He had been looking for her. It was difficult, although each night it got a little easier. At first he could not exit a dream once it began, and he could not change the dream world. Slowly, over time, he grew stronger, and with great focus he could step, slowly, out from one dream and into another.
Now he skips from dream to dream as naturally as the crest of a boat jutting over the waves. He glides and changes his form, he drifts and flows like shadows at twilight.
He had been looking for her, but of course- when he finds her, it is by accident. Earlier that night, he had been in a nice dream. He walked quietly alongside the dreamer beneath tall, vaulted arches, while honeyed sunlight shone sideways and white-winged moths fluttered lazily in the warmth. Somewhere close there was water flowing; a sound he always associated with luxury.
He closed his eyes. The nicest dreams were like that; you could fall asleep inside of them. He didn’t mean to leave.
When he opens his eyes, he is elsewhere. This dream is different. It is almost not-a-dream. The darkness of it coats him like tar. It sticks and clings and pulls the way nightmares do. He’s standing, motionless, but it feels like falling. And he knows, suddenly, he knows where he is, even though it’s different from the last time, and the realization quickens the beat of his heart.
Warset, he thinks, and just like that-- there she is. Moon-crowned and lovely as ever, casting her eyes but not seeing, never seeing. The slick tar sickness is everywhere around them, between them.
Dune calls to her. “Look at me, Warset.” His eyes glow the color of hot sand, molten not-quite-gold. Over his shoulders and fanning out behind him is a long cloak made of feathers, inky blue, darker than midnight. They fall from him and swirl about his ankles, drifters on a strange tide. “Don’t look away.” His voice is deeper than the last time they spoke. He is bolder now too, a princeling of dreams with power broadening his chest.
He takes a step closer, but it only brings him farther from her. He frowns, but his face explodes into a leering smile, packed with a hundred needled teeth.
From somewhere in the dark, he hears a low growl. “What happened to you?” He asks, but the words he hears are different: “You are truly a monster.” And the feathers keep falling from him, black and slender, curved and sharp as little daggers. He draws the cloak closer, sensing somehow that it protects him from the eyes of the dream. The eyes! "Are you alright?" he asks, but on his lips the words form: "Girls don't dream like this." He scrambles forward-back, holding her with his eyes across the senseless darkness.
@Warset Hi I'm terrible please forgive how long this has taken me <3
