Wen Spencer - Wolf Who Rules

She knew it could be made pretty. She had time now, if she wanted to take it. The place could be cleaned, painted, and furnished. She could even hire carpenters to make her bookcases and kitchen cabinets. There was no room, though, for all the people in her life now. The place was for one busy person that was barely there or a married couple with no interests outside one another. Windwolf would never fit - his life was too big - and she didn't want to live without him. Without Pony. And of late, not without Stormsong either.

She didn't fit into her old life anymore. This wasn't her home anymore, and it saddened her for reasons she couldn't understand. Perching on the couch's overstuffed arm, she tried to cheer herself up with an inventory of what replaced her old life. A stud muffin of a husband with wads of cash who was crazy in love with her. A luxurious room at the best enclave. Fantastic food for every meal. A best friend that was now sitting beside her on the couch, eyeing her with concern.

"What is wrong?" Pony asked quietly.

"I think I'm homesick," she whispered and leaned her forehead against his shoulder. "Look at this place. It's a dump. And I miss it. Isn't that the stupidest thing you've ever heard?"

He pulled her into his lap and held her in his arms. "It is not stupid. It only means you lived with joy here, and it is sorrowful to put joyful things aside."

"Bleah." She sniffed away tears that wanted to fall. "I was lonely, I just never let myself know how much. I made the computers all talk, just so I felt like someone else was there."

"You can grieve for something lost, even if it was not perfect."

The front door open and Oilcan walked in. "Hey," he announced, not noticing that he started Stormsong to attention. He balanced boxes and a carton of bottles. "I didn't think you would have anything to eat here, so I brought food." He settled the various boxes onto the coffee table. "Hey, what's with the sad face?"

"I'm just tired." She didn't want him to know how lonely she had been, or think that she was unhappy with her life now. "I've been having all these bad dreams. It's put me on edge. It's like I've been rubbed down to all nerves."

"Ah, yeah, that can happen." Oilcan suffered from horrible nightmares when he first came to Pittsburgh. For that first year, she'd climb into his bed late at night, armed with boxes of tissues, to get him to stop crying. It was one of the reasons she led and he followed despite the fact he was four years older.

"Scrunches?" He asked her if she needed held, just as she once asked him.

"Pony has it covered." She leaned against Pony. "What's in the boxes?"

"Chicken satay with peanut sauce." He lifted up the first lid to show off the sewers of marinated chicken. "Curry puffs, fried shumai, thai roll, pad thai noodles, and drunken chicken."

He went into the kitchen to collect dishes and silverware.

"We'll get fat eating all this." She helped herself to one of the thai rolls, dipping it into the sweet chili sauce. He must have come straight from the Thai place as the thin fried wrapper was still piping hot.

"Feed the body, feed the soul, you sleep better." Oilcan handed her one of the plates and found room for the others on the crowded table.

"Feed on spirits," Stormsong added as she examined the bottles of alcohol. "Hard cider, vodka coolers, and beer?"

"Beer is for me. Figured I'd bring a mix for you guys."

"These are good." Stormsong handed a cooler to Tinker. "The cider carries less of a punch, so Pony and I should stick to them."

"Ah, leave the hard drinking to me." Tinker twisted off the top. Half a cooler, a curry puff and a plate of pad thai noodle later, she realized that the rubbed raw feeling had vanished, and the loft felt like home again.

Tooloo had mentioned that the movie was old, but Tinker still was surprised when it started in only sepia tones. Dorothy was a whiny, stupid, spoiled brat who was clueless on how to manage a rat-sized dog. When Tinker was Dorothy's age, she was an orphan and running her own business. Esme identified with this girl? That didn't bode well.

The Earth the movie showed was flat, dusty and featureless. Tinker was with Esme - why would anyone pine for that?

"Is that what Earth is like?" Pony asked.

"I don't know - I've never been to Earth." Tinker groaned at yet another stupid thing that the girl did. "I'm not sure I can take a full ninety minutes of this."

"It-changes." Stormsong said.

And change it did as a tornado sucked the house up into the air and plopped it down in glorious color. Dorothy's dress turned out to be blue checked and she acquired glittering red high heels that they called "slippers," the source of Esme's overalls and red boots in Tinker's dream.

It took Tinker several minutes for Tinker to realize how Glenda the Good Witch worked into her dream. "That's Black. She had the wand and the crown. And she was crying."

"I think I would cry if I was stuck in a dress like that," Stormsong said.

Tinker had to agree with that assessment. Tiny little people in weird clothes surrounded Dorothy and talked in rhyming singsong voices.

"Oh this is so weird." Tinker whispered.

"Does this make more sense in English?" Pony asked.

"No, not really," she told him. "Do they ever stop singing?"

"Not much." Stormsong said as the munchkins escorted Dorothy to the edge of town and waved cheerfully goodbye.

"Oh, of course they're happy to see her go; she's a cold-blooded killer," Tinker groused as Dorothy discovered a talking scarecrow. "Oh gods, they're singing again."

Dorothy and scarecrow found the apple trees that threw fruit, and then the tin man, whose first word was "Oilcan." Tinker huddled against Pony, growing disquieted.

"What is it, domi?" Pony asked.

"How did I know? I didn't see this movie before, but so many things are just like my dream."

"Maybe we did see it and forgot," Oilcan said.

"Something this weird?" Tinker asked. "And we both forgot?"

Pony's lion showed up next. Tinker scowled at the screen. It annoyed her that she didn't understand how she had dreamed this movie-and that her dream self had cast Pony in such a cowardly character. "All these people are dysfunctional, delusional idiots."

Finally the foursome plus dog found the Wizard who turned out to be a fraud.

"What was this dream trying to tell me?" Tinker asked.

"I am not sure," Stormsong said. "Normally an untrained dreamer borrows symbols uncontrollably - and this movie is rife with them. Everything from the Abandoned Child archetype to Crossing the Return Threshold."

"Huh?" The only threshold crossing Tinker knew about related to chaos theory.

"Dream mumbo-jumbo." Stormsong waved a toward the television screen.

The wizard/fraud had produced a hot air balloon, and was saying goodbye. "…am about to embark upon a hazardous and technically unexplainable journey to the outer stratosphere."

"Dorothy is taking a heroic journey," Stormsong continued. "She crosses two thresholds, one out of the protected realm of her childhood, and the other completes her journey, by returning to Kansas. If you were familiar with this movie, I would say you were seeking to move past your old identity and claim one that reflects growth. The tornado could be a symbol of the awakening of sexuality, especially suppressed desire."

Tinker resisted the sudden urge to shift out of Pony's arms. "I didn't dream about the tornado."

"Yeah, well, the odd thing is that you're not familiar with the movie. So the question is: where is the symbolism coming from?"

"Don't look at me!" Tinker closed her eyes and rested her head on Pony's shoulder. "So, what should I do next?"

"Tell me your last dream again."

"I'm up high with Riki and he's a flying monkey. He's got the whole costume, and I'm the scarecrow. Riki talks about me melting the witch and setting him free. Then I'm on the ground, and Esme is there as Dorothy, Pony was the lion, and Oilcan was the tin man."