(Lost) In Dreams.

[akonken.livejournal.com]

She awoke with a start, just managing to clamp her teeth down on her lip in time not to scream. The pain made her focus, and she frowned at herself. This was not the time to have a nightmare. These were her only dreams, and she needed them to be restful.

Her heart beat rapidly in her chest, and she could feel the blood extending through her body, through her roots. Veins, she corrected, suddenly frightened again. They’re veins. You’re not a tree. You’re a person. A living person. A free person. You are loved.

She didn’t let herself think of herself as a tree, and it worried her that the thought had come so quickly, so easily. She shivered, causing Lorica to stir slightly in his own slumber.

Lorica. Concentrate on him. Here, not in the dream. Concentrate. Rose nodded to herself, turning to look at him. He was so beautiful, so serene in his sleep, marred only by the crown that burdened him. She nestled up against him, soothed by his body heat, by the now-familiar curve of his arm under her lea- hair.

I’m not a tree. I’m a person. I am loved. I am the paragon of Spring.

It was just a nightmare, after all. She could have changed it if she hadn’t panicked. Now that she was awake her thoughts were stronger. She was stronger.

She curled more tightly against Lorica, and closed her eyes.

Her roots were so deeply entrenched in the ground that she couldn’t rip them out, couldn’t move at all except to rustle her leaves in alarm. She couldn’t do anything but watch helplessly as the ring of fire encircled and then consumed him, couldn’t even join his screams as she watched her new love be destroyed as surely as the last. She was mute and unmoving, helpless and inanimate.

It was only a dream…