SLEEPING BEAUTIES: DREAM LOG

[yourkeepers]

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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[ovidscholar]

This is a college town, he thinks, small, busy, and neat. He peeks into shops; no one tends the counters, and everything stays curiously quiet and still as though suspended in resin. He passes through the market and briefly considers taking apples from a cart. (He doesn't. He couldn't.)

The moon glares down on him. It seems to rise a little higher with each step he takes away from campus. Statues of wolves leer at him from every threshold and portico.

He thinks he hears wheels rattle on the stone, and he whips around the corner-- oh, but it's cold here!-- no carriage, just birds.

"Good evening."

[peafowl]

The twins look up in unison, but it's just one of the clerks -- the pink peacock recognises him from the library and her face relaxes into a cautious, relieved smile. The blue peacock does not recognise him and peers anxiously into his eyes. They do not seem to have whatever it is he's afraid of finding -- and he can't quite remember what it is he's afraid of -- so he imitates his twin and smiles in greeting, but the expression is a trifle tense.

The pink peacock gets up, glances around and crosses over to the clerk. Her coat-tails and tail flap in the wind.

"Evening. 'S not good, but I appreciate the sentiment."

The blue peacock follows her, and inclines his head in greeting.

"I'm sorry you've wandered here," he says. "It's ... it's not safe. Someone's ... someone's coming. It's the night of the hunt."

[ovidscholar]

What are they afraid of?

"I don't think the wolves can come into town," he says. He leans against the wall and stares at the sky. Why is the moon red? Likely, it reflects a cloud, like how it makes haloes on a foggy night.

His jacket feels too thin. He ought to return to his lodgings, and he might as well bring the twins.

"Come inside with me. Wolves can't open doors, either."

[peafowl]

The twins look at one another. The pink peacock starts to speak, protesting that it isn't wolves they're afraid of, but the blue peacock, cold and afraid, puts a hand over her mouth.

"Yes! Doors! Doors are barriers," he babbles. "They have to be invited, but we won't do that. We won't."

The pink peacock disentangles herself from her twin and gives him a sour look.

"Thank you," she says to Luther. "But we have to hurry."

[ovidscholar]

He can't remember the street that brought him here. It was sunny, and clean. Where's the library spire?

"Inviting wolves? For supper, and wine?" They trail after him, so they don't see him covering his mouth to snicker. "No-- you don't mean wolves, of course." What, then, is on the hunt? "Der Erlkönig?"

[peafowl]

The twins glance at each other, nervously. They get the feeling Luther is mocking them, a little, but the word he used is achingly familiar in a way they can't grasp. The pink peacock shakes her head in confusion, but the blue peacock gasps and laughs and catches up to Luther to thump him on the back.

"No, darling, no," he says. "The spirits ride. The ... the masters."

He shudders and looks up at the moon.

"They're rather worse than wolves, I'm afraid."

[ovidscholar]

The librarian's step has a jaunty roll to it. He stops and pets one of the stone wolves (less numerous in this dream, but still present). A rabbit hangs limply from its mouth.

"If you'd hoped they wouldn't snatch you away," he says, "I am afraid you're a little late."

[peafowl]

The pink peacock bemusedly picks up the dead rabbit and holds it in both hands. The blue peacock smirks at the librarian's words.

"No, darling, the Keeper's nothing," he says. "Not compared to them. He collects things. They ... collect food."

He glances back at the stone wolf.

"Why would you think the wolves were after us?" he says.

[ovidscholar]

He hesitates.

"It seems the sort of thing wolves would do."

They're a little lost, now, wound up in the ever-shifting boundary between his dream and theirs. Dingy snow piles up on the smooth cobblestone, stains the stuccoed houses.

[peafowl]

The twins look at the falling snow with sudden, wretched nostalgia that they cannot anchor to a context. The blue peacock shivers and his twin embraces him, laying her head on his shoulder for a brief moment.

"Wolves," she says, with some distaste. "Shit, we don't know nothing about wolves. We're city kids."