Ally Miller falls asleep on the dingy bed in the motel. As she does, she awakens slowly on an animated grassy hill. With a warm light. After her becoming one of the two tethers... the entire realm is now in color, unless it decides it should not be. Her presence has stabilized, and like an ocean gaining a new average temperature from a second sun, its realism has stabilized, and no longer spikes when she walks nearby. It's just there... everywhere in here. This place has a strange way... in that it makes sense. She lays down, snout above paws, resting on them. As she just senses... how real this other body feels. Her tail flicks, the wind blows through every strand of fur, and every muscle feels... real. Ears flick, and rotate casually. She breathes, and the air is cleaner than any air she ever breathed... yet filled with... a feeling. Almost of... will? A presence in every breath, that makes you feel like you are never alone. Her fur is white, with bits of grey. Her eyes... are human. Her old human eyes from Earth, blue eyes, round pupils. But more animated, and alive. It seems her human eyes, and fox eyes swapped. Her eyes in the... real? world, Earth. They are slitted, and glow with static. Here... they are human, and blue. Unlike any other shadow fox, but like Mr. Fox, whose eyes are brown. She closes her eyes halfway. Tempted to take a nap. She finds this... hill relaxing. It seems, where she enters the realm from is somewhat random. She most of the time wakes up into the realm, somewhere peaceful, never near the edges, in the so-called 'studio', never near others. Often Karlen goes to find her, and it takes him some time, but he always does.
She marvels silently, at how her body feels. The scientist in her analyzes it... how each bone is truly how a fox's bone structure would be, how her tail feels alive, and her paws... feel like paws. But yet... there is a perfection... or dream-ness under it. She can tell... that... almost... if she tried. It would change, change as she wanted. She frowns... remembering Earth. Ears fold... she needs to be safe there... and that means understanding how to use... this tether. In combat, or for support. She sits up, paws stretching, and forelimbs in a cat-like manner. Before yawning, loudly, and sitting. She looks at a paw... and focuses... 'change color to pink...' it does not work, even as she focuses for a while. She sighs, and stops. She flicks her paw, and it bends with motions that no fox skeleton should allow. She says, "Why is this easy, but anything else hard?"
A voice replies, from behind her, Mr. Fox. "Because that is supported by the laws here." She jumps slightly, and turns, surprised. "How you get here?" Mr. Fox smiles, as he sits by a tree. His fur black, and with only some slightly lighter greys in some areas. Brown human eyes on his face. As he says, "Once you understand the realm, it brings you where you want to go... and to who needs, or wants you present." She sighs. "Teach me... I need... to understand how to control this. I... I... well you saw." He is quiet... she has not visited since that incident with her disappearing those teams. He says, "Yeah, I saw. It's hard not to hear a cry that loud from the realm. Don't worry, those military dudes are already crying in a den, as they can no longer speak, and can't move or act human. They are being cared for as we speak."
She is quiet. Then asks, "So how does this work... truly. You must know. How do you do one of your performances, look through TV screens, scan for targets, and more." Mr. Fox is quiet, "It's rather technical. You got time?" She chuckles. "Yeah... I got time. All night. So... explain... Mr. Fox. I still think that is a fake name." He chuckles. "Perhaps it is. But yeah, I will show you." Mr. Fox smiles, and then a slow backing track plays. She frowns. "Seriously, a song?" Mr. Fox replies, "Yeah, it's the best way..." — he speak-sings, as the jazzing backing track fills the air — "So gather round me children for a tale of a man! A scientist who wished for a new way to command! Energies beyond what one could think or demand! He was truly the genius of the land!" Mr. Fox sings, as the world shifts actively, as shadow foxes surround Mr. Fox, as he sings on a stage that forms out of midair.
He continues to sing, "So with projects he directed, and given an object beyond dissection, by the groups of war and profit that were ruining the lands!" Mr. Fox jumps off the stage, walking around. "As the man researched, and his progress was made, his child born of a woman he did not care to date! His machine grew stronger, and the artifact grew closer, and soon the device was ready to run. But it failed once, and once more. Until all the groups cut off the failures of the poor." Mr. Fox continued, "But..." the song changed tone, darker, more scary. As the lights darkened, and a shadow puppet moved in front of them. "His child loved his work... loved his father, wished he would look... his way just once for a smile..." The child slowly approached a large machine in the shadow puppets. Then... the machine lit with static. "Then the machine worked for once, and the child..." arcs of static grew, and then consumed the child, and machine. "In truth within the rock, found oh so long ago, was a fragment of a realm so very large. A realm we now call home, was just so long ago, a place of potential, with no way to form."
Then... the style changes to an instrumental, as the ground shakes, and the shadows show a picture of a boy, laying in a whirlpool of static. "Within the realm... with no place to form... a child found themselves... and in fear... it pooled." The static... locked like a diamond around the child, as waves of static released. "The child found himself within a dream... a dream where the ground was free. A dream where he could not breathe... for he was no child he could see..." the shadows shifted... showing a boy falling apart, and reforming over and over. "So he constructed... what he could... knew of the foxes, he loved more than he should... and slowly a new form became... a fox for all the realm to frame." Mr. Fox is oddly... emotional. Ally realizes... Mr. Fox was the kid.
Mr. Fox continued, "Within the dream, the fox grew wise... learned of all the tools he could combine... but as he lived, he died... as in the father in the other thrived. The father was distraught, as his machine failed to function, yet he found his boy, nearly dead, yet still alive. Sleeping through on a bed, eyes glowing with an energy, and the artifact gone. The forces at be took command. They formed a way to extract the energy... but little did they know it would let it free." A radio tower was shown... broadcasting static. "The men would not see their results... as once it turned on it all... stopped to be such a simple rhyme... for they all got lost in time! The realm expanded, and expanded, the fox grew, and commanded, and soon enough the realm reached the state you can all see! As it was dragged to here, an Earth similar, but new to the fur we see. The wars that made us disappeared, as we are now in this world you live." A quiet darkness fills. "But that is not of what you need... but it is the truth of what was here. So I ask upon you to join, and dance with me to say your turn...." A sinkhole forms to the foundation.
Ally... feels weird. Too... in sync... a flow state... but it's so profound, and yet easy... it does not take mental effort, and she can't... help but be in sync. As instincts follow in her head, throughout the performance, she moved along in time to the beat, and nodded along instinctively. The instincts are so strong, as he hands off the singing role to her. The song slowly shifts tone. Becomes more slow... more emotional. She sings, with a silky voice, "I can see this realm you have come. I can see the boy in the beyond... I am unsure of where I belong... but I hope to hold on to my own heart...." Mr. Fox replies, similar in tone... as the surroundings fade, "I agree you must hold on... so come with me, and you will understand... the way this place works, and commands... just... be brave and take my hand!" Ally nearly does so, as her paw reaches for Mr. Fox in front of the pit to the foundation. "But I fear for my sanity! For my sake, and reality! I desire things I cannot be! Who am I, with fur, claws and teeth!" Mr. Fox returns, "But as I see your fur is truly lovely. You, and all, and true reality! The realm expresses what you have inside... for it's nothing but the heart, and mind."
The tune slowly peps up, as Mr. Fox continues, "So babble on, until the time is gone. For you, and me need to be at joy! Babble on, until the sky is gone! For you need to see the power of you." The background is filled with the peppy music... as it goes on a music solo, as some shadow foxes in the corner are visibly playing instruments. While they just stare at each other, walking around the hole to the foundation. Then... as the instrumental lowers... "So what do you say?" Mr. Fox asks, without any musical tone. The song fades out. Ally says, "Sure, I guess." Mr. Fox nods, and sighs, and then... with a paw swipe, pushes her down the hole, as she yips. Then he jumps down.