66 Ashan 719
Azure waves lapped lazily against the side of the ship's hull. Their gentle nudges softly rocked the vessel back and forth, rising and falling with the steady undulation of the ocean's unworried whims. As far as the eye could see was nothing but sparkling, clear water and the dark flush of violet sky. The two met at a shimmering horizon, the evening's light clear and bright against the ocean's surface.
Sunset had never felt nor appeared quite as serene as it did in that moment.
In the next, he was there.
Fiona had sent him ahead with a suggestion that she would, at some point in time, be following behind. Like most things with the bob-haired, sharp-tongued force of nature, it was just as likely she'd follow through as it was she'd do something else entirely. He held no expectations, merely a mind open to the possibility of everything that was Fiona - a mindset that was, unsurprisingly, quite draining.
As he stepped out of the doorway, he found his feet bare, toes gripping the smooth planks of the ship's deck, but his focus was concentrated upon how wonderfully still the world was. So many dreamscapes were messes of color and sound and emotion, jumbled up wild and incomprehensible gibberish that, while technically manageable, was almost always more trouble than it was worth.
He'd never been at sea before. Graciana had never seen a reason for it, and he'd never felt any sort of compulsion to experience it for it himself. He knew enough of boats from books and Graciana's occasional recounts of her travels to understand that what was pleasant about the ocean and travel over - and especially through it - paled in comparison to both the inconveniences and outright dangers that came hand in hand.
A dream, however, had the benefit of all the good without the bad, if the dreamer so desired.
The air moved in a cool and subtle breeze, carrying upon it the scents of salt and hints of diluted, putrid rot that was, somehow, exceptionally satisfying. He could taste the contentment in the air, the reverie of the moment: a past remembered in its most idyllic sense. Such dreams were rare to find and rarer still to remain unaffected by a trespasser. Fiona had asked him once if he felt that dreamwalking was a privilege. He'd never actually answered that specific question at the time, but, standing there beneath the azure and indigo expanse above him, cradled by the sleepy waves around him, and surrounded by the scents of a stranger's longing nostalgia...
He still wasn't sure what his answer was, but he certainly preferred the current scene to fornicating vegetables or airborne, murderous camels.
Taken by the peacefulness of the scene, Mathias, at last, chose to look upward, gaze scaling the sturdy mast, from which two netted shrouds hung like leafs on either side, all to way to the crow's nest, wherein he found his quarry. Though it was some distance, light clearly shone above the figure's head of pale blonde hair, illuminating what seemed to be a delicate cape of some gossamer fabric that drifted down from the figure's bare back, whereupon a dark and undulated... something moved across the pale skin in rhythm with the ocean itself.
Turned as the figure was, he couldn't make out much more than that.
With quiet resolve, Mathias started up the shrouds, finding that the netting's flexibility made it much, much more difficult to efficiently scale than the rigid and reliable rungs of a ladder. By the time he reached the edge of the crow's nest's outcropping of smooth and sturdy planks, his breath came quicker. Had he still the capability of sweating, he most certainly would have been lightly peppered with perspiration. With a final heave, he pulled himself up and over the edge, finding that the space was much more spacious than it had seemed just a moment ago.
Far about the ship's deck, it seemed almost as if he'd stepped right out into the sky itself. Though the breeze had become a whispering wind, it only tousled his hair and fluttered through what he now realized to be the dreamer's delicate wings. The rest of him, for he was a man after all, spoke of grace. He was much taller than Mathias, enough so that, as Mathias silently rose to his feet to better examine the ring of light that seemed to be anchored tot he back of the man's head, he had to crane his neck some to do so, something that lasted for only a trill or two as he became distracted by the shifting, inky patterns that danced along the man's back.
There was a fascinating, emotional quality to them, one that twisted his stomach in such a way that he actively drew his attention away from it. Whatever the dark shapes were, he felt on a fundamental level that he'd prefer to know nothing about them, just as he kept what little whispers of his own emotions he had tucked neatly away behind the chilled lock of his own spark.
Whether the other man was a mage in the waking world or not, the dreamer clearly knew of magic, at the very least, which meant two things: the first being that he wasn't to be trusted and the second being that he could, very well, become a useful asset - or so Fiona had repeated at him several times before sending him through the doorway alone.
"Excuse me," he started, voice clear but reserved. He kept a distance between them, neither wanting to startle the man nor put himself at a disadvantage should something unexpected be returned instead of a simple reply. "Are you..." It was usually best to let dreamers dream and extract information from them while they were unaware. Waking them usually resulted in unintended consequences which, in turn, were typically more of a hassle than it was worth. "...the captain?"
