Carabas

I'm talking to the thing which is possessing/has become a part of a friend of mine. It's attempting to be threatening, and I'm attempting to stall. We're talking about why it would bother possessing someone at all.

Although I don't say this out loud, I'm thinking that for me the appeal is what I think of as different flavors, the experience of different personalities/perspectives, when from the outside they pretty much all seem alike. And I'm also thinking that travel is the more obvious reason, the one that it would expect me to guess without having any personal experience with possession; and I think that sure, visiting Hawaii and seeing some pretty scenery is always appealing, but then there's the way humans will get up close to an active volcano, which is the really interesting part - meaning their thought process, not the volcano or even the danger itself.

But the thing possessing my friend says that what it likes is the conversation; that we've been talking now for two minutes without pause, and it's enjoying the novelty. I don't get the appeal, but whatever works for you.

I'm standing in a place covered in snow that I think of as "at the edge of all things" - although all I can see is snow to the horizon, I'm thinking of this place as a kind of boundary line. I'm with a woman wearing a black fur hat, and below it some strands of her hair have come loose, the wind keeps blowing them into her face.

I've just said something half-joking to her to the effect of, it's fine, I'm used to traveling. I'm thinking about the way I arrived in this reality in the first place, tracking her.

She, entirely serious, says something to the effect of but if you do this now, you won't ever be able to stop.

I'm walking out of a large red tent in the woods. In the previous scene I'd been having some kind of argument with two guards who work for me, but we were interrupted by a man who's now following me out of the tent, someone who I have some kind of deal with. He'd mentioned my son. I want to continue the conversation more privately.

Deeper in the woods, there's no underbrush, and the ground's covered in old fallen leaves. I drop the illusion I'd been using. I've been borrowing the identity of the man those guards used to work for, some kind of ruler, dead now. Without that illusion, there's a sort of shadow over my skin, like a photo overlaid by an image of something else - I (correctly) remember that I've used that specific comparison before in another dream; though I don't remember the details until after I wake up, I'm aware the parallel's intentional.

I'm dismissing whatever the other man has just said, angry. I tell him, "I swore to make this journey a thousand times, but you - you didn't uphold your part, did you?"

It's some holiday to do with romance, and Bai Suzhen's sitting in a field beside a small river, psyching herself up. Xiaoqing's to her right, encouraging her. As part of her training, Bai Suzhen's been sort of playing celestial matchmaker. She's set up various marriage possibilities for Xu Xian, putting in a great deal of time and effort, and she intends to bring it to a finish today, on this holiday. Of course, as a disembodied observer I'm aware this won't work out the way she planned - today's the day she'll meet Xu Xian in physical form for the first time, and their usual story will proceed from there.

In a scene involving a giant globe and the phrase, "You were being extremely literal about wanting to travel the globe, huh," 23-26 degrees longitude is highlighted.

Someone I was traveling with has been possessed and physically transformed by the thing possessing them. I'd left them alone in the motel room where I thought they'd be safe while me and the other person we're traveling with, a young woman, were out.

I can see a woman I think of as Morgana watching us through the mirror - she's very beautiful, but thin to the point of starved, hunching over, tangled hair, filthy. The girl I'm traveling with immediately assumes the possession is Morgana's work. I'm not surprised she thinks that - from the little she's seen of Morgana, it would make sense for her to think we're enemies. But I can see what caused this, and it's not Morgana. One of the markings I put in place around the room to keep the kid safe has been destroyed. It must have happened when the girl fell earlier. This is my fault - I'd tried to protect her by keeping her ignorant of the details. If I'd explained things to her, she would have known the significance of that marking. Morgana's never been my enemy, not really; she's here to help - but I don't want her variety of help.

I'm arguing with Morgana over which one of us is going to handle this. Her voice is harsh, raw - partially from the situation and the tone she's using, but I also have the impression she just doesn't use her voice very often. She's just pointed out - correctly - that if the creature comes into direct contact with me, the corrupting effect I'd have on it would likely just make things worse. I'm saying, "I don't know what I'll do to it, but you don't know what it'll do to you." She takes corruption into herself, sealing it away and making it safe for everyone except herself. That's why she's communicating through the mirror instead of here in the flesh - she arranged to have herself sealed away a long time ago. She's been altered so much already, I don't want to see her do this again.

In response, she says, "I know I betrayed you. I'll prove to you I'm useful. Prove to me-"

I'm a man traveling together with an old friend and several people I've met more recently - we're on a mountain road covered in snow, leading horses. A few red berries on the branch we're passing underneath caught my eye, everything else is bare. I'm thinking about the place we've just been turned away from, feeling annoyed. We were counting on this letter written by the head of a monastery to convince the master of some estate or something along those lines to let us stay there until the snow melts, but there was some trouble with the man the letter was addressed to. Right now I'm walking next to a blonde woman dressed in red who's worried about food. I cheer up as I talk to her, and I'm saying that food won't be a problem for tonight, "Dieter and I found a veritable mountain of-"

I'm walking through a desert at night, heading south. I was traveling with someone before, and we're meant to be meeting up again later, but she's driving and I'm on foot, and there's a lot of territory between here and where we're going. We've been heading south along the west coast, and I'm thinking of the area I'm in now as Butte County, and also the northern edge of the desert in California. This desert is incredibly beautiful by night, and there are walkways cutting through it, no roads. I come to the top of a little hill and see a large city in the distance; the walkway splits to run north and south around the edge of the city. There are a few other people walking here, and I'm putting serious thought into just walking along these paths forever. (Similar theme came up in an earlier dream this week - a girl impatiently waiting for me to wander the world on foot with her, me pointing out the reasons I couldn't just drop everything and start walking this instant.)

Yeo-Wool's blindfolded herself with this white cloth I think of as a veil - it's transparent, but it's folded over and over so she can't see through it. She's sworn to wear this until (a certain thing I can't remember is accomplished). She and some guy she travels with are stopping at this fortress, and in the halls they meet a man, someone important. Kang Chi's with the important man - Yeo-Wool, blindfolded, isn't aware he's here. Without letting her know it's him, one or the other of them (can't remember which) says something to establish that it's still not time to take the veil off yet, much as they'd like to. He's smiling as he watches her - the majority of the dream just consisted of me, 3rd person, looking at her. I wondered something about the school - it was clear she wasn't associated with it at the moment - and the dream switched over to show Gon eating in his room at the school, which he's inherited from her father.

A couple who've been married for about a year are traveling together through another country in a vaguely historical-inspired setting. The husband, who's in the military, suspects his wife is unfaithful. He comes back to their room at the inn with a gift for her: a set of cords for her to use to make knotted ornaments, to hang from the wooden cases he travels with. They both behave as if this is a sincere gift, but he gave it to her to convey something unpleasant: normally, a newlywed couple would have made such things months ago, when they were first married.

Someone's telling me that two serpents, one that spits fire and the other water, have gone missing from their shrine. I say they're taking a trip, "naught to worry."

Rumpelstiltskin's hit upon a new-to-him form of magic, something that appears as a white light when he's working on it, and it's some major revelation - but he can't pursue it unless he cuts himself off from distractions like 'the boy.'