The arrival of the Priestess Pelopia, the Disciple of Logos, caused no small measure of concern among her daughter’s temporary caretakers.
“You stay away from her!” Griffin shouted, clutching Iris Paintbrush Sunrise to his chest, before his sister laid a calming hand on his shoulder.
“It’s okay,” Naari Magweed discerned, as Pelopia knelt down to stare at Iris, who was stirring fitfully from her slumber. “She doesn’t mean any harm.”
“You protected her while I was away,” Pelopia lifted her gaze to address the twins. “I am indebted to both of you. You have my respect and gratitude.”
“It wasn’t just us,” Maggie hastened to add, even as Griffin continued to regard Pelopia skeptically. “Samantha helped.”
“Indeed,” Pelopia rose, noticing that her daughter’s father, stepmother, grandmother and aunt had joined them. “Nor was she the only one to do so.”
“Come to claim your kid, now that we’ve done the dirty work of looking after her for you?” drawled Meggan Foxxx.
“Bitch can step up and try,” snarled Gwendolyn Leslie, the Agent of Chaos known as PsychoAcidPervGirl!, as she clenched her fists.
“I could do much more than merely try,” Pelopia warned, before forcing herself to stand down. “But I will not. Against all logic and probability, your family has consistently demonstrated your commitment to my daughter’s welfare, and provided her with more safety, security or stability than I could credibly expect, especially under the circumstances. Perhaps this is a paradox of Chaos, that an Agent of Chaos is capable of acting as a Force of Order within the life of his own daughter.”
“Which leaves us where, exactly?” Dreamcatcher Kokopelli Foxglove, the Agent of Chaos known as CrazySugarFreakBoy!, needed to know. “I mean, I hated that you’d kept me out of her life, but I never wanted to push you out of it, either – ”
“I will not abandon her,” Pelopia interjected. “I will contribute to her upbringing, but before I may commence doing so, I must return to the Order of Order. I must report to my father the insights I have gained, from the experiences I have shared with your family. I still subscribe to the supremacy of Order, but an objective appraisal of my observations compels me to acknowledge the possibility that Order and Chaos could coexist, without compromising themselves.”
“And you think you can convince your dad of that?” April Alice Apple winced at the sarcasm of her own tone, even as she remarked reflexively, “Good luck.”
“He is The Word of Order,” Pelopia insisted defensively. “He speaks with The Voice of Reason. As such, he will recognize reason when it is submitted to him.”
“You’re asking him to change his mind,” Dream shook his head, before he cocked his head to one side. “No, wait – what made you change yours?”
Pelopia pursed her lips, before betraying what suspiciously resembled a suppressed smirk.
“I have been trained since shortly after birth to regulate my emotional responses, whereas you have never exercised any effort whatsoever to restrain your emotional reactions. Indeed, you deliberately provoke as many different emotional states in yourself, as often as you can, to the extent that you are almost constantly experiencing virtually every conceivable category of emotion, a preponderance of which are in conflict with one another. I guard against my sorrows and fears by repressing them as much as I am able, along with the rest of my emotions. By contrast, you practically wallow in your sorrows and fears, but at the same time, you drown them out with your angers, loves, desires and joys. You pit all your emotions against one another, continually goading them into a nearly unceasing gladiatorial combat, and through this process, you have achieved what probably constitutes another paradox of Chaos, that of control without control. In the most literal sense, you are forever at war with yourself, and yet, at the center of it all, you have attained what should be an impossible equilibrium, one that is almost akin to inner peace. You are the Eye of the Storm, and while I would not necessarily wish for our daughter to follow your example, she would nonetheless do well to learn from it.”
Dream blinked, then seized upon the sentence fragment that most interested him.
“‘Eye of the Storm’ … cool,” he grinned. “That makes me sound like Doctor Who.”
“It could also account for the brevity of your attention span,” Pelopia rolled her eyes, before stiffening her posture. “April? Meggan? Gwendolyn? In my absence, I am entrusting your family with the responsibility of protecting my daughter, and her father, from that which would harm them.”
“From you, too?” Meg checked, surprised to hear a touch of sympathy in her own voice.
“That remains a potential eventuality,” Pelopia conceded. “And also, from Dream himself. He exists in a perpetual whirlwind of his own making, which is both beautiful and terrible to behold.” She paused to ponder. “Would we now be considered … ‘friends?’”
“As much as we can be ‘friends,’ since we’re still archenemies or whatever,” Wendy shrugged.
“We’re a little bit less, and a whole lot more, than just ‘friends’ anymore,” April considered. “Then again, that’s the best definition I can think of for ‘family.’”
“Is it okay if she holds Iris?” Maggie asked Dream. “She really wants to be held,” she added, without elaborating whether she was referring to mother or daughter.
Pelopia accepted the squirming, squinting Iris from Griffin, mother softly cradling daughter in her arms, and rocking her gently from side to side, before she stroked the peach-fuzz hair on the infant’s head and whispered into her ear, “I will return for you.”
“Good luck,” April repeated, earnestly this time, as Pelopia handed Iris over to Dream.
“Thank you,” Pelopia nodded, with equal sincerity. And with a cascade of luminous blue particles, she had vanished from the Lair Legion Mansion.
