FicWad

Author's Notes: Gardener's entrance music of choice is Beethoven's Pastoral Symphony, in case you're wondering. And I feel I must apologise for the behaviour of the four women - I'd like to say that they don't usually behave this badly, but I'm afraid that they do.



Panic flooded through all four Beatles. Split up? The concept was unthinkable! They couldn't possibly be separated - they'd never been apart before! All four started shouting. At first, it was a simple cacophony - but slowly a pattern emerged, and Ringo moved to the front and became the spokesman.



The quartet were concentrating so firmly on the Mistress that they didn't noticed Silver talking quietly with four of the eunuchs. They didn't notice the four eunuchs split up and walk over to where the Beatles were standing. All they could see and hear was Ringo, shouting about how they wouldn't survive apart (and underneath that thread was bewilderment - they were human beings, weren't they? How could they not survive without each other?).



Ringo shut up abruptly when the eunuchs each grabbed hold of one of them, and dragged them to separate corners of the room. They could feel themselves being stretched apart. They felt as though they were being stretched on the rack in the dungeon, that they were going to lose a limb at any moment.



But they didn't. Through the mental pain of being stretched apart, the connection that had the quartet living in each other's minds held. Anguish/pain/grief/anger rippled through them.



That was the point that Ringo used his eyes and looked at the others - and noticed threads connecting them. The threads were an odd mixture of light and flesh and, as he reached out to John, he could see more threads stretching out from his hands and heading in John's direction. What was happening?



His confusion spread through the others as well, and they looked at the threads also. Fear entered the emotional turmoil. Just as the emotional turmoil threatened to overwhelm them completely, Warrior stepped forward, raised her broadsword, and severed the threads connecting the four Beatles together. The severed threads waved around wildly for a moment, desperately looking for the other threads before retracting into the now-separate Beatles.



Ringo felt something change within himself. He couldn't hear the others anymore. He could remember meeting the other three (although the details were still very hazy) and the four of them playing together for the first time. A dim impression of being Paul meeting John sparked briefly within his memory, before fading away.



For the first time since they had been dragged from the forest, Ringo found himself thinking, "I am me!" He looked down at his hands, wondering at them, before glancing at the others and seeing solid, steady outlines with no blurring at all. Not only that, but all their features were back where they were supposed to be.



"What's this about us splitting up?" Ringo asked quietly.



The Mistress sighed. "You were merging. Blending into a single entity. We need to split you up for a while so that you have the chance to discover your own, unique, individuality."



"You will be brought back together again," Warrior told them. "When the danger of your merging has passed."



Silver was looking around. "Where the hell is Gardener?" she asked.



The Mistress's face darkened. "I'll kill her," she growled. "Can't that woman ever be on time? Is it physically impossible for her?"



She started to pace around, muttering to herself and gesturing wildly. The Beatles prudently stepped out of her way.



Abruptly, the door was flung open. A eunuch was hurled inside and narrowly avoided colliding with the Mistress. A furry face appeared in the doorway, closely followed by the rest of the being attached.



It was a unicorn.



Sitting on the unicorn's back were several bluebirds and a couple of canaries. A swallow followed the unicorn in, swooping around the room and narrowly avoiding collisions with people and objects alike before settling down on the tip of the unicorn's horn.



The eunuch groaned, and staggered to his feet.



Gardener came in.



The birds launched into a chorus that was startlingly classical - Ringo suspected it was Beethoven, although he knew full well he didn't know all that much about classical music.



"Sorry I'm late," she said, and flopped down onto the couch. The birds all immediately flew over to her and settled down on her person, still singing frantically. "That's enough, dears," she told them, and they shut up. She looked up at The Mistress. "I thought you said they were merging."



"If you'd bothered to get here on time," the Mistress said through clenched teeth, "You would have seen for yourself. But no. You were late! You are always...."



She was cut off by Warrior, who quickly told her what had been going on.



"So," Gardener asked brightly. "Have we decided who is going to go with who?"



"Whom," Silver corrected.



"Oooh," the Mistress said sourly, "trying to be Estrelda, are we?"



"Why, you..." Silver said angrily, and lunged for the Mistress. The Mistress' eunuchs interposed themselves between the two women, and Warrior and Gardener quickly moved to keep the two women apart.



"Paul can come with me," Gardener said quickly, and gestured for Paul to join the unicorn and the birds, who had returned to the comparative safety of the unicorn's back when the catfight had started. Warily, Paul did so. They had all heard of the dangers of unicorns and who could safely approach them. But the unicorn just snorted a little.



"Ringo, you come with me," Warrior said. Ringo jumped a little. He'd thought that they'd forgotten about him. Obviously not. He glanced over at John and George. They exchanged wary looks. Ringo suspected that neither of them particularly fancied travelling with Silver. But neither really wanted to stay with the Mistress, either. Especially when she was in a snit.



Silver and the Mistress glared at each other. "George can come with me," Silver said with an air of defiance.



"I'm not sure he would be safe with you," the Mistress sneered.



That did it. Silver let loose a scream of rage, and lunged for the Mistress again, shaking off Gardiner, and sending eunuchs flying in all directions.



The two women were about to start doing damage to one another when thunder crashed around the room. The room actually shook, and everybody present were knocked off their feet.



A voice boomed, from a source that was, apparently, all around them. "That's enough! Honestly, you are like a pack of children!"



"But Estrelda..." The Mistress protested, "she was trying to usurp you!"



Silver looked outraged, but restrained herself from further physical violence. "She started it!" she protested.



Estrelda's voice boomed again. "I said, that's enough!" The bodiless voice settled down to a quieter volume. "Silver will take George, and John will stay with the Mistress. That is final! Do you understand?"



Silver and the Mistress glowered at one another.



"Do you understand?" Another rumble of thunder accompanied that last comment.



"Yes, Estrelda," they chorused.



Then, the voice was gone. Ringo's ears rang in the sudden absence of noise. He glanced around. The unicorn had jammed itself in a corner in an attempt to escape the onslaught of sound, and the birds had to pick themselves up from where they had landed. Gardener rushed over to soothe their shattered nerves.



"Um," said John, "Who was that?"



Everybody looked at him, and then the four men looked at the women.



"The author," Silver said, with an air that told them to drop the subject. Reluctantly, they did.



"Come on Ringo," Warrior said. "We'd better get out of here before things get out of hand again."



Ringo nodded. Briefly, he thought about what was in his bedroom. There was nothing there that he particularly needed to have with him. He stepped forward to Warrior's side. "I'll see you all later," he told the others in the jauntiest tone of voice that he could manage.



The others nodded their agreement, and Paul and George went to Gardener and Silver respectively. Only John stayed where he was, looking forlornly after them.