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Dolly Waters · (06-02-2024)

-Echoes of Reunions-

My darling…

Madame Maluna’s voice gently tucks around Dolly with the ease of a dryer-warm quilt. So secure, and earnest, it gave Dolly this comforting feeling reminiscent of a childhood she could barely remember anymore.

-so many lives ago-

Maluna wraps an arm around Dolly’s shoulder that invites an embrace rather than a battering for once. In the same motion, she tucks her opposite hand around Dolly’s face, pulling her near.

-we were so many people-

As tears cascade down Dolly's cheeks, dampening Maluna's silken sleeve, memories of past lives and connections weave a tapestry of bittersweet nostalgia. "We carry the echoes of people, homes, and passions within us, unseen yet deeply felt, shaping the essence of who we are," Maluna murmurs, anchoring Dolly to a realm beyond the hospital room's sterile confines. "Their presence, unwavering and eternal, merges with our spirit, shaping our present selves."

Not like this though… Dolly slips her head from Maluna’s embrace, and straightens her focus on the body lying in the hospital bed-

He shouldn’t be like this.

-our dear Patel too, my darling-

-of Patel Gagenndepp. Comatose, and skin graphed, and paralyzed, and battling the tenuous boundary between recovery and loss.

-he has traversed many paths before, and we can only hope that his next journey is illuminated with light,

You may recall Patel Gagandeep, Dolly’s on again, off again trusted assistant. The astute wrestling strategist who ventured into Dolly's world seeking untapped potential within her ring prowess. Their alliance, forged in the crucible of January '23, took an unexpected turn as Patel delved into the shadows of mysticism alongside his enigmatic employer, Dolly Waters. It was in those moments that fate intertwined their destinies with Madame Maluna, ushering them into a frantic and bungling realm where uncertainty, caprice and darkness lurked, testing their resolve and bonds in ways they never imagined. Like the kidnapping of Maluna by Dolly, for which Patel was incarcerated, a massive chakra-tea ponzi scheme and Dolly revivifying a latex love doll with the essence of Jenny Myst.

This was all more than Patel signed up for, and after an advantageous WarGames led them on a terrorist sponsored quest to find a magic djinn lamp, where Dolly nearly led her team and Patel to their deaths multiple times, Patel and Dolly parted ways in the summer of ‘23.

It’s my fault he’s here

But time eventually reweaved the severed ties between Dolly and Patel. The two reconciled as partners in January of ‘24, with Dolly vowing to leave her days as the self proclaimed “Gypsy Queen” of the XWF behind her. With the webs of Dolly’s deceitful, and capricious behavior broomed from the doorways of their potential partnership, she and Patel strategized their way to Dolly capturing her record third reign as Television Champion.

-now.. Maluna lets out reassuring shush How could you have ever known-

But disaster struck. Just before Dolly’s first Television Championship defense, a bomb erupted when Patel and Dolly were visiting their old friend Maluna. Violent. Devastating. It ravaged the old Metaphysics shop -while Dolly was undergoing a very routine hypnotic chakra cleanse from Maluna- injuring the three of them, with Patel’s condition being the most critical.

Dolly has spent most every day and night here since, in this hospital room, eating, and showering, and watching over her friend’s unencouraging recovery, unable to clean the image of Patel’s blood on her hands. She couldn’t bear the thought of Patel awakening from his coma alone, and afraid, with no one there to comfort him as he found that he couldn’t use his lower extremities anymore.

I’m sorry, Patel… she remembers whispering to him as he lied stiff gathering bed sores, just before her return to the XWF in May, They say yer’ getting worse. she grabbed Patel’s hand and I won’t let it end this way She had been so apprehensive to leave his side, but I know what you wanted us to do, my friend. I know where you thought we could climb. she knew there was no modern science or miracle she could perform to change Patel’s condition, but she owed to her friend to honor him,[/dolly] I’m going back to the XWF, and we’re going to finish the job- and I’m going to find out who really did this to you.[/dolly]

-besides me telling you, over and again who was responsible.

Away from the memories, Dolly breaks out from under Maluna’s embrace, excuse the fuck out of me she hisses, standing now from the bed to face Maluna. To this day, you haven’t given me a shred of evidence that Michael Graves had anything to do with this. Besides what? You could “feel it”
You heard that right, since the explosion that maimed Patel, Madame Maluna has been unwavering from her belief that Dolly’s old nemesis, Michael Graves, was responsible for the bomb that ripped through her storefront. Though at least partially credulous for a time, Dolly’s suspicion of Maluna’s claim dwindled with each passing day that police investigations rendered only inconclusive findings.

I don’t think it was Graves… she remembers back to the conversation with Patel’s decaying body again, I know Maluna… feels it was him, or whatever, but I don't know. She started acting strange- she wanted me to punish Graves for this, wanted me to dip back into some weird spellbook stuff. But I dismissed it though! Her shakey, tear-sniffling voice rising with some enthusiasm, You’d be proud of me. I followed your strategy against Graves to a tee. I lost the title… but I kept my nose clean! I was professional, and I didn’t stoop to his level.

It’s more than “feeling something”, my dear.

Maluna’s words sweep Dolly away from the memory again,

You have to hear. I’ve become just a conduit for what the universe has been whispering into your ear all this time, where it’s been guiding you. It wanted you to bring justice to Michael Graves for not just this atrocity… but all of them.[/dolly]

You think I’m unfamiliar with hearing voices?! If this “universe” character were really telling me sweet-nothings to whisk me away, I would’ve done more than just hear it! I’d have been clicking my heels to go home with the great white sky whale or whatever loopy shit yer’ implying

[pink]This has nothing to do with your vain insecurities!

Maluna snaps back,

You have to accept feeling it first before you can ever hear, my darling. It’s deep in there, it’s those echoes, the milenia of energy that has built the essence of you. The calls of your universe.[/pink]

I think she’s totally wrong, buddy. Dolly remembers continuing to whisper, while adjusting Patel’s pillows that night… in fact, I know it has something to do with this. Dolly produced a letter she received from the bank. The letter she showed Patel just before traveling to visit Maluna on the day of the explosion. When I showed this to you, you got so nervous acting

The letter detailed a bank’s faulting on a trust fund being paid by a portion of her XWF salary. The fund’s recipient, a mysterious non-profit entity named S.E.E.R.S, and in fact, seeing the letter did make Patel nervous. And just moments before the explosion, he detailed his involvement with S.E.E.R.S, or The Seers as he referred to them, in conversation with Maluna.

There's something more to this letter, I can feel it she told him, I’m gonna’ find out what it is-

Did Patel ever mention anything to you about The Seers?

Maluna’s words again slam Dolly into the present,

The what?

Though she asked for clarification, Dolly’s mind was already gearing back to the bank letter. S.E.E.R.S. Seers. The subject that seemed to make Patel so tense on that fateful day.

Before the bomb… Maluna wanders across the room, looking out of the hospital window, where only a view of the jagged black roof was to behold. Patel spoke of a shadow wrestling cult, with deep ties in the industry. One that siphons off from their talent’s salaries to fund unspeakable things. He was certain that the XWF was involved.

The features on Dolly’s face twitch with shock,

How could he have been certain?

...my dear Maluna sinks her head for the shame that Dolly’s unwavering nativity has kept such an essential truth from her, you must strengthen your chakras again- Maluna rubs Dolly’s shoulder as she walks back across the room and finds a chair. Patel was a high-level covert infiltrating The Seers.

He was?

She laid her eyes back on her friend, his frail and ravaged body teetering on an all systems failure. Patel, the practical, timid, unthreatening, sort of bitchy man who she’d known for all this time was actually some sort of Indian James Bond?

Who was he working for?

He wouldn’t say, my darling. He was worried that he’d already been compromised. He wore a different mask for so long, playing the role of one The Seers.

So The Seers not only steal money from wrestlers-

They “help” manage their careers too- - in very special circumstances.

What was so special about my circumstance?

That’s what Patel was trying to figure out- but he knew it involved Graves, and something even further behind the shadows, something more sinister. She pauses as Dolly is entrenched, waiting for her to finish the thought a blood cult of the rich and the powerful in wrestling. The elite. The Seers… this is not at all how we remember that conversation, (The Seer, The Sage, and The Sadist) but how would Dolly know? She was in the middle of chakra hypnosis just before the explosion. Which might beg us to wonder:

Why?

To mold the world as they see fit, they “see” by altering a wrestlers motives, and their instincts, guiding them away from what their- your- universe was telling you my, dear. They predict your every move by SEEING to it first hand that you move the way they’ll predict.

This is nonsense- i just- Dolly stamps past Maluna and opens the door I don't have it in me right now to listen to this… She starts motioning for Maluna to leave.

Muddled as it were, Dolly couldn’t help but feel a tremble, or a reverb from an echo deep within. She knows theres something to this, but Maluna was-

I was always right, my dear. Because I carried the whispers of your universe for you.

When I told you how to handle Corey Smith…

Leading up to the Universal Championship match last summer, she means,

I told you he wasn’t a friend. That his lies and manipulation needed to lay before his feet. But what did Patel tell you? …

never forget your friendships. They bring the true pride you’ll need to win
...never forget your friendships. They- -the- pride you’ll need to win

They say in near unison,

That’s right… and what happened? You stepped to the side, without even a thank you, while he took your moment, your moment to bring justice.

Just as I told you to bring this justice to Graves, you followed Patel’s words, and look now, my darling. She caresses her hand against Dolly’s bald head. The Seers have pulled you down with the loons, away from your birthright.

[dolly]Please, Maluna, i cant-

-indeed, you can’t. They can, and they will-

Can what?

WILL kill you. It is your blood that is predicted, it’s what’s wagered by The Seers, promised up to their hideous benefactors. You, Dolly, and so many like you belong to a pack of blooddrunk cultists… and Patel was certain that your puppet master, the one who issued Patel’s orders to “see” you, the one he suspected had figured out Patel’s true identity, and thus would try and kill him?

Who… WHO?!

Vincent Lane

Dolly lowers her brow, her face flattening in a most condescending way towards Maluna,

Have you met Vinnie? He’s definitely not capable of something so

They just tried to kill you with a trash compactor! Maluna is sounding unusually combative And now what have they next for, Dolly?

A no disqualification match with tables, ladders and chair strewn across the arena….

See-

and it’s against Vinnie Lane

Maluna shrieks and grabs Dolly’s hand, tracing the tip of her index finger along the lines of the palm. She then shrieks again, this time Dolly shrieks too,

What dammit!?

We have to break the bond of your blood! It’s the only way you’ll overcome The Seers!

No!

Dolly jerks her hand away from Maluna, I’m not doing another stupid ritual with you. she looks over to Patel,

I made a promise! And I’m going to wrestle Vinnie just the way that Patel would’ve wanted me to- with professionalism, and class. Vinnie Lane is an old friend, and he would never try to harm me the way yer’ talking about. Now, if you don’t mind.
Dolly shows Maluna the door again,

I’m listening fer’ the echoes I can hear, Maluna. Not the ones yer’ hearing.

The door to Patel’s room closes in Maluna’s face as the scene fades.

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