[Dream Post, Week 29, Day 6]
[The world ripples into perspective like an image returning to a broken pond. The angle is high and tilted towards the ground, offering a panoramic view of the world beyond, a place of rolling green meadows and towering mountains. You feel giddy, filled with a child's energy for the moment, the experience, the sensation without limits or restraint.
Possibility stretches out before you, and even the height presents no danger, because below you stands your brother. He is a towering figure, his head almost reaching the bottom of the branch upon which you sit, his eyes full of endless wisdom and his smile outshining the sun itself. You know, know with every fiber of your being that should you fall, he will catch you. He is the knight in all those games you play, there to save the princess in her tower, and as you stare down at him through the strands of your hair caught in the breeze, you know that you will always, always be his princess, even if sometimes, you really wish you could be the knight.
Except something happens.
In the blink of an eye the years melt away, and suddenly your brother is no longer there, no longer ready to catch you. You don't mind so much, seeing the empty place where he stood. The tree is smaller now, the ground not so far away, and yet even if you do not need him to catch you, you wish deeply he was there. His absence is like a void draining you of that energy and joy you felt, and leaving only an absolute certainty that he needs you, and that now is the time for the princess to become the knight, for the one she loves.
Only, when you try to leap from the tree, you find hands blocking your way, hands that at first seem to reach to help, but the truth behind them, the truth held in the eyes of the boys they belong to, is anything but. No, those hands seek to stop you, to keep you from reaching the ground, from standing on your own two feet in favor of having you remain in your tower. You try to push against them with all your might, but the more you do the uglier and colder their stares grow, the greater their determination to grab onto you and lift you back up.
Then, just as it is about to crash over you, the wave of hands parts, and standing below them are an assortment of figures, a collection of boys and girls with honest smiles, and at their head is a boy with messy brown hair, his grin chasing away all the shadows.
You reach for him, your heart beating fast at the promise of his warmth, your fingers almost brushing, and time seems to stand still.
Yet in that stillness is a chill, and in the space between heartbeats your world is transformed from light to ash. When your hands touch, it is cold steel rather than flesh under your finger tips, and as he moves to embrace you there is a fire in your stomach. You look down, eyes locked on the sight of red filling the white around the dagger that has been plunged into your stomach. Pain is your only companion now, pain and the sense of the loss of something precious, as helplessness and hopelessness make even the act of looking up an almost insurmountable task.
Somehow, though, you find the strength, even as the world fades to gray and the only color left is the eyes of molten gold that burn into yours as you fall from everything, your tower overturned, and your brother nowhere to catch you]
[Asuka jerks from her sleep in a cold sweat, hair plastered to her forehead as she gives a small shudder. Her eyes turn frantically to the Hitomi, and seeing what is on it her face crumples, and she says only one thing before shutting it.]
That is not how it happened. If you hurt yourself over this, I will not forgive you.
Possibility stretches out before you, and even the height presents no danger, because below you stands your brother. He is a towering figure, his head almost reaching the bottom of the branch upon which you sit, his eyes full of endless wisdom and his smile outshining the sun itself. You know, know with every fiber of your being that should you fall, he will catch you. He is the knight in all those games you play, there to save the princess in her tower, and as you stare down at him through the strands of your hair caught in the breeze, you know that you will always, always be his princess, even if sometimes, you really wish you could be the knight.
Except something happens.
In the blink of an eye the years melt away, and suddenly your brother is no longer there, no longer ready to catch you. You don't mind so much, seeing the empty place where he stood. The tree is smaller now, the ground not so far away, and yet even if you do not need him to catch you, you wish deeply he was there. His absence is like a void draining you of that energy and joy you felt, and leaving only an absolute certainty that he needs you, and that now is the time for the princess to become the knight, for the one she loves.
Only, when you try to leap from the tree, you find hands blocking your way, hands that at first seem to reach to help, but the truth behind them, the truth held in the eyes of the boys they belong to, is anything but. No, those hands seek to stop you, to keep you from reaching the ground, from standing on your own two feet in favor of having you remain in your tower. You try to push against them with all your might, but the more you do the uglier and colder their stares grow, the greater their determination to grab onto you and lift you back up.
Then, just as it is about to crash over you, the wave of hands parts, and standing below them are an assortment of figures, a collection of boys and girls with honest smiles, and at their head is a boy with messy brown hair, his grin chasing away all the shadows.
You reach for him, your heart beating fast at the promise of his warmth, your fingers almost brushing, and time seems to stand still.
Yet in that stillness is a chill, and in the space between heartbeats your world is transformed from light to ash. When your hands touch, it is cold steel rather than flesh under your finger tips, and as he moves to embrace you there is a fire in your stomach. You look down, eyes locked on the sight of red filling the white around the dagger that has been plunged into your stomach. Pain is your only companion now, pain and the sense of the loss of something precious, as helplessness and hopelessness make even the act of looking up an almost insurmountable task.
Somehow, though, you find the strength, even as the world fades to gray and the only color left is the eyes of molten gold that burn into yours as you fall from everything, your tower overturned, and your brother nowhere to catch you]
[Asuka jerks from her sleep in a cold sweat, hair plastered to her forehead as she gives a small shudder. Her eyes turn frantically to the Hitomi, and seeing what is on it her face crumples, and she says only one thing before shutting it.]
That is not how it happened. If you hurt yourself over this, I will not forgive you.