Louise returned to Anthill Animations still a little fatigued, but also driven to finish her work. Her coffee was helpful that morning. She entered the studio, and she saw that someone else besides Miranda Mill was sitting at the secretary’s desk, a middle-aged man with a youthful air about him and a slightly peculiar but dapper outfit. He looked at Louise as she approached him.
“Greetings, Louise.” The man spoke with a light Irish accent. “We haven’t met. I’m Desmond Edison, the Head of Backgrounds and Painting at Anthill Animations. I will be your supervisor today.”
Louise smiled. “Hello, Desmond,” she said. “I’m ready to finish my missing work. Shall I head to the quiet room I was assigned to?”
Desmond shook his head. “I have moved all your supplies to your desk in the Animation Department. That would make the supervision work easier on me, unless you would prefer to work in the quiet room…”
“Oh, no, I’d prefer not to. It’s kind of stuffy in there,” Louise said. “Thanks… Shall we head up there now?”
He nodded with a smile. Thus, they did so. The Animation Department still smelled heavily of pencils, but this time it was, of course, very quiet. Louise found her finished work and supplies at her desk, and, pleased to see this, she sat down. Desmond sat down in a chair a few desks away from her.
“Would you like to talk as you work?” Desmond asked.
“No, thanks,” Louise said. “I need to focus, unless this is about something important.”
“Ah, no, I just want to make conversation, that’s all,” Desmond said. The two of them remained quiet while Louise worked at her steady pace.
After three hours, Louise finished her required missing work. She checked all of her frames and figured that she had done well. She had to admit that the frames from last night looked more consistent in quality than the frames she drew on this day, but she got the job done, and she decided to commit to never having to work overtime at Anthill ever again.
Louise glanced happily at Desmond, who was reading a book. “I have finished my missing quota,” she declared.
Desmond looked at Louise and smiled back. “Well done,” he responded, “and you kept a good attitude while you were at it.”
Louise found the latter complement to be odd, but touching. “...It’s nice to meet you, Edison,” she said. “I would like to have lunch at the Colossus eatery, then I shall head home.”
“Do you have time to talk?” Desmond asked.
“Depends on the subject. I’m hungry,” Louise said.
“...Do you know about the Dust Realm?” Desmond said.
Louise’s eyes widened. She still was not sure how real her adventure from last night was, despite the proof she had that something happened to her. Should she tell this man about what she remembered? Eventually, she replied, “Do you?”
Desmond’s smiling face became further furrowed by nervousness. “Heh heh. If that sounds odd, just drop it. Avoid me, even, if you would like to. Go about the rest of your merry day. I’ll be alright.”
“Oh, no!” Louise said. “I know a thing or two about it, I guess, at least. I was surprised to hear someone else mention it in real life. What led you to ask me about it?”
Now Desmond became more grave. “You are the first animator I encountered who made it through a night in the quiet room unphased, without getting their very self abducted by the ones who come in the night. Three other animators experienced the same thing you did, and they were not so lucky. Did you actually see anything strange last night in the studio?”
Louise nodded. “Jeremiah Jackalope came. He… picked me up and we went on an adventure together before he dropped me back off, and somehow, I was able to get a bunch of work done at the same time.”
Now Desmond became wide-eyed. “…Really?” he said.
Louise shrugged. “What would you have told me to expect?” she asked.
Desmond recomposed himself. “Well, I know that Dustities can take on the likenesses of characters we would recognize to take us off our guard, but, well, I suppose I did not expect any Dustities to actually want to take on the identities of Anthill Animation characters and keep them. Did this Jeremiah you met remain as Jeremiah the whole time?”
“Um, yes, he did.”
Desmond took a bigger breath. “I see. Would you care to tell me about your adventure?”
“Yes, but first, I would like to get some food. I do not like to do anything on an empty stomach.” So Louise and Desmond got lunch together and returned to the studio’s balcony to eat it so they could also talk in private. Louise got a hoagie while Desmond bought a chili bowl with french fries. At the balcony, Louise told Desmond about Jeremiah and Bully and how she and Jeremiah explored her soul terrain. She summarized Jeremiah’s mission, their encounter with Lilly/Raven and Grinny, and their meeting with Gardena/Titania. Desmond was especially interested in hearing about Louise’s Bearing process.
“You bear a Dustity based on one of our own characters!” That was Desmond’s first comment after Louise finished her narrative. “It sounds like this Raven person also bears such a Dustity, one based on her own work. Now, I know you have just been acquainted with the Dust Realm, but I am wondering now if you can help me with something…”
“...What do you want?” Louise asked.
“Y’see, I can help you and Raven recover the bound souls that belong to the three unfortunate animators. The thing is that, these days, I have not been able to get out of my own soul-terrain into the Outer Dust Realm for reasons the Dustity that I bear has never explained to me in full, but if you and Jeremiah came by and picked me up, then I could come with you two on your adventures. I have a lot of knowledge on the Realm that the two of you may find useful. Would you be willing to do that?”
After a pause, Louise tried asking, “What even is the Dust Realm?”
Desmond replied, “The Dust Realm is a world that exists in a parallel fashion to our world, the physical realm. It is not a spiritual realm, although it is not a physical realm, or at least it is not physical like ours. It has its own kind of physicality. It seems that the Dustities can survive without us, but human thoughts and passions have been a big part of their lives for ages, so there is that. Whoever can harness more of those comes out on top. That is why some of them get greedy enough to abduct human selves when they can.”
“How do you know so much about it?” Louise asked.
“My mother is a member of an ancient sect called the Clover Coalition, and she taught my brother and me about the ways of the Coalition as we grew up, since we were teenagers. Well, Edmund, my brother, never took her seriously when it came to the Dust Realm, but I did, and I became a Bearer and a servant of Sira Roberis, who is one of the most powerful Dustities in the entire Dust Realm. Any Dustity who would demand your respect is a ‘sira,’ by the way. It means ‘lord,’ or ‘lady’ if they are a feminine one. So much of what I know about the Realm was taught to me, and the rest, I know from experience.”
“How do you need my help?”
“I told you already what my request is, but are you asking how you and your Dustity could start?”
“Yes.”
Desmond became starry-eyed. “Are you saying you would like to have my company?”
“More help and understanding would be nice, so even though we practically just met, I think I would like to assist you. You seem like a nice person.”
“Please come with me,” Desmond said. By this time, the two of them had finished their food. Louise followed Desmond to his office that was located on the second floor of the studio. She was surprised to find that Desmond’s studio was very colorfully painted and a little messy-looking. Inside this office, she watched Desmond sit at his desk, pull out a rectangular piece of paper, rub some dust from a bottom drawer on his hands, then use red and gold paint to make a simplistic but dandy design on his paper. The dust made the paint look glittery. Then he wrote an inscription in a script that was foreign to Louise on the paper with black ink, blew on the artwork to dry it off, and sealed it in an envelope. He pushed his work to the other side of his desk.
“This is a talisman,” he said. “It has been infused with my self-force. Show it to Jeremiah, and he would be able to make a copy of the talisman and sniff me out like a dog. I live quite a ways off, but with the way things are in the Dust Realm, neither of you should take long to find me. Just hold on to the talisman while you sleep, and you will find yourself with it in your soul-terrain, where Jeremiah would meet you.”
Louise picked up the envelope. “Okay,” she said. “This is not the craziest thing I have been asked to do. Am I done here, Mr. Edison?”
“You can call me Desmond, and yes, you can head home now.”
The two of them exchanged farewells, and then Louise went home. That night, she followed Desmond’s instructions and fell asleep with the talisman (which smelled nice) in her right hand, on her stomach. Next thing she knew, she found herself lying in the snow under a pine-green sky that was dotted with star-like lights in various colors. She sat up and found that, for one thing, she was dressed in her pajamas, and for another thing, she was still holding the talisman. After a while, she decided to stand up. She looked down and saw that she was wearing shoes and socks.
She looked around her and wondered if she should walk anywhere; she ended up just standing there until she heard snow getting crunched behind her. She looked in that direction and saw a bouncing glimmer of light heading towards her. As the glowing figure approached her, the light toned down, and by the time he reached her, Jeremiah’s glow had completely died down and he now looked just like how he appeared when Louise first met him. He seemed very happy to see her.
“Howdy hi!” Jeremiah said. “Louise, ya made it ta your soul-terrain! Are ya ready ta go see Lady Titania?”
“Oh. Right. We have to do that…” she responded. “Well, there’s something we need to do first. Earlier today, I met a man named Desmond, and he knows things about the Dust Realm and he is willing to help us with our mission. We just have to help him get into the Dust Realm, somehow. He asked me to hand you this talisman so you can find him. Would you be willing to help?” She handed the talisman to Jeremiah.
Jeremiah took a little moment to analyze the talisman. “An echabo! And it’s laced with zaizia. Yes, with this thing, this echabo, we can find this guy, and we can see how strong his character is. If I like what I see, we can take him with us. The more, the merrier!”
“Thank you, Jeremiah Jackelope,” Louise said. “How do we start?”
“We must exit your soul-terrain first. I shall take care of the rest. Let us see if we can simply fly out of here. If you’re open-hearted enough, we could do that.” Jeremiah extended his right hand out to Louise.
Louise giggled, then she took Jeremiah’s hand. She let him lift her off the ground, and the two of them rose and rose until they passed the field of stars in the sky and they entered an expanse of fog. After a while, Jeremiah dipped down, and they came back out of the fog, but the expanse below was a high-desert-like environment with gray trees and a sandy ground. Hovering in the air, Jeremiah took a look at the talisman, then he held it in front of him and began to fly off in one direction, taking Louise with him. The jackalope flew like this for a long while, making steady changes in direction as he went. Eventually, he slowed down, assessed the talisman another time, and then gently went down to the sand. He stared at the ground in thought.
“What do we do now?” Louise asked Jeremiah.
“Ta enter any soul-terrain, ya have ta go down,” Jeremiah said. “This seems ta be the spot for us ta do so, ta enter the soul-terrain this echabo is attached to. I will try burrowing. Please try ta stay right behind me as I burrow into the ground, alright?”
“I’ll see what I can do,” Louise said.
Jeremiah handed the talisman back to Louise, rubbed his gloved hands together, then began to dig into the sand at a rapid speed. Louise saw that, as he dug, Jeremiah’s fur turned white and his antlers became golden again, and he started to glow. The sand that he touched also glowed like he did, and eventually, the sand within the hole that Jeremiah dug began to spin, and the burrow became a whirlpool of sand. When this happened, Jeremiah stopped digging, and the spinning sand’s glow changed from white to pastel red. Jeremiah began to sink into this sand.
“Hurry, Louise!” Jeremiah called out to her. “This is the way to the man’s soul-terrain! Sink in here with me!”
Louise was nearly paralyzed by fear. Sinking into the sand with Jeremiah looked dangerous, but then again, maybe they could fly out if the sand overwhelmed them, or maybe the sinkhole led to a cavern. (She did not fully understand the concept of a soul-terrain yet.) Trusting Jeremiah, Louise stepped into the sinkhole and slid down the side, letting her right leg touch Jeremiah. The two of them sank deeper and deeper into the whirlpool, and Jeremiah did not even hold his breath. Louise realized that, as she sunk into the glowing sand, her legs gradually stopped feeling sand and seemed to dangle in mid-air from her feet upwards, which meant that the two friends were not going to drown in sand. Louise closed her eyes and held her breath as the sand caught up to her face, and after a short moment, she felt her face slide out the bottom of the sand, then she opened her eyes.
She fell down some ways, and she landed painfully on her feet in a field of green grass. Jeremiah had landed in this area first, and Louise saw that he had changed back to his normal colors again. She took a moment to look around her: the sky was a chalky red color, but the grass beneath her feet, the little flowers that grew here and there, and the mossy boulders that dotted the landscape were not tinted by red light. She did not see clouds, a sun, or any stars. She also did not see any trees or bodies of water. She looked at Jeremiah Jackelope, who seemed to be miffed about what he saw.
“...Is this the right place?” Louise asked him.
“It is, alright, but this man’s character is not as strong as yours, Louise.” He shook his head with his eyes shut. Then he perked up. “Then again, I have not even met him yet, and there might be more to him than what meets my eyes right now, so I’ll give him a chance,” he said.
“Right,” Lousie said. “What can you tell me about his character based on this landscape, Jerry?”
Now Jeremiah assessed his surroundings. “The temperature’s temperate, and there is flower growth here, so his personality should be pleasant enough. The boulders show me that something weighs him down, but there is moss on these boulders, so whatever he is dealing with, he is handling it with a cool attitude. I’d say he goes with the flow, but I see no rivers, not yet. We’d have to explore before I say anything else that’s big. Ah, but over there… That’s a human!” He looked glad. “That must be the human we’re looking for!” He began to wave his arms about as he made large steps toward the figure in the distance with his big feet. “We’re over here! Yes, over here! Come, come! Tere! Eiya! Tere!”
Louise looked in the same direction Jeremiah was facing and saw Desmond walking towards him. He looked just like he did when Louise first met him, except the sleeves were missing from his sleek shirt, and when he got close to Louise and Jeremiah, she noticed that there were large, red, criss-crossing patterns on his arms that spread from his shoulders to the middles of the backs of his hands. When Desmond finally reached the area where the duo stood, Jeremiah stopped his motions, and Desmond smiled at them. Louise smiled back at Desmond.
“I’m glad you two are here,” Desmond said. “Louise, thank you. And you must be Jeremiah Jackelope. Is that right?”
“That’s right! She has told ya all about me and what we’re up to, yes?”
“Yeah,” Desmond said. “Now the three of us can head to the Fae Forest together. No worries, I’m open-hearted enough to make flight out of here possible, but I have not mastered flying on my own yet. That’s why I have always needed help, but my help refuses to come these days…”
“Who helps you?” Jeremiah asked. “Who do you bear?”
“Ha-Sira Roberis,” Desmond answered, with a serious face and tone.
Jeremiah’s ears bent back a little and he squinted his eyes at Desmond. “Are ya one of those Clover Coalition people?” he asked.
Desmond nodded. “Yes… I am a member of the Coalition.”
“When was the last time ya met with Lord Roberis?” Jeremiah asked Desmond. Louise was surprised to hear Jeremiah call Roberis a “lord” and finally began, at that moment, to realize the implications of the title.
Desmond shrugged. “Months ago. I have not kept track of time closely. I do know that his refusal to escort me to the Outer Dust Realm began about three years ago, and he has never clearly explained why he stopped doing that. He stops by every now and then- at my soul-terrain, that is- but only so he can repeat his vague accusations and laugh at whatever sort of plight I am facing.” He looked sad about all of that.
Jeremiah quickly looked up at Louise. “Don’t worry about Roberis, ma’am,” Jeremiah told her. “He is not for us, but he is not against us, either. He has his own party. The Clover Coalition has been dying out, as well, which is kind of unfortunate, but that is how things are. The days of the siras, the ‘monarchs,’ and their human alliances are coming to an end.”
“What is the Clover Coalition?” Louise asked.
Jeremiah looked at Desmond, so Desmond went on to say, “The Coalition is an organization that is Celtic in origin. Originally, they were druids who were affiliated with the Dust Realm, but when their land was under threat of colonization, the druids and their neighbors who also knew about the Dust Realm came together, chose the serpent Ouroboros to represent themselves, and defended their land with self-force, which was strengthened by their collective bearing of the Handed Serpent, who is Roberis. Thanks to them, the colonization of Scotland and Ireland was only mostly successful. The British had to leave the druids alone. You don’t hear about this or anything else like it in the history books because they are embarrassing and mystifying moments for those who came against the Dust-allies. Heh heh heh…”
Jeremiah nodded. “And so the Handed Serpent has gone on to protect those who choose to bear him to this day,” Jeremiah said, “except the Coalition members grow fewer in number as the traditions die out, and it seems that some complications have come up that keep him, or you, from fulfilling your part of your relationship.” Jeremiah tilted his head as he shifted his attention to Desmond. “What are those complications?” Jeremiah asked him. “Does it have something ta do with the boulders I have seen around here?”
Desmond shrugged. “Wouldn’t you know what the boulders around here signify?” he said.
Jeremiah’s irritated look returned. “I know the boulders mean that something weighs you down, but they cannot tell me what that is. Rocks don’t talk,” Jeremiah responded. Then he relaxed his body and fixed his posture. “Perhaps there is another thing in this soul-terrain that could give me a clue about that. Shall we take a look? We have time, and I must make sure your soul is a proper one before we get you an audience with Lady Titania.”
Desmond nodded. “You might as well do that. But first…” Desmond directed his attention to Louise. “Ma’am, you’re in your nightgown. Did you know you can change how you look in the Dust Realm if you simply wish to do that? I don’t know if this outfit would bother Nu-Sira Titania or not, but if you feel uncomfortable with how you look now, just visualize how you would rather look, and if your inner vision is sharp enough, the new look would manifest on yourself.”
Jeremiah’s eyes widened with excitement. “Or perhaps she could draw how she would rather look!” Jeremiah said to Desmond. Then Jeremiah said to Louise, “Louise, Lady Titania would not mind if ya approached her as you look right now, but this is a great opportunity for ya ta start practicing your magic talents! Would ya like ta do that?”