taxonomites | 028: You're Pretty When You Cry [Accidental Visual / Location: the Northern Island]

DG was dreaming.

It wasn't the first time that she'd journeyed to the O.Z while she slept, but this particular dream was unusually vivid. She wasn't a child running through the forest with her sister. She wasn't practicing magic under Tutor's watchful eye or listening to her mother singing a lullaby. The familiar and somewhat hazy mixture of memory and imagination had been replaced by stark images of a grey and barren world bathed in permanent darkness.

The same thing had happened for three nights in a row and, each time she fell asleep, the voice in her head grew a little louder.

You broke your promise. You let go. After everything that you said and everything that you've done, you abandoned your sister again.

"No! It wasn't like that!"

It had been the city. Taxon had taken her away from the O.Z. She'd never stop fighting to get back home. Back to Azkadellia.

It doesn't matter. Soon, there will be nothing left for you to hold on to.

I'll get you, my pretty. You and all your little friends.

She woke with a start. For a long moment, she lay perfectly still, staring up at the ceiling with wide blue eyes and her heart hammering in her chest. Eventually, she sat up and sighed, pressing the heal of her hand to her eyes.

"This is starting to get weird."

In Taxon, that was never a good sign.

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"Tablet's on, Deege." And Glitch had barely emerged from his nest of blankets to convey that. He managed a sleepy-eyed smile and a wave at the screen. "Morning. What's weird?"

With a huff of irritation, DG picked up a pillow and threw it over the tablet, shutting off the feed. A few minutes later, she'd crawled out of bed and - bare foot and with a wild tangle of hair framing her face - and appeared in the doorway of Glitch's bedroom. She joined him in the nest of blankets without further comment, but, after making herself comfortable, answered the question he'd asked earlier.

"It was just a dream. It doesn't matter."

Glitch hauled her close to rest his head on her shoulder and sighed. Since the Hyperion his own dreams had been troubled, and while it had gotten better sleep still wasn't what he'd call restful.

"All dreams matter," he mumbled, nodding. "You don't need to talk about it but...I don't mind listening."

After another long moment of silence, as if she'd decided not to answer after all, she finally gathered up the courage to speak.

"I was dreaming about the witch," she explained. She knew that she didn't need to elaborate. He'd know exactly which witch she meant. "She was ... in my head."

Again.

At that Glitch frowned, dropped a kiss in the vicinity of her neck, and propped himself up on an elbow to peer down at her.

"That's...a trick. It's the season. We're used to awful things happening now so our minds start--" He waggled the fingers of his left hand, still marked from the knife of the boy he'd killed, then lowered it to brush her hair back, framing her face. "That's all. Isn't it?"

Words and lies, none of it real but hopefully some substantial enough.

Edited 2012-04-02 00:26 (UTC)

"I know, I know," she said, soothing him immediately and not just automatically. She believed the same thing. She had to believe the same thing. The idea that the witch - the witch who had shattered her family and devastated her home - was inside her somewhere, hidden just out of sight, was too horrible to contemplate. "We've seen a lot of ghosts lately. They've got under my skin. That's all."

They wouldn't stay there for ever.

Glitch nodded softly and settled down again, one arm draped around her. He'd been conflicted since coming back from the other Taxon and telling her what he'd done, alternating between shutting himself away and refusing to be left alone. Time, he just needed time.

For now that time was hers, and he would fill it with comfort and companionship.

"Yeah," he agreed. There was a lot of that going around. "Just gotta focus on what's real, that's all that matters."

"I know exactly what matters," she assured him, without a trace of doubt. Even when DG hadn't been sure who she was or where she belonged, she had known that family - the members that she'd remembered, the members that she'd forgotten and the members that weren't necessarily tied to her by blood - mattered more than anything else.

"But you can remind me whenever I start to forget."

"Always," he agreed with a little smile, then stifled a yawn. "Right now I think sleep matters. Or at least trying to."

DG responded to his partially successful attempt to stiffle his yawn with an affectionate and amused smile. She nodded.

"Go back to sleep," she said, swinging her self out of bed. "I'm going to get a glass of water."

If she was lucky, he'd fall asleep before he started to realise that she wasn't coming back. DG had no intention of trying to get back to sleep.

"...DG?"

Whatever that was... Willow didn't like the sound or look of it. She was officially worried for her friend.

"It was just a dream, Willow," DG explained, attempting to reassure her while she patted down her sleep tousled hair with one hand and groped for the tablet with the other. "A weird dream, but still just a dream."

If she repeated that often enough, she'd start to believe it.

She wasn't sure she believed it, but there wasn't a whole lot she could do about it. "You okay? Do you need anything? Someone to talk to?"

"No, but a bad dream is still just a dream. I'll be fine."

She paused. Willow had confided in her, after all. She couldn't bring herself to lie to her friend.

"Maybe we could meet for lunch tomorrow? It's not a conversation we should have in the middle of the night."

Willow nodded immediately, understanding. "Sure. I'm free. Whenever and wherever you want. I'm always here." Always there for her friend, as DG had been for her.

"I know. And I appreciate it."

Even if it was difficult for her to show it when she was half asleep and decidedly rumpled.

"How about midday? I'll meet you outside the castle and we can look for somewhere to eat."

Willow nodded, trying to smile reassuringly.

"Okay. I'll be waiting."

She understood, though, and she'd let DG go until midday came. Hopefully, her friend would be able to get some measure of sleep after all that.

If you have a bad dream, kill yourself in it. You'll wake up.

DG frowned at the tablet for a moment, surprised by the message. It took her a moment to decide that it was well meant and another moment to reply.

"Thanks," she said, raising an eyebrow, "I'll try and remember that next time."

028: You're Pretty When You Cry [Accidental Visual / Location: the Northern Island]

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