This marks the end of the prologue.
Now, chapter one of the real story may begin.
[ooc: This is a dream that Asma has in her own world. About half of it is action that Actually Happened. Warning: a lot of this may be regarded as seriously messed up. Also, plotworthiness ahoy!
Was going to post this when I got back from vacation, but I figure I should just get it over with. Timewarps will make your head spin anyway.]
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It’s dark, of course, because what kind of nightmare would be set in the broad daylight?
It’s dark, of course, and Asma is not Asma, she’s Rue for some reason that she can’t comprehend. And that makes all the difference.
It’s dark, and if Asma were Asma, she wouldn’t be afraid. But she’s not Asma, she’s Rue, and she’s very, very afraid.
She’s not afraid because it’s dark; she’s not afraid because there’s no moon in the sky and the stars are blotted out by clouds; she’s not afraid of the dark, and she never has. She’s afraid because she’s not supposed to be dreaming this dream.
She’s afraid because somehow she will find out, and then Asma-who-is-now-Rue will be in very much trouble, indeed.
So Asma-who-is-Rue stumbles through the dark streets that look like the place she left so long ago. Has it really been a year?… it seems like two, or three… but it’s only been a year, and she still remembers the streets well enough to fall upon a door she meant to fall on, and finally she says something out loud.
“Am I back?”
It seems so loud when she says it, and she cringes back from the words as if afraid something or someone will loom from the darkness and say something that she doesn’t want to hear.
But nobody looms from the darkness, and the darkness remains dark, and Asma-who-is-Rue pushes open the door and slips in.
And it seems like two or three years ago that she was last in this house, but it doesn’t seem any different, as if she’d been away for a day and then arrived that night. It isn’t, but she hasn’t.
It’s quiet, very quiet, and she’s almost afraid to call out now. But she isn’t. She’s almost afraid; but she isn’t.
But she is, in a way, in the way that that little buzzing noise comes up in the back of her skull and says “I wouldn’t do that if I were you no that’s not a good idea no no no” when she finds the stairs and she goes up, up, up. Or just up, really-the house only has two stories that she bothered to look through, maybe she should have done that while she could. But it doesn’t matter now. Maybe she’ll look through it when the sun rises.
If the sun rises.
But it doesn’t, and she stumbles when she hits the top step of the stairs, her mother would be so proud she thinks sarcastically. And then she freezes, because think of the devil and he will appear.
And she sees there’s a door at the end of the hall was that there before? And despite what the buzzing voice in the back of her skull is saying (“no, no, no, run the other way, run, run”) she finds herself staggering along and she can’t stop herself until she falls onto the door.
And the knob looks so innocent.
Asma-who-is-Rue narrows her eyes at it because it’s not innocent, not at all, and she speaks for the second time.
“I won’t. You can’t. I am stronger than you.”
And Asma-who-is-Rue reaches out and turns the doorknob and it seems to smile at her, coldly, and then the door opens and she falls to the ground and she’s there, looking at her with bright dagger-sharp blue eyes when did she get here? Did she follow Asma-who-is-Rue? Did Asma-who-is-Rue bring her here? How can she-
And Asma-who-is-Rue is afraid.
She’s not afraid because it’s dark, and she’s not afraid because no one is there, and she’s not afraid because the voice in her head has started to scream (“no! no! no! get out of there, run, get the hell out of there”). But she’s afraid.
She’s very, very afraid.
And her mother looks down at her and she holds the blade lightly in one hand and she inquires-
“Are you looking for him?”
And Asma-who-is-Rue sits up, and then she’s not Asma-who-is-Rue, but Asma-who-is-Asma. And Asma looks up and she asks-
“Who?”
And the Rocmother-who-is-her-mother looks down and she says-
“The human.”
And Asma-who-is-Asma just looks up and she shrugs and she says-
“Maybe.”
And the Rocmother-who-is-her-mother looks down and she drops the knife from her hand and it falls to the ground and lies there innocently and Asma stares at it for a moment and despite herself she’s thinking that it's going to absolutely ruin the carpet.
And then the Rocmother-who-is-her-mother looks down-
And smiles.
“He’s dead. I killed him.”
--
Asma shudders awake, unable for a moment to remember what dragged her from the safe confines of sleep. She stares at the wall across from her bed for a moment, eyes wide, her hands convulsively clenched into tight fists where they rest by her head. Something horrible woke her…
Something like a nightmare…
She was back in the double world… but that world had been… and something about the man whose name she’d forgotten…
She remembers, and the memory is enough to jar her up and out of bed, racing through the corridors before she knows just what she’s doing.
This isn’t true. This isn’t true. It was just a dream.
Asma crashes into the room, where she knows her mother will be, as she always is. And her mother looks up from where she has been sitting-asleep? reading? thinking?-and she raises her eyebrows.
“I - went - back,” Asma says haltingly, and her mother simply looks at her for a moment, with something like cold arrogance in her eyes.
“I… you…”
Her mother sighs coolly, as if annoyed, and stands. Taking her human form while I’m around… is that supposed to reassure me? Asma backs away slightly, wishing she had a feather. Something. Anything.
Her mother sighs again, and folds her arms, staring at Asma. “You discovered that, did you?”
It’s like all the air has been punched out of her lungs, and Asma lets out her breath in one horrible gasping sound. “You-you killed him.”
“Nearly all of them; almost all the ones I sensed you’d been near.”
For some reason it feels like she can’t breathe now. All of those she’d spent a year carefully forgetting the names of…
“Almost…?”
Those eyes are sharp and hard now, something Asma used to wish she could imitate, but now she wishes that she had never seen those dagger-eyes. “I may spare the rest, Asma. If you do… one thing for me.”
From nowhere she produces a night-black feather, dangling from a single thread wound loosely around her finger.
“Wear this for me as a sign of your loyalty?”
They’re…
Asma stares at it, tiredly. This… this is a trick, somehow. I…
But it’s not like it matters. I’m not going to be able to go back to that world again. Even if I do, they’ll just blame me.
They’ll blame me for all the dead.
“… Okay.”
She reaches out and takes the feather, putting it in the palm of her hand and looking at it for a moment, until impulsively she reaches back and knots the string around her neck.
And then, quietly, part of her is locked inside her mind.
And then, quietly, part of her looks up at the Rocmother with glassy eyes and the Rocmother looks down-
And she smiles.
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[ooc: And this is why we're nice to our children, folks.]