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.
@Warset
