Amurehna

Fragment 1: Songs
In the beginning of the dream I'm amused by how this song sounds like this one. I even see the music videos playing side by side, but in the dream the lyrics to Colors of the Wind are a stupidly obvious echo to the other song. I think "Did they do this on purpose?"

The Clockworks, the King and the Key-knight
Beneath the main building where I work, a tangled mess of hallways, tunnels, and offices stretch infinitely down into the earth. There are too few people to occupy the whole space, and much of it is dark and has been abandoned. I see the office from outside, the walls are a cool blue-white. The lights are dim, casting most of the hall into shadow. A door opens and I emerge from it, a woman slightly taller than me (with two others standing nearby) pats me on the shoulder and ushers me out. I'm naked to the waist, she hands me a pink hoodie to cover myself so I pull it on and zip it up. I thank her for releasing me. She smiles and walks behind me to the stairs leading to the surface.

There's a lapse. I literally drop into the scene, through the roof of the porch. There's a woman who looks a little like Olivia Dunham from Fringe crouching in the yard, she's telling a story about her father. She smiles wistfully, her hands clasped to her chest.
"That was before everything happened." She waves her hand and snow dusts the porch, the wind grows colder. Her father rolls off the roof into a drift then rises and brushes off his shoulders. A dark vaguely rectangular hole appears behind him and two men leap out, dragging him back into it.
"Before He sent his knights to take us for food. Before the Mel...Melisand...Mellisana." She says the word haltingly, like she's read it but hasn't had a reason to say it aloud. I stare at her profile, then she turns her head to look and gives me a distracted smile.
"He'll come for us until we're all gone."

I walk around the side of the house, I feel like time is running out. From this angle, the porch is actually inside and it's a hallway. The room is long with yellow walls, but not very tall. Maybe 6 foot walls? There are picture frames and mirrors hanging everywhere. There's a woman there, I recognize her as the one who gave me the hoodie.
"Now, pick a mirror and I'll paint over your reflection to improve your features." She gestures without looking at me. Out of the corner of my eye I see that she's holding a paint brush.
"I can't, you never found me a shirt when we left the tunnels."
"That's ridiculous--of course I found you a shirt."
"No really, I'm naked under this."
"Take it off anyway."
I frown doubtfully then shrug. "Okay." I take off the hoodie and stand in front of a small square mirror, a 6X6 with a thick glossy black frame. I can't clearly make out my face, but I don't necessarily look pretty. My hair is too wild and my features uneven. It doesn't matter, she'll make me pretty.
"This will be my last painting. I'm going to the ISP."
I become aware that my boyfriend is listening to me talk.
"Really? That's where Justin went." (He's one of my IWL co-workers that transferred to another store.) "He used to work in ISP before moving on, if you need help you can ask him. He's nice."
"I won't know what he looks like."
"Here, I can show you." We follow the wall, there are pictures everywhere that they posted IWL after the store meeting. I can't find the one I'm looking for and I can't even focus on the pictures for long. I can feel my boyfriend's scrutiny like he's suspicious because I mentioned a male co-worker by name. "All these pictures are of people dressed like batman. They're all Batmans. Batmen? Hahaha BAT MEN. That makes them sound like giant bats with man features." ((My subconscious is so stupid.))
All the pictures were taken at night and there are 6 or 7 men and little boys dressed up. In one a man holds out his cape out to the side with one hand, and I can just barely make out a younger man's masked face blending in with the cape. "That's the only reason he was able to hide so long, he blended right in."
Then I say, "It's weird that Justin isn't in these pictures. He really likes Batman."
The woman walks away, "Never mind, let's get you painted."

It's not really clear what happens next. A man that looks vaguely like Jaime Lannister appears. He's wearing a red-brown leather jacket and carrying a sword (of course). He herds us into the depths below the building where the King is waiting to eat us. We are surprised by his betrayal. Everything is dark except the path we walk on, it ends in a circular platform, and then across from that is a narrow walkway. The five of us huddle on the platform. Jaime is on the narrow walkway. In the middle of the sentence a giant hand reaches out of the wall behind him and plucks a large old key Attachment 4725 from the center of his back with enough force to pull him to the ground. He collapses against the wall, horrified that he has led us here.
We are comforted that he didn't do it of his own volition.

The queen has the body of a woman and ball with a clock on it for a head. She's pregnant. She's standing in a bright white room with intricate circuitry lines tracing every surface. A vaguely human-shaped creature that looks like slowly cooling lava, carrying a giant axe, leaps out of nowhere and knocks her to the ground. It raises the axe as though to kill her and the King's large hand reaches down and flicks it across the room. He helps his queen up, but cuts off her head. Her head and body work independently.
"I should have know you wouldn't let such weakness stand." She says, her voice crackling. I can feel him smiling, but can only see his hand, which holds up her head at about his eye level before he discards it.