Lilly-Alain

[awesome_lilly]

Alain is walking in the practice yard, in Gilead. It has somehow been transported up to the palace wall, or perhaps the wall has been relocated instead; either way, there's a sharp drop-off along one edge, with windows and ledges cutting into the stonework below. Beyond stretches the panorama of Gilead. This is a dream; it doesn't look like Gilead truly did, though with dream-knowlege Alain knows that it's the city. Instead there's a stretch of plain interrupted by a lake, and jagged mountains rising beyond.

Somewhere, Cort is bellowing at 'prentices. Alain is watching a hawk wheel high above, instead of listening.

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[awesome_lilly]

Lilly is stumbling along the dark corridor, still bleeding from the reavers' attack but the pain is still keeping her mind clear and for that she's grateful.

Then, suddenly, the corridor changes, lightens, becomes the top of a wall bordering some strange city. Lilly blinks, her eyes smarting at the sudden change, and doesn't see the man walking along until she's about to run into him.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

There's a figure, and his hands go out to steady her automatically -- and then he recognizes her, and again there's the peculiar feeling of coming back to himself without waking.

Hard on the heels of that recognition comes the realization of her injuries, and his eyes widen as his hands tighten to steady her in earnest. She's too pale, bleeding from a deep slash in her side. "Gods -- Lilly--"

Alain is scanning for enemies, but there aren't any here.

Not yet.

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly blinks, staring wide-eyed up at him.

"Alain," she breathes, and her hands leave her side to grip his arms. Mingled relief and pain and fear make her weak and if it weren't for him holding onto her she'd fall.

"Oh, god, Alain. There were these things, men but not..."

She trails off, shivering at the memory of those mutilated faces rushing at her.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Shhh."

Still scanning, wary and sharp-eyed, but he pulls her closer, trying to comfort and support without jarring her wound.

"You're in my dream now. They're not here."

As he says it, he knows it's true.

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly nods, taking a deep breath and forcing herself to calm down. Alain's right, she can feel it. She's sure the wolf is still back there, somewhere, but it's not close right now.

Her hand goes back to her side, which is still hurting at a level she likes to call ow ow fucking ow, but she manages to smile a bit when she looks at him.

"At least they weren't ninjas, right?"

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Sometime you'll have to tell me what a ninja is, exactly."

There are bandages back a few dreams -- past the Gilead practice yards, past the Drop, in the forest unlike any he's seen in waking life. Whether they were there before or not, they are now.

Unfortunately, he's not, and it's far away. He knows that just as he knows that they're there. Instead, he frees his hands enough to rip a strip from his shirt. It's a deft, efficient motion -- gods know he's done enough field-medicine in his life.

"Let's get that bandaged."

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly nods, steps back and lifts her arm so that he can get at the wound.

"Thanks. Just, um... don't do too good a job, okay?"

She gives him a crooked smile.

"I need it to keep hurting."

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

He stares at her.

Then his lips press together, and his jaw clenches, as he gently lifts her shirt away from the injury.

After a minute, low, "This won't change that. Just stop it bleeding."

[awesome_lilly]

"Okay," Lilly says, and then tries to keep from wincing as he bandages her side. She's not entirely successful, but that's okay.

She needs it to keep hurting, after all.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

He's quick, and gentle. Well-practiced.

There's a good chunk torn out of his shirt when he's done. He doesn't know how long it has to hold for, or through what, so he makes it as secure as he can.

"Where now? Do'ee know?"

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly shakes her head, glancing down.

"I don't know. I... I haven't heard her in a bit. It was... it was getting pretty bad, and the wolf was getting closer, and the only place I was really going was just... away."

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"All right." Soothing, faintly.

He slides a hand under her chin, tipping it up to meet her eyes.

"Should you rest, or keep going, think you?"

Should you. Not do you want to. But his free arm is around her again.

[awesome_lilly]

"I have to keep trying," Lilly says, and her voice is firm but her eyes and her face are weary and haunted-looking.

"It's just... I haven't heard her, and with the whole stab wound thing..."

She swallows hard but doesn't look away from him.

"I don't think I've got much longer, 'lain. Like, at all."

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

His face tightens, a little, and he nods.

"All right."

Arm still around her, subtly supporting, he turns to start walking again.

The wall ahead of them curves downward, turning into a winding path down the hill towards the lake.

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly tenses as soon as she sees the lake, searching its surface intently for a white fin that moves like a sail. She doesn't see one, though, and so she relaxes a bit.

Lilly's not ready to take that way out, not just yet.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

He catches the tensing, but not the reason. A worried glance, but she doesn't make any move to change direction.

The path is fainter, now, just a track through tall grass. But Alain was always best of their class at tracking, or maybe it's that it's his dream. Either way, he sees it clearly enough.

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly walks the path with him, quiet and thoughtful. It worries her how weak she feels, how much her side hurts, how much she's relying on Alain's arm to keep going.

It worries her that despite the pain, there's a faint noise in her head like people talking in the next room.

Her fingertips are giving way, and she knows it.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

She's silent, beside him, and subdued.

It's almost as worrying as the blood that still stains his fingers and makes her shirt stick to her ribs and stomach.

He keeps walking, supporting her, because he doesn't know what else to do. And because, with the gradual logic-shifts of the dream, the walking has become in a way the goal. There's a destination ahead, something, somewhere. He keeps walking, following bent grass blades and depressions in the mud and an inner compass.

[awesome_lilly]

Alain is the tracker, but it's Lilly who hears the wolf first. Faint, far away, barely audible but the howl is there nonetheless. She freezes.

Fuck. It's back, but she's still so tired.

And then it howls again, still far off, but she thinks Alain can probably hear it now too.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

He can.

They're in the grasslands, following a trail. It sounds like a wolf's howl to him, too, this time, and his head snaps up.

His arm tightens around her a little, unconsciously.

Never in life would Alain fear a wolf, but this is the Dreaming, not life, and this isn't really a wolf, and there's a cold knot of dread coiling in the pit of his stomach.

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly's almost too tired to be afraid anymore. She stands up straighter and stops leaning on Alain.

"Well. I think that's my cue to get going."

She can't make herself pull away from his arm just yet, though.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Lilly..."

He turn a little, to cup her cheek in his free hand.

It's her cue, and he knows it.

If there's one thing Alain hates, and one thing that happens time and time again at Milliways, it's feeling helpless.

He doesn't know whether the touch works in dreams. If he were awake, he'd also know that the touch doesn't work quite this way, but here in this dream it seems perfectly reasonable to stand with one arm around her and the other hand to her face, and try to send her strength and focus through them.

Enough to keep going, just a while longer. Enough to keep the edge from crumbling beneath her fingers.

[awesome_lilly]

Lilly closes her eyes, leans her face against the warmth of his hand.

This helps a little, I think

And it does, a little. Enough to start her on her path again, but not enough to outrun the nightmare wolf, and Lilly knows it. It's closing in and she has no voice, no strength, no shelter from the storm.

She opens her eyes, still white and weak even if less so now, and smiles at him.

"Thanks, Alain."

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

He doesn't smile back, quite, but his face softens.

The wolf howls, long and mournful and chilling.

Alain bends to kiss her forehead, light and brief. Quietly, "Be swift, and aim for your goal."

There's an acrid tang of smoke on the suddenly hot breeze.

[awesome_lilly]

"Of course," Lilly says, still smiling, and then the smile falters a bit.

"I don't think... if I'm not back after this, Alain... There are some papers in my top dresser drawer."

And then the smile's back, brighter now.

"And yes, you and Koosh really do have to wear ruffles to my wake."

She starts moving away from him, walking down the path as quickly as she can manage, but she pauses at the bend.

"Oh, and because I like you, the glitter is optional. Not for Koosh, though."

Lilly's laughing as she says it, laughing as she turns the corner and disappears from view down a path that can only end in nightmare.

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

Only Lilly.

He's grinning, a little, reluctant and half-sad.

But the smell of smoke in the air is growing -- the wolf may be chasing other prey, but he's still passing by.

Alain turns, choosing a path that leads away from Lilly's, to split the trail and muddy the tracks. That's not the way things work in real life, but this isn't real life. It might buy her some time.

Then he's hurrying, faster and faster, and then he's running, because the air is ashes that sting his throat and the grass crackles and roars into a sheet of orange flame around him. He's safe while he's on the path, but only just, only barely, only for another few minutes and then it'll take over that too -- he has to reach the lake, but it's receding before him as fast as he runs, and he never gets closer, and the fire is stealing the air around him --

He doesn't know how long he runs, gasping and terrified, before he wakes abruptly to a cold and silent bedroom.

There are strips torn from his bedsheets, and Lilly's blood crusted under his nails, and streaks of soot on his forehead and hands.

He doesn't fall asleep again that night.