Echo | Dream Team

Eight - Of concession and reprise

He was already beginning to grow tired of the first village, and though he had only visited it a handful of times, its bustling streets and glowing lights hanging above had begun to gain a negative connotation within his mind. He dreaded each corner and the people that might be hiding behind them. Every building seemed to loom down towards him, threatening to crush him beneath their stones.

Neither Dream nor Sapnap appeared to feel a similar sentiment towards the village as he did. They maneuvered their way through the crowds with trained ease as they walked, chatting merrily, goggling at stands that seemed to be set up at all times. But there was a certain withdrawal in Dream's gaze as he glanced around him, and Sapnap's smile kept disappearing whenever he looked down.

He had to wonder if he was truly the only one who had grown to harbor a distaste for the first village.

The lights, which had glowed so brightly with the fall of night, were far less visible during the day. George inclined his head upwards and closed his eyes, letting the feel of the ground beneath the soles of his shoes guide him as he walked. There was still so much time before the train would begin to move again, finishing the rest of its journey to deliver them to the battlefields. He wished that that time would come faster. The village was as cheerful as always, but he was scared of what would come to light when that outward facade fell away. He didn't want to stay and accidentally bump into another Karl, another Dream, another Sapnap.

But he knew better. There were so many things that he could avoid in the future, so many little details that had caused everything to go askew — he could fix all of that and more, if he could just figure out how they had happened. Why Dream had stopped sleeping. Why Sapnap had died. Why everything had gone wrong.

There was such a big advantage that had been placed in his hands. Life, which was always one of the greatest mysteries that the visiting scholars had pondered over, was not meant to be toyed with. It was sneaky and deceitful; difficult to catch, impossible to hold. And yet there he was, standing with a clear line towards the future. It was different from the visions that he saw so often in his dreams. Now, he could step forward with absolute certainty.

But as always, there was more that worried him. If he changed things, he would no longer be sure of it all. The route that he had taken would dissipate instantly before his eyes, leaving him right back where he had started. With some things, that was what he would have preferred. But with others... not nearly as much.

The butterfly effect. That was the name that the theory had been given. He'd only heard snippets of it from conversations between philosophers during intervals of suspension from their observing George, meandering chatter of daily events and off-hand remarks that evolve into excited conversations that challenged the chances of this and the likelihoods of that.

Possibilities. Those were what came up the most when the butterfly effect was brought up. The thought that the smallest, most insignificant motion — like the slight flap of a butterfly's iridescent wings — could have such a rippling effect on the future drew him in. His power was based off of possibilities, and the suggestion that anything done by anyone could have an impact... it was exhilarating.

Most of the visions he'd shared with the king were driven by that very same exhilaration that had overtaken him after he'd first heard the theory. His colorful, vibrant hopes came crashing down when he'd realized that his sharing of his substantially-inaccurate visions really did have an effect — it was just the opposite of what he'd been hoping for.

The ability to change the future wasn't something that he was supposed to be trusted with, and yet he was about to try it again on a far greater scale.

Sometimes the audacity of his actions surprised even himself.