So late with my dream post. The day has been that good.
I’m attending a banquet at a swank hotel-resort downtown. Everyone is dressed to the nines. Steak and lobster dinner. Wine and champagne flow into glasses as freely as the platitudes and false compliments smoothly uttered around me. Why the fuck am I here?
Awards are being announced. I realize I’m in the middle of an upperclass circlejerk. Looking around, I try to spy people I know among the glitterati. Across the room, the Envoy lifts a glass in my honor with a knowing smirk. This could be yours.
Everyone else has a mannequin face. Just human enough to trip the Uncanny Valley. Everyone among the glitterati, that is. I note the servers. Truly human, each and every one. Working their hardest to serve the piggish elite and still keep a fake smile. They are only noticed when the rare mistake is made. Otherwise, they don’t exist.
No. I’m not a part of this. I excuse myself from the table and find I’m in a black diamond encrusted dress. Adorned richly and beautifully. It was all I could do to keep from ripping it off.
I left towards the restrooms and asked a waiter for the back door. He leads me to the service entrance. “Sure you want to do this?” Yup. Open sez me.
I step out into the back alley. My clothes become a simple black shift. My heels become plain sandals. It’s cold, I call my cloak to myself and form it into a plain black trench coat. I have to walk through a loitering gang to reach the street. They see me approaching and turn their backs to me as I pass unmolested.
“Weaver Lowborn. Didn’t think that shit was your style. Don’t worry, Sis. We know you. We all know you. Weaver Shadowstep, the Streets know you and respect.” The others nodded in agreement. I wonder what choice did I make tonight and continue on my way.
The shadows embrace me and this segment ends.
Mountain Terrace. I’m kneeling in meditation, my feathered cloak draped over me. I feel an approaching entity. It circles me three times, then charges me. Just before impact I dissolve my body into a mass of unconnected feathers that scatter in all directions. The entity was not expecting this and collides with the ground face first. My feathers rise and my winged body coalesces in midair.
K* recovers from kir graceless miss and looks up at me. “You’ve been practicing. Well done!” I bow as best as a floating person could. Ke wipes the dirt from kir face and fluffs kir six wings. “I might have to take you seriously.”
Ke teleports behind me and brings kir sword sharply down. Out of instinct I call the Svartalf’s gift to my left hand. Kir sword collides with a small metal buckler. We both look at it in surprise. “I wondered what that was hanging off your cloak.”
I feinted as if to drop. When kir followed to take advantage of my implied direction, I whirled around kir, sweeping with my feathersword as I did so. Ke managed to drop away in time to preserve kir feathers but was still surprised by the move. “I much prefer this hands-on method of engagement with you. So glad you’ve dropped ceremonial magic.”
Kir eyes were bright and danced with inner fire. “Begin!” Ke rushed me, anticipating I would try to dissolve around the attack again. But this time, I actually dropped and stabbed upward. Kir wing thunked me on the head. My blade tip sliced kir tunic.
Ke turned to face me, quite excited to find I had advanced since our last “spar”. To be honest, so was I. I charged without fear and with deliberate intent. Ke parried my strike and shouted with joy. The terrace echoed with our sounds of battle.
After a long time, ke suddenly withdrew and dismissed kir sword. “Enough. For now. You are being called elsewhere. Well done, Keri. Well done.” K* and I settle down onto the dirt. Ke bows an honest and true gesture. We’re both dirty and disheveled, but we both have enjoyed ourselves thoroughly. Ke salutes me. The ground under me gives way and I fall into darkness.
I fall into cool water feet first and with such force I am completely submerged. Something like ropes embrace me and quickly pull me to the surface. I find I’m in my camisole and night shorts. My head breaks the surface and I find I’m in the embrace of the Gardenmaster.
Kir large eye dominates kir globular body. Ke settles into the pond and pulls me close with kir ambulatory roots. “I hope I’m not interrupting anything.”, I say as I hug the roots wrapped around me and express my delight in seeing kir again. Ke holds me so just my shoulders and head are above water.
I’m confused why ke brought me here and ask kir as such. Then I hear it. Sounds from the Waking world filtering into the depths of my dream. I am able to shield myself from many people, but I am still unable to shield myself from my mother. She is having a phone conversation, but her viciousness and poisonous effluence soaks into me anyway. I shudder and cling to the Gardenmaster tightly.
“That’s why.” It is kir first words to me. Under the water, ke pulls my legs downward. “I’m going to show you how the lilies grow here. And you are going to emulate them. Just as the plants can not control what rains on them, neither can you control what your family pours on you. But you do not have to hold on to such toxins. Allow me to hold you, become part of my garden. Let your legs become roots and release what is not of you.”
It took some effort, and a lot of talking by kir to keep me focused, but eventually my attention was filled with the biochemical process of photosynthesis, and the physical manipulation of water through microscopic networks. I forgot that I am animal and became utterly enthralled by the bacteria that thrived on my… roots?
My legs had sprouted roots. My back had grown and unfurled leaves. I felt the gentle repose of the plants around me. The Gardenmaster and I held a fascinating conversation about the interplay between the animal and the plant kingdoms.
The entire time, my mother’s viciousness continued to rain down on me, but the toxins were routed around my body to be shed into the slow current at the bottom of the pond. “Do you understand?” I did. “When I release you, you will awaken. Remember the lesson and continue.”
Ke unraveled kir roots from around me. I floated away slightly then remembered my human nature. I shook off the leaves into the water and called my cloak-wings to myself. Rising out of the water, I found myself waking despite my desire to remain in the pond.
I woke up. My mother is still on the phone. But her viciousness is flowing around me. I can smile. I’m okay. My day begins and it is a delightful one.
Make of that, what you may.