Dream a Little Dream (Chapter 1a - Nightmares)

[Solerei]

She kicks a clod of manure toward the wall of the stable, hard, then looks around furtively to make sure no one was watching.  Weeks in the stables.  Weeks!  And all because she'd asked the wrong questions.  Innocent questions, but not so innocent to them.  Who are those brightly-colored winged creatures she sees, slipping in and out of New Tunaria stealthily?  And that feline form, walking like a man, so graceful, it brought tears to her eyes, like bitter poetry?  She'd seen them from her window, but never close.  We do not associate.  We do not deign to.

She should be lounging in a classroom with her friends, feeling the soft whisper of rich silk on her skin and hearing the lazy drone of their Purity instructor.  She should be sipping cool water and laughing softly at the idea of races intermingling.  Where were her parents? Why were they not speaking up for her?

She kicks another clod and then follows after it, dragging the shovel behind her.  She's making more work for herself, that's all.  No one cares that she's here. 
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Later, she sips warm water from a ewer left in the horse trough, spitting the foul stuff out.  She lifts the ewer again and lets just a little of the power she's found...that whisper of talent...flow into it...cooling the water and making it tolerable, if murky.  She hasn't told anyone about this. She's afraid to.  They're angry now. If she was curious, with power...

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More stalls, will they ever let her return?  Noise.  Her friends, come to visit?  She looks up and sees two tall figures enter the shadows of the stable.  Tilting her head and squinting, she makes them out as they approach...eyes glowing softly..that's not right.  She mindlessly dumps the last of the manure to the barrow and tries to fade into the shadows, calling to her errant power.  They approach, no question who they're here for.  Don't bother, they say, in voices that hiss...like snakes? There are no snakes in New Tunaria! Snakes with sharp fangs...she can't focus.  Why was she thinking about snakes?  Cold hands close over her arms, and she shocks awake enough to struggle.

What are you doing? Where are you taking me? Do you know who my parents are?

Hush.  The hiss. Snakes...her mind spins in coils and thoughts slip out of reach.

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Cold. Something cold and hard against her cheek.  She lifts her head from the stone and looks around the room.  Windows are slits, high above.  The door barely visible in the dusk as the last of the blessed sun fades outside.  Why? How am I here?  She lifts herself carefully to her feet.  Doesn't seem injured.  And she's clean! No horse muck.  But how? She doesn't recall bathing. Or coming to this place.  Snakes.  She remembers snakes, and she starts to shiver, and she can't remember why. 

The door opens and two figures let themselves in.  Familiar. Snakes. Cold...she can't stop shivering.  Who are you? You're not the guard! You look like them, but you're...wrong. 

Hush.  This time she won't. She fights, struggles, but they hold her. So strong! How can they be so strong?!  She's held, and her mouth opened like a sick dog being dosed by the healers.  Something hot and slimy, from a rough clay cup that scratches her lips. How can she think of her lips when her throat is on fire! 

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She is swimming through something viscous and grey, trying to reach a light.  Sometimes she sees a figure...she thinks it can help, but she can't reach it...can't recognize it.  The snakes are speaking again.  They're telling her her fate. Telling her to despair. Telling her that there will be pain and fear and burning and then she will die, but she will not die, she will suffer...and change.  They're snakes...snakes don't speak. Why...  She struggles ahead, through the thick fog...or sea...or...

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Cold again. Her cheek is on stone, but she doesn't lift it. Doesn't open her eyes. Sweet Tunare, have you forsaken me? Mother?  They lift her head by the hair and pour the concoction down her throat again. She raises a hand feebly to fight it away, without opening her eyes, but she can't.  Chains.  There are chains now.  The burning and then the darkness again.

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Swimming through the thick, grey sea again.  Swimming is harder in chains...they pull her down.  She screams for help to any god or goddess who listens, and screaming opens her to the sea, and she sucks in the thick grey like breath, and she is drowning in it...vile, viscous...dark...