His Excellency // Apr 20 // 4th Dream
The room around him is white - too white, too clean, too sterile - and filled with the quiet noise of a hospital: the rhythmic, muted beeping of a heart monitor, the subtle hissing of a machine delivering oxygen to a clear mask placed around the nose and mouth of a woman with long brown hair lying in the room's lone bed. Her eyes are closed, though the way her chest rises and falls beneath the sheets of the hospital bed (as well as the beeping from the monitor) indicate that she is still alive. Those with good memories may remember this woman from the man's first dream - though without her glasses and her hair let down, her appearance looks vastly different.
The man and the woman are the only things made of color in this otherwise harshly white room - as well as the bouquet of roses he holds in his hand. He stands at the edge of her hospital bed, looking down at her unconscious form, and there is a brief softening of his otherwise impenetrable and cool demeanor, his brow furrowing ever so slightly in genuine concern - in genuine worry. His lips move as he says something to her as she sleeps, though anyone listening to the dream would hear only silence.
He moves to put the bouquet of red roses - their color so bright and rich against the sterile colorlessness of the rest of the room - on her bedside table, standing still for a few more moments.
After a few heartbeats, the man is aware that he and the woman are no longer alone in the room, and turning around, finds himself face-to-face with five or six replicas of the woman, wearing her hair, her glasses, and her uniform, but they are obviously marionettes, their faces cold, wooden, their bodies artificial and suspended from the ceiling by wires. They are dolls, and that lone word stirs up genuine resentment in a man who rarely allows himself to feel genuine emotion at all. He reaches to his side, his hand grasping the hilt of his sword - though when he draws it from its sheath, it is not a blade of steel, but another bouquet of roses. Even so, petals fly through the air as he swings it as a weapon nonetheless, severing the strings that hold the women up.
They fall to the floor around him, their bodies crumpled and staring at the ceiling with lifeless eyes that never once had any life in them at all.
...Lady. *His voice is a soft murmur, thoughtful but cautious - and he says nothing more.*
The man and the woman are the only things made of color in this otherwise harshly white room - as well as the bouquet of roses he holds in his hand. He stands at the edge of her hospital bed, looking down at her unconscious form, and there is a brief softening of his otherwise impenetrable and cool demeanor, his brow furrowing ever so slightly in genuine concern - in genuine worry. His lips move as he says something to her as she sleeps, though anyone listening to the dream would hear only silence.
He moves to put the bouquet of red roses - their color so bright and rich against the sterile colorlessness of the rest of the room - on her bedside table, standing still for a few more moments.
After a few heartbeats, the man is aware that he and the woman are no longer alone in the room, and turning around, finds himself face-to-face with five or six replicas of the woman, wearing her hair, her glasses, and her uniform, but they are obviously marionettes, their faces cold, wooden, their bodies artificial and suspended from the ceiling by wires. They are dolls, and that lone word stirs up genuine resentment in a man who rarely allows himself to feel genuine emotion at all. He reaches to his side, his hand grasping the hilt of his sword - though when he draws it from its sheath, it is not a blade of steel, but another bouquet of roses. Even so, petals fly through the air as he swings it as a weapon nonetheless, severing the strings that hold the women up.
They fall to the floor around him, their bodies crumpled and staring at the ceiling with lifeless eyes that never once had any life in them at all.
...Lady. *His voice is a soft murmur, thoughtful but cautious - and he says nothing more.*