The dark silhouette of the old oak tree rose through the mist like watercolour on a grey canvas. Clelia wore a wool cape over her shoulders, barely enough to protect from the chilly morning, omen of the incoming autumn, herald of an inclement winter. She cupped her hand over her mouth, in order to breathe some warmth back on the tip of her nose, but got startled when doing so fogged up the lenses of her glasses. When she looked at the side of the tree, she wasn't excessively surprised to find that the wooden door she had previously used to visit the court of the Gatto Mammone was nowhere to be found. With a sigh, she turned and began to plod back towards the village.

Something small softly brushed against her leg. It was the striped grey cat with the M on its forehead, the one that had previously guided her to the Feline Court. She crouched down to scratch it behind the ears, to which it responded with enthusiastic purring.

"I don't suppose you could lead me back to the Gatto Mammone, right?"

"Ah, so that's the reason you came all the way out here after all," responded the familiar echo in her head carrying the voice of the Gatto Mammone. "What is it that you seek from me?"

The fairy caressed the grey cat's back all the way. "I only wanted to have a talk with you again, that's all."

"I can sense that you're upset about something. Are you reaching out in hopes that I'd be your emotional support? If so, why didn't you go to your husband, or the widow, instead?"

"That's not it." Clelia stood up. "I've been having some weird dreams lately. I don't think they're natural dreams, I think they're some sort of warning coming from somewhere in the dreamscape. I couldn't ask Madame Guillardine about it because she left earlier this morning to go meet with other Masche, so I thought I'd come to you instead."

"And why, pray tell, would you think I'd be able to help you?"

"Well, while Damian and I were talking with Madame, yesterday, it came up that you two have been in contact a few times before I met you. He actually told me about your first meeting, before going to bed. You are capable of inducing that sort of dream, so I thought maybe you'd know something that I could use."

The grey cat brushed its head against her shin one more time, then jumped into the tall grass surrounding the dirt path they were on. A small black cat trotted out the grass and joined Clelia, looking back at her with bright yellow eyes.

"Alright," the voice eventually agreed, "I accept to have this conversation. I'd like something in return, however."

Clelia crossed her arms. "What kind of something?"

"Nothing more than information," the cat assured her. "It is well known that we, cats, are curious creatures, and I myself am by no means an exception to that. You are somewhat of an odd occurrence, as a fairy from a well respected noble family who decided to live among mankind. In any case, let's have the rest of this conversation somewhere warmer."

The court of the Gatto Mammone wasn't much different from the last time Clelia had seen it. This time around, it seemed like most of its occupants were sleeping or relaxing rather than working. Inside of that place, the temperature was pleasantly warm, despite no fires being visible anywhere. Come to think of it, Clelia wasn't entirely sure where the source of light was in that realm, and there seemed to be no obvious answer, looking around.

The black cat sat on a pillow with her paws tucked beneath her body, her eyes semi-closed, and Clelia sat with her legs crossed in front of her.

"Since you came looking for my help," the cat started, "I think it's only fair if I ask my questions first. Any objections?"

Still trying to settle on a comfortable position over her pillow, Clelia responded, "No objections on my part."

"Very well. I've been able to assess the reason why humans have started wanting to have marriages with noble fairies, but it's still a mystery to me why reclusive creatures such as your kind would be willing to go along with it. Why do you suppose your mother accepted to marry you off to a human?"

Clelia shook her head. "I'm not sure myself. Maybe she wants something from my husband's family, but… even though they seem to have a very important role in this village, yesterday we went to a high society event and the impression I got is that they are small time players in that game. I can't begin to imagine why she, of all people, would want to get involved with them."

The cat tilted her head. "I thought you'd be involved in whatever scheme your family concocted, yet I don't sense any sort of deception within your words. Did your mother, or anyone else from your family, try to communicate with you, since the wedding?"

"No, not at all. Except…"

Clelia stopped herself short of talking about the bag of spells. Was she sure she wanted to bring that up?

"Except what? Don't forget that we have a deal: if I think you're hiding something from me, I won't answer your questions."

"Fair enough," Clelia nodded. "I haven't told anyone else yet, but I've found, among my stuff, a bag full of old spells."

The cat's ears twitched, interested. "That could be it, perhaps, if…"

"I though about it," Clelia interrupted, "but I don't think my mother is involved. Those spells are way too old for them to be made by her, and, for how I know her, she's too proud of herself and her mastery of magic to rely on someone else's spells for her schemes."

"Then," Gatto Mammone wondered, "why wouldn't she communicate with you in any capacity, since the wedding? Or, at least, it seems to me that they'd try to communicate with your in-laws."

Clelia nodded. "That would make sense. However, I can't verify that very easily: I have yet to see my father in law, supposedly he's very sick and very few people have been authorised to see him; I only met my mother in law twice since the wedding, and neither time she seemed very inclined to have a meaningful conversation with me. She gave no indication of being in contact with my mother."

The golden eyes of the black cat looked down, confused. "How vexing. This doesn't sound like Lausenna the fay as I know her. She's not a shy person, I find it hard to believe she wouldn't have talked with your in-laws or your husband by now, if she wanted something from them."

"You know my mother too?"

"Everyone does, darling. I, in particular, used to be under her protection a while ago, but we didn't see eye to eye on several issues, so I left as soon as I had the capacity to build my own corner in this wild world with my own strength."

This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.

Clelia let out a bitter laugh. "Let's add another name to the list of creatures with bad blood with my mother, why not."

"We're straying from the point at hand," Gatto Mammone pointed out. "What does Lausenna want from your marriage? If she wanted something specific, I think she would have already made some kind of move by now."

Clelia's head shot up in realisation. "Unless…"

"Unless what?"

"Unless she… didn't actually have any grand plan behind this wedding."

The black tail of the cat started moving aimlessly. "Sure, but then why would she agree to marry you off?"

Clelia sighed. "Perhaps she… just wanted to get rid of me. Pawn off her undesired weakling of a daughter, have me move away to some kind of place where my failures wouldn't rub off on the Arania's good name. It's such an easy explanation, yet I had never even considered that until now."

Gatto Mammone's tail swung a few times, annoyed. "I… can't find a fault in your reasoning, yet I feel that this answer is profoundly unsatisfying. Even if she does consider you a weakling, I have trouble believing she'd just agree to give one of her daughters away for no discernible benefit."

"I… can't help but agree with you on that one. Maybe this was just some wishful thinking on my part, spurred by your line of reasoning."

"Well," the cat shifted her tone to one a bit less resigned, "I believe it is now my turn to provide some kind of explanation. Before I do, however, can I ask another, much smaller question?"

"Sure," she shrugged.

"You came here to ask me about some dreams, but I sense that that's not the main thing causing you concern right now. Wouldn't you want to address what's really having you worried at the moment, rather than this?"

"I… Damian and I agreed that he would talk to his brothers today specifically to try and address that issue. It's a purely human matter, I don't presume you'd have a solution to it in the first place."

"Even so," the black cat insisted, "why would you come looking for me instead of dealing with that matter some other way?"

"Alright," she sighed. "Being a purely human matter, there is very little I can currently do about it, given that I don't know a lot about how humans deal with these things. Since Madame Guillardine left this morning and my husband went to talk to his brothers, the only things I could do were maybe reading a book or weaving some spells, but I didn't think I'd be able to do either with all of this on my mind, so I thought I'd try to address another issue in the meantime."

"Hmm, that sounds like a reasonable answer. Very well, let's get into your question, then. You said it's about some weird dreams?"

Clelia caressed the frame of her glasses. "Yeah. Not all dreams are actually connected with the dreamscape, that much I know, and I'm also aware that it's different to enter a realm within the dreamscape, like your court, compared with having a dream connected with the dreamscape. This, however, is pretty much all I know on the matter. Can you tell me something more about how dreams and the dreamscape interact with each other? Can dreams within the dreamscape be prophetic? And, if so, how do I decipher the prophecy?"

The cat sat up from her previous laying down position. "First of all, no, I have no reason to believe that dreamscape dreams have any kind of prophetic property, at least not any more than a regular dream. The dreamscape is a plane of existence adjacent to ours and it obeys to some of the same fundamental rules. For example, it is just as bound to the laws of causality as the material plane, though they manifest differently there. The future can't be observed, it can at best be guessed."

Clelia silently nodded with decision, signalling her understanding to Gatto Mammone.

"Regarding the nature of dreamscape dreams… that's a little bit more complex. The dreamscape, or, at least, the region of the dreamscape that is closest to material reality, is reactive to thoughts and emotions. Thoughts and emotions, if uncontrolled, mainly just innocuously send ripples across the dreamscape, but, much like tossing a stone in the sea during a storm, those ripples are so small that they don't really register against everything else that happens around them. In normal circumstances, those ripples just don't do much, which is why, typically, emotional outbursts from most creatures don't result in anomalous events either in the dreamscape or in material reality. Some creatures, either through instinct or through study, learn how to make use of those ripples."

Clelia nodded again, "Yeah, this is, in a nutshell, how magic works."

"Indeed. That's what happens when thoughts and emotions affect the dreamscape. However, if it is possible for thoughts and emotions to affect the dreamscape, the reverse is also true: it is possible for the dreamscape to affect the thoughts and emotions of creatures interacting with it. Not everything that happens in the dreamscape affects our thoughts and feelings, only ripples with certain… let's say 'shapes', for lack of a better term, can do that, and those 'shapes' rarely happen naturally, without external interference. What I'm getting at is that dreamscape dreams are, almost always, caused on purpose by something or someone. I can create such dreams on purpose, for instance, and so can the Widow, though not as well as I can. The creature lurking in the dark with a big, stinky sack doesn't have this ability, fortunately."

Clelia adjusted her glasses. "Are you sure about that? It once tried to sink my husband into a living nightmare, and would have succeeded if I didn't come to rescue him."

"That was a realm," the cat explained. "That creature can create a realm that shapes itself around the fears of those who occupy it. A dream caused by the dreamscape is something that happens inside your head, it's, in a way, the dreamscape 'leaking' into the material reality through your mind. A realm is the exact opposite: it is a portion of the dreamscape shaped in a way to simulate material reality, in a way it's material reality 'leaking' into the dreamscape. Being able to control one of these phenomena doesn't make you capable of controlling the other, though some have managed to learn how to do both."

Clelia furrowed her brows, staring at the ground. "I see."

"Was my answer to your satisfaction?" Questioned the cat.

"Absolutely. Back home, we only ever briefly touched on this subject, never really delved into it because it wasn't crucial for learning how to use our traditional magic." Clelia fidgeted with her fingers. "I have another question, if you don't mind."

"Ask away."

"Do you suppose it's possible for dreams like these to be induced by a spell?"

The cat blinked. "Of course, that seems rather… obvious. The maker of the spell would just need to know how to build a spell to induce a dream. Why do you ask?"

Clelia clicked her tongue with frustration. "No, I don't mean someone creating a spell with the intention of causing dreams, I mean… say I had a spell embedded in my wand: would it be possible for that spell to, I don't know, communicate with me by inducing a dream?"

The cat blinked twice. "I… don't know. That would imply that the spell itself is sentient. I don't know enough about fairy spells to give a definitive answer, but I never heard about sentient spells before."

She covered her mouth with a hand, lost in thought. "Thank you very much."

After a long, dense silence, Clelia said, "Gatto Mammone, you've been a huge help today. I cannot thank you enough."

The cat puffed her chest. "Of course, I am a magnificent and magnanimous creature, after all. Praise me more."

With a brief chuckle, she added, "And your fur is fantastic: it looks as soft as velvet and as dark as the realm of demons."

"Indeed, indeed, that it absolutely is."

"So… may I ask one more question?"

The tip of her tail moved slightly. "You caught me in a good mood, so I'll grant it."

"There is… something that's been bothering me since yesterday." She caressed the bridge of her glasses. "I won't go into detail right now, but it has something to do with the human problem my husband is dealing with as we speak."

"I don't think I can help you with that, I'm afraid."

"Nor would I ask you to," the fairy quickly added. "There is just… a detail that I'm missing. Something that makes me nervous, but I can't quite put my finger on it. Do you think it would be possible for me to explore it through a dreamscape-induced dream?"

The cat pondered for a moment, then it raised up and stretched. "I think so, in theory, but you wouldn't know how to induce such a dream by yourself, would you?"

She sighed. "I suppose not. Maybe I could ask Madame Guillardine, the next time we meet in her realm for a lesson."

"That doesn't sound like a bad idea. Before you go, would you like some fish? One of my retainers caught it by the fishmonger today, it smells fantastic."

Clelia hesitated, while getting on her feet. "Oh, um… thanks, I guess, but I… better not spoil my appetite. The lutin always work very hard to make good meals for us, I wouldn't want them to go to waste."