Campfire

I had to wait until the roommate was gone to hold Campfire. It's...a little awkward with her here for various reasons. Plus she and Jaryn have this weird energy...anyway. So I called everyone to come sit in the valley, myself included, and amused myself with the parallels between this blog and what is going on in my book at the moment. Oceana crew sat to one side, The Others sat to....well...the other side. Now, I should at least mention by name who makes up The Others since I don't yet have faces for any of them but Noah. We have Irish, Kitty, Rogue, Jocelin, Xander, Patrick, and Fischer. Some people may or may not be familiar with these people and wondering why some are here while others are not. Like Ophelia or Genesis. They decided to just die. Sad, but sometimes muses die.

So to the left all huddled together sat The Others and to the right, Oceana crew. Some people were glaring. Some weren't even paying attention. Some were eating Jaryn.

"What? I'm hungry."


"You're always hungry. Anyway, so everyone knows why we're here, right?"

Luella raised her hand. She always raises her hand. "Why is this called Campfire if we don't even have an actual campfire?"

"It's a phrase, Lu. It just means to come together for a discussion."

"Then why don't you just say that?"

"Because I have a slight obsession with NCIS, alright? I'm not the one on trial here!"

"I didn't realize anyone was on trial," Laidley say with a smirk.

I point at him. Sternly. "You...zip it." All of The Others seem bored and I have a whiff of smoke so my attention is immediately on one person in particular. "Fischer, put it out."

"Put what out?" he asks innocently.

"Your flaming ego. What do you think I'm talking about? This is a no smoking brain. Today anyway." He mutters and puts it out, and I remind him to pick up the butts or the sheep will eat them. This thought seems to amuse him but a sharp look from Merrik has him thinking better of disregarding my request that he clean up after himself. "So as I was asking before. We all know why we're here, right?"

"Because we don't get along," answers Merrik darkly, still looking at Fischer. Huh. Looks like some rivalry going there for top bad guy. Of course, Fischer has no real body yet and Merrik is dressed like...well, we all know what he's dressed like.

"Correct. And quite frankly, I'm tired of listening to you all griping about everyone else. It's childish."

Irish bites her lip. "Um, but we are only six inches tall."

"New girl. Cram it." By this point I am pacing, as I tend to do all the time. All the chibi faces are watching me go back and forth, back and forth until Aislyn's eyes turn into little x_x and she falls over. I stop pacing and sigh. "Look, I can't make you all get along, but I can lay some rules down so that's what I'm going to do. First rule: the television does not belong expressly to The Others." Kenayde gives a little cheer. "Rule number two: there is no electrified, sonic sound, super freakified fence. You all are allowed to go wherever you choose."

"So in other words," pipes up Xander, (great. I knew he'd have some golden nugget or two,)
"we're free to squat where we want so long as we make nice puppy dog eyes to each other and pee on ourselves whenever a pretty girl walks by with a wave and a smile."

Everyone looks at him and I'm sure my expression reads disgusted. "Um...yeah, something like that. Without the peeing thing, though." Really? What was that?

"Realistically," says Elas, "you can't just throw a bunch of characters together that are so different and expect them to get along."

"I'm not asking you all to be best friends. It would just be nice if all the bickering and the warring would stop."

"War?" Suddenly I have the interest of Rogue, Jocelin, Fischer, Laidley, Merrik, and Aislyn.

"No, not war!" I rescind quickly. "No war!" I look helplessly to Noah, who always has the innate ability to bring peace to chaos. He nods and stands.

"How about this? Why don't we just go about our lives without the set purpose of irritating or ignoring other people. We are supposed to treat others as we wish to be treated ourselves."

"Don't care," replies Xander. "Won't tomorrow either."

Noah looks at the much older man with a frown darkening his sweet face. "You don't care?" he asks, as though it is impossible to even fathom. "You would care if people started treating you the way you treat them."

"Let them," Xander encourages. "At least then I'll know I'm stuck inside this imagination with people who have some semblance of intelligence."

"Intelligence?" Now Kitty is getting into it. "It hardly takes intelligence to insult people."

Luella raises her hand with a blissfully brainless expression on her face. "All those in favor of insulting Xander say Aye!"

The echo of the word bouncing around the insides of my cranium will be giving me a headache well into next week. After the vote was taken, everyone decided they had better things to do and dispersed, leaving only Kenayde and Noah in my company. I pinch my nose and sigh. "That wasn't quite how I wanted things to work."

Kenayde lays a sympathetic hand on my arm. "It's okay. It will all work out in the end." Having said her bit of encouragement, she turns back to her side of my brain and also disappears.

"You can go now, too, Noah. Don't worry."

But the frown is still there on his little cherub face. "But...where do I go?" And then...he wibbles. As if his eyes weren't ridiculously big as it was already. They fill with emotion and the only thing I can think to do is pick him up and put him on my shoulder.

"You stick with me, buddy." I try not to let him hear me sniffle. "You'll be my own personal angel on my shoulder."

He snuggled me then. Well...my ear, anyway.

So much for bringing peace of mind. It seems like all I've succeeded in doing was making things worse.