Sheridan Driscol hadn't been seen in weeks. No. Scratch that. Months. He had not been present when chaos descended upon the city in the form of an army dropping the (perhaps even literal) bomb on the Public Works building. He had not been present for any number of dueling events. He had not stepped foot in even his own office in as long as nobody even remembers.

The people of the city were starting to ask questions. Trouble being that they really had nobody to direct those questions toward. Except perhaps a beleaguered personal assistant, and poor Erin Dunbridge didn't know where the Governor was anymore than anyone else did.

Truth was that not even Sheridan Driscol had known where he had been all this time, which was likely to become very apparent. For on this day in history, when the one woman in the world who had every right more than most to tear him a new sphincter for his disappearance was pacing the length of the Governor's Office — all by herself, tearing out her hair and quite possibly having purchased stock in aspirin — saw Rhy'Din's number one most wanted missing man casually saunter in through the double doors....

Well. "Casually saunter" probably wasn't the turn of phrase most appropriate for the fact of the matter.

There he was, though. Governor Sheridan Driscol. His arms were being held by two men, one on either side of him, while his body dangled dejectedly between theirs. A silver sequined party top hat was stuck on his head, askew, and barely hanging on by the elastic band thread that pinched up under his chin. He was barefoot but thankfully otherwise clothed, more or less. The white dress shirt had lost a few buttons and ceased actually being white probably as long as two months ago. The black dress slacks were frayed at the ankles and there was a gaping hole in the right knee; the pockets had also been turned out. Had he been wearing the same clothes all this time in which he had gone missing?

A novelty blowout noisemaker was stuck to his lips and dangling as limply as his head from his neck was. He groaned pathetically when the two men dropped him to the floor of the office. He whimpered, twitched, exhaled hard enough to cause the blowout to unfurl and honk miserably, and then he lay still.

One of the men said, "We founch yer Guvner."

The other, wiping his palms off on his pant legs in disgust, added, "In a ditch 'bout a quarter mile outside a city limits," while hooking his thumb over his shoulder to indicate in whearabouts which direction.

"Boss say him lookit like thar man y' 'lected inna city."

"We don't live in Rhy'Din proper," the other man explained. He was still wiping his hands clean and looking at his nails distastefully. "Run a transport biz between realms. Usually stage coachin' services and the like. Mostly people. Sometimes goods."

"Boss say bringin' him here," said the first man, who obviously wasn't that bright.

"Right," added the second, gesturing at the filthy heap of unconscious man laid out at Erin's feet. "So we did. And that's all there is to it, Miss." He snapped off a mockery of a salute and turned about, grabbing his comrade by the sleeve, fully preparing to beat a hasty retreat now that their job was done.

Dris probably would have joined them in their smart getaway, except he was too busy being passed out cold.

(I would like to thank Harris for this brilliant idea, and of course Erin for giving me the perfect inspirational kick-off to get me writing again.)

"I'm....going...to....kill...you...." she said.

Groan, said the Governor.

And then there was yelling, which he heard somewhere between a freight train slamming into a wall and a mile long tunnel being set on fire. Everything exploded into a billion pretty colors, tumbling in high definition. He was trapped inside a kaleidoscope. The constant topsy turvy joy ride he was experiencing in his own head was making his stomach churn.

He was pretty sure he heard someone say his name somewhere. Just to reassure whoever it was that he was still more or less alive, he thought, maybe, he shouted back, "I'm here!" Though in the real and present world, the only noise he really made was yet another groan. In his mind, he even tossed up a hand to wave whoever it was off, as if to tell them he was busy and he'd get with them in a moment — the colors, is that a giraffe? But what really happened is that his arm flopped bonelessly up and thumped down on the floor. Then he groaned again.

At that point he saw a parade of carousel horses canter by, grabbed one by the stirrups, flung himself up onto the saddle, and rode away into the sunset. Or so he thought.

In reality, there was a puddle of drool pooling up under his cheek, and he burbled "heeee" bubbles into it in his not quite sleep.

Yep. Erin was probably going to kill him.

"Wull hullo, DRIS," said the carousel horse, belting his name out louder than the rest of the warbling sentence. Sound suddenly had this way of bending and twisting in around itself like a swirly straw made of noise. "SIT UP straight," the carousel horse instructed him.

Beyond the realms of his cracked out and drugged up imagination, Sheridan Driscol flopped like a dying fish on the floor. With a few jerky movements — accompanied by his own gleefully punctuated, "Wheeeee!" — the Governor managed to wriggle himself over from stomach to flat on his back. His eyes were closed, but the smile on his face looked as if it had been fastened in place by safety pins. If he were wearing make-up, chances are he'd be doing a fine impersonation of Batman's arch nemesis the Joker. At least by appearance.

In his mind, he and the carousel horse were galloping across a countryside made of rainbows and candy canes. Fluffy pink cotton candy clouds of yum zipped by them as they moved. The sun had an honest to goodness smiling face on it, and one of its rays gave them thumbs and a wink in passing.

Of course, in the real world he was making a fool of himself and didn't even realize it. His legs were bent up so that his knees pointed at the ceiling and his feet at the door. He had his hands up in position to hold a set of imaginary reins, and he was even scooting about as if he were in fact being jostled in the saddle that wasn't actually there.

Somewhere amidst the candy coated joy of his current hallucination, he saw a cherub — which strangely enough seemed to have Erin's face — come floating down from the Laffy Taffy heavens to join he and the carousel horse in their race. "Hiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiieeeeeeeeeeeeeee," he crooned to the Erin cherub. "Lovely day for a ride, don't you think?" Little did he know that he was actually talking blindly to his personal assistant and not some chubby baby with wings likeness of her.