Vhalar 45th, 718
Qit’ria was in the forest once more, staring at a tree just in front of the one she’d just walked out of. She looked back over her shoulder, looking past her cat tail, and could see her own dreamscape she’d just left. The tree was transparent, allowing her to see the lake where she’d met that water spirit. On the island where her and Enrick found Ellen stranded. She knew this was the same place that Jesine had showed her, when she’d become a dreamwalker, even though it looked different. It felt the same. And she knew that each tree was a door. She could feel it.
Walking up to it, she pressed a paw against it, wondering how she could make it open. She’d spent every night searching for Caza, trying to get to her daughter’s dreams, to watch over her. To make sure none of those nightmare beasts got to her. But this… place, she didn’t understand. Why would Jesine show her all these doors if she couldn’t use any of them? It made no sense to the cat huntress.
She turned and moved down the dirt trail, looking at each tree in turn. Upon the trunks, she could see a story in some sort of symbols she didn’t recognize. She still couldn’t read Common, but she could at least recognize it. Whatever this was, it wasn’t that. Up and down the dirt path she paced, growing more and more frustrated with each passing bit, before finally just sitting down and loudly screaming, in perfect human Common, “Cunt!”
Cunt, cunnt, cunnnt, cunnnnt…
The word echoed into the dreamscape, bounding off invisible walls she couldn’t see or penetrate… and as if that word were some summoning catalyst for a great demon from the depths of Emea, a portal materialized over Qit’ria head and spat out a woman-sized figure onto Qit’s much lighter cat-sized body.
Qit’ria mrowed loudly and jumped out of the way before the woman splatted on the dirt path. She jumped and spun around, facing the attacker, assuming it to be one of the aforementioned nightmare beasts, hissing loudly at it, swiping at the air.
The woman that had found herself face first in the dirt lay there for a moment, uninjured but with no particular interest in picking herself up. There was a small, muffled sound that, to Qit’ria’s keen cat-like hearing, was the seething sound one made when they had screwed something up about a dozen times over with no success in sight.
“Where is it this time?” the woman said, lifting her face up so she was no longer eating dirt. She looked at Qit’ria and frustration boiled over in her already-frustrated eyes once again. It was like seeing ice freezing over. “A cat world? Are you a timeless guide sent to help me find myself? Is this a little girl’s dream where her mummy died and she reliving her - You know what, I don’t care. This dream thing? It’s stupid, cat. It’s stupid, it doesn’t function, I’m sleeping on the job because of thankless, dumb, fuckin’ nights trying to make some modicum of progress with this idiotic venture. What do I get? Nightmares hounding me. Assailing my stronghold while I don’t even know how to reach them. Who plays defense in hide and seek and I’m… I’m talking to a cat.”
Cat eyes saw color less richly and in less detail than human one’s… but that tone of voice Qit’ria could never mistake. Qit sniffed at the air, squinted, ducker her head down as she studied this woman. She knew this woman, though she looked a little different. But what was it? Break her nose? Clean her teeth? Get a tan?
“Zeepa?”
She walked up to Zipper, and rubbed against her leg, mingling their scents, and she was positive that this was her dream companion. “Zeepa! Why you here? This not… dream. This door place with dream. Jasmeen show us. But no door open. Dumb cunt door.” She sat down in front of Zipper, and looked straight up at the woman. “Why look different?”
“And now the cat is talking to me.” Zipper rolled her eyes…. Before something clicked inside her head. Qit’ria could practically see her putting the pieces together: Jesine, Door, Dream, Becomer. She looked at Qit’ria and she looked at her hard, clearly trying to determine whether this was the real deal or some figment of Emea’s ability to gather your thoughts and memories and materialize them.
“Prove you’re you.” Zipper said. “How did we meet? What did we do? No deviations from what happened. I want it exactly how it went down.”
“We meet in big big forest. We attack by mean frog nightmare. You shoot light and give me ice spear. I kill it. We laugh.” She looked up at Zip sternly, as if to ask, ‘Is that enough?’
“It’s not but I’ll take it.” Zipper said. Her eyes were still cold, suspicious. “For now.” She picked herself up and Qit’ria found herself craning her neck further and further at the human-sized Zipper. She brushed the dirt off her blouse, her leather pants, ran a hand through a hair for a ridiculously long time, and finally said, “Okay, ‘Qit’ria’. This has been pleasant, but I must be on my way. I have a lot of things to do and this place-” She spread out her hands in the direction of the sky. “-Is a cunt of a maze to navigate.”
“No. You no leave. Stop being…” she tried to think of the word, “Fake Zeepa. I make baby. Daughter, just like you magic say. I look for daughter dream. You help me. No leave. I need you Zeepa. We…” stumped by the words, “Blood sister.”
She jumped up at Zipper, landing on her shoulder, before thumping her in the forehead with a paw, refraining from using her claws. She saw Zipper’s hands raise up just a bit, as if instinct drove the woman to swat her away. “Blood sister help.”
“Why don’t you just Walk over to her?” Zipper arched a brow quizzically “You should be able to do at least that by now. Make a door, find her dreamscape, waltz right in. Easy peasy.”
Qit’ria cocked her head to the side, “I did walk to tree door. No do nothing. How make door? I not know how. I look and look and look, all trial. No find.” She shook her head in frustration. She hopped down from Zipper’s shoulder and tapped into the totem she kept assimilated within her. She pulled her self out, and over the course of a couple minutes of breaking her bones, splitting her skin and readjusting organs, Qit’ria stood before Zipper, surprisingly clothed.
Though Zipper hadn’t seen Qit with all her new mutations. Her mousy eyes, her elongated bear jaw, the rest were covered by the bear skin cloak totem she wore, normally assimilated within her as well.
“You look… well.” Zipper said. She gave Qit’ria a once over, lingering on the jaws a bit too long. “And Jesine left us a carriage with no way to command the horses. I know how to Walk but i don’t know how to find anyone. It’s trial and error. I have to comb through every dreamscape I find, chancing upon whoever before I can try to pinpoint their location in the future.” Big words, long words, and Zipper seemed to realize who she was talking to a moment later. “Can’t find your daughter so easily.”
Qit nodded at Zipper’s words, understanding roughly 75% of them. Her voice much deeper and growly, because of the new jaws, “Can use magic? You know baby is girl. Do that. But find her, yes? Is piece of me. My dream snake there.” She pointed back behind her at the tree she entered from. “Lot more door tree here. Not many in Desnind.”
Zipper nodded back, clearly understanding roughly the same amount. “I can’t find what I cannot see. I don’t sell crystal balls or deal in playing cards. I’m not false seer. Listen this is a bit out of my league-” She touched her cheek with her index finger, tapping, thinking. “I can show you how to find your daughter, but the rest is up to you.”
She almost asked what a crystal ball was, but refrained, listening to Zipper instead. She nodded. “Yes. That do. Please.” Her beautiful face was clearly distraught and desperate, a new look for the normally fearsome and stoic huntress. She stepped forward, grasping Zipper’s forearm in the same traditional Sev’ryn greeting she used for Faith as well, “Please Zeepa.”
Instead of the returned warmth she got from Faith, Zipper simply looked uncomfortable. “Yes, yes.” the woman pried her way out of the huntress’ grip. “Much to Jesine’s probable disappointment, I’ve made some progress on what we can do in this fuckin’ realm. It starts with the ability to open a door to go to some kind of ‘hub’ where you can access the dreams of other people.”
Zipper raised her arm, palm forward, and a vibrantly colored scar ripped its way through the fabric of the dreamscale, eager to tear it into two if it could. Thankfully, it wasn’t bigger than the size of a door. “This is my door. I did not choose the aesthetics.” Another eyeroll. She liked her eyerolls. She had more eyerolls than she had expressions that weren’t annoyance. “A girl I found had regular doors to go from place to place. It seems to vary from Walker to walker. Try making yours.”
Qit’ria thought it looked far too easy for what it was. She wanted to touch the glowing scar of Zip’s, but once again, showed surprising restraint. Zipper was helping her, and she was going to do as Zipper said. She raise her hand like Zip had done and closed her eyes. She wasn’t sure what she was supposed to feel, but she knew this was some sort of magic, and her magic was based on feeling.
She wanted the feeling of discovery and freedom and went back through her memories. The trial she’d been hunted by the man on the dragonbird, the first time she’d been treated like prey. The freedom she felt when she’d left that cave she’d passed out in. She pulled her hand down, and a cave entrance formed in the tree in front of her, a bright light glowing from within.
