upstairs, room 1701D, conversations with dead people dream
She's in a library, ancient and well-kept from creaking floor to vaulted ceiling, ranks of elegant wooden bookcases filled to capacity rising on every side.
She's in a corridor on the Enterprise, familiar and still a little thrilling, deckplating and lighted panels and doors along the walls.
She's standing in the black velvet of deep space, unsupported but holding her position, breathing easily even without an atmosphere, watching the stars spin in close proximity - amber and blazing gold and white like cinders, hot blue and burning red and pale, pale green.
"Sariel, come in out of the rain, Sariel, you're going to get all--"
Smoke. she smells smoke. No iron - no burning cloth - no... worse, but she smells--and the stars aren't doing this, but she smells--
"--wet."
And the sound she hears in the next second, as her vision fades in and the scene changes to a familiar street in Castries all at once, is nothing short of a bucket of water being thrown.
"Amalie," her father yells, "I don't believe it, someone up and set the ground on fire!"
The front walk is swept clean, sun-bleached pale straight to the front door, long grass on either side and the tall, wide-branching mango tree spilling over from the neighbors' yard. She can smell the garden around the far corner, a mixture of cooking herbs, a dozen flowers and the strongest garlic her mother could find. There's a patch of sodden, scorched grass just barely in the house's shadow, thoroughly devoid of anything burning. Her father stands over it with an empty pail raised in one hand, gazing from the charred patch at his feet to the wall just beyond his right shoulder, looking as though he can't decide whether to be triumphant or disturbed about it all.
"They what?" Her mother's yelp echoes from the back of the house's interior, shocked and outraged and faintly disbelieving all at once. A second later she's there in a flurry of footsteps and a swirl of colorful skirts, braided hair swinging, the bucket of water she carries in both arms avoiding spilling over by millimeters. "My God, what were they trying to do, burn us all down? That'd be a *disaster*--you sure you got it all?"
"Mmm-hmm," her father nods, prodding the drenched grass with one toe. No sparks result, and what's left of the smoke is being overridden by the garden's blooming marguerites even before her mother sighs in relief and stamps her own foot firmly in the center of the scorched circle for good measure.
Alyssa's landing on her own feet a second later, soaked to the skin but unharmed and smiling in triumph. Selar's rounding that spreading mango tree, unruffled as ever, regal and entirely whole. Mandy's grinning proudly as she clambers through the backyard hedge; Harding beams as he slips around the other neighbor's avocado tree; Will's plucked a yellow rose from a bush, who knows where, and is offering it to her with a smile. "Ye're always welcome, Sariel," he says. Yrael flops down in the grass, a green-eyed white cat, purring so loudly it's likely Vieux-Fort can hear him. Tanya's wrist-deep in Saint Lucia's soil, planting green onions at the garden's edge, and Valerie's in the spy costume she wore once on Halloween, minus the squirting gun, braiding a mango blossom into her hair.
And Lian's appearing in a shimmer - that's not firelight, it's matter into energy into matter again - and Captain Kirk's returning her salute, and Tyler's turning round and round in place on the lawn, gazing in wonder at anything and everything. Teller's pulling something silver from thin air; when he turns it, it sounds like a key in a lock, and the smile he gives her over a flutter of appearing playing cards is impish and friendly. "I'm not late, am I?" Sonya hurries up the walk, unbound, undamaged, a tricorder still in one hand. "I had to get that report in before I left or I would've looked *horrible!*"
"I win," River says, and leans down without bending her knees. "Everybody does." The tiny sprig of lavender she's inspecting blooms at a kneeling Demeter's touch, and River beams as the goddess gets to her feet.
"Yous alright," Gene Roe says from the mango tree's shade. "I know tha'." The last three words are Creole. He's in a uniform four hundred years older than her own, and when she salutes, he returns it, too.
"I miss you," Sariel says.
"I miss you two," Seymour Krelborn answers, and peers around from behind Gene's shoulder. His glasses nearly fall off, and he catches them clumsily with one hand. The other's holding a yellow flower. Gene's smiling his soft, gentle smile the whole time, holding his rosary carefully at his side.
"I don't know how you got your gift, cherie," says an old, laugh-lined man with her father's twinkling eyes and coal black curls, "but you got it." He stands in the center of it all, a scant few inches taller than Sariel herself. There's a model airplane in one half-raised hand, all green enamel, fine details and tiny moving parts. It stands out against the gold of his wedding band and the denim of his sleeve. she's seen his face before, above an album's paper frame labeled with the year 2215. He shimmers with starlight, just a little.
When Sariel looks up, the stars could almost be smiling back at her.
She's in a corridor on the Enterprise, familiar and still a little thrilling, deckplating and lighted panels and doors along the walls.
She's standing in the black velvet of deep space, unsupported but holding her position, breathing easily even without an atmosphere, watching the stars spin in close proximity - amber and blazing gold and white like cinders, hot blue and burning red and pale, pale green.
"Sariel, come in out of the rain, Sariel, you're going to get all--"
Smoke. she smells smoke. No iron - no burning cloth - no... worse, but she smells--and the stars aren't doing this, but she smells--
"--wet."
And the sound she hears in the next second, as her vision fades in and the scene changes to a familiar street in Castries all at once, is nothing short of a bucket of water being thrown.
"Amalie," her father yells, "I don't believe it, someone up and set the ground on fire!"
The front walk is swept clean, sun-bleached pale straight to the front door, long grass on either side and the tall, wide-branching mango tree spilling over from the neighbors' yard. She can smell the garden around the far corner, a mixture of cooking herbs, a dozen flowers and the strongest garlic her mother could find. There's a patch of sodden, scorched grass just barely in the house's shadow, thoroughly devoid of anything burning. Her father stands over it with an empty pail raised in one hand, gazing from the charred patch at his feet to the wall just beyond his right shoulder, looking as though he can't decide whether to be triumphant or disturbed about it all.
"They what?" Her mother's yelp echoes from the back of the house's interior, shocked and outraged and faintly disbelieving all at once. A second later she's there in a flurry of footsteps and a swirl of colorful skirts, braided hair swinging, the bucket of water she carries in both arms avoiding spilling over by millimeters. "My God, what were they trying to do, burn us all down? That'd be a *disaster*--you sure you got it all?"
"Mmm-hmm," her father nods, prodding the drenched grass with one toe. No sparks result, and what's left of the smoke is being overridden by the garden's blooming marguerites even before her mother sighs in relief and stamps her own foot firmly in the center of the scorched circle for good measure.
Alyssa's landing on her own feet a second later, soaked to the skin but unharmed and smiling in triumph. Selar's rounding that spreading mango tree, unruffled as ever, regal and entirely whole. Mandy's grinning proudly as she clambers through the backyard hedge; Harding beams as he slips around the other neighbor's avocado tree; Will's plucked a yellow rose from a bush, who knows where, and is offering it to her with a smile. "Ye're always welcome, Sariel," he says. Yrael flops down in the grass, a green-eyed white cat, purring so loudly it's likely Vieux-Fort can hear him. Tanya's wrist-deep in Saint Lucia's soil, planting green onions at the garden's edge, and Valerie's in the spy costume she wore once on Halloween, minus the squirting gun, braiding a mango blossom into her hair.
And Lian's appearing in a shimmer - that's not firelight, it's matter into energy into matter again - and Captain Kirk's returning her salute, and Tyler's turning round and round in place on the lawn, gazing in wonder at anything and everything. Teller's pulling something silver from thin air; when he turns it, it sounds like a key in a lock, and the smile he gives her over a flutter of appearing playing cards is impish and friendly. "I'm not late, am I?" Sonya hurries up the walk, unbound, undamaged, a tricorder still in one hand. "I had to get that report in before I left or I would've looked *horrible!*"
"I win," River says, and leans down without bending her knees. "Everybody does." The tiny sprig of lavender she's inspecting blooms at a kneeling Demeter's touch, and River beams as the goddess gets to her feet.
"Yous alright," Gene Roe says from the mango tree's shade. "I know tha'." The last three words are Creole. He's in a uniform four hundred years older than her own, and when she salutes, he returns it, too.
"I miss you," Sariel says.
"I miss you two," Seymour Krelborn answers, and peers around from behind Gene's shoulder. His glasses nearly fall off, and he catches them clumsily with one hand. The other's holding a yellow flower. Gene's smiling his soft, gentle smile the whole time, holding his rosary carefully at his side.
"I don't know how you got your gift, cherie," says an old, laugh-lined man with her father's twinkling eyes and coal black curls, "but you got it." He stands in the center of it all, a scant few inches taller than Sariel herself. There's a model airplane in one half-raised hand, all green enamel, fine details and tiny moving parts. It stands out against the gold of his wedding band and the denim of his sleeve. she's seen his face before, above an album's paper frame labeled with the year 2215. He shimmers with starlight, just a little.
When Sariel looks up, the stars could almost be smiling back at her.