00 » OOC: Birth Dream

[magical_bosom]

The colours of the room are stark and aged and luminous, as if the walls were flooded with light from an unseen sun. Bold, cracked lines of paint run over the walls. She walks on tentative feet, like getting out of bed after a long sickness. She runs her hands along the stone and the shades bursting with light: proud figures crowned with flame and gilded with ice, a dreamlike, golden city, with rows of monstrous creatures shambling below.

In her dream, she hears them whisper.

In their hubris, they reached too high. For their sin, they were cast down.

A table stands along one wall, its wood chipped and darkened. A trickle of tawny ale leaks from a leather skin, studded with silver. She swipes a finger across the stain on the table with a "tch" of her tongue.

"Attractive amber color. Nutty flavor, slightly sweet, just a hint of toastiness. There's some spice to it... I'm finding hard to place... Is it... cloves?"

"Cloves! By the stone, you're a lady after my own heart. If I weren't buckled into this armor, I'd take you round the corner and... well, you know."

"Give me more ale?"

Chuckling, partway in exasperation, she moves on. There are more things on the table. In the manner of a dream, most of them slide away, out of focus, the moment she turns to them. One glows in the strange light; a golden mirror where her face blurs as she lifts it.

"I imagine you find many things difficult to believe. Your own preference for the leash you wear, for instance."

"There are good reasons for the world to fear -----, even despite our best intentions."

She shakes her head, and sets the mirror down. The voices come slurring and murmuring. A pair of long, curved daggers with leather-wrapped handles invites her hand, one blade drawing blood from the pad of her thumb.

"Must you be such a child? Are you incapable of a single, serious conversation?"

"I know. I am terrible and it makes me sad. May I rest my head in your bosom? I wish to cry."

Such irritation, mixing with a stubborn hope that she held. The daggers fade out of her attention as she comes to the end of the table. A pair of blue satin slippers is set on the floor, their delicate ribbons swirling out on either side.

"Oh, I've had some two decades or so to grow mellow. Believe me, back then I was quite... prickly."

"So you are like a fine wine, yes? Losing the raw edges over time?"

"I suppose there is some truth to that analogy, but dear Maker, I do hate being compared to wine. Or cheese. Especially cheese."

The feeling that washes over her this time is warmer, edged with concern. Tangled with one of the ribbons is a messy ball of yarn, such as one might throw to a dog, still with slobber. She sighs. The same great capacity for love, in both of them, she thinks. Onwards, she drifts towards the far wall, which stands bare after the riot of colours on the other side. A long sword hangs there, for wielding with two hands, nicked for a cruel edge rather than a lack of oiling and sharpening.

"An unbound ----- is like a wildfire. As prone to consume itself as it is to devour all that surrounds it."

She thinks she could never truly understand, however much she tried. So far from home, all of them, but that one more than any other. She lays her hands on the metal of a footman's shield on the wall, tarnished with use, burnished with care. A griffon rampant, silver and red, almost leaps to life under her palms.

"That sort of union is... not encouraged. Although that does not stop us from seeking out each other's... company from time to time."

"I... all right, suddenly you don't seem quite so grandmotherly to me anymore."

"Good. I would hope not."

Suddenly, her eyes prick with tears of care and great warm affection. She turns from the wall of weapons and towards the window that now stands in stark relief on the next wall. Beyond there, darkness gathers. Something is wound around her fingers. She raises her hand to see an oval pendant, specks of air caught in the hardened sap, dangling from a braided leather cord. The sun refracts through the amber and is gone.

The window, the rusted iron bars, the red-stained night with its prowling creatures fills the room. Against the horde, she glimpses a figure stand, draped in grey, steeled with purpose.

"I'll see this through, I promise."

Her own words ring from among the susurrus of voices as the darkness drowns the sun in the room.