TToLM&JJ Chapter 11: Louise's First Battle
In which Louise faces off against the mighty Lord Roberis.
Reminder of content notice: The Dust Realm Narratives is for mature audiences. This book involves graphic violence, terror, portrayals of anxiety and depression, and dialogue about romantic and sexual topics.
Louise decided that she had enough. She got up from her crouching position and walked into the open area. She stopped when she was a pace further ahead than Jeremiah. Then she said to Roberis, “I must say, you are an oppressive ruler. I feel very sorry for Desmond for all the trouble he has to put up with, so I’m gonna do something about it.”
“Who are YOU?” Roberis spat. His rainbow shimmers had ceased.
“I am Louise Maples, and I bear Jeremiah Jackalope. I do not understand all the implications of Bearing yet, but the mandates I have heard you proclaim do not sound fair to me. If it is possible to free Desmond from his Bearing, we should do that, before he becomes more miserable.”
“That would explain why your eyes look so funny!” Roberis said. “What can you possibly do to me? How would you stand for Desmond?”
Now Louise began to feel nervous. She reminded herself to keep her courage. “However I can,” she said with a wavering voice.
After a pause, Roberis laughed. He moved in a spiraling motion towards the ground and coiled up on the sand. When he stayed his attention on Louise again, he said to her, “You dare to stand up against a sira! Now, there is no way that you can best me, but I would love to see you try, so gimme your first blow!”
“Do you intend to take on Roberis on your own?” Jeremiah said to Louise. He looked very, very concerned about her.
“I may not be able to defeat him, but I want to see if I can endure him,” Louise said to Jeremiah, though she was still looking at Roberis. “You should know how invulnerable you and your friends are, Jeremiah. You all have survived all sorts of things. How? You just did. You just did anything you happened to do. Things like this…” Recalling how Desmond retrieved drawing materials from behind his back, Louise reached inside her coat and rummaged around the space between her coat and her shirt until she suddenly felt an item in her hand. She brought her hand back into view and found that it was the kind of item she had hoped she would pull out: a stick of dynamite. She could not help but grin as she placed her other hand into the space behind her coat on the other side of her body and brought out a match. She struck the match on the bottom of her shoe, lit the fuse on the dynamite, then threw the dynamite at Roberis’s confused face. The dynamite blew up right after it landed on his enormous snout.
At first, Louise was thrilled to see that her idea worked out like a charm. Then she saw, when the smoke cleared, that the dynamite blew the upper-front quarter of Roberis’s slender head into chunks. She had expected to see his head only get singed by the dynamite, like how Jeremiah or Heron or others like them weren’t actually blown up in their cartoons, only burnt, but the effect of her attack turned out to be far more realistic than she had anticipated it to be. Roberis’s snout was gone, with a crater of charred flesh with glowing veins in its place, and his once pearly eyes now looked gray. He began to make coughing and choking noises, and after a while, his entire body disintegrated into chalk-red mist and black particles of dust, which scattered in various directions in the air. Louise was horrified.
When Roberis’s body had dissipated entirely, Louise turned to look at her friends (Jeremiah had stood back), and the jaws of Desmond and Jeremiah had both dropped. Louise became sad and distressed. She stammered, “I… I didn’t think it would turn out like that. I didn’t mean to kill him with… with the dynamite. I-I thought he might be able to survive that.”
Jeremiah’s agape mouth curved into a big smile. “That was incredible!” he said to Louise ecstatically. “I have never seen a human do that before! Granted, I have only lived for about three years’ worth of time as of now, but I never knew that a human could produce something with that much force!” He jumped up high in the air with glee. “I KNEW I had found the right person ta help me take on Farmer Reaper!”
“Is… Is that so?” Louise asked.
“It is so!” Jeremiah said. “C’mon! We gotta tell Lady Titania about this!” Then he directed his attention to Desmond. “You can come along too, just so Roberis thinks twice before he messes with ya again.”
“That’s prudent,” Desmond said to Jeremiah.
“But there is one more thing I want to try,” Louise said.
“One more thing?” said Jeremiah.
“Yes. Do not be alarmed. Please stay right there.” After she said that, Louise walked over to the spot where Roberis was defeated. There, she brought out another stick of dynamite from her coat, stared at it for a while, nodded with an unsure look on her face, then lit the fuse with a new match. She dropped the ignited dynamite at her own feet. Jeremiah and Desmond were startled to see this, but before they could approach her or finish saying anything against her decision, the dynamite blew up.
When the smoke subsided, Louise still stood there. She was covered in dark grayness, save for her eyes, and her hair looked frazzled. She just kept still for a moment, then she looked over her body, and then she shook off her gray dust from the top of her head to the tips of her toes. When she was clean, she walked over to her two friends, who, once again, were astonished.
“...I know that looked reckless, but I also know I’m dreaming now, for sure, so that was worth the risk, in my opinion,” Louise said, when she noticed that her friends were speechless. She smiled. “I’ll say, that nearly knocked the wind out of me, but I figured I could withstand it, and I did. Now I’m ready to go see Lady Titania.”
“You don’t feel weakened?” Desmond asked Louise.
Louise shrugged. “I suppose I feel like I was just on a long run; a little short of breath and ‘worn out,’ if that makes sense. Besides that, I feel fine.”
Jeremiah resumed his ecstasy and held his hands up in the air. “I never heard of a human who could do the kinds of things ya can!” he said. “You have proven ya’self ta be an invaluable part of the mission, Louise!”
“In all seriousness,” Desmond said, “you’re lucky you happen to be just projected like I am, Louise. If you ever get slain in the Dust Realm in a projected state, your physical self wakes up, and nothing too serious follows, besides being low on self-force for a time. You can come back the following night. However, if you get slain in a taken state- that is, if your whole self is present and a Dustity kills you- your soul can end up in a very dark state that is very difficult to return from, and your self-force stays at a very low level until someone helps you recover. All the same, it is best to not act too reckless even in a projected state. Please do not place yourself in imminent danger like that ever again. Okay?”
“I will not do that kind of thing to myself again,” Louise affirmed.
The three friends, with Jeremiah at the lead, took off into the air, out of the high desert forest, and flew in one direction high in the air for a very long time. Eventually, they reached the Fae Forest and landed within it to walk to Titania’s meadow, where they saw the queen of the fairies, in all her warm-colored glory, hanging out with Raven, Grinny, Hermon, and Scrappy. The trio stood at the edge of the meadow and waited for Titania to notice them. In a little while, she did, and she motioned for them to come to her group, so they did, and the four greeted the three warmly.
“It’s about time you showed up!” Raven added. “That’s an odd look you’ve got, Louise, but I think I understand why you went with it. And is that Desmond Edison? The Head of Backgrounds and Painting? Wow! I had no idea you were associated with the Dust Realm!”
“Yes, I am,” Desmond said as if he was embarrassed; Titania was looking at him like she was suspicious of him.
Titania became gentle-faced again when Jeremiah got her attention and, excitedly, recounted his latest adventure with Louise, from the time he entered her soul-terrain until the time they flew away from the high desert, and by the time he was done with his story, the four who heard his story were all in awe. The four slowly gave their attention to Louise after Jeremiah finished his tale. Louise felt awkward.
“You actually vanquished the Handed Serpent?” Titania asked Louise. “And what is ‘dynamite?’ What did that do to him?”
“...It’s like a bomb,” Louise answered. “It is an explosive object. I blew up his face. And then he disintegrated. I did not intend to kill him, but at least he won’t give Desmond anymore trouble. Right?”
“To be clear,” Desmond said to Louise, “there is no way that a Human can actually destroy a Dustity. In general, very weak and young Dustities risk losing all of their memories and, thusly, starting their lives from scratch if they get vanquished, but older and stronger Dustities, especially siras, will simply regenerate their bodies in their own province after they suffer from a blow we humans would consider lethal. Roberis could have easily kept fighting you in the state he got in after you blew him up, but he opted to recreate himself instead. He’s rather proud of himself, see, and I could bet he felt embarrassed to experience such a powerful attack from a weak-seeming person like yourself.”
“So he is not actually dead and you still bear him?” Louise asked. Desmond solemnly nodded twice.
“And Roberis refuses to terminate Desmond’s Bearing,” Jeremiah said to Titania, “but I know who could help with that. Ya would also know. If you would approve of the arrangement, my lady, we could ease Desmond of one burden, and he could at least watch over the place where Louise works her day-job while Raven and Louise seek and free the bound souls. Whadaya think about that, m’ lady?”
Titania looked concerned. “I’m not sure. Let me try a tyuvem shift…” Titania emitted a golden glow and began to shrink. She began to melt into golden, glowing dust from the top of her head, and in a moment, she stopped shrinking and melting, and the golden dust that remained ran off the new body to reveal Gardena Rancher. Gardena looked up at Louise with a sunny smile.
“Louise, I am proud of you,” Gardena started. “You possess abilities that lie beyond my comprehension, and you seem to know how to wield them, so there is no need for me to train you. The guidance of the Dustity you bear and your human friends will suffice for anything else I can do for you, since time is of the essence.”
“Really?” Louise said, surprised.
Gardena nodded. “Jeremiah has found a great champion for us, and that champion is you. I hereby task you, on every night you can, to go forth and free the souls that have been bound by Oberon and his sympathizers in your region of the worlds. Jeremiah has spoken rightly in that your region is also going to need guardians to look after it as you embark on your quest, so here is what I am thinking: Raven, with her knowledge of fighting Dustities and her strength, should be the one who protects the place you call your studio. I have observed Raven and Grinny’s abilities, and they are certainly competent enough to perform that task. Desmond…” She turned her head to look at Desmond. “Do you happen to know how to free a soul from bondage?”
“Of course I do,” Desmond said, “and I have yearned to free my bound co-workers, but Roberis would rather mind his own business.”
“Very good,” Gardena said. “Louise can fulfill her duty sooner if you let her know everything she needs to know as she does it. Time is of the essence, and the sooner we hinder Farmer Rancher, the less trouble he can cause over time. We ought to weaken him before he can bind any more souls.”
“I understand, but Roberis would object to me traveling with Louise and Jeremiah Jackalope,” Desmond said.
Gardena stopped smiling and took a deep breath. “I figured that would be the case, and as much as it pains me this is so, the most efficient way to carry out our tasks would be to work with the Vessels of Dishonor. Your ties with Roberis must be severed before you can peacefully travel with Louise, and… If the count and the countess are sympathetic with our cause, they would help you locate the souls that are bound more easily than Hermon the Heron can.” She looked down at the ground morosely and nodded once. “I permit for this arrangement to happen, for it would lead to our best in a collective sense,” she said.
Louise asked Gardena, “What’s wrong with the Vessels of Dishonor?”
Gardena looked at Louise again. “Many things,” Gardena responded. “They are beings of tremendous darkness. It pains me to say this is how we should do it because it causes me sorrow to see a Bearing become broken. Bearings are supposed to be good for both the Dustity and the Human involved, but when one side ceases to benefit, even that weighs down my heart. Also, the count and the countess are not the friendliest individuals in our world, but the count is the least hostile Dustity I know who can sever a Bearing. You must disregard my feelings on the matter, Louise. Desmond must endure a dark action so that more light may shine in his life.”
Louise did not understand everything Gardena said, but she said, “Alright, then.”
Raven raised her hand. “If I may interject… I would hate to miss out on this adventure. I understand that the animation studio and the area that surrounds it needs someone to look after it so that no more souls get bound, but I would have you know, Lady Titania, is that vulnerable souls only have a chance to be present there on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday nights, especially Fridays. Therefore, there is only a need for me to be present at the studio in the Dust-sense on Fridays and every following two nights when humans might go there to work in the chambers that are laced with medicine, and since Louise was the only soul I know who was in the studio last night, I am sure that no other people would go over there and become vulnerable this night nor the next night. Therefore, I feel free to accompany Louise and Desmond on every night that is not a Friday night, for the most part, and I would like to be with them as they meet Darktalon and go forth from there.” She gave a slight bow.
Gardena, who Raven had addressed, smiled at Raven. “Very well,” she said. “You would know. More company for the quest party is good. I was going to send Hermon and Scrappy with them for their protection, among other reasons, but…” She giggled. “The more, the merrier!”
Raven smiled back. “Thank you, Tita- I mean, Gardena. With our strength and knowledge combined, we will be more than capable of doing what you have requested to do.”
“And so it is settled,” Gardena said. Then she looked up at Louise and grinned. “Your quest starts now!”
“Now?” Louise wore a face of bewilderment.
Desmond nodded at Louise. “I think we have been asleep for about two hours now,” he said. “We have enough time to go meet Darktalon and even find a bound soul, if the Vessels would be willing to help us.”
“This is gonna be great!” Jeremiah was doing a little dance in excitement. “Let us be off! The quest starts now! Hermon, you can take the lead as we fly to the Onyx Range. Louise and Desmond shall take my hands. Raven and Grinny are good to go as a pair.”
“Sure,” Hermon answered, laid-back as he usually was. Little Rat Scrappy scurried to sit on Hermon’s head as the humans held the hands of their Dustities. The party waited for the heron to take off before they lifted off the ground, and Gardena waved goodbye as they soared into the western horizon.
