Stupid puzzle pieces. (Semi-long)
I didn’t realize it at first. After all, it has been more than ten years since I’ve been there, with him, in that house. I stood in the living room, knowing deep within myself that something wasn’t right. When it hit me, it was as though I had leaped into an ice-cold pool of water.
I was standing in his house…
Him, my teacher in the dark arts. He who I have not seen since then, except in dream where he taunts my weaknesses. Dreams much like this one. But I couldn’t feel his presence. The man always radiated some sort of power, and I could feel him even over long distances. But there was nothing, only a silent emptiness akin to what I have been feeling of late. I sighed in relief and dropped to the floor, rocking on my heels like a child. I hadn’t realized how scared I was of seeing him again until I realized that he wasn’t around. After a few moments, I collected myself and laughed. What a foolish girl I am. I stood again and moved to leave the house. There was only darkness for me there, and I wasn’t too pleased with myself that I had entered the Dreaming in a house with such memories.
A door appeared, on a wall next to me where nothing had been. It creaked open slowly, and I felt terror coming from it… I backed away and readied a spell, mentally preparing myself for whatever came through that door. I wasn’t prepared for what actually did, however…
A little girl, dark-haired, bright eyed, with cherubic cheeks of the Cupid variety. She peered into the house, and when she saw me, she called me to her. I drew closer, though not too close, as the horrible feelings coming from the other side of the door were almost overwhelming.
“Let me in, will you, oh will you please?”
“I—sure. Come in.”
The little girl scurried into the house, careful to tightly shut the door behind her. As soon as the door clicked into place, the negative feelings were gone. She turned to smile at me, and I saw then that she wasn’t a little girl after all. She was a Fae. A faerie. Her dragonfly-like wings shimmered, even in the darkness of the house and her skin was a pale, milky white, like a porcelain doll. “Thank you, my lady sweet. I’ve been banished there and oh, I do not like it!” She had a strange way of speaking… very musical and somewhere between Shakespearean and Dr. Suessian. “I am here for you to see, you must see now, you must see.”
I furrowed my brow. “See what? I’m sick of random creatures seeking me out to show me things that I may never understand the meaning to!” I didn’t mean to yell at her… Truly, I didn’t… I haven’t been feeling well of late, and my physical and mental state from the waking world must have carried over into the Dreaming. I instantly felt regret at my irritability toward her.
“I’m sorry, so sorry, my lady fair. But I came to show you, I came. Through blackness and despair, I came, oh I came,” She paced nervously before me, her wings twittering.
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m just…” I trailed off, not wishing to discuss anything going on within my mind, heart, or soul with someone I didn’t know. “What’s behind that door?” I took a step toward it, but she leaped in front of me.
“No, no, no! My weeping Willow must not open the door, no she mustn’t! There are bad things there, bad things, and worse! For that leads to the home of all nightmares and curse!”
That explained why I had entered the Dreaming in that house and not somewhere else. As though she heard my thoughts, the faerie nodded. “Please, come with me, oh come. This, perhaps, is what’s to come.”
Suddenly we were no longer standing in my teacher’s house. We were in a field. In a rut, more accurately. People all around me were shouting orders, and there were civilians in the rut with me. I climbed to the top edge of the rut to see what was going on. We were under attack by… I don’t even know. Giant machines of some sort. They were tanks, but they could adjust themselves to look more humanoid. Sort of like the Transformers I used to play with as a child. “What the hell…?” I dragged myself out of the rut, intending to help fight the machine creatures, but the faerie stopped me.
“You are only seeing now, only seeing. You cannot effect these things around you, oh no. This is an illusion for you to see, to see. No come with me, my lady, there is more to show, we must go, we must go.”
The battlefield disappeared and I was in a very small trailer (mobile home) with six other people. I have dreamed of them before, and I recognized them there, in the Dreaming, though they have faded from memory in this waking body. A man I recognized as having shape-shifting sort of powers (see the “Three Nights Long” thread—I think I referred to him as “the wolf guy”) looked up at me from his seat on the floor and tilted his head to one side curiously. “Hey, Will? You ok? You look kinda spooked.”
I glanced around, but didn’t see the faerie anywhere. Had I gotten here of my own accord or had she dumped me off here as the next “sight” I needed to see on our tour? I decided it was the latter and went with that. “I’m fine,” I replied. “Some faerie just dropped me off here, so I missed whatever you guys said.”
“Oh,” said the guy I recognized as Walk-Through Walls guy. “Well, we were actually just talking about the—“
“Guys!” A woman’s voice screamed from outside. The blond woman I recognized as the girl with Phoenix powers burst into the trailer, breathing heavily. “He’s coming. Shit, we’re not ready. We don’t have everyone yet!”
Everyone leaped to their feet. I looked outside to see a massive, black storm cloud coming at us full force. Something was behind that force, though I couldn’t see exactly what it was. The seven of us ran out into the dirt yard to prepare for a fight. That’s what I assumed, anyway… Truth be told, there wasn’t much of a fight… The cloud came, ridden by a black-winged angel, his wings dripping blood and filth… Michael?
I swore. We couldn’t fight him in the last dream I had, with all twelve of us present and using our powers to their fullest. It was very strange timing for such curiosity, but I wondered then whether this dream took place before or after the others. I didn’t have time to ask, however. A fat lightening bold tore from the clouds and struck all seven of us in one fell blow.
The others stiffened, and I assume that I did as well. I felt my muscles clench to their limits, and then beyond. I felt my organs begin to spasm… I felt liquid begin to pour from my eyes and I was pretty sure that I wasn’t crying. My skin was so hot that it felt cold. I could not move. I could do nothing except feel. Again, strange thoughts ran through my mind considering the situation… I have never before been electrocuted to a dangerous extent. Shocked, yes, but never electrocuted. So where was my mind getting the reference for the sensations and the pain I was feeling? I realized then that no matter how much time I spent in the Dreaming, I would never fully understand it.
And as suddenly as it began, it was over… The very last thing that I heard was the faerie’s voice, saying: “Always follow the bull.”
Numbers swam before me. Numbers and symbols that I had never seen before. They swam in a sea of light burgundy, if that meant anything. I smelled incense. I opened my eyes in what looked at first to be a small occult shop. Two young men were standing over me, peering down at me curiously. I recognized both of them, though again I cannot recall who they were in this waking world. One had light brown hair, the other a darker shade of brown.
“Elli? You ok?” One of them helped me up and I looked at him in shock.
“What did you call me?”
“Uh, Elli. That’s who you are, isn’t it?”
I wanted to hug him. So I did. He was surprised at my reaction, but he returned the hug and laughed. “Okaaaay. I take it you had a nice nap?”
I looked more closely at my surroundings and saw that we weren’t in a store at all, but someone’s house. I had never been there before in the waking world. All manners of religious statuettes and various new age-ish things decorated the room. Something was in my hand… I glanced down at it while trying at the same time to hide it from the two men. For some reason, I felt I had to.
A small wooden tablet was in my hand. Carved on one side was a bull. Carved on the other was a sinuous Chinese-style dragon with a stinger for a tail. I noted the item and tucked it away in a pocket. On the floor where I had apparently been laying, I saw a purple incense burner that was very much like a caduceus in appearance. Beside it was a plain wooden box, and beside that was a burgundy towel. Also on the floor of note were: a clay bowl of water, a clay bowl of earth, and a candle. I believe the candle was white, but I’m not really sure now that I’m awake. It was obvious to me that I had been trying to cast a spell of some sort.
“Did she say anything?” The light-haired man asked. “The seer?”
“Always follow the bull.” I said the words before I knew what he was talking about.
“What is that supposed to mean?” He replied.
The darker-haired man said, “Who knows? She loves that shit. Talking in riddles and stuff. Let’s go. Elli’s found out as much as she’s going to and I don’t want her casting any more weird spells.”
Was this man my brother? He felt like a brother when I looked at him. I glanced to the light-haired man, who shrugged. “Er,” I said, when the brother left. “I am a witch, right?”
He laughed. “In most senses of the word, yes.”
“And he disapproves?”
He frowned. “Yes, he does. And I disagree, but who am I to argue with him.”
Here is where my memories begin to break up. The dream was solid and no fragmented, but I can’t remember the details in between the action… A group of creatures kicked the door down and came into the house… The blond Phoenix woman was suddenly in a room with me (where my ‘brother’ had tossed me to protect me—much to my chagrin). There were weapons. Mine was at first in the shape of a tiny axe. I picked it up with an expression on my face that must have said, “You’ve got to be kidding?”
The Phoenix girl picked up her weapon (a short staff made of what appeared to be ivory) and a second weapon (a falchion), and quickly explained that my weapon could take the form of other weapons if I so wished. So I changed it into a sword. I ran out of the room and into the battle… I don’t recall any of the details of the battle except that it didn’t go well and we were forced to run away. We found ourselves in a long hallway covered in framed pictures. Something was chasing us. There were more than just the three of us now, though I didn’t stop to count us. We came to a dead end in the hallway, and I started looking on the wall for a picture of a bull… “Always follow the bull,” she had said. But I couldn’t find the bull! The light-haired man and I searched the wall frantically while the others held at bay whatever was after us.
Finally, he found something. On the ground were a bunch of trashed paintings, falling out of their frames and such. One of them was a woodblock-carving of a bull, exactly opposite the carving on the small tablet I had in my pocket. I took the tablet and fitted bull to bull, so that the dragon-side was facing up… The piece clicked in perfectly and the wall shook as though it wanted to open, but nothing else happened.
“There are two keys,” he said. “Where’s the other one? The Scorpio one? Don’t you have it?”
I looked more closely at the carving… what I had thought was a dragon with a stinger wasn’t a dragon at all. It was a scorpion. Fuck, I thought. Fuck, fuck, fuck. I knew exactly what this meant. Why do I have dreams like this? The light-haired man looked at me with wide, scared eyes, as though I had gone mad.
“I don’t have it,” I told him. “I don’t fucking have it, ok? I never will. And I don’t care anymore! Go find it yourself.”
A massive head appeared in the hallway, blocking any chance of retreat that we had. The light-haired man ignored it and continued to stare at me as though I were the only other one in the hall with him. I saw so many things in his eyes… blame, shock, disbelief, anger, sadness. “I can’t believe you’re really giving up?”
The head sucked in a breath… I got the impression that it was about to breath fire on us. I didn’t care. Why should I? It was just a dream anyway and I would wake up in my bed just like I always had, ready to face the day and go on with my miserable life. The head released its breath. I didn’t care. The Phoenix girl would just bring us all back to life if we died anyway. She could do that until the head ran out of breath and left us alone. So why depend on me to get us out of a situation? Why depend on someone who… ahh, screw it. Something in me snapped. I screamed and threw the woodblock on the floor.
I awoke.
