The Day My Dream Died

57 - Coming Around

— 57 —

Coming Around

//\\

Pelanea comes to sit beside her, looking over the bleak landscape. She breathes, and Lise can hear the weight behind it. "Do you think he's been fiended?"

It takes her a moment to understand, "Bente..." She glances back at the man lying fetal in the cart, quivering and staring. "No, I don't think so."

"Then what? Why is he like this now?"

Lise shakes her head. "I... You saw those uncanny buildings?"

"Yes."

"It had something to do with those. I don't understand it well. I grazed it a moment and..." She pauses to bite down on a budding yawn. "...I don't have the vocabulary to describe the experience beyond a kind of undoing. He was in there well longer than I, and I can't imagine what effect it has outside what is already clear to see. I might see better what state he's in if I managed to sleep."

Pelanea ponders that, then says, "My dreams have changed again."

It catches Lise off, "What... Oh, really? How?"

"I'm not sure how to say it—it changed when I fell from the cart. I think I did something, or something happened then, because after that I haven't died anymore. I feel like I feel better, but I'm uncomfortable about it. Last time I slept I dreamt of my brother again, but it was like we were just sitting back to back. I didn't feel him die and I didn't feel like I died either."

She struggles to wrap her addled mind around that. "That sounds... a positive development? I can't say I know what it signifies, really, but I would go so far to say it's better not to be experiencing death regularly."

"Oh, yeah, that's what I thought too. I don't know, though. I... I don't know, I get this strange feeling. I think Pelezel is still... alive. Or, perhaps it is his spirit reaching for me through Harmony, but I feel that he still..." She trails off, troubled. As she struggles silently, her face compresses, and tears come slowly trickling out. "I... I don't know if I'm fooling myself for grief's sake, or if what I feel is real. It... hurts."

Lise watches her emotional unfurling and doesn't know what to do. She fidgets—opens her mouth to speak and stops herself—considers attempting an embrace and stops—opens her mouth again, "I'm sorry you're struggling, Pelanea." Even as the words come out awkward, painfully aloof, she keeps on, trying to press past. "But, I'm not able to think properly right now. I haven't slept, and I'm in terrible pain. I'm sorry, I wish I could help like I said."

"Oh..." Pelanea nods, and her expression appears strange as she rushes to wipe away the tears. "Of course... I'm sorry, I'm asking too much."

Lise holds her sigh, "That's not... Well, I've thought of something that may help—" Having said it, she strains to make it true. "'Understanding isn't to be hurried. Understanding is to be waited.' Or, in how I would apply it to you, trying to force an understanding on events will only delude you further. Let what exists precede understanding, and understanding will follow." Or something like that...

"I don't know if that makes sense. Just, maybe treat it like a kind of puzzle to solve—that might make it easier to process." Lise persists stubbornly, floundering round her mind for something that will satisfy. Fast, the flow of her thoughts drains away; she is desiccated, and she flounders. "I don't know..."

Staring, the dark. Silhouettes on the hills. Dashing between trees. Black in hue. Dying in blue. She sees silhouettes on the hills.

"Lise...?"

She blinks a few times, trying to extricate herself from the night. "Yes?"

Pelanea looks at her concerned. "You just sort of trailed off and started muttering."

"Ah, yes, sorry about that... What was I saying?"

"I couldn't hear much. You were just muttering about darkness or something."

"I'm very tired... Sorry I couldn't be of use..."

"It's fine, just lie down. You look about to topple."

Pelanea cradles her head and eases her to a smooth rest. She leaves her alone then, going off to rest herself.

I'm useless. I can't even alleviate the pain I've done. I am cared for instead by one whose brother died by me, whose pain is at my behest. A friend, she thinks me. She thinks me a friend, the fool. She thinks me—the fool—a friend. Fool, we are... but friends?

Every time she comes near to sleep, she breathes deep and pain exhales a waking curse. When at last it happens she does not recall falling asleep.

\\//

Lise awakes atop a raised stone platform whose floor is chiseled a serpentine pattern—never revealing the head, moss creeping along the gray scales. Mist shrouds all but the immediate area.

She is seated in a high-backed chair, elbows resting on the rough table before her. On the table, tea steeps—spice: home redolent, rendered uncanny to this unfamiliar space. Her mouth wets for it.

'I've seen it.' She says, but Lise has eyes for the tea.

'As have I.' She replies, reaching for the cup.

'I've seen where freedom is chained.'

Lise takes it, and in trembling hands examines the powder-blue porcelain, broken, and run-through silver. Her tears fizz and pop where they fall. The flowers etched on the cup are worn and filled in dark. The smell transfixes.

'It looks as a platform amid the mists, eight-sided.'

'Ah, yes,' She says absently, 'I've seen it.'

'Shy, the serpents which roll over it.'

'I agree.' She drinks of it.

'I see it.'