(and the words will hold you in their loquacious keeping stone to stone the answer told you is that stone is there to show you how the world did its weeping)
No corridor should slope so steeply uphill as this one, but he climbs it without thinking twice about whether this is right or wrong, focused desperately on what's ahead. There's someone behind him, but it changes, and he doesn't want to look back and see. If he looks, he falls.
He stares at her, eyes hard and untrusting, but reaches forward automatically. He needs to move, and any help, no matter how suspicious, is needed.
The scar on his face is larger, in his dreams, covering his entire left cheek, still sore and wrinkled, threatening to obscure his sight. Zuko grits his teeth and keeps climbing.
She understands without knowing, and understanding, tugs on his hand to help him climb higher, finding her footing with ease and supporting him where he might fall.
No, that's the young woman in the white dress, sitting on the grass a short distance away and grinning up at the sky, twirling a rainbow-edged rose in her rainbow-lit fingers.
She's pretty, and happy, and more importantly safe. This is a dream, after all. Things are allowed to work that way.
Dream-Steph is sad, 'cos Sokka drove away. She brightens to see Inty, though, grin taking over her face.
Inty finds herself even more rainbowy, brighter and sparklier than in real life, and the Sokka-in-a-car who's driving away is a little shorter than he really is, a little handsomer, practically glowing. Dream-Steph, on the other hand, is taller and blockier tonight than real-Steph, with the figure of a muscular teenage boy and blunt, hard features, roughly calloused hands, bulky shoulders.
(How much of this subconscious representation is the direct result of discovering that Sokkas apparently like soft, pretty girls who don't fight coughClairecough remains to be seen.)
(Lots.)
The road they're jogging down today is smooth and comfortable, but the city surrounding them is sharp and jagged and rocky.
Where dream-Inty is, dream-Gabriel is never far behind.
(Especially as certain Understandings have been reached, and, well, Gabriel is no longer sleeping on the floor. A great deal of blushing was involved.)
His dreamscape is shifting, restless, ill-at-ease. (It's what happens when, on top of everything else murderous future incarnations of yourself turn up. No matter what the mitigating factors.)
He's standing in a space. Not space but a space, some indiscernable piece of something that he can stand on. And, amazingly, the landscape changes in front of him into water, to land, and to actual space - stars and everything.
There's a spaceship in that one.
And a car down the road. Some sort of small jet a little further from that. And a large wooden boat with blue sails that dwarfs the rest - but is also the furthest away.
Comments 107
No corridor should slope so steeply uphill as this one, but he climbs it without thinking twice about whether this is right or wrong, focused desperately on what's ahead. There's someone behind him, but it changes, and he doesn't want to look back and see. If he looks, he falls.
It's as simple as that.
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The scar on his face is larger, in his dreams, covering his entire left cheek, still sore and wrinkled, threatening to obscure his sight. Zuko grits his teeth and keeps climbing.
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So is her hand, in a way.
She understands without knowing, and understanding, tugs on his hand to help him climb higher, finding her footing with ease and supporting him where he might fall.
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And one little yellow dreamer, enjoying it all.
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And a sense of peace and comfort and happiness.
Inty likes Pikachu's dreams.
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Time for tulip sniffing! (And sampling. Because everything has the potential to be food when you are a little yellow creature.)
Ahhh. Bliss.
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No, that's the young woman in the white dress, sitting on the grass a short distance away and grinning up at the sky, twirling a rainbow-edged rose in her rainbow-lit fingers.
She's pretty, and happy, and more importantly safe. This is a dream, after all. Things are allowed to work that way.
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Inty finds herself even more rainbowy, brighter and sparklier than in real life, and the Sokka-in-a-car who's driving away is a little shorter than he really is, a little handsomer, practically glowing. Dream-Steph, on the other hand, is taller and blockier tonight than real-Steph, with the figure of a muscular teenage boy and blunt, hard features, roughly calloused hands, bulky shoulders.
(How much of this subconscious representation is the direct result of discovering that Sokkas apparently like soft, pretty girls who don't fight coughClairecough remains to be seen.)
(Lots.)
The road they're jogging down today is smooth and comfortable, but the city surrounding them is sharp and jagged and rocky.
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This is interesting.
But more importantly: cuddles.
Did you think you couldn't cuddle while jogging?
You were wrong.
Tricky but possible.
Handholding is involved.
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"I think they liked the pizza," she says hopefully. "I liked it."
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It was delightful!
"He's going to come back, you know."
Not a certainty, but the next best thing.
And let's all be grateful that a particular piece of information hasn't found its way into Inty's consciousness just yet.
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(Especially as certain Understandings have been reached, and, well, Gabriel is no longer sleeping on the floor. A great deal of blushing was involved.)
His dreamscape is shifting, restless, ill-at-ease. (It's what happens when, on top of everything else murderous future incarnations of yourself turn up. No matter what the mitigating factors.)
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No, really, it does.
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He loves you, Inty.
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With no discernible transition, she's hugging him, resting her head comfortably against his shoulder with rainbow hands cuddled around his waist.
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He's standing in a space. Not space but a space, some indiscernable piece of something that he can stand on. And, amazingly, the landscape changes in front of him into water, to land, and to actual space - stars and everything.
There's a spaceship in that one.
And a car down the road. Some sort of small jet a little further from that. And a large wooden boat with blue sails that dwarfs the rest - but is also the furthest away.
Like some sort of multidimensional bus stop.
Sokka looks at it all with a frown.
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"Steph says hi."
Small smile.
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It's a dream, so he gets some height on it - ten feet or so.
Which makes landing kind of amusing.
"...okay," he says quietly from his nice position on the floor. "Uhm... hi to Steph, too."
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She offers him a hand up.
"How have you been?"
For once, a serious question-- her nature is quiet about these things lately.
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