Who

Amania

What

The line between dreams and nightmares blurs for Amania in the middle of one summer night.

When

It is midnight of the third day of the first month of the twelfth turn of the 12th pass.

Where

In the Realm of Dreams (Candidate Barracks, Southern Weyr)

OOC Date 21 Sep 2017 06:00

 

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“The eggs are that way; I can’t leave yet!”


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In the Realm of Dreams (Candidate Barracks)

Perhaps the safest place in the weyr, these barracks: the stonework here is old, perhaps as old as the weyr is itself, for the uncanny cleanliness of ancient stonecutters marks neat corners and perfect arches. Richly-lit by glowlight, tapestries reflect scenes of yore from the walls - dragons flaming, holders farming, and one particularly well-made that depicts the impression of a dark-haired girl to a light-toned gold dragonet, dripping and fierce. The barracks themselves are open-air, with not even a curtain to divide the space of male from female. Bunk-bed style cots line each wall, hammocks strung along the middle for those unfortunate enough to lack the privacy that an adjoining wall brings. There are privies in the back and locker-style item storage in the front, and one especially large table next to a book-case filled with basic Harper texts.


They’d been told the dragons would start humming when the eggs were about to hatch. Amania hasn’t heard dragon humming before, but it is certainly humming that wakes her. It throbs through the darkness on a low, sustained note with the timbre of many bass voices overlapping one another. Or perhaps it’s not truly sustained, but simply echoing. The volume seems to rise and fall oddly, almost as though it’s the starting note of a song that never actually gets going, a breath taken between each attempt. Slowly, she sits up, listening, peering into the night as though it might help her discern what’s going on. If the Hatching has started, no one else is stirring. But the humming seems so loud; how could they not be woken up?

Amania slips out of bed, bare feet padding quietly across the cool stone of the barracks floor as she makes her way toward the door. A gentle breeze stirs the thin fabric of her nightgown, whispering against her skin and then fading away…then returning, fading again. Almost like…breathing. She can’t tell where it comes from and stands just past the threshold, looking first one way and then the other along the hall that stretches in both directions. Should she follow the humming, or the breathing? The former wins out in the end. She turns and starts to the left, eyes narrowing as she registers a faint white mist starting to creeping along the ground.

“Where are you going?” It’s Rhuysarr’s voice that pulls her up short, and she turns to find him standing there along with Yfana and, strangely, Ibrahim. All of them are wearing white shifts, though Amania blinks and suddenly Ibrahim is in shorts, as though she’d just seen wrong at first. He smiles and turns away, disappearing a short distance ahead.

“We have to get to the eggs,” Yfana says, beckoning her to come with them as she and Rhuysarr start the other way down the hall. “Come, before we’re late!”

Above the humming, which somehow has another note to it now that alternates with the lower pitch, she hears a familiar giggle and the murmur of two more male voices. “Hold on! I don’t think the others know yet; let me get them,” Amania says, and turns to go after Xanthee, Nox, and Therst, for she’s certain that’s who she heard. But the moment she turns back, she finds a wall in her way - not the cut stone of the barracks and inner caverns, but the rough rock of a cave, warm and slightly damp when she stretches her hand out to touch it. Confused, she turns around again. Footsteps echo somewhere ahead. A bright flash of light and heat causes her to squeeze her eyes shut and flinch back, the silhouettes of three figures walking away flickering behind her eyelids.

She opens her eyes again and glimpses sand - the desert in the moonlight, but the sand is black…until the moons plunge into it, making it ripple like water as shadow and silver swirl together and then come to stillness as sand again. Dragon eggs bubble up from within, shedding sand with soft hisses against hardened shells - or is the hissing from the massive white gold and chiaroscuro bronze dragons who suddenly appear to coil protectively around their brood?

A hand takes hers and pulls her backward. “Come,” says a soft, deep voice at her ear, and she shivers as she’s pulled into the midst of thick, shadowed jungle foliage, gnarled trees towering overhead. She wants to go, but the trees feel menacing, watching her with many hidden eyes, calling her “intruder” with the heavy rustling of thick leaves.

“No,” she tells whoever is trying to lead her through, a sense of panic rising in her gut. “The eggs are that way; I can’t leave yet!” She breaks away, and suddenly a throng of glowing eyes snap open among the trunks and branches before her, eerily blue and sending a sharp, icy chill down her spine. They’re coming. Shadows shift, and she raises the crossbow that’s suddenly in her hand, her heart racing. She pulls the trigger. A pair of eyes extinguishes, dark branches exploding with the impact of the bolt. Just a few more and she can push through!

She fires again and again with impossibly quick reloads, the humming steadily growing louder and taking on a sort of melody within three notes. Finally, there’s a hole big enough for her to pass through, and she dives clear of the trees, crashing into hard-packed earth covered in a layer of sand. She stands, and the crossbow crumbles to ash in her hands, sifting through her fingers to mingle with the soil at her feet.

When she turns back around, there are no trees. Instead, there is a gaping black pit. Suddenly, she feels as though the ground is tilting, trying to spill her into the maw, and she struggles forward, desperate to escape it. She’s certain she’s doomed, feet scraping and fingers clawing loose ground as she tries to pull herself forward. There’s a scream, sickeningly familiar, but she can’t tell if it comes from the pit or from her. Then, abruptly, the pulling force stops, and she scrambles forward and away. She looks desperately around for the Sands but finds only something that looks like Igen’s Bazaar, strangely quiet and ensconced within a massive cave.

She goes forward, since it is the only way to go, wandering past silent stalls and closed shops. The entrance to the caravan grounds looms up too soon, but it looks correct, and longing wells up in her chest, propelling her steps faster toward it. The Zingari wagons are there, the central fire blazing, music playing in perfect counterpoint to the humming that has become a simple, pleasant tune of four notes, drums thumping and spanging out a rhythm for the feet of the sensually gyrating dancers in the center of it all. Try as she might, however, Amania finds that she cannot escape the shadows that hover at the outer ring of wagons; they cling to her, keeping her separate from the people she now calls hers.

“We will always be here for you,” says another voice, warm and almost motherly as it seeps in from the inky darkness around her. Willimina. Although the voice certainly belongs to the caravan leader, the woman herself is nowhere to be seen. Resigned, Amania keeps walking, the sense that it isn’t yet time for her to return settling heavily upon her shoulders. Still, she knows it will happen sooner or later.

Looking ahead, the plaza of the Underground sprawls in deeper shadow, and she stops. The humming fades but doesn’t quite disappear, and she finds herself yearning to go back toward it instead of forward. It’s too dark, too quiet…and she feels like she’s being watched. But she’s also looking for something, she finds - something she shouldn’t leave again without. So she does go forward, following a path she knows all too well toward the cave that had been her home for so many Turns.

She finds it empty of people, though all the clutter of a large family packed into a small space is still present. Frowning, she turns away, wondering where else she can look.

“Nia…”

Amania whirls back around at the sound of the little girl’s voice. Maevra stands there, peering up at her with big green eyes still so full of hope and the yearning to just be. “Can I have Lissie back yet, Nia? You promised.”

There’s suddenly something in her hand again - the reed-stuffed burlap doll her baby cousin had given her to take wherever she was going. Holding it up to look at, she finds her chest tightening and her eyes blurring with tears, remaining so even when she looks to the little girl once more. “Not yet, Maev. I have to go be with the eggs first. Then I can bring Lissie back, okay?” She isn’t sure why, but she feels compelled to ask, “Do you want to come see them with me?”

For a moment, Maevra looks as though she’s about to nod…but the shadows abruptly swallow her up. “She isn’t going anywhere with you,” a deep voice growls, and it sounds chillingly like her uncle. Her skin crawls with the rasp of his voice, and the shadows creep over the rest of the Underground around her, swallowing what little remaining light there is before crashing over her like a wave.

It is a wave, she realizes, and manages a gasp of breath before finding herself rolled beneath churning water. She claws toward the surface, though the darkness makes it impossible to tell which way is up. A scream rises in her throat, but she doesn’t dare let it free. Then there’s something pushing her up, and her head breaks through to air. She gulps it in, flailing to keep herself from sinking…but then that something is pushing her forward, big and warm and alive. Dhioth.

Nox appears out of nowhere, swimming just ahead of her. “Come on!” he encourages, holding out a hand. “You’ve got this!” She reaches out, her fingers just brushing his when the nose behind her decides he’s having none of it. The bronze nudges her and she’s flying through the air, landing on hot sand once more. She groans, dizzy, and eventually manages to lift her head, coughing and squinting to blearily make out half a dozen familiar faces. There are hands outstretched to help her up before blinding sunlight and the deafening hum make it impossible to focus any further…


…And Amania wakes, her heart pounding against her ribcage as though desperate for release. A few deep breaths has it calming considerably, however, and she lifts her hands, rubbing at her eyes. It’s still quite dark, the sounds of breathing and snoring telling her it’s probably still somewhere in the middle of the night.

Will she be able to sleep again, feeling as cluttered by the emotions stirred up by her dream as she does now? She’s going to have to try. At this candlemark, there’s really nothing else she can do except sift through the rapidly fading imagery for meaning…if there’s any to be had. Whispered little mind-touches drift up from her drowsy firelizards, and she feels encouragement for them, assurance that all is well.

Just a dream, she thinks, and repeats it in her head until it settles into a place of acceptance. Her heart calmed and her breathing made even once more, she tries for sleep again. If it stays dreamless this time, however…she’ll be grateful.

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