thechanged | SLEEPING BEAUTIES: DREAM LOG

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SLEEPING BEAUTIES: DREAM LOG

Bewitched by the thorn's touch, you have been ensnared in the deepest of sleep. Fortunately for you, the world of Faerie doesn't end with the waking.

The world of your dreams is brighter now, more clear than you've ever witnessed it. You've been it before, you think, there fragments of yourself become reality. But now you are somehow more lucid in its presence, and it's more real - something you can reach out and touch.

You find yourself in this world, and you are not alone. Your dreams and those of other join at the edges, pulling into each other along similar threads.

And you are watched by something even greater.

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He has a visitor. He sees as soon as she enters that she's lovely; with her dress as it is and such a serene expression on her face, she looks like she belongs here as much as he does.

He isn't sure if he can answer her from all the way here. Generally the rain only works one way — he can hear and see others, but they can't do the same to him.

He'll give it a go, though. It wouldn't do to be rude to a lady. "It is," he answers to the clouds with a note of curiosity, hoping that by raising his voice, it might carry to her. "Hello, ma'am."

She looks down and over the hills, hearing him, if not in the way he expected. She waves and smiles, lifting and arm as if to do a quick pirouette. The mist that covers her body spreads over her like a sheet, slipping into the air.

She appears beside him, the mist slipping back into the form of a dress.

"Hello!" she says again, beaming.

He's not expecting her to appear so suddenly, which is clear from the slight widening of his eyes and the arch of his eyebrows. Though he's glad she apparently heard him; he couldn't stand for being a poor host to a young lady.

He stands as she appears, brushing out the creases in his clothes as if they're even noticeable with his colours running as they are. He clears his throat after that. "Ah- good day." Or he supposes it's daytime. It's hard to tell with the clouds. His hands start in a bit of a nervous fidget; none of the other people he has spoken to since waking have looked quite so happy to talk to him. He isn't sure what to do besides offer up his best manners.

"To what do I owe the pleasure, ma'am?"

She brushes a few long strands of wet red hair from her face, pushing them behind her ear. She clasps her hands in front of herself, as if she is trying to present herself as similarly polite.

"I've just been wandering the dreams, and I saw these hills - it's been a while since I dreamt of the rain, you see." She looks up at him, and smiles. "And then I noticed you were here! I haven't seen any others like you until today."

He might smile at her efforts were there not so many questions to be asked about what she has said. His eyebrows go from an arch to a mild furrow, inquisitive of the meaning to her words.

He considers jumping straight to the questions, and opens his mouth to do just that, but— 'It's been a while since I dreamt of the rain.' He pauses, closing his mouth to reconsider his words.

After some chewing at his lower lip, he tries again. He stumbles over the words a bit, awkward with the earnestness of them. "Well- if you'd like to keep me company, ah— it would be lovely to have you." And he clears his throat, again, to prepare for his next words, delivered with a small curl to his mouth just shy of a full smile. "Could use a bit more colour around here, I think."

Her smile broadens at that - she seems quite ready to settle in there with him. Her posture becomes a little more relaxed.

"I'd like that," she says, looking up at the clouds again for a moment, before meeting his eyes once more. "Where did you all come from?"

That question again. The Gargoyle had asked it of him, too, and it provokes the same sort of prickly uncertainty as before, though he's reluctant to take it out on this young woman as he did his fellow garden-dweller.

He raises his hands to chest-level with his palms facing skyward, and briefly averts his gaze to watch as the rain gathers in the creases of his skin. The hint of a smile has gone, replaced with trepidation and thought. "...I don't know," he eventually admits in a bit of a distant voice, though something ugly within him twinges at the confession of his lack of knowledge.

She tilts her head, like she isn't sure she understands. She can sense his ill-ease, though, and doesn't want to push it.

"Are you in the house, now?" she asks, offering some direction.

The house? He looks towards her again, and realises perhaps she didn't mean...wherever he came from originally, if he really did come from somewhere else, as his memory seems to suggest.

As soon as that thought occurs to him, some of the tension eases from his shoulders.

"I was," he affirms, though this comes with its own dilemma. Something else she said returns to the forefront of his mind. "You said you've been wandering the dreams," ventures the Darkling, and then continues cautiously from there, "Is that where we are?"

"Yes," she says, her expression searching but a little bit sad. "I've been here for a long time - I think I've forgotten what the house was like." She trails off. "The Keeper, too."

He has to say he doesn't remember much of the Keeper, either; there are memories there, certainly, but everything seems so fuzzy and out of reach. Most of what he can remember pertains to his job, and even that is fairly scant.

He wishes he could dredge up something. It would ease her troubles as well as a few of his own, probably.

His tone is gentle as he prompts her, his curiosity undeniable but his stunted empathy unwilling to upset her. "You used to be in the house, too?"

"Yes," she says, the way she is searching her memory apparent on her face. "I used to be a servant there, but I've been asleep, and...I can't see to wake up."

"So we're—" He catches himself, aware that she spoke of others but not having spoken to any of them, himself. "I'm asleep, as well?" The last thing he remembers before ending up here is getting ensnared by those vines. He didn't think much of it, really; this place is nice (and much nicer than being chased by plants). But he supposes that is how dreams work. One doesn't often remember how they got anywhere.

She gives him a smile, obviously trying to be reassuring.

"You are! This is your dream home." She looks upwards, and then back to him, her eyes glimmering with interest. "Do you like the rain?"

He can't help but be a bit concerned; she said she's been asleep for a long time. If he's here too, perhaps that means he's not meant to wake up. He's not sure what he did to warrant something like that.

(Though, really, he's also not sure if he'd really mind staying here. He likes it much better than the gardens, and the company is better.)

At her obvious spark of intrigue, the Servant spares a glance to the storm clouds. "I'd think so," he answers after a moment of thought. "I suppose it's more that— I feel as if it belongs with me?"

The words are out of his mouth before he really thinks better of them. He's not sure if he regrets saying them, exactly, but there's a shade of embarrassment that creeps up on him afterwards. Hiding his emotions isn't exactly his strong front, but he tries to cover for the sheepishness that becomes obvious on his face. "What about you?" She had seemed rather happy to stumble upon his dream home, after all.

"I think so," she says, still looking up at the sky and smiling. "It feels...exciting. Powerful." She pulls her hair back, now a much deeper red with its wetness. "I've called storms into my dreams before, but never when I was in a very good mood."

Her words appeal to him in a way he can't quite explain; he hasn't really put much thought into the idea that he can call up rain at will, but she says it like it really is something worth being excited about. Powerful? Perhaps not compared to some of the other servants in the Keeper's house, but it's a power. And it's his.

"You're welcome here whenever you like," he invites, trying to sound more confident about the offer than he really feels. "Though I'm not certain I can call up a whole storm— just rain."

"I could feel you in the clouds, when I found this place," she says. "It was the first thing I noticed. You could do more than that here, with practice. I'm sure of it."

He's not sure why being recognised by his clouds strikes him so, but it does; his face might have coloured if he had enough colour to spare. As it is, it's only evident from the way his eyes briefly flick to the ground and the raise of his hand as it settles against the side of his neck.

"Do you suppose so?" he returns, and it's hard to keep the slight eagerness out of his voice. Having more control over a place like this has a certain allure to it; he thinks he'd like to learn how to do more, especially if it does turn out that he's going to be here for a while. "How would I go about— practising that, here?"

She smiles, with a breath of a laugh on her lips.

"Just...imagining, is a good place to start. Anything you think of can potentially be here, if you believe in it enough." She spins around on a bare foot, looking up at the sky. Her smile broadens. "I could show you."

The note of laughter draws another crooked smile from the groundskeeper. His hand falls away from his neck to settle just below his sternum.

"If you could, ma'am," he starts, a faintly-restrained sort of enthusiasm in his words, "I'd be very grateful."

She pulls back a little holding out her arms.

"Well...say I should want to fly," she begins, and closes her eyes. Suddenly the mist around her spreads and forms into a set of large, angelic wings that glisten even in the rain. With one graceful stroke, she lifts into the air with a laugh, looking down at him.

"See?"

His eyes widen in obvious surprise as she takes off from the ground, and though she's given herself enough room, he takes a step back in reflex to give her a wider berth.

Though he tries to rearrange his expression into something a bit politer and more subdued, there's still no hiding that he's impressed with the results. Especially as the first words out of his mouth end up being: "That's brilliant."

His gaze travels out along the span of the wings. "And you just imagine it?"

"Basically," she says, beaming a little. She hovers in the air effortless, almost independent of the wings. "The tricky part is making it real."

It's hard not to respond to the vibrancy of her smile, and the Darkling finds himself returning it with a smile of his own, just a small one.

"It would be wonderful to learn how," he states, enthusiasm a reserved but steady undercurrent in the words. He really does like it here, and he's certain that he would like it even more if he could change it just so, reaffirm that this place is, indeed, his.

He doesn't know if he's ever going to wake, but even if he doesn't, this young lady sounds as if has other places that she has been to. Which probably meant places that she still needed to go to, as well. How to go about finding her again after that?

Eventually, he ventures, "Is there any name I can call you by? If— if we're to meet again, perhaps— it seems appropriate to have something to call you." Again, he stumbles over the words; it feels unreasonably strange to admit, even indirectly, that he'd like to see her again, but it's the truth. He wants to learn how to change this world, and it seems like she can teach him. It would be a shame to lose good company.

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intothehedge - 2013-09-17 18:36 (UTC) - Expand

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keepscalm - 2013-09-17 20:56 (UTC) - Expand

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