteps of those people, though, since he had these other footsteps to follow.
Like many people attempting to follow their dreams, Caramel encountered setbacks - in fact, an entire pack of setbacks. The alpha setback of the pack was a particularly intimidating specimen with massive brass antlers and several pairs of luminous crimson eyes. It drooled molten glass as it snarled a command for its packmates to attack. Caramel wasn't about to let a few setbacks stop him from chasing his dreams, though. He had tenacity! Resolve! And, most importantly, he had Hubris, which was the name he had given to the knife he had forged from the heart of a dead star.
The fight that ensued was extremely violent and not at all appropriate for children your age to hear about in detail, so I'll just tell you that Caramel eventually prevailed. After Caramel finished wiping off a great deal of blood, viscera, and rapidly cooling molten glass, he resumed his chase. Cutting his way out of a setback's stomach had cost him valuable time though, and he needed to hurry.
The trail he followed led him into Adversity, which is an ugly, disreputable little town with poorly maintained streets, a public garden filled with nothing but poison ivy, and only one decent tea house. I don't recommend visiting. Anyway, Caramel knew the then current mayor of Adversity quite well, and through the simple expediency of a large bribe was able to continue on with little delay. He did not even stop for tea, since he did not know which tea house was the good one.
And so Caramel's pursuit of his dreams continued, including an arduous, steep uphill walk through Hardship, and a most unfortunate and time-consuming detour through the maze-like streets of Distraction. He did at least manage to take a shortcut past Doubt due to his enormous ego. And of course, like anyone following their dreams, he had to fight a hydra.
At last, though, he caught up to his dreams just outside of Success, and was very grateful that they didn't make it into the city proper, since the place was filled with insufferably smug jerks. Also, he was getting tired of walking.
Alas, Caramel was uncertain what to do next. Many people will encourage you to follow your dreams, but significantly fewer of them will have any good advice about what to do when you catch them. Caramel's dreams looked a bit bedraggled from their lengthy adventure outside of his head, but he was still fairly certain he wanted them back. After all, not dreaming enough can lead to madness, hallucinations, or becoming a menial drone toiling away in aid of some else's success.
And so Caramel reclaimed his dreams through an arcane and complicated process that certainly didn't involve simply jamming them back into his head through one of his ears. That would be ridiculous.
The lesson to be learned here is that if you allow yourself to be distracted you can waste a lot of valuable time telling a story to children who will misinterpret your entirely factual historical anecdote as an extended metaphor and subsequently make poor life choices, end up fighting a hydra, and eventually turn into a bunch of artists, astronauts, and marine biologists instead of valuable menial drones. Also, there's an excellent chance that at least one of you is actually an enchanted puppet.
Now, all of you should get home. I have a lot of menial tasks left to do today.
no subject
Date: 2022-04-27 06:11 am (UTC)