If I could visit the moon, well I'd dance on a moon beam but then? [Open]

[delightfulloony]

Drifting like a ghost through the eternal hustle and bustle of Santa's workshop a pale blond girl seemed simultaneously in shock and yet utterly serene as she gazed about at the color and life that filled every corner of the main work areas.

She sidestepped elves and slid around yeti as they went about their business, greeting many of them by name before coming to her final stop. The moon window nook.

She'd discovered this place not long after she was rescued from the evil witches that had been enchanting children with a siren song. Among the children taken captive it was discovered she was like many of the visitors to this shop, from another world.

And so she was briefed on the situation and left to her own devices. A bit of an odd one even by the standards of this place she seemed perfectly content to watch and listen and help herself to what she needed unless there was someone nearby she could politely ask.

It was in this fashion she claimed this corner of the workshop as her own. It was a nook with large clear windows framing it that looked out over the frozen land below and the glowing face of the moon above. The Northern Lights danced beautifully along the sky making it a very peaceful place in an otherwise busy shop.

Today she had a stack of books resting on the ground next to the built in bench and it's many cushions. Some fresh hot chocolate steams on a small table nearby along with a plate of fresh baked sugar cookies.

Wrapped in a warm knit sweater with a picture of a rabbit on it she made herself comfortable and smiled at someone passing by greeting them in her soft dreamy voice.

"Hello. Are you looking for something?"

Comments

[coolcoolcool]

"The books make you all out to be sympathetic. A lot of it is from Harry's point of view and he's grateful to have you all helping him." It was a strange thing being fiction-yet-not-fictional, something that could be easily uncomfortable. In some ways, it was reassuring to him, because he'd always suspected that out there, somewhere, his life was a TV show. But it was a little alarming and strange, too. He looked at the floor, blinking a few times. "You're all important. You matter. More than most people do in most stories." Even more than he did. Or Jeff did. Or any of his friends did. They were all equally important to their particular narrative but a sitcom wasn't a fantasy adventure book. The fate of the world wasn't on the line - just sometimes the fate of the school.

[delightfulloony]

It was very comforting to hear and she didn't show it much but it relaxed her some. She was still eager to read it for herself but there would be less apprehension hidden behind her placid expression as she did. The last part of his explanation caught her attention though.

"Everyone is important in their own story. It's just a matter of who's story you're reading." She reasoned thinking back to long nights of discussion in the Ravenclaw tower of heady topics like these.

"And all stories are important in their own way. That's why we are here after all."

[coolcoolcool]

"No, not really. All people are important, at least in that they're important enough to exist. But some people don't have stories, they just have a string of random events that don't really culminate in a coherent narrative. And some people that have narratives don't have important ones. Take one of the standard ones for instance: Someone grows up in a small town, marries their high school sweetheart, has kids, buys a convertible during a midlife crisis, gets divorced, meets someone else and gets second lease on life, gets remarried, and dies surrounded by their loved ones. It's still a story but it's not really that inspired." He pointed at her. "But you're part of a story about saving the world," he said, going slightly wide-eyed, his voice getting suitably dramatic. "It affects thousands, millions, even billions. The ramifications of having You-Know-Who take over the Wizarding World would be catastrophic since it'd hurt all wizards and leave him poised to harm people who don't even know wizards exist, completely unchecked, since they don't know the threat is even there. The Death Eaters could do things like transfigure major water supplies into poison or imperious people in charge of nuclear warheads to start nuclear armageddon." He nodded at her. "Scale matters. Even if the part you individually have is small, if it's part of something greater your actions mean something more and that story means something more, too. Before this, I was part of an ensemble cast who did save the school from getting blown up once but mostly we just mattered to each other. Which isn't bad and is special in its own way but it's still not the same as being important." He went on, "My small story wasn't important but it mattered because it affected who I am. And now that I'm in a story with this kind of scale that means I have a better chance of helping when it is something important. Small stories matter but they're not important, they just make people ready for things that are important via character growth."

[delightfulloony]

Despite her usual unflappable nature Luna couldn't help but feel her cheeks grow pink when he expressed the sheer scale of the adventure she was destined to complete some day and she nodded encouragingly as he explained to her how he saw the situation at hand. It made sense though she felt even in the end he was under selling himself. Either way this was all abstract so there was no right or wrong answer.

"What if perhaps we thought of it like poetry?" She offered. "There are rules of course in both narrative and poetry, but there are some forms of poetry that defy those rules and still are considered to be poems. So would your random events be considered an abstract or unconventional form of storyline?" Something new and different, not fully understood but worth exploring.

As for the rest of it she smiled. "Whatever character growth you are approaching, I'm sure it will be interesting. I've been in this place for months just watching and there is no one quite like you. That is important I think." Either in the process of understanding the grand scheme of things, or at the very least providing something interesting.

[coolcoolcool]

"I hadn't thought of that," Abed said at mention of poetry, tilting his head thoughtfully. "Although I'm a lot more into visual media. But I hadn't considered avante garde film. You may have a point. I may have to start filming myself to see if there are any interesting narrative patterns." But wait, what? What did she mean by that? That there was no one quite like him? He was used to that reaction but it usually wasn't worded in a positive way. Either it was something sincere (Arc words! Like "I see your value now.") Or she was being sarcastic. "When you say there's no one like me do you mean that in a nice way or do you mean that in a 'you should be shoved in a locker' kind of way? I'm bad at reading faces. Your mouth is making a shape but I can't tell if it means you're smiling or if you're grimacing." He added, "Or if you're hungry." She didn't seem the type to mean it in a hostile way, given her characterization in the books, but it was always hard to tell for sure and he had to account for people not always being identical to the vision of the people that wrote their stories.

[delightfulloony]

In his defense, Luna's placid expressions were hard to read for normal people.

"I meant it in a positive way. Unless you enjoy being shoved into a locker. Some people find small spaces comforting."

And really shouldn't they all be more comfortable while trying to save the universe?

"You already know that I stick out among the people I live with." She added "So perhaps we can stick out together." That would be nice wouldn't it? More strange friends that accepted her in exchange for her acceptance. A very balanced relationship between unbalanced people.

[coolcoolcool]

He considered it, then pointed at her. "Two outlandish misfits with our heads in the clouds, on the outside looking in at the normal people, finding solidarity in the fact no one else understands us. A slight cliche, but some things are a classic for a reason." He paused for a minute, considered, then said, "What the hell. I'm in." He sat down next to her on the windowsill and looked outside at the aurora, picking up and munching on a sugar cookie. "You don't have movies in the magical world, do you, just the Wizarding Wireless. I should show you some muggle movies. You like fictional animals that might possibly be real, right? I bet you'd like Avatar." He paused, then corrected, "The James Cameron movie not the Avatar movie that stole an hour and a half of my life and did the cinematic equivalent of stabbing me repeatedly in the face." A pause. "The whole time I watched that movie, I could almost see it dancing over the corpse of the beloved animated TV show it murdered, to the eldritch chanting of M. Night Shyamalan's yes-men."

[delightfulloony]

Movies. Ah yes she had read about those.

"I've never seen a movie before. Do we have those things here? The Avatar and not the one that made you dwell upon the unending march of time as well as your attachment to the animated TV show?"

It would be very unfortunate if he was driven into depression by accidentally viewing it a second time.

"The way you speak about him, it sounds like M. Night Shayamalan might be related to the forces of darkness we're here to oppose."

[coolcoolcool]

"Yes," Abed said, completely serious. "Yes, he is. The only way to explain directing that horrible is if he's creating bad movies to serve some sort of dark master." He added, "There are lots of movies here. And a big screen TV. And lots of TV shows. They even have their own version of Inspector Spacetime." Which had over twenty years of canon for him to catch up on. Paradise.

[delightfulloony]

"An inspector of space a time?"

Sounded fascinating.

"I've never watched much TV either. We mostly read at home and of course you can't have those things at Hogwarts. It would be interesting to see how other people enjoy it." She looked far and away as she sipped her hot chocolate once more.

"And if people from those shows can end up here...it's a little bit like studying for future tests and things isn't it? We may be fighting alongside some of the same characters from fiction we read or watch."

[coolcoolcool]

"Inspector Spacetime is the version from my world. The version from this world is called Doctor who. You should watch it with me some time. It's about a time-traveling immortal alien called the Doctor who travels through time and space on adventures where he typically saves people from evil aliens or sometimes saves humanity from itself. He takes companions everywhere with him that are meant to be audience surrogates to show them all the wonders and oddities of the universe." Good stuff. "And you're right about watching things. I plan on watching and reading everything that our enemies are from and everything that all of us star in so I know what our enemies know since they can watch it all, too. That way I'll know what they know about us."

[delightfulloony]

"You'll have all the information you need to craft a clever plan to counter their clever plan to counter our clever plans." She reasoned unintentionally indicating a Xanatos gambit. This was all very exciting and she beamed at him.

"I think you'd make an excellent wizard given the chance."

[coolcoolcool]

Abed could only stare at her for a moment. "That's the best thing anyone's ever said to me." Hands down. No one had ever said anything better. Ever. "Do you want to come watch Doctor Who with me? We should kick the start of this friendship off with a TV marathon of some kind."

[delightfulloony]

There was a nod and Luna rose to her feet with the fluid grace of someone not quite of this world. A warm smile and she gathered up the plate of cookies.

"I would love to. I can't think of a better way to celebrate a new friend of such uniqueness. It's perfect."

Because in the book of Luna Lovegood which resembled a glitter covered multicolored notebook with aliens on it, uniqueness was one of the most important things in the world. Congratulations Abed you take the gold even while surrounded by elves and yeti.