004 ♔ DREAM;
Effects: A jarring mix of anticipation and resignation, and more nostalgia.
The breeze stirs the blossom-laden branches over head, sending the petals spiralling down in a curtain. They are white when they leave the tree, but by the time they spill across the path they are each and all a deep, velvet red. Pooling around your feet, they part at the scuff of your toe like water in a puddle.
You walk along the path, your feet stepping on black squares, white squares, in tandem. The trees grow tall around you, tall and towering like Imperial Guards, so high you need to crane your neck to see the dappled sky above. A boy of six - you were a boy, now a prince of the empire - you stand in the walkway and gaze ahead. The path is wide enough to be a road, and twists and turns up ahead.
And your siblings are calling for you. You can hear it, distantly, from beyond the walls of trees and flowers - "Schneizel! Schneizel!" - but you do not look away from what lies ahead. Your way lies ahead, so ahead you walk, and as you walk, you grow taller. Your nerves stretch and your bones are pulled and you feel yourself age with a vague sort of ache, more uncomfortable than anything else, like pins and needles.
Black, white, black, white. No dirt, no dust obscures the starkness of the paving, there is no room for shades of grey beneath your feet, before you, behind you. The contrast is out of place and makes everything around it seem duller, as if the shadows have been stolen from your surroundings. The thought niggles at you and you look behind you. And you cast no shadow, there is no-one walking with you, in your footsteps.
You smile to yourself - the tug of your mouth feels mechanical, tense - and turn to what lies before you once more. Your feet make no sound.
A sundial stands in the middle of the courtyard, useless folly when hidden so from prying eyes. A child with black hair just too short to see over it is gripping the edge - with that strange little smile once more pulling at your mouth you go to him, wrap your arms around him and pick him up, look down at the dial. Much as he dislikes being lifted so, he'll put up with it from you. Sometimes, the ends have to justify the means.
He says nothing, just looks down at the gilded pin to see what it casts over the dial. You say nothing, and do the same.
And together, your shadow swallows it whole.
[A hair-thin smile and bared skin can just be seen in the gloom of the video feed, but Schneizel does not wait long before shaking his head gently and switching it off.]
The breeze stirs the blossom-laden branches over head, sending the petals spiralling down in a curtain. They are white when they leave the tree, but by the time they spill across the path they are each and all a deep, velvet red. Pooling around your feet, they part at the scuff of your toe like water in a puddle.
You walk along the path, your feet stepping on black squares, white squares, in tandem. The trees grow tall around you, tall and towering like Imperial Guards, so high you need to crane your neck to see the dappled sky above. A boy of six - you were a boy, now a prince of the empire - you stand in the walkway and gaze ahead. The path is wide enough to be a road, and twists and turns up ahead.
And your siblings are calling for you. You can hear it, distantly, from beyond the walls of trees and flowers - "Schneizel! Schneizel!" - but you do not look away from what lies ahead. Your way lies ahead, so ahead you walk, and as you walk, you grow taller. Your nerves stretch and your bones are pulled and you feel yourself age with a vague sort of ache, more uncomfortable than anything else, like pins and needles.
Black, white, black, white. No dirt, no dust obscures the starkness of the paving, there is no room for shades of grey beneath your feet, before you, behind you. The contrast is out of place and makes everything around it seem duller, as if the shadows have been stolen from your surroundings. The thought niggles at you and you look behind you. And you cast no shadow, there is no-one walking with you, in your footsteps.
You smile to yourself - the tug of your mouth feels mechanical, tense - and turn to what lies before you once more. Your feet make no sound.
A sundial stands in the middle of the courtyard, useless folly when hidden so from prying eyes. A child with black hair just too short to see over it is gripping the edge - with that strange little smile once more pulling at your mouth you go to him, wrap your arms around him and pick him up, look down at the dial. Much as he dislikes being lifted so, he'll put up with it from you. Sometimes, the ends have to justify the means.
He says nothing, just looks down at the gilded pin to see what it casts over the dial. You say nothing, and do the same.
And together, your shadow swallows it whole.
[A hair-thin smile and bared skin can just be seen in the gloom of the video feed, but Schneizel does not wait long before shaking his head gently and switching it off.]