Bruce The Tiny Dog Goes On An Adventure

[Faith Augustin]

22nd Cylus, 717

The suns were bright and shining and the pathway in front of them was clear and would be easy to follow. Giant purple and yellow mushrooms and trees on which hung bright green potions were either side of the path which led them to the Castle. The few clouds in the sky were fluffy little stereotypes of things and it was warm. Faith was sitting atop one of said purple and yellow mushrooms and she was pulling pistachio nuts from it. "He's late. He's never late." Faith said to the enormous shaggy dog who was sitting next to her.
"He'll be here, he's bringing the weapons." Rufus the Big Dog said and Faith sat, swinging her legs and waiting for Padraig.
Bruce the Tiny Dog was yipping around and he suddenly stopped, looked at Faith and barked in his high pitched voice, "What if they caught him? What if they caught him?"
"It's alright, Bruce the Tiny Dog." Faith replied soothingly, "They haven't caught him, I'd know. He's mine, remember?" Bruce the Tiny Dog was such a worrier, she knew. Give him half a bit and he'd be worrying about why he was bald again.

As Padraig arrived, Faith jumped off her mushroom and gave him a grin. She was wearing a blue skirt which had patterns of stylised pink faced sheep on it with massess of bright green netting underneath it and a yellow and white stripy top. On the very top of her head, her hair was arranged in a single victory curl and she had a black and white umbrella for if it started to rain again. The raindrops here were massive bursts of colour, all shaped like ducks and it didn't look likely to rain but it was always good to Be Prepared. She skipped forward and kissed him in greeting. "You're late. I told the dogs you'd be here. Did you bring the weapons? I brought cake, but no tea."

Rufus the Big Dog bounded over to Padraig, and Bruce the Tiny Dog scampered after him. '"Is it true?" Bruce the Tiny Dog asked. "Are we really going to fight Mistral in his Cat Castle? We could get hurt! Last time, they turned me into a Tiny Bald Dog!!"

Faith grinned at him and held her hand out for the weapons he'd brought. "We are. We have to. He's started to pickle the herrings again and we have to stop him. You ready?"

[Padraig]

He was late. He was always late. Why couldn't he ever be on time? She was waiting for him and it was raining. But ducks? That wasn't right at all. The philosophers who called themselves scientists but weren't, sometimes liked to say it rained cats and dogs. But every good scientist knew that it didn't. But sometimes, it did rain fish and frogs.

Fish and frogs, no ducks, which made it slower going, and caused him to be late meeting Faith. And she must have been thinking of him when she'd dressed that morning. She knew how much he liked that curl on the top of her head. "We are," he said when Bruce the Tiny Dog scampered up to greet him. "And look, since it's raining I brought you a coat, and an inspector's hat."

"I brought the weapons too," he said as Faith hopped down from her mushroom. Though he didn't appear to be carrying anything at all. Before he started pulling things out of his pockets, that was.

"I brought a teapot, a cage with a bird in it...I think its a hummingbird, a candle, a bard to sing our praises as we go. And I think there's a magic door somewhere in the forest that we'll need to walk through if we want to reach Mistral's Keep."

"And here," he said at last with a wide smile as he handed her a small package the size of her palm, all wrapped up in blue satin ribbon. "I brought you a gift. It's a pair of high heels. I thought they might make the hike to the castle easier on you." And then they were off, while minnows and tadpoles began falling again from the clouds.

And off in the distance, a black marble keep rose up out of a meringue peaked mountain, it's portcullis made of white sharpened teeth and its windows made of shining emeralds.

[Faith Augustin]

"Look Faith! He brought me my coat and hat!! Thank you" Bruce the Tiny Dog seemed inordinately pleased with the coat and hat and he put them on carefully, nipping playfully at Padraig's ear as he did so. "I can see your dimples!" Bruce the Tiny Dog had no sense of personal space. Faith grinned.

"Did you bring the, oh? What's this?" He put a gift in the palm of her hand and Faith looked at him in surprise. "You never do this, why are you doing this? You're my greatest gift, I've told you. You're a treasure. My treasure. You don't need to do this. But I do love high heels, thank you. Do you like my hair? I made it just for you." Patting the victory curl Faith beamed and then crouched down on to her heels and put the high heeled shoes (of which there were now four) on to Rufus the Big Dog. "Do you like them?" Faith did a twirl as Rufus The Big Dog walked in a very strange way for a dog.

He'd brought the weapons though and Faith nodded. "Alright. Bruce the Tiny Dog, you hide in the teapot. When we pour tea, you have to jump out and make Mistral The Bad Cat bald, alright?" She frowned slightly at the candle and then placed it, mostly solemnly on Rufus the Big Dog's forehead. "You're our light Rufus the Big Dog. We talk about you when we mean something else, but you guide us, alright?"

That left the caged bird and the bard. Faith looked at the two of them, tiny little things in Padraig's hand as they were in that moment and she nodded. "You need to be in there with the hummingbird. You make her stronger, she does the same for you. It's alright, I don't mind." She'd gotten it wrong, of course, as she opened the door of the cage, for him to get in and the small bird flew out and landed on his shoulder. It winked at him and hopped around. Faith smiled and looked at the cage with a slight frown, then put it on the floor. "We don't need that any more. Right. So I get the bard? To sing praises? That doesn't seem quite right, you know. Are you sure you didn't forget something? Oh, wait look!"

Faith reached into the cage and pulled out a very tiny silver broom. "This is my weapon. Good job we checked."

So it was that the four of them and the bard, who was singing songs about a cat called Macavity, made their way to the castle of Mistral the Cat, Scourge of Andaris and the Cat All Other Cats Fear. Faith held on to Padraig's hand the whole way there, swinging it gently as the multicoloured fish and frogs fell from the sky. Glancing over at him she smiled. "I love you. We have to get there, so you're going to need to find the door. I can't do that. You open it, then we step through together."

There were, of course, in front of them a series of eighteen doors. Tall ones, short ones, brown and red and blue, each of them doors to places they knew, places they recognised, the doors all hung there and none of them were open. In fact, they were all locked and what held them shut were obviously decorative silver chains, hanging from the top of each door down and to either side. Eighteen doors and only one of them would take them through. The hummingbird on his shoulder spoke very seriously. "I think there's one for each arc of me, you know. Tristan isn't going to like it if you hurt Mistral. I think those are his chains. Which door? There's only one right one you know." Faith frowned slightly and shrugged. Bruce the Tiny Dog jumped and yipped in front of a green door to the University, suggesting that it was that, Rufus the Big Dog moved to in front of the one to Mr Spekkle's shop.

Faith just smiled and shrugged. "Whichever one you pick. It's the right one, I'm sure. Can the bard go through one of the others? He's really starting to annoy me." It was true. The guy just never stopped singing.

[Padraig]

"No, no! You're getting it wrong!" Padraig told Faith when she first tried to put the bard in the birdcage, then on her shoulder. "See? There's a tag here hanging off his ear. It says just add water." But then there wasn't any water, since it was raining fish and frogs and not raindrops.

"Ah," he said, before she'd put Bruce the Tiny Dog in the kettle. "Here we go," he said, and he poured from the kettle while multicolored glitter rained onto the bard's shoulder, who then grew to Faith's size. All the better to follow her, and sing her praises. Meanwhile, somewhere along the path, an out-sized creature the size of a horse joined up with them and trotted along, determined to be their armored steed in the thick of the coming battle. "Oh look, it's Edward the Mouse. Just in the nick of time."

So which door? The apothecary, the university? Using his mental transformative powers, which only worked on silver by the way, Padraig eyeballed each one of eighteen till the locks and chains fell away. Swinging open the first door, a field of scarlet poppies fanned out in front of them, snaked through with a path made of marigold bricks leading up to an emerald castle. "Wrong story," he uttered, and slammed the door shut.

The next let through a noxious burst of fiery wind and proved to be an eyeball to eyeball view of a very large dragon. The bard was becoming an annoyance? "Here, you go first," Faith's hero said, grabbed the bard by the collar and pushed him through, slamming the door behind him and dusting his hands.

"I think it's this one," he said, finally choosing a third door that turned out to be the way into a very large wardrobe. "It's this one, I'm sure of it," he decided, and with a flourish of his hand, he declared to Faith, "You first."

[Faith Augustin]

"Don't you shout at me, you lummox" Faith said when he told her she was doing it wrong. "I am not doing it wrong, either. I'm just not entirely doing it right and neither are you. Don't pour water on him, he'll.... oh why did you do that?" Using the small silver broom, which had a surprisingly pointy end, she poked him in the shoulder with each word for emphasis, she explained. "I. Don't. Like. Praise. Especially. Not. Sung." Then, the bard started to sing and Faith looked at Padraig with a single raised eyebrow. "This is all your fault."

Then, she let out a scree-like-noise the like of which had never been heard in the waking world and hid behind him. "It's a mouse! It's a mouse! Oh, I hate them. Padraig! Why did you name the mouse? When you give them names it makes them grow and he's got a Really Big Name!" He really was being very difficult, she considered. Between the praise-giving-singing bard and now a mouse? She peered out from behind his shoulder and whispered quite loudly in his ear. "Why did you bring a mouse? I'm afraid of them. Heights and mice. Tall mice are twice as bad. When I was a little girl I went to a snowball party, and I was all new then." She wasn't coming out from behind him any time soon, not whilst The Mouse Who Must Not Be Named was here. "There was a mouse there called Sintih, and he kept trying to nibble my dimples. I didn't like it and then he hurt you. Sintih's a mouse and I'm a little bit afraid of him, Padraig. But this one is big and I don't like it." She glared at him somewhat balefully, "You shouldn't have brought him with you. And you were late."

Edward the Armoured Mouse, though, was quite insistant that he was staying and Faith sighed, standing at Padraig's side which made sure that he was always between her and The Mouse Who Must Not Be Named. Then, as they got to the doors, Padraig made all of the chains break. She squeezed his hand, her annoyance at him for Bringing A Mouse was in her pocket for the moment. "That's what you did, you know. For me, for us. We did it, I know, but I'd never have been free without you. I'm free because I'm with you, and I'm with you because I'm free. Do you know that?"

Then, though, there were the doors and he pushed the bard through then opened the door to the wardrobe and gestured for her to go through. That was it, her irritation (which turned out to be a small neon yellow caterpillar) jumped out of her pocket and climbed up her side with a small squeaking sound as it disappeared into the victory curl on her head. Was he serious?

"I am not going in there. Are you serious? I'm not sleeping in there. First a mouse and now a wardrobe? What are you doing? That isn't the door and even if it is, you can't make me go in there." She glared at the wardrobe door malevolently. "I bet you there's a matress in there. You're wrong, it isn't the door. It'll be that one over there" Faith pointed to an internal door of a house, but not theirs. "That leads to Tristan's bedroom and that's where Mistral likes to be."

The two dogs and the armoured mouse watched with some trepidation at all of this, watching the two humans and the small rainclouds which were forming over their heads (well out of range of the victory curls) but were mostly silent except for Bruce The Tiny Dog who asked Rufus The Big Dog in a very poor stage whisper. "Do you think it's the wardrobe door?"

"Shush", replied Rufus The Big Dog and Edward The Armoured Mouse nodded his head, sagely.

[Padraig]

Incredulous. Padraig turned around with an incredulous expression on his face, chest puffed up in a way it never did when he was awake and in possession of all of his faculties. "My fault!? Doing it wrong!?" he'd exclaimed. "It is not my fault. And I am a scientist! I am never wrong."

"And of course I'm late," he'd grumbled as they'd walked on through the forest, the bard singing merrily behind them. "I'm always late, therefore, the laws of probability suggest that I will be late again. And will. you. shut. up," he said to the bard before grumbling, "Nobody likes a bard.". Bruce the Tiny Dog paused, screwed up his nose and tilted his head. "I think it's nobody likes a mime."

"You shut up too." They could have bottled Faith's squeal of terror at the sight of the mouse, and used it to drive off an invading hoard. In fact, as an alchemist he might just do that. "Sintih was an insufferable boob. Edward is a mouse. Big difference," he grumbled irritably as they'd come upon the many doors, and they were finally rid of the bard. His screams in response to whatever awaited him on the other side of the door, faded and were lost as it was slammed shut.

"Yes, I know," Padraig admitted once a truce was called. If only a temporary one. "I love you too."

Now go through that door, he told her, and reminded her again that as a learned scientist, he was never wrong. His arms were crossed over his chest, the toe of his boot tapped and tapped, and Edward the Mouse was raring to go and awfully proud of the bronze armor he was wearing. "You think it's that one? Fine, you first," he said, looking pointedly at the one that she'd chosen.

[Faith Augustin]

"Piffle waffle. You're a philosopher. I'm a scientist, remember?" Faith looked at him disapprovingly and poked a little at his chest, apparently unconcerned with how impressive he looked. "You look fat when you do that, stop it or I won't marry you."
Bruce the Tiny Dog gave a gasp of Great Big Shock. "She doesn't mean that, Padraig!"
"I think she does, you know." Rufus the Big Dog interjected. Faith turned an irritated glare at the pair of them and they piped down, meowing to each other instead. She turned her irritation back to her Hero.
"I do mean it. These frogs are going to freeze if you carry on getting fat and then how will we knit them gloves? So stop it, please. And don't pick on him, he's doing his best and you brought him!" Suddenly, she felt somewhat defensive of the poor old bard.

The bright neon caterpillar which was Faith's irritation (which, by now, was called Ethyl and was a Quite Large Caterpillar) poked her head out of Faith's pocket and winced when Padraig told her there was a difference between Sintih and the mouse. "I know that. I just was saying that I'm scared of them both. Try not to be too concerned, will you?" Grumbling appeared to be running in the family as the pair of them walked together, Faith muttering to herself. "Old Phiosophy Professor Padraig is in a grump, isn't he? Oh yes, he's a great big grump. Grumpy McGrumpyGrump. Write it on some paper, instead and I'll read it later. Just grumpy because I'm a scientist and he wishes he was." Muttering might be too strong a word, really, as she spoke quite loudly enough for him to hear her.

Ethyl the Quite Large Caterpillar of Irritation ducked down into Faith's pocket for a few trill when he told her he loved her. Faith smiled and reached forward to stroke his cheek, although she was sure that when she did that usually it didn't leave sparkly rainbow paint on his face. Oh well. "I know you do. This is just an Mouse in the Room, isn't it? We'll be alright."

Which she didn't doubt but as Ethyl the Increasingly Big Caterpillar of Irritation climbed back up into her victory curl and when he told her 'now go through that door', Ethyl closed her eyes and shook her head. Padraig's boot tap, tap, tapped and Faith looked at him. There was only one word for her expression. Incredulous

"You.... you're serious aren't you? I gave you all my money, I did!" She stormed up to him and glared into his eyes, fury darkening hers. "I gave you all my money and I cooked and I waited until I was really ready! There was only one key, you know! And you do this!?" Her hand flung out, gesturing towards the door.
"THIS?! I go first? Into Tristan's bedroom? You don't care one whit, do you? What if he's in there and I've got to bath the cat again? What if you burst into flames and I can't save you because he's told me to call you mister? Or... or what if he tells me I have to have a brand on my face? What if there are bandits in there, Padraig? He won't do what you did, you know, but I'll go first! Oh you bet your slippers, I'll go first and I hope you're happy and proud of yourself!" For good measure, and with no small amount of encouragement from Ethyl, Faith gave him a Great Big Shove.

With a swoosh of her skirt which she would have been ever so proud of in the waking world, Faith turned and stormed through the door. It wasn't the door he'd chosen and it wasn't the door she had, it was just a door. Plain and white. She stormed right through it, slamming it shut behind her with an Enormous Flounce.

The moment she did that, all of the doors disappeared and Faith was standing on the path in front of him, no harm done at all. Yet she had a look of utter horror on her face. As she had Flounced, Ethyl the Rapidly Expanding Caterpillar of Irritation had flown out of her victory curl and had been caught in the slamming of the door. Said caterpillar now lay in two halves and had become Ethyl the In Two Bits And Dead Caterpillar. Now that Ethyl was dead, she had a twisted and unkind expression on her face and Faith looked at Padraig in something resembling horror, "Oh, I'm so sorry. I pushed you."

"That caterpillar was an Agent of Mistral!" Bruce the Tiny Dog declared and Rufus the Big Dog agreed.
"Of course!" Rufus the Big Dog declared. "We must be careful of anything whose name begins with Cat!" Bruce the Tiny Dog yipped in excitement. They had Solved A Riddle!

Faith, however, just moved back to where Padraig stood and slipped her hands into his. "I'm sorry, love." She looked at him with a very serious expression. "The irritation was all just part of the illusion. I didn't mean it. The ugly caterpillar made me do it. We need to go and defeat this bloody cat, you know, then just get back to being us. Are you ready?"

[Padraig]

"I am not a philosopher," Padraig protested, chest still thrust out in outrage. "And I am not fat. These pants only make me look that way," he added, ignoring Bruce the Tiny Dog's efforts to keep the peace. "And I don't know why you're worried about him. Nobody likes a bard."

Rufus, in the thick of it, had to disagree once again. "Actually he's not that bad once you get to know him. His name is Barry. He told me. And he writes the songs."

"And I can hear you, you know," he told her as he trudged along behind her and the mouse brought up the rear. "I'm not a grump, I'm a serious scholar." But yes, they'd be fine. Even now their mouse was failing to keep pace, falling farther and farther behind them, becoming smaller and smaller all the while.

And then? And then? "Well this door was your idea! I wanted to go through that door!" he said, pointing in the other direction just as she shoved him. She shoved him? "Oh yeah?" he shouted as she spun round in a flounce and flicked her skirt at him. "You know how I said I liked that curl? I lied. It looks like you're wearing a giant snail on your head."

And then they were there in the forest, face to face, the doors gone and the caterpillar vanquished. According to Rufus the Big Dog and Bruce the Tiny Dog, it was Mistral's Minion out to destroy them all. "Funny," the hummingbird chirped from Faith's shoulder. "My money was on Barry the Bard."

"It's alright," Pad told Faith when she explained. Still, "It really is the pants that make me look fat. But I'm sorry too. Let's go." He took her hand, turning back to where the castle with it's beady, emerald eyes had loomed over and taunted them. But suddenly it was gone, and the path they'd followed led them home instead. Back to them.

[Nymph]

REWARDS

FAITH

• Knowledge:
  • Philosophy: The Art of Referencing
  Loot: None
  Injuries: None
  Fame: None
  Devotion: None
  
  Story: 5/5
  Collaboration: 5/5
  Structure: 5/5

- - - - - - -

PADRAIG

• Knowledge:
  • Philosophy: The Art of Referencing
  Loot: None
  Injuries: None
  Fame: None
  Devotion: None
  
  Story: 5/5
  Collaboration: 5/5
  Structure: 5/5

- - - - - - -

Comments: Let me first comment on the absolutely rad boxcodes you have. They are fruitlicious and trippy, to match the thread I just read. I was really contemplating on how many drugs these two characters were on to have a dream like this. So many questions developed in my head as I read this including:

• How does one fit a bard in their pocket?
• Is Faith really wearing four shoes? Heels actually...
• Did the wardrobe lead to Narnia?
• Was the dragon Smaug?
• Am I tripping?

All of these were very important questions that you caused me to think about. I thought the thread was fun to read, very unique, and hard for me to reward knowledges for. I'm sorry. If there is something specific you would have liked, please contact me. Otherwise, points for you!

If you feel I've missed anything or if you have questions about your review, please don't hesitate to send me a quick PM. Thank you!