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“Yes, I could be able to plot a new course, without doubt, even with that tile missing” Belen said to one of the dolphins of the neighbourhood who had come for an update on the stranded ghost galleon.

I was weeks of Simultaneous Time, and being stranded was particularly difficult for a Conscious Breather such as Belen, even if the ghost whale now didn’t really need to breathe, the force of habit was strong.

Peter, his usual jovial self had said nothing, and had merely enjoyed some forays inland, looking for the tile and the conch, occasionally bringing news from the strange neighbours of the nearby village.

In the end, Belen couldn’t really remember who was who in the strange tales he made of it, there were so many humans involved and truly, their earthly concerns weren’t relevant to hers, and there was only little they could do to help with the situation.

The Harmonium Convergence was about to start, the crystalline aquatic organs would start to play the tunes for the new dreams of the new era to be sung.
And yet, the so-called magical conch was still missing. Belen dreaded coming back ashamed to the Youngers without the ancient divination tool. Frankly, it was more of a permission slip, as her orca friend Batshatsassani called it. She would say to her that “every modality, every ritual, every tool, every technique is a permission slip that allows yourself to give you permission to be more of who you are.”
She knew she didn’t need it really, but she liked the rituals of old, and to be honest was a bit fearful of not only revealing they were not that important, but more, introducing new ones… Would the whale and whole cetacean family be ready for such an end to the religious era?

While she was struggling with the thoughts, she managed to guard them from the psychic prying of her dolphin friend, by misleading him on meanders of the endless memory halls that she was guardian of.

Peter suddenly appeared with a popping sound. “I think I found the conch!” he exclaimed with glee in his eyes. “Yes, it’s Igor, you know Igor…”
“What about Igor, darling, you know I lost complete track of all these landers strange names”
“He’s the guy who stole the…” Peter stopped realizing this wasn’t really a question about Igor. “The conch, he brought it back with him!”

Then to his and her own surprise, Belen replied
“Forget about the conch, darling, I’m sorry I’ve led you to believe it was important, but it’s not, not really. It’s just a ordinary object to lead the philistines astray. It’s not more powerful than the whiffling of a shillelagh. The true treasure is always within ourselves.
Gather the birds, and let us prepare to leave in the next hour, the Harmonium Convergence is about to start in 2222, I wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

Baffled by the revelation, Peter knew enough to not contradict his whale partner, and went merrily with the new flow which seemed so full of excitement and potential new science revelations.

Belen had a thought “Actually Peter my dear, any other conch we can find will do just as well. Just pick one on the beach before we leave. Dipping it in the Time stream will crystallize it just as well.”

Peter replied excitedly “Whale that. Let’s spanghew that boat to 2222!”

Just as a thought of love for the gift of such inner revelation, before she left the nice spot of the Spanish coast, Belen cleared her throat and retched the most lovely green scented blob of ambergris on the beach, next to the spiral made of broken white shells that some drifters had drawn on the beach a few days ago.

After they’d jumped in the robot (which had shapeshifted into a sand buggy big enough for them), they had to cling tight to the railing of the light vehicle, as the robot was driving recklessly into a jungle of unexpected leaves and green vegetation tentacles.
It wasn’t long before they were back on the gorgeously rugged Hawai’ian beach, taken on an unexpected dune racing along the coast.
The queens looked exhilarated, but Sadie was a bit overwhelmed, especially after what the Techromancer had told her.

The wetsuits fitting session passed in a blur, as the breathable elastic material was made to adapt to their bodies. Really, the only thing left to choose would have been color, but it was able to change itself at will, with very little shades it couldn’t replicate to perfection, even the Bollywood shine and twinkle that was all the craze in the 2019s.

“But we’re in the 2222s now!”, Maurana had voiced her disapproval of her choice of glittery fashion. Little did Sadie care about it. Her mission seemed to stretch to sidetracks and unneeded distractions on her path to Great Happiness.

All four of them clad in their fancy bathsuits and looking more like hippy frogs than sassy mermaids, they followed the robot on the miles-long deck that led to the horizon.

After half an hour of walking on the narrow bridge, they were at a good distance from the coast and Terry started to pant and breathe heavily in her green sardine scales costume.
“Stop! I got to catch my breathe, how long it’s going to be now? We were promised a soirée! Not a walk on the wild side!”

The robot, rolled back a few steps, and turned briskly.
“Actually, Sir, this is a perfect spot for your whale training”

And before they realized, the robot had opened the deck under their feet, plunging all of them in the ocean screaming.

Thanks to her excellent training and natural sharp reflexes, Sadie was the first to realize a few things.

• They were all alive
• They were able to breathe underwater
• Their suit enabled them to talk and understand each other in what sounded like whale-speech.
• A looming shape was quickly closing on them, looking dangerously like that of a giant toothy white shark.
• Her mind was a mysterious thing.

Why? Simply because the previous thought was coinciding with another one which was saying unequivocally that she still hadn’t found a proper dragqueen’s name for herself, and yet another one, even more funny than all others, saying in between bursts of infectious laughter that her last words could well be whale speech, and would make a hell of an epitaph.

She floated for a time moment stretched into an eternity, weighing all the rippling probabilities and wondered what her next move would be, as she was in the void of creation, hovering under a vortex of thoughts, with a sea of twinkling stars beckoning her further down the ocean’s clear bottomless depths.

It started raining lightly on the hut and the queens found themselves woken up from what had seemed a very long dream conversation.
“What just happened? What did he tell you?” Consuela asked.
“All in good time” Sadie answered still processing the information.
“Let’s go back to the beach, we will be late for the wetsuits fitting.”

The ezapper’s GPS started to send new instructions. “In 10 meters turn left…”
Then it added ominously “… at your peril”.

Belen quickly found out there was something amiss in the usual navigational patterns from her tile guidance system.

Her initial plotted course to jump from Bay of Biscay 1757 to Hawai’i 2222 was almost whale calf’s play. Relying on the tiles beacons, it was easy for her to hone to an intermediate time, at the same location, from where it would be easier to navigate the ghost whaling boat. 2222 customs clearance was always a bother, as soon as human had started to time-travel, they had put unnecessary barriers around some key timezones such as this one.

Her favourite stopover was on the other side of Galicia on the Mediterranean coast del Sol 2020, but then…

Peetee Pois as Peter was affectionately called by Belen was the first to notice the sails of Барк Крузенштерн, the Krusenshtern swollen by the wind, seconds before they came crashing onto it, launching all the birds in a massive flock around the town that the tall ship had just left (coincidentally with Igor on board as one of the newest recruits of the Russian sail training ship).

Lisa was still arguing with Adeline in broken Spanglish when they noticed the flock of birds at the horizon.
— Something’s happening on the beach, Lisa snapped, quick let’s go have a look.

With years of intense Happiness training, and being herself a certified Happiness Coach™ in Rainbow Unified Bliss®, Sadie knew when to notice she was stuck and, even better, what to do about it.
Techniques varied: some focusing on breathing, others on following impulse and all that, but most of them had in common that rabid thoughts had to be put to sleep, and the focus had to be kept on the immediate now.
The beauty of the Hawaii island was easy on the eyes, although she could still find objections lurking in the corner of her mind that the beaches were scarce on this island, with many shores a blistering hot pan of molten lava rocks ceaselessly beaten by the waves.
Then the sound of her companions came rousing some disturbance in her Rainbow thoughts, as she found out was mostly an annoyance with herself and her hair, the neat bowl cut starting to look a bit rugged on the edges.

Again, the rabid thoughts were back. She had to go deeper, cling to a joyful experience, that pure moment of satisfaction. But the flow and inpouring of love stopped again like a sea anemone retracting at the light touch of a clown fish.

She restrained the thought of loudly using the F word, and as well refrained herself from the desire to delete everything.
She noticed a few tadpoles which weren’t here before, slithering in a little pool of water next to the spot where she was. She’d almost forgotten about the singing frogs. That such little creature could do so marvelous feats of logistics rekindled her spirits.
What if she could just harness a little bit of her own energy. She started to list the things she was good at, besides haircuts.

“I’m fucking good at limitations, and following other’s expectations” was what she came up with after some minutes listing some things without much conviction.
“Bugger Linda Paul, and those ninc…” There it is she noticed again the thought.
That’s what it’s about…

You have to be nice and be quiet, Sadeline, the voice of her mean Breton grand-mother was saying. To which her equally loathable aunts would chime in religious rubbish of being nice and saintly and all.
You have to be nice and be quiet, Sadeline, or go out of my way and die alone.
She’d tried to exorcise the old goat, to rid of her, to appease her, to connect to the better version of herself that she is now since her transition. Well, nothing worked. She couldn’t find the angle. The old woman was still to her core a haunting and menacing presence with her mean irate insensitive lack of professed love.
Maybe they’d developed better techniques in 2222, she suddenly thought. Of course…
And then, Linda Paul wouldn’t have to know.

“Girls?” she said in a sweet imperative voice (and slightly raucous, for the air was dry) “what do you think about having ourselves pay a visit to the local techromancer, I’ve seen the signs everywhere on the way to the beach. It’ll be a fun stop on our mission”.

The three divas moaned under the sun, not specially enthusiastic at the effort, but then, Cedric, still himself haunted by the Russian’s vision managed to convince the others that some romance or exorcism or both, would do them great.

How many ways to stab a pea with a syringe? Jonbert woke up from his nap with the most peculiar question on his mind.
At 153, he’d started to get those annoying narcoleptic fits. He would go down in a blink of an eye into a deep dreamless sleep, and wake up to the most embarrassing of situations.
He felt like kicking someone, and mumbled under his breath “Just bloody once, before it gets puréed”.

He could have sworn he heard one of the butler robots titter silly. Those darn robots were getting smarter every day, he would have to get them a good canning.
But more pressing matter were on his mind, and he blisslessly ignored the wondrous display of flying manta rays around the eight-flippered submarine.

Time-landing around Big Island was always tricky, he was glad the darned bots got this one right, tittering notwithstanding.
Why so tricky, he could hear minds wonder. Why can’t those minds just read the bloody Time Traveling Manual! he exploded. The Island is expanding, creating new land every day. One miscalculation, and your expensive submarine would be enclosed in molten lava! How many times he had to repeat it.
True enough, his temper had not improved with age, but that kept him alive well, thank you very much.

That’s were they were supposed to collect the travelers, to entertain and train them a bit before leading them to the whale’s hotspot.
He would have to remain discreet for now on, and the prospect of having to refrain swearing loudly at ghosts seen by anyone but himself got him nervous all of a sudden.

They’d felt the Time Sewer get cleaned up, although it took a time to reach them. The frogs were paddling like crazy, and then the bubble reached them, propelling the jelly-bean shaped carriage like a rocket to their destination.

“Brace yourseeeeeeelves!” Sanso sung in the key of F, ending the frogs’ symphony with a perfect 5th.

“The mind has a tendency to forget unpleasant things…” Sadie was saying to the queens in a way to soothe their increasingly worried faces “It will be over in a minute”.
The last part didn’t get them any less worried.

There was a lot of commotion that night.

It all started a little bit before 6 PM, while the winter sun was very pale and slowly rolling behind the horizon. Jean-Pierre Duroy of the Royal Intendancy had the maids rounded up in matching uniforms to finish the cleaning of the Opera House, and ready to start to light the thousands of beeswax candles with almost military precision. This didn’t go without hiccup of course, but they did mostly well, and the Opera House was ready for the comedians before 5:55, leaving them with 5 spare minutes to catch their breath before the eighteen rings of the bell.

Even a little bit before that, Nicole du Hausset who had spent the whole dreaded day in anguish about the Queen’s lost ferrets, while attending to Madame’s every whims, realized after scouring through the Palace and hearing through the grapevine of the maids’ ring of deals in stolen goods that she should slide a word to the Royal Intendant through some unofficial channels (she knew well Helper, who was a great influence on Cook, who then could talk discreetly to Annie Duroy, of the Royal Pastries and Cookies) so an investigation could be carried out without any particular mention of the ferrets. As she would realize later the morrow, not only would the ferrets be retrieved at the Opera House and the Royal Chapel, one for each location, except slightly lighter and cut open, an act that would be seen as a hidden message and possible attempt on the Good Queen’s life, and dealt with appropriately by a specially appointed Inquisitor —but also, and notwithstanding any longwindedness, that it would make little difference as the perpetrators would be nowhere to be found the next day, having vanished, it seemed, in the ensuing confusion (of which we will come to in a minute), stealing in the process the Royal Balloon and a few chouquettes from the Royal Cuisines.
Her duties fulfilled, and being now on the other side of the fateful date of Jan. 5th, 1757, at 17:57 without any significant change to her reality or life, she deducted her mission as the safekeeper of the time-smuggled ferrets was by then accomplished, and she could focus on her more pressing duties.

It was only 5:57 PM shy of a few more seconds, that Madame Pompadour, powdered like there was no tomorrow, would be helped by her two maids into her gorgeous John Pol Goatier designer dress, and her lambswool petticoats. She was dressed to kill, and that made her all the more suspicious in the minutes to come, but we are getting ahead of ourselves.
Madame de Pompadour’s schedule for the soirée was very precise. At 6 PM, she would greet her guests, and the King back from his afternoon at the Parliament at the entrance of the Palace, so they could all head to the Royal Opera, passing through the Chapel into the brightly candelight-lit half-built building where the show would take place.
There was to be a toast first, from fine champagne delivered the morning in zebra carriage (one of the Queens’ daughters idea, which had pleased enough the King that he’d booked them for an evening ride into the Gardens). She was all set, and with great dignity and carefulness, arrived at the spot a mere seconds after her Grace to great the King.

At the same time, Jean-Pierre Duroy, who had not seen them as he’d passed through the Chapel the first time (ungagged but still under sleeping curse and tucked in the corner of the stained glass windows depicting the martyrdom of Christ), and as he was getting anxious at the lack of punctuality of the comedians whom he’d thought sleeping in their trailer parked nearby, was notified that the trailer had been found empty by the bellboy he had sent to remind the comedians to be ready in 10.
A man of great resources, always ready with plans B to Z (he wouldn’t boast, but the zebras being one of such past plan Z, second only to an unlikely belching toad plan, the details of which we won’t get into just now), the Royal Intendant was ready to put in motion said plans, but the comedians suddenly emerged from the Chapel slightly groggy but apparently ready to take over their duties —especially the two ladies, who were bickering with the two men about being the Controllers of the Ascension. Little did all of them know at this moment that the hot air balloon was being highjacked by a team of rogue maids in cahoots with the Russian Ballet props technicians who had arrived some days before the bulk of the Russian troupe trainees.
The Russian ballet dancers were indeed still stuck in the heavy snows somewhere along their trip to Versailles, so the four comedians with their balloon and tricks were technically, already a Plan B.

By then, it was well into 5:59 PM, and the next minute would seem to stretch forever, but for the sake of a patient audience, we will not make it over 10.

In the first half of this fatefulest minute, Casanova had arrived with Father Balbi, his travelling companion, followed by none other than St Germain, all dapper and heavily scented. A score of less important nobilities the names of which we won’t go through were also here.
There were seconds enough in that first half minute, to rub cheeks and say plaisanteries and even utter a few rude witty comments with sweet tongues laced in vinegar, whatever that meant, and also enjoy the sparkling wine served at perfect chilly temperature.
It was only as we entered the second half of this minute that the King arrived, padded in heavy and warm coats and looking exhausted.
Seconds were spent in the same proceedings as above mentioned, if only in a slightly accelerated fashion, and slightly and almost unnoticeably higher pitched voices.

That’s only when the mission bell’s sang Welcome to the Eighteenth’s Hour et ali (for naught), in loud and ringing dongs that the unthinkable happened, living all witnesses traumatized enough that nobody could think of anything to do before the third dong had elapsed.
The King collapsed, a knife in his ribs. The perpetrator was caught by the guards before the end of the last dong.

While the King was rushed to the RER (Royal Emergency Room), and attended to by Royal Leechers and Clyster Masters who felt it was wise to call the Royal Priest seeing that there was little blood to leech, back at the Chapel and Opera House, the maids and Jean-Pierre were in a rush to blow out the candles, as it was obvious their attention was required elsewhere, and that the show would be cancelled.
Everyone would sigh in relief, but not before a few more hours of the drama, when they realized the King’s heavy padding had saved his life, and that the gapping wound everyone was dreading was no more than a pen’s prick. This would encourage Annie to admonish her children when they wouldn’t eat more of her delightful pastries.

Meanwhile, using one of the last candles, the maids and their Russian lovers had lit the tub of lard of the hot air balloon, which rose slowly in the night sky, out of sight when most of the attention was directed towards the King’s fate hanging on a thread.

The four actors where vaguely wondering if they were still dreaming when they saw the carriage of thousands of tinsy frogs croaking through a portal, with brightly coloured dressed lady-men inside, and driven by an unkempt man with a wild gaze and an air of sheer insanity.

Of course, by then, they knew better than to discard it as a mere dream.

“Well, that was almost too easy…”
Despite his weight and the various layers of clothes, Reginald who had struggled to get back into Maurana Banana’s tight costume was the first to realize what had just happened, and had rushed to the statue to snatch the prized crocheted ferret, beating Consuela and Terry by a short hand.
Sadie looked with a slight hint of disapproval at his XVIIIth century apparent undergarments, but was glad that this was resolved so efficiently.

“The prize is inside the ferret, ladies.”
“Off with your grabby hands, you tart!” shouted Maurana batting her eyelashes ferociously at Terry Bubble who wanted a closer look at the intriguing tear in the fabric.
“Oh leave it there, you silly bitch, now you can gloat with your tarty breeches, you haven’t get half your costume ready” Consuela was starting to enjoy the argle-bargle.

“And what should we do now? Wasn’t there supposed to be another one?” Maurana turned to Sadie.
“We’re in luck. Obviously there always has been a plan B, dear. The second one was a decoy for the Russian team, I just got it confirmed from the tagging chip of the toy.”

Everyone was hanged to her words, which was a satisfying moment, not so much for the riveted attentions on her loving person but for the temporary silence. Sadie milked it for a few more seconds before adding.

“Let’s open it up carefully, there is a key inside we need. Then, you only need to do one thing before we go home. Get on that scene at the Opera, rock the audience, and we’ll get down the Time Sewer off to our time and your prize.”

She pause before adding, looking down at Maurana’s breeches. “There is obviously some prep’ work left to do.”

Sadie looked bemused at the flickering dots on the ezapper, one for each of the 2 time-smuggled ferrets. One was starting to change position, and it was moving right towards them.