Meeting of the Muses
by Julia H.
"This here meeting will now come to order." The old rabbit banged a gavel on the desk.
No one even listened. After all, these were muses. They were used to be listened to -- not listening.
"NO!" Rocky threw his little black paws up in the air in a gesture of frustration. "You CAN'T make Andros a Christmas elf in a story! Andros don't do elves!" The creature whirled and pointed at a small firelizard. "And no smart-mouth comments from you, Sulpher, about my use of the word 'do'."
The firelizard shrugged. "Who me?" It blinked innocent eyes, while grinning wickedly.
Tim, a small, yellow, Australian dragon looked perplexed. "I think I missed that?"
Sulpher's grin widened.
"Doesn't he deserve to be happy?" Mason, a small blue dragon hopped up on the table next to Rocky. "Why do people always have to write gloomy, doomy, broody, moody stories?"
Asbestos, a larger red dragon, snorted a small cloud of smoke in amusement. "That sounds like a country song, Mason."
"Could be." Mason grinned at his dragon bud. He elbowed Tim. "Ready?"
"Hey," the three dragons began to croon in badly off-pitch voices, "won't you play another somebody done somebody wrong song....."
"Excuse me-" The rabbit once again tried to bring the meeting to order.
"There is nothing wrong with some angst in stories, dragon." A large wolf blinked wise eyes at Mason.
"Uh oh...," Asbestos sighed. "NOW you've done it, Windsplitter!"
"I am SO sick of angst!" Mason paced the length of the table. "Why can't people write happy once in a while? WHY?!" Not waiting for an answer, he continued. "Because we don't tell them to!"
"I never told Tails to write anything with angst in it, Mason." Quest shook his mane and stomped. "If anything, she writes wacky."
"Wacky is good," Rocky said with a nod. He made a face at Windsplitter.
"Mason," Asby gently took hold of his smaller friend's shoulder. "The angst writer's muses aren't here tonight. You're preaching to the choir."
"Oh." Mason gave a sheepish grin. "Sorry."
The rabbit in the front hopped up on the table. "CAN I PLEASE HAVE YOUR ATTENTION!!!!"
"Okay already." Rocky sat down, eyes wide. "Sheesh, what got into old Vel there tonight?"
"This meeting of the muses will now come to order!" Vel smoothed the white front of its coat down with shaking hands. "We DO have some business to attend to, you know!"
The muses all sat quietly, several looking at the rabbit with sheepish grins.
"Who's missing?" Putting on a pair of spectacles, the rabbit peered out into the crowd. "Einstein, would you mind taking the roll call?"
The stuffed bear jumped up on the table and looked around. "Where's Willow's muse?"
"Still in Tahiti," Mason answered with a sigh. "Some muses have all the luck."
"Selma's?" Einstein looked around for the gaggle of small figures that bothered the writer.
"We tied 'em up and put them in the corner." Asby pointed. "They wouldn't shut up."
"I see." Einstein eyed the dragon with a cautious look. "Will you please release them for the meeting, Asbestos?"
"Do I have to?" Footsteps dragging, Asbestos walked over to the gagged and bound group of teens. "You all behave or Mason an' me will sell you to the gypsies!" He undid the duct tape and the ropes.
Lucas and Theresa looked as though they wanted to argue, but the other teens dragged them to a table before they could say a word.
"Ellen's muse again has chosen not to attend." Einstein shrugged.
"She won't let it out of the room it's locked in, is what I heard," Rocky muttered to everyone.
"And I thought Kristling was bad by making me live under the bed!"
"You live under the bed?" Quest gave the raccoon a look of pity.
"Hey, oatburner, at least my writer doesn't expect me to be a muse AND a dressage partner!" Rocky huffed. "You ever gonna learn to canter to the right for her?"
"Maybe." The horse swished its tail, ears going back. "I have a real life AND I'm a muse, which is more than enough, ya little rat."
"I'm a raccoon!" Rocky jumped up, only to be held back by Mason and Sulpher.
"ORDER!" Vel pounded the gavel on the table. "Rocky, sit down! Quest...." The rabbit sighed. "Don't bait him."
Quest blinked large brown eyes. "Who, me?"
Asby snorted, shooting the horse a smirk.
"We DO have a reason for meeting here tonight, muses!" Vel's ears twitched in irritation. "It seems that some of you, who shall remain unnamed," the rabbit gave a telling look at Asbestos, "haven't been fulfilling your musely duties lately."
"Hey!" Asby jumped up, shaking the room. "My writer's been sick!"
"Why don't you use that flame of yours to prod her into writing faster?" Windsplitter suggested with a sly smile.
Mason looked at his dragon buddy. "So THAT'S why you got flame!" The little dragon chuckled. "I don't have to flame MY writer to make him write."
"I DON'T FLAME HER!" Asbestos bellowed.
"Asby," Vel covered his ears. "Pipe down! You want to wake the humans?"
"Oopsie." Asbestos sat with a contrite look. "All I ever did was bash her upside the head once or twice to get her going."
"Works for me," Rocky quipped.
"My writer has to deal with a perfidious partner," Windsplitter said with a snap of her teeth.
Several of the muses dove for their pocket dictionaries, while others nodded.
Asbestos, reading over Mason's shoulder, suddenly nodded. "Yeah, Lou is that, isn't he?"
"The problem still remains that several of you have writers with half-written stories." Vel consulted a large book. "There are still over a million bazillion trillion stories left to be told, muses." The rabbit looked the group over sternly. "We have been charged with a serious duty! A sacred duty! Why I was the muse of such great writers as....."
"Oh good grief!" Sulpher grabbed a set of headphones and stuck them on his head as the rabbit droned on and on.
"...and in my day, we muses took our duty seriously. No jaunting all over the world looking for sunken treasure...." The rabbit looked pointedly at Mason and Asbestos. "Or trying to scare up money by selling cats to gypsies to go to some spicy concert!"
"That's The Spice Girls!" Mason huffed. He grinned. "Although Posh is pretty spicy-"
"My point is...." Vel ignored the blue dragon. "Get to work, muses!! Get those stories finished! The fans are getting impatient, and I'm getting heat from the upper echelons for our district."
"All right, all right!" Asbestos blew a ring of smoke. "I'll get her going if I have to deprive her of chocolate from now through Christmas."
A gasp rose from every muse present at the statement, as they looked at the red dragon with wide eyes.
Mason patted his buddies' shoulder and soothingly said, "No need to go to such dire lengths, Asby."
"That's not even funny!" Quest snorted. "My writer would never hear the end of it if you did that!"
"None of ours would," Rocky agreed. "Don't get desperate, Asby. Just make her watch a couple of good movies, play some music and give her ideas."
"Ideas....." Asbestos smacked his forehead. "NO WONDER she hasn't been writing! I forgot about giving ideas!"
Mason slumped down, shaking his head. "I can't believe....."
Theresa, Lucas and the rest of Selma's group stood. "Give her ideas and tell her to look our writer up, will ya?" With a puff, they disappeared.
"Dragon logic," Windsplitter said with a snort. "Look me up later, Asbestos. I'll give you some pointers about prodding your writer." With a howl, the wolf disappeared.
Rocky stalked over to where Asbestos sat. He pointed a little black paw at the much larger muse. "Asbestos Dragon, do you know how much heat your writer has been getting into because of you?"
"Hey," Mason shrugged, "my writer got more heat than that for putting up a Tommy/Kat site. She can handle it."
"Yeah, but I want to know what happens!" Rocky's scowl became a grin. "Tell her to finish it and send it asap." He gestured to the teddy bear. "Come on Tim and Einy, let's get back before Kris realizes we're missing." The trio disappeared.
"I have to go too. Tails expects me to be ready for practicing this Halloween dressage thing we're doing." Quest touched his nose to Asby's and Mason's noses before disappearing.
"Sulpher?" Mason tapped the firelizard's shoulder.
"Huh?" The small dragon-like creature pulled the headphones off its head. "Where'd everybody go?"
"Meeting is over, muse." Vel shook his head, sighing. "These younger muses...." He disappeared.
"Oh." Sulpher grinned. "Well, now that he's gone, you two wanna have some fun?"
"We're supposed to fulfill our musely duties," Asby sighed.
"Your writer is sleeping!" Sulpher waved a small hand. "Let's go do something!"
Mason grinned. "I know where there are some cats....."
"We could look for gypsies!" Asby grinned. "Let's go!" The three disappeared, laughing and cracking jokes as they headed for rural Kentucky.