718 Vhalar 25...
The day had not gone well.
As he slowly paced through the misty, formless fog of his dreamscape, well aware of both who and where he was, Mathias pivoted the heels of his bare feet, turned, and started back the way he’d come.
Fiona had performed, to a “t”, exactly as he’d expected. Graciana had been no different, and the disconcertingly similar nature of their tender egos clashing with one another, though predictable, had ended their exchange somewhere just short of “unfortunate” with space to spare from “disastrous”. Not that any of it mattered much to Graciana, not now that Fiona had returned to her godless country.
No, now it only really mattered to him.
It was all very inconvenient. From Fiona’s falsely founded confidence that she - and he - could not be wounded in a dreamscape to the highly questionable and brief stay she’d had under Graciana’s roof, he had no doubt she would place most - if not all - blame upon him. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to bear it. He didn’t particularly care so much as blame was involved. What did prove to be a bit of an obstacle, however, was that he still didn’t know very much about Emea, and she did.
Clearly, she was far from flawless, as the razor clawed camel had revealed, but it didn’t change the fact she had been roaming the endless maze of doors and dreams far longer than he.
And she was - assumably - upset with him.
Typically, one was expected to apologize in such situations - or whatever was close enough to the current state of affairs he found himself in. Unlike Fiona, however, he had no way of reliably finding her. Every time they had met after his first stumble into her own dreamscape, it had been she who had come to him. She had a way of finding him - keeping track of him.
He did not.
“Fiona?” he questioned, for what was nearing the hundredth time, his clear voice fading quickly into the swirling mists that obscured everything around him - if there was anything at all.
As before, each time he’d tried, there was no reply.
One last time to round out an even one hundred, Mathias turned around, took four steady steps and called out a bit louder than before, “Fiona?”
The Veil it was then.
Alone, in the quiet of his own mind and unhindered by the presence of Nightmares or scowling, sharp-tongued harpies, finding the Door was merely a matter of reaching out his hand and feeling the smooth inset pearl press back against his fingertips. The fog seemed to roll off of the deep, dark stone, revealing the portal between his dreamscape and the greater labyrinth beyond.
Pressing against the milky white sphere beneath his thumb, the stone shimmered, and he passed through.
And in a mirror of his own passage through the door, Fiona stepped out of one just as he did the same. The grey shirt he had dressed her in tucked into her pants, her bare feet looking so wrong for someone who seemed to spend as much time as she seemed cultivating a certain calculated image. The usual annoyance on her face deepened into something resembling a snarling hound as she shouted, “Here to take me back for mommy dearest, maiden?”
“No,” he answered, far more calmly and quietly, “I did not want you there in the first place.”
She took a step for every word he said and then they were face to face again. “Who dressed me?” She tugged at the collar of her - his - shirt.
He blinked. “I did; after I bathed you.”
“I see,” she said. No anger, no consternation, her voice as empty as his had always been - and then she shoved him right back into his dream.
Mists swirled, pale and white and featureless, about his feet as he stumbled backwards, somewhat disoriented from the sudden crossing. She emerged half a bit later from the door, closed the distance between them, and shoved him again. And again. And Again. A rapid barrage of pushes that kept him stumbling.
And he took them. No shields, no words. He simply stared, bright eyes empty and waiting. He’d heard it said before than an angry woman was just a sad woman waiting to show her face. But the pushes kept coming, and he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of those words.
Whether it was her wounded shoulder or general fatigue caused by throwing herself at an unresponsive wall, she eventually stopped. With one last short, sharp push that dropped him on his behind, she spun away and threw a rock that definitely wasn’t in her hand a bit ago into the mists. There was a loud, cracking sound as the stone struck something… and then the mists began cracking, as if turned to eroded soil, and gave way to an unpainted void of white.
“Okay,” she said, staring out at her handiwork as he remained where he’d fallen, staring up at her his hands placed on the ground beside and behind him. He couldn’t see her face. “Okay, okay. We can fix this.”
“Fix what?” He had several guesses, but he’d found his guesses tended towards incorrect more so than he was typically accustomed to. It was safer to ask, or so he thought.
“This.” She said, gesturing between him and her in quick succession. “This, you fucker. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
He finally picked himself up of fo the ground, brushing the now-dirt off of the palms of his hands. “Then why did you cross over into my bedroom?” It wasn’t accusatory - he never was. But there was a distinct question there in his voice; not even he was certain whether it was truly genuine, but it was as close as he ever came to it.
She didn’t even hear him.
“-That thing wasn’t supposed to swoop down and I wasn’t supposed to go into that door. Don’t you cuntin’ see, Moreno? I.” It was remarkable how quickly she got up in his face. He wondered whether she possessed the same swift disregard for personal boundaries in the waking world as she did here. “Am. Trapped.”
He blinked three times in rapid succession, making no move to distance himself from her. His brow furrowed, and he spoke much softer than before - though more a courtesy of close proximity than emotion. “What do mean?” He made certain to push his tone forward. The question needed elaboration. “You mean… you can no longer cross over as you did before?”
“Markers.” He could see every single neatly trimmed lash as she rolled her eyes. She pushed off from him, less forceful this time, and had gone into the pacing-back-and-forth part of whatever she was going through. He stood and watched, bright eyes following her every movement. “Brands. We use brands as checkpoints to mark places we want to go through. The problem is I did not figure out how to brand Etzos-” There it was. Her mysterious place of origin she didn’t seem to bother hiding in her distress. “-I did not mark my way back and now, guess what? I’m stuck in a hall of mirrors that all look the same. It could take trials-” The little tremor in her voice betrayed how optimistic that estimation was. “-before I even find something close to a jump back.”
“You-” Mathias frowned now - for her benefit - and stared blankly into her eyes. “You have been wandering around the veil all trial?”
She shrugged. He saw the winch as her wounded shoulder rose. It wasn’t much of an answer.
Sighing through his nose, Mathias mulled over the half-lesson, half-explanation she’d given. A part of him wanted to point out that she might should have figured out how to mark her way back with these “brands”, but a more sensible part of him reminded him that she most likely had already realized that. “Even if you found the dreamscape of someone from your city now-” He didn’t mention the name she’d let slip. It was better not to push her if he could manage it. “-how would you know without… jumping through?”
She looked at him as if he were stupid, and he remembered that the strongest of fact-finding magics.
“...right. Of course.” He remained in place, no move towards or away from her. “Then… I will help you search.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “What happens if you cannot find your way back?”
“I will.”
Confidence had never been something Fiona had lacked, as far as he could tell. He didn’t doubt that, at some point, she would do just that. “You plan to remain in Emea until then? Are there no adverse effects that come with prolonged exposure to all of… this?”
“I need to eat.” she said.
Dodging the question. Not something he was unaccustomed to when it came to Fiona. “If you are hungry, Graciana did invite-”
“Fine. Fuckin’ fine. It’s all back to mommy, isn’t it?” She threw up her arms. She didn’t even wince this time. “Let’s talk about mother dearest. What the hell was that about?”
“What was… what about?” He needed specifics, and she always so keen on being vague.
“Why does she eat people?”
“She-”
“No, fuck it, don’t. Fuckin’ don’t. I retract that.”
“Very well.”
“I’m not one to talk about odd diets. What were her intentions for me? Tell me true.”
He blinked. “I have only ever told you the truth, Fiona.”
“Uh huh.”
The day had not gone well.
As he slowly paced through the misty, formless fog of his dreamscape, well aware of both who and where he was, Mathias pivoted the heels of his bare feet, turned, and started back the way he’d come.
Fiona had performed, to a “t”, exactly as he’d expected. Graciana had been no different, and the disconcertingly similar nature of their tender egos clashing with one another, though predictable, had ended their exchange somewhere just short of “unfortunate” with space to spare from “disastrous”. Not that any of it mattered much to Graciana, not now that Fiona had returned to her godless country.
No, now it only really mattered to him.
It was all very inconvenient. From Fiona’s falsely founded confidence that she - and he - could not be wounded in a dreamscape to the highly questionable and brief stay she’d had under Graciana’s roof, he had no doubt she would place most - if not all - blame upon him. It wasn’t so much that he didn’t want to bear it. He didn’t particularly care so much as blame was involved. What did prove to be a bit of an obstacle, however, was that he still didn’t know very much about Emea, and she did.
Clearly, she was far from flawless, as the razor clawed camel had revealed, but it didn’t change the fact she had been roaming the endless maze of doors and dreams far longer than he.
And she was - assumably - upset with him.
Typically, one was expected to apologize in such situations - or whatever was close enough to the current state of affairs he found himself in. Unlike Fiona, however, he had no way of reliably finding her. Every time they had met after his first stumble into her own dreamscape, it had been she who had come to him. She had a way of finding him - keeping track of him.
He did not.
“Fiona?” he questioned, for what was nearing the hundredth time, his clear voice fading quickly into the swirling mists that obscured everything around him - if there was anything at all.
As before, each time he’d tried, there was no reply.
One last time to round out an even one hundred, Mathias turned around, took four steady steps and called out a bit louder than before, “Fiona?”
The Veil it was then.
Alone, in the quiet of his own mind and unhindered by the presence of Nightmares or scowling, sharp-tongued harpies, finding the Door was merely a matter of reaching out his hand and feeling the smooth inset pearl press back against his fingertips. The fog seemed to roll off of the deep, dark stone, revealing the portal between his dreamscape and the greater labyrinth beyond.
Pressing against the milky white sphere beneath his thumb, the stone shimmered, and he passed through.
And in a mirror of his own passage through the door, Fiona stepped out of one just as he did the same. The grey shirt he had dressed her in tucked into her pants, her bare feet looking so wrong for someone who seemed to spend as much time as she seemed cultivating a certain calculated image. The usual annoyance on her face deepened into something resembling a snarling hound as she shouted, “Here to take me back for mommy dearest, maiden?”
“No,” he answered, far more calmly and quietly, “I did not want you there in the first place.”
She took a step for every word he said and then they were face to face again. “Who dressed me?” She tugged at the collar of her - his - shirt.
He blinked. “I did; after I bathed you.”
“I see,” she said. No anger, no consternation, her voice as empty as his had always been - and then she shoved him right back into his dream.
Mists swirled, pale and white and featureless, about his feet as he stumbled backwards, somewhat disoriented from the sudden crossing. She emerged half a bit later from the door, closed the distance between them, and shoved him again. And again. And Again. A rapid barrage of pushes that kept him stumbling.
And he took them. No shields, no words. He simply stared, bright eyes empty and waiting. He’d heard it said before than an angry woman was just a sad woman waiting to show her face. But the pushes kept coming, and he was beginning to doubt the wisdom of those words.
Whether it was her wounded shoulder or general fatigue caused by throwing herself at an unresponsive wall, she eventually stopped. With one last short, sharp push that dropped him on his behind, she spun away and threw a rock that definitely wasn’t in her hand a bit ago into the mists. There was a loud, cracking sound as the stone struck something… and then the mists began cracking, as if turned to eroded soil, and gave way to an unpainted void of white.
“Okay,” she said, staring out at her handiwork as he remained where he’d fallen, staring up at her his hands placed on the ground beside and behind him. He couldn’t see her face. “Okay, okay. We can fix this.”
“Fix what?” He had several guesses, but he’d found his guesses tended towards incorrect more so than he was typically accustomed to. It was safer to ask, or so he thought.
“This.” She said, gesturing between him and her in quick succession. “This, you fucker. This wasn’t supposed to happen.”
He finally picked himself up of fo the ground, brushing the now-dirt off of the palms of his hands. “Then why did you cross over into my bedroom?” It wasn’t accusatory - he never was. But there was a distinct question there in his voice; not even he was certain whether it was truly genuine, but it was as close as he ever came to it.
She didn’t even hear him.
“-That thing wasn’t supposed to swoop down and I wasn’t supposed to go into that door. Don’t you cuntin’ see, Moreno? I.” It was remarkable how quickly she got up in his face. He wondered whether she possessed the same swift disregard for personal boundaries in the waking world as she did here. “Am. Trapped.”
He blinked three times in rapid succession, making no move to distance himself from her. His brow furrowed, and he spoke much softer than before - though more a courtesy of close proximity than emotion. “What do mean?” He made certain to push his tone forward. The question needed elaboration. “You mean… you can no longer cross over as you did before?”
“Markers.” He could see every single neatly trimmed lash as she rolled her eyes. She pushed off from him, less forceful this time, and had gone into the pacing-back-and-forth part of whatever she was going through. He stood and watched, bright eyes following her every movement. “Brands. We use brands as checkpoints to mark places we want to go through. The problem is I did not figure out how to brand Etzos-” There it was. Her mysterious place of origin she didn’t seem to bother hiding in her distress. “-I did not mark my way back and now, guess what? I’m stuck in a hall of mirrors that all look the same. It could take trials-” The little tremor in her voice betrayed how optimistic that estimation was. “-before I even find something close to a jump back.”
“You-” Mathias frowned now - for her benefit - and stared blankly into her eyes. “You have been wandering around the veil all trial?”
She shrugged. He saw the winch as her wounded shoulder rose. It wasn’t much of an answer.
Sighing through his nose, Mathias mulled over the half-lesson, half-explanation she’d given. A part of him wanted to point out that she might should have figured out how to mark her way back with these “brands”, but a more sensible part of him reminded him that she most likely had already realized that. “Even if you found the dreamscape of someone from your city now-” He didn’t mention the name she’d let slip. It was better not to push her if he could manage it. “-how would you know without… jumping through?”
She looked at him as if he were stupid, and he remembered that the strongest of fact-finding magics.
“...right. Of course.” He remained in place, no move towards or away from her. “Then… I will help you search.” Almost as an afterthought, he added, “What happens if you cannot find your way back?”
“I will.”
Confidence had never been something Fiona had lacked, as far as he could tell. He didn’t doubt that, at some point, she would do just that. “You plan to remain in Emea until then? Are there no adverse effects that come with prolonged exposure to all of… this?”
“I need to eat.” she said.
Dodging the question. Not something he was unaccustomed to when it came to Fiona. “If you are hungry, Graciana did invite-”
“Fine. Fuckin’ fine. It’s all back to mommy, isn’t it?” She threw up her arms. She didn’t even wince this time. “Let’s talk about mother dearest. What the hell was that about?”
“What was… what about?” He needed specifics, and she always so keen on being vague.
“Why does she eat people?”
“She-”
“No, fuck it, don’t. Fuckin’ don’t. I retract that.”
“Very well.”
“I’m not one to talk about odd diets. What were her intentions for me? Tell me true.”
He blinked. “I have only ever told you the truth, Fiona.”
“Uh huh.”
