getting lost in a dream

[Oriash]

they promised that dreams can come true

“Mom!” she calls, face lighting up at the sight of both her mother’s. Oriash knows this can only be a dream, but her mother could manipulate dreams. Perhaps, just perhaps, she’d found a way to bring them to Ori in her sleep. It wasn’t perfect, but would be enough. This is not a dream though, and her parents are not here at all. They are simply a figment of her imagination brought to life by a power she doesn’t yet know she has. Her illusions are beautiful, near flawless (save for their uncontrollable nature), though perhaps they don’t yet project to others, perhaps they do. Ori though sees her mothers, hears them, spends the afternoon walking and talking with them in a dream world that she believes Kagerus shapes around them.

Their dream world, for lack of anything better to call it, is enchanting. It’s like the cove, but more than that. There’s a pleasant hum of life, but no one bothers them. They walk without breaking a sweat, though Ori truly is walking without realizing she’s going anywhere at all. Reality bleeds with illusion, the tree in real life still clinging to winter bright with leaves and flowers to Ori. They play, they laugh, she fills her mother’s in on the things that have happened since they went away. Went away, because they are not dead and they are not alive and they simply disappeared (though now, with Ori’s power concentrated elsewhere, they are likely visible in the brush again though she has not thought to check).

They fill her in on what Ori imagines the dream coma must be like, telling her stories of how they walk together on black sand beaches with perfectly blue waters every day, how they love her, how they think of her. These things may or may not be true, of course, but Ori’s illusions feed off her thoughts and emotions and she cannot know more than what she can imagine. Eventually, she finds herself in Hyaline, though she doesn’t quite realize it. It’s not until the land turns from rolling hills to mountains that she begins to be aware. Her mother’s flicker around her, the illusion fading in and out as panic sets in until she realizes where she is.

Not a strange land then, but a territory, a safe enough place except for the plague. Though she has little else to worry about, except that she doesn’t quite know how to return home. It would be easy if she could fly, but she can’t fly yet. For now she’s lucky that her gangly legs keep her upright. Flying would come in time, but for now she’s earthbound and lost. Her mothers disappear and she fears that she traveled too far from them, but no, that can’t be, can it? Can dreams and dreamers have limits? It’s a dream. It’s just a dream. It’d felt so real she’d forgotten.

She doesn’t wake up though, and the more she stands in this place the more she realizes it can’t be a dream. Did she sleepwalk? How could she see them, talk to them, spend time with them? It’s midday, the sun shining, but the world around her feels dark and quiet, her powers mixing with her uncertainty and reflecting her mood only around her. Ori, uncertain how to get home, stands there without the will to keep going, though she should, should try to find someone to help her. But who? What did she say? How did you explain getting lost in a dream?  

Oriash

but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too

@Amet - respond to that however you want. You can see her mothers or not, see the weird darkness around her or not. Basically it's all illusions and she has no idea she can create them yet.

[Amet]

Awash in the same excitement he had only felt two times before, the gilded Primarch of Hyaline has rarely ventured outside of his home in these last few weeks. Not when Jah-Lilah is heavy with his baby, her red belly threatening each day to burst with the life they have produced within it. Instead, he patrols when he becomes restless and dotes when the red wytch will allow him ─ fatherhood suits the dragonhide stallion in a way that he had never expected it would, considering the events of his own.

Today, the restlessness has struck again, and Jah-Lilah has taken to napping in her den. And so he roams. Away from the crystal clear lake and up into the foothills of the mountains, the akhal-teke stallion lopes leisurely through familiar ground with fluttering nostrils and alert ears. His has held the crown of Hyaline again for nearly a year now and never has he seen the sanctuary territory so empty, but both Kensa and Jah-Lilah have consoled him when he voices this concern ─ the plague, they say. It will pass.

Nevertheless, his next sigh is strung thin with melancholy at the thought. He chews the inside of his mouth but attempts to turn his thoughts elsewhere, and thankfully for the dragonhide stallion, a distraction has made her way across the borders of his home.

A flicker of movement to his right catches Amet's attention and his canter slows almost immediately to a stop. With his narrow head raised, he changes direction and begins towards the area where he had seen the movement before it begins to flash again. Reminiscent of Kagerus and Solace, it would appear, the stallion squints his molten amber eyes in confusion and continues to move closer until finally a smaller figure reveals herself from behind intertwined boughs and naked branches.

She is painted with accents of blue, and Amet instantly knows her heritage. A daughter of Solace and Kagerus, she seems much too small to have made her way here on her own.

But hadn't he just seen her mothers?

Looking quickly around the immediate vicinity, Amet purses his lips at the absence of the two women. Neither their bodies or even a hint of their scent are present. Turning his gaze back to the young pegasus filly, he nickers gently to her, trying not to let the concern show on his golden face. "Hi there, sweet one," he greets her awkwardly, unsure of how to approach the situation, "Are your mothers here with you today?"

─ don't get cut on my edges
@[Oriash] ♥

[Oriash]

they promised that dreams can come true

It doesn’t take long for someone to find her. She freezes at the sight of him, realizing she’s alone in this place she doesn’t know with a stallion approaching who may not want her here. This may be a territory of her home, but she’s no longer a princess and she doesn’t have much reason to trust. Though she didn’t have much reason not to trust, either. His words are kind and the mention of her mothers is reassuring, and she relaxes then, glad to have been found at all. Because she had managed to get herself lost, though she still couldn’t quite understand how she had done so.

To see her mothers she had to be dreaming. There was no other way. Yet had she truly sleepwalked her way into an entire other kingdom? That seems impossible. The cove was all beaches and rolling the hills. Hyaline was craggy and mountainous, and she can’t imagine managing the difference in terrain in her sleep. For that matter, how could she have gone so far without waking? As is, she is young enough still that going so far was a feat in and of itself. Going so far without realizing it? That was an act of mystery and magic she did not understand.

The truth of the situation doesn’t dawn on her. She doesn’t realize he asks after her mothers because he too had seen them. Ori looks so like her parents that she simply assumes he placed her by her coloring, an easy thing to do when your parents were as distinct and well known as hers. Were? Had been? Are? She doesn’t even know what tense to think of them in. They weren’t dead, but they weren’t alive either.

“No,” she says, shaking her head. “They’re gone.” Gone because, just like the tense, she doesn’t know the right word either. They’d explained, or tried to, and she’d stayed and watched as they slipped into some other world, some other life together. She’d stayed well past that, not knowing what she was supposed to do or where she was supposed to go. In that time they’d vanished, and she had no idea their bodies would be visible now, hidden then by a power she does not know she wields.

Maybe if her mothers had had more time with her they would have recognized what she could do, trained her, explained it to her. Maybe if they had paid more attention to her in the time they did have – they tried to love her, but Solace and her failing health always came first. She did not doubt their love, but their love for one another was stronger still. As it stands now, she has no idea that she creates worlds with a mere thought, changes reality, shifts it to whatever she dreams. It’s never real, of course, but it feels real, looks real. And what is real, anyway, but what you see and feel and believe?

Her mothers had been with her, and then they hadn’t, and she doesn’t know how any of it happened.

She stares at the stranger for a beat too long, taking in his strange skin, his height, his kind eyes. “I think I’m lost. I don’t know how I got here,” she finally admits, voice quiet and confused. That was all she was. Lost. What was life without her mothers? That life would have come to her, of course, but not so young. What kind of parents simply left their tiny child and made no other arrangements? Hers, apparently. And so she finds herself here, in Hyaline, at the hands of a scaled golden stallion and without a clue.
She did not like feeling so helpless.

Oriash

but they forgot that nightmares are dreams too

@Amet