IN A YELLOW SEA
There are a thousand thoughts rushing like a river behind the king’s eyes. And like a river Dune does not know what they mean, what they say. He only knows there is movement, and history, and a message that struggles to express itself.
But oh, Dune cannot make sense of this man. He cannot unravel the mysteries woven into the dream fabric. All the symbolism here, all the meaning behind the spear pressed to his neck, it isn’t for him. It’s all for the dreamer. Dune doesn’t understand and it is insufferably frustrating that all he can change here is himself. His pity flows to rage to sorrow to frustration to fire, pure fire.
And in that moment he feels like Solis might be there among them, watching. Laughing. Dancing along the sharp tip of the spear. All Ipomoea has to do is push. One fluid movement, easy. But he doesn’t do it.
The instant the spear is no longer at his neck, Dune steps back and shakes his head and feels the fire leave him as quickly as it had come. The pity, though, and the derision, and the sense of broken trust is still there. “Gods, your aim is terrible,” he comments cheerfully as the spear goes sailing through the empty air, quite happy to see it discarded. Then strange dream-things happen-- the vulture beats its wings and then it's no longer a vulture but a coyote, in a way that will only seem unnatural later, as they wake.
As Dune watches the coyote, the horizon shivers and trembles, heat rising from the earth’s skin in a shimmering curtain. And when the sands part it is absolute terror that rises from the ground. Spear-wielding, war-painted terror. “Fuck,” he mutters loudly before trailing off into quieter, private curses. This did not seem good.
The bay takes an uncertain step back and sighs heavily. “I’d say thanks, but...” It appeared to be a lose-lose situation. Or die-die. And it would be better to die at the tip of a single well-placed spear than to be torn apart by a dozen.
“Now would be a good time to wake up, yeah?” His voice is edged with panic. Dune has died many times in dreams, he has suffered a hundred violences but they never, never get any easier.
@Ipomoea <3
