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Post by Linyü on May 15, 2020 21:01:20 GMT -6
The walls were all made of glass, leaded with some kind of gold substance. Light poured in from all directions, the rich buttery sunlight of late spring, and not at all the starlit dreamscape that they had occupied a moment ago in the previous room. Just past the glass was a beautifully tended garden, filled with rosebushes of various types, all of them in delicate bloom. The flowers were not the large and luxurious type favored in most such gardens, but a slender cultivar with small, demure blossoms. Butterflies drifted between them, seeming to change their color as the light hit their wings from different angles, as though they were themselves made of faceted glass.
It was beautiful, but San didn't trust it. He ran his hand along one pane of glass, testing the seams. It felt solid enough under his hand, as though it were real, but if he tried to shatter it to make his escape...
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Post by Linyü on May 15, 2020 21:05:18 GMT -6
What would happen then, he wondered?
There was no chance to find out. There was a flash of light, barely any warning, before something hot and flame-colored streaked down from the sky. A rumble shook the space, throwing up rocks and debris across the glass, and the light that had been guiding them seemed to diffuse and scatter for a moment before coalescing upon itself again. San tensed immediately, ready to spring for Rei and shield her if need be, but fortunately the hallway held. More evidence, if anything, that it was not what it seemed; either the impact had been a falsification, or the place was made of something not nearly so delicate as glass.
A smoking crater lay where the roses had been, but even as San watched, it unfurled into a creature made of stone, molten red eyes opening to watch him with an unreadable gaze as it shook off the dust.
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Post by Linyü on May 15, 2020 21:08:37 GMT -6
For a moment he wondered if it would come after them, having made eye contact with him like this, but it did nothing of the sort. It merely walked off in a different direction, disappearing into the mess of rubble that had become of the garden since its arrival.
"We can't stay here," said Rei. In her voice there was no urgency, but the fallen star before her was wavering in an erratic pattern that might have been unease. San glanced one last time at the wreckage, but he could no longer see the creature that had been there. Silently, he fell into step behind Rei once more, as the light led them further down the glass hall.
It stretched on for much longer than what would have seemed plausible, given the outside dimensions of the property, but that was perhaps the least strange of the things that San had seen since stepping foot inside.
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Post by Linyü on May 15, 2020 21:14:02 GMT -6
That detail almost seemed circumstantial; indeed, he might have been more surprised if this place chose to follow that one single law when it clearly defied so many others. But at last, the hallway came to an end, and they emerged into another room.
Mercifully, it wasn't one he recognized. But there was also nothing immediately strange about it. It was a child's playroom, filled with toys, high-ceilinged and painted with figures from children's tales. Animals cavorted with elves and fairies, in such detail that it might otherwise have been mistaken for an art piece. The furniture, by contrast, seemed old and expensive, and curiously free of wear.
In the middle of the floor, surrounded by toy soldiers, was a child.
It was difficult to immediately determine the child's gender. Their hair was long and messy, a soft silverish color, or perhaps a lavender cast; the color shifted a little as the light hit it, not unlike the butterflies from earlier.
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Post by Linyü on May 15, 2020 21:22:54 GMT -6
The child couldn't have been any older than five, though in all likelihood they were younger--- if they were human, of course. If they existed at all, perhaps. However old they were, they seemed completely unaware of the new arrivals, immersed in their game of soldiers as San and Rei looked on. The child hummed a faltering tune to themselves as they moved one particular soldier about, sometimes murmuring lines of dialogue too quiet for San to make out.
A door opened, and a woman wearing a matronly dress stepped through. Her hair was tied up into a trim bun, and her face was lined with age; old enough to be the child's grandmother. The child glanced up at her arrival, smiling; the woman smiled back, but unease touched the corners of her mouth. Still, the child didn't seem to notice, sitting up and turning, reaching their arms toward her as though demanding a hug.
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Post by Linyü on May 15, 2020 21:29:49 GMT -6
"Nanette, Nanette," the child called, eyes bright with anticipation. "Did you come to see me?"
"Young master," said the woman. She stepped inside, but didn't go to them. The child pouted, but gave up the tactic easily enough, choosing instead to hold up the soldier they had been playing with a moment ago. "See what Avier made for me," they said. "Do you want to help me name them? This one is Old Wolf, and this is Invel."
"Now, young master, did you forget what day it was?" The woman approached, though only to take the toys away, and then to lift them from under their little arms so that they stood on their own two feet. "You've got to get dressed for your ceremony, young master."
"Must I?" said the child. "But I've been having such fun."
"You mustn't keep the guests waiting," said Nanette, ushering them out the door.
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Post by Linyü on May 15, 2020 21:34:24 GMT -6
The fallen star followed quickly on their heels, and San and Rei had little choice but to do the same. Through the door that the woman had entered and then exited was an altogether different space. Now they were in a vast hall, which could not have connected to such a small room in the layout of any real, logical house. If not for the similarity in the style of decor, San wouldn't even have thought the two as having been a part of the same building.
As the door closed, San watched it disappear; and then the three of them were a part of the crowd, standing at the edges of the hall. They stood out terribly; the gathered men and women were dressed in finery, though not in a fashion San recognized; certainly not the fashions of Xin. Rei was right when she had said that they were not in his dream anymore.
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Post by Linyü on May 15, 2020 21:43:45 GMT -6
San, dressed in his working clothes, would have attracted attention at once; and there were no fae flitting among the crowd aside from Rei beside him, for all that they had been depicted on the walls of the child's playroom. But no one noticed; no one paid them any mind. Their gazes were all fixed toward the front of the hall, where several people stood on a dais, and at the center of this smaller gathering was the child from the playroom.
They wore a pristine white dress shirt, and a vest over that, their shoulders covered with a dark capelet against which their pale skin and hair seemed striking. Their hair had been tamed down to a slim ponytail draped artfully over one shoulder, and they stood surprisingly impassively as one after another, people in the crowd approached the dais to offer words to the adult man standing beside them.
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Post by Linyü on May 15, 2020 21:49:55 GMT -6
The man must have been some relation, though they did not bear much resemblance at first glance. It was only their manner of dress that was similar, and the man had a proprietary hand resting on the child's shoulder, which the child did not seem to protest. Their eyes were a little alike, mostly in color, the child's features too round and undefined to tell any further. His hair was an unremarkable brown, his features severe, but he smiled at each of the ones who greeted him, and accepted whatever they offered with good grace.
San was beginning to question why they were there when one particularly animated man approached the dais, greeting the man with rather less respect and more familiarity, which the man returned. The child at his side stirred only a little, and San could see that what he had at first mistook for stoicism was simply tiredness.
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Post by Linyü on May 16, 2020 16:12:06 GMT -6
But any sign of weariness was startled from the child, and the crowd besides, when the animated man gestured to the door at the end of the great hall with a flourish. The door opened wide, and through it stepped...
Ah.
There was absolutely nothing here that he recognized, but all at once he understood whose dream, or perhaps whose memory, this was. The creature that stepped through the door was one he knew. Shining green scales glittered on a serpentine form, wings held tightly against the sides. The dragon walked through the crowd with its head held high, acknowledging no one and nothing until it had reached the dais.
The animated man grinned at the child, saying something to them, at which point the dragon peered down, as though only just now noticing the child's presence. The animated man gestured between the two of them, and San could see the dragon snorting, as though displeased.
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Post by Linyü on May 16, 2020 16:16:28 GMT -6
Ichaival, San thought; which meant that the child must have been Seveth. Had they seen only the scene of the hall, San might have doubted, but the child was the one they had followed here from the playroom. Even now, that child was reaching up at the dragon, apparently unintimidated by its form or its manner, beaming with joy. By contrast, the man who had been at his side looked alarmed, and was now conferring with the animated man, drawing him aside so that the two of them may speak in hushed tones.
San took the time to study the phantom of the dragon. This must have been some time ago; despite his behavior often suggesting otherwise, Seveth had lived until he had reached his majority, after all. And although Ichaival looked much the same as it did now, there were differences, signs of age that showed even on its draconian form.
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Post by Linyü on May 16, 2020 16:21:17 GMT -6
The scales were a more vivid green here, now, than San was used to seeing; the hide was unmarred, the mane shorter. And there was something about the way the dragon carried itself here, which spoke rather more of a prideful nature than the reserved and wary manner in which Ichaival conducted itself now.
Did dragons age so fast? San thought. But he knew little enough about dragons, even less than he knew about Harachiu.
Still, knowing who was the owner of the dream did little to tell them about what was going on. "Why are we here?" he murmured to the light, which had been staying steadily beside them, observing the proceedings just as they had been. It felt absurd to ask such a thing of a beam of light, but this was exactly the kind of absurd situation where it felt like a plausible course of action, simply because nothing had made sense now for some time.
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Post by Linyü on May 16, 2020 16:26:50 GMT -6
He wasn't sure if he expected a real answer though, which was why he was surprised when he heard... something. He was hard pressed to describe what he heard, but it did sound somewhat like a voice; and it did sound as though there were words, though soft and distorted enough that he couldn't make heads or tails of it, even to identify whether it was a language he knew.
He frowned, glancing at Rei. Her brows were furrowed slightly as though she was trying to focus on something. "You heard it too, then," he said. She nodded, just as the light flared, and they heard the noise again.
This time, it was a little clearer, just enough so that San could make out a little of what was being said. But what he understood surprised him enough that for a moment, all he could do was stand there, rooted to the spot.
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Post by Linyü on May 16, 2020 16:31:20 GMT -6
Xin. The voice that spoke to them had been in Xin.
That ought to have been impossible. There was no--- No one he had met in all his time here had known the language. No one had even mentioned the country itself, and only very occasionally had he even found mention of his home continent, along the docks and sometimes in a dusty old tome. He hadn't spoken to anyone of his origins in sufficient detail, for fear of drawing the attention of the Watchful Ones once again, even so far from home.
"-What,-" said San, "-are you?-"
"- ---uriou--- -" said the voice. It faded in and out of the audible range, as though the speaker was very far away. San wasn't even sure he ought to call it a voice, though it was the closest approximation he could come to describing it. Still, it also didn't feel quite like the way Ichaival spoke to them.
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Post by Jack on May 16, 2020 18:49:12 GMT -6
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