Carabas

Hellblazer, I/Constantine had been working with this teenage girl in the previous scene; now she's gone alone to a hospital to see her kid brother. He's in a ward with a lot of beds, and he's kneeling up on the end of his bed to talk to her. He's saying, "Is it possible that Grace is only after Constantine?" Grace is a surname - the Grace in question is a middle-aged man. And when the kid says Constantine, 'uncle' is implied. "Because he's not exactly a... us anymore." 'Us' meaning a person, a human being. I'd made one deal too many. Which has made it possible for me to be summoned up and controlled, used as a tool - that's what they suspect Grace is after.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

After an unsuccessful night looking for blood, I have to rely on Elsa, a sort of servant. Last resort. We use transfusion tubes to draw out the blood, to avoid any unwanted side effects on her, and I alter her mind to make it pleasant for her. I compliment her on the quality, she's changed her diet since the last time we had to do this. I'm speaking German-accented English.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I'm climbing up a stairwell, climbing up through years. As I pass the platform that will lead to the 1990s, getting close to home, I hear voices up ahead. I come across a man and a woman leaning against the wall; the woman's saying, "No, it's 203. They changed the calendar - finally. I was starting to lose track."

Further up, another group having a conversation, talking about the cracks in the walls. A woman's saying, "They're glitching so bad a man could get in."

I reach my door, present day. But just beside my door, the cracks in the walls are so severe that they've formed a sort of second door - I think I could walk right through. The black sort of skittering motion that appears in all the cracks is more visible here. But the scene just before I entered the stairwell had involved accidentally intruding in a place where I shouldn't be, disrespectfully, and trying to make up for that. I decide against stepping through the cracks. I take the door to the present day.

I step out into what's meant to be an apartment where I live, distorted in a sort of cartoonish representation of hallucination, like you might see in an old music video; it seems to be underwater. Then my field of vision pulls back - now I'm looking at a screen containing an image of this room. It's labeled as a game preview. I'm aware that if I'd stepped through the cracks, the scene still wouldn't have lasted for much longer, since this is only a preview - but that's where the real storyline would begin.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

I've taken my clockwork heart out of my chest to work on it. I have a mental association with the Snow Queen. I'm in my workshop, full of various clockwork devices, and I'm carrying on a conversation with my apprentice. The image changes to show the subject of our conversation - a bird whose flight over the desert is taking it over a pair of dark horses at the moment. I'm saying, "It doesn't matter if the bird is clockwork or flesh and blood." Either way, it'll fly the same repetitive pattern every year.

I'm walking in a garden with a young woman who's essentially an adopted daughter for legal purposes, but I think of her more as a student. I've just brought a woman into the household after finally convincing her to leave the increasingly dangerous situation in her own territory, and I'm explaining to my 'daughter' why this woman won't be staying in the women's quarters with her other two 'mothers' - two women who are legally my wives but who I've never had any kind of relationship with, sexual or otherwise; I just needed a legal way to allow them to stay in this household. She'll be relaying what I say to the other women, I'm aware.

I'm explaining that this third wife's faith compels her to spend her days in isolation until the (some word that means evening prayers - the point is that this story will explain why she's never seen in daylight). It's a custom that's not uncommon among her people, I claim. I'm thinking that the way religions dominate this place and time is as convenient as it is inconvenient.

The daughter finds this ridiculous, but she won't question that faith is the reason for it. She's not pleased with the situation in general though. I'm telling her that although this third wife won't be living in the women's quarters, nonetheless you must treat her as another mother - in other words, though she's new to the household she outranks the daughter. This is apparently the last straw for her - she says, "Oh, I am in the mountains of madness!"

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

As Rumpelstiltskin, I've been watching without saying anything while Belle had a sort of confrontation with a woman I'd been working with. I've got plans involving this woman, and Belle knows them, and she's just made it clear she won't be standing with me in this. She's leaving now, and as she turns away my perception changes - I see the three of us as we were in the other world. Seeing her like this, Belle's wearing this white hooded cloak lined in fur, a symbol of the Snow Queen. Several reactions to that - first, a sort of bitter sense of humor that of course the wife of the Dark One could only be the Snow Queen. But I also think of this as a reminder that she's not to be taken lightly.

However, the woman I'd been working with has just asked something to the effect of 'who are you,' and Belle's response is, "I'm the maid." This is, again, a way of stating that she's not my partner in this situation, she's not on my side; but it's also a rejection of the way I'm seeing her right now. By choosing to define herself as a maid rather than a queen, it should be as if she's giving up power, but instead I think of this as power that I admire - her ability to choose her own path and demand that others see her as she chooses.

(Woke up. Back to sleep.)

There's this massive tower of ice - a cylinder reaching up into the sky and down to the earth as far as I can see as I float in front of it, intensely detailed jagged edges much like a frozen waterfall. I/Rumpelstiltskin see an image of Belle standing with one arm raised as if she's holding something up, associated with this pillar, and I'm convinced the role of the queen is a burden she took on because of me - or if not because of me directly, it's a situation she wouldn't have been put in if it hadn't been for my involvement. I hate knowing that this will continue to affect her even in the other world.