Clover tried to eat the loom fruit. She wasn't sure how it would taste, and therefore it had no flavour at all. It only existed in her imagination, so she would have to imagine a flavour if she wanted to taste one. Not knowing how it would taste left out any assignment of flavour.

Quite possibly this was all Potto's imagination and she was merely a visitor and couldn't assign the fruit a flavour. Or perhaps it was a shared fantasy world. She wasn't sure whose imagination she was in anymore.

Perhaps if she had imagined the fruit to taste like barbecue sauce, it would have. Perhaps though, if it were strictly Potto's imagination she was in, he would mischievously make it taste like raw chicken, or a red bean bun covered in bullet ants, or maybe fanged dangling jessop stew. Perhaps she would then change it back (giving him an "oh, you scamp" look) if they each had control. She had no idea how any of this worked.

Bundle had flown off into the imaginary forest to search for Potto. Clover decided to do a little experiment while she waited. She was very aware that she was under hypnosis, and that none of this was real, and she realized Potto had created it, but she wanted to know if she indeed did have any control over it.

First, she imagined the loom fruit tasted like popcorn. Within seconds it was as if she were eating a big bowl of delicious hot buttered popcorn in the form of a strange glowing piece of fruit. Check.

Next, she imagined she were smack-dab in the middle of an orgasm. Within seconds she stumbled, almost falling over as waves of pleasure washed through her entire body. Check.

Next, once recovered, she imagined Potto was standing right next to her. Nothing happened.

She imagined she had a communicator watch and he was calling her. Perhaps if she could, at the very least, hear his voice she could ask him to come back. Nothing. Perhaps he would have to imagine he was calling her in the first place. This was all so complicated.

He could be kilometres away. He could be on the other side of the known galaxy. He could be right behind her, always moving into her blind spot when she turned her head. He could be anywhere.

Somehow though, she sensed that he was still very much a part of this visualized, hypno-land. He was certainly not lucid and sitting on the bridge of the Shiv.

Hopefully Bundle would be back soon with Potto, or some Potto news. She could do nothing but wait. And maybe eat some hot buttered loom fruit popcorn, and have the odd orgasm.

~~~

Sometimes disbelief can be hilarious, and sometimes wonderful. It can be the response to a fabulous gift, or it can be a level of complete wonderment. It can also accompany grief and shock.

Disbelief can be an odd comfort. It can be frustrating and painful, but it can contain a glimmer of hope. That little crack in the china cup of finality.

It can be all of these things.

One may win the lottery (disbelief!) and upon telling one's elderly father the great news, the old man drops dead of a very sudden heart attack right before one's eyes (disbelief!) and then his body is carried off by a giant tadpole (disbelief!) but it's the type of tadpole that only carries off living creatures so he mustn't really be dead after all (disbelief!), though he no doubt will get eaten by the tadpole regardless (disbelief!) and besides, what is a giant tadpole doing in this desert and not in a lake (disbelief!)?

On the bridge of the Shiv, Teeg sat in a state of intense flummoxed disbelief. She sat staring at the empty bit of space that was once a sex circus.

She wasn't sure whether she had just witnessed both of the fugitives (that she had risked everything for) abruptly erased from space. Erased along with one of her favourite de-stressing debauchery hang-outs.

She was pondering what had gone wrong. She was pondering whether or not that strange, snazzy, well-dressed man that had dragged Potto, Aye and the acrobat out of Rhanque Batoose's extremely violent office had gotten them off of Euphoria in time. She had barely escaped herself. She was at a loss for coherent thought.

"Knutt..." she finally managed, grasping at straws, "Do you detect any life signs out there? The Quarol? The Topher?"

"Nope," Knutt answered without so much as a speck of concern. "Though I only have so much range. I detected that there were a few ships that escaped before the boom, but they are long gone. I also detect that the Oaian that calls herself Clover is still on board, in the back of the ship. Odd thing. The exact moment the Euphorian Guards violated me by unlocking and boarding me without my permission, I was hacked."

"Hacked?" asked Teeg, adding even more concern and stress to her already overwhelmed brain.

"Yep. Just for a few minutes. What, or rather who hacked me, actually helped! They implanted some kind of life-sign blocker...made Clover go unnoticed. Kept her safely hidden in the back room. As soon as the guards left it was gone. Of course there was no saving the unconscious dickhead."

"Oh hoooooo-ray," Teeg said flatly, dripping with sarcasm like an ice cream cone in a parked car on a hot summer day. "The one person on board that could go missing without causing me any stress is safely on board. Dandy."

"She is a good luck charm perhaps," Gekko said telepathically. "She seems to have a guardian angel of sorts. That's twice now she's been rescued. Here and on Chagrin. This bodes well for us, as we seem to get the same treatment if we are in her presence."

"But who? And why?" she thought back.

"Something to ponder after we figure this all out. I think we need to ask Clover some questions."

Teeg was devastated Euphoria was gone (disbelief!), relieved they had escaped in the nick of time (disbelief!), hopeful that Potto and Aye were still alive (disbelief!), and, although she didn't realize it, deep, deep, deep down she was (probably) glad a giant land tadpole hadn't shown up to carry anyone off.

~~~

Clover was on her fifteenth loom fruit (which was making her glow all over because she decided to imagine it was) and fourth orgasm (which was also making her glow all over) when Bundle came whizzing through the trees at top speed. She had a look of urgency on her face like Clover had never seen before on a fairy. This was, in itself, not that odd, as she had never met a fairy before Bundle. Or a pixie. Or a sprite, brownie or imp. Perhaps a look of urgency was the norm on such creatures and she just hadn't noticed it before.

"I found him! I found Potto! He's in trouble though...he's drifting in spa—"

Clover snapped out of hypnosis with a hard slap to the face. Bundle was now gone and Teeg stood before her, hand raised and ready to slap again.

She started to say, "I'm back! I'm awake!" but it was too late, she was slapped again. She quickly got out an "Okay! Okay! Stop!" while noticing the look of slightly amused satisfaction on Teeg's face turn to the slight disappointment of not having a reason to slap again.

"You weren't responding with words. And I like slapping. What happened to you?" Teeg asked.

"I hypnotized Potto. He somehow hypnotized me back. I lost him in there. In his head. In my head. Where is he physically?"

"Probably dead. Something went wrong on Euphoria."

"Yeah, almost every situation tends to blow up rather quickly in that wretched place. What happened?"

"It blew up rather quickly," Teeg said very seriously.

Clover was in disbelief. Disbelief was still running rampant on the Shiv. She was stunned upon hearing that Potto was probably dead. She snapped out of it quickly. Bundle's last words popped back into her head.

"No! He's not dead!"

"And how would you know that?"

"The fairy told me."

"The. Fairy."

"Yes. The fairy in his head. Potto's fairy."

"Potto has a fairy in his head?" Teeg asked wryly, more as a statement than a question.

"Does that surprise you?" Clover giggled.

"No. No it does not."

"If Potto was dead, she'd have disappeared. She didn't. And she told me he was in danger. That he was drifting."

"Drifting? In space?"

"I would imagine. I'm not sure where else he would drift..."

"Do you know how hard it will be to find him? That'll be like finding a tardigrade's sewing needle in...well...a haystack the size of infinity."

"We better get started!" Clover said with an optimistic chipperness that required Teeg to slap her again.

~~~

Potto had been in his imaginary forest, roughly play-fighting with the northern neglies, when he found himself drawn away. He found himself pulled by an invisible force, and then pushed off a cliff and into a vast ocean. The vastest of vast oceans he had ever seen, or that he had ever imagined he had seen.

He had a vague memory of having a great fear of oceans. He did not have this fear now; the deep murky waters which could be home to any number of horrors, simply became a cool jelly of curiosities and adventure.

He could breathe, he could see, and he could do twirls and sing at the top of his lungs.

He could not remember the words to any song, so he made up a song about his birthday. He wasn't sure, but he suspected he hadn't celebrated it in a very long time. As he sang, a number of smaller sea creatures swam about, some circling his head, singing harmony as he warbled.

Once he grew bored of the repetitive song, he stopped singing and twirling and started remembering. He wasn't remembering all the things Bundle or Clover had been badgering him to remember. He was remembering the reality he (up until being hypnotized) had been living in. He remembered friends.

It took some real effort to remember everyone. He remembered Teeg and Gekko and Clover, but was struggling with their names. He remembered a walking tree. He remembered Aye. Even Aye's name! Ayyyyyyyeeee!!

He wondered where the women were. He missed them. He missed his new friend Aye.

As for the tree, he could not forget her even if he wished himself to after releasing a genie from a bottle. Name or not. He remembered her saving his life with sap. A sap that also managed to plant seeds inside of him. He felt her growing. It wasn't a physical feeling of growth. Not like that of a parasite or a tumour or a baby... but it felt like she had planted a permanent memory of herself deep inside his brain. A loving memory to grab onto whenever he needed to remember something or someone special. A memory to ensure that he never felt truly lonely ever again. A memory that made him feel a little woodsy and warm.

Through the dark, thick water he could see a bioluminescent squid making its way towards him. Small and fluttery, it had great control of the photophores it used to add razzamatazz to the bleakness.

"There you are!" said the squid.

"Here I am, indeed!" Potto replied. This wasn't a bioluminescent squid, it was a bioluminescent Bundle.

"You do realize I am a figment of your imagination, right?"

"Sure!" Potto answered, not quite understanding what figment meant, or anything else in that sentence.

He used "sure" (one of the most insincere ways of answering a question with an affirmative in the English language) quite purposefully. He wanted to be agreeable but also honest that he didn't actually understand.

"So, this is kinda impossible, don't you think? How can you wander away from a figment without that figment disappearing entirely? How can you transfer a figment of your imagination into someone else's head?"

There were a lot of figments in all of that. He smiled and nodded, not answering right away. From somewhere far off, one of the prawns that sang harmony on his birthday song coughed for effect.

"Sorry, what?" he finally piped up after too much time had passed.

"Oh, never mind. I'll just chalk it up to astral projecting."

"Yes, I think you should. Kestrel rejecting is likely what that thing you said did. This is a beautiful ocean, don't you think?"

"I guess. If you're into oceans. You've imagined up a good one."

"Imagined up?"

Bundle sighed heavily. "You're still hypnotized. I'm not going to tell you where you really are. It's better you stay here in your ocean. The reality is kinda terrifying."

"Oh, that's right. Where is...um...uh..."

"Clover?"

"Yes."

"I don't know. I don't think she's still hypnotized. We gotta keep you under, though.

"I spent some time in her head. I'm hoping to help her find you. I may be able to tell her where you are once she's asleep and dreaming. Even though you are in two different places, I might be able to pull you together in the real world. Like a mental beacon."

"Ah. Yes, I like it here. I will happily stay here. You have bacon?"

"No. Er...yes. By all means you mustn't wake up..."

"I mustn't!"

Just then Potto woke up.

He had been hit by a smallish asteroid. The chances of this encounter were too astronomical to accurately calculate, almost to the point of being impossible. Perhaps it was a miracle, perhaps those laws of bullshit.

Waking up in a space suit, floating aimlessly around in the biggest darkness there is, and up against a chunk of floating space rock like a good-luck-charm plush animal on the front grill of a garbage truck, should have been absolutely horrifying. At first Potto thought maybe he had somehow crawled into a fish bowl while asleep.

It wasn't just the impact of the asteroid that snapped him awake from his lovely (and possibly life-saving) daze. It was a voice.

"Potto?" said Lempshop.

The laws of bullshit were now working overtime.