Anne smiles brightly as she downs a cookie. Unfortunately, it leaves her thirsty and the only drink besides her eggnog appears to be punch. As Aravanna makes odd motions with her pant leg, Anne fills a glass from the large bowl of delightful-looking punch and takes a sip. The fruity, refreshing flavor she was expecting turns out to be more akin to licking a metal bar.

"Unusual flavor," she remarks politely, setting her cup down. One sip is enough! She grabs another cookie to take away the taste. After her mouth is clear again, she turns to the disturbed Aravanna. "Est quelque chose de mal?"*

Anne gasps at the strange words that escape her mouth. "Quoi? Pourquoi ne puis-je pas parler normalement? Est-ce français? Je ne sais même pas français!"**

"AND there it goes somemore...." With both Ara and Anne now at the mercy of the punch, I make a quick judgement call and dash over to the refreshment table. Grabbing the rather large and heavy punch bowl, I run... er, wattle/stagger to the Mansions front door.

Once at the door, I rather rudely kick the door open (as my hands are full) and toss, or more precisely heave, the punch... and bowl out the door. "Bad punch! Bad, bad punch!"

Politely closing the door behind myself, I quickly straighten my jacket and my hair before hurrying over to Ara. "I'll be with you in a minute, miss Anne!" I call over to said young lady as I pass her on my way to the more serious case.

Upon reaching Ara, I quickly glance her over to see if they is anything seriously, obviously wrong with her. "O.K, how many fingers am I holding up?" I ask as I do the Vulcan "live long and prosper" sign.

I, Joe. Had kept to myself to the past few minutes. Sampling the cookies... And the fruitcake. Dodging drunken reindeer and fighting off rabid snowmen. The usual for Christmas time in ditto town.

((OCC: The post about the snowmen... That was prophetic of me, if I do say so myself.))

And then Anne started speaking another language. This was odd. As far as I knew, she didn’t speak any other languages. The Cor tossed out the Punch. “Ah, someone seems to have gotten their fluids mixed up again.” I shrugged and hopped over to my fellow Pennsylvanian. “You can trust me, I’m a Doctor.”

I flipped open my communicator and said these words: “I need a linguist, and pronto.” Sure enough, a random, female, pretty Star Fleet ensign materialized out of thin air. Ready and waiting to translate, which she did. When she was finished I spoke into my communicator again.

“Alright, beam her up. Also, send a blonde next time.” And as quickly as she appeared, she disappeared. Now I turned back to Anne and gave her my prognosis. “Well, my dear it appears that you are speaking French. Any questions?”

Anne watches in confusion as Cor throws the punch out and tries to help Hum. Before she realizes what is about to happen, Anne herself undergoes some queer measurements done by a strange female wearing Star Trek gear. She looks flounderingly to Joe for help, but he seems to be instigating the whole process. After a few moments, the female beams away and Joe pronounces his diagnosis. Anne snorts in frustration.

"Ouais, deux d'entre eux. Comment puis-je arrêter un non-sens de parler et depuis quand êtes-vous un médecin?"* She puts her face in her hands, not understanding a word that comes out of her own mouth. "Oh, comment vais-je chanter des chants de Noël comme celui-ci?"**

I palm-face. "You seriously need to stop talking in French, I can't understand you!" I flip my comunicator back open. "This Joe, I'm going to need a linguist again." As if on cue, an attractive, (BLONDE!) female materializes next to me and translates.

"Well, my title is Evul Doctor Joe Weirdsworth the III. So clearly I must be qualified. Also, I ordered this certificate off the internet! Ain't it shiny?" I produce a laminated, wrinkled piece of paper and stare at it for the next few seconds before putting it back into my pocket.

"Regardless, I have no idea how to cure your sudden onset of Frenchiness and you can always sing carols in french, I'm sure thats how they do it in Quebec."

Lady A whirled around to face Anne, startled to hear someone speaking one of her languages. After staring at the blonde who apparently can't do much of anything, she walked over by Anne and gently put her free hand on her arm.

"Tu parle francais? Mais, tu n'a pas dit moi! Je ne savais tu parle francais aussi, et tu a un bon accent. Et il y a beaucoup de cantiques francais. Il est ne c'est un de mes favoris. Tu comprend?"

Anne was about ready to cry at this second test by a blonde member of the Enterprise crew and her evident inability to speak a language that Evul Dr. Joe understood. Her nerves calmed somewhat as Lady A kindly began chattering away in the same strange language. The words for a moment were simply strange, but as the Lady kept on, Anne found she could actually understand the flowing syllables.

"Curieusement, je pense que je peux comprendre certaines de quoi vous parlez."* Anne took another cookie from the table and munched the russian tea ball glumly. "Oh, maudit! Ce qui m'est arrivé? Il ya quelques minutes, j'étais tout à fait normal d'une langue fille!"**

In spite of herself, the cookie was really so good that her mouth simply had to curve into a smile. As she wiped her lips delicately on a napkin, she added, "Je ne pense pas que vous connaissez un remède pour le coup, le français, Madame?"*^

"Cor! Cor, thank goodness! I..."

Calm down. Just answer his question. It's the voice again. My own voice in my own mind, but not my own thoughts. Strangely though, I immediately feel calmer.

"Actually, I'm fine," I say, straightening up. "I just thought something was crawling up my leg, but it was nothing. And I'm not sure if that counts as two or four fingers silly," I add with a smile.

You don't need his help.

"But yah, I don't need anything. Did anyone else drink any punch? You might want to check on them."

What are you anyways? I ask the voice in my head.

I think you'd be most comfortable calling me an alien... although I can't quite exist in the same plain as living, organic material, but I can move through it like the Higgs Boson particle through its field. Do you know what a Higgs Boson particle is?

Never mind. The important thing is that I intersect your plain of existence at an infinitesimally small point and I can interact with it through that point, like emitting the photons you saw earlier. I don't know how I've come into contact with you, but I do know I'm going to need a huge energy source to get back... and that if I don't get back soon, I could start to damage both of us. You don't have a TARDIS or similar ship in this dimension do you?

"Heh, yeah.... I think it counts as four." I laugh slightly as I examine my own hand. Well, she's back to normal quickly... too quickly. Hmm, better not push it for now, but best to keep an eye on her.

"Glad you recovered so quickly, Ara. I *ahem* disposed of the punch, so no need to fear about drinking anymore of it." Glancing over at Anne and her little company, I decide to take Ara's advice. "Let me k if you start feeling all wibbly wobbly now..."

Walking over to where Joe and Lady A are, I put on my most charming demeanor as I approach the Blonde space cadet. "Heeeellloooo Blondie...." I get a quick glance followed by a disgusted sigh and rolling of the eyes from the young space cadet before she walks to the other side of Joe. "Hmm, must be an off day for me. This usual doesn't happen." I muttered before turning my attention to the Weeping Girl.

Whipping out my sonic pen, I quickly do a preliminary scan of Anne. "Ah... got a case of the Frenchies, I see." I glance up at Joe and Lady A to see if they got the joke... being met with slightly blank looks, I clear my throat and return to trying to figure out how to cure the girl.

"Fortunately for you, curing a case of unintentional language scrambling is rather simple... Just wait here a moment." With that, I dash out of the Mansion and to my TARDIS. A few minutes later, I return with a small red and green pill. Quickly glancing around at the refreshments, I snag one of my donuts and a fresh bottle of root beer.

"Here, take this..." I hand the Weeping Girl the pill. "...and drink this with it. All of it. You may fill a tad woozy at first, but that means it's working."

When Evul Dr. Joe started muttering some calculations and Lady A appeared to have no answers, Anne ran her fingers through her ginger hair in a confused fashion. How would she ever be able to enjoy the party if only one person in the whole room understood her? How would she live without being able to communicate? Would she have to move to France? Suppose the airfare to France was too expensive - should she move to New Orleans instead?

Her musings were interrupted by a newcomer, the same person who had been trying to help humdedum, she thought. He waved a silver pen with a green light on the end in front of her and seemed to get some information off of it.

Now someone else is scanning me, she thought ruefully, looking over the newcomer's cockamamie hair, the clothes designed by a first year fashion student, and the intelligent, aged expression in the cheerful eyes. At least he doesn't look evul.

When the stranger dashed off and returned with an odd looking pill and some equally odd ways of taking it, Anne obediantly took a mouthful of rootbeer and swallowed the capsule. She licked her lips - it was excellet rootbeer - and said, "Merci, monsieur. Je ne pense pas que nous sommes déjà rencontrés. Je suis..."*

But her sentence remained unfinished, for the pill had begun to take effect - her tongue seemed swollen and choked her. A moment later, the room began acting like a tilt-a-whirl and she swayed dizzily.

I sincerely hope this will not cause too much of a problem for people who intended to enjoy themselves tonight, Anne thought helplessly, just before her legs gave way and she fell to the floor, like a child who had spun too long on a swivel chair.

I watched as the Weeping Girl took the pill and root beer as she was instructed. Knowing what would probably come next, I stuck around incase she... "Tilt!" I said aloud as I caught the falling Weeping Girl.

Noticing a sofa nearby, I carried the faint form of the Ginger over to said sofa and gently laid her down. "No need to fear, madame. She'll be perfectly fine when she wakes up." I said over my shoulder to Lady A, and to a lesser extent, Joe.

— Lady Z —

((OOC: Wonderful Tangled reference, Cor. Well-played. I approve. ))

"Ah! That would be simply grand!" I take a sip of ginger ale. "And I can assure you that no serious harm would befall you. I try to refrain from permanently losing Companions, since it can be so rough on both parties, you know."

"Perfect! Though don't worry, I love a good adventure now and then. I'll meet you at the TARDIS after the party, then, and we can take off to see the stars." I smile, fully looking forward to the trip.

My attention is returned to Lady Z as she begins hiccuping after drinking some punch. "Hmm..." I pull out my sonic and quickly scan what's left of the punch in the glass. "It's been spiked with... Ultracorlean carbons and... hello there! We have extract of palm root. Good heavens, Booky! You have been a naughty boy."

The hiccups continue to come full force as Cor scans my punch. I can barely get a word out between my squeaking. "Ultra—hic!—corlean carbons." I swallow hard, then hiccup again. I know exactly what they are, and Cor's exactly right: Booky has been a naughty boy. "What's the—hic!—remedy?"

But before he can answer, it becomes clear that he seems to have affected two other people as well. Cor rushes off to help both Ara and Anne.

I learned about ultracorlean carbons in my fifth year of Overlady school. I spent 50 years total there, so the details are understandably a bit fuzzy. It's a fun party trick that causes different effects in each person that drinks it. And from what I can remember, it's mostly harmless.

Mostly.

It's then that my feet start to tap, completely against my will. A few moments later, I start to sway—again, completely against my will. Ohhh no. I know what this effect is—I read about it in 17th grade—and it's not going to be pretty. Then again, the sight of me dancing never is.

I fold my arms as my feet continue to tap, trying to remain as nonchalant as possible despite the adverse effects of the punch. I hope that no one will notice if I start spontaneously breakdancing in the middle of the room.

Lady A reached out to catch poor Anne, swiveling a bit herself under the weight of both the girl and little Molly. She collapsed heavily into a chair, Molly giggling at the bumpy ride. Anne was down, though, without too many bumps or bruises.

"I was just starting to have a nice conversation with her, no thanks to you," Lady A said, shooting a glare at Cor. "AND FOR THE RECORD, I caught her before you started acting all gentlemanly."

Bookwyrm was not happy. His party trick had been discovered to soon by that annoying Time Lord fellow and now all of his lovely spiked punch was draining between the cobblestones that made up the streets of Ditto Town. And already most of the results of the Random Potion were clearing up, thanks again to that annoying other male person. Time for a new plan. But first ....

A spotlight faded into existence directly above Lady Z, shining down upon her as her feet tapped uncontrollably. A previously unused speaker system began playing this song. Bookwyrm snickered and vanished into invisibility.

— Lady Z —

I gasp softly as the spotlight appears, shining right on me, and the rest of the room darkens. My eyes widen as the speakers begin to blare the song I absolutely hate more than anything else in this universe. Booky, as my brother-in-law, knows this all too well.

"Booky!" I growl. I try to head towards him, but right at that moment, my body launches me into a volley of breakdancing moves. I watch as Booky's form dissolves into the air, disappearing completely. I grit my teeth. I suppose my revenge will have to wait.

But now ... now I have a host of party guests all staring at me as I do something that's a weird mix between a robot and a conga.

"...Hi everybody! What's cracking?"