Dreamwalker 1
Flying came to him naturally, a motion wrapped in instinct. The feeling of the air streaming through his feathers, his wings tilting with the winds. Body stretching, spread eagle as he lifted higher. It was the impossible memory that came to SoYa in his dreams.
This was a dream. Of course, he knew that. He was an Athrylith, a mind mage. That meant he was aware of the bits and pieces of living dreamscape that wove and condensed around him. Sometimes, he could even control them. Somewhat.
So many mysteries still remained. Why did his dreams bring him to this place, a sky heavy with distant floating islands, misted in purple haze? Where did the wings come from? Why did they feel so natural? Why did he feel compelled to revisit this vision night after night? The questions tickled the back of his mind with the same irritation of a word that escaped the tongue when needed most.
I should know this place.
His feet skimmed across the tops of the ocean of grass that stretched across the crown of the nearest island. It was large — large enough for SoYa to land on with ease. Large enough to support more than just fickle creatures of the sky. Something about the island spoke of lost purpose. Again, the feeling returned.
I should know what it was.
The dreamscape changed, as it always did. He was now walking down a hall of slick white stone. The floor underneath him offered his reflection. Though the image was fuzzy and he could not make out the details of his face, he could see the arch of wings folded behind his curly head.
SoYa’s footsteps were silent despite the stone. Sound was suspended, removed from his senses. It was a place frozen in timelessness, not even the wind passing over the hanging lands. He walked the halls as he had many nights before. Searching.
I should know what I’m searching for.
But he didn’t.
The halls all looked the same to him, stretching in endless silence. SoYa saw no one. Felt no one. Found no indication of where he should go or what he needed to do. Yet, the importance of his presence there grew more firmly within his mind, as if the islands begged for him to keep reaching. Keep searching. As if the mists wanted to offer him the answers.
Abruptly, the color of the light changed and the corridor opened into something that appeared to be an over-grown outdoor garden. SoYa paused. It was the first time that his dreams had allowed him to see this.
Perhaps this is the breakthrough I’ve been looking for?
The scent of flowers filled his senses, overpowering at first, due to the lack of any other sensation within the dreamscape. SoYa squinted in the sunlight, eyes threatening to water as the sheltered garden began to unfold and piece itself together. Hundreds and hundreds of flowers floated across his sight. A small trickle of crystal liquid cut through the soil of what had once been a healthy stream. In the distance, an over-grown bridge arched from one side of the shriveled bank to the other.
Holding his breath, he slowly approached the center of the clearing. The tall hanging trees obscured a structure in the distance, dappled with shadow-light and capering mind-mysteries. Unlike the rest of the dream, the closer SoYa walked towards the structure, the less defined it appeared.
For the first time, he felt something there. The presence of something else within the dreamscape.
What seemed like stone shrank and shivered under the pressure of his boots, threatening to give way and struggling to maintain form at the same time. Feelings of uncertainty and ambivalence flooded SoYa’s mind.
Whatever the presence was, it was torn within itself. Part of it wanted to be found while the other part attempted to obscure itself within the shadows of the dream realm. Rather than press forward unannounced and unwanted, SoYa stopped, the stone image rippling around his feet.
“Hello?” he schooled his voice to calmness. It was the power of the mind mage that made it clear and gave him the control needed to speak with conscious thoughts, even wrapped within his own dreams.
Something within the shadows unfurled, a long, slender motion in the capering darkness.
“Who are you?” SoYa asked. “Where is this place?”
His voice echoed back to his ears, causing the ripples to expand outwards in front of his boots. The silence so wished to remain undisturbed, even the sound of his words created visual dissonance. Yet, he had come too far to leave empty-handed that night.
“Are you the one who brought me here?” he gritted his teeth and squared his shoulders. The wings seemed somewhat heavier now, a strange weight upon his back.
Still, he earned no response.
Finally, SoYa admitted, “If you don’t want me to see these things, then I don’t understand why you show me this.”
A soft hum suddenly filled the glade, the first sound beyond his words that dared to venture into the dream. The sound was soft, yet vast, the ground under his feet shivering under the immensity. Two globes of blue-green light flickered, then lit, lifting within the depths of the shadows. It took SoYa a moment to realize the globes were a pair of huge, flaming eyes.
“Hedd-ynad!” he breathed from between open lips. His courage began to fail as the shifting images struggled to gain shape. It was a shape that he was not so sure he wanted to see.
A dragon?
It was the only word he knew to name the creature as it slowly moved from the shadow into the light. Fear rushed over SoYa’s body as the huge claws pulled free of the grasping darkness, leaving streams of ethereal energy dripping as it struggled to take form.
The huge, draconic head fought to force itself forward, the great maw opening as it pressed against some sort of barrier that SoYa could not see. Its mane streamed down over its forehead and along the once-proud neck like matted clumps of unkempt cobwebs. The scales were a dull, lifeless gray, not unlike some monumental statue to a time long forgotten. But something within the teal eyes still shown, an inner power that drew SoYa into something much more vast and unknown when his own eyes met the intense gaze.
It’s… trapped?
SoYa’s fear melted into pity and concern. Whatever this creature was, it was caught there, between the world of the waking and the dream. He could see the lines of age and pain streaked over the slender dragon’s head. He could feel the weight of loss press upon him as the beast fought within a cage forged of its own self-doubt. Then with a few last attempts, the dragon lay still, the great eyes closing, breathing labored as it lay in defeat.
SoYa watched for a long moment as the silence stole up over the dragon’s shape. It became more and more obscured, the vision lost to the rippling of the shadows around it.
“Wait!” he took another step forward. The stone threatened to give way, passing from solid to liquid to solid again under his weight. “You’re just going to give up?”
Surprise gripped him as the two eyes opened again. He did not expect a response.
“Am I supposed to free you? Is that why I’m here?” SoYa asked.
It was a confusing prospect, the thought of helping a dragon. After all, they were creatures deemed dangerous and loatheful, predators of his people. Still, he couldn’t shake the thought that something about this dragon was different. Of course, he knew dreams often held heavy symbolism and things were hardly what they appeared to be in a dreamscape. What appeared as a dragon here may represent something quite different in reality.
The dragon’s gaze held his own for what felt like eternity. SoYa could sense no malice behind the soft light, just exhaustion, grief and longing. His hand moved forward, reaching slowly with an open palm towards the misty-shaped dragon muzzle. Drawn in by the emotion, he did not realize he was wading further into the rippling stone.
-SoYa…-
The voice filled his mind with a deep, golden tone, a sound that matched the hum that had previously brought the slumbering garden to life. The dragon’s mind touched his own, if only for a brief moment.
I should know that voice…
Something teased and taunted. But his thoughts were fixed on his outstretched hand.
The creature’s head lifted again, laboriously, straining towards the tips of SoYa’s fingers. A light seemed to shimmer and glisten across the muted hide as the nose pushed closer across the divide. SoYa’s breathing came in gasps, his heart beginning to thunder in anticipation. His hand began to shake, a fading blotch of shadow outlined against a new, growing light.
Just as the prickling energies began to trace over his fingertips, the world around him jolted, images tumbling out of his control. SoYa shouted, voice hoarse within his ears. A loud crack resounded within his mind, ripping the dreamscape out of his vision.
Panting heavily, he looked around. He was sitting at his desk, in his office, with his dream journal near. The light outside was growing dim as the afternoon stretched into evening. As he shook the groggy sensation out of his head, SoYa realized he was not alone.