Pipsiveya - Voiced over, "Did you know that everything comes and goes ? Lives and places. People and things. Again they come back. And again gone again. We all come and go, but some things remain the same."
A huge cloaked figure walks through, a smaller cloaked on his shoulder with a pumpkin bucket.
Pipsiveya - From the shoulder, "I'm a queen, okay ? I have things to do. I don't know why you don't ... my people need our weapons replaced and we need to refortify a new location and it's also the harvest."
Bus Driver - "You're a child. You need to be a child."
She looks around a moment, then pulls a radio from the bucket.
Pipsiveya - "Jean ? Is everything ..."
Jean D'Arc - On the radio, "Have fun Pip !"
The radio cuts out and she throws it back into the bucket.
Bus Driver - "A child today."
They walk into the decorating marketplace ~
Decorations are hung, the visitors in their Ren-fest best masquerade, Day of the Dead parades march through in small gatherings, wine poured on dancers who spin into the crowds.
The stilt walkers watch over all with their scopes, some painted some indignant. Ships at the docks are met with cheers, crates unloaded for celebration.
Inside the shops the keeps prepare for the night, their various ways, marked with the passage of Pipsiveya and the Bus Driver as they walk through it all, last entering a clothier.
An Amazon watches from the rooftop.
________
The keeper closes her book from watching them within, watching as the Amazons skitter rooftop to rooftop patrolling and signalling to the stilt walkers, who keep an eye.
She considers a moment, her attendants waiting. Smiling she rises, walking through to the courtyard. She breathes the air with her face to the sun.
She
dances clutching the book and spinning joyously, occasionally opening
the book to read a passage with joy as though it were a personal love letter to
her alone.
Closes the book holding it tightly, returns to spinning
dance.
Wind dragons and attendants spin and curl with the wind from the pages,
twisting to gusts with her dance. She opens and reads, closes holding
the book close spinning with a deeply touched smile, filling the field
with fantasy.
________
They exit the costumier, under cloaks Pipsiveya dressed as Wonder Woman
and the bus driver as a bandit with stripey shirt and mask.
Bus Driver - "Now ..." He looks around with suspicion, "... who's got the candy around here ..."
Pipsiveya
- "You know you don't have to keep doing this. We know it wasn't you.
We always knew that. The mourning is passed. You're free."
Bus Driver - Looking around for candy ... "I do. I do have to do this."
Pipsiveya - "Who are you ... ? I mean before. Who were you ?"
Bus Driver - "I was ... I drove a bus. That's all."
Pipsiveya - "And also the only person who refuses to acknowledge my crown."
Bus Driver - "I'm an anarchist."
They pass Apex and Nemesis at an outdoor cafe, Apex holding high his drink.
Apex - "To you."
Nemesis - "To ..."
Lucretia - On comm, "Nemesis !"
They wince their eyes ...
Lucretia - On comm, "Apex !"
Nemesis and Apex - Into comm, "Yes ..."
____
Lucretia
- Looking over the map in her tree, a pulled out to a view of Earth,
The Skullsteroid approaching, "We have a situation."
