Darkness. It surrounded Cami on all sides as she floated in a void bereft of anything but herself. She could see herself in that manner of the dream, hovering in the black, her typically colorful form muted into monochrome. The dream, if that's what it was, was a familiar one; she'd had it every full convergence for as long as she could remember. If she was lucky, the dreaming hours would be taken up with nothing worse than this - watching herself gently bob up and down in the emptiness, cast in the muted colors of her own darkvision, stripping away the brilliance of her own flesh and eyes and hair.

That wasn't too bad, really. Cami was not, by nature, possessed of narcisissim, but she had always rather liked the way she looked, though she preferred herself in color. Slim and short, never having quite developed overmuch in her pubescent years, with a thick mop of wavy hair that she kept cut in a style that framed her face. Large, expressive eyes, stubby pointed nose, fine, high cheekbones, large double-pointed ears with a chip clipped out of the right one. In the grayscale void, she looked very much like someone had taken a human body and slapped a goblin's head atop it, then stretched the whole lot to a short human shape. In the world of color, her forest green skin and blonde hair and pink-red eyes were some of her favorite features.

When she was not lucky, however, she spent these dreams cowering in terror, desperate to awaken and break the hold of whatever it was that descended upon her. Some times she heard a persistent low growling that vibrated her from head to toe; others, the blackness was pinpointed by millions of little red eyes staring balefully at her. Still others, there were numerous beings with panting breaths - she'd counted thirteen unique ones before she'd been unable to discern beyond that point - all around her. And some times she just felt like she had trespassed somewhere and an oppressive, gloomy weight settled in all around her, disapproving at her like a stern authority figure.

Tonight, though, seemed as if it would be just another night of boredom. She examined herself from that odd third-person perspective she had; she could move it around her body, get a good look at herself from all angles. Through the years, it'd given her a very exact mental image of herself, and after countless times spent staring at herself in blank silence, she had to admit that she looked fairly good. Not that her taste in women was beyond suspicion.

The worst part was the fact that she always woke up from these dreams feeling unbearably groggy, as if her body hadn't rested at all, even on the nights where nothing happened. The grogginess always persisted for a few days afterwards before her natural energetic nature kicked back in. She always supplemented it with coffee, but following a Dream Night she couldn't even begin to function without it.

Just as she was settling into dreading the next few days, control was torn away from her. The vision she looked upon herself with began to turn, as if the head the eyes belonged to was moving. But wasn't it her head? Then she saw the face of her recumbent form twist in confusion as the thoughts hit her brain, and then she couldn't see herself as the view shifted away from her fully.

A white light met not-her vision, a brilliant, if pale disc of pure white. She felt herself grimacing as the brightness hit her, but the gaze of whatever was looking didn't look away, and her own eyes felt seared. And then, in the light, darkness began to etch itself across the surface, blotting out the shine as words began to scrawl into the disc's surface. Beautiful calligraphy drew lettering, actually carving away bits of the disc as the words etched into it. She watched in fascination as the little strips bore out of the disc fell away, still glittering their brilliant light as they fell into the void and the words revealed themselves in the voiding.

When the mark is revealed

A marriage shall bring a time of peace

And the destruction of nature

When white smoke rises

An embarrassing defeat shall usher forth

The beginning of a better future

And when mountains move and rivers shiver

A secret woman shall bring an end

To the Gods

Beware the dry rain

Beneath a sky of a different blue

It ushers forth a new era of monsters

The letters seemed to glow in direct contrast with the light surrounding them, radiating back in exact opposition to the disc's light. It burned into her retinas; she couldn't close the eyes of the thing that she was looking through, couldn't force it to look away. Even at the best of times, her large eyes were sensitive to bright light, and this was like staring directly at the sun. She heard her own voice crying out in pain behind her from her slumbering body, could feel herself thrashing on nothingness.

And then she woke up.

Gasping for breath and sitting straight up in the small bed in the basement of the little farm house, Cami grabbed at her aching eyes, rubbing at them to ease the agony still throbbing in them. A chill settled onto her as she sat there trying to make the spots go away as the dank of the basement leeched all heat away from the sweat covering her body. Everything ached; not just her burnt eyes, but every muscle in her body throbbed. She finally felt the pain receding in her eyes and she wrapped her arms around her legs drawn to her chest, staring blankly into the pitch blackness of the basement that served as her room, taking solace in the cool darkness.

"Ffffff..." she finally managed to vocalize. That had not been one of the usual Convergence Dreams. As she ran over it through her mind again, it sent a foreboding chill through her. She'd never experienced anything quite like it; the only thing even remotely similar had been when she'd dreamed of Farmer Bryson's son falling into the river, but that hadn't even been a Convergence Dream. It had, however, sent her down to the recognizable patch of the river just in time to grab the boy and haul him out.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

With barely a glance at the wall, she cast one of her arms out towards it and spoke a hissing syllabic word that made her blood boil and the magic within leap inside of her. Eyes squeezing shut as she forced herself to remember in exacting detail how the calligraphy had looked, what it had said, before waking hours stole away the last vestiges of the dream. That was the one saving grace, especially on the frightening ones; all distinct details of her Convergence Dreams tended to fade shortly after she awoke unless she focused. Across the thick stones that bracketed the basement, the calligraphy into existence as her spell settled against the stone, wringing it from her mind and replicating it as exactly as she had seen it in her dreams.

She couldn't even look at it after it was done, though. She needed time and distance. She slid out of her bed and finally flicked her nightvision on, casting the small basement room in monochrome. This was not, strictly speaking, the house's actual basement where her family stored things that needed to be kept dark and cool; it was simply a chamber that her adoptive mother had had built for her beneath the home early on in her childhood to give her a place to rest away from the biting rays of the sun when they became too much. As such, it was just large enough for a few people to comfortably sit in - six, by her count, given that she'd had all her friends in here without too much difficulty - with a single threadbare tapestry hanging from the wall directly opposite her bed's foot. It depicted a dragon coiling around a tower with a woman leaning from the tower window, hand resting on the dragon's snout.

Right now, she was stumbling up the stairs and pushing open the trap door into the home's den, and was surprised to find that darkness still dominated. She crossed to one of the small windows and peered outside at the five full moons hanging ponderously above; it could hardly be past midnight. But there was no going back to sleep after that dream.

Into the kitchen she went, snapping her fingers and igniting the dry kindling in the stove. Just as she began to cross over to close it to seal the heat in, she let out a surprised squeak as movement caught her gaze and she started back sharply.

"Good morning, Cami," said the dry, raspy voice of her adoptive grandmother, who grinned at the young woman. Cami rubbed at her chest, right over her heart, letting out a huff.

"You scared me to death, granny," Cami muttered, but right now she was grateful the ancient woman was awake. She really didn't want to be alone with that dream in her mind.

"And you frightened me, child," her grandmother said. She gestured to the chair opposite her at the small table she sat at. "Sit," she said.

Cami crawled into the chair and took in her grandmother. Granny Esma was clad in a simple white shift that did nothing to obscure just how old she was. She looked almost like one giant wrinkle of dark brown skin folded in on itself, with stringy white hair that draped nearly the full length of her back and shrouded her face in bangs. She had a heavy stoop, and usually walked with a cane - but looking into her eyes, one would believe her a woman of twenty years old, her amber eyes shining with a brilliant vivacity that not even her advanced age had managed to steal away.

"I was going to make some coffee," Cami said softly, drawing one leg up onto the seat and against her chest, wrapping her arms around it and resting her chin against her knee.

"Already made," Granny Esma said, indicating the small clay pot in the center of the table with Cami's favorite mug near to it. Cami gratefully poured herself coffee into the mug and took it into both hands, resting her chin on her upraised knee as she took a long drink from it. It was the perfect temperature; Granny had known she'd be up in advance. It was sometimes infuriating that Granny could apparently see the future and make preparations, but right now it was just comforting. It meant she wasn't alone.

"Another of your Convergence Dreams, and this one far different from the others," Granny Esma said, and it wasn't a question. Cami only nodded, hooking some of her hair behind one of her large ears.

"I saw... words. A prophecy?" She frowned, rubbing her cheek against her knee as she ran it through her head again.

"Yeeeees," Granny Esma said in a low drawl, clacking two of her long fingernails against her teeth thoughtfully. Her pristine white teeth gleamed in the moonlight dappling in from the windows. "Yes, you've apparently the gift for it," she mused. "Odd that it came so late in life to you; my own Convergence Dreams were full of it from the day I could think, and your mother's from not much later. But they were always small things; hints, portents. Never a full-fledged prophecy."

"So what does it mean?" Cami asked, feeling a chill that had nothing to do with her sweaty skin or the coolness of night.

"Haven't the foggiest," the old woman said, lifting her scrawny shoulders in a shrug.

"Granny!" Cami protested, drawing another laugh from her grandmother.

"I don't know what to tell you, sweetling," the old woman said, propping her elbow on the table and resting her chin in her hand. "Portents and hints are straightforward and resolve themselves quickly - but a prophecy? Those are always shrouded in mystery and never clear what they mean until they come to pass, usually decades or centuries down the line."

"Great," Cami sighed, draining her mug of coffee and pouring a second. Her head was already throbbing from the thought of trying to puzzle out the words' meaning. "Guess I'll have to be on the lookout for a dry rain." She jerked back as a slipper thumped her in the forehead; her grandmother didn't look to have moved an inch, and Cami now had a fuschia mark on her forehead from the brief bruising.

"H-hey!" Cami whimpered, rubbing at her forehead.

"None of that, child," Esma chided her gently. "It's enough that you've received the prophecy. No sense going and looking for its fulfillment, yes? Besides, it's the Harvest Festival for the next few days, and a young woman of a score and change of winters needs to be out enjoying it."

"But--"

"No," Esma cut her off and lifted a finger to her own lips to make a shushing noise. "You listen to Grandma Esma, and you listen good, dear. Nothing good has ever come of prophets who think overmuch of the prophecies they receive. They go mad trying to puzzle it out, for rarely does the prophecy concern themselves and thus they lack all context. No, you go have yourself a bath, put it out of your head, and go have fun with your friends."

"I-if you say so, granny," Cami sighed, sipping at her coffee again. She tried to put the words out of her mind - but they were too fresh. Granny was probably right, and she shuddered back from the thought of going crazy trying to figure it out. She could see herself now - ranting and raving in the market square, eyes wild, foam splattering from her mouth...

"I do say so," Grandma Esma stated firmly. "Go on," she said, shooing Cami with one flapping hand. "Have a long soak and take your coffee with you. And that awful romance novel. I'm sure reading about ladies en deshabille will take your mind right off your prophecy."

"G-Granny!" Cami protested, her cheeks darkening towards violet, but not overmuch; she was used to her grandmother's impropriety, but it still embarrassed her.

"Well, maybe don't wander around the cottage skyclad and I won't have cause to comment on your predilections," the old woman cackled, and only then did Cami realize she was, in fact, bereft of clothing. Horrifically embarrassed, she gathered her coffee pot and mug and darted into the mudroom containing the bath, slamming the door shut behind her with her grandmother's laughter ringing in her ears.