She didn't remember much about getting back from the creek to the hospital. She had stumbled through the swamp in a daze, picking up Picoro somewhere along the way, who followed behind her in the trees, not wanting to burden her further with his weight. Upon arriving at the hospital she hadn't even bothered to ascend the stairs to her usual resting place, instead of stumbling into the lower level and promptly collapsing onto her side. Picoro left her and came back moments later with sprigs of feverfew, which she chewed up without a word, before closing her eyes, in pain and exhausted.
She slept fitfully. Whenever her illness made it's presence so strongly known she was plagued by nightmares. At the beginning, it was always about her last day in Herstial, she had that one earlier, before meeting the lavender mare. This one was different.
Her eyes opened to bars in front of her. Not bars, roots, huge branching arms of wood, that stretched into the earth. Behind them, she could see tall trees stretching up beyond all belief. The shadow of an impossibly large deer leaped across the background. The eternal woods. She remembered this night. Where she had cowered beneath the roots as a storm raged on around her. She crawled out from under them, leaving bits of hair stuck to the rough bark. As she stood up fully the rain stopped.
She spun around as a shadow flickered at the corner of her vision. And again. it flashed in front of her, and she could feel wings beating against her face. Hot breath washed over her and she recoiled. Turning around once again she fled. In her dreams her legs carried her swiftly, though not swiftly enough. Flames burst up around her, searing off the ends of her tail as they chased her. As they died away she felt her head grow heavy, and heavier still. She looked down at a puddle, her reflection looming in front of her face. A crown grew from her head, sending trickles of blood down from behind her ears. Suddenly the flames were back, and this time with screams. Tears beginning to form in her eyes she fled once again, to wear the trees grew thinner, until they stopped altogether. She turned to look. Before her stood the woods, it's entirety up in flames. three shadows danced around the tops of the trees. The Wolf Queen, The Heretic, and The Traitor. The three people who had taken her life from her over and over again. She watched, powerless, and their shadows loomed larger, everything beneath them withering away.
It was then she saw them. Marching in a line one by one into the woods. Thanantos, the one who had first welcomed her to Elysium, who had then disappeared. Orchid, Oberon, Kodarki. Syrilth, the one who had given her refuge, who, though seemed hard and unbending, was far kinder and more giving than she ever imagined. Even the firstborns, Vega and Acrux marched in one by one, and with them, the stars left the sky. Her own constellation was the last to fade. Io Kairavi began to walk in.... but instead dropped to the ground and sunk into it, as if being swallowed by the earth. Her heart had always been to give, and one day it had killed her. It wasn't until the last three that the tears began to start streaming down her face. Cavalier and Eremurus walked in side by side. Her mate, her son... They had left her before she even had the chance to show them she was no longer ill... Not a single goodbye... not a word... They were there and then they weren't "Stop!"she cried, for once her voice loud and harsh. No longer soft and forgiving.
Her heart stopped as she saw the last of the line. A grey form, with charcoal splashes. His black and blonde hair loosen woven into braided buns. Liatris, the one she had birthed. Her son, her baby. He was her miracle, something she was never supposed to have, and she had lost him when she left Elysium. "No!" she screamed as he walked into the woods "Liatris! Don't!" she cried out over and over. Sobbing she dropped to her knees. How many times could she relive this nightmare? She was no longer in Elysium, she hadn't been for a long time. She was starting a new life, in a new time. Yet she didn't wake up, and was forced to watch, as the dream began to rewind around her, as if it was about to begin again, and make her watch, over and over.
Dune discovered a fondness for cats at a young age. At first, in a way, they were competition-- he begged alongside them at the docks for a scrap to eat or a spare coin. Or, on the worst days, the lost days, he would be happy just to get a shred of kindness; a look, a smile, a touch.
In the beginning the cats didn’t care for him, no doubt sensing that he had nothing to share with them. But as time passed they came to an unspoken understanding, maybe even a kind of kinship. Sometimes, on cold nights, a stray would curl up on his back and, purring, fall into a warm sleep. A great honor for Dune, one he did not take lightly.
Even later in life, as the boy grew up and graduated from penniless beggar to… well, simply being poor, he found in cats a companionship that he never had with other equines. Perhaps it was because they didn’t talk. He let them into his shop and found a comfort in the quiet way they shared the space. Cats were one of the only consistencies in his life, an anchor by which to measure the way the rest of the world changed.
So when he falls asleep and enters a dark dream, when he hears a girl sobbing and senses ghosts, coming and going, over and over in a repressive, devastating loop, Dune shapes his form without thinking. He becomes a little orange cat, scrawny but fastidiously clean. On soft little paws he trots over to the woman on her knees and butts into her shoulder with his head. His tail curls at the tip, pleased.
He begins to purr with a kind of urgency, like he might be running out of time. Like the demons will come back (there, can you sense them at the edge of your vision, taking shape again?) unless she turns her mind away.
She watched in horror, as the flames licked backward, somehow, if that was even possible. As everyone marched backward out of the woods and back into non-existence. The heavy crown was pulled from her head, sending white-hot pain through her skull. Everything was moving in a weird sort of slow motion. as if she was there and she wasn't all at once. Like she was in limbo. She could see the roots stretching down, reaching their claws towards the earth, ready to cage her in once more. There was nothing she could do to stop it.
Picoro curled up beside Luvena helplessly as she twitched in her sleep. It wasn't comfortable, her skin was hot, and what little pelt she had was damp with sweat, but he lay with her none the less, completely unwilling to leave her side. He had stayed with her through worse, and he wasn't about to leave now.
She shut her eyes as the branches began to sink into the earth, coiling into it, beginning to settle into a caged shelter. She willed it to stop, willed herself to wake up from what she could only hope was a nightmare. It was then that she felt it. A slight nudge at her shoulder. At first, she ignored it, unwilling to look at whatever demon wanted to plague her now. But she knew that wouldn't make it go away. So she opened her eyes and turned her head back. At first, her eyes rolled back, seeing only the flicker of orange, her first thought is that it was more flames here burn her. But, she quickly realized that it was not a flame, but a small cat. The world around her seemed to freeze. Though the roots had formed their storm shelter, the Artax (those giant deer that leapt through the woods) was stuck in place, mid-leap, and the raindrops that had been pelting down moments before seemed to be suspended in place.
She stared at it blankly, her eyes unfocused, confused. The little thing was thin, like her, though he seemed in better shape. She hadn't seen many cats in her life, save for the odd one or two that wandered into Herstial for a mouse, or a rat. She was certain though, that none had purred this loudly. Confusion clouded her mind. This was new, this interruption. "Where did you come from little one?" she asked softly. "This is no place for a cat to be lurking about. No place for anyone really"
The little sloth was thankful to feel her still for at least a moment, though she still shivered. Hoping she would be still for at least a few minutes he pulled himself into the branches outside the hospital, after pulling up clumps of moss. He intended to soak them in cold water, and bring them back to her.
It’s not new to him. The dream playing itself out, then rewinding, then repeating again. It was simple: The mind liked its loops, and the dream was the mind’s creation. And so a nightmare, for all its despair, could very easily become habit. It would never be comfortable, per say, but it would be… familiar. Maybe, even, a perverse kind of comfort.
But it’s always odd to be the newcomer to such dreams. To see them so clearly as what they are, and yet to lack the power to turn them off. Break the pattern. How he wished to dissolve the forest around them, to show the dreamer what opportunity lay packed beneath the repression of the nightmare. She could fly higher than the birds, swim deeper than the dolphins. Play hopscotch across the planets, or explore very deeply the color yellow.
Instead, he feels a flutter of claustrophobia as the roots settle around the mare.
All he can do is chirrup at her attention, purr in response to her words. As the rain stops Dune begins to gnaw determinedly at the roots that cage her. He pauses to meow at her with the urgent disapproval he had so often been subjected to by his cat friends. Help me,” he implies as he continues to gnaw away. “help yourself.” At one point he flops on his side and kicks at the bars of her cage, as though gutting a rat.
Eventually he stops, stands up, shakes the dust from his coat.
“You’re dreaming,” he says, in a voice not his own. It echoes in the trees that surround them, reverberating like a wave. A drop of water in a still pond: You’re dreaming.
"I-" She didn't understand him. How could she help him? He wasn't even supposed to be here. there were no cats in Elysium? were there? She watched in confusion as he kicked at the roots in front of them, what good with that do?
She froze as words echoed around them. She shook her head in confusion. How could she be dreaming? all of this had happened, it was happening now. This was her life.. but then... Where were the good parts? The days spent with Io Kairavi, or the with Cavalier. and Liatris had never seen the woods... neither had Eremurus. How could they disappear into it then? and... the traitor.... he hadn't been a part of this stage of her life, that had been before.
oh
She was... dreaming. Slowly the roots around them began to dissolve into nothing, and the raindrops that had been frozen in place evaporated into mist. While her head still throbbed it, it no longer ebbed and flowed with the scene before her. They stood in nothingness. Not white like you might think, or dark it was just... nothing. She looked down at the little cat. "I don't understand" she murmured. "How did you know that? I... I've spent so long in this dream, yet it always seems real, like I've gone back in time... even though it's wrong." her eyes were narrowed in confusion, her head tilted. There was so much about this she didn't understand, but she didn't mind so much either. Nothingness was far better than the fire that had burned before.
Slowly a new world seemed to form before her. large willow trees rose out of the earth. They were padded with moss underneath, all backlit by the sun. it was almost ethereal. white figures of equines walked around, weaving through them and talking, they all looked vaguely familiar... but at the same time foreign. Some seemed to be talking to themselves, though she couldn't catch more than a few words of any one conversation.
again she looked down to the cat. "Are you doing this?" she asked
He had a soft spot for dreamers like these. There were so many of them, more than they could realize. And though he met them one by one, each in their own miserable world, he pictured them all together as a group of wild children. Orphans. Scattered, lost, trapped. He had no obligation-- he could easily come and go in their dreams and nightmares without getting involved. But he felt for these strangers, who nurtured wounds where no one else could see.
This dream was full of strangers to Dune, but he could feel the way the dreamer reacted to their faces. Her thoughts were on display here, although she couldn’t realize the extent of it. And although he pitied her for her demons and her cages, he was also distinctly envious. Dune’s life was a hard and lonely one. He had very few friends (who were not cats) and his most intriguing acquaintances rarely remembered him upon waking. Simply stated, there was no one who cared enough about the stallion to hurt him. There was a freedom, but also a great loneliness, in that.
When the nothingness comes, there is a relief. Dune can feel the understanding settling over the pied mare, and with it a lightening of the world around them. He begins to purr.
She has questions for him, of course, but he is resolute in his silence. He just rumbles away reassuringly, and bumps against her with encouragement as willow trees rise, wraithlike from the nothingness.
“Are you doing this?”
He answers the question with a shake of his head. There is a certain amusement in the gesture. If he could change the landscape, it would be brighter, stranger, bigger. Dune was not very imaginative by nature, but peering into countless dreams has given him more than enough inspiration.
He presses a damp nose to her skin as if to say “you. You’re doing this.” And then he trots off, tail curled like a question mark, to investigate one of the white figures walking around not very far away.
