[Archive] With This Ring (Young Justice SI) (Story Only)

[Mr Zoat]

18th June 2013
19:25 GMT -5

I bow immediately, and Jade's quick enough on the uptake that she does the same an instant later.

"That is not necessary."

I look up as Morpheus sort of… Changes how he interacts with the world, going from being a sovereign on his throne with all of the ideal form imagery that implies to 'just' being a white-skinned man in jet black period appropriate Middle Eastern dress standing just in front of us. The Caliph is content to watch us, though his expression shows obvious curiosity.

"You recently had an encounter with my brother and sister."

"Yes. Ah. I didn't intend to bring that trouble to your door, and I'm.. sorry if I have."

"I am more concerned for you. Despair is patient."

"Um."

Why is..? Morpheus concerned for me..? I don't.. think he owes me in any way that might make him worried about his inability to pay me back. If anything I'd say that I owed him.

"I am aware of the harm that interacting with my family can bring. I recognise it as a failing in myself that I have been indifferent to it in the past."

"Gamemnae got the worst of it, and while I can't say that she didn't have some of that coming... If I could ask for a boon, it would be that you would allow her to occasionally dream of a flourishing Atlantis."

He looks mildly disquieted. "She caused that situation to occur by trying to leech power from my sister. Why should I extend my mercy to her?"

"Oh, she doesn't deserve it. When we finally finish unbinding her spells and let her wake up, it's quite likely that King Orin will have her executed. And… I won't argue against it. But I'm… I've long been of the opinion that inflicting suffering for its own sake diminishes the one who inflicts it. It makes the object of your ire supplant your own self-derived objectives on your mind, makes you… Something other than yourself."

He looks slightly thoughtful. "Perhaps you are right. I will make no promises, but I will… Consider her case."

"Thank you, O Dream King."

"I have done nothing which you need to thank me for. Though perhaps in exchange for my consideration you could tell me a tale of the ship you sailed through my realm."

"Yes, certainly, it's a rather nifty piece of thaumic engineering. The lead designer tried to send you messages about it, but they may have arrived during your… Absence."

He smiles faintly. "I will speak with my housekeeper. But since you are here, you may provide an explanation yourself."

"Ah, well, short version, some magicians manipulate the Dream to create a Dream-ship, then another spell makes the ship become the Dream-ship, it sails through the Dream until it gets to wherever they want, and then there's another spell for emerging back into reality. Now, I checked, and as far as I can tell it doesn't cause any damage to the fabric of the Dream, but Queen Artemis and I both appreciate that you might not be happy with having your realm turning into a bypass. If you wish to forbid it, we will of course comply with your order. If you wish to study it, I am sure that Queen Artemis will be happy to receive you."

"And if I did forbid it, what would you do?"

"There are other realms we could travel. The same basic design would work just as well. Or I… Had an idea for artificially extending or merging thaumospheres. Once we work out how, that would probably be easiest." Uh… "Though I suppose it would depend on why you forbade it. If there was a practical problem that we could solve, I'd probably just ask if we could resubmit our proposal once we'd solved it."

Morpheus… Appears to be thinking about it. He isn't human enough to look away from me and his body language is… Barely there, but there's a certain added stillness that suggests that he's focusing inward rather than outward.

Then he focuses again, small changes in the form he's wearing appearing in the corner of my eyes. A shift in the cut of the robe, moving it away from 'Middle East formal wear' and towards 'Wizard formal wear'. "I will visit Queen Artemis and hear her explanation before I make a final decision."

"Thank you. Do we.. owe you anything for the journey we already took?"

"I will decide that when I understand better what you actually did."

"Rightoh. Did you-? Oh, there was something I wanted to ask."

"You may do so."

"Would you have a particular problem with it if I turned Delirium back into Delight? It would be near the end of a very long list of jobs and I have only the vaguest idea how something like that could even be attempted, but I recognise that someone is hurt and that things aren't as they should be. And I think, eventually, I'm going to like having a problem like that to work on."

He's staring at me, and for a moment I feel paper-thin, spread out, like… Like a character in a comic book someone is flipping through.

"Show me what you plan to do once you have a method. I do not object, but Despair almost certainly will."

I nod. "I will, and I'll make it the last thing that I do." I smile, relaxing my body slightly. "Do you want to stay for the story? I understand that you're a busy man with a plane of reality to run."

He… Makes it so that he's now sitting, his throne replaced by a simple bench next to the Caliph's throne.

"I can hardly pass up the opportunity to hear a novel story, especially since it concerns my realm."

The Caliph regards him from the corner of his eye for a moment, before deciding that he's finished and focusing his attention upon me. "Orange Lantern! Sage of Avarice! You have returned to my court!"

"I apologise for the delay, O Caliph. Things have gotten rather desperate on Earth, and it has required my full attention. May I present my betrothed, Jade Nguyen."

Jade bows again, though more shallowly than she did for Morpheus.

He considers her for a moment, before clapping his hands. A servant darts in, hunched in pre-genuflection.

"Fetch my wife to join us. And bring refreshments!"

The servant genuflects fully, backing out before scurrying off.

"Come! Sit! I have waited for your return since I discovered that you did not die during your crossing! You must tell me of that, and of your visit to Heaven! Hah, and I am certain you have other stories besides!"

"I have a farce about the first time I was in your former kingdom. I behaved poorly, but in my defence I was fairly new at the time."

"Then I will hear that too! It will return your modesty to you after the other tales. And you, Jade." He turns to her. "What stories do you have?"

"I have one about a madman seducing an assassin while she tried to kill him."

"Is it any good?

She gives me a sidelong glance. "He seems to like it."

"Then I'm certain that it will be excellent."

 

[Mr Zoat]

22nd June 2013
19:32

Oliver smiles at me as we head upwards towards the mountain's living area. "Nervous?"

I shrug, then shake my head. "No, no, I don't mind making a fool of myself. If they don't laugh at me then I'll be worried."

"They're not an entirely representative audience. I know the marketing industry took a real beating, but we can still get hold of enough people to do regular test screenings."

"Is there some problems I'm not seeing?"

"British commercials can be a little… Unique. I think it'll work well in Britain, and maybe in Europe, I just don't know… Oh hey, Arte!"

Artemis looks away from the microwave where she's heating popcorn. "Hey Ollie. Paul, when did you find time to shoot a commercial?"

"It wasn't that hard. Pinewood Studios isn't exactly over-employed at the moment, and the script was mostly off-the-cuff. And… Cadbury's is an increasingly large part of international trade, so I do actually.. keep more track of it than you might assume."

The microwave beeps, and she pulls out the bag and pours it into a prepared bowl.

"I'm not sure it's… Worth that. I mean, it's only a couple of minutes."

She shrugs as she bins the bag and picks up the bowl. "We can catch a movie after. And if your commercial is really stupid I can just throw it at you."

"My board representative had to sign off on it too."

Oliver grins as he raises his hands. "Oh, don't try blaming this on me. You're the one who decided to direct and star in his own ad campaign."

Artemis frown. "Wait, how many are there?"

"Four, but they all have the same structure with a couple of differences in the scenes."

"'Scenes'? How long are they?"

"Just a couple of minutes." I shrug. "Shot differences. I don't know; I didn't do media studies."

She shakes her head as we move into the living room, head turning to greet us.

"Thank you everyone for coming. I'll be handing out samples of the product at the conclusion of the viewing-."

"So if we run early-" Richard grins. "-we don't get anything."

"There are no flies on either of us. And given some of the missions we've been on, I'm sure you can put up with me making a fool of myself for a few minutes."

Wallace shifts over as Artemis plonks herself down next to him, wrapping one arm around her and grabbing popcorn with the other without looking. "Do Cadbury's sell Christmas cake?"

"Yes, but only seasonally." I take a data stick out of subspace as Oliver takes position at the rear of the group, arms folded across his chest. Then I walk forwards and plug the stick into the rear of the television before retreating to the side. "If whoever had the control pad would be so good?"

Kaldur raises it, moves the cursor to the new file and presses play.

The first thing on the screen is a full-colour recreation of a Cadbury's factory from the 1900s, when the company first started using condensed milk and their chocolate actually started tasting nice. It's not taken from a living museum or a coloration of old footage, just something I made using old technical and architectural plans and my ring, but it makes the point well.

My voice over starts immediately.

"In nineteen oh four, Cadbury's began using condensed milk in place of powdered milk, resulting in a chocolate of a far smoother consistency."

Nothing for two seconds, then the screen switches to me in my hastily redecorated office in Bourneville. I'm standing in front of my desk, just off centre of the shot.

"Meanwhile some of our American colleagues couldn't quite get the hang of the process of creating condensed milk, and managed to induce increased levels of bacterial growth and an increase in the levels of butyric acid. Other sources of butyric acid include…"

Those amongst my colleagues who have heard this rant before don't react as still images of a pool of vomit and a dog's posterior briefly flash up on the screen, while the others make expressions of disgust. Then the camera pulls back to reveal that both images are framed images on my desk… With a Hershey's bar resting between then.

The me on the screen looks down at it for a moment, then turns his head to the camera, looks awkward for about a second, and then without looking back picks the bar up and drops it off-camera, where it lands in a metal bin with a microphone-assisted thunk.

The me on-screen smiles awkwardly as the camera zooms in on my face.

"How did that get there?"

Me nods expectantly at the camera and it pulls back, and me walks past the image tableau.

"But over the years it seems that our friends across the Atlantic have grown to rather like the flavour of butyric acid, and the first rule of business is 'don't make it hard for people to give you money'. With that in mind-"

Me stops at a display, showing a standard Dairy Milk bar on a stand with Union Jacks and a similar bar on a stand next to it with Stars-Spangled Banners both on the packet and decorating the stand.

"-we've created this new bar-"

Me reaches down, hesitates to touch the transatlantic chocolate, opts to put a white glove on his right hand and only then picks up the Americanised bar to display it to the zoomed-in camera.

"-to appeal specifically to the American pallet. Such as it is."

Me looks exceedingly awkwardly at the bar, then raises an eyebrow at looks back at the camera.

"And we won't judge you at all for preferring it." … "Externally." Me looks a little sad. "Internally? We're judging you. We're judging you a lot."

The closing image uses the decoration on the American display box as the background, with the actual open box as the central focus.

"Cadbury's Dairy Milk America." There's a sound of me sighing. "If you really must."

The image freezes, and my colleagues continue to gape.

M'gann's head is the first to turn back to me. "Ah? What was that?"

Wallace shakes his head. "You putting that on T.V., Oh El? Like..? For real?"

"Yep."

"'cause if you run to the T.V. company's offices real fast they might give you your money back."

Robert looks around the seating. "I thought it was alright?"

Oliver raises his hands. "Save your final judgements to the end. There's still three more to go."