Chapter 63
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Usoa skipped through the dream singing softly to herself, reveling in the energy and power of it as she passed. An oasis sprung around her, filling the harsh desert sands with life as she moved, half dancing on her own path.
Her skirts, as red as her hair moved heavy around her, her chest covered in beads played their own music with each twist and turn. A dress her mother had described to her years and years ago while she was still young enough to need wet pants that had imprinted itself on her memories. The style of their people from across the wide desert, near the border of the Fire Realm where the magic users made sparks and heat.
The dreamer, a woman, likely one of her own servants smiled and clapped, "How beautiful. What a beautiful song."
Usoa smiled and leaped into the cool blue waters under the heavy palms, sliding into another world. Somewhere out there in the mass of dreamers Esti and Zorion would be doing the same along with every other dreamweaver in the land. And also in that mass would be the darktellers, undoing all their work, ripping the light to expose the darkness.
I wonder what they think, what they look like here, she thought as she popped out of a bathtub full of half formed women. She twisted the energy, giving them more shape for the dreamer buried deep in their masses as she climbed out, dry.
"If I go above, I wonder if I can find them," she questioned out loud as she walked through the bathroom door and into the City, the shared space of dreaming. She hummed to herself as the dreamers passed by her, locked in their own personal stories, her passage just a ripple against them. Another weaver crossed her path and she waved at them, the man unknown but the look of him familiar to her as any weaver would be. They knew their own.
"Hello, sister!" the man called from the distance.
"Good evening, brother!" they were all brothers and sisters here in the Veil. The man hurried on, following his own path as she did hers, as they all did. It didn't matter, they all performed the same function, spreading the light. It's all that mattered.
She knew many people tried to find their friends and family to give them a gift of pleasant sleep but she tried to avoid them. Their dreaming selves seemed to her far too intimate, too private. She had stopped visiting her brother and parents when she was no longer a child and had never seen her younger siblings in the Veil at all. Their dreams, good or bad, as far she was concerned, their own. But the darktellers were different. Their life in the Veil was like hers, just as solid and real as their lives in the palace, and she wanted to meet them, wanted to share more about her own lands with them. Show them that they weren't terrible, to make friends. She went up.
She rose from the City, and into that space where the dreamers looked like stars in the sky. Thousands of individual balls of light that moved like beads through her fingers as she pushed them out of the way searching for a feeling that she thought she would be able to recognize. They'll feel like a dreamweaver probably but different, she thought as she brushed by another weaver.
The memory of Lloren's darkness sprung to mind again, the feather touch of it it against her skin. She closed her eyes, pulling it to her clearer, dissecting the feeling of it to get at the hidden emotion that lay underneath. There was a warmth to it, something wild, she thought as she brushed over the dreamers, letting herself be guided to something that felt right.
Her fingers fluttered over a dreamer and she pulled back, resisting the urge to fall into the half familiar feeling, her eyes flying open. That's not the darkteller, it's him, she thought, her finger still on it, his energy pulling at her gently. "He's dreaming," she hummed, the feeling of it flowing through her, begging her attentions.
She pulled her hand back and brushed the spheres back over him, burying his dreams away from her. She dropped into another, some random stranger in the midst of a nightmare, a sandstorm that spun around her, dark figures attempting to find their way. She dropped to the ground, her presence calming things, pushing away the clouds and settling the wind.
"That was close," she said shuddering in something that was far from disgust. What does it matter if I see him? He's just a man, I'm being silly, she thought. "He was," she said slowly, "the only thing that felt like that in the Veil. I should have found the Prince too at least. Is he not a shadow-wielder himself? But he must be, otherwise he could not make a bride into the Sorgia. I didn't see him use any of his powers but then, you can't hide what you are here, not from one of us."
Above her, the sky turned blue and clear. The dreamer and the dreams they created stepped over her as if she weren't there at all, on their way to whatever business the sleeping being had to care for. Usoa in contrast laid on the warm sand, letting the false sun of the dream shine onto her, mimicking the sensations of the waking world.
"What if they are not asleep yet?" she sat up, the realization so simple. Yes it was late but she knew Edur would not wait to take his wife, his provocations well known in the palace. After that they would likely be to upset to sleep if he was not gentle with them. And even if they did sleep, she would not find them if they were within another dream, as she was.
The Prince may well be drinking still with some dancers. Lloren said he was tired, when I saw him, he likely retired long before the rest of the party. Silly me, making grand plots where there are none. The night after tomorrow it would be better to search for them.
No difference in the sand below her and the dunes that had surrounded her since birth she let herself enjoy the feeling of them under her. "There is no desert there," she said to the sky. She had tried to read about the Realm when the marriage, and her role in it, was announced. The book, old and brittle had been impossible for her, the words written in the language of the Dark Realm, not in the common tongue shared by all realms. Still she had looked at the pictures. Trees of a kind she had never seen before, huge with dark, heavy leaves, had filled the pages, bordering words she couldn't understand. Is that what it's like? Forests, she recalled the strange word, a natural occurrence that did not happen in her own realm.
In the dream she sat up closed her eyes, drawing the energy around herself, moving it so that it formed something like she saw in the books. She opened her eyes to the same trees, funneled through her imagination, their canopy blocking the desert sun, laying strange patterns on the ground. "Is this how the world will look when we pass through to it?" she asked the wind.
"There's still time to stay with Ferran," she sighed. He had been right, they could just as easily take a street girl in her place. There were more than enough of them. Even an old woman would be fine. The Prince from the Dark would only take one wife and that would be Esti, the other, her position, could be anyone at all. "If I stay with Ferran, what then? Will he move me into a house in the city, make me a soldier's wife? Or does he plan to move into a room under my mother, to win favor with my brother?"
What she knew of Ferran was far less than what he knew of her. But then, beyond the fact that he was a member of the guard, not the Hidden Guard for her father but the basic guard and slightly older than herself, she hadn't bothered to learn much else. He had seemed to be a way to pass the time and Porras enjoyed her consorts, Usoa thought it would be a nice distraction.
What do I want, she thought staring up at the strange canopy the light flickering and changing as the breeze blew through it. "I feel like I'm just here, just waiting for something to happen. I might as well be Esti's maid. I have no purpose, no goals. I. Am. Boring."
But there had been something in that touch of darkness that made her pause and even now under the strange trees she felt a sort of curiosity. Hadn't she stood on the roof to wait with Esti? Did I really do that for her, she thought, or did I want to see them come over the horizon for myself?
She frowned. Like this is no good, she thought, there is nothing but the same patterns, the same dreams, here for me. I'll go. I'll go and I'll make a life for myself there. If I don't like it, when Esti is bonded and safe, I will come back, I'll go somewhere else, I'll make something of myself, I'll make something of this, she decided.
"There you are!" Esti called.
Usoa turned, frowning at the girl who hurried through the trees to her. Her voice high like a bell, different from the deeper tone of Usoa's. Her figure clad in flowing, silver robes that danced in a wind all their own and looked like water. Her eyes shone bright like two copper colored coins. "What do you want? Were you looking for me?"
"Yes, I traced your light all the way here. I want you to find my husband tell me what he's like. What he's really like," Esti commanded.
"I can't, I don't think he's asleep," Usoa replied.
"He's just gone to bed, less than half an hour ago. I waited up and then took some sleeping liquid so that I could come here right away."
"Go yourself," Usoa growled.
"I can't! You know the Sorgia can't see her groom until we've passed through the Third Realm and into the dark! It will mess everything up if I do it now!"
"That's superstition," Usoa sighed. "But fine, I'll meet your prince." And see for myself some of what the Dark Realm really looks like.
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Usoa skipped through the dream singing softly to herself, reveling in the energy and power of it as she passed. An oasis sprung around her, filling the harsh desert sands with life as she moved, half dancing on her own path.
Her skirts, as red as her hair moved heavy around her, her chest covered in beads played their own music with each twist and turn. A dress her mother had described to her years and years ago while she was still young enough to need wet pants that had imprinted itself on her memories. The style of their people from across the wide desert, near the border of the Fire Realm where the magic users made sparks and heat.
The dreamer, a woman, likely one of her own servants smiled and clapped, "How beautiful. What a beautiful song."
Usoa smiled and leaped into the cool blue waters under the heavy palms, sliding into another world. Somewhere out there in the mass of dreamers Esti and Zorion would be doing the same along with every other dreamweaver in the land. And also in that mass would be the darktellers, undoing all their work, ripping the light to expose the darkness.
I wonder what they think, what they look like here, she thought as she popped out of a bathtub full of half formed women. She twisted the energy, giving them more shape for the dreamer buried deep in their masses as she climbed out, dry.
"If I go above, I wonder if I can find them," she questioned out loud as she walked through the bathroom door and into the City, the shared space of dreaming. She hummed to herself as the dreamers passed by her, locked in their own personal stories, her passage just a ripple against them. Another weaver crossed her path and she waved at them, the man unknown but the look of him familiar to her as any weaver would be. They knew their own.
"Hello, sister!" the man called from the distance.
"Good evening, brother!" they were all brothers and sisters here in the Veil. The man hurried on, following his own path as she did hers, as they all did. It didn't matter, they all performed the same function, spreading the light. It's all that mattered.
She knew many people tried to find their friends and family to give them a gift of pleasant sleep but she tried to avoid them. Their dreaming selves seemed to her far too intimate, too private. She had stopped visiting her brother and parents when she was no longer a child and had never seen her younger siblings in the Veil at all. Their dreams, good or bad, as far she was concerned, their own. But the darktellers were different. Their life in the Veil was like hers, just as solid and real as their lives in the palace, and she wanted to meet them, wanted to share more about her own lands with them. Show them that they weren't terrible, to make friends. She went up.
She rose from the City, and into that space where the dreamers looked like stars in the sky. Thousands of individual balls of light that moved like beads through her fingers as she pushed them out of the way searching for a feeling that she thought she would be able to recognize. They'll feel like a dreamweaver probably but different, she thought as she brushed by another weaver.
The memory of Lloren's darkness sprung to mind again, the feather touch of it it against her skin. She closed her eyes, pulling it to her clearer, dissecting the feeling of it to get at the hidden emotion that lay underneath. There was a warmth to it, something wild, she thought as she brushed over the dreamers, letting herself be guided to something that felt right.
Her fingers fluttered over a dreamer and she pulled back, resisting the urge to fall into the half familiar feeling, her eyes flying open. That's not the darkteller, it's him, she thought, her finger still on it, his energy pulling at her gently. "He's dreaming," she hummed, the feeling of it flowing through her, begging her attentions.
She pulled her hand back and brushed the spheres back over him, burying his dreams away from her. She dropped into another, some random stranger in the midst of a nightmare, a sandstorm that spun around her, dark figures attempting to find their way. She dropped to the ground, her presence calming things, pushing away the clouds and settling the wind.
"That was close," she said shuddering in something that was far from disgust. What does it matter if I see him? He's just a man, I'm being silly, she thought. "He was," she said slowly, "the only thing that felt like that in the Veil. I should have found the Prince too at least. Is he not a shadow-wielder himself? But he must be, otherwise he could not make a bride into the Sorgia. I didn't see him use any of his powers but then, you can't hide what you are here, not from one of us."
Above her, the sky turned blue and clear. The dreamer and the dreams they created stepped over her as if she weren't there at all, on their way to whatever business the sleeping being had to care for. Usoa in contrast laid on the warm sand, letting the false sun of the dream shine onto her, mimicking the sensations of the waking world.
"What if they are not asleep yet?" she sat up, the realization so simple. Yes it was late but she knew Edur would not wait to take his wife, his provocations well known in the palace. After that they would likely be to upset to sleep if he was not gentle with them. And even if they did sleep, she would not find them if they were within another dream, as she was.
The Prince may well be drinking still with some dancers. Lloren said he was tired, when I saw him, he likely retired long before the rest of the party. Silly me, making grand plots where there are none. The night after tomorrow it would be better to search for them.
No difference in the sand below her and the dunes that had surrounded her since birth she let herself enjoy the feeling of them under her. "There is no desert there," she said to the sky. She had tried to read about the Realm when the marriage, and her role in it, was announced. The book, old and brittle had been impossible for her, the words written in the language of the Dark Realm, not in the common tongue shared by all realms. Still she had looked at the pictures. Trees of a kind she had never seen before, huge with dark, heavy leaves, had filled the pages, bordering words she couldn't understand. Is that what it's like? Forests, she recalled the strange word, a natural occurrence that did not happen in her own realm.
In the dream she sat up closed her eyes, drawing the energy around herself, moving it so that it formed something like she saw in the books. She opened her eyes to the same trees, funneled through her imagination, their canopy blocking the desert sun, laying strange patterns on the ground. "Is this how the world will look when we pass through to it?" she asked the wind.
"There's still time to stay with Ferran," she sighed. He had been right, they could just as easily take a street girl in her place. There were more than enough of them. Even an old woman would be fine. The Prince from the Dark would only take one wife and that would be Esti, the other, her position, could be anyone at all. "If I stay with Ferran, what then? Will he move me into a house in the city, make me a soldier's wife? Or does he plan to move into a room under my mother, to win favor with my brother?"
What she knew of Ferran was far less than what he knew of her. But then, beyond the fact that he was a member of the guard, not the Hidden Guard for her father but the basic guard and slightly older than herself, she hadn't bothered to learn much else. He had seemed to be a way to pass the time and Porras enjoyed her consorts, Usoa thought it would be a nice distraction.
What do I want, she thought staring up at the strange canopy the light flickering and changing as the breeze blew through it. "I feel like I'm just here, just waiting for something to happen. I might as well be Esti's maid. I have no purpose, no goals. I. Am. Boring."
But there had been something in that touch of darkness that made her pause and even now under the strange trees she felt a sort of curiosity. Hadn't she stood on the roof to wait with Esti? Did I really do that for her, she thought, or did I want to see them come over the horizon for myself?
She frowned. Like this is no good, she thought, there is nothing but the same patterns, the same dreams, here for me. I'll go. I'll go and I'll make a life for myself there. If I don't like it, when Esti is bonded and safe, I will come back, I'll go somewhere else, I'll make something of myself, I'll make something of this, she decided.
"There you are!" Esti called.
Usoa turned, frowning at the girl who hurried through the trees to her. Her voice high like a bell, different from the deeper tone of Usoa's. Her figure clad in flowing, silver robes that danced in a wind all their own and looked like water. Her eyes shone bright like two copper colored coins. "What do you want? Were you looking for me?"
"Yes, I traced your light all the way here. I want you to find my husband tell me what he's like. What he's really like," Esti commanded.
"I can't, I don't think he's asleep," Usoa replied.
"He's just gone to bed, less than half an hour ago. I waited up and then took some sleeping liquid so that I could come here right away."
"Go yourself," Usoa growled.
"I can't! You know the Sorgia can't see her groom until we've passed through the Third Realm and into the dark! It will mess everything up if I do it now!"
"That's superstition," Usoa sighed. "But fine, I'll meet your prince." And see for myself some of what the Dark Realm really looks like.
Usoa skipped through the dream singing softly to herself, reveling in the energy and power of it as she passed. An oasis sprung around her, filling the harsh desert sands with life as she moved, half dancing on her own path.Her skirts, as red as her hair moved heavy around her, her chest covered in beads played their own music with each twist and turn. A dress her mother had described to her years and years ago while she was still young enough to need wet pants that had imprinted itself on her memories. The style of their people from across the wide desert, near the border of the Fire Realm where the magic users made sparks and heat.The dreamer, a woman, likely one of her own servants smiled and clapped, "How beautiful. What a beautiful song."Usoa smiled and leaped into the cool blue waters under the heavy palms, sliding into another world. Somewhere out there in the mass of dreamers Esti and Zorion would be doing the same along with every other dreamweaver in the land. And also in that mass would be the darktellers, undoing all their work, ripping the light to expose the darkness.I wonder what they think, what they look like here, she thought as she popped out of a bathtub full of half formed women. She twisted the energy, giving them more shape for the dreamer buried deep in their masses as she climbed out, dry."If I go above, I wonder if I can find them," she questioned out loud as she walked through the bathroom door and into the City, the shared space of dreaming. She hummed to herself as the dreamers passed by her, locked in their own personal stories, her passage just a ripple against them. Another weaver crossed her path and she waved at them, the man unknown but the look of him familiar to her as any weaver would be. They knew their own."Hello, sister!" the man called from the distance."Good evening, brother!" they were all brothers and sisters here in the Veil. The man hurried on, following his own path as she did hers, as they all did. It didn't matter, they all performed the same function, spreading the light. It's all that mattered.She knew many people tried to find their friends and family to give them a gift of pleasant sleep but she tried to avoid them. Their dreaming selves seemed to her far too intimate, too private. She had stopped visiting her brother and parents when she was no longer a child and had never seen her younger siblings in the Veil at all. Their dreams, good or bad, as far she was concerned, their own. But the darktellers were different. Their life in the Veil was like hers, just as solid and real as their lives in the palace, and she wanted to meet them, wanted to share more about her own lands with them. Show them that they weren't terrible, to make friends. She went up.She rose from the City, and into that space where the dreamers looked like stars in the sky. Thousands of individual balls of light that moved like beads through her fingers as she pushed them out of the way searching for a feeling that she thought she would be able to recognize. They'll feel like a dreamweaver probably but different, she thought as she brushed by another weaver.The memory of Lloren's darkness sprung to mind again, the feather touch of it it against her skin. She closed her eyes, pulling it to her clearer, dissecting the feeling of it to get at the hidden emotion that lay underneath. There was a warmth to it, something wild, she thought as she brushed over the dreamers, letting herself be guided to something that felt right.Her fingers fluttered over a dreamer and she pulled back, resisting the urge to fall into the half familiar feeling, her eyes flying open. That's not the darkteller, it's him, she thought, her finger still on it, his energy pulling at her gently. "He's dreaming," she hummed, the feeling of it flowing through her, begging her attentions.She pulled her hand back and brushed the spheres back over him, burying his dreams away from her. She dropped into another, some random stranger in the midst of a nightmare, a sandstorm that spun around her, dark figures attempting to find their way. She dropped to the ground, her presence calming things, pushing away the clouds and settling the wind."That was close," she said shuddering in something that was far from disgust. What does it matter if I see him? He's just a man, I'm being silly, she thought. "He was," she said slowly, "the only thing that felt like that in the Veil. I should have found the Prince too at least. Is he not a shadow-wielder himself? But he must be, otherwise he could not make a bride into the Sorgia. I didn't see him use any of his powers but then, you can't hide what you are here, not from one of us."Above her, the sky turned blue and clear. The dreamer and the dreams they created stepped over her as if she weren't there at all, on their way to whatever business the sleeping being had to care for. Usoa in contrast laid on the warm sand, letting the false sun of the dream shine onto her, mimicking the sensations of the waking world."What if they are not asleep yet?" she sat up, the realization so simple. Yes it was late but she knew Edur would not wait to take his wife, his provocations well known in the palace. After that they would likely be to upset to sleep if he was not gentle with them. And even if they did sleep, she would not find them if they were within another dream, as she was.The Prince may well be drinking still with some dancers. Lloren said he was tired, when I saw him, he likely retired long before the rest of the party. Silly me, making grand plots where there are none. The night after tomorrow it would be better to search for them.No difference in the sand below her and the dunes that had surrounded her since birth she let herself enjoy the feeling of them under her. "There is no desert there," she said to the sky. She had tried to read about the Realm when the marriage, and her role in it, was announced. The book, old and brittle had been impossible for her, the words written in the language of the Dark Realm, not in the common tongue shared by all realms. Still she had looked at the pictures. Trees of a kind she had never seen before, huge with dark, heavy leaves, had filled the pages, bordering words she couldn't understand. Is that what it's like? Forests, she recalled the strange word, a natural occurrence that did not happen in her own realm.In the dream she sat up closed her eyes, drawing the energy around herself, moving it so that it formed something like she saw in the books. She opened her eyes to the same trees, funneled through her imagination, their canopy blocking the desert sun, laying strange patterns on the ground. "Is this how the world will look when we pass through to it?" she asked the wind."There's still time to stay with Ferran," she sighed. He had been right, they could just as easily take a street girl in her place. There were more than enough of them. Even an old woman would be fine. The Prince from the Dark would only take one wife and that would be Esti, the other, her position, could be anyone at all. "If I stay with Ferran, what then? Will he move me into a house in the city, make me a soldier's wife? Or does he plan to move into a room under my mother, to win favor with my brother?"What she knew of Ferran was far less than what he knew of her. But then, beyond the fact that he was a member of the guard, not the Hidden Guard for her father but the basic guard and slightly older than herself, she hadn't bothered to learn much else. He had seemed to be a way to pass the time and Porras enjoyed her consorts, Usoa thought it would be a nice distraction.What do I want, she thought staring up at the strange canopy the light flickering and changing as the breeze blew through it. "I feel like I'm just here, just waiting for something to happen. I might as well be Esti's maid. I have no purpose, no goals. I. Am. Boring."But there had been something in that touch of darkness that made her pause and even now under the strange trees she felt a sort of curiosity. Hadn't she stood on the roof to wait with Esti? Did I really do that for her, she thought, or did I want to see them come over the horizon for myself?She frowned. Like this is no good, she thought, there is nothing but the same patterns, the same dreams, here for me. I'll go. I'll go and I'll make a life for myself there. If I don't like it, when Esti is bonded and safe, I will come back, I'll go somewhere else, I'll make something of myself, I'll make something of this, she decided."There you are!" Esti called.Usoa turned, frowning at the girl who hurried through the trees to her. Her voice high like a bell, different from the deeper tone of Usoa's. Her figure clad in flowing, silver robes that danced in a wind all their own and looked like water. Her eyes shone bright like two copper colored coins. "What do you want? Were you looking for me?""Yes, I traced your light all the way here. I want you to find my husband tell me what he's like. What he's really like," Esti commanded."I can't, I don't think he's asleep," Usoa replied."He's just gone to bed, less than half an hour ago. I waited up and then took some sleeping liquid so that I could come here right away.""Go yourself," Usoa growled."I can't! You know the Sorgia can't see her groom until we've passed through the Third Realm and into the dark! It will mess everything up if I do it now!""That's superstition," Usoa sighed. "But fine, I'll meet your prince." And see for myself some of what the Dark Realm really looks like.
