2/16/2004
I opened my eyes in the Dreaming to see a crumbling wall. I was a bit disoriented at this, and I was afraid I was trapped somewhere. I looked down at myself and was momentarily surprised to see a snake’s body where my legs should have been. I still had the upper torso of a woman—or rather, a young teenager—but from the waist down I was a snake. My hair was very long, past my butt (I still had a butt, right?) and jet-black. My hair was split into braids, and the ends of the braids were adorned with colorful beads. I was naked except for a thick golden necklace that hung low enough to cover my bare breasts. I noticed that I had a cute bellybutton piercing decorated with a golden stud and a small, dangling chain with a tiny pearl at the end. My hands were slender and graceful, ending in long nails that were more like talons, squared off at the ends.
“Maristhss!” The voice was sharp and commanding and I jumped. Was that my name? I suppose it was… it sounded so… reptilian…
I was trapped, though not in the way that I initially thought… Startled, I whirled around to see another being much like me, except a lot bigger. She had a whip-like weapon in her hand. Her tail was very thick and muscular, her breasts large and adorned with jewels. Her stomach muscles were tight and she wore a silver chain about her waist. Green gems dangled from it. Her eyes were black and harsh, her face contorted in a scowl. All these details I saw in peripheral, for what had most of my attention was her whip. I had a feeling that I’d felt the sting of that whip before… I stuttered out a hasty apology and the matron (?) looked down her nose at me.
“This wall will not come down itself, girl. Get back to work.” With that, she slithered away. I turned my face toward my work. But while my talons dug into the flesh of the wall, my eyes darted this way and that, examining all that was around me. There were other girls like me, some tearing away at this fleshy brick wall while others dragged the debris away in strange-looking nets. None of them looked happy. With a sigh, I chipped at the wall. It was a hard and tedious job, and we toiled for what seemed like hours. It grew darker and red-tinged torches lit our work. Finally, when I thought I would fall over from exhaustion and hunger, a servant of the matron’s brought food in to us. We were told to go to our rooms and rest after we were done eating.
I bit into the… what the hell was I eating anyway? It looked like a Japanese rice ball, but a lot drier. I didn’t know what it was called, but I knew that it was all we were ever given to eat… it tasted very bland… I glided up the ramp (there were no stairs) and into my room. Even though I was still of my own mind, I was also part of this girl’s. I knew exactly where my room was. Just as I knew exactly what time he would arrive…
The whisper came. “Maris?” Excited, I leaped up from the pile of hay(?) that was my bed and ran (slithered?) to the window. I hoisted myself up on my tail and peered carefully outside, unable to hide my joy.
He knelt outside on a rooftop that overlooked a massive courtyard. He was not human, but he was human-like. He was a bit smaller than me, very pale and completely hairless. Like me, he wore no clothing (and he had no human sexual organs). His eyes were blue and luminescent and his smile bright and childlike. He held a hand out to me (I noticed only four fingers), and I took his hand in my own (five fingers). He stood and put his hands under my arms, easily lifting me up and out the window. We sat there, on the rooftop, for a long time. We stared at the stars, holding hands. I put my head on his shoulder and he leaned against me.
“It’s almost time,” he said quietly, at length. “Are you sure you’re ready for this?”
I glanced over his shoulder at the moon. It was a huge red moon, very, very, close to the planet, and it was nearly at its peak in the sky. I took in a deep breath. I knew what he meant. “Yes,” I said determinedly. “Let’s go.”
Cautiously, I slunk to the edge of the roof, where he had fastened something that looked like a rope ladder. He climbed down first and waited at the bottom for me. Unable to climb down (as he had feet and I didn’t), I grabbed one side of the rope ladder and lowered myself that way. Once on the ground, we took off quickly, keeping our backs to the building. I was a very fast creature, and I was amazed and impressed that he had little trouble keeping up with me. We made our way to a blue-leafed hedge and crept through it, paying little heed to the small branches that scratched our skin.
We emerged onto what looked remarkably like a busy Earth street, though there were no vehicles at all. Everyone was walking (or slithering as the case may be). I led my beloved into a small shoppe, careful to disarm all of the traps first. There was a key, I knew, inside the shoppe. It was hidden in a panel beneath a floorboard. Once it was in our possession, we moved to the back of the store, where I chanted some strange phrase that opened a wall.
I don’t recall what happened then. The next thing I can remember is waking up in my room back at the matron’s building. My head ached terribly and I was sore all over. Had something gone wrong? Or had something gone right? I couldn’t remember… I went downstairs (down ramp?) to the workroom. The matron glared at me, but said nothing as I took my usual place on the wall. There were numerous holes in the wall now, allowing us a view outside. The sky was dark grey, the moon was just cresting over the horizon, and white powder was falling from the sky.
“It’s snowing!” I said aloud. All of the other slave girls stopped and turned to look at me.
“That’s weather of ill omens,” one said in a hushed, scared voice. Yet she, and all of the other slave girls, were staring at the softly falling snow in awe. Even the matron was preoccupied with it. It never snowed on this world, except when a world-shaking even was about to happen.
And then I remembered… My lover and I had gone to get a powerful item that would free my people. We were nothing more than slaves. We had been for many years. There were some, like my beloved’s people, who treated us as equals, but our male counterparts kept us as tools. We laid the eggs and worked for them, but we weren’t people to them. But had my lover and I succeeded in our quest? I couldn’t remember…
Just then, from the sky came a castle… that’s how I must describe it because my human mind has no base with which to compare it to. It was a cathedral, square and majestic, and it landed outside. From one of the doors came my beloved, an army of his people behind him. They led the battle that saved us from slaver. My dream ended shortly after his arrival, and though I did not see it in this dream, I know that once he freed my sisters and me from the matron, we liberated thousands of others.
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