Okay, so this isn't exactly a Subreality story... but there is a connection. ;) It's a "Year One" story about my Muse, the Captain, at the start of her... tenure with me. The background of the Muses, including their hierarchy and departments, was developed in various SCRRs including TAPSLAUGHT and Operation: Ultimate Writer.

Disclaimer: Everything copyrighted belongs to their copyright holders, what isn't could belong to me.

Rated PG for a swear word.

Bright blue eyes glinted in the dim room, reflecting the pale light of the moon. It was always night here, she discovered recently. Her new Writer had said, rather apologetically, that she always wrote better at night. And so in Yasmin's Library of Ideas, the repository of her story ideas and unfinished works, the hands of the clock permanently rested at the midnight.

The Captain batted away at the gauzy curtain, which had been blown by a cool wind into her face. She felt like an intruder in the Library, unsure of herself. No, not unsure of herself, she corrected mentally. Unsure of her new "status" as a fanfic Muse. Another Muse had walked on the thick carpeting of the library before her, and touched the leather-bound volumes arranged on the wooden shelves.

There was a huge carved table in the middle of the room. A large candle, looking as if it had grafted itself onto the bronze candlestick, lit up at her approach. The tall chair that complemented the table was more comfortable than it looked, much to her gratitude. She sat, straight-backed, glancing up.

Her eyes widened.

Windchimes. There were windchimes hanging from the ceiling of the library.

"How odd," she murmured. Her new Writer was not as eccentric as some of her past Writers, but judging from her predecessor's fate she would do well to watch herself. As a Muse she was practically immortal, but even an immortal could be... severely inconvenienced.

Yasmin's mindscape matched its owner well -- the love of books evidenced in the Library of Ideas, the slight whimsy incarnated in a plush raven perching atop an obviously plastic skull. The Captain once had a Writer whose equivalent to the Library was a WWII battlefield, desolate and empty until he wrote his imaginary battles.

Of all the Writers she ever had, he was her favourite. She missed running with him as the battles he wrote played in his head, missed the smile of acknowledgement he would toss her way as they dove down yet another trench. She missed the sounds of war, missed the spark of... mortality? that burned in her as she dodged enemy fire, feeling her instincts take over as she fought. Is there an afterlife? Is she died, she wondered, would she see him again?

She would never feel anything like it again, at least not for a few centuries if she was lucky.

Her fists clenched. Centuries of inspiration for war writers, flushed down the toilet. She had seen the Trojan War in the mind of a poet, experienced the freedom and fear of a pilot in the Great War. She had crawled on a jungle floor once, feeling the cynicism and regret of a Writer old before his time.

All this, gone because she had hurt the pride of the Queen of Muses, Calliope, Her Royal Highness the Bitch.

The Captain was good at her job. The transfer to the Fan Fiction Department was nothing less than a deliberate insult. She had been assured that there were compensations, including some strange place called Subreality Cafe, but to be assigned to a Writer who could not write an action scene to save her life...

She looked up at the windchimes again. This was her life now, caring for a musty library full of books and windchimes. The aforementioned objects tinkled slightly, drawing her curiousity.

"What do you do?" she asked softly, chuckling when no answer was forthcoming. "Of course you can't answer."

The Muse rose from her seat, the strength inherent in her muscled body giving her a grace far different from many of her colleagues. She regarding the metal-and-glass arrangements for a while, her posture as unyielding as her stubborn eyes.

"I don't like flying," she thought out loud, feeling slightly annoyed. "Hovering, yes, but flying? I prefer walking." The windchimes tinkled again, as if to encourage her.

Suppressing a sigh, she concentrated until her outstretched hand could reach a windchime. After a slight hesitation, she touched it.

Amidst the clear, high sounds, amorphous images coalesced around the Muse. They solidified as the song reached a crescendo, into scenes alive with colours and emotions.

She saw a red-skinned girl, armoured against a cruel world. An apple lay at her feet, and she made no attempt to touch it as she cried without a sound.

She saw a boy -- almost a man -- dressed in black, face scarred by a power he had never asked for. She saw him watch a blonde girl with longing, retreating further into himself.

She saw a sky full of stars, watching over the girl and the boy. The girl was smiling now, talking animatedly. She watched as the boy's eyes gleamed with amusement, "heard" his psionic laughter.

She saw them, now older, walking hand-in-hand. The girl was no longer trapped in a diamond-hard skin, the boy no longer hating himself so much.

She saw them part without another word, sharp pain tainting the air.

She saw a bouquet of wildflowers, thrown into the air. The bride laughed, red hair bright in the sunlight as she looked up into the dark eyes of her newly-wed husband.

She gasped.

The images faded, though silvery sparkles seemed to hang in the air seconds after they disappeared.

"Athene," she whispered, nearly falling to her knees as she landed on the floor with a thump. "You're unwritten ideas!" she realized, staring at the windchimes. "So the books in the library... they're unfinished stories? Oh, Yasmin," she said, shaking her head, "You should have told me before I had that dumped in my head."

The Captain leaned against the table, studying the other windchimes. "I wonder what ideas you may hold," she said to a particularly colourful windchime. "Something that would get my Writer flamed, no doubt."

Hmm...

"Maybe I should check out this Subreality Cafe the boss lady was ranting about," she muttered. "And get Yasmin to lower down the ceiling."

Maybe this assignment wasn't as ornery as she had thought.

"Goodbye!" she called out, opening a portal that would take her to Subreality. "I'll be in again soon."

The windchimes tinkled their farewell.

THE END