"Dimensionalism and Dreamspinning..."
"... I've chosen very strange vocations.
There were little things that could be done.
Little things that made changing an active dream more or less difficult. Things like making sure you’re starting at the center of the dream— usually denoted by a symbol or sign personal to you. Then there were other things you could do on your end, such as spending time with the person dreaming, or bringing in an assortment of items— like Shimmer powder— to assist you. Of course, the normal rules of magic still applied— mostly— dream logic was sometimes illogical. Then there are things the person dreaming could do— such as actively thinking about what they want, and how exactly it’ll look, or being notified that they’d be undergoing such a thing. It was always easier when they were willing.
Going about changing it was a different problem. Oftentimes, the typical method was to usurp ownership of the dream—so that it was yours as much as it was theirs— and then work from there. Other situations— like in the case of Mr. Lestine— would have to be guided along, or instructed to willingly hand over some ownership of the dream.
Dmitri’s dream wasn’t much different from any others— disregarding the terrible environment he’d found himself in— It really was just that, a dream, like any others.
And so, with a slow breath that clouded up in front of me, and dipped into the lull of casting.
Ether flowed eagerly to my staff, and I saw the hour hand on my watch tick a little faster. The ether emptied itself from me, drug up from it’s deep reservoir, giving me a brief flush of chill and airy weightlessness before pooling in the staff and sinking into the circle around me.
The string-formed pattern began to burn up, charring and reducing to dust as the ether flowed through them, before slowly filling the silver circle completely. I couldn’t see the ether— not without certain spells— but the cold presence prickled at the edge of my senses, like a phantom limb.
With another cloudy breath, I pushed the ether out into the world around me, and let it continue flowing out in slow, calm waves.
“Can— can I open my eyes now?” Dmitri asked.
“No— but I do need you to tell me what you want.”
“I—“ he struggled for a moment. “What?”
“Imagine what you want to see, and say it.”
“I— I see the greenest fields— a land filled with life— there’s no towering buildings choking the life out of everything... ”
I slowly spun my staff, a wave of grass quickly growing over the desolate mounds of gore. The wave expanded further, reaching past the field and into a distance I couldn’t see. Above us, the sky had mostly cleared, the singular star and its cluster having been joined by an expanse of stars. The hour hand hit seven.
“Then?”
“I see— I see my house— my old house from Avon. My family is there.”
That... was slightly more difficult to manage, I had no idea what his home looked like, but it wasn’t much of a problem— he was a part of building his new dream as much as I was, maybe even more so.
On a farther hill, upon a grassy plain, a house materialized from the dirt, bricks and tiles climbing over one another in order to form the walls and roof. With another wave of my staff, a gust of wind blew the cloying stench of bloody gunpowder away, replaced by the distant smell of sunny petrichor. The hour hand hit nine, and I took another, deeper breath to steady myself.
“And?”
“The sun— the mornings we used to share— with the swing and the old tree.”
“Would you like your friends too?” I asked, keeping a little impatience from leaking into my voice.
“I— yes,” he responded, sounding uncertain. The house flickered slightly, and a silhouette formed in the windows, joined by a few more at the tree line. Another flicker, and a tree with a small, rickety swing came to life beside the home. “Can I open my eyes now?”
“In a moment—“ I formed the sky last, letting my slowly draining ether wink out the stars in the sky, then raising a false sun— just enough that it was early morning on the plain we stood on. I let out a breath, and with it, my hold on the magic. The circle dimmed, faded, and eventually was nothing more than a silver circle lain onto the ground. The watch fell back into my waiting hand— the hour hand a little past ten— and then back into my pocket.
“You can open your eyes now,” I said softly, and he stared out at his constructed world, mouth slightly agape.
Where we once stood on a barren mound of bloody dirt and mud, where the ground used to be cropped in reaching dead hands or desiccated corpses, choking the air in the smell of bloody, muddy gunpowder, was replaced by sweeping hills of soft green. The blood had been cleared away, the flesh and bone returned to the earth, and the cloying stench replaced by a light, pleasant floral draft. The sky, once an empty, black void, now hung as a clear, morning sun, halfway between dawn and morning. The tree line, which was once spindly, creeping withered trees now stood fully leaved, softly rustling in the distance. At the top of the hill further from us, stood a quaint, brick cottage of gray stone and old wood— a hopefully satisfactory replica of Dmitri’s home.
I settled myself on a stump I’d conjured up independently of his requests, watching the silhouettes on the edge of the tree line. They moved and flickered occasionally, though made no move to get closer. That was fine.
Dmitri, still staring out at the landscape around him, tentatively came to sit on the stump beside me. “So, uh, what now?”
“Whatever you’d like. It’s your dream.”
“I— that’s very broad.”
“See your family or friends, you requested them— they should be accurate to how you remember them,” I suggested.
“Accurate to how I remember them?” He looked confusedly conflicted. “They won’t actually be them?”
I hesitated before responding, deciding against telling him the truth. “Just go,” I flatly stated, and made a show of checking my pocket watch— despite the fact in a place like this, it didn’t accurately tell the time in a conventional sense. “You’ve only got so much time. I’ll be here if you have additional requests.”
He tentatively agreed, nodding to himself, standing, and shot me a glance. I raised my eyebrows at him, but he walked away, towards his home. I glanced back to the silhouettes at the far edge of the tree line. They hadn’t moved.
I waited until Dmitri had entered the house and closed the door before I briskly walked towards the tree line. The silhouettes turned to watch me as I approached them, they flickered a little, before growing into more definite shapes. Long, log-like shadows thinned and shorted, sides becoming arms, trunks becoming legs, and the tops becoming vaguely head-shaped. They then took on color, becoming dark, furred uniforms similar to Dmitri’s, lacking the overburdening of medals that had plagued him, fair skin, and hardened eyes. They said nothing when I stopped before them.
I gave a short bow— the common greeting used for the olden Keepers and Seekers alike— before greeting the three Shades.
“Are any of you Joseph Berchon? Or Mariam Laurent?” The details were still too murky to make out defining details.
“I am not,” two of them echoed. The third tilted it’s head. “The names are familiar— what do you want with them, little Spinner?”
“I’m in the midst of a Wake— and here to collect information on my parents.” I kept my tone level, despite the low jitter that had suddenly filled me. The previous visits had yielded me nothing, and this was the first lead I’d gotten in ages. Everyone else had been useless— stating they hadn’t known the names.
The third one nodded, and their face grew defined— pale eyes and sallow skin— but their tone stayed neutral. They looked behind them, looking somewhere far away. “Deeper within.”
“Thank you.” I started to trek back into the forest. This time, the branches didn’t overlap so intensely, like they’d stopped trying to make a thorny hedge maze and tried to make a sun-speckled canopy. Despite the gentle atmosphere, I found it difficult to keep calm and quickened my steps, filled with jittery anticipation.
When I reached the clearing I’d woken up in, rather than desolate little wasteland that it once was, a clean field of cropped grass waited for me. The little ‘grave’ I’d woken up was filled, refilled by me and then having grass cover any traces of a mound. With the grass, the ring of runed stones I usually used were visible, peaking through the dirt. There was a man cautiously staring at them a ways away, though had stopped to look up at me.
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“Who goes there?” my father— Angels, thinking of him like that feels weird— Joseph asked.
“Who goes there?” What is he— some kind of medieval knight? I don’t think I kept the incredulity from my face, as he narrowed his eyes.
I looked around, and saw no traces of who or what would be Mariam— my mother— and silently thanked my luck. Many of my features were from my mother, so it was unlikely he’d recognize me. I wasn’t sure if this memory of him was before or after my birth, but the resemblance shouldn’t have been too close. He looked younger than I remembered, and rougher, the years of parenthood not yet having happened.
It felt oddly disquieting, seeing my own father like this. It only felt worse when it mixed with something close to regret and wistfulness.
“Well?” he asked again, a hand slid towards his saber. I tensed, and instinctively took a step back. Getting stabbed was the last thing I wanted.
“Are you familiar with Dmitri Lestine? I’m the Dreamspinner they commissioned for him. I’m not a threat to you.”
“’They’?”
“His family.”
“And… you sought me out?”
“Mhmm.” I took a tentative step closer. “I—“ I wanted to see you— I cleared my throat, choked down the stupid sentiment, and did my best to sound professional, “I’m collecting information about some events from the past— which you may have taken part of.”
“Which event?” He furrowed his brow, and took a step back.
“The Coup.”
“Sorry— I— the Coup?” Joseph looked confused.
I inwardly cursed. Dmitri’s memory of my father was too early— too ramshackle or too shallow to give me what I didn’t already know. Continuing this conversation was useless. I apologized and turned to hurriedly leave, but Joseph called out to me.
“Wait! Tell me what happens!”
I paused, debating between the truth or another half-truth, before turning. “What was your most recent assignment?”
“I—“ His expression hardened. “I can’t tell you that do that, sorry” Joseph didn’t look sorry. “Confidential and all that.”
“I just want to know the peripheral details about it. What led you to go where you went.” I continued explaining. My already-dim hope dimmed further. His stance remained unchanged. I sighed, letting my gaze drop and slowly turned to leave.
What did it matter, anyway? This was a dream, and even telling him wouldn’t change a thing. This dream-facade was little more my actual father than some random rock I’d picked off the ground. Despite that— It doesn’t matter. I’m acting stupid— and quickened my pace. The feeling of regret I felt earlier slowly spindled into something less. It felt comfortingly hollow.
I didn’t turn to see if the Shade was following me.
[][][]
I took my time getting back, focusing on forcefully loosening my hands and taking deeper breaths. My anticipation drained from me on the long walk back, replaced by the familiar taste of… not exactly defeat, but the bitter familiarity that came with disappointment. It wasn’t a pleasant feeling regardless. At the moment, there was nothing I wanted to do other than leave. But after such a realistically anti-climatic meeting, my watch, and from the look on Dmitri’s face from where he sat on a stump far from his home, convinced me otherwise.
You still have a duty to do— even if you don’t want to anymore.
“Sorry!” I called as I got closer to Dmitri, forcing the thought from my mind. “I walked away to check out something.”
Dmitri’s eyebrows rose. “You look… angry.”
“…Do I?” I took a moment to try to settle my expression. “Might just be my normal expression.”
He snorted at that. “That reminds me of someone.”
“Really? Who?” I absently asked, a little detracted. I didn’t really want to be here anymore.
“I have a friend who knows a person that’d say that. Says shes fed up with us half the time,” he said, narrowing his eyes a little. “You two look quite a bit alike, actually.”
“That’s… odd.” I managed, slowly forcing myself to sit down on a small slope farther away. “Why aren’t you with your family?”
“… It’s not the same… knowing it’s all a dream makes it feel… fake somehow.”
Because it is. I didn’t say, remaining silent.
Dmitri looked older now, streaks of gray shot through his dark hair, and there was evidence of wrinkles forming on his face. The man looked closer to how he looked out in his bed, old and wrinkled and utterly alone when he died— surrounded by false vignettes of his family and friends— rather than the young, broken man I’d found in the field of gunpowder corpses. He had turned away from me to stare at the horizon. Like some old guy contemplating his life— which he was, to be fair, even if he mostly didn’t look the part at the moment. His uniform was still laden with medals, but now both held a thin veneer of age— dirt and spindled rust, with oily fingerprints. I spotted some of his medals a few feet away, as if they’d fallen off— or he’d taken them off.
Staring out at him, I couldn’t help but feel a little bad, my earlier irritated anger browbeaten by something worse. The hour hand on my watch was a little past eleven.
Here is a dying man, I absently thought. You’re the last person he’ll see. Not his family, not his friends— but you.
“You know,” Dmitri muttered, his tone quietly gentle. “There was a friend there— in my home— when I went to visit.”
I wasn’t sure if he was talking about reality, or the dream.
“I didn’t realize it then, but he died a couple years after the scene you found me in, so it wouldn’t make sense that he’d be there.”
I opened my mouth, more out of a need to say something to comfort this dying man, to say I at least tried, even if I was awful at it. “Well— yes,” I began, “the dream was constructed from your current memories of them, at the time you still didn’t have a complete recollection.”
Dmitri was silent, and I glanced away. “Sorry. That’s not something you want to hear.”
He chuckled, tinged with a rasp. “It’s alright. Refreshing to hear something other than pity and consolations.”
I couldn’t find a response and we fell into silence. Around us, the field had stayed much the same, the grass hadn’t changed, and the trees still rustled softly in the spring breeze. The sun had slowly dipped, and I realized— Ah, I’d accidentally made it dusk rather than dawn— and the moon was rising behind us, a creeping blanket of stars following it. Dmitri himself looked older now, almost haggard, tired in that way that people close to dying seemed— or perhaps he was resolved— calm in the face of his inevitable death. I didn’t know, I didn’t have much experience watching dying people.
Without conversation, my thoughts drifted to that of my earlier meeting, of how disappointing the discrepancy felt, how it felt mixed with the small amount of guilt I felt for him.
“Was it difficult?” I asked, surprising myself.
“What?”
“Seeing your family again after so long?”
“… It was strange. To see a version of them you know isn’t real,” he answered. “But it was comforting.”
How had I felt after seeing my father again? It’d been years— months since I even saw a Shade of him. But it hadn’t been him. Not really. I couldn’t share Dmitri’s feelings on the matter.
Dmitri spoke up again, but this time his voice had that rasp that was common with old age. “I never got your name, now that I think about it.”
“Oh— uh…” I hesitated briefly, caught between a lie and truth, before settling. “Estelle.”
We fell into silence again. Dmitri seemed to lose interest in talking, or he was busy reflecting on his life. I opened and closed my mouth, unable to find what to say— this was still my first Wake, and I didn’t exactly know what to say to a dying person. ‘I’m sorry?’ He’d still be dead in less than an hour, an apology wouldn’t fix anything— no, it would only serve to make me feel better. The hour hand ticked halfway to twelve.
Time’s running out— I— I should finish my job. I stood up, dusted myself off, and began rifling through my bag. I walked back to the center of the dream, beside the stump where Dmitri say, and started tying another string to each of the points.
I got halfway before Dmitri spoke. “What are you doing?”
“It’s common practice for us to… ‘save’ last dreams of those who are going to die. So that we can give them to their families.” Of course, the final result was a small, marble-like object that was oddly reminiscent of a scene from a snow globe— except only other mages could really employ the object to full effect. “It’s a reminder— and proof that we did our jobs, and that the person in question died peacefully.”
“Ah.”
I shot him a glance as I worked. Dmitri looked conflicted, wistful in a way that looked calm— resolved, I concluded. His hair was fully silver now, and his eyes held that dull, unfocused look. His sight must have been failing. The dark uniform that used to be weighed down by a hundred medals, had been reduced to the light undershirt, slacks and dusty, rotting boots. I turned away from him, focusing on my work.
After a few heartbeats, I muttered to myself to fill the silence. It was uncomfortable now that he was talking less, and reciting the instructions helped me too. And it distracted me from him.
A short while later, the ether and atmosphere shifting— contracting and closing around us— the edge of the horizon steadily creeping closer and the hour hand on my watch minutes from twelve, I spoke up. “I should ask, are you ready to go?”
“… I’ve lived a long life.”
“Would you say it a good one?” I asked, before I could stop myself. I inwardly kicked myself— I already knew the answer.
“Well— yes— I have led a good life. A good life with occasional dips and falls— but good nonetheless.”
I barely held myself from confusedly glancing at him— he can’t be serious, right?— but my earlier insensitive comment held my tongue and my gaze. I stood, and felt my dimming ether fill the small, silver circle.
The moon rose overhead, dragging its star-filled veneer with it.
“One more thing,” he rasped, “I do wish you luck with your parents, Estelle.”
I spun in shock, but the hour hand hit twelve, and the world finished falling away. Dmitri and his trees and green-grass hills folded away, replaced by an empty blanket of stars. Then the stars faded, condensed into a tiny marble in my hand, before my vision went completely dark.