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The trip to fetch the Insanity riddled dragon and successfully bring him back had been... Odd? Off putting? Deeply frustrating and annoying and confusing? It had warped from the inspiring, if unnerving, rescue mission into... A clusterfluff of unheeded orders, scrambling and squabbling students, far too much snow, a ticked off professor and what? An elf they invited back to the school that was supposed to be Jericho?
To say Belladonna was furious was an understatement of the highest order. She was livid, she was frighteningly enraged, she down right pissed off and had next to no way to vent her anger. Shouting at her zombie would do no good, for he had followed a set of order she had not received. Tracking down the two first years who had ignored her commands and giving them a good dose of their own medicine wouldn't fix anything or make her feel better, so instead the witch settled on hunting down Red. At least that way she could get some answers. Maybe... The professor had been nothing but elusive, both in speech and in appearances, and as the ghoul searched the hallways for the werewolf, it seemed today would be another occurrence of the same.

And she was about to give up, sulk back to her room and get rid of this heavy coat still partially dusted in snow from Christmasland, when she spotted someone in the large auditorium they had all previously used to receive instructions. And no just anyone, a really adorable ghoul who was... Skipping? In a circle?
Just the idea of skipping made most of the witch's anger dissolve, for it was such a happy action and hardly anyone but her and very young scarelings did it. So it was only natural that she darted into the auditorium and click-clacked her way on over to the ghoul. For a second she paused, a good ten feet away to give the Reaper ghoul some area in which to continue skipping, and tilted her head at her. Then in a voice far more childlike than she intended Belladonna asked: "Why are you skipping? Can I skip too?"

"Stuck? That sounds awful! Did something happen in Christmastown?" Belladonna asked with all the effervescent ease of one not required to continue skipping against their will. After all, there were odd after effects from the other lands if one wasn't careful. Perhaps the ghoul had accidentally gotten exposed to too much snow or oooh, what if she had eaten one of the JOY candies? That most likely did it. JOY was a terrible thing, making one all happy whether they liked it or not. Or obsessed with wishing everyone good will, when they should be wished scary tidings. As well as depositing an unfortunate want to knit. Knitting in of itself wasn't so bad, but those garishly bright colors JOY made people lean toward were.
For a moment the witch looked wistful as she inwardly bemoaned her bowling ball from Spirit Week that had turned out to be an unfortunate creature from Christmastown. Oh Watson, you awful bowling ball you...
"Here. I'll skip with you a bit. I'm sure after an hour at the most it'll go away!" The witch grinned at the ghoul and then followed next to her, happily skipping around in a loose circle. It had been ages, positively ages, since she had just nonchalantly skipped around as though it were nothing. It was vastly lovely just to be silly for a few moments.

At least, until the sorceress stopped short and the witch was quick to follow the action. Snow? Oh, oh yes she did! Belladonna went to sweep some of the substance from her shoulder but paused at the mention of Jericho. Instead she dropped her hand with a dramatic sigh.
"We ah... We were trying to bring him back. He was... Well..." She sighed again and gestured for Millie to follow her to the bleachers.
"Why don't we sit down for a bit and I'll explain what happened..." The witch began to walk toward the intended space, but paused to whirl back around and curtsey to the ghoul. "I am Belladonna Divine, by the by, and it is a delight to meet you Millie!"
Friendsssssss~

Careful to make sure she skipped the entire way over, Belladonna made it to the bleachers and sat down with quite a lot of fluttering and puffing up of her skirts. She had worn additional layers because she knew she would be dealing with the chill, but now that she was back in Halloweentown where it was only a bit warmer, she found they were not necessarily needed. Especially not here in the gym where the temperature was moderate and certainly not after a fun little skip to warm one's blood! But there was nothing to do about it except gather her additional cloth and scrunch it close to herself so it didn't force Millie to sit far away due to all the space the witch's skirts took up.
Once seated the witch gave the most delicate of coughs and began.
"As you know, we all went to Christmastown to collect JOY for Jericho, who was stuck as an Insanity dragon... He's usually a dragon, only he's not usually an Insanity one... You know what Insanity is, right?" The witch paused and blinked, for not everyone knew, actually. Which was something she often forgot and only remembered when she was on the receiving end of blank stares and frowns because most people just assumed it was a Christmas disease.

Anyways!
"Well, with all the JOY everyone collected a smaller group went to use it on Jericho in hopes of bringing him back. It went... Somewhat as planned." The witch took a deep breath, and then launched into the story of how Red had assembled them and dumped them into the snow. How groups had to be assigned, how the witch had decided to be leader of the Infusers who had the jobs of throwing the JOY at Jericho once he was successfully grappled.
Then it was told of how Red turned into her own sort of huge monster and lured Jericho out for them, how she'd pinned him and how the students who were grapplers had held onto him except for one boil who'd suffered a bit more than the others and had dissipated. (Belladonna was quick to reassure Millie that he came right back after about ten minutes, perfectly fine.)
But her expression soured after that and she sighed before she recanted how she was to give the order for the Infusers to begin but that some other younger members on her team had superseded her authority and gone ahead without her consent.
Here the witch stopped to silently mourn her lack of leadership skills, looking far too dramatic for so simple a thing.

"You would think that but some people just don't learn!" The witch replied with a huff, puffing her chest out and glad to receive the vindication of Millie's opinion. Belladonna was a great leader! If only anyone would ever give her the chance to be one...
Glad to have been paid a compliment, the witch dropped her pouting to smile at the fellow Reaper.
"Next time, you're on my team." She told her with a wink before the witch continued on with the story.
After that, the Infusers used all the collected JOY to throw at Jericho, which had succeeded quite well. By the time the Scrappers took over, he was looking quite cheery. There was the one boil who had partially stripped and ran to the dragon, putting himself in harm's way, but Belladonna was hasty to speculate that this boil in particular had some natural inclination toward people liking him for she explained how Jericho had curled around the boil and kept him relatively safe.
And then she told of how the Scrappers had whittled the dragon down and that he had dissipated and reformed into.... An elf.
It had been an odd excursion to say the least.

But there was one thing Millie had said that erased the witch's smile and made her look suddenly melancholy.
"No one really knows how Insanity works..." She began softly, one hand reaching up to press against her aching heart. Not even one afflicted with Insanity knew what was to come, only that a sense of foreboding followed them around. "And right now... We don't know how to cure it... Its so scary. Someone's core gets corrupted and... Right now... There's no way to fix it..." Her voice had gone soft, her expression broken and she was speaking with far too much experience to be a casual observer to the phenomenon. If Millie were an astute ghoul, she would pick up on the witch's shaking hands and suddenly frantic air.