06-28-2021, 06:06 PM
iridian
She doesn’t remember falling asleep, but when she wakes again it is in a place that is not home. Her giant sunflowers are gone, and there’s no iridescence in the air from the shimmering pollen that always drifts from the overgrown petals. But even more obvious is the lack of daylight that she always keeps close by, the sun she never allows to set further than dusk before it reverses into dawn and climbs back up the way it had come.
She does not love the dark, and when the sun turns it’s back on her she feels suddenly forgotten, suddenly lost, suddenly jagged without its warmth.
There is a sound she does not recognize, a churning and roaring sound that fills her ears louder than any heartbeat and leaves her delicate face damp and dark. It is water, she realizes, an entire ocean of it roiling furiously at her hooves where she stands at the edge of an empty beach. For a moment she just watches, completely unafraid because she knows she can be gone from this in an instant, can be back home and nestled in the warmth of her wildflowers. All she ever need do is wish it into existence.
But she is curious because she has never made an ocean before, never even seen one, and it gives this darker than dusk place a feeling of eeriness. She takes a cautious step forward letting one small cloven hoof disappear just beneath the surface - except there is nothing there. Nothing solid, and her delicate body would have fallen in entirely if not for the wings that snap open at her shoulders to catch her.
“Oh!” That is enough for her to know she has no further curiosity about this strange dreamscape, enough to make her close her eyes and picture home, and -
Nothing.
Nothing happens.
She tries four more times, tries a fifth and a sixth before true fear is a cold touch racing down the curve of that delicate spine. “I don’t want to be here.” She says, quiet as though maybe the dreamscape will hear her, maybe it cares. But nothing changes, nothing happens, and when she turns in a small circle she can see that she is standing on a small island in the hazy dark of late twilight, and there is furious black ocean lapping at every edge.
She also notices, suddenly and for the first time, that she is not alone. Even in this dark he is a smudge of silhouetted color - dark red and gold and a haze of shades that remind her of the way dawn looks in the real world before a storm. Mother had shown her that once. She turns to the stranger, pushed this way and that by a strange wind that tears at the gossamer feathers of the blue and chestnut wings she keeps tucked so close to her sides. “Hello?” She says, nearly stumbling right into him as the wind gives another shove. “Are we in your dream?” She is so small and so delicate, so quiet that she isn’t sure he’ll even be able to hear her over the building storm. “I think maybe you should try and wake up now.”
She does not love the dark, and when the sun turns it’s back on her she feels suddenly forgotten, suddenly lost, suddenly jagged without its warmth.
There is a sound she does not recognize, a churning and roaring sound that fills her ears louder than any heartbeat and leaves her delicate face damp and dark. It is water, she realizes, an entire ocean of it roiling furiously at her hooves where she stands at the edge of an empty beach. For a moment she just watches, completely unafraid because she knows she can be gone from this in an instant, can be back home and nestled in the warmth of her wildflowers. All she ever need do is wish it into existence.
But she is curious because she has never made an ocean before, never even seen one, and it gives this darker than dusk place a feeling of eeriness. She takes a cautious step forward letting one small cloven hoof disappear just beneath the surface - except there is nothing there. Nothing solid, and her delicate body would have fallen in entirely if not for the wings that snap open at her shoulders to catch her.
“Oh!” That is enough for her to know she has no further curiosity about this strange dreamscape, enough to make her close her eyes and picture home, and -
Nothing.
Nothing happens.
She tries four more times, tries a fifth and a sixth before true fear is a cold touch racing down the curve of that delicate spine. “I don’t want to be here.” She says, quiet as though maybe the dreamscape will hear her, maybe it cares. But nothing changes, nothing happens, and when she turns in a small circle she can see that she is standing on a small island in the hazy dark of late twilight, and there is furious black ocean lapping at every edge.
She also notices, suddenly and for the first time, that she is not alone. Even in this dark he is a smudge of silhouetted color - dark red and gold and a haze of shades that remind her of the way dawn looks in the real world before a storm. Mother had shown her that once. She turns to the stranger, pushed this way and that by a strange wind that tears at the gossamer feathers of the blue and chestnut wings she keeps tucked so close to her sides. “Hello?” She says, nearly stumbling right into him as the wind gives another shove. “Are we in your dream?” She is so small and so delicate, so quiet that she isn’t sure he’ll even be able to hear her over the building storm. “I think maybe you should try and wake up now.”