[001] → the house

[candyviolets]

You're aware of a deep, chilling darkness that surrounds you. You're in an unfamiliar basement, and there's a terrible potpourri of dust and formaldehyde that creates the stench of the dank place. There's something like a whisper in your ear, voices speaking in undertones that you can't hear, even though there's really no one there with you. A

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[drinkandforget]

She's not the type to be disturbed here. Sailor Lethe lives at the end of the galaxy, where people come to leave behind everything and forget themselves before they start their next life. Just as she holds few things to be of value - she knows just how impossible it is to take it with you - she has few fears.

So Lethe ignores the whisperings, the dank dark, the chill. Her river is hot, but this is fine, too.

"You've been brought here for a reason you know best," she says. "Something inside you drew you here." And after a brief pause, "What was it?"

[candyviolets]

Startled, Violet snaps out of her musing to look at the stranger. Her eyes travel Lethe up and down, trying to decide what to think of this person. She doesn't look like she's one of the ghosts... there aren't any wounds, anyway.

"I--" she begins, not exactly sure why she's responding, "... I don't know. I'm looking for someone, I think."

Violet nods, slowly at first, and then with certainty. "Yeah, there's someone I'm trying to find. But this place... I mean, it's always weird, but something feels different about it."

[drinkandforget]

"Do they often come here?" It's a reasonable question, on the face of it. But in a dream, much like at her river, it can become so difficult to remember things, to find the logic between the search and the location.

Lethe glances towards the tub, and various of the the other objects. "Is this place meaningful to them?"

[candyviolets]

"He--"

She stops, seemingly confused by something. The face of the person had flashed across her mind: a young man with messy, blonde hair. But, she couldn't remember his name. It was right there, on the tip of her tongue! But her brain felt foggy, as if everything was working much more slowly than usual.

"... I think so," she finished, frowning.

[drinkandforget]

"What sort of person is he?" It's a natural question, of course; and she's not particularly engaged in asking it, but she lets it stand and waits for the answer.

"What sort of person is he, to hang around a rundown house like this?" Her hand runs along one of the nearby walls.

[candyviolets]

The image of the young man in question is still piecing itself together in her head. Violet responds instead to the bit about the house, as the frown deepens.

"I live here," she says firmly, "This is the basement of my house."

"And it's crappy because it's fucking haunted," she thinks, but doesn't say. Instead, she shakes her head and tries to remember who exactly she was looking for.

"He's my friend," she begins, slowly. "... My boyfriend."

[drinkandforget]

A boyfriend. It's a common theme: I can't leave him behind, I can't go without him, I have to go back, my lover is waiting.

She supposes perhaps, in another life, she'd be foolish enough to want a lover, too. But in this one, she knows that such a relationship is also doomed, and ultimately futile. And the day would surely come when she would ferry him to her shores, if she chose a man. He would lose everything there, and she would lose him.

"Did you agree to meet here? Will he know to come?"

[candyviolets]

Why is it so hard to think? Violet's slowly becoming more aware, though, and there's a growing edge to her voice as it dawns on her that this person really isn't supposed to be here, whether it's in her house, or her dream.

"I think so," she says again, her eyes narrowing slightly in both confusion and suspicion.

"... Why are you here?" she asks finally.

[drinkandforget]

"By fate," says Lethe simply, as if this makes perfect sense as an explanation. "I had no conscious intention of arriving."

This is true, though as she says it, she has that feeling of things being out of place. She does not belong in a house in... wherever this is, on whatever planet it may be.

[candyviolets]

"Fate?" Violet repeats it, as if it could possibly make sense, but ends up shaking her head again.

"What does that even mean?" she asked, pressing Lethe for answers. "You just showed up? Well, you'd fit right in with all the freaks here."

[drinkandforget]

"If you want to understand..." Lethe considers whether to answer for just a moment. "Then know this is a dream."

This is not exactly an easy idea to accept, and she waits calmly for the denial she is almost sure will come.

[candyviolets]

"A dream...?"

Yeah, it makes sense. Because nothing here makes sense. Her headache goes away, at least a little bit. As strange as her reality is, this life, this place... it has to be a dream.

"Alright," she says, nodding. "I get that. I mean, everything's so screwy already that I just figured I could be awake. But, I guess I'm really not. At least, right now I'm not."

[drinkandforget]

Now came the stranger part.

"I'm also somewhere else, and dreaming." Two people, who'd never met in reality, were somehow sharing a dream. She wouldn't guess it so quickly like this except for her prior experience with the shared dreams, yet there it was.

[candyviolets]

That's definitely the stranger part. Violet watches the other girl with a raised brow, becoming more on her guard once again. How could someone possibly be sharing her dream? That kind of stuff never happened.

"... My dad would have a field day with this," she sighs, shaking her head. "Like you wouldn't believe."

Crossing her arms, Violet continues to watch the stranger.

"So, you're saying that I didn't just dream you up?" Violet asks. "You're real?"

[drinkandforget]

"I'm real," Lethe says easily. "However, we will probably never meet in our waking lives." She seems to treat it as normal, that something so outside the usual course of reality could exist. It says something about her own experiences.

"This place... is very far away from where I am." There was no regret to that statement. She'd never had a normal life to regret giving up, born into war.

[candyviolets]

It was definitely a dream; Violet had no problem with that. But, she didn't exactly buy that they were sharing the same space, and that this other person was real. Then, though, Constance's words flitted across her mind... hadn't she said something about different perceptions? Realities?

"Where are you, then?" she asks hesitantly.