The Big Black "Umbra" Binder
A Cabin Story by
Julie, the Mord-Sith
ArdenK42@aol.com

It was a typically abnormal day in Cabin X. Julie the Mord-Sith, the newest member of the Cabin but already corrupted in every way, was happily relaxing on board the Shipp, where many of the members of Mysti's queendom were discussing how many times they'd each watched the end of Post-Modern Prometheus, and whether now would be a good time to fire the Shipp's powerful giant-mallow-shooting cannons at the Concrete Bunker.

It began to get dark, so the shippers turned their craft around and headed back to land. They entered the cabin and settled down in their various bunks, getting out favorite shippy episodes to watch or finding good MSR fanfic to read. Julie decided that what she really wanted to do was reread "Umbra," so she went to Julia's bunk and pulled out the huge black binder. "Can I borrow this again?"

"Sure," said Julia. "But remember to keep that thing out of Steph's hands. You know she'll grab it and flip to the pages she's memorized and start reading all the smut out loud if she sees it."

"Of course," said Julie, warily watching Steph as she made her way back to her bunk near that of her fellow Mord-Sith, Liz. But fortunately for the cabin, Steph was too involved in drawing My Little Ponies to notice what was going on around her.

As Julie began to read page one of the 400-something-page binder, she heard a discussion break out around her about Star Trek. Sighing, she tried to tune them out. Through no fault of her own, she hated Star Trek, having never seen a good episode in her life. "If Julia and Steph and Susan and those other crazy Trekker people would actually *show* me a good episode," she muttered to herself, "I might actually change my mind about the show. But they won't. There probably aren't any good episodes, and they just don't want to embarrass themselves." She looked around to see if any of the crazy Trekker people had heard her insult the show, and none of them had. "It *has* to be a good show, or they wouldn't all watch it," she tried to convince herself. Many were the times she wished she hadn't been traumatized by her sixth-grade science teacher and forced to watch bad Original Series episodes, forever biasing her against Star Trek.

Crystal the Noromo, who hated Star Trek for the same reason, wandered over just then. "Did I just hear you say the words "Star Trek" and "good show" in the same sentence with no negatives?!?"

Julie scrunched down in the bunk. "Yes…"

"And what is this you're reading?" She grabbed the binder. "Umbra? Don't you have better sense? That is such a bad story! Dawson can't write! Mulder and Scully are so out of character!"

Julie (Umbra!girl)'s ears pricked up at this. "WHAT? You dare insult the story I named myself after? You vile fiend!"

"I don't understand why everyone likes Umbra and Ellipsis so much," said Crystal. "I bet Dawson's not finishing Ellipsis because he *knows* how bad it is."

"Dawson needs to get BEATEN!" yelled Julia from her bunk. Everyone stared at her in amazement, until they realized that what they had just heard wasn't Julia, it was her other personality, the loud and outspoken LtJBP. This was proven a moment later as the girl in question began to sing.

Crystal grabbed the binder and held it up. "This should be burned."

"NOOOOOOOO!" yelled Mysti as she ran over, snatching the binder from Crystal. "How can you say these untrue things about one of the best pieces of fanfic ever written?" In anger, she began to poke Crystal with the pointy end of her crown.

Crystal snatched the binder back and took out her lighter, holding it dangerously close to Umbra's pages. A gasp arose. Julie pulled the binder from Crystal's hands and hid it under her covers.

Just then, a knock sounded at the cabin door. Laura (47) ran to open it and saw a girl with a long, brown braid standing there. "Hi," she said. "I'm Cami. Can I join the Cabin now?"

"AAAAAA!" screamed Laura. "CAMI! You're here!" She began doing silly walks around the cabin. Cami blinked a couple of times, taking in the chaos.

"Help!" Julie called. "Crystal's trying to burn Umbra over here!"

Cami rushed to the defense of the first fanfic she'd ever read (not counting the Mulder/Skinner/Krycek story she'd "accidentally" read), grabbing the binder as Julie thrust it at her, and holding it above Crystal's head, threatening to smack her with it. Crystal merely laughed. "At least I didn't go out with Matt Lindquist."

"You…" Cami growled.

Crystal continued to crack up as she stole Cami's shoes. Cami dropped the binder and went after them. Mysti snatched the binder and gave it back to Julia, who made a quick visit to the Shipp to hide the binder in the cargo hold, where Crystal wouldn't go. Julia was greeted upon return by many happy shippers who thought she'd crossed over to their side. Proving them all wrong, Julia climbed back over the fence to the Noromo side and began to make faces at the shippers.

"No, get back on the fence!" Julie begged.

"Fine," grumbled Julia. Julie noticed that, as usual, LtJBP had retreated to somewhere in the depths of Julia's mind. Crystal noticed this as well, and illustrated one of Dawson's supposed abrupt shifts in topic by forgetting Umbra and running over to Julia, where she began trying to coax LtJBP back into the open.

Happy that Umbra was safe for the moment, Mysti and Julie both said "C'est tout bon" at the same time.