They’re standing at the base of a building.

They’re standing: Val, Lolli, Dave and Luis.

And they’re staring up.

It’s one of many — any generic office building of a billion gleaming floors. The city’s full of them. You can see the empty street and a bit of the sky reflected in the two-way mirrors that serve as windows to the building, reflective from afar, clear from within. They, the four, they can’t see inside the structure. They don’t even know what it’s for.

And that’s why they start climbing.

Lolli’s glamour starts it all. Her no-longer-imaginary vines creep up one face, twirling at the ends like Christmas trees out of Dr. Seuss books. They blossom crystal flowers, amethyst, lapis, emerald, diamond — huge and outstretched like steps. And Lolli climbs.

Dave’s quick to follow. And it’s because he wants to see up Lolli’s skirt, you just know.

Then it’s Luis and then, finally, hesitantly, it’s Val, because even faerie drugs can’t repress the things that make you. And Val doesn’t know what makes her any more than she can see into the masked windows, but there you go. And there they go.

Up the crystal flowers and they’re high and higher, climbing high, climbing higher. Laughing, puzzling, shivering, screaming. They’re not reaching for the sun, so no brick walls crumble. They’re not aiming for castles in the clouds, they’ve got no giants to fear.

They have no limits, no three wishes apiece, no midnight curfews.

This is a fairytale all their own.

And that’s what’s getting at Val, because, in some disjointed, drunken way, she’s figuring things out. And she’s thinking — who’s the sacrifice? Who’s falling into the hundred-year slumber, who gets the poison apple? She’s glamouring her hands into golden branches and back again, and this is magic. This is the story. So where’s the catch?

Lolli’s twirling along the rooftop, waving and fluttering an unscripted ballet — she sings —

The higher you climb...

“Where’s the fucking catch?” says Val.

— and Lolli, she twirls dangerously close to the edge — Dave jumps up to play the hero —

But it’s Luis, grim and half-blind and carrying rat-metaphors alongside faerie drugs in his pocket — it’s Luis who grabs her when she spins too close to the end — it’s Luis in whose arms she collapses with laughter — it’s Luis who doesn’t need to finish any sentences that hang thick like midnight fog, and they all know, but still, they wait.

“Maybe,” says Val, “the sun’ll rise. And we’ll all melt away into dust.”

“Can’t fall,” says Dave, “if you keep on climbing.”

“You,” says Lolli, “are all fucking crazy.”

— but they're all sort of relieved, you know, when the sun rises without incident.

- - - - -

Yeah. You. Vendy, Broomy. This is for you. x3;

And it's supposed to be this fxcking weird, so don't feel cheated by the lack of plot.