[ week 32, day 2 | dream ] never felt magic crazy as this
It starts with him running. Four legs, pounding against the grass, kicking up dirt, tail blade held high, wind ruffling through his fur and pushing back his stalk eyes. Breaths, heartbeats, hoofbeats pounding out a rhythm, one he's known all his life. Part of being an Andalite. Part of himself. The many colored grasses, the tall speared trees, the red and gold sky under the blaze of many suns, many moons. They surround him, embrace him, whisper to him. This is your home, you belong here, with us.
But then it all shifts, because that one word -- home -- takes him elsewhere. Because home is not there. It once was, yes, but not now. Not anymore. In his hearts, it always will be a part of him, but he cannot be defined by this. Cannot call it home, truly, any longer, because he does not belong there. They do not know him there. They could never understand who he'd become, what he'd done, why he'd done it.
When it shifts, he finds himself still speeding along. But now he is human, sitting behind the wheel of his car, wheels kicking up sand as he tears along the beach. Sunglasses keep the sand out of his eyes, protect against the glare of the sun. One sun, yellow. Yellow like his car. Like Loren's hair.
No sooner does he think of her than he finds them--them, yes, because she was there with him, wasn't she?--parked underneath the pier, giggling like children, crawling all over one another in the backseat. Because they had been children. Children caught up in a war that required far too much of them, required them to grow up much too fast. The Time Matrix, at the center of it all, forcing that upon them physically, as well.
He doesn't want to think about that, only wants to think about the way his fingers tangle in her hair...
But then even that does not feel entirely right anymore. It had meant home to him once, but now, it just felt... incomplete. Like something was missing.
It's as though this recognition, this awareness tears away a film from his eyes, and Loren is gone. She had been for a long time, hadn't she? And it's not her hair that his fingers are tangled in; it's not her beneath him, pressed against the seat, grinning up at him like they have forever waiting for them to face it together.
It's Matt.
Yes, this is home.
[He wakes, slowly, the warmth and comfort from the dream still curled tightly around him, secure as his arms wrapped around Matt as they sleep. He doesn't wake up entirely--just yawns sleepily, a faint smile on his lips as he drifts off once more. He doesn't even notice the Hitomi recording. The feed soon cuts.]