All that time never truly seeing the things the way they were...

[moneymatters]

Scrooge walked away from the balcony room, shaking his head lightly and chuckling, faintly, to himself. What an interesting day this had turned out to be.

At a thought he glanced beside him, watching Louie out of the corner of one eye. When he figured they were far enough away from their other guests, he spoke.

"I never would've figured you for a romantic, lad. That seems more Huey's area than yours." A more defined chuckle. "No offense at tha', o'course."

Comments

[gobetween]

"Yeah, but you're like my brother, if I had one. It's different."

[talkyourwayout]

"Oh," Louie said softly. He gave Gobo a light and playful punch on the arm. "Hey... Thanks, man."

And maybe if Gobo could be open about those things... Yeah. Maybe it would be okay for Louie to open up to him now, too.

"So, I was talking to Unca Scrooge before - about how I don't usually feel like I know who I am, or who I want to be, anyway."

[gobetween]

He smiled at the gesture, and gave Louie a nudge with the back of his wrist in return. While he talked, Gobo finished the orange, then glanced at the peels, which he'd held onto. A bit of a shrug, then he started eating those, too.

"I don't know about Silly Creatures, but we Fraggles don't usually figure it out until we're older. Or at least, what job we wanna take. 'Til then, we're just encouraged to try anything and everything."

[talkyourwayout]

Just when he'd thought Fraggles couldn't get weirder. Louie shook his head, sighing a bit. "Well, Unca Scrooge said it would probably take me a while, too. But didn't it bother you? Not knowing? ...It bothers me."

[gobetween]

"I don't know if I'm the best comparison, considering it got picked for me. I know it bothered Wembley, though. You won't be surprised to learn it took him ages to find out who, or what, he wanted to be."

[talkyourwayout]

"Yeah, that's not exactly shocking," Louie agreed, setting to work peeling the orange he'd brought out. "It's kinda weird, though, because Dewey knows he's an adventurer already. Huey knows he's a nerd. I... I can't imagine either of them not being who they are."

[gobetween]

He watched Louie, his reply simple.

"I bet you they're not as confident with those as you think they are."

[talkyourwayout]

"Maybe, but..."

But man, the grass really did always seem greener on the other side. Louie shrugged as he trailed off, before passing the peels from his own orange over to Gobo.

[gobetween]

Gobo nodded his thanks as he took them, adding them to the rest of his that was left, as he ate on them.

"Did you know Red tried to be Mokey once?"

[talkyourwayout]

"Red... Tried to be Mokey?" Best friends though they were, you didn't find many Fraggles more different from one another. "Why?"

[gobetween]

"She was jealous. She'd been trying to get me or the others to do stuff with her, but all we were interested in was hanging out with Mokey, listening to her poems and stuff. Even the Trash Heap was seemingly hung up on Mokey, appreciating her art and such, and not listening to the problem. So, Red's solution was to just be Mokey. Everyone wanted to hang out with her, so obviously that'd be right, right?"

A short laugh, as he popped in another peel. "Not even close. Red's a pretty poor Mokey, and she learned that over the course of the day. But it helped her see why we appreciate her, and it helped her figure out her own self, too." He glanced at Louie. "We've all gone through times like that. I told you one of mine, that one was Red's, Boober has the whole Sidebottom problem, Mokey's lost her muse once or twice, and Wembley had a pretty bad time of juggling all our requests with what he wanted to do."

[talkyourwayout]

"I didn't realize that happened to all of you guys. It's really just that normal?" He scratched at his cheek, right along the side of his beak. While it was a bit of a weird blow to the ego to find out what felt like a big, strange problem was just part of life, apparently... It was more reassuring than anything else. "Huh."

Louie swung his legs back and forth, drumming on the space on the bench between himself and Gobo with his fingers. "What's a Sidebottom?"

[gobetween]

"It really is just that normal." He finished the last peel, and brushed his hands off.

"Sidebottom is the side of Boober that he keeps on the bottom, so to speak. He's like... this whole other different Boober, that actually likes parties and fun and jokes, and all that Fraggley stuff. We met him in a dream of Boober's once, and a couple other times since then."

[talkyourwayout]

"What do you mean, you met him in a dream? How did that even happen?" Louie asked. That was his main focus at this point, but his brain was quietly turning over his little discovery about identity, as well.

[gobetween]

He blinked, then laughed lightly. "Man there's a lot I haven't shown you, is there?" Smiling, he spread his hands. "Fraggles can share dreams, if we fall asleep with our heads touching, though every now and then we all get a mass shared dream for one reason or another even without that."

[talkyourwayout]

"That's so weird, though," Louie said, tugging at the sleeve of his hoodie absent-mindedly. "What if you do it accidentally? Can that happen? You don't feel strange, having someone literally get into your head?"

[gobetween]

"Accidentally? No, not really. We have to consciously decide to share dreams. The only thing that happens on its own is either the mass shared dream- which isn't even 'inside another's head' more like, a normal sort of dream that everybody has? Or nightmare... Or sometimes the odd singular Fraggle will have a dream about something that's currently going on."

[talkyourwayout]

"Huh... Well, that's not so bad, then. Does it happen with Fraggles and not-Fraggles, too?"

Look, he wasn't saying he was curious, but... Well. It sounded kinda interesting.

[gobetween]

Gobo looked at him a moment, tapping his chin. Then he smiled and shifted, motioning for Louie to do the same.

"Only one way to find out! Here, lay down until we can get our heads touching."

[talkyourwayout]

Louie blinked. Sure, he wasn't exactly surprised Gobo had called him out, so to speak, on being curious. It was just that...

"Gobo, it's still pretty early. I'm not even tired." Still, even as he spoke, he started to lie down.

[gobetween]

"Don't worry about that, just repeat after me. 'Dream a dream and see, what a dream can be.'" He settled down, moving a little until he could feel Louie's feathers against him.

[talkyourwayout]

"Alright, man, if you say so... Dream a dream and see, what a dream can be," Louie repeated - and it was beyond strange, how the feeling of sleepiness seemed to wash over him after that. It wasn't an unpleasant exhaustion, either, more like a cozy - albeit heavy - kind of tired. He couldn't keep his eyes open, and his mind started to go fuzzy until, just seconds later, he was out like a light.

[gobetween]

He felt the same sensation blanket around him, and he breathed out a sigh as he closed his eyes.

When he was aware of his surroundings again, so to speak, he found himself in a large cave with lightly glistening walls and several ledges and passageways. The main feature, though, was a large, round archway, too perfect to be natural though it looked very old. Through it ran a stream of impossible clarity, disappearing off somewhere into the cave system. Smiling to himself, Gobo walked over and sat beside the water, waiting.

[talkyourwayout]

They'd just been discussing the dream-sharing, yet the concept was so foreign - and the cave looked so Fraggle Rock-ish to him - that for a moment, Louie had to think on where he was and how he'd gotten there.

Once he collected himself, he walked over to stand just off to the side of, and behind, Gobo. "It's a nice place. I would have thought inside your head'd be messier."

[gobetween]

He laughed and nudged him with his elbow.

"Maybe! But I wanted to show you a specific place. This is the Everspring."