LNH: Another LNH Title? Really? #10: "A Missing Scene from the Valentine's Ball"

[Jeanne Morningstar]

Another LNH Title? Really? #10:
"A Missing Scene from the Valentine's Ball"
A  kind of HHS tie-in if you squint, by Jeanne Morningstar

Note: This takes place, naturally enough, during and right after LNH 
Triple Play #3

=====

"Woo! Chug it!" said California Kid as Frat Boy and Token Girl engaged 
in their Dionysic duel. Hooded Ho'od'win, who'd come in theory to dance 
with the boys, egged on by New Look Lass, but mostly was just invested 
in the drinking contest she'd started, stood beside with NLL's arm 
around her shoulder.

Token Girl's eyes had been narrowed in resolution but now they found 
themself looking at Catalyst Lass, sitting beside Invisible Incendiary, 
in her magnificent dress. "OK. There's something I gotta do before I 
pass out. You, just wait here." She mock-punched Frat Boy's shoulder. 
"I'll be back."

She staggered and weaved into where her friend was standing by Invisible 
Incendiary. "Hey, you, pretty lady. Come here. We should dance."

"What--oh!" said Cat. "I..."

"Now *this* I gotta see," said Invisible Incendiary, who had noticed how 
often Cat's eyes had been wandering to her during the whole time they'd 
been together. "Go on."

Cat stood up and, hesitantly, walked over toward Tara. She wrapped her 
arms around her and stagger-danced with her slowly as "Can You Feel the 
Love Tonight" came on. They were both laughing uncontrollably at first, 
their fingers wrapped together, but stopped, looking peacefully into 
each other's eyes. They said nothing. Then Tara found herself tripping 
over and collapsed to the floor, still holding Cat in her arms. They 
were both laughing again. "OK, that's probably enough dancing for you," 
said Cat, helping her off the floor.

"Objection!" said Nit-Pick Lad. "The Lion King soundtrack doesn't come 
out for another four months!" But they didn't notice or care.

Token Girl staggered determinedly back to the drinking table. She was 
definitely pretty drunk, she thought. She was seeing double. She 
could've sworn she saw another Catalyst Lass over there, dancing with 
Hood'win and NLL. But as soon as the dance ended that stopped, and there 
was only one Cat.

"You shoulda made out with her!" said Frat Boy as Token Girl sat back 
down. There were laughter and jeering all around.

"Hey, Frat Boy." Token Girl lightly punched him on the shoulder again. 
"Let's make a deal. I'll make out with Cat... if you make out with *a 
guy!*" There were gasps all over.

"You know what, I"ll do it!" said Frat Boy. "It'd be hilarious. A 
totally funny joke. It's funny because I'm actually completely straight. 
I really am. Really." He reached out to find someone to make out with, 
but instead toppled over with his chair. "Never mind..."

=====

The next day, Token Girl woke up with the biggest hangover of her life. 
Cat was standing over her bed, with tea.

"So... did I win?" she said.

"You sure did." Cat giggled. "I'm proud of you, sweetie."

"Thanks. I'm proud of *you* for pulling that whole thing off. I can 
barely keep a game group together. So uh..."

"Yeah?"

"I was pretty much totally blacked out to the end there. Did I do 
anything embarrassing?"


"No." Cat smiled wistfully. "Not at all."

====

NOTES:

I am working on a big, substantial issue of another LNH title which is 
building on the Cat/Tara relationship and setting up the Big Gay 
Emotional Climax of Hungry, Hungry Sabertooths! while Drew is setting up 
the plot climax. While writing that and backreading old LNH, this scene 
popped into my head.

About the whole Catalyst Lass/Hell Catalyst situation (which plays quite 
nicely into discussions we're having about recent character 
interpretations): Jeff McCoskey and Jameel al Khafiz split the character 
because they had different ideas about how they worked, but later takes 
were basically a synthesis of the two. I know I think of the Cat I write 
as the same character who was in Looniverse Adrift and the Valentine's 
Ball, but so is the Hell Catalyst that Drew's been writing over in Core 
LNH (plug plug). So what actually happened is that the two Cats existed 
in a quantum superposition of hypertext-time where in most stories it 
was both of them, until they officially split.

(It was also kinda funny that Jeff and Jameel split the character for 
shipping reasons as well, and the ultimate outcome of that is not 
something anyone in the early 90s would have anticipated.)