She says she’s a girl and he wants to laugh. Of course you are and Of course you aren’t run through his mind at the same time. He is suspicious-- nothing natural is like her, nothing he’s ever met. But he has nothing to fear here so he is intrigued, too, by this strange girl whose eyes hook into him like teeth.
Sereia, she calls herself. It sounds normal enough.But when she speaks of places-- mountain, forest, desert, meadow-- they sound like fairytales. Places ethereal, beyond belief. Nothing so uncomfortably hot, smelly, and crowded as where he’s really from.
He shakes his head gently. No, he can’t possibly explain to her in a way that does the desert justice. That’s the problem with words-- that was always the problem with words. Yet no one understood why he turned away from the broken mechanism of speech.
After a moment of hesitation, he takes a deep breath. It isn’t easy to change form the way he’s about to. This is her dream, not Dune’s, and his magic is but a weak flame. But challenges in the dream world thrill him, and he happily pours himself into this one.
It starts grotesquely. His body bulges and shrinks, shifts, becomes gelatinous and fluid. There is a terribly creaking sound, that of a tree leaning ang leaning, ever closer to snapping in two. Eventually his body takes the shape of a large looking glass. Through it, a vision of the Mors from the eyes of a bird. An endless sea of sand, enunciated by the gesture of swirling sand dunes. As the bird lowers and nears the canyons, details begin to take shape among the golden haze. Sage, juniper, saguaro. A hare darts from one rock to another, a hawk swings low and ominous.
They thread through the slot canyons, where the rocks grab at the sun and twist it into every shade of orange imaginable. A teryr passes overhead, casting a huge shadow. Lizards, sunning themselves, quickly dart beneath the rocks; so camouflaged they’re practically invisible until they move, and then they’re gone.
Then they turn toward the sprawling desert city. Day Court, crown of Solterra, the sun perched watchful over her shoulder. But they don’t fly toward the court proper, where the gardens grow and the nobles, heavily decorated with gold and steel, squabble over taxes and labor and political games. They soar above the outskirts for a while, the slums, and then they dip low into a neighborhood on the eastern end of the city.
These are the streets he knows in and out and upside down, and it shows in the overwhelming detail of the image he paints for her. (for it is not a looking glass before her, it is himself, twisted into a thousand little bits of light and color, moving in symphony) There is a tenderness hidden in the lines of the colorful slums, loud and smelly, a wild and vibrant assault to the senses after the barren beauty of the desert. It may or may not be clear to Sereia that she looks through rose colored glasses as they go deeper into the city.
She would notice there is no empty space. Among the tilted mud and sandstone buildings, market stalls are crowded beneath thatched palm roofs. Mats woven from fronds are rolled and unrolled to create floors for temporary stalls wherever opportunity allows. There is very little decoration, except for things that are also functional: Clay jars are painted in astounding colors, patterns skillfully cut into their sides; rugs and tapestries are finely detailed and carefully made; works of Solterran steel, most often on display in curved blades of varying lengths, are hosts to ornate handles.
There is love in the details of the people they fly past. Many are smiling, some even laughing. Others are stoic and serious, faces carved across with dusty lines. There are beggars, children, eyes round and dull.
The city. Dune’s city. Painted in all its massive, chaotic, ugly beauty. Heartbreaking and ugly and perfect. The vision circles near the bell tower, then down a crooked alley to a little workshop. There are no windows, just a large hole in the wall (the impression of a window) with bars of wood to protect from loose hands. A door sits crooked on its hinges. It opens and Dune steps through, and then he’s stepping through the looking glass. The surface of it wraps around him and dissolves into his skin.
He smiles briefly. The light here is dim and otherworldly compared to the bright sunlight of Solterra.
“Dune,” he says, dipping his head to his chest.
Sereia, she calls herself. It sounds normal enough.But when she speaks of places-- mountain, forest, desert, meadow-- they sound like fairytales. Places ethereal, beyond belief. Nothing so uncomfortably hot, smelly, and crowded as where he’s really from.
He shakes his head gently. No, he can’t possibly explain to her in a way that does the desert justice. That’s the problem with words-- that was always the problem with words. Yet no one understood why he turned away from the broken mechanism of speech.
After a moment of hesitation, he takes a deep breath. It isn’t easy to change form the way he’s about to. This is her dream, not Dune’s, and his magic is but a weak flame. But challenges in the dream world thrill him, and he happily pours himself into this one.
It starts grotesquely. His body bulges and shrinks, shifts, becomes gelatinous and fluid. There is a terribly creaking sound, that of a tree leaning ang leaning, ever closer to snapping in two. Eventually his body takes the shape of a large looking glass. Through it, a vision of the Mors from the eyes of a bird. An endless sea of sand, enunciated by the gesture of swirling sand dunes. As the bird lowers and nears the canyons, details begin to take shape among the golden haze. Sage, juniper, saguaro. A hare darts from one rock to another, a hawk swings low and ominous.
They thread through the slot canyons, where the rocks grab at the sun and twist it into every shade of orange imaginable. A teryr passes overhead, casting a huge shadow. Lizards, sunning themselves, quickly dart beneath the rocks; so camouflaged they’re practically invisible until they move, and then they’re gone.
Then they turn toward the sprawling desert city. Day Court, crown of Solterra, the sun perched watchful over her shoulder. But they don’t fly toward the court proper, where the gardens grow and the nobles, heavily decorated with gold and steel, squabble over taxes and labor and political games. They soar above the outskirts for a while, the slums, and then they dip low into a neighborhood on the eastern end of the city.
These are the streets he knows in and out and upside down, and it shows in the overwhelming detail of the image he paints for her. (for it is not a looking glass before her, it is himself, twisted into a thousand little bits of light and color, moving in symphony) There is a tenderness hidden in the lines of the colorful slums, loud and smelly, a wild and vibrant assault to the senses after the barren beauty of the desert. It may or may not be clear to Sereia that she looks through rose colored glasses as they go deeper into the city.
She would notice there is no empty space. Among the tilted mud and sandstone buildings, market stalls are crowded beneath thatched palm roofs. Mats woven from fronds are rolled and unrolled to create floors for temporary stalls wherever opportunity allows. There is very little decoration, except for things that are also functional: Clay jars are painted in astounding colors, patterns skillfully cut into their sides; rugs and tapestries are finely detailed and carefully made; works of Solterran steel, most often on display in curved blades of varying lengths, are hosts to ornate handles.
There is love in the details of the people they fly past. Many are smiling, some even laughing. Others are stoic and serious, faces carved across with dusty lines. There are beggars, children, eyes round and dull.
The city. Dune’s city. Painted in all its massive, chaotic, ugly beauty. Heartbreaking and ugly and perfect. The vision circles near the bell tower, then down a crooked alley to a little workshop. There are no windows, just a large hole in the wall (the impression of a window) with bars of wood to protect from loose hands. A door sits crooked on its hinges. It opens and Dune steps through, and then he’s stepping through the looking glass. The surface of it wraps around him and dissolves into his skin.
He smiles briefly. The light here is dim and otherworldly compared to the bright sunlight of Solterra.
“Dune,” he says, dipping his head to his chest.
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