I dreamed of you in colors beyond seeing,
braided your name into the earth

It was a small wonder the honeybees had not swarmed to me in force.

Flowers in every shape, color, and size filled the bags on each side of my body. Almost all of them were purchased in bulk from Delumine, but there were a few desert beauties-- like fragrant sage, bundled and dried, and autumn-budding rosemary, with its little pink florets. The real Solterran exports were deeper in the bags, hidden beneath the shadows of lavish lilies. There a discerning eye would find peyote buttons, humble but powerful, and seed pods of poppy, from which (of course) a powerful sedative could be milked. Solterran specialties. The money-makers of tonight, with a little luck and the right clients.

The goods were not my product-- I was just the proverbial mule. But I did manage to squeeze in a few items of my own making among the rest. A wind-up bird, a small mosaic of sea glass, little trinkets and novelties like that. I was most fond of a bronze rose made of discarded clock parts, its petals blooming and unblooming with the twist of a gear. Technically they were all made of scrap and discard. Trash. But sometimes their whimsy caught the fancy of someone with too much money for their own good, and for a bit of coin my little creations found a happy new home.

It was my first time in Denocte. Kirk had been trying to get me to work the night markets there for ages. He was a trader of many things, only some of them illicit, and although he paid well it took humbling to work with him. Tonight he had me paint a golden eye in the center of my forehead. I didn’t ask why-- of course I never asked questions, and that’s why he liked me-- but I suspect it was a secret symbol, for those who knew to look deeper into my wares for the things that could not be openly advertised.

For a long time, I had no interest in leaving Solterra. But things were changing. I was changing, magic surging and growing in me until I was full to bursting with it. All the dreams I walked, all the dreamers I met… All the lives I did not live were knocking at the door.

They were knocking, and I no longer could ignore them.

Apparently the market stalls in Denocte were mostly stationary, for I caught a lot of attention as I ambled down the cobbled street beneath my veritable mountain of flowers. The evening was ramping up to a lively night, I could feel it in the air. Most people donned costumes, for what reason I was not yet sure. Kirk had forgotten to tell me it was a costume party, or maybe he did not know. Regardless, I had to take out a sack of coins and jingle it, so that the festive crowd would know my wares were indeed for sale and not some strange outfit.

I angled my body against the flow of the crowd, searching faces for interest or pity. I sold a handful of flowers to a young mare, then helped her make a crown of them. A sad looking man bought a single lily. Otherwise my pockets were empty. No sharks out yet, no big sales... but the night was still young, and I hopeful. The sky was still colored with the last light of the sun, a brilliant burnt orange, although a single bold star had emerged low on the horizon.

And then I saw her. My dreamer.

(I thought of them all as my dreamers but truth be told I was as much theirs as they were mine)

I never forgot a dream, but hers was one of the special few that haunted me. But did she remember? Through the crowd I pressed closer to her, jangling my coins in a poor imitation of the way other boys would yell “Flowers! Come get your flowers! Roses, tulips, tiger lilies!” I tried to catch her eye across the sea of strangers. And against all hope, all reason, I prayed to a god I did not trust in for her to remember me.

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PEOPLE TELL ME I OUGHT TO TRY A LITTLE TENDERNESS
She had not smiled like that in her dream. Or, maybe, Dune did not look at her the way he does now.

When she steps closer with all the certainty of a comet falling to earth, he thinks she might remember. When she drags her teeth down his neck, marking him, he’s sure of it. Then she pulls back, pollen on the tip of her nose quite adorable-- he’d laugh if he was not so concerned by what she’s about to say, the words already written in the puzzled furrow of her brow-- “I don’t know you.”

It's okay. It's fine. His heart sinks and retreats to a safe distance, withdrawn into the chest instead of thump-thumping at his throat.

We'll start at the beginning again. It's better this way.

This time, he'll be better.

It doesn’t matter that she does not know him-- although, he’s quite sure that she does, somewhere deep down. The mind was fond of hiding things from itself, the way the river’s surface could be pleasantly oblivious to its own depths. It doesn’t matter, because he said he would find her (well he didn’t say it, but the intent was there) and he did. He found her, against all odds, against all hope. Against, he blushes to admit, all lack of effort.

Truly, he did not think he would ever see her again-- in flesh or in dream. To even try was futile, not that he had the time and resources for such a luxury. Two weeks ago he had never left Solterra, never even wanted to in his wildest dreams. (and oh, they could be wild) Yet here they stand, reality so very solid around them. Alhough pride and disappointment tells him to turn and walk away, he does not. He will not. He’s here. She is, too. He has this moment.

It is more than he’s ever had before.

Dune is half hysteric with a hundred desires. The long journey to get here, the unexpected delight of finding her and then the disappointment that followed. The restless nights, the frayed nerves. There was only so much a man could take. He leans in close enough to feel the heat of her poll reach across the scant distance to his lips. “You could.”

The bay is speaking freely now, breaking long years of silence; for he’s found it no longer suits him, especially not here surrounded by strangers and dreamers. His voice is quiet-- it will always be quiet-- just above a whisper, plain and simple as red clay; a certain understated richness to its depths. “Where are you going?” He turns so they stand shoulder to shoulder, headlong into the sunset. Daisies, violets, tiger lilies brush gently against her ribs. His intent is clear in the questioning inclination of his head: may I come too?

It is not so bad, being mortal. He could show her.


D U N E

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NOW YOU'RE ALL SONG. BODY GONE TO MEMORY. AND GUESS WHAT?
IT HURTS
Dreams often had elements of the fantastical. It was sometimes obvious, like floating castles and otherworldly colors, but it was often more delicate than that: words rearranging as soon as they are read, or the sun slowly moving in reverse-- things out of place, sure, but made so subtle by the dream that it isn’t until later, awake, that you realize how strange they were.

When his dreamer reaches out with the tip of her wing and brushes it across his skin, it is exactly as he remembered. It almost hurts-- the burn and burden of memory, ignited by the touch of the tip of her wing. He wants her back-- the dreamer who dragged her wings along the sand of the oasis, then walked with him across planets, then carved a crown for him even as the stars fell around them.

And in that moment Dune aches for the dream like he never has before. He’s never felt so revealed as he does now, without dream magic to hide behind. All the places he wants to show her are hidden behind closed eyes, curtains waiting for magic to roll them back, and all the things he wants to say go sour in his stomach. He longs for the lawlessness of dreams. Even here and now, in the flesh, hips pressed together like rose petals... it isn't enough. He accepts the pollen-dusted kiss of her skin, but this too isn't enough.

“Show me where I should go.” She sighs and steps forward and his skin is suddenly so, so cold where it was once pressed against her warmth. “With me,” he says, like the answer is obvious, like he isn’t about to murmur, befuddled, “oh, well… I don’t know.”

This is not his city. This does not even feel like his life. He’s never been so far from home, or spoken out loud so many words to one person (eight words, he’s counting) and all he has are the flowers on his back, and the illicit goods tucked away beneath them, and the way his heart tolls slowly behind his eyes like a death knell.

He does not have the slightest idea where to lead her, except to dream but that-- that’s terribly forward. So he walks straight: towards the sunset, towards the sea on the other side of the city’s walls. Because why not? They’re the only two things he recognizes in this place.

“Who--” He begins to ask, when a young colt bumps into him in the crowded streets. He stops to offer him a daisy to ease the overzealous apologies. In the dreamer’s company, Dune is in a good mood, full to overflowing, and the least he can do is share such good spirits.

As the colt teeters off, flower hastily braided into her spiky mane, Dune turns back to his dreamer as though there were no interruption. “--are you?”

"I'm Dune." He tucks a flower of his own making behind her ear. It is a sunflower, crafted of metal scraps from the forge, and it smells like copper, like blood.

Thirteen words.

D U N E

n | t

NOW YOU'RE ALL SONG. BODY GONE TO MEMORY. AND GUESS WHAT?
IT HURTS
Dune is thinking of the shadow shows that popped up on occasion in the busier intersections of the Solterran streets. They were essentially puppet shows, except you did not watch the puppets themselves but the shadows they cast, projected on large white sheets. These shows were exceedingly popular in the low quarter, for the quality of the show was not contingent on wealth... In fact some of the best shows were put on by dirt-poor children with just a few pieces of cloth and sticks. The brilliance of the shadow shows came from imagination and resourcefulness, and while they seemed at passing glance childish, Dune had personally always found them captivating.

He is thinking of this because if he and Warset were just shadows cast on the wall, he imagines the audience would see his heart pounding with such urgency it would leap from his chest, tied to his body with a thin black shadow, before being sucked back into his body, again and again. A comedic thunk-thunk would accompany the movement of the shadow, the sound effect pounded into the dried flesh of a goat skin drum.

thunk-thunk-- a heart-shaped piece of shadow tries to break free-- thunk-thunk-- the blood in his ears almost overcomes the quiet, rosehip-whisper of her name: “I’m Warset.”

Warset.

thunk-thunk.

She’s perfect.

“What is this flower called, Dune?”

It is strange how she leans away like she doesn’t want to. It is strange to hear her say his name. Strangest of all is her question and how he’s never asked it himself. He had never thought to name his creations. Is that what a god does? Metal flower, he almost says. Instead, “yours” slips out.

It becomes almost unbearable every time he must decide what to say. Each word becomes a gamble, a roll of the dice. He doesn’t even know what exactly it is he wants to walk out of here with, and maybe that’s the most dangerous part of this game. Every small victory (a smile from her, a word, a flutter of the lashes) emboldens him to dare to dream of more.

Dune is not an idiot. He knows there are things he does not understand. He feels them bristling in the air, hiding behind the horizon he and Warset sway towards. When he blinks, in that split second of darkness there is a sense of desperation. Like he is trying to hold up the sand in an hourglass but it overflows and spills through his grasp.

The inevitable looms. Someplace in that squishy magical mind he knows this. But that does not mean he understands. Maybe being mortal means grasping at things you can never hold on to. Maybe it means hope persists, the dream lives on, despite knowing it cannot last forever. It is a beautiful kind of lunacy. Dune burns with it.

He makes a choice, takes a deep breath, and stops counting his words.

“Look, this is going to sound weird, but we’ve met before. In a dream. And you…” You flew with me across stars beyond imagining, and you wove me a crown, and when you cried your tears were silver, are they really silver? “You were kind to me and I want to... do something for you, but I don’t know what. Help you or, I don’t know. Make you laugh. What can I do for you?” He looks at her with wide dark eyes, helplessly on display. He doesn’t know any other way to be but himself.

“I promise I’m not crazy,” he adds belatedly, glancing around with sudden self-consciousness for isn’t that something only a crazy person says? A few passersby, having overheard the statement, are looking at him strangely. But they don’t matter right now. Warset is the only one that matters.

D U N E

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NOW YOU'RE ALL SONG. BODY GONE TO MEMORY. AND GUESS WHAT?
IT HURTS
Instinct tells him to be skeptical of her statement. To suspect it might be a kindness, a thing you tell a child to make them go away. But there is such a gravity to her words when she says “forever,” like she really knows what that means, and he believes her, and he is happy. A nervous kind of happiness,  but happiness nonetheless.

And then she believes him, and he’s not as surprised as he thought he would be because that’s just the way this night is shaping out, all these pieces fitting together that shouldn’t but they do, all dreamlike and strange; all right-wrong, doubtless insanities, sharp-edged joy. And her cheek, pressed to his cheek like a promise and a goodbye.

“Tell me a story, Dune. Tell me all the ways in which I can learn how mortality is more than pain, and hope without reason, and better than the cosmic expanse.”

A story immediately comes to mind, and he almost tells it to her.

He cannot remember when and where he first heard it. (Some small pitiful part of him wants to think it was his mother who told it to him, or his father, or a sister or brother. Someone who loved him.) It is just one of those stories that takes root in your heart and stays with you forever. He’s heard it told many times since the first, each a little different, and there was a certain beauty to the way the story twisted and spread like a forest, but the heart of it always remained the same.

The story goes like this: There is and has always been only one peach tree in Solterra, and nobody knows when and how it first got there and settled in the dry, sandy soil. There was an old stallion who took care of the tree- his back bowed and chestnut face greyed with age- and nobody knew when and how the stallion came to Solterra, except it was quite certain he came with the tree, or else the tree came with him. Nobody knew the stallion’s name, either, for he only spoke in smiles and gestures.

The old stallion watered the tree every morning in the darkness before dawn, and the tree grew tall and broad with a quickness that made many wonder what strange magic was at work. Each summer the tree bore more and bigger peaches, such a bounty that most every Solterran, no matter their station, were able to sample the fruit.

The tree was originally planted on the very outskirts of the court but soon became the heart of its own little village. In the spring, lovers young and old picnicked beneath its blossoms, and when the wind blew the delicate pink flowers fell like the gentlest rain. In the fall and throughout the warm winter the massive tree provided ample shade for the community to gather beneath, and it was said that even during the hottest of days a cool breeze could be found beneath those boughs.

Of course, the peace and beauty was temporary. The people wanted more peach trees, to export for coin. They pestered the stallion: “how do you grow the peaches so well, old man? How do you make the trees take root here?” He would only shake his head sadly, or shrug, and heavy shadows began to grow behind his eyes.

Here the story grows legs. It ends differently depending on the teller, but in the version Dune first heard, a less popular variation of the tale but the one that sat most deeply in his heart as true... and apologies to the story, but we skip ahead a bit here… the story ends with the old man being murdered beneath his tree in the hour before sunrise, his blood soaking into the parched earth. The peach tree lives on to this day, you can go see it in Solterra, but it is a meager shadow of what it once was. No one eats its fruit, which now tastes bitter and rotten. The village that sprouted up around it is impoverished and barren, and the breeze rolls through the streets hot and dry and merciless.

It was not at all the story she asked for, but he doesn’t know any other stories- all the rest of his life is toil and pain, sweat and dirt. And dreams, but  there was nothing mortal about dreams. “Uh... I don’t know anything about those things.” I only know that you take whatever good things you can get, and you hold on tight, and you don’t dare be greedy or you’ll lose it all.

“I don’t know if you can learn how to love. It just happens.” His throat feels tight as he looks at her collar, its crescent moon a mocking smile that seems to say “you’re going to lose her, boy,” and his heart is sinking, sinking, sinking. “I hear it’s overrated, anyway,” he says, because that is what he’s heard again and again, scoffed by worn-down men he’s worked alongside. He wouldn’t know firsthand, although he thinks he might love the sound of her voice in all its ranges, dead-serious one moment and whisper-soft the next. Even when it seems to purr and fall away from him like a shooting star.

“You have to go now, don’t you?” His voice is quiet and trembling and so very close to that of a boy’s. She asked one thing of him, one simple thing, and he couldn't give it to her and now she has to go.

D U N E

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