Fic: Only In Dreams
Title: Only in Dreams
Word Count: 1000 on the nose
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original (An Allen Street Story)
Pairings (if any): None
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/RPF etc): None
Summary: Tianne knows she is more than she seems.
While this is a stand alone piece, this is a continuation of Consumed, a story that has yet to be published. Give me a few weeks and you should be able to read it. This story was written for a writerverse Challenge using prompt: Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. - Pamela Vaull Starr
There was a cat in her dreams. A black cat with violet eyes and a singed tail. It wasn't a cat she'd ever come across before when she was awake nor one that she would have cared to stop and pet if she had seen it. There was nothing pleasant about this cat. No one was going to go out of their way to bend down and pet this cat, let alone sit down on the curb and talk to it.
That was exactly what Tianne was doing each night. The strangest thing wasn't even that she was spending time with such a pathetic animal or that it was taking part in the conversation but that she, herself, was talking. It had been months since she'd uttered so much as a single syllable. While everyone else seemed to think she was working through her trauma and that she'd talk when she was ready, Tianne had realized right away that something had been taken from her. Something else, actually. So much had already been taken from her. A birth right. Most of her family. A standing in her community.
When she'd expressed that thought to the cat, it had snorted in a very uncat-like manner. "You think you've lost something so great? How about being homeless for most of the year? Wandering around like a vagrant and getting meals out of garbage cans where people have thrown the food they can't finish for some reason or another? It's not all fun and games, this life on the road."
"So why do you do it?"
No matter how many times she tried to ask a personal question or how many ways she tried to rephrase it, Tianne would always wake up before she found out the answer. Night after night, she tried to find out who the cat was and why it had decided to visit her dreams and have such banal discussions like which was better: rancid tomato sauce on hardened spaghetti noodles or moldy sourdough bread with dried peanut butter.
There was nothing much else going on during Tianne's waking hours that she didn't have time to think about the situation to the point of over thinking it completely. After she'd lost her voice, she'd been something of a sensation among the occupants of Allen Street. They came into Salamandar Pottery, her family's pottery shop, to gawk at her like she was missing a limb or sprouting cauliflower out of her ears. She was just a little more quiet than normal. There was nothing strange about her silence.
What was strange was how it happened. That night, that fateful night, was not one that anyone was done talking about yet. Tianne couldn't tell anyone about the events of that night in the garden not because she couldn't talk but because she didn't remember them. The only people who did remember were refusing to answer questions which only added to the mystery. Tianne's sister, Patrice, had been injured but was recovering quickly from her wounds. Her angel, Malachi was still around but no one ever saw him. He was only visible to Patrice these days. From time to time, he'd make both the sisters dinner but Tianne always felt like she was cutting into time between the two lovers.
Truth be told, she was also a little angry at the angel. If anyone could have fixed her right away, it should have been one of the heavenly host come to protect Allen Street and all of its inhabitants. She was one of those inhabitants even if she was only here because of her family connections. For all intents and purposes, she was nothing more than an off-streeter. Nothing more than one of those people who lived in the city beyond the gates of Allen Street who didn't believe in magic or power or anything that smacked of the supernatural. Tianne believed because she'd been born of two Elementals even if she was an empty husk, devoid of power. Nothing like that had ever happened that anyone could remember but they all just took it for granted that she was the way she was because it was meant to be.
Tianne didn't feel like she was complete. If anyone had asked, she would have told them that she felt very much like the empty husk everyone likened her to. It wasn't just an allegory. This was her life.
"So change it," the cat had told her after she'd spilled her darkest secret.
"And how shall I do that? I can't exactly take a funnel and just siphon magic away from my sister. Or eat a handful of magic beans. If it was that easy, don't you think I would have figured out the solution after all these years?"
The cat had only blinked and began to groom itself.
But the conversation had planted the seed of an idea inside Tianne's very soul. As crazy as it seemed to take the advice of a cat she only saw in her dreams, Tianne knew the animal was right. She was the only one who could right this wrong. The emptiness wasn't as complete as she'd always let on. There was something there that led her to believe that she should have been as full of magic as her sister or the rest of her family. She should have been able to create the phenomenal pottery that had set Salamandar apart from the rest and not just run the cash register or dust the shelves.
And so she would create as her famous family did. Someday.
"Beware of somedays. They turn into todays."
She'd only laughed when the cat had said that. But that was before the cat had shown up on the doorstep of Salamandar Pottery, complete with rumpled black fur, violet eyes and a singed tail. Tianne had pinched herself hard to make sure she was dreaming but it appeared that she was fully awake. That could only mean one thing - her someday had become a today.
Word Count: 1000 on the nose
Rating: PG
Original/Fandom: Original (An Allen Street Story)
Pairings (if any): None
Warnings (Non-Con/Dub-Con/RPF etc): None
Summary: Tianne knows she is more than she seems.
While this is a stand alone piece, this is a continuation of Consumed, a story that has yet to be published. Give me a few weeks and you should be able to read it. This story was written for a writerverse Challenge using prompt: Reach high, for stars lie hidden in your soul. Dream deep, for every dream precedes the goal. - Pamela Vaull Starr
There was a cat in her dreams. A black cat with violet eyes and a singed tail. It wasn't a cat she'd ever come across before when she was awake nor one that she would have cared to stop and pet if she had seen it. There was nothing pleasant about this cat. No one was going to go out of their way to bend down and pet this cat, let alone sit down on the curb and talk to it.
That was exactly what Tianne was doing each night. The strangest thing wasn't even that she was spending time with such a pathetic animal or that it was taking part in the conversation but that she, herself, was talking. It had been months since she'd uttered so much as a single syllable. While everyone else seemed to think she was working through her trauma and that she'd talk when she was ready, Tianne had realized right away that something had been taken from her. Something else, actually. So much had already been taken from her. A birth right. Most of her family. A standing in her community.
When she'd expressed that thought to the cat, it had snorted in a very uncat-like manner. "You think you've lost something so great? How about being homeless for most of the year? Wandering around like a vagrant and getting meals out of garbage cans where people have thrown the food they can't finish for some reason or another? It's not all fun and games, this life on the road."
"So why do you do it?"
No matter how many times she tried to ask a personal question or how many ways she tried to rephrase it, Tianne would always wake up before she found out the answer. Night after night, she tried to find out who the cat was and why it had decided to visit her dreams and have such banal discussions like which was better: rancid tomato sauce on hardened spaghetti noodles or moldy sourdough bread with dried peanut butter.
There was nothing much else going on during Tianne's waking hours that she didn't have time to think about the situation to the point of over thinking it completely. After she'd lost her voice, she'd been something of a sensation among the occupants of Allen Street. They came into Salamandar Pottery, her family's pottery shop, to gawk at her like she was missing a limb or sprouting cauliflower out of her ears. She was just a little more quiet than normal. There was nothing strange about her silence.
What was strange was how it happened. That night, that fateful night, was not one that anyone was done talking about yet. Tianne couldn't tell anyone about the events of that night in the garden not because she couldn't talk but because she didn't remember them. The only people who did remember were refusing to answer questions which only added to the mystery. Tianne's sister, Patrice, had been injured but was recovering quickly from her wounds. Her angel, Malachi was still around but no one ever saw him. He was only visible to Patrice these days. From time to time, he'd make both the sisters dinner but Tianne always felt like she was cutting into time between the two lovers.
Truth be told, she was also a little angry at the angel. If anyone could have fixed her right away, it should have been one of the heavenly host come to protect Allen Street and all of its inhabitants. She was one of those inhabitants even if she was only here because of her family connections. For all intents and purposes, she was nothing more than an off-streeter. Nothing more than one of those people who lived in the city beyond the gates of Allen Street who didn't believe in magic or power or anything that smacked of the supernatural. Tianne believed because she'd been born of two Elementals even if she was an empty husk, devoid of power. Nothing like that had ever happened that anyone could remember but they all just took it for granted that she was the way she was because it was meant to be.
Tianne didn't feel like she was complete. If anyone had asked, she would have told them that she felt very much like the empty husk everyone likened her to. It wasn't just an allegory. This was her life.
"So change it," the cat had told her after she'd spilled her darkest secret.
"And how shall I do that? I can't exactly take a funnel and just siphon magic away from my sister. Or eat a handful of magic beans. If it was that easy, don't you think I would have figured out the solution after all these years?"
The cat had only blinked and began to groom itself.
But the conversation had planted the seed of an idea inside Tianne's very soul. As crazy as it seemed to take the advice of a cat she only saw in her dreams, Tianne knew the animal was right. She was the only one who could right this wrong. The emptiness wasn't as complete as she'd always let on. There was something there that led her to believe that she should have been as full of magic as her sister or the rest of her family. She should have been able to create the phenomenal pottery that had set Salamandar apart from the rest and not just run the cash register or dust the shelves.
And so she would create as her famous family did. Someday.
"Beware of somedays. They turn into todays."
She'd only laughed when the cat had said that. But that was before the cat had shown up on the doorstep of Salamandar Pottery, complete with rumpled black fur, violet eyes and a singed tail. Tianne had pinched herself hard to make sure she was dreaming but it appeared that she was fully awake. That could only mean one thing - her someday had become a today.