Caroline
3rd of May, 649
Caroline's hand throbbed as she squeezed it shut. The burn hadn't been as severe as Mandy, Freyja Chapel's nurse, had initially thought, but nonetheless it was still painful. Turonn and Vivienne had somehow been able to handle it without getting burnt - Caroline wondered if she had been allergic to something, but the way it burned her was almost like the pictures she'd seen of lightning strikes.
The Rigelite, or whatever it was, was locked in the High Vestal's private reliquary. The reliquary was the only part of the Chapel that Caroline was never allowed into - only Vivienne had the key to get in and out. Turonn had been almost overprotective of Caroline as the days had passed and her hand healed, making sure to remind her to change her bandages and to put an ointment Mandy had given her on it. It reminded her strongly of how doting her own father had been - after her sister's death, Caroline had at times felt as if she was wrapped in bubble wrap when her parents were around. It was an echo of a sad memory, yet she was very grateful for Turonn's attention.
"Vestal," he spoke, tilting his head at her. "Are you alright?"
"Just spacing out," Caroline said. "How's it looking?"
The burn looked almost like a diagram of nerves, splintering off into fractal-like patterns from the palm of her hand down to just below her right wrist. The blister had already ruptured, and the core of the burn had largely scabbed over and begun to heal at this point, but the pain had remained rather intense over the last week.
"Better today. I'll need to get more of that creme from Mandy before the day is out, but it's progress. Cybele only knows why in blazes that even happened, though. Have you ever had an allergy to jewelry or anything like that?"
"Only some cheap jewelry I got for my birthday one year," Caroline shook her head. "But that was millrite, and you know how everyone gets with that." It turned her ears green!
"Right," Turonn nodded. "Well, let's get that bandage back on, shall we?"
Turonn gently looped the fabric bandage around her wrist and hand - normally he would have been forbidden to touch her as for her status as Vestal but given the circumstance it was allowed.
"I honestly wonder what happened to you. I know I've asked you this before, but did you feel anything else when the stone burned you?"
"I still can't remember," Caroline shook her head. When she thought about the moment she took the stone from Emilia and it burned her, her mind was a complete blank. Also blank were her dreams. There were no visions of the young woman in the grassy field atop the stone, nor were there any actual normal dreams. Her sleep had been good at least, and for that she was grateful.
"Well, it may be good to try then at least. Any clues that we can get towards figuring out what happened will help us in preventing it from happening again."
Caroline studied Turonn's face. He hadn't shaven in a few days and was becoming a bit scruffy-cheeked. His forehead was etched with a worry she'd rarely seen in him, and she gently clasped her hand over his as he finished setting the bandage.
"Vestal," he said quickly, but Caroline held firm.
"It's alright. I wanted to thank you for your concern about me. It's nice knowing that someone cares. Not that you don't always, but I don't know if I tell you I appreciate you quite enough."
"Humbly, Vestal, no such thanks are needed." He pulled his hand away and bowed his head. "Now that that's done, suppose I should be getting on with the day." He stood and smoothed his slacks, then stretched his arms over his head. "I was curious, Caroline - it's not often that you're not working, but would you wish to accompany me on a short jaunt across the river into Sheliak for supplies?"
"Would I?" Caroline asked excitedly. "I'd be happy to, if you'd have me."
"I don't believe the High Vestal will have any issues with this - it'll be good for your mind to have a change of scenery, and I can't say she'd disagree with that assessment of things. Perhaps we can make a day of it? I've always liked going over to the beaches there myself."
"That would be lovely," Caroline nodded. "I'll get my things and meet you back here in a little bit, alright?"
"Well, we aren't quite ready to leave yet. The High Vestal takes her sweet time making those lists - it might be an hour or more. I'll send you a message on your SGNL when she's ready, but until then it might be a good idea to grab some breakfast. I've got a few more tasks before I'll be ready to go."
"Alright, well, I'll get on that breakfast then. You sure you don't want to come with me?" Caroline asked but Turonn just shook his head.
"Church business comes before the hunger pangs," he laughed. "I'll fix something for myself before we go, I promise."
Caroline hated when Turonn would skip meals, but it seemed like he was constantly busy as of late. It was hard to get him to sit down and eat with her or with the Attendants. She wondered about it and was highly suspicious that he had been trying to figure out what had hurt her. She understood his drive to solve the mystery but struggled to reconcile it with his lack of maintaining his well-being.
"You'd best," Caroline said, teacher voice coming out. Turonn smiled at that.
"I promise you. Maybe I'll get one of those cup burritos from the kitchen?"
"Those are good. Those'll do."
Turonn sighed. "I'll see you soon."
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Caroline had been in Turonn's truck many times on the grounds of the Chapel, but it was rare indeed to be able to accompany him on a trip outside of the grounds. Sheliak was a large suburb of the Elegirian capital of Rigelios, and while large cities had never appealed to Caroline, there was something exciting about going out and being able to explore.
Her childhood in Larnell, in southwest Alaeris, was an idyllic small town existence. The perils of the city were just things she'd seen on Technivision, and she'd sometimes lamented about feeling sheltered from things even as a young girl - not that being cocooned as an Attendant did that sheltered feeling any good. While she wasn't hoping to encounter anything unusual in the city, the idea that anything could happen while they were there had its own unique enchantment to it.
"When was the last time we came here?" Turonn asked, watching the road. "It's been a few years now, hasn't it?"
Caroline moved aside her veil to smile at him. Whenever she left town on Church business, she had to dress the part - she hated having to cover her face with the gauzy muslin, and the facelessness of it made her feel like a phantom when they were traveling. The stout and featureless robes, however, made her feel more comfortable in her own skin when surrounded by strangers - on past trips to visit home, lascivious eyes and glances had made her feel less than human. Turonn never made her feel like that, at least.
"I think it was maybe three or four years back? We had to pick up something for the High Vestal from the Church in Grisport... what was it?"
Turonn laughed. "Ah, it was that fish dinner, wasn't it? Needed some fresh lobster for some meeting with one of the men from the Conclave, I think it was."
"Oh, I remember now! The one with the really bushy eyebrows?"
"Yes, that's him. Leardin, I think his name is. I think he's still around down in Sha'ul, but he was so old and decrepit looking that I'd be shocked if he wasn't dead already."
"Seems to be the case with a lot of them," Caroline shrugged. Turonn nodded thoughtfully.
"Well, we're not getting any younger either, Vestal."
"Fair point."
They continued driving for about another half hour and crossed the St. Saiph River Bridge, which Caroline had looked forward to seeing in person - it hadn't yet been constructed when they'd come last time, and she'd read about it and seen it on the news. It was supposed to have drawn investors and other businesspeople to develop the lands west of the river along the border with Alaeris, but for whatever reason that never came to pass. Rumors of war were always afoot - the Noctavian Empire held the isle of Mirandis between Elegir and the Cerulea Isles to the north, and tensions between Elegir and Noctavia always threatened to run hot.
Caroline detested the idea that this place may someday become a warzone, and as they drove through the grid of streets that comprised Sheliak, she marveled at the Rigelios skyline to the east - between Saiph and Rigelios, the "Twin Cities of Glass" as they were known in Terrah, stood no less than fifty tall buildings, each an architectural marvel.
Her own father was an architect, and many nights were spent learning all about the buildings of the world as a child. The idea of being hundreds of feet from the ground was simultaneously exciting and terrifying to her, but she had yet to get to look off the top of a tower as large as the ones in Rigelios or Saiph.
"We're almost here," Turonn said, turning down a side street into a residential area. The houses here were quite different than those in Larnell, and it seemed each subdivision they drove past looked eerily the same. She noted the home styles and mentally judged the yards or lack thereof in some places - but not many places could compare to where she grew up, and she chastised herself for being a smidgen too judgmental.
Cybele wouldn't like that much, she thought, but at the same time thought the same of a large, gaudy cat made of what was probably fiberglass or whispersteel - it caught the noonday sun with its angry glare.
"This is the place," Turonn said, pulling into a spot in a strip mall plaza - Erdrick's was suspended over the door in dilapidated red lettering. "If you want to hang out in the truck, you're welcome to. Erdrick usually has some interesting things at his place, but he hasn't been around much lately. Not sure who all might be in there today."
"No, I think I'll come in. Good chance to stretch my legs." Caroline put up the veil and the hood of the robe and stepped out of the truck. The building had seen better days for sure, but what she could see displayed in the windows had a strange sort of charm to it.
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"Hello?" Turonn called as he and Caroline walked into the shop. A man with short, cropped hair and beady eyes stood wiping a mug at the counter at the back. Caroline thought she had seen him before somewhere, but assumed it was just her imagination until he spoke.
"Hey there," said the man with the familiar voice. "Told I should be expecting ya! Who's the ghostie with ya?"
Caroline's cheeks flushed under the hood, and she knew at once where she'd heard that voice before. Those Technivision commercials at late night with the rash creme! It had to be!
"She is not a ghost, and I'll insist just this one time that you refrain from that language. This woman is a Vestal of the Cybelian Church. Please watch your words."
"Ah, shit, well! That's my bad. Ol' Erdrick didn't say you'd be bringing a Vestal along."
No harm no foul, I suppose. I've been called far worse, Caroline thought. She knew not to speak in the presence of strangers - her presence alone was supposed to be enough to keep people from acting out of line.
"Language," Turonn said, more firmly this time. The man sighed and chewed his tongue. "But yes, I'm here for the pickup order. I trust the High Vestal has already submitted the payment?"
"Yeah," the man said. "Oh, uh, where are my manners? Name's Dorbert. I work for Erdrick, and uh, sorry about the ghost thing, Vestal. Haven't seen one of you folks in a long time. Don't get many here. Maybe ever." He shrugged.
Caroline bowed her head once - an acknowledgment - and the man looked strangely at ease after that.
"Well, Dorbert, if everything's good, we'll need to get moving - I've got the bed of the truck cleared out, so you can probably just put the pallets right on in there," Turonn gestured. Dorbert nodded and scratched his neck.
Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.
"Cool. Well, gimme a minute and I'll get the forklift and we'll get that on there for ya. In the meanwhile, if you just wanna poke around in here, be my guest."
"Thank you," Turonn said. Dorbert gave him a nod as he disappeared beyond a curtain at the back of the store. They glanced around the racks on the walls and Caroline futzed around with some of the smaller items on the shelves. Strange things, they were really - all sorts of tchotchkes in this section, anyway - things like small wooden ducks or strings of Pulse lights. All things no one would pay money for, at least not me, she thought, placing a garish wooden duck back in its place on the shelf.
She could hear movement from outside along with some very familiar sounds of complaint - Caroline moved her veil aside when she was sure that she and Turonn were alone.
"Turonn," she urged quietly. "Do you know who that guy is?"
"Who who is? Dorbert?"
"Yes!" she whispered. "He's the guy from those commercials! The 'Oh, my rash! Get the creme, Rondi!' commercials!"
Turonn tilted his head at her as if she had five heads. "Can't say I've seen it. How much Technivision are you watching, Vestal?"
Caroline's cheeks blushed and she smiled sheepishly. "Probably too much. But I mean, Turonn! It's memorable! You can't fault me for..."
Dorbert returned through the curtain before Caroline was able to move her veil back. They caught one another's eyes, and she panicked, frozen. She turned to Turonn and by virtue of his stature he formed an effective shield.
"Uh, I was just gonna say that we've got some extra stuff going on this load," Dorbert said. He seemed quite piqued by what he saw, or so Caroline thought. It was a rare enough sight to see a Vestal outside of a church, but rarer still to see one's face. She felt dirty for having slipped up like that, and through the sleeve of the robe she felt for her prayer beads. Silently, she prayed to Cybele, hoping that the lapse would be forgiven.
"Erdrick told me yesterday he was sorry he couldn't be here. Said he got wrapped up in some business with an all-you-can-eat seafood place down in Velus somewheres and not to expect him back until he's eaten all he can eat? I dunno what he meant by that, but..."
Caroline laughed. She didn't mean to, but she did anyway.
"Yeah, that's what I thought too," Dorbert smiled at her as if he could see hers under her veil. "Said he had been lookin' forward to seein' ya though, Turonn."
"Maybe he can bring a bucket of clams back for me next time," Turonn laughed. "But extra things? We didn't order anything extra."
"Ol' Erdrick said it's his apology for not being able to be here. That's what I was trying to say, but the words just got a little bit uh... messed up in my head."
"Happens to the best of us," Turonn said.
"Yeah. Me more often than not, but hey! Showbiz'll do that to ya. They're up on the truck right now, but it might be a good idea if you wanna check 'em over before you get on heading back to wherever you're coming from."
"A good idea indeed," Turonn nodded. "Vestal, if you would?" He gestured towards the door and followed as Caroline led them back outside.
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Turonn checked over the manifest as Caroline sat back in the passenger seat of the truck - when they were good to go, he said his goodbyes to Dorbert, who waved at them as the truck pulled away and back out onto the road.
"Dr. Dorbert's Rash Creme," Turonn said after a few moments' silence. "I think I remember a bit more about it now. I've heard those ads on the radio before. Strange. He didn't look much like a doctor, do you think?"
"Stranger people have done stranger things?" Caroline suggested, but Turonn just shook his head.
"Nah. That guy? No way."
The drive back towards Freyja Chapel was slower than the way there - the truck was noticeably heavier and Turonn had to drive more carefully as not to lose anything. After crossing back over the St. Saiph River Bridge, Caroline began to feel tired. They'd picked up a light meal at a fast food place, which always made her stomach feel uneasy anyway, but the sleepiness gave her a different reason to be afraid other than a suddenly necessary bathroom trip.
She hadn't slept anywhere but her bed since the Dreams started - Cybele only knew what would happen if she started having a Dream with Turonn right next to her. She didn't know if she would move around or if she would speak. Her quarters were private, but this? These were uncharted, terrifying waters. What would Turonn think of you if you started screaming in your sleep?
He noticed her struggling to stay awake. "You know, Vestal, it's alright if you get some rest. It's not like there's anything exciting going on. I imagine you might be a little nervous to sleep away from the Chapel, but I'm here to protect you."
Caroline yawned. "I hate it when you read my mind like that," she sighed. "But you're right. I'm just..." she yawned again, "...just afraid of being back in that place again."
"Well, if you start moving like you're possessed by Corybas or Phyrigias or whoever, I'll be glad to wake you."
"I..." Another yawn. "I appreciate that."
Caroline put up a big fight against it, but sleep won out. She closed her eyes and rested against the truck's door. Everything went black, then a brilliant blue.
#
In the field of blue light came a familiar scene. A wooded plain, pockmarked with large, climbable boulders and outcrops. A hazy sky, cleft in two by a flaming sunset and the clear, devouring blue of midday. Caroline felt herself covered in a cold mist as she walked through the trees but saw no source for it. Focus, Caroline. You're here again. You need to find that girl and talk to her and figure out what in blazes is happening here.
Caroline pressed forward carefully, trying not to draw attention to herself. The sensation of cold permeated through her robes - or what she thought were her robes, anyway - she found that she was even dressed differently in here. A simple t-shirt, shorts, and a pair of sandals - clothes she'd probably wear in her downtime alone in her apartment, but not clothes for adventuring in a dreamland wilderness. The cold made her shiver as she continued forward.
I wish I was warm, she thought, remembering how nice it'd been outside Erdrick's store just hours before. Strangely, the feeling of the mist stopped at the thought.
Did I just do that?
"Perhaps you did, perhaps you did not," a voice called from a close distance. "But how would you know? Who knows, perhaps I did it."
"Who are you? What do you want?" Caroline looked around, desperately trying to veil her shock at the sound of the unknown voice.
"Relax yourself, I am not here to hurt you. Not in the way you may be expecting, anyway."
Caroline thought the voice seemed familiar much in the same way Dorbert's had - but something about it felt wrong.
The world around her unfolded as if made of paper. She was losing it. She was waking up.
"Not this time. Come, there's things you must see. Must feel. You must understand your fears, Caroline, before you are able to overcome them."
What the blazes?
"I know what you're thinking, and you are justified in your concerns."
The family home in Larnell appeared in the void, and Caroline covered her mouth as if trying to hold back a scream of shock.
"But if you can face down your darknesses, you will reveal yourself cleansed by its flame, Caroline."
"Who are you?" Caroline demanded, but the voice simply clicked at her as if a stern teacher.
"Not for telling," it said in a flat tone. "You must experience."
The rest of Larnell unfolded around her, and Caroline looked around, horrified. This has never happened before.
"You have formed a conduit," the voice said, explaining. "Greater depths may yet be reached, but there are hurdles even here that you must surmount to continue."
"What if I don't want to?"
"You no longer have a say, Caroline. This is your destiny."
"Yeah? What if I want to wake up?" Caroline felt silly calling out at nothing. She supposed it wasn't too much different than praying to Cybele. Perhaps this was Cybele. She had no idea.
"Are you the Goddess?" Caroline asked. The very question made her feel stupid. "What do you want from me?"
"You have formed a bond," the voice said again, somehow more flatly. "You are connected to me now, Caroline. We will commune in this space until the day you die."
"Am I a Dreamseer?"
"Call it what you want, Caroline, but you know the truth of it in your heart."
"What? What do you mean by that?"
"Go now. Your destiny awaits you. Walk through that door into your house."
"How will I know what I need to do once I'm in there? Is what's in there real or is it just a Dream, too?"
"You will have to see for yourself, Caroline. Once you are inside, I will not speak until you have experienced. You will not be able to leave the Dream until then."
"Do I have to do this?" Caroline bit her lip until it almost bled. She was petrified of this place already. It was home but in no way did it feel that way. It felt alien and wrong and looking at it filled her with incomprehensible dread.
"You must crawl before you walk," the voice said with a surprising amount of pride in its voice.
"What do you mean? Who are you?"
The voice did not respond. Birds chirped in the trees as the morning sun came up above the eastern Aquilas. She caught a glimpse of herself in the front bay window of the house and what she saw filled her with surprise and horror - how can this be? - she was nine years old again.
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Caroline's father Ethan opened the door to the family's home and looked upon the disheveled Caroline with concern.
"Carrie? What are you doing out here so early? The bus to school doesn't come for another hour."
"Oh! I must've forgotten to change my clock," Caroline lied. Her father looked at her with squinted eyes. He wasn't buying what she was selling.
"You don't have a backpack or anything, either. Are you feeling alright?"
"I'm a little cold," she said. Her father was a pushover for her, he'd always been. She'd been grateful for it - he'd always had her back with everything, even things her mother had been more steadfast against.
"Well, get on in here and I'll get some oatmeal on the stove. Mom's with Phoebe right now, they had a hard night."
"Phoebe?" Caroline asked.
"Yeah, come on in, we need to talk about it."
Caroline looked down the road into the endless black void at the end of the street. The sky past that point seemed to bend into where the ground should have been, and it made her feel extremely uneasy.
"Is she okay?" Caroline asked. She knew what had happened on this day, it was just playing out in a different way than she had remembered. Her sister had been sick, as her mother had said - she had been a vibrant child until just after her third birthday.
Then the cancer came, vicious, ugly, and unsparing. Phoebe's decline had been quick, much quicker than anyone, not her parents or the doctors could have expected. It gutted Caroline then and the idea of reliving that day filled her heart with horrors unimaginable.
"She's stable at least. The doctor should be here soon, but it's not like this is the first time this has happened. C'mon in, that oatmeal's calling your name."
Caroline stepped across the dewy morning grass. It was freshly cut, and felt prickly beneath her bare feet. For early Verel, before the turn of spring even, it was oddly cold outside.
"Dad?"
"Yeah?"
"Are you okay?"
"What do you mean, am I okay?"
A strangely warm breeze wrapped around her as she stepped forwards towards him. She remembered how the winds had changed in the forest of her memories just prior to coming here, and the gears in her head began to turn.
"You always look so worried, Dad. I'm just asking."
"Not your concern, darling. Thank you, though. It's been hard on all of us, hasn't it?"
Caroline nodded as she climbed the stairs and entered the house. Ethan shut the door behind them. In the living room was where Phoebe's too-small hospital bed was set up, and her mother Cristyn sat half-awake by her bedside. Caroline could smell the coffee from the kitchen as she followed her father in.
She sat awkwardly on a stool at the kitchen island as Ethan quickly assembled breakfast - a pot of oatmeal, some sliced grapefruit, a glass of milk. Cristyn entered the room, stretching her arms over her head.
"Hey, Carrie, good morning," Cristyn said. "I hope we weren't too noisy last night. Did we wake you?"
"I found her outside standing barefoot in the grass," Ethan said, and her mother looked alarmed. "Not sure if she was just wanting to go outside or what, but it was pretty strange."
"Sleepwalking, maybe?" Cristyn shrugged. It was unusual behavior, but Caroline assumed that it was the least of her mother's concerns. "Whatever the case, I hope that you got enough rest. At least next week is spring break from school?"
"Yeah," Caroline said, nodding as her father put the bowl of oatmeal in front of her. Its steam smelled of brown sugar and he had added blueberries and honey to it as well. "Is Phoebe doing okay?"
Her parents looked between one another, then back to her.
"She's a trooper," Cristyn said after a too-long silence. "She's asleep now, and Dr. Wilson should be over soon to check up on her."
Caroline nodded and tucked into the bowl of oatmeal. For being a Dream, the sensation of taste was just as real as it was in the waking world. It made her acutely aware of her own mortality within the Dream and conjectured that she'd need to be careful with what she did and how she approached things.
Her parents sat down at the breakfast island, too. Cristyn made what was probably her fifth cup of coffee of the day so far, Caroline thought, and the three of them ate in silence. Every now and then, the silence was pierced by the beep of Phoebe's vitals monitor in the living room.
The bus honked outside, and Caroline took her backpack from by the front door. Her parents said their goodbyes to her as she stepped out into the now brighter morning light - but there was no bus. She turned around - there was no more Larnell house, either.
Somewhere in the distance, she heard the rushing sounds of water. Mist filled the spaces around her, cold and moist. It felt almost as if it was tugging at her, and she felt the ground below her crumbling away. A scream caught in her throat as it completely vanished underneath, but she did not fall.
"You. You are not ready, not yet. But the day will come when you are ready. The day will come when you will understand everything."
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"Goodness, Caroline? Are you alright in there?" High Vestal Vivienne's voice called from just outside the bedroom door. This wasn't Caroline's bedroom, but she felt relieved to be there, wherever she was.
"I'm alright, I just woke up," Caroline called, sitting up. How long had she been asleep? She looked at her clothes - she was in the same clothing she had been wearing while traveling with Turonn, but she had no idea what day it was or anything. All she knew right now was that she was sweaty, she had to use the bathroom something fierce, and that her head was pounding.
Vivienne entered the room wrapped in a colorful shawl. "Cybele's mercy, you had us scared there for a minute there!" She sat down at the foot of the bed and put her hand gently on Caroline's foot. "Turonn said you fell asleep on the way back and that you were murmuring - he called me because he couldn't wake you. We carried you up here and you've been here since. I've been checking on you every half hour since I woke up this morning, Caroline. "
"What? This morning? What day is it?"
"It's the 4th," Vivienne said. "You've been out for almost 24 hours now. Mandy came by to check on you during the night, but all of your vitals were fine - we didn't dare disturb you, though. I didn't explain to her what all was happening but stressed that it was important to keep it quiet."
"I had another Dream."
"I know. I've never seen anyone have one in person before, but it was unmistakable from what the scriptures say of Dreamseers, Caroline. What did you dream of?"
"Forests. Being cold. Seeing my parents."
"Now that's a different one, isn't it?"
"A voice spoke to me, too." Caroline didn't know if it was safe to divulge this much, but she knew she had to say something about it.
"A voice? Like what kind of voice?" Vivienne looked at her with concern.
"I'm not sure. It spoke inside my head, it felt like. And when I saw my parents, I changed. I changed into myself as a nine-year old girl."
"Strange indeed," Vivienne said, her brow furrowed. "I suppose I should let you clean up and get something to eat. I can make you something if you wish."
Even more strangely, she didn't feel hungry at all.