Inside Out reImagined

Back to the Quarters

On any other day of her departure, Sadness would absolutely not have openly stated her name and purpose with any degree of confidence whatsoever. If Winston and Patricia were anything to go by, the odds that either Sam or Meilin would rush to detain her, or worse, were high enough to be considered, and the presence of Bing Bong and the Counterpart on the grounds would not have changed those odds one bit.

Yet, for whatever reason, she just shrugged all of it off and said what she always wanted to say. Now, she was more confident than ever, and if anyone else had a problem with that, they would immediately get a taste of her Imagination powers. If anything, if they knew that it was these Imagination powers that resulted in the castle where the scene took place, they would keep away and let her head back to Headquarters right away, and she could probably just talk about that as a scare tactic.

That being said, at least one remark, in particular from Sam, made her reconsider, if only briefly: "Well, it's a good thing Winston isn't on the scene, because he would've wanted to clear you even harder, now that he knew you were not just a pesky Figment."

"Could you not? Winston does not speak for all of us!" Meilin rushed to interrupt. "Pretty much no one else wants to 'clear' you, whatever that means. You could probably just have flagged any of us if you needed help, and before the day was out, you'd already be on the Train back to Headquarters!"

Everyone else just smiled at Sadness. However, she still had come concerns. "What about Patricia?" she asked, still very much remembering that encounter and how it panned out.

"You mean the Dream Director?" Meilin laughed a bit. "Just between the two of us, basically no other department in the mind likes Dream Theatrical Studios, either. They're just so high up their high horse, thinking that just because they make art, they're better than anyone else! But you know what? You can rest assured that you have a task far more important than that. You make Riley, you know?"

"Of course." Sadness noted, nodding in mutual understanding.

"So, is that it?" Bing Bong took his turn to ask. "You're heading back? Well, I suppose you should have headed back a week ago, but better late than never!"

"Not before one last thing." Sadness noted, putting her finger up. She then began concentrating her Imagination, and soon enough, the finger in question was wrapping around an old-style phone receiver, painted in a light blue.

"Huh? What's this for?" Bing Bong asked.

Instead of answering immediately, Sadness just handed the phone receiver over to Bing Bong, before pointing to the button on the middle, that her hand was concealing. "Try clicking this."

Without further hesitation, Bing Bong mashed the button — and right away, something in Sadness's purse started ringing. As she had expected, the phone receiver linked directly to her comms tablet, allowing for the two to be together, even when they were apart. Sadness promptly answered the call, before hanging up almost immediately and putting the comms tablet back in her purse.

"Whatever you want for Riley, within reason, you can just talk to me about it. And though I can't reverse biology... I still can make sure Riley remembers her childhood." she reassuringly spoke.

Without answering, Bing Bong pulled Sadness into one last hug. This was the hug of acceptance; in it, the emotion knew that, despite what her element of Imagination wanted to insist on, no mistake could stand without being fixed, no wound could hurt without being healed, and most importantly, the fondest memories always withstood fading.

The other thought forms on the scene, however, proved to be much more formal than that. After Sadness pulled away from the hug, each of them — in turn, Meilin, Sam, and Shilan's Counterpart — just shook hands with her, mostly in silence.