Lilly-Alain in the Dreaming
Aug. 29th, 2005 11:16 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
awesome_lillyIt's a sunny afternoon. Alain is following a winding path, up a grassy hill. He's supposed to be finding something, but he's not sure what. There's no particular urgency in the thought, though. He'll know it when he gets there, if he does.
Until then, he meanders upwards, strolling. The clouds float above, in strange geometric shapes that in the dream seem perfectly normal.
Until then, he meanders upwards, strolling. The clouds float above, in strange geometric shapes that in the dream seem perfectly normal.
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Date: 2005-08-25 06:35 am (UTC)-veronica's dead burned in the fire- married your brother -moved away-
So many voices, telling her things and showing her things and she's just waiting, listening for her. The one who can hear her too.
Lilly doesn't know how much longer she can keep listening before she forgets why she's doing it.
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Date: 2005-08-25 06:38 am (UTC)He keeps walking, coming towards her.
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Date: 2005-08-25 06:42 am (UTC)nobody -not a friend- don't know him -not that girl- not his girl... but she is his girl.
"...Alain?"
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Date: 2005-08-25 06:52 am (UTC)"Didn't think to find you here." Idle comment.
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Date: 2005-08-25 06:56 am (UTC)"I didn't think I'd ever see you again," Lilly says, almost as idly.
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Date: 2005-08-25 06:59 am (UTC)There's the clearing, if nothing else.
And with that thought comes something like a dash of cold water, like the icy rush of Moiraine's healing passing through him, and he's more aware of himself. Not more awake, exactly, but the dreamy acceptance of illogic is diminished.
"How're you doing?"
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Date: 2005-08-25 07:06 am (UTC)"At least the scenery's better here. More variety."
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Date: 2005-08-25 07:12 am (UTC)"No signs to a trail?"
The Dreaming responds not to logic or consistency, but to what the dream needs. There are trees, now, a forest shadowing the east side of the hill in dappled green and gold, though here at the top they still sit in sunlight.
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Date: 2005-08-25 07:22 am (UTC)"Sometimes... sometimes I can hear her. It's just really hard to tell if I'm getting any closer."
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Date: 2005-08-25 07:27 am (UTC)A light tap of his fingers to his chest, above the heart, and then he kisses the palm. Mid-World's universal good-luck sign.
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Date: 2005-08-25 07:35 am (UTC)Headache again, and the voices grow momentarily louder.
It's too late, Jake. She's dead. -Celeste, I'm calling an ambulance.-
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Date: 2005-08-25 07:46 am (UTC)Reaches for her hand, wraps his fingers around hers.
"Anything I can do?"
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Date: 2005-08-25 07:49 am (UTC)"This helps, a little. I think... I think I'm more myself when you're around."
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Date: 2005-08-25 08:03 am (UTC)"Good."
The grass ripples, though the wind doesn't touch the two of them. There's no grass; it's dust stirred by a lifeless midsummer breeze.
The ground under them is crumbling shale and dust burned by the sun; the trees are cliffs pocked with caves. They're sitting on a dark stone face, carved long ago and eroded nearly to featurelessness. It's Jericho Hill they sit on, and the blazing sun beats down.
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Date: 2005-08-25 08:10 am (UTC)A part of the woods where the mist is thick enough to slowly soak through her clothing. The trees are gloomy, and lean toward each other as though afraid to be separate...
The scenery is different. The feeling is the same.
"Alain... where? What is this place?"
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Date: 2005-08-25 08:22 am (UTC)"Where we of Gilead made our last stand."
The sun beats down like a hammer, bleaching the rocks. There's a field below, and another hill strewn with the huge stone faces. And there's a shimmering in the distance that might be only heat waves, or might be the first movements of a great crowd approaching. Or a great horde charging.
He doesn't want her to be here. He doesn't want himself to be here. Alain tries to pull them sideslipping into another dream, back to the grass and the warmth, back to anything happier, and fails.
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Date: 2005-08-25 08:25 am (UTC)From the distance, behind the shimmering, there comes a faint, mournful howl and whatever color was left in Lilly's face drains away.
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Date: 2005-08-25 08:31 am (UTC)And then the howl -- he hears it, too, but it's not mournful and it's not a wolf's. It's the first battle-scream of two thousand throats, still far-off. Grissom's blue-painted vandals, thundering into a charge at the desperate, starving handful of defenders.
Gods--
His head snaps around to look at her.
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Date: 2005-08-25 08:46 am (UTC)"It's the wolf, Alain," she whispers, realization dawning on her face. "Del said the Endless couldn't help me. Dream can't help me, I can't see him because for me it's not him, now. It's the wolf."
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Date: 2005-08-25 08:57 am (UTC)He knows better than to even think it
(Nyarlathotep)
but thoughts can't be stifled that way. The howl comes again.
There's a crystal clarity to the rocky slope, as in any other battle, as for the battle here in life, and the old red rage is a fog lurking at the edges of his thoughts.
Urgently, "How do we break free? Fight it, or get away?"
His hands go to his guns -- but it's a dream, it's a nightmare, and his holsters are empty. The guns are back at the cabin, tidily in his bedroll for Jonas to find.
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Date: 2005-08-25 09:07 am (UTC)She lets go of his hand.
"I have to go."
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Date: 2005-08-25 09:12 am (UTC)He grabs for her hand, but it's like moving through thick syrup; she pulls away easily, and he's moving too slowly,
(another howl torn from two thousand frenzied throats)
and he falls short.
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Date: 2005-08-25 09:17 am (UTC)The wolf's howl is getting closer and Lilly is moving further away and her voice is trying desperately to be reassuring but her eyes are wide and frightened.
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Date: 2005-08-25 09:35 am (UTC)(This helps a little, I think)
wants to take her hand again, wants--
It doesn't matter. She's gone.
And then Grissom's men are upon them, and his guns are in his hands and firing, and around him is the thunder of his friends' weapons and his enemies'. The battle didn't go this way in life, it's a mishmash of several he fought, but it's the same dreary thudding timeless five minutes, no battle-exhileration in this dream but only desperate terror because he has to protect
(Lilly) (the rose) (Susan) (his friends) (Gilead)
something nebulous and precious and unnamed that is hanging by a fingertip's grip--
He's awake, sitting bolt upright in bed, chest heaving.
The room is dark and silent.
He's alone.
Another gulp of air. Then he pulls his knees up, and folds forward to rest his forehead on them. One fist drops to beat lightly against the bed, and he says several swear words, very precisely, out loud.
They fall into the midnight silence of the room, curiously leaden.
It's a long, long time before he falls asleep again that night, and his sleep is light and uneasy when he does.