Waking up; part two
Aug. 16th, 2011 02:12 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
soltianA follow-up to my post from...jesus, November? When I put together four short drabbles about four different characters waking up.
Here are six more.
Vito Tornincasa - The Sun-Land
The earth is vibrating. The smell of straw fills his nostrils and animal scent washes over him with a cold, biting breath of winter air. The ground…is shaking. No, it’s a cart. He’s moving, and he’s in someone’s cart, and he doesn’t remember how he got there. He tries moving his arms and legs, and they all respond, albeit half-numb from cold. He sits up, and his head swims. He squints upwards at the sun, and realizes he’s heading south. He can’t head south, father is in the northeast, drinking in a tavern somewhere, in desperate need of one swift knife to the side and a twist until his guts spill on his lady’s shoes. He finally realizes that the cart is being driven, and that he should tell the driver to stop.
“I feel sick,” he deadpans, as loud as he can. Not loud enough. He turns around and squints at the cart driver. A woman. Not an old woman, either, about the age of his mother. He gets to his feet, and using the rough slats of the cart as support, makes his way to the front of the cart. He grabs hold of her robe, and she looks over her shoulder at him. There’s no face, and barely any bone. She whispers something, and where there should be horror, he feels sorrow, sympathy, need. He reaches for her face and grasps nothing. He tries again, and a face forms under his palms, but she’s pitch black, and her eyes are empty. He can feel the heat of fever under his palms. Her mouth opens and closes silently, and he understands words that he can’t hear, but the cart has picked up speed, and the wind is rushing in his ears. He has to shout to be heard, and his throat is weak.
“I can’t help you,” he says, “We have to turn around. You can’t take me south – you just can’t. I won’t go to the Sun-Land.”
Grief strikes her face, and the cart hurtles onwards. Black tears slip past her tar cheeks, and cover his fingers, and trail after them when he tries to let go of her face.
I WILL TAKE YOU TO YOUR SISTERS, her voice suddenly rings from the clouds. I WILL TAKE YOU TO YOUR MOTHER. THEY ARE WAITING TO HEAR YOUR VOICE. THIS IS ALL THEY EVER WANTED.
❧
With a jolt, his eyes were open, and the room is dark and muggy and smells of sweat and blood and afterbirth. His arm is draped over the sleeping body of a heavy, angry woman, and the large windows letting in starlight and dense summer air remind him that he’s in Ilius’ manor. He checks, sleepily, to make sure Ken hasn’t woken. He doesn’t remember falling asleep next to her, and certainly not holding her, being allowed to hold her. A small sound calls his attention to it, and the baby stirs in its sleep, in a nest of stained blankets that has been shoved to the center of the wide bed. He reaches out, and tugs the bundle closer, gets a better look. He checks the pup’s pulse, and then its breathing. Too tired to think, he puts his arm back around Ken, and she stirs this time, stiffening in discontent. He drops his face against the damp, fair hair on her neck.
“Not tonight,” he whispers.
“Vito?” Ken growls, and he feels steely fingertips claw into his arm. The sting is a comfort. The growl is a comfort. Her stench is a comfort.
“The Sun-Land will have to wait.”
---
Piotr Sawicki - A Cabin in the Woods Somewhere
No alarm goes off, but he wakes up a little before seven, after having been asleep for three hours. The fireplace is dim and the scratchy green blanket has slipped to the side on his boulder-like body, leaving one arm and his shin exposed. His leg is fully covered by his corduroy and boot, but his forearm is bare and his elbow aches from cold and neglect. Rotating the sore joint, he shakes the blanket into a folded rectangle and lets it fall with a rush of cold air onto the thin mattress on the floor. Bedding taken care of, he crosses the raw wooden floor to the small refrigerator, and his hand swallows the short metal handle as he pulls it down, then open. There’s jam, and there’s bread. There’s also an uncovered hunk of corned beef, pepper clinging to its surface and a chilly stone plate underneath it stained with grease. He lifts the plate with three fingers and sets it on the table behind him without looking. Then he turns on the tap and scrubs his hands, face, and the back of his neck with cold water. The dish towel is still in his hand when he sits down at the table, and he lets it sag damply against the oak. His attention is on breaking apart the corned beef with his fingers, chewing, swallowing, at no particular pace other than slow. He pauses. The white noise of sleep-breathing in the room has stopped, and that brings his attention to the fact that it was there. He lets his eyes trail up a pale ladder in front of his bed to the tiny loft above, where half a face (two narrowed eyes, light brown hair, four skinny fingers) are watching him. The white morning light is stronger in the loft than it is down on the floor. He pauses, then lifts his greasy plate in greeting.
“Are you hungry?”
There’s a sullen hesitation before the sleepy face retreats, and he hears the rustle of sheets as the boy in the loft buries himself back into his blanket. He finishes his corned beef in continued silence, and the sleeping breath does not return. He wipes his hands and mouth with the towel before placing the stone plate in the sink. He then takes his coat and hat off of the pegs by the door and wraps them around himself, lifts a heavy satchel from the floor, and closes the door behind him.
---
Apollo Pythius - This Marble House
He woke up to the sound of the terrace door blowing open, and summer light pouring into the room. The floor was marble, the curtains blue, and air chilled his bare shoulders as the sea-salt breeze came inside after the door. There was a steady, pleasant sound of waves rustling on the beach, and soft singing outside from the servants going about their laundry – breathing in deeper he could almost smell the damp white linen. Cracking his eyes open, he stared at the patch of bright sunlight framed by the open door, uncertain for a few seconds whether it was pleasant, and then closed his eyes. The bright rectangle turned green and then bright orange behind his closed lids. A quiet sigh sounded behind him, and he rolled over, smiling, to greet his sister.
“Couldn’t stand to be alone all night, Artemis?”
“You know how it is,” she yawned, and arched her back like a satisfied cat. “My bed is usually made up of maidens, it’s hard to get comfortable without a decent amount of flesh to rest on.”
“Are you trying to finally tell me that my flesh is sufficient for you?”
“If you’re asleep, you do just fine… your back is like silk.” She ran her hands over it to emphasize her point, and he stiffened, hungrily acknowledging the bare nudity of her slender chest, her smooth hips, the dark softness between her thighs. “Let your hands follow your eyes and you may not have fingers for long,” she cooed, and his gaze snapped back up to her face, lips taut.
“And my mouth?”
“Do we always have to be scraping for loopholes, little brother?”
“I was asking if I could kiss you.”
She paused, amused, and continued her slow tease of slim fingers up his spine, down his shoulder blade, almost liquid. He allowed himself to gather her around the waist, her breasts brushing up against his chest, unbearably soft.
“You may,” she finally concluded, “But keep that blood in your face, where it belongs. If it starts to run south I won’t be seeing you for a week.”
It wasn’t worth the risk, he told himself, but he breathed in the scent of pine from her hair, and imagined Delos, and felt home come back all in one piece when his lips met hers.
---
Caile of the Mages - The Center of the Earth
He wakes up with his cheek against limestone, and his warmest blanket tucked with studious attention around most of his body. There’s a warm weight against his stomach, and he shivers, curling toward it, tail sweeping the cool floor as his body attempts to create a fetal position around the live creature sleeping next to him. His wet eyes stay open in the darkness, embers of a fire flickering, reflecting in them. He can hear the wind whistling through the tunnels that his little underground cavern leads to, the squeaking and chittering of small rodents calling to one another, directing traffic. It’s raining outside, he can smell it in the earth, that deep, cool, accepting scent of pure water being poured generously from the sky into the waiting soil. His entire body shivers, and the smaller one next to him shudders as well. He puts a hand on Forty’s back and shakes him, dragging his blanket out from underneath him gently, keeping it draped over his shoulders and arms like royalty.
“Up. Upstairs. You’re shaking like a leaf.”
Forty grumbles, rubs his good eye with a three-fingered hand. He stretches on all fours and walks that way, too, his stubby tail barely brushing Caile’s knees, oversized belly almost brushing the floor.
“You’re carrying me up the ladder. Coming down to make sure your ass doesn’t freeze is one thing, but climbing up at four in the morning is ridiculous.”
“It’d be good for you. I don’t know how you maintain that kind of figure on a diet of fruit and fish.”
“You bring dairy and honey from the market. And don’t try to tell me I shouldn’t touch it, I’ll kill myself before I let you force me to give up cheese.”
“It’s not right for your system, Forty.”
“So you keep telling me. Lift me up.”
Sighing, Caile bends his knees, and offers an arm for Forty to climb into. Holding him to his waist like a child under the cape of a blanket, he ascends the ladder to the surface with one hand and two feet, feeling his head get stuffier and more blank with each rung.
“Don’t fall,” Forty whispers, and lays his chin on his shoulder, his little hand pulsing concern against his chest.
---
Taurun of D'escan - The Walls We Build
He wakes up still seated, his elbows on his desk, his forehead pressed against a stack of books in front of him, like a fortress between his study and reality. His mind plays over a drone of white noise, recollections, memories, things that happened five minutes and fifteen years ago. His father telling him that paperwork had nothing to do with war, and that the numbers of men felled with a sword would force the numbers on paper to fall into place. What a terribly foolish man he had been. Bloodthirsty and stupid, there couldn’t possibly be a worse combination. It was lucky the man had died young in battle, or he might not have had time to fix his mistakes properly in his own lifetime. He looks over the papers scattered on his desk and the numbers start to swirl into each other. The desert colony costs this much to maintain, that much to euthanize. These troops need heavier gear because of unexpected weather and will be either useless or expensive. This area is just out of his reach because the locals have a geographical advantage. The Mages should be taking care of that, and it won’t cost anything, but they move at the pace of a snail. Patcha had him at a standstill for now, but he’d have his hands on fresh blood one way or another. He stops – breathes. He wishes, briefly, for less foresight, and tries to remind himself of his immense success. All that stares him in the face is everything he has not yet accomplished. He gathers the papers into a stack and takes momentary comfort in the smooth, unwrinkled pile they make. He lays a heavy book on top of them to keep them in place and gets to his feet, pulling his plainest cloak around his shoulders as he turns the knob on his lamp to dim the light.
A walk in the garden is the best remedy for an overcrowded mind. He allows himself the simplicity of that thought as he breathes in night air, as his boots rustle in the damp grass of his grounds. Lights are on at various points in the castle, as he walks away from it he can see them peppered along the expansive walls, turrets, and towers like a second starscape. He hears an upsurge of laughter from M’Kait’s tower, a flurry of movement and the clinking of glass. The guards should be doing their jobs instead of entertaining his son, but the night is quiet, and he lets it pass. The sounds and scents of the castle fade as he continues his trek over the grass and approaches the dark smudge of a hedge in the distance. Fog clings to the labyrinth like a delicate veil, and gives the black sky the illusion of extra light. When faced with the barred gate, he lifts a heavy key from his inner pocket, fits it to, and turns.
He waits to breathe in after closing the door behind him with a heavy, rustling thump. He tucks his broad tail in against the door under his cloak, letting the difference in scent come to him gradually now that he’s entered the maze. Outside the night is crisp and cool, sprinkled with dew and starlight. Inside the scent of spice and jungle flowers wafts toward him from the innocuous hedge – a selective after-effect of magic. He raises his hand casually and tugs a hidden thread near the top of the entrance archway. Bells ring from deep inside the maze.
---
Naso Durant - Blue on gray, gray, gray
He wakes up with his cheek against cotton sheets, mind still clinging to the sticky, wet remnants of a suffocating dream. It’s three am and it’s July and he’s sticky and damp in several ways. He lays still, breathing, keeping his eyes closed so he can try to keep some of the night images trapped inside of his head. He just remembers warm, and breathing, and heavy, hands, friendly pressure pushing him downward, coaxing, a voice in his ear, but no one in particular. The color of the dream was
gray, gray, gray
but it’s not like anyone dreamed in color… did they? He’s losing it, the images are fading, his mind is waking up, and his thighs are sticky. He opens his eyes, and peels himself away from the sheets. He can feel steam that isn’t there, and he rolls himself over, his mind rotating in his skull, taking in one deep breath and sighing it back out. He can either clean up and resolve himself to several sleepless hours of the night, or pretend he can sleep with come in his boxers. One of his knees lifts, then the other, and he leads himself to the shower, leaving the light off and the temperature of the water cool. Standing in the tub and looking down at the small gray drain, he holds his palms gently over his ears to warp the sound of the water. He pictures the ocean, and thinks about waves curling around his toes, and feels glad that the water is cool. After he dries off, he’s hungry, and spends some time finding fresh pajamas before walking down the stairs in his quiet house that smells like dogs and vanilla. He rifles through the fridge in the kitchen for a leftover slice of pizza, and a half-eaten piece of garlic bread he’s pretty sure only he would be inconsiderate enough to put back in the box. He leaves the light off again, and the kitchen has many shapes illuminated into obscurity by just the light pouring from inside the cool box. He sees yellow and blue shadows on the floor as he closes the door. On his way back upstairs the bathroom light is on in the hall, the door is open. His father is standing there, a glass of water in one hand, and a toothbrush in the other. He raises an eyebrow in surprise, and indicates Naso with his toothbrush, his voice a low but still too loud whisper.
“Bit early, isn’t it, champ?”
Naso shrugs, and smiles, eyes squinted against the bright warm lights of the bathroom.
“It’s too hot to sleep.”
His father smiles around the toothbrush he’s now scrubbing studiously against his teeth. Naso laughs, shaking his head and feeling a little warmer all over, and a little hungrier.
“See you later, dad. Have a good trip.”
His dad sticks a thumbs-up out of the bathroom door after he passes by, to make sure he gets the message of positive attitude. He smiles to himself and closes his bedroom door behind him. His phone is on the windowsill, and he notices it because it’s glowing. He walks over, flips it open.
New Text Message:
Bay
I know you’re asleep but you should know – the stars are beautiful here. We’ll come out together some time.
He lets his thumb navigate the tiny keypad, ripping a piece of cold pepperoni with his teeth thoughtlessly as he does.
I think I just had a dream about you.
Barely a minute later, the phone starts buzzing, and Bay’s name is on the caller ID, calling this time. He flips the phone open, and tosses the half-pizza and bread onto a plate he still had on his desk from lunch that afternoon.
“Why are you texting me at three in the morning, anyway?”
“Why are you dreaming about me at three in the morning, I should ask? Good dream, or bad dream?”
Naso snorts, taking another bite and not bothering to pretend he isn’t chewing.
“Good, I guess. I don’t remember much.”
“You remember I was in it. Give me details… you’re up, you might as well.”
“Aren’t you with Stea right now?”
“Sure, but he went to bed four hours ago. Sano’s here too, remember. Want me to tell you how that went?”
“Not right now. I think I want to hear more about the stars.”
“You wish you could get away with that. Tell me about your dream.”
“I don’t know. It was heavy. And warm, I guess. It wasn’t really detailed.”
“Sounds interesting, though.”
“I guess some part of me thought it was interesting.”
“And that means… not what I think it means, right?”
“Probably not.”
“Does that mean yes or no?”
Pause. Naso’s face heats in the already stifling warmth of his bedroom, picking at the crust of pizza on his plate, his knees pressed against the edge of his desk, sore and uncomfortable.
“I’m hearing yes.” Bay’s voice purrs warmly into the phone, picking up the slack.
Naso breathes out a laugh, shaking his head at no one to see.
“You’re hearing what you want to hear.”
Here are six more.
Vito Tornincasa - The Sun-Land
The earth is vibrating. The smell of straw fills his nostrils and animal scent washes over him with a cold, biting breath of winter air. The ground…is shaking. No, it’s a cart. He’s moving, and he’s in someone’s cart, and he doesn’t remember how he got there. He tries moving his arms and legs, and they all respond, albeit half-numb from cold. He sits up, and his head swims. He squints upwards at the sun, and realizes he’s heading south. He can’t head south, father is in the northeast, drinking in a tavern somewhere, in desperate need of one swift knife to the side and a twist until his guts spill on his lady’s shoes. He finally realizes that the cart is being driven, and that he should tell the driver to stop.
“I feel sick,” he deadpans, as loud as he can. Not loud enough. He turns around and squints at the cart driver. A woman. Not an old woman, either, about the age of his mother. He gets to his feet, and using the rough slats of the cart as support, makes his way to the front of the cart. He grabs hold of her robe, and she looks over her shoulder at him. There’s no face, and barely any bone. She whispers something, and where there should be horror, he feels sorrow, sympathy, need. He reaches for her face and grasps nothing. He tries again, and a face forms under his palms, but she’s pitch black, and her eyes are empty. He can feel the heat of fever under his palms. Her mouth opens and closes silently, and he understands words that he can’t hear, but the cart has picked up speed, and the wind is rushing in his ears. He has to shout to be heard, and his throat is weak.
“I can’t help you,” he says, “We have to turn around. You can’t take me south – you just can’t. I won’t go to the Sun-Land.”
Grief strikes her face, and the cart hurtles onwards. Black tears slip past her tar cheeks, and cover his fingers, and trail after them when he tries to let go of her face.
I WILL TAKE YOU TO YOUR SISTERS, her voice suddenly rings from the clouds. I WILL TAKE YOU TO YOUR MOTHER. THEY ARE WAITING TO HEAR YOUR VOICE. THIS IS ALL THEY EVER WANTED.
❧
With a jolt, his eyes were open, and the room is dark and muggy and smells of sweat and blood and afterbirth. His arm is draped over the sleeping body of a heavy, angry woman, and the large windows letting in starlight and dense summer air remind him that he’s in Ilius’ manor. He checks, sleepily, to make sure Ken hasn’t woken. He doesn’t remember falling asleep next to her, and certainly not holding her, being allowed to hold her. A small sound calls his attention to it, and the baby stirs in its sleep, in a nest of stained blankets that has been shoved to the center of the wide bed. He reaches out, and tugs the bundle closer, gets a better look. He checks the pup’s pulse, and then its breathing. Too tired to think, he puts his arm back around Ken, and she stirs this time, stiffening in discontent. He drops his face against the damp, fair hair on her neck.
“Not tonight,” he whispers.
“Vito?” Ken growls, and he feels steely fingertips claw into his arm. The sting is a comfort. The growl is a comfort. Her stench is a comfort.
“The Sun-Land will have to wait.”
---
Piotr Sawicki - A Cabin in the Woods Somewhere
No alarm goes off, but he wakes up a little before seven, after having been asleep for three hours. The fireplace is dim and the scratchy green blanket has slipped to the side on his boulder-like body, leaving one arm and his shin exposed. His leg is fully covered by his corduroy and boot, but his forearm is bare and his elbow aches from cold and neglect. Rotating the sore joint, he shakes the blanket into a folded rectangle and lets it fall with a rush of cold air onto the thin mattress on the floor. Bedding taken care of, he crosses the raw wooden floor to the small refrigerator, and his hand swallows the short metal handle as he pulls it down, then open. There’s jam, and there’s bread. There’s also an uncovered hunk of corned beef, pepper clinging to its surface and a chilly stone plate underneath it stained with grease. He lifts the plate with three fingers and sets it on the table behind him without looking. Then he turns on the tap and scrubs his hands, face, and the back of his neck with cold water. The dish towel is still in his hand when he sits down at the table, and he lets it sag damply against the oak. His attention is on breaking apart the corned beef with his fingers, chewing, swallowing, at no particular pace other than slow. He pauses. The white noise of sleep-breathing in the room has stopped, and that brings his attention to the fact that it was there. He lets his eyes trail up a pale ladder in front of his bed to the tiny loft above, where half a face (two narrowed eyes, light brown hair, four skinny fingers) are watching him. The white morning light is stronger in the loft than it is down on the floor. He pauses, then lifts his greasy plate in greeting.
“Are you hungry?”
There’s a sullen hesitation before the sleepy face retreats, and he hears the rustle of sheets as the boy in the loft buries himself back into his blanket. He finishes his corned beef in continued silence, and the sleeping breath does not return. He wipes his hands and mouth with the towel before placing the stone plate in the sink. He then takes his coat and hat off of the pegs by the door and wraps them around himself, lifts a heavy satchel from the floor, and closes the door behind him.
---
Apollo Pythius - This Marble House
He woke up to the sound of the terrace door blowing open, and summer light pouring into the room. The floor was marble, the curtains blue, and air chilled his bare shoulders as the sea-salt breeze came inside after the door. There was a steady, pleasant sound of waves rustling on the beach, and soft singing outside from the servants going about their laundry – breathing in deeper he could almost smell the damp white linen. Cracking his eyes open, he stared at the patch of bright sunlight framed by the open door, uncertain for a few seconds whether it was pleasant, and then closed his eyes. The bright rectangle turned green and then bright orange behind his closed lids. A quiet sigh sounded behind him, and he rolled over, smiling, to greet his sister.
“Couldn’t stand to be alone all night, Artemis?”
“You know how it is,” she yawned, and arched her back like a satisfied cat. “My bed is usually made up of maidens, it’s hard to get comfortable without a decent amount of flesh to rest on.”
“Are you trying to finally tell me that my flesh is sufficient for you?”
“If you’re asleep, you do just fine… your back is like silk.” She ran her hands over it to emphasize her point, and he stiffened, hungrily acknowledging the bare nudity of her slender chest, her smooth hips, the dark softness between her thighs. “Let your hands follow your eyes and you may not have fingers for long,” she cooed, and his gaze snapped back up to her face, lips taut.
“And my mouth?”
“Do we always have to be scraping for loopholes, little brother?”
“I was asking if I could kiss you.”
She paused, amused, and continued her slow tease of slim fingers up his spine, down his shoulder blade, almost liquid. He allowed himself to gather her around the waist, her breasts brushing up against his chest, unbearably soft.
“You may,” she finally concluded, “But keep that blood in your face, where it belongs. If it starts to run south I won’t be seeing you for a week.”
It wasn’t worth the risk, he told himself, but he breathed in the scent of pine from her hair, and imagined Delos, and felt home come back all in one piece when his lips met hers.
---
Caile of the Mages - The Center of the Earth
He wakes up with his cheek against limestone, and his warmest blanket tucked with studious attention around most of his body. There’s a warm weight against his stomach, and he shivers, curling toward it, tail sweeping the cool floor as his body attempts to create a fetal position around the live creature sleeping next to him. His wet eyes stay open in the darkness, embers of a fire flickering, reflecting in them. He can hear the wind whistling through the tunnels that his little underground cavern leads to, the squeaking and chittering of small rodents calling to one another, directing traffic. It’s raining outside, he can smell it in the earth, that deep, cool, accepting scent of pure water being poured generously from the sky into the waiting soil. His entire body shivers, and the smaller one next to him shudders as well. He puts a hand on Forty’s back and shakes him, dragging his blanket out from underneath him gently, keeping it draped over his shoulders and arms like royalty.
“Up. Upstairs. You’re shaking like a leaf.”
Forty grumbles, rubs his good eye with a three-fingered hand. He stretches on all fours and walks that way, too, his stubby tail barely brushing Caile’s knees, oversized belly almost brushing the floor.
“You’re carrying me up the ladder. Coming down to make sure your ass doesn’t freeze is one thing, but climbing up at four in the morning is ridiculous.”
“It’d be good for you. I don’t know how you maintain that kind of figure on a diet of fruit and fish.”
“You bring dairy and honey from the market. And don’t try to tell me I shouldn’t touch it, I’ll kill myself before I let you force me to give up cheese.”
“It’s not right for your system, Forty.”
“So you keep telling me. Lift me up.”
Sighing, Caile bends his knees, and offers an arm for Forty to climb into. Holding him to his waist like a child under the cape of a blanket, he ascends the ladder to the surface with one hand and two feet, feeling his head get stuffier and more blank with each rung.
“Don’t fall,” Forty whispers, and lays his chin on his shoulder, his little hand pulsing concern against his chest.
---
Taurun of D'escan - The Walls We Build
He wakes up still seated, his elbows on his desk, his forehead pressed against a stack of books in front of him, like a fortress between his study and reality. His mind plays over a drone of white noise, recollections, memories, things that happened five minutes and fifteen years ago. His father telling him that paperwork had nothing to do with war, and that the numbers of men felled with a sword would force the numbers on paper to fall into place. What a terribly foolish man he had been. Bloodthirsty and stupid, there couldn’t possibly be a worse combination. It was lucky the man had died young in battle, or he might not have had time to fix his mistakes properly in his own lifetime. He looks over the papers scattered on his desk and the numbers start to swirl into each other. The desert colony costs this much to maintain, that much to euthanize. These troops need heavier gear because of unexpected weather and will be either useless or expensive. This area is just out of his reach because the locals have a geographical advantage. The Mages should be taking care of that, and it won’t cost anything, but they move at the pace of a snail. Patcha had him at a standstill for now, but he’d have his hands on fresh blood one way or another. He stops – breathes. He wishes, briefly, for less foresight, and tries to remind himself of his immense success. All that stares him in the face is everything he has not yet accomplished. He gathers the papers into a stack and takes momentary comfort in the smooth, unwrinkled pile they make. He lays a heavy book on top of them to keep them in place and gets to his feet, pulling his plainest cloak around his shoulders as he turns the knob on his lamp to dim the light.
A walk in the garden is the best remedy for an overcrowded mind. He allows himself the simplicity of that thought as he breathes in night air, as his boots rustle in the damp grass of his grounds. Lights are on at various points in the castle, as he walks away from it he can see them peppered along the expansive walls, turrets, and towers like a second starscape. He hears an upsurge of laughter from M’Kait’s tower, a flurry of movement and the clinking of glass. The guards should be doing their jobs instead of entertaining his son, but the night is quiet, and he lets it pass. The sounds and scents of the castle fade as he continues his trek over the grass and approaches the dark smudge of a hedge in the distance. Fog clings to the labyrinth like a delicate veil, and gives the black sky the illusion of extra light. When faced with the barred gate, he lifts a heavy key from his inner pocket, fits it to, and turns.
He waits to breathe in after closing the door behind him with a heavy, rustling thump. He tucks his broad tail in against the door under his cloak, letting the difference in scent come to him gradually now that he’s entered the maze. Outside the night is crisp and cool, sprinkled with dew and starlight. Inside the scent of spice and jungle flowers wafts toward him from the innocuous hedge – a selective after-effect of magic. He raises his hand casually and tugs a hidden thread near the top of the entrance archway. Bells ring from deep inside the maze.
---
Naso Durant - Blue on gray, gray, gray
He wakes up with his cheek against cotton sheets, mind still clinging to the sticky, wet remnants of a suffocating dream. It’s three am and it’s July and he’s sticky and damp in several ways. He lays still, breathing, keeping his eyes closed so he can try to keep some of the night images trapped inside of his head. He just remembers warm, and breathing, and heavy, hands, friendly pressure pushing him downward, coaxing, a voice in his ear, but no one in particular. The color of the dream was
gray, gray, gray
but it’s not like anyone dreamed in color… did they? He’s losing it, the images are fading, his mind is waking up, and his thighs are sticky. He opens his eyes, and peels himself away from the sheets. He can feel steam that isn’t there, and he rolls himself over, his mind rotating in his skull, taking in one deep breath and sighing it back out. He can either clean up and resolve himself to several sleepless hours of the night, or pretend he can sleep with come in his boxers. One of his knees lifts, then the other, and he leads himself to the shower, leaving the light off and the temperature of the water cool. Standing in the tub and looking down at the small gray drain, he holds his palms gently over his ears to warp the sound of the water. He pictures the ocean, and thinks about waves curling around his toes, and feels glad that the water is cool. After he dries off, he’s hungry, and spends some time finding fresh pajamas before walking down the stairs in his quiet house that smells like dogs and vanilla. He rifles through the fridge in the kitchen for a leftover slice of pizza, and a half-eaten piece of garlic bread he’s pretty sure only he would be inconsiderate enough to put back in the box. He leaves the light off again, and the kitchen has many shapes illuminated into obscurity by just the light pouring from inside the cool box. He sees yellow and blue shadows on the floor as he closes the door. On his way back upstairs the bathroom light is on in the hall, the door is open. His father is standing there, a glass of water in one hand, and a toothbrush in the other. He raises an eyebrow in surprise, and indicates Naso with his toothbrush, his voice a low but still too loud whisper.
“Bit early, isn’t it, champ?”
Naso shrugs, and smiles, eyes squinted against the bright warm lights of the bathroom.
“It’s too hot to sleep.”
His father smiles around the toothbrush he’s now scrubbing studiously against his teeth. Naso laughs, shaking his head and feeling a little warmer all over, and a little hungrier.
“See you later, dad. Have a good trip.”
His dad sticks a thumbs-up out of the bathroom door after he passes by, to make sure he gets the message of positive attitude. He smiles to himself and closes his bedroom door behind him. His phone is on the windowsill, and he notices it because it’s glowing. He walks over, flips it open.
Bay
I know you’re asleep but you should know – the stars are beautiful here. We’ll come out together some time.
He lets his thumb navigate the tiny keypad, ripping a piece of cold pepperoni with his teeth thoughtlessly as he does.
Barely a minute later, the phone starts buzzing, and Bay’s name is on the caller ID, calling this time. He flips the phone open, and tosses the half-pizza and bread onto a plate he still had on his desk from lunch that afternoon.
“Why are you texting me at three in the morning, anyway?”
“Why are you dreaming about me at three in the morning, I should ask? Good dream, or bad dream?”
Naso snorts, taking another bite and not bothering to pretend he isn’t chewing.
“Good, I guess. I don’t remember much.”
“You remember I was in it. Give me details… you’re up, you might as well.”
“Aren’t you with Stea right now?”
“Sure, but he went to bed four hours ago. Sano’s here too, remember. Want me to tell you how that went?”
“Not right now. I think I want to hear more about the stars.”
“You wish you could get away with that. Tell me about your dream.”
“I don’t know. It was heavy. And warm, I guess. It wasn’t really detailed.”
“Sounds interesting, though.”
“I guess some part of me thought it was interesting.”
“And that means… not what I think it means, right?”
“Probably not.”
“Does that mean yes or no?”
Pause. Naso’s face heats in the already stifling warmth of his bedroom, picking at the crust of pizza on his plate, his knees pressed against the edge of his desk, sore and uncomfortable.
“I’m hearing yes.” Bay’s voice purrs warmly into the phone, picking up the slack.
Naso breathes out a laugh, shaking his head at no one to see.
“You’re hearing what you want to hear.”