Beyond the Veil... [Random]

ooc: I'd appreciate it if any of my previous challengers would hold off on this one. I want to test out my muscles on some fresh meat.

***

Pip was in a sore mood.

It was raining, which didn't help. He had taken shelter in an abandonned dog house - recently abandonned, for its previous occupant was now huddled under the porch, shooting him baleful looks with his watery brown eyes. Normally Pip would have been happy enough under the porch, but the dog had barked at him, ganshing its teeth; after a few disconcerted minutes spent as a rock, the dog now seemed content to voice his disapproval in looks alone.

From the relatively dry and warm interior of the dog house, Pip materialized a lit cigarette and took a few hearty puffs. He didn't cough, perhaps because the cowering dog was watching him so intently, but his eyes watered when little curls of smoke drifted out of his nose. He blew a few neat, boiling smoke rings and decided to feel better no matter the cost.

I'm an Imp, thought Pip. When was the last time I got up to some serious imping? It had been a while. Time existed for Pip as a patchwork of all the possible whens - he the lonely traveller, his path the one line he could judge by. Right now his was in the mid-eighties (the let's-get-physical and mullets-for-everyone approach to fashion were dead give aways), but tomorrow he might be anywhere, anywhen. His perspective was the only thing that gave him any sense of time as an arrow - and though very few beings realized it, he thought it was a pretty simple truth about the nature of the universe. Order and Chaos holding hands, you might say. The image made him smile.

Pip floated out of the dog house and said Dry. The falling rain then seemed to bounce of the air around him, creating an odd, misty-silver umbra as he rose in the air. When he was above the house, the dog ran out and began barking furiously. Pip raised an eyebrow. He pointed at the dog.

Cat the dog. Temporarily.

He didn't stay to watch the large, woofing dog shrink, turn orange, feel an overwhelming desire to chase itself and suffer the beginnings of what might turn out to be a nervous breakdown. He didn't enjoy suffering - but he didn't suffer fools, either. As an afterthought he added Sleep to the problems of the dog; a concilation prize, from which it might wake up only grateful it had all been a strange dream. Maybe.

Pip rose higher and higher, reveling in the suburban spread beneath him. It was all so similar - rows and rows of houses built exactly the same, as if the contractor had been offering a bulk discount to a homeless, hungry market. But here and there he could see flairs, flourishes - that window ringed in white mini-lights, that hedge turned topiary - which he found both sad and sweet. Difference in uniformity. It was a start, at least.

He went so high as to break through the belly of the clouds and come out on the veritable wonderland above them. All was gold and red, the tops of the clouds so soft and snug that Pip imagined just tucking himself in and taking a nap. He eyed the surface curiously and said Firm.

He hoped no planes were due by anytime soon.

Pip stood on the once intangible cloudscape and found the surface soft, spongey and ready to be run. He grinned.

After about an hour of acrobatics, he lay on his back regarding the sunset as no one on the ground would ever appreciate it. His verve was up, his earlier mood dispelled. He felt fiesty. An idea popped into his head - suddenly, as if dropped there accientally from the purse of the Divine. It made him smile, and he spoke the word without hesitation.

He said Come.

You feel a pull - a strange, tugging sensation that starts in your navel and spreads like chills throughout your body. It is not entirely unpleasant, but it makes you uneasy - when suddenly the world around you begins to fade, you know why. You are about to be plucked from your life and dragged into something you have no way of stopping. You feel surprised. And possibly just more than a little peeved.

Darkness takes you, admist the cries of surprise from anyone in your immediate vacinity, but it is not total, not complete. There is a speck of light, which soon becomes a dot, then a spot, then a splash - as you feel yourself pulled towards it, you watch a quiet beautiful cloudscape bloom into bright reality, and suddenly you are standing on that which should not be standable, in a realm which should not be real.

There is no one around. But you hear a giggle off to your right.

Aww, so no rematch/continuation of our battle yet?

Anyway, I'm kinda drowning in a math assignment right now whilst concurrently browsing the forums and looking at jaded reviews of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie, so I wouldn't be able to respond for a bit, andway.