“We’ll keep an eye out on them from a distance for now. See what unfolds.”
“Yes, Ms. Tanner,” the male officers around her emitted in quasi-unity. Servants they were. To her but ultimately…
… to Ingo himself. Ingo Ratts.
“They’ll be marching to a different drummer soon.”
“Yes, Ms. Tanner.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0208, Apple's Orchard, Jeogeot, NWES Island
It’s a strange place for certain. And big! It *could* work — that’s why he’s here. Especially given that he’s just found his long sought for All Orange. I started to write “seemingly”, but, no, he’s found it. The Rose but also The Thorn.
“I’ll *make* it work,” he says aloud to no one in particular. “I have motivation now. But where to next?”
There was a simple answer. Home. Just in the back there.
I must do something with the place, he ruminates when entering. Especially since he has a bonafide assistant now. Joy!
—–
“Soooo. Herbert Dune — that’s his name?”
“Yes,” answers Baker Bloch to Hucka Doobie. They’re back!
“He’s in one part of Apple’s Orchard. And his girlfriend — *assistant* — is in another part, more to the north. South and north.”
“That’s our limits (!) For the present.”
—–
Meanwhile, in the Faux Rhino Club across this sim, Breeze, reverted to plain ol’ Merry Gouldbusk for the afternoon at least, had just heard out Herbert Gold’s profession of love for her. Two in two days! she thought to herself. When a woman is in demand, she’s in demand! “H-how did you find me?” she asked innocently. She knew the larger answer to that. Destined couples have a way of getting together, no matter how the surface odds are stacked against them. But she has Herbert Dune now. Confusion! Good confusion, though. She is wanted! And… another *Herbert*. What’s with that?
“It was your last letter to me,” he explained. “About half a year back. You mentioned NWES — New WES I think you called it at the time.”
“That’s right. I remember. I said I wanted a change, a new life. Ingo can run Rosehaven by himself now. It’s *his* kingdom, yes.”
“As opposed to your queendom.” He looked her over good. “Soooo…”
—-
“And he basically asked her flat out if she had decided on a sex for herself. He’d touched her in two places before; knew there was some mixed up boy-girl confusion going on up here… and down here.” Hucka Doobie was fondling the appropriate places on her body.
“I know what you’re talking about, Hucka Doobie. No need for the grabbing and such. Welll?”
“All of a sudden,” the bee-person continued, “she didn’t know again. It’s when she first laid eyes on Herbert, walking down the street beside her apartment on 108 Rib Lane.”
“Actually, I think it’s Serpent Avenue.”
“Whatever,” Hucka Doobie quickly followed. “But the skin came back, the *mask* came back. She was all glinty goldeny again, much to her dismay. She thought it was over and that she had found true home. Home with Herbert. But there was *another* Herbert to deal with.”
“Maybe *he* should just steal her golden skin. His last name is Gold, after all. And — what about April Mae? Is she left behind forever down at West End in, where was it, the Irish Village in that Fi sim?”
“Well… the 4th had to be reached. Rubedo. End of Work.”
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0207, Apple's Orchard, Jeogeot, NWES Island
Is the window open…
or closed?
—–
She closed the window, satisfied that the smell was coming from the other direction.
She faced the opposite way.
Better get downstairs.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0204, Apple's Orchard, Jeogeot, NWES Island
“This will be the time that does him in. He will have to go there *physically* after that. Only way to really explore the place, this Necksity. He has gone too far, found too many things. He can now…”
“Don’t say it.”
“Anyway. (pause) This is the place.”
—–
“Nah. It’s not *that* kind of neck pain. It’s a bit of an infection, yes, but…”
“Don’t say it.”
“*Anyway*. This is still the place. But it’s not Necksity. *That* Necksity.”
“Then *what*?”
—–
“A limit, yes. A limit, true. We are not even baker b. and Hucka D. any longer. New WES is WES but not WES. Something new.”
Quickly: “I gathered that.”
“Two shacks in the center of town.”
“Yup.”
(pause) “We can’t be just nowhere spirits, talking in the void. Take us to at least the White Palace.”
“Yes, *somewhere*,” requests the other. But who were they? I guess that’s the point. So I brought him back.
—–
“What are you *doing* here. We have a whole *kingdom* to run over there.”
“Queendom,” she partially corrected her brother. He was drinking through his rainbow sphere covered head again. She thought nothing of it, seeing the act for years. Eating, drinking, even, well, other things. Smoking. A lot of smoking. This was another Joint Joint and that’s a fact. Beside the Rhino Club, even. “It *has* to be Gaston reborn as well,” she spoke on the subject. Dare they go into the other room? Will *he* be there? They kept delaying, chatting about other things. Catching up in general. It had been months since the two siblings had seen each other. All was not well in Rosehaven. Winter is coming.
“You go running off here and there,” the brother kept complaining. “To Sunklands… to *here*. Why Jeogeot? Why return back to that particular continent? Is it Pietmond?” he then queried. “Sunklands as a whole?” But he said it as if all the letters were capitalized. SUNKLANDS, then.
“SUNKLANDS, yes,” his sister then realized. That’s why she’d redonned the golden map mask. Bach… Goldberg Variations. Is this a *gold* town, then? Or some other metal. One way to find out…
—–
“Ok, he’s not here,” says a mainly relieved Ingo, King of Rosehaven. But a shared kingdom. Half queendom. They joked about the name all the time. Before she started her travels at least.
“No,” she stated plainly, not as relieved, and looked around the back room of the joint. A place to buy drugs, yes. Better get her brother out of here asap.
But someone *was* here.
*But*. Could they see him? Could *we* see him? (yes)
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0203, Apple's Orchard, Jeogeot, NWES Island
She stared across the road at them; they stared back.
The Owl and the Rhino.
She had acquired a name for the town: Necksity. After a neck. Someone’s neck. Wonder who?
She had to make another purchase in town to find out. She was a *spy*. Excitement!
There was a strange smell to the place. She opened a window in back for air. Vacant lot behind.
A lift directly behind the rowhouse just rented that goes down to nowhere. Just grass beneath here. The megaburg is still being built in its various levels; a work in progress.
Better get the little devils over. Another town for them to take, um, down.
—–
But turns out the correct group to rez objects could not be joined tonight. Frustration. Her neck began to hurt, and not for the last time.
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0202, Apple's Orchard, Jeogeot, NWES Island
“It’s the first megaburg on the (Jeogeot) continent since WES, reportedly. And they’re trying to bring back at least *sections* of the old into the new. Red is there, for example. Red shirt; red head.”
“Merry Gouldbusk, then.”
“Um. Sure. But in this incarnation she likes to go by Breeze.”
“What incarnation? (pause) And what *sex* is she?”
“Answer me!”
“If you touch one place I am a man. If another: a woman. It is as yet undecided, then.”
“Thank you for answering me, er, Breeze.”
“You’re welcome.” *click*
Filed under **VIRTUAL SL, 0016, 0201, Apple's Orchard, Jeogeot, Marwood, NWES Island
Sunklands 