Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.

[smallestopener]

Ingress had a brilliant birthday. She’s eleven. Eleven is nearly grown up! It’s also the year when children in the stories she’s read come into their own. Adventures begin, schooling starts, worlds are saved… she can hardly wait to see what will happen next

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Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

Ingress plops down onto a bale of hay in a stable. Sun shines upon her, warming her and making her sleepy. She could be in Valdemar or Ambergeldar or at Milliways. It doesn’t matter. This place stands for all places that smell of comforting horse flesh and tickly hay.

She does wonder where the horses are, but for right now, she is content to wait in this place of comfort and reassurance.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[aj_crawley]

In dreams, things don't have to make sense.

Here in the stable, with the good warm sun glowing in the hay, and the lazy dust motes glowing in the good warm sun, everything seems peaceful. It isn't silent, but it's quiet; no sound at all save for the soft whickering of the horses and the rustle of hay. The animals seem at peace.

But up in the loft, against the bright halo of the window, something else is moving.

Shadows.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

Ingress looks up. Shadows happen in barns. She isn't frightened of them. Not when everything is so warm and nice and lovely.

She stands, and then rises up on her tiptoes to better see.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[a_fell]

And now indistinct voices float down to her, though it isn't as though they're making any effort to conceal themselves. The sound is clearly the simple rise and fall of conversation, punctuated by the occasional soft clink of glassware.

On her toes, she can see that there are two figures silhouetted against the golden light seeping through the cracks between boards.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

"Hi! Who's up there?"

She wobbles on her tiptoes and stretches as high as she can, but she can't tell who the people are. Where's the ladder? Isn't there supposed to be a ladder?

She hears the clinks. Ooh, maybe they have milkshakes.

Whoever they are.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[aj_crawley]

There's a ladder. It mightn't have been there before, but it's there now, wide wooden steps and an incline that should pose no difficulty to the young and adventurous.

All you'd need is a head for heights.

From up above, the sound of quiet laughter, muted by the hay.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

"Are you having a birthday party? I love birthday parties," she says, hurtling up the ladder.

The hay is as soft a pillow when she spills over the top and into the loft. She laughs and then she sneezes and then she laughs again.

Heights bother her not one whit.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[a_fell]

Aziraphael looks over at her from his perch on a bale of hay, wineglass in one hand, and smiles, warm and inviting.

"Ingress, my dear, how wonderful that you're here to join us. Crowley and I were just saying that we don't see enough of our friends. Do come and have a seat."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

She claps her hands and laughs. The hay is hard for running, but her legs are strong, and she bounces through it like she's walking on the moon in her rush to join them at the table.

She kisses them both on the cheek.

"Can I have wine, too?"

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[aj_crawley]

Crowley's lounging slantwise on his bale, easy as a latter-day emperor, so when he glances across at Aziraphael it's with a tilted, sideways grin.

"A little of the good stuff never hurt anyone," he reasons, then. And just like that, there's a third wineglass on the table, between the fruit bowl and the bread. Crowley pours with a practised flourish of the wrist, low to high, until there's two fingers' worth of dark, promising red in the bottom of Ingress' glass.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

Ingress raises her glass and sips, a little wary. She's never had wine like this before.

It tastes like the best grape juice in the whole wide world.

(It may be the best grape juice in the whole wide world.)

"It's delicious," she says, beaming.

She's eleven, after all. She can have wine with her dinner.

(In dreams)

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[a_fell]

Aziraphael looks poised to say something, but in the end it's fairly obvious that the corner of his mouth is twitching and he only gives a benevolent shrug.

"You are eleven, after all. It's a very important age."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

"Isn't it? It's almost somewhere, but not quite yet."

The wine is quite good, but her giggles come from her heart and not from the vine.

"I shall be even taller soon."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[aj_crawley]

"Height is overrated," Crowley imparts - which might, from certain angles, be considered slightly hypocritical. "Size doesn't matter; it's what you - "

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[a_fell]

"Crowley," Aziraphael interrupts, looking scandalised. "Really."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[aj_crawley]

"What?" he says mildly, the picture of affronted innocence - except for that same curve at the corner of his mouth, the mirror image of Aziraphael's own. "She'll need the advice one day."