[009] I,II, III
I.
Wind drags at the edges of silver blades and blue beads, trailing the points of arrows as if to misdirect them before they have even been freed to fly at their targets. It feels like the wrong sort of wind, the kind that doesn’t just spread between pulse and person like an unnatural chill, but the sort that moves around its focus and circles back to tell its origin what it found, and how to break it. The high walled valley feels like a cage, but it’s one she knows she came to willingly and even though she hasn’t lived it yet, there is little guess as to why. She knows this pass. Time flickers forward-maybe she blinked-and with the suddenness of a lightning strike she and a number of others-so few in comparison to their enemy-are set upon on all sides, no longer before the mouth of the pass, but in its center. Shouting rings around them, tangling with shrieks and the clash of metal, as well as things that aren’t metal at all-things more like claws and unexpected extra arms that snake out to choke. Gonturan’s pommel shines fire blue in the midst of grays of bodies, red laughter, and the black of the turning sky, an inhuman purple that is actually the color of the blood coating blades and streaming down sides, slick but without time to drip, cutting and thrusting on instinct more than method or tactic. Shock waves run up her sword arm, and even this close it’s hard to see with any absolute detail who or what they are fighting. The air is stiff with confusion and the way it moves is like a low chuckle that reverberates through every notch in a person’s spine, echoing in the center of the skull like a warning that comes too late on purpose. Tsornin rears back and she holds on by habit with her legs until he hits the ground again, a solid force of sun and blood and pride, but even he joins in with the screams and she’s sharply aware, still striking where she can, of the way that scares her more than anything else.
Just as dimly as she has heard everything else, through the din of a poor man’s war, a calm, thoughtful voice cuts like an arrow that has been told exactly where to go, and where not to.
“Harry.”
II.
Maybe she blinked again, because the battle has gone and she finds herself at the edge of a vast, silvery lake. This isn’t where she should be, and she knows that, turns to find the person who should know that just as well as she does, but he’s not there, even if his voice continues telling her what he already has. It’s that much that tells her this must be a dream, and how fitting to find herself at the lake that encourages them, but never lets one see beyond them.
“I believe all will go well with you: or at least that you will choose to stay on the best path of those you are offered, and that’s the most any mortal can hope for. But I don’t see so beautifully that I have no doubts, for you or anyone; and I am afraid for you. The darkness coming to Damar will not temper itself for a stranger…”
Shifting her weight, it might be foolish of her but she can only think to reply with a slightly dour, “Yes, you already said that.” It is quite nearly the same thing as saying thank you so much for all your help but without meaning it, and she feels guiltily about it as soon as the words have left her. Luthe has already apologized for being a prophet sort of being, and as a result, only helpful in so much as she can help herself. To blame him for a repetitive dream is more than a little childish. Unlike the valley where all was screaming and bloodletting and the shadow of the North, everything here casts itself like a desire to sleep on a gray day, all white and silver-gold with spring green of trees at her back that she remembers do not appreciate being fought through. So when she turns away from the lake she finds her way to the path she remembers being show, rather than stumbling and forcing her way through branch and bramble. Twigs still manage to get caught in her blond hair, too long from not being cut since that strange kidnapping from the Residency. Beneath green leaves and tawny branches, the sun dapples through like rain, except that it is dry and warm of course. Anyone in these mountains will feel the presence of other beings, even if they never see them, almost hear whispers, sense that no one is ever really alone, but the invisible beings are shy to anyone but Luthe himself, it seems, and they keep well transparent to anyone else.
“Harry.” Again. She wishes she could see him.
“I should like to take my blindfold off,” she repeats her own words to him, this time about him, pausing in a modest clearing, wishing her horse was there because it feels wrong to go anywhere without him, even in a dream. She isn’t all too surprised when no one answers her, but a sudden weight at her waist makes her look down. Blue stone almost blazing in the sunlight, Gonturan hangs at her hip, comforting in a bizarre way she isn’t sure she is comfortable being comfortable with, to wear a blade as casually as she might turn her head or close her eyes.
It figures that all in the vicinity is tranquility and a sense of hope when another voice breaks through, not gentle, and as disapproving as the origin of the word.
III.
“You know nothing of it.”
Her vision swims and then bleeds until all she sees are familiar dark eyes that fast turn a liquid gold, disappointed, angry, and worst of all, unforgiving. Though she feels Tsornin beneath her, a true gallop that moves across the desert like a toy map, her hands cold and threaded in his mane, she doesn’t actually see the sloping sand or the familiar violet blue of the early morning sky she feels above her. All her sight is taken up with the very steady, fast pulse behind those impossible eyes, ones that if she lives through whatever lies ahead, she might break her pride enough to apologize to. That might perches itself between her dream and her impending wakefulness, and she has the faint notion before gold cuts to black that a dream can be written off, can lie as well as it can tell the truth. The inevitable question that follows makes itself more of a whisper on the periphery of her consciousness, but it colors the entirety of the dream, a vague blanket of doubt.
I still don’t understand how am I supposed to know the difference.
The last feeling is that of a searing heat that burns from the inside out, through blood, bone, and whatever else there is to get through, but it brings with it the strangest suggestion that this is how she is supposed to feel.
[ooc: 8| TL;DR dream, I'm sorry...and tl;dr ooc note sob...ANYWAY, go ahead to see or walk through though I don't suggest that for the first part unless you plan on helping fight 83 you might end up dream-dead....ahaha wonder how THAT works...ahem....parts II and III are easier to work with probably, feel free to see or walk through again, even talk to her then if you like. She's familiar with dreams and even people talking to her through vision, so :/ nothing terribly startling for her. This is semi-placeholder...ish. Questions/ etc: loveinmypocket@gmail.com oh my god I'm done haha....]