((OK, I haven't read everything yet, but I'm posting anyway.))"I think so," Iris answered. "Come on, let's get out of here. I just hope Bubbles can outlast Venger." *I'm familiar enough with the Darkside to know Bubbles wanted to seduce Venger, but I never dreamed she'd actually DO it!*
Fortunately, Iris was able to lead the "performers" who wanted to leave safely back to their campsite. Nothing had been disturbed, and soon they had a fire going and were relaxing around it.
"Well, I don't know about the rest of you, but I'm still energized from performing," Iris declared. "Would anyone mind if I sang another song or two, something *I'd* like rather than something to suit my audience?"
Nobody had any objections, so Iris ran through her memory, finally settling on a song. "He was born in the summer of his twenty-seventh year/ Comin' home to a place he'd never been before...."
It was a bit strange, performing "Rocky Mountain High" in a land that had probably never heard of the Rockies, but Iris was sure there were similarly breathtaking places somewhere in the Realm, and maybe even people of one race or another who loved them enough to protect them. As she sang and played, she lost herself in visions of forested slopes topped with rocky peaks covered only in snow, of icy mountain streams and lakes, of gentle deer and clever wolves, of meadows filled with glorious wildflowers. She could almost smell the crisp, clean, pine-scented air and taste the tart sweetness of wild berries picked at the peak of ripeness. When she finished, it was almost with regret that she focused on her real surroundings--only to find her friends staring at her.
"Is something wrong?" she asked.
((Tag whoever! BTW, Iris is now much paler than she was, although she was very fair-skinned to begin with. She now has the complexion of an elf. You can think it might be a trick of the firelight, and say so, but it isn't.))
