06-08-2020, 06:35 PM
She has been in this place long enough now that nothing feels strange anymore - in fact, perhaps it would seem more strange if this world suddenly found a shade of predictability. At first she had tried to shape it into her own dreamscape, to take all of it for herself, and it might’ve been greedy if she weren’t just a child with eyes too big for her stomach. But she had so much time to learn, and so much time to be made more gentle by the ache of loneliness carving room out around the shape of her heart. It taught her to keep only a small corner for herself, only what should be hers anyway.
But she can still feel when other dreamers awaken in deeper parts of the dreamscape - and feel almost intimately when those dreams are broken down by nightmares that leave their respective minds restless and worried. It is a feeling that settles inside her bone-deep and fills her with a pain that makes her stomach roil. An uneasiness that makes her want to retreat to her home in this sleeping-place, where mushrooms tower like trees and flowers are large enough to sleep in, the petals as soft and pink as a sunrise.
Time has no meaning, no day or night that follows any kind of pattern she can discern, so she sleeps only when she is tired and doesn’t wait for the blue to drain from a daytime sky. It would be so strange to live with her family, she thinks, where there is always day and always night, and both are as dependable as the ground and the sky, which, admittedly, are not very dependable here.
It is an unfamiliar concept, and it makes her smile.
She feels the tug of someone dreaming nearby, like an echo in her skin that whispers quietly of a tired nothing. Her feet pause beneath her, and that delicate red and white face cants gently to the side as though she is listening to that silence. She blinks, and she is gone from her corner of the dreamscape, bobbing as a firefly through a place that is so dark and so bleak. She had learned this too, that her body in this place is only a placesaver, that it exists because mama and mother made it so. But she doesn’t need it to exist here, she is merely a thought, merely a concept.
It is lonely, but she has learned not to be afraid of it.
It isn’t quite a nightmare, and it certainly isn’t a dream. It’s something less than both, not even in-between. Just lonely, like this mind had nothing left to give to the dreamscape when it surrendered to sleep. Iri can feel him nearby, all dreamers have a kind of energy she cannot name, an individual spark that makes hers flare a little brighter when she feels them. But it is so dark in this nothing-dream, and with her tiny firefly eyes she can see nothing at all. So she builds for him, something gentle at first because she knows what it is to feel empty, and if this is the manifestation of that, she is so careful not to make him feel smaller. She knows what that feels like too.
She builds a forest that sits like a dark and emerald crown in the deep shadows around them, fills the branches with leaves and light, a million soft stars because she is so hopeful to catch a glimpse of his face as the deepest dark recedes. Then her eyes find the ground and the nothing there, too, and after a momentary flicker of surprise she fills it with pale green moss because it is the softest thing she can imagine. She fills that with soft light too as she bobs closer in her firefly body to the figure at the center of all this quiet green and pale galaxy.
Is it too much, is it too bright? She wonders, feeling worry bubbling in her chest as she wanders close to that shape in the heart of this little world. But it isn’t until she is beside him that she’s able to make out the hint of gold and the shape of this boy. Four legs, two ears, a face like hers - and she is so immediately thrilled, so filled with joy in her gentle way that this is a boy and not a fox, not a bird, not a badger. He is like her, and she is no longer alone. “Hello.” she says, and her voice is like starlight as she finds her body again, laying beside his wavering form, as though he is too tired to be here at all. But she wants him to stay, if he doesn’t mind, wants this friend. She watches him a moment, wills his shape to stop flickering in and out, lays down her head and presses her nose to his shoulder, marveling at the warmth of him, how real he feels. “My name is Iridian, but my family calls me Iri.” She hesitates, pulling back to watch him with eyes too blue to be any single nameable shade. “Would you mind staying here with me for a little while?”
But she can still feel when other dreamers awaken in deeper parts of the dreamscape - and feel almost intimately when those dreams are broken down by nightmares that leave their respective minds restless and worried. It is a feeling that settles inside her bone-deep and fills her with a pain that makes her stomach roil. An uneasiness that makes her want to retreat to her home in this sleeping-place, where mushrooms tower like trees and flowers are large enough to sleep in, the petals as soft and pink as a sunrise.
Time has no meaning, no day or night that follows any kind of pattern she can discern, so she sleeps only when she is tired and doesn’t wait for the blue to drain from a daytime sky. It would be so strange to live with her family, she thinks, where there is always day and always night, and both are as dependable as the ground and the sky, which, admittedly, are not very dependable here.
It is an unfamiliar concept, and it makes her smile.
She feels the tug of someone dreaming nearby, like an echo in her skin that whispers quietly of a tired nothing. Her feet pause beneath her, and that delicate red and white face cants gently to the side as though she is listening to that silence. She blinks, and she is gone from her corner of the dreamscape, bobbing as a firefly through a place that is so dark and so bleak. She had learned this too, that her body in this place is only a placesaver, that it exists because mama and mother made it so. But she doesn’t need it to exist here, she is merely a thought, merely a concept.
It is lonely, but she has learned not to be afraid of it.
It isn’t quite a nightmare, and it certainly isn’t a dream. It’s something less than both, not even in-between. Just lonely, like this mind had nothing left to give to the dreamscape when it surrendered to sleep. Iri can feel him nearby, all dreamers have a kind of energy she cannot name, an individual spark that makes hers flare a little brighter when she feels them. But it is so dark in this nothing-dream, and with her tiny firefly eyes she can see nothing at all. So she builds for him, something gentle at first because she knows what it is to feel empty, and if this is the manifestation of that, she is so careful not to make him feel smaller. She knows what that feels like too.
She builds a forest that sits like a dark and emerald crown in the deep shadows around them, fills the branches with leaves and light, a million soft stars because she is so hopeful to catch a glimpse of his face as the deepest dark recedes. Then her eyes find the ground and the nothing there, too, and after a momentary flicker of surprise she fills it with pale green moss because it is the softest thing she can imagine. She fills that with soft light too as she bobs closer in her firefly body to the figure at the center of all this quiet green and pale galaxy.
Is it too much, is it too bright? She wonders, feeling worry bubbling in her chest as she wanders close to that shape in the heart of this little world. But it isn’t until she is beside him that she’s able to make out the hint of gold and the shape of this boy. Four legs, two ears, a face like hers - and she is so immediately thrilled, so filled with joy in her gentle way that this is a boy and not a fox, not a bird, not a badger. He is like her, and she is no longer alone. “Hello.” she says, and her voice is like starlight as she finds her body again, laying beside his wavering form, as though he is too tired to be here at all. But she wants him to stay, if he doesn’t mind, wants this friend. She watches him a moment, wills his shape to stop flickering in and out, lays down her head and presses her nose to his shoulder, marveling at the warmth of him, how real he feels. “My name is Iridian, but my family calls me Iri.” She hesitates, pulling back to watch him with eyes too blue to be any single nameable shade. “Would you mind staying here with me for a little while?”
iridian
we are infinite as the universe we hold inside