This is a personal dream. All in my head. Didn’t go a-walking after the campfire scene. I keep trying to dismiss it, because it is personal issues, but it won’t fucking leave me. It’s not enough to just type it up and lock it away in a personal file. It demands to be on display.
It feels like I’m being stripped naked and put on the auction block.
Considering the subject, that might not be far from the truth…
I’m being courted by two men. Both want my hand, but not in marriage. In dedicated companionship. And even then, they both know I’m liable to sweep myself out the door at any given moment.
The younger was a struggling artist, with “traditional” values. But loved me clearly enough to recognize that I would never settle down and be the Little Woman. To have me at his side would be to build a house on a flood plain. He would have to be willing to understand that at any given moment, I could sweep out of his life as fast as I swept in.
But he accepted that. Accepted the strange looks of his family when they wondered why he wanted to chase the wind. Accepted there would never be any children from our coupling.
Accepted I reserved the right to have multiple partners. (And blushed deeply when I remarked on potential pairings for him as well.)
Accepted all that I was, as long as some part of me loved him in return.
I did.
But.
I would become the dammed river. I would have to hold back lest I destroy him just by being near him. The intensity of my flames would burn away all his connections to the rest of his life. To love me, was to be eventually consumed by me. The only way to have him, was to strip myself of all that was different, lock it away, and forget who I ever was.
And we know that doesn’t happen. The forgetting, that is. The delusion will hold for a while. But a falling leaf in autumn, a flickering of a bright orange hue, would remind me of the flickering of flame. I will want my freedom. I will grow to resent him, to resent the choice I made.
I will either explode destroying him, or die in his hands as a spent ember.
He doesn’t see this, of course. He is sure he can have it both ways. He is sure that he can offer me a better life than my other suitor.
A glorious emperor! A tyrant that has conquered more realms than history has forgotten! The worlds tremble at his footsteps. Such finery! Such splendor!
He has come to my hometown, devoid of all marks of status. He is in the restaurant, washing dishes with a towel tied around his waist. He seeks my hand and knows I am not impressed by the trappings of imperial arrogance.
He seeks to prove himself, by becoming nothing.
Most of the town does not know who this foreigner is. His cover story is he owes a debt to a former town resident. But the resident is long gone, so he is paying his debt by performing menial tasks to the townsfolk.
He is being heavily abused by the ignorant. The knowledge of his identify is terrorizing the knowing.
He wants to show me he can serve, that he understands the heaviness of servitude.
You see, we met, because I was the token offering of the country to him. I served as his servant slave for 5 years before winning my freedom. But in those five years, our relationship changed from master/slave, to elder/younger, to good friends. I was able to take liberties that his own would have been executed for. I spoke freely when others had their tongues ripped out. An altercation over water became the public hallmark of our relationship. As his slave, I was to taste the water before him, to detect poisons, or die in his stead. I often drank half of the glass first, topped it off, and then handed him the obviously molested glass.
The Emperor of the Realms drank behind his slave.
What was regarded as a vicious insult by others, became the inside joke between us. I became his right hand man, his harbinger, his messenger. Behind closed doors, we were very close friends. Not all of his wives approved, but I had the support of the Queen.
I won my freedom by stopping a coup. They had offered me freedom in exchange for carrying a prepared capsule in my mouth. The Emperor was allergic to the substance, but I wasn’t. I said I would, so I could get the capsule. Then sounded the alarm and ran for the guards. I counted myself dead either way. Might as well preserve my friend.
Indeed, the capsule was poison to both the Emperor and myself. My life was saved. My freedom announced. My country made immune to servitude for the rest of my life.
But the Emperor missed his friend. And strangely, so did his wives. With their encouragement, he has come incognito to the town, to court me. He knows I’ll never marry him. He wants his friend to return. He wants to sit near the blazing inferno, knowing this time there is nothing that will shield him from me. He misses the wildness and chaos I brought to the carefully structured daily life of the imperial elite.
He came for me, not as the Emperor, but as my equal. But if I returned with him, what would my place be? He says I am the scent of smoke that comes and goes. Many try to duplicate it, but there is none like me. He could have any treasure in the realms, all he need do is demand it. But the greatest treasure is one he can never possess, never own, never claim solely for himself. He remarks often that during my servitude, he was never the master of the relationship, but always the servant. I wore the collar, but he was leashed to me.
No matter what his fancy words, of this I have no doubt, he loves me with a crippling and disemboweling love. I have a glimmer of the love Hadrian had for Antinous.
The price for my return, however, may prove more than the tyrant could bear. Because of our relationship, I became as powerful as the ruling class. A petition brought to me, could circumvent the despotic layers that insulated the greedy aristocracy from their reckoning and be whispered directly in the Emperor’s ear. The Emperor was (usually) a fair man, and did not condone corruption in his ranks. More than one would-be Borgia found himself on his knees before me, begging me to spare his life.
I had towns pledged to me in honor. Offerings to the gods were made on behalf of the Emperor and the Emperor’s Shadow (me). I had become a byword and a oathguard. If I were to return to the Emperor’s side, as a free person, with all the access and privileges I had before, I could conceivably become more powerful than the Emperor himself.
Sounds like a quick way to die.
He knew this. He spoke of it. He was willing to risk it. He said he would use it to the advantage of the empire. Only, please, return to his side. Not as slave. Not as servant. Not as consort, or unconsummated wife. But as his Shadow.
Well… you know how secrets don’t stay secretive for long?
Someone spilled the beans.
Now everyone knows the Emperor is here. And most everyone is freaking the fuck out.
A great feast is thrown by the town. For the Emperor (who is actually embarrassed) and for the brave woman that won the country’s freedom (and sometimes wonder if the country got off easy). My artist suitor was tapped to perform for the feast. He quickly agreed.
So, here we are. The younger man is on stage, playing with his band. I’m sitting on pillows, leaning on the Emperor. His wives have come, and are teasing the hell out of us both in playful fun. The mayor is present, and representatives of the country. Everyone is trying to kiss mine and the Emperor’s ass. Neither one of us is having any of this shit.
“Mind if I start shit?” “You mean you haven’t yet?” I smile and bow at the Emperor then leave my seat and go to the stage. I take up the other guitar and play a few songs with the suitor. Everyone interprets this to mean I am rejecting the Emperor and will be settling down.
After the set is over, I lead the artist to the imperial pavilion, and sit him next to me so that the Emperor is on one side of me, and the artist is on the other. Without saying a word, I reach over the Emperor’s plate and lap and take the glass of water. I drink most of it and place it back with only a few sips of water remaining. Most of those watching are stunned by my impetuousness. I glare at the water-boy and tap the Emperor’s glass gently. He jumps to his feet and refills the glass.
The Emperor is laughing in rich peals. His wives just shake their head and roll their eyes. The distinguished feasters don’t know how to react. The Emperor moves his arm so I can lean against him. I do. But then I pull my artist suitor over so that he is leaning on me.
I have yet to make a choice.
Everyone knows it.
I want them both.
And I know if I try, something is going to break, and it will likely be me.
Both suitors are willing to share me with each other. Both are willing to give up pursuing me if doing so brings me harm.
I don’t know what to do.
I have issues.
To choose the artist is to choose a simple and peaceful life. But I’m not a simple and peaceful person. I am the whirlwind and the firestorm. I am the flood and the earthquake. I’ll do simple and peaceful for a while… but then something will need to break and I’ll be the one to break it. I am the destruction that precedes creation. But first, you have to survive my destruction. Nothing stays simple and peaceful around me for long.
To choose the Emperor is to embrace the chaos that I am. The way I find myself connected to Important People, yet am seen as nothing more than a flitting Shadow. To hold me is to hold the primed grenade. Let your finger slip and I will break your foundations. I am often seen by others as the Servant. A mask I often hide behind. But I am coming into my own power, and am using the mask as a diversion. Those that only see the Servant, never see me. Those that see me, see only a Shadow. Those that see the truth of me, either attempt to chain me to them (Envoy… and others), or allow me to be as I am (my closest friends). But because I am chaos, I have no idea what I’ll be in the years to come.
Did I mention I have issues?
The dream fades with me at the banquet, holding and being held by my two suitors. I already know my choice. But I don’t have security in it.
Yes, I’m holding shit back.
I need more coffee.
An Anon asked: “The personal problems dream is far too complicated to be a one-nighter. Is this a recurring dream, or is this a summary of the plot so far?”
It’s par for a one-nighter dream. Really. However, yes, this is a recurring plotline, and each time the plot ends at the feast where I have to make a choice. Any choice. But time is stopped until I do.
I can rewind everything and start the season over again, making different choices each time. But certain events happen regardless. My choices just determine what the fallout of those events are. Eventually, I wind up at the feast. The Emperor and his wives on one side of me. The Artist and his friends on the other side. A bureaucracy terrified of me because I exist outside their rules. A populace treating me like a celebrity for the same reasons.
Everything is waiting on me to make a choice. Or learn my lesson. Or both.