[Lost, and others] Dreams

[lslaw.livejournal.com]

(Gehenna, Mikhail, Janos, Arthur, Sir James, Solomon and Julius; rapier, dreamcatcher, perfume - for Reb)

I walk in dreams.

It was Maggie who first taught me, and Maggie who first showed me that in dreams, I could be strong. After that, Adrianne showed me how to leave the beaten path and walk out onto the Skein.

I don't make a habit of that, but ever since I learned how, and especially since I travelled so deep into dream with Astraea and Galtharion and faced that strange and unseen chorus of humanity, things have been different. I am always aware as I pass from one dream to another of the other dream I pass through on the way, even when I go straight from my own dreams into one that I have pledged.

It's not the same as walking the Skein and I try not to linger, but I see things as I pass; weird things, even by our standards.

I've seen dreams of blood; of so much blood. Blood, and music that thunders like a raging, furious heartbeat. A whole dream world that pulses and roars and screams for blood like a mad god; a domain of blind wrath such as even the Summer Court could barely imagine.

In that dream I watched a predator stalk; a creature of death and hunger, his dreamself hard-edged and crisp with self-control. I saw him hunt, and fight, and protect, and flee, and every act was touched by his unholy rage and hunger. I fled that dream as though I were his quarry, for I feared to be caught up in it and lose myself forever.

I have seen a dream that was made of pure music; every sound, every object, every person in that dream was forged from music. Short of Maggie, mid-performance, it may just have been the most beautiful thing I had ever seen, and yet it was terrible too. That music was of war, as well as beauty; I could hear the thunder of guns and a so-soft refrain carried the unmistakable, horrifying scent of blood and steel.

And over that, over the war and death, a soft perfume of tea and cakes and a woman's skin. What kind of man dreams like that? What kind of monster? That dream as well I fled without shame, for I did not wish to meet that dreamer.

I have seen a dream of silver and shadow; a world cast into darkness under the light of the moon. In that dream there were wolves that walked like men and women who paced like wolves; there was fear and there was love, lying side by side in the shadows. There was pain as sharp as betrayal and sorrow as cold as loss; a great warmth of affection and a slow, shy smile and a flash of such teeth as never should shine behind a woman's lips.

That dreamer was a man who walked among hunters, or perhaps I ought to say a hunter who walked with predators. He knew himself to be strong and wary and quick, but that those around him had a strength and an awareness and a speed that defied his every effort.

I felt drawn to that dream, more than the others. Maybe it was just the allure of those sharp-toothed women, but I think it was the sense of duty, of striving to achieve a strength that ever eluded him, and the pain of doing what was right.

I think it made me feel as though,whatever the world might throw at me... my life could always be that much worse.

I can't be certain, but I think that I may also have seen the dreams of other worlds. Not the Hedge, nor yet the Other Place, but a waking world like our waking world, only... other.

I have seen the dreams of a man who stands aloof from the world and goes about his business, knowing all along that a terror hangs overhead and reaches for him with numberless strands of pure, coherent horror. And yet he panics not, nor fights, but holds it back with ordered calm and routine, and by arming warriors who block its path and burden its grasp with their bodies.

I saw the many he despises as shallow, mocking shadows in this dream, and the few he cares for. I saw a girl whose heart shines out from her breast as her hair burns with blue fire. I knew that she was his King, to whom he dedicated his efforts; I knew that he would give his life for her and give her life for the cause they share with equal willingness.

His dreams made me shudder, for I know how easily I could take that fatal step and become as he was. What I do for my Freehold, I do for those within that I care for, but it would take only a little, only a few mistakes, and I might forget that the Freehold is naught without its people.

I have shared too the dreams of another hunter, a man who walked constantly with another at his side and in his head. I felt the touch of that other as a blade, a rapier thrust into the bleak substance of the man's dreams. That was a world of loneliness and isolation; a grey domain of half glimpsed, unspeaking shades, and a dark-haired girl who walked always seven steps ahead. I saw in the crowds the faces of the men that he had killed, but I fled before long because I felt the cold, mechanical mid of that other seeking me out and, besides, I have phantoms enough of my own.

I think I even managed to get tangled up in a dreamcatcher in that other world once. Minding my own business, coming back to my own dreamscape after watching over my granddaughter I was suddenly aware of something snaring at my dreamself, slowing me down so I could see...

...patterns layered on patterns; the dreams of a mind seeking constantly, maddeningly after order in a world that has none.

And for a moment, I looked on that dreamer and I felt him look on me.

I left that place and that poor, mad dreamer as swiftly as I could, but to this day I wonder; what did he make of me?