Dreamweaving
By Teresa Garcia
Published by THG StarDragon Publishing
A short story written for Diamondixi & Kristina Stumf
At the edge of the shrine grounds a white ice dragoness walked through the hoary, niveously mantled forest, untouched by the chill of the snow around her and beneath her feet. Above her towered Mt Rhiana, the taller White Peak buried in glaciers, and even the blackened, blasted, Black Peak unable to shake the frost that clung like powdered sugar. Her feathers flowed softly behind her as a winter mist, the iridescence of her scales and peacock-eyed feathers of her crest, wings, and tail a study in the pearled colors of the Aurora Borealis, though heavily skewed toward the blues and entrapped in ice. Twin turquoise jewels gazed out at the world, the facets of her eyes throwing sparks and glints. At her side flew an ice phoenix of similar hue, and they paused momentarily when a soft mist began to flow upward from the ground the closer they drew to the energy source that was their goal.
“How odd this mist is, it feeleth to be sentient,” Diamondixi thought to herself, waving her tail through it before starting forward again. “It thickens the further I go. And yet, mayhap it should lessen if I were to backtrack?”
The dragoness backed up a bit, and the mist did indeed lay back down somewhat, though curling around her feet still, the covered stones and the mantled trees shrouding the uncleared path.
“Are ye sure thou wantst to track down this one? There art others that feel as if they wouldst be simpler to reach, I wot.” Her companion spoke to her mind softly, and so she replied in like kind to his own, with undercurrents of shadows cloaking her deeper thoughts of the subject from him.
“This dreamer ist a strong one, the strongest I've felt in overmany years, and methinks I shalt needst all the nourishment I can getst before mine quest art done, my fere. She is also the most likely to help, from what I hath heard in others' dreams.”
“But, you couldst free him yourself.”
“An' he wouldst not be truly free if I were to use the straightforward path. Dost thou feelst wary of this mist which hath Presence?”
The ice phoenix sighed, winging on slowly. “Aye, I feel eyes that watcheth, yet see none. What sort of place hath such as this?”
“It is said that worldwalkers take a little of each world with them, mayhaps that is this. Mayhaps thou merely art overwary. Lightning hath not fallen yet to strikest us.” Meanwhile, Diamondixi's prismatic eyes whirled in thought, as she rehashed yet again the several possibilities. She knew how frustrated her companion was, but to make him privy to all her thoughts on the subject would dissipate the magic she had already set in motion.
The mist continued to listen, abiding by the charge laid to it by the local storm kami when she had built the branch of the shrine in this world. It made no move to stop the travelers, not finding any of the traits it was guarding against.
The dragon and phoenix pressed on again when the mist quieted, and continued despite the thickness of the air.
“A barrier.” Diamondixi thought to herself. “Well laid and with thought of its own. I wonder what this ryuonna is like.”
At the thickest, there was a definite sense of passing from one world to another. They felt as various things that had clung to them were swept away, some so tiny they had barely been noticed. Turning, after finishing passing through, they saw the mist devouring what looked to be sludge that had been swept from them, and tiny black creatures scurrying onto the nearest rocks to peer in at them, sulking at being dislodged.
The night was cold, and the moon hung low in the sky as Tsukiyomi strolled along the Heavenly Bridge amidst the myriad heavenly kami of the stars and moon, some of the other lunar deities accompanying him on their rounds for their cultures. A layer of snow reflected Tsukiyomi's reflected light from his elder sister, the sun kami Amaterasu, giving enough light that Amehana could see through her window as bright as the day. There was no breeze, for which the priestess was grateful, and pulled her several layers of kimono more tightly around herself.
In her office at home, her purple scales and teal feathers reflected the moonlight as eagerly as the snow did, their natural iridescence becoming more vivid. The moon prince kami was an old friend, and she could remember a time when he had gone into his sister's weaving hall and spent time observing her own weaving under one of her grandmothers... long ago, in a less physical existence. Tonight, however, she did not weave storm clouds, nor mist kimono, but instead words that she would submit to an instructor on another plane of existence.
The log in the kotatsu continued burning, but it was drawing to the end, and she waited for it. If she used the fire as a timer, she was less likely to stay up all night working. It was easy to do while her mate was out to sea on his ship, and the bed was less than warm and inviting with his absence. Amehana smiled shyly and blushed when thinking of his silver-white sheen, rich scent, and the way his blue eyes had that focused look beneath his tricorn hat – part of her soul coiling tighter around him while the rest of her soul more tenderly held the part of his that he had left with her, and returned her brush to her paper, making it dance like a snowflake in a blizzard and painting the words needed to finish her assignment. All the while, her daydreams made her somewhat aware of the affairs of his ship, and the way the weather was affecting his voyage.
A chime through her bones interrupted her work next, as something passed through the barriers around the home and the storm shrine's grounds. It was usual to feel as things ran headlong into or scrabbled at them at this late hour, hurled back with force and the flash of Sight that always came with such encounters as the Mist Guardian she created made a simultaneous report. Things did still roam this world with malicious intent – spiritual and physical. Those myriad malicious beings she always dealt with if they did manage to find a weakness to exploit the border. Her arrows, her katana, her spear, her claws... all had been bathed with blood more than once, and more than a few spirits had met their transformation or their sealing at her hands. This, though, was different... much more like the occasional Spiritual Seeker that wandered onto shrine grounds making omairi and seeking guidance after some emergency, or her healing skill.
She set her brush in the holder unrinsed and rose like a gust of wind, moving through the house swiftly and quietly as she could for the door, calling the storm staff to her hand. Blue and purple lightning coursed the silver length as the staff awakened in her hand. If the being's intentions changed while inside the barrier, she was armed and prepared. If the presence was indeed truly benevolent, then the staff was not going to be an offensive object to appear with, unlike her katana. Passing through the door, which shut behind her, her senses cast about again for the direction of the disturbance.
The night's chill more readily sank into her bones, despite clasping her teal feathered wings tight and mantling her head plumage just as firmly around her head and her mane. As she walked, she debated slipping to her kitsune form, the white fur of which would have provided another welcome layer of insulation. Ultimately, she decided not to, since her scales at least provided armor beneath her robes. Her eyes and senses cast about for whatever soul had wandered, most likely lost, onto the shrine grounds, then came crashing back to herself when she contacted the sought presence as she crested another hill.
The dragoness meeting her eyes was not large as dragonkind went, a bit larger than Amehana's current vaguely humanoid shape, and was walking on all fours. Amehana curled her tail around herself, cloaking herself in the mist that she always so readily could weave, allowing her purple and teal lights to dim.
“Who calls me and the resident kamisama at such a late hour?” Amehana asked from inside the mist she'd formed, allowing her voice to rumble and roll with the power of the storm she embodied. Unbidden, her inner lights flashed in the mini cloud.
“A hungry traveler, that seeketh nourishment, and hath heard tale of thine abilities... If thou art the Priestess Amehana. Prithee, assist.” The reply came softly in the priestess' mind, like a wisp of ice-mist.
“We are Amehana indeed. Why is it so important you look for me on such a cold night, instead of in the light and warmth of the day?”
Diamondixi did not flinch at either the tone, which was somehow both warm and inviting, and yet forbidding as a typhoon's gale all at once, nor from the strange lights within the mist that had so suddenly formed yet again, smelling of the flowers of spring and summer, and the rains of the whole year. Nor did she flinch, when the mist cleared to reveal – not the large purple and teal storm dragon she had expected, clad in silver armor and bells with lightning flashing from her eyes – but instead a short, slender, purple scaled, winged and tailed woman of human stature, clasping a silver staff with a six inch blue crystal with her head plumes clamped tight to conserve heat.
“Night ist mine time of greatest power. I am a Dreamweaver, thou shouldst know, and taketh mine sustenance from the dreamers that I influence. So it ist that I comest now, when I thoughtest thou wouldst be yet sleeping.”
“I don't sleep until late, usually.” Amehana beckoned the dragon and phoenix toward the shrine's living quarters and turned to head that direction. “I assume you are both ice element, but I am a far older storm dragon than I seem, so I will prepare tea, and some food, and you can tell me more of your tale inside. I hope the heat of the kotatsu for this body of mine will not be a problem for you.”
“No, not at all. Thank you.”
Amehana sipped her tea, waiting for her guests to have their fill of the dumplings she had provided for the sake of warmth and full bellies. She noticed though that, as had been stated by the iridescent dragoness, both truly did seem to take all their sustenance from dreams. This came to her attention because she had caught herself daydreaming about the pair eating and being nourished.
“As long as they have what they need for strength, it doesn't matter much how they eat it.” She decided, watching herself eat one of the dumplings while idly observing the daydream.
“Fascinating... Thy dreams happen even whilst thou art yet awake, and always are beginning and ending all at once...” Her guest observed, seemingly having been watching her as closely as she was them.
“Like I said before,” Amehana replied, taking the old dialect in stride easily, “I am old. I have had a long time to reach my level of Awakening. And it probably does help that I am a two-soul collective. I still have quite some way to go yet though to achieve full enlightenment.” She sipped again. “So what brings you to my humble shrine?”
“In my feedings I camest unto a small child of most poor means after following strangest urgings.”
Amehana began to stir in her mind, preparing to speak, but Diamondixi continued and overrode it. “I know, there are many, and I know that you help all that you can. This one is different though. This child needs to be in another world, for he be a Changeling, and so sickens where he be kept hostage.”
“A Changeling of what sort, per se?”
“He seemeth to have been meantst for the land, but he dwelleth on the bottom of the sea, amongst the rocks, with a people of scale and slime.”
“Scale and slime?” Amehana thought, and debated with herself over what this could possibly be, before both portions of herself were presented by the same image from Diamondixi's mind.
A lad, whose teen years were soon to fall behind if age could be judged by look, was clad in what looked as if it had once been naturally occurring fur. This fur, where it sprouted from his body, was turning to scale, and he oozed a strange greenish slime. As terrible and confusing a sight as it was, his humanity still clung like the vestiges of one of Gastro's savoury pies in an unfortunate dragon's colon- stubbornly. The vision panned to those around him, the cave grubby and the occupants green and scaly fish-people hybrids. Or at least so they looked to her eyes.
“What are those?”
“They calleth themselves Finmen, according to his dreams and those alongst thine shore I hadst explored for more information. Most be not born thus, but are stolen as babes or corrupted later to become what I hath shewn.”
“And the boy?”
“Clingeth to vague memories of a mother he was stolen from, and a song she used to sing him. He does not wish to be so, but to return someday, and trieth often to escape.”
“So... you're here for help to spirit him away from... that?”
“Rumor and dreams have it that thou hast or perchance art the Storm Mirror, and that if one gazes into it, they see themselves as thou truly art and recover what soul hath been stolen from themselves. I mean to, in his dreaming, cause him to look into it and recover his self, so that he may eventually become truly free.”
Amehana frowned a bit as she thought, trying to see how her sacred object would play into the boy's fate.
“It is not a plan that I understand. Why not simply free him physically and make him quest for his soul?”
“If he escapeth now, they would counteract the fraying of their spells that I wreaketh. I am strong in magic. Yet, they too have their own, and theirs is based in entrapment very well and heavily. They couldst recapture him.”
Amehana sighed deeply.
“Very well. Bring the boy to the Honden, the hall in the very back of the shrinegrounds, with my Father's spear on the roof. The Mirror is there, and I will be there to unveil it for him. It long ago became too large to transport unless I put it in one of my sleeves, and the more I put it back, the more it wants to stay hidden fully.”
“I thank thee...” Diamondixi nodded. Her phoenix watched Amehana finish her tea and dumplings, waiting for what it could feel stirring.
“In return, as I suspect you want me to go with you as well, I would like to ask for a favor in return, to be repaid at a later date of my choosing and within your abilities.” A scroll materialized in front of Diamondixi, along with a calligraphy brush and well with ground ink ready. The writing on the scroll, in Amehana's primary language as well as Diamondixi's, echoed the same statement.
“I don't like it, it's too open ended, it is.” The phoenix broke in. “She could ask for anything at any time.”
“It is the rules. I must abide by Reciprocity. This is part of musubi, interdependence, and the way of my people. I cannot ask for something now, for I have what I need and know of no one yet that I would use my favor for.” Amehana rose, picked up the plate, and drifted to the kitchen to clean up, leaving them to talk. The clink of pottery and sound of water soon came from that quarter.
Far behind them at the shrine, Hana had been left to guard the mirror and tend to the needs of any other visitors whether dragon, kami, or other. The separation had been instantaneous, the phoenix jumping back at the suddenness and dropping a feather when a human sized fox woman stepped out of and away from the dragon woman, black tipped ears twitching and nine matching tails wrapping around her mostly white self for warmth over her kimono. Ame smiled to herself at the memory, always finding such amusement when they could get a reaction like that from anyone.
The ground passed below them as they rode the winds, and as it too fell away, Ame was unable to keep her hope out of her scent. Perhaps she could get a glimpse of her mate's ship, if they passed over the right area. Her eyes glowed a deep teal green as she scanned the waters below and the horizon ahead of her, then dimmed as she gained control of herself.
The ice phoenix soared above her, glancing overhead often. Ame seemed to generate her own weather he had observed, the skies tending to clear or cloud based on her emotions at the time. And to his worry, those emotions shifted and ran like quicksilver even after she had left her other self behind. The whiff of excitement stuck in his nose, surprising him enough to miss two wingbeats and lose altitude.
“Ah! Cold!” Ame tucked her wings and barrelrolled to drop whatever freezing thing had landed on her back.
The poor phoenix dropped from where he'd landed and righted himself. Diamondixi looked back over her wing at the ryuuonna's cry, her phoenix' squawk, and the surprised jabs and pulses from both of their minds. The scent of evaporating water below them intensified and mixed with the dust of the air, and the electricity from Ame began to charge the air. In the far distance, a cry answered her, and the air thickened.
Ame sighed.
“Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to start a storm seed.”
“It ist in your nature. Thou art one, are ye not?” Diamondixi smiled when Ame gave a wordless reply, then gestured ahead. “We go down at that place.”
She grumbled. “Yes, but I still prefer seeds to be intentional. And started with my mate.”
They dove beneath the cold winter sea as it churned at rocky island shorelines. The phoenix and the ice dragon were protected from the effects of the water by magic, being airbreathers. Ame breathed deeply of the water and swam deeper after them, stifling purrs at the memories that once more taking seawater to her lungs evoked.
After a short time, the rocky sea floor began to take on a more ordered appearance, as if someone were purposefully arranging the shell beds, cultivating plants, and herding the groups of fish. The hollows below rocks looked less as if they were naturally occurring, and more as if their placement had been chosen and encouraged.
Ame felt a tingle of recognition. Part of her childhood below the waves in Ryuugyuu's capital had accustomed her to what settlement starts would look like. As she briefly remembered the times she would sneak away from nursemaids and her father's meetings with other lords, she felt Diamondixi draw on the energy of them, despite how brief the dream had been.
The further they went, the more often came the signs of occupation, till they reached a thickening in the water, similar to what the air around Ame's shrine did. At the border, where it formed an actual shell Diamondixi placed her hand and drew a sigil, breathing a few words. The barrier melted slightly, allowing them passage without waking the old Finman Seidhrmann that all could feel attached to the barrier. As Ame passed through, Diamondixi held the passage open for her considerably larger companion. Even then, it was only just, the barrier solidifying again with a snap barely after the last of her tail plumes crossed through.
“It is stronger than the last... He must have another aiding him tonight.” Diamondixi observed, feeling around with her mind as much as her companions.
“They moved him...” The phoenix pointed with a wing in the direction he had been moved.
Diamondixi nodded, and the three set in that direction through the village. Fires, or what passed for them below the waters, lay low in cooking pits, and tattered rags passed for doors. Near each door, guards snoozed, leaning in or beside so as to be awoken if one of their charges tried to leave.
“Why aren't we helping these other children?” Ame asked after passing the tenth holding cave.
“Those are too far gone, they had the least that had to be stolen, or were born here.” Diamondixie was a white flutter ahead, pausing finally at the cave nearest the center cave. “They have him here.”
Slipping in, Ame saw what was meant by the boy's state, versus that of the others.
Curled beneath salvaged wool sailor's blankets and rough weavings of kelp, the boy's fur warred with the scales that crept inexorably over his flesh. Beside his head was a pouch, with the end of a coral flute just visible. Incised into his skin, various sigils had been, and then overlaid with ink. New tattoos of this sort had been recently wrought upon the lad, fiery red. Weakly a force could be seen fighting back, green witchfire sputtering like dying embers.
Diamondixi knelt beside the lad, stroking his forehead. In response, the furrows of his brow smoothed and a sigh escaped him.
There was a stirring, and they all met eyes over the sleeping lad. As one, they began to move. Diamondixi entered the teen's dreams to fortify him and rebuild what had been damaged while there was time. The phoenix took guard by the door to protect his mistress. Ame slipped out of the cave and into invisibility to deal with the movement that they had felt in the settlement's energy.
The disturbance came from the cave in the very center of the settlement. There, Ame found the Headman embroiled in talk with the settlement's Seidhrmenn. Quietly, carefully, she counted how many she could see. To her relief, there were only five that she saw, though it still meant two more than their own number.
“Let us know if they moveth.”
“Hai.”
Inside, the conversation continued in barks and jabs, clicks and clucks, interspersed with what sounded to be Nordic words. Now and then, someone tossed carved bones onto a painted leather spread.
Diamondixi grew less responsive to what was immediately around her for now, confident that she would be given the time she needed. Entering the lad's dream, she found him where she had found him before, in the arms of a woman with a mass of dark hair, bright blue eyes, and bare shoulders resplendent with warm, soft brown fur. She was fragrant with milk, and the scent of rosewater. The sound of the sea washed into the room, and when looking out, the water greeted her eyes. The mother sang a quiet song as she nestled the furry little boy-child into his bed, and the gate across the bottom of the door was testament to the fact that the boy was already mobile.
Diamondixi exerted her influence, encouraging the dream. She watched as the nameless mother leaned into the crib, planted a kiss on the boy's brow just where Diamondixi had stroked before entering. Chubby little hands reached for her as she pulled away and walked to the window, peering out first at the horizon as if watching for a boat to come to the natural harbor below.
“How much longer till you're back in port with me, Finnol? You're missing so much,” she sighed, then looked to the ground below. The softness of her eyes turned to a hardness, then she left the room quietly.
Diamondixi prompted as many memories of this mother as she could. Each memory, each dream that she took the lad through, she could see as torn parts of his self gained strength. Great gashes had been left in his spirit, as if things he had done, or been forced to do during his time there had gone so greatly against his nature that it was tearing out his kindness, his sense of right, and the core he was constructed around.
Diamondixi pressed deeper, looking closer at his soul while in the lad's dreams. In the deepest recesses, she discovered a small child, perhaps five, resolutely clutching a pebble, and a small cloth doll. Not so much to her surprise, the boy saw her as well.
“Who and what are you?” Piped the boy, covering his fist with his other hand and holding both close to his heart. His large eyes flashed a dark blue, so dark as to be almost muddy, locking with hers.
“My name ist Diamondixi. I'm a Dreamweaver.”
“You're here why?”
“I wantst to help you getst away and heal. What ist your name, little boy?”
“You talk weird.” He observed, the words dropping with childlike finality. “They call me Justin, but I don't know if that's really my name. They rename some of us. 'Cause of me, maybe.”
“Why wouldst they do that?”
“The Seidhrmenn change some of us and take or taint our souls so there will be more Finmen. Not many Finwomen, and those women here don't like the men. I don't want to be a Finman. I want my mother. I want a proper wife in a few years. I want to stop hunting other children.”
Diamondixi considered his answers. “I, we, canst helpeth thee to get away, if thou wantst.”
“The Seidhrmenn would stop you. They catch us all again, eventually.”
“Mayhaps not where I wouldst take thee. It ist verily some distance from the sea, mayhaps beyond where they mayst travel.”
“Ok. You can try. But I want to go home eventually.”
“Thou wilt.”
Amehana pressed for the minds of her companions when the Headman and his people began to turn their attention.
“They're finishing. Seems they've felt something. If we're getting the boy out of here, we've got to get moving.”
“I canst starteth waking him now.”
Diamondixie stepped back from the little boy dreaming inside Justin's heart. “Justin, we need you to wake.”
With the end of the dream, came a surge of power, a tingle, and Diamondixie gathered as much as she could. This she used to fuel her spell, further fraying the grip of what the Seidhrmenn had woven. With this, Justin woke, even more aware of the parts of his soul that had been lost or taken.
Justin sat up, looking around lost, seeing the small white creature from his dream beside him, and another feathery white and blue creature by the door. Quietly he rose and gathered his things.
“He wakes,” Diamondixi sent to Ame.
The phoenix raised the doorflap carefully, while Diamondixie sent everyone else that she could further into sleep. Carefully, the trio picked their way out.
Ame looked over at them, waving them on, then paused outside of the holding cave the boy had been in to create the illusion the lad still slept within. She followed swiftly, though hanging behind as rearguard in the case that anyone chose that moment to come out.
It was a choice that turned out for the best, as indeed, the Seidhrmenn did emerge at just that moment. Before they had a chance to raise a cry, Ame hurled bolts toward them and used her large wings to stir the waters and fling them back right into the cave they had emerged from.
Diamondixi grabbed Justin and tried to get him moving faster, but her small size did little, and pulled backwards some by the current the larger dragon had made. Ame moved faster, long used to arrowing through waters with strong current, and by instinct Justin grabbed her horns as she offered them. Diamondixi and her phoenix did likewise while the dragon accelerated and angled toward the surface.
The Seidhrmenn were not thrown off as long as Ame had hoped though. One raised an alarm, though the settlement did not rise in answer... all held fast by Diamondixi's spell. Two others strengthened the barrier. The final two swam after them as swiftly as they could, summoning the power of the waters to slow them.
Ame fought her pride and continued going, though her eyes began to slip from teal to red at the insult of something trying to use the waters against her, due to storms being born from the seas. The phoenix hurled a cry ahead of them, the force hitting the barrier and weakening it.
A spear winged past them, hurled by one of the Seidhrmenn behind them. Their eyes caught on the glowing runes carved along the shaft, and the wicked stone point that sliced though the barrier. A muryky red-black tinge spread there, and Ame turned, seeking another route through.
“Why are you turning?” Screamed Justing. “I thought you were going to get me away.”
“That will be poison for me. They may be insulting, but they seem to know a storm dragon and what makes us weak.” Ame replied through the red haze in her eyes, desperately trying to keep hold of her senses.
“There.” Diamondixi pointed. “It still be weak there, and the murk hast not yet spread fully to it.”
Ame dipped for that spot, sliding through the membrane. A tendril of the red substance brushed against her as it inexorably spread, but she was through before the main of it was able to contact her. She continued on, diverting some of her energy in an attempt to purify herself of the taint, and the area too if possible.
Within moments, she and the others were above the water, and in the skies on their way back to the storm shrine. When the phoenix and Diamondixi were dry, they flew on their own, to give less weight, as Ame had begun to lose her luster, though her eyes were at least clearing.
The flight was a quiet one.
When they arrived, the sun had begun to rise. Hana, in miko's robes of red and white, her white fur and nine tails resplendent in the pale rose light swept the walks of the shrine compound, looking up at them when she felt the group pass through the barrier. The boy, for his part, stared at the strange fox woman.
“I'm not fully convinced that I am actually awake...” Justin mumbled, still staring at the foxwoman going about her duties and waiting for them to land.
“You lived with a bunch of scaly stinky filthy rude fish people. And even dried out, you've still got a bit of fur that doesn't look like any human hair I've ever seen. Maybe this is my dream. People aren't hairy like that.” Ame landed in the snow, purposefully spraying as much of it in the air as she could in testament to her opinion of the Finmen.
The fact that some of that snow landed in the walkway that Hana has only just recently finished sweeping had said kitsune shaking her broom at Ame.
“Honestly! Just because our mate isn't home yet, and you have to leave the warmth of the fire, you undo all my work?!”
Ame stuck her considerably long forked tongue out at Hana. “Oh hush. I'll help you after we've got this boy sorted.”
Justin looked quizzically at Diamondixi and the phoenix, hoping for some sort of explanation. They just shrugged, having no idea themselves.
“Fine then. You get to bake Obs' pie when he gets up here too then. I had a messenger shortly before you arrived that he'd be up today.”
Ame rolled her eyes and let Justin off her back, slipping back into her half dragon form, taking off her outermost kimono and putting it over his meager coverings, then heading for the Honden without further comment. The boy still looked confused when she slid the doors open and waved him in.
“My sister-self. Don't mind us, we always snap and poke at each other. Keeps us sharp.”
Justin's eyes could not go any farther up his head, but he followed where he was led. The hall was large enough for a dragon of Ame's size to fit comfortably inside, but seemed to have been arranged mostly with human sized occupants in mind. At the back, a silver-grey length of silk draped over a large frame. He stood where indicated, Diamondixi and her phoenix nearby, then Ame slowly pulled the cloth away...
The log popped and crackled in the kotatsu, carrying through the room. Amehana jumped, looking around in confusion. The room smelled heavily of the rich incense that her father had brought from his last visit, where it had been mixed by her brothers in the Mountain Kingdom of the shared mythic space of several neighboring Asian countries' spirit realms. Spring flowers were mingled with autumn fruits, the summer's heated rain, and the crisp winter snow... with a hint of her father's ozone.
Outside, snow fell softly, the clouds having rolled in and obscured the moon's trek across the skies.
“A dream?” She asked herself, unfolding herself from where she kneeled on the zabuton in front of her teak desk. Tea had long since gone cold, and the ink she had ground had gone dry.
No answer came, and with a sigh, she picked up the brush, examining it to make sure she had at least rinsed it before falling asleep. Satisfied that she had, she got fully up and went to prepare fresh tea.
At the window, a diminutive white dragoness smiled, equally satisfied. As the snow fell softly, she and her companion continued onward, mission, for now, complete.
“How odd this mist is, it feeleth to be sentient,” Diamondixi thought to herself, waving her tail through it before starting forward again. “It thickens the further I go. And yet, mayhap it should lessen if I were to backtrack?”
The dragoness backed up a bit, and the mist did indeed lay back down somewhat, though curling around her feet still, the covered stones and the mantled trees shrouding the uncleared path.
“Are ye sure thou wantst to track down this one? There art others that feel as if they wouldst be simpler to reach, I wot.” Her companion spoke to her mind softly, and so she replied in like kind to his own, with undercurrents of shadows cloaking her deeper thoughts of the subject from him.
“This dreamer ist a strong one, the strongest I've felt in overmany years, and methinks I shalt needst all the nourishment I can getst before mine quest art done, my fere. She is also the most likely to help, from what I hath heard in others' dreams.”
“But, you couldst free him yourself.”
“An' he wouldst not be truly free if I were to use the straightforward path. Dost thou feelst wary of this mist which hath Presence?”
The ice phoenix sighed, winging on slowly. “Aye, I feel eyes that watcheth, yet see none. What sort of place hath such as this?”
“It is said that worldwalkers take a little of each world with them, mayhaps that is this. Mayhaps thou merely art overwary. Lightning hath not fallen yet to strikest us.” Meanwhile, Diamondixi's prismatic eyes whirled in thought, as she rehashed yet again the several possibilities. She knew how frustrated her companion was, but to make him privy to all her thoughts on the subject would dissipate the magic she had already set in motion.
The mist continued to listen, abiding by the charge laid to it by the local storm kami when she had built the branch of the shrine in this world. It made no move to stop the travelers, not finding any of the traits it was guarding against.
The dragon and phoenix pressed on again when the mist quieted, and continued despite the thickness of the air.
“A barrier.” Diamondixi thought to herself. “Well laid and with thought of its own. I wonder what this ryuonna is like.”
At the thickest, there was a definite sense of passing from one world to another. They felt as various things that had clung to them were swept away, some so tiny they had barely been noticed. Turning, after finishing passing through, they saw the mist devouring what looked to be sludge that had been swept from them, and tiny black creatures scurrying onto the nearest rocks to peer in at them, sulking at being dislodged.
The night was cold, and the moon hung low in the sky as Tsukiyomi strolled along the Heavenly Bridge amidst the myriad heavenly kami of the stars and moon, some of the other lunar deities accompanying him on their rounds for their cultures. A layer of snow reflected Tsukiyomi's reflected light from his elder sister, the sun kami Amaterasu, giving enough light that Amehana could see through her window as bright as the day. There was no breeze, for which the priestess was grateful, and pulled her several layers of kimono more tightly around herself.
In her office at home, her purple scales and teal feathers reflected the moonlight as eagerly as the snow did, their natural iridescence becoming more vivid. The moon prince kami was an old friend, and she could remember a time when he had gone into his sister's weaving hall and spent time observing her own weaving under one of her grandmothers... long ago, in a less physical existence. Tonight, however, she did not weave storm clouds, nor mist kimono, but instead words that she would submit to an instructor on another plane of existence.
The log in the kotatsu continued burning, but it was drawing to the end, and she waited for it. If she used the fire as a timer, she was less likely to stay up all night working. It was easy to do while her mate was out to sea on his ship, and the bed was less than warm and inviting with his absence. Amehana smiled shyly and blushed when thinking of his silver-white sheen, rich scent, and the way his blue eyes had that focused look beneath his tricorn hat – part of her soul coiling tighter around him while the rest of her soul more tenderly held the part of his that he had left with her, and returned her brush to her paper, making it dance like a snowflake in a blizzard and painting the words needed to finish her assignment. All the while, her daydreams made her somewhat aware of the affairs of his ship, and the way the weather was affecting his voyage.
A chime through her bones interrupted her work next, as something passed through the barriers around the home and the storm shrine's grounds. It was usual to feel as things ran headlong into or scrabbled at them at this late hour, hurled back with force and the flash of Sight that always came with such encounters as the Mist Guardian she created made a simultaneous report. Things did still roam this world with malicious intent – spiritual and physical. Those myriad malicious beings she always dealt with if they did manage to find a weakness to exploit the border. Her arrows, her katana, her spear, her claws... all had been bathed with blood more than once, and more than a few spirits had met their transformation or their sealing at her hands. This, though, was different... much more like the occasional Spiritual Seeker that wandered onto shrine grounds making omairi and seeking guidance after some emergency, or her healing skill.
She set her brush in the holder unrinsed and rose like a gust of wind, moving through the house swiftly and quietly as she could for the door, calling the storm staff to her hand. Blue and purple lightning coursed the silver length as the staff awakened in her hand. If the being's intentions changed while inside the barrier, she was armed and prepared. If the presence was indeed truly benevolent, then the staff was not going to be an offensive object to appear with, unlike her katana. Passing through the door, which shut behind her, her senses cast about again for the direction of the disturbance.
The night's chill more readily sank into her bones, despite clasping her teal feathered wings tight and mantling her head plumage just as firmly around her head and her mane. As she walked, she debated slipping to her kitsune form, the white fur of which would have provided another welcome layer of insulation. Ultimately, she decided not to, since her scales at least provided armor beneath her robes. Her eyes and senses cast about for whatever soul had wandered, most likely lost, onto the shrine grounds, then came crashing back to herself when she contacted the sought presence as she crested another hill.
The dragoness meeting her eyes was not large as dragonkind went, a bit larger than Amehana's current vaguely humanoid shape, and was walking on all fours. Amehana curled her tail around herself, cloaking herself in the mist that she always so readily could weave, allowing her purple and teal lights to dim.
“Who calls me and the resident kamisama at such a late hour?” Amehana asked from inside the mist she'd formed, allowing her voice to rumble and roll with the power of the storm she embodied. Unbidden, her inner lights flashed in the mini cloud.
“A hungry traveler, that seeketh nourishment, and hath heard tale of thine abilities... If thou art the Priestess Amehana. Prithee, assist.” The reply came softly in the priestess' mind, like a wisp of ice-mist.
“We are Amehana indeed. Why is it so important you look for me on such a cold night, instead of in the light and warmth of the day?”
Diamondixi did not flinch at either the tone, which was somehow both warm and inviting, and yet forbidding as a typhoon's gale all at once, nor from the strange lights within the mist that had so suddenly formed yet again, smelling of the flowers of spring and summer, and the rains of the whole year. Nor did she flinch, when the mist cleared to reveal – not the large purple and teal storm dragon she had expected, clad in silver armor and bells with lightning flashing from her eyes – but instead a short, slender, purple scaled, winged and tailed woman of human stature, clasping a silver staff with a six inch blue crystal with her head plumes clamped tight to conserve heat.
“Night ist mine time of greatest power. I am a Dreamweaver, thou shouldst know, and taketh mine sustenance from the dreamers that I influence. So it ist that I comest now, when I thoughtest thou wouldst be yet sleeping.”
“I don't sleep until late, usually.” Amehana beckoned the dragon and phoenix toward the shrine's living quarters and turned to head that direction. “I assume you are both ice element, but I am a far older storm dragon than I seem, so I will prepare tea, and some food, and you can tell me more of your tale inside. I hope the heat of the kotatsu for this body of mine will not be a problem for you.”
“No, not at all. Thank you.”
Amehana sipped her tea, waiting for her guests to have their fill of the dumplings she had provided for the sake of warmth and full bellies. She noticed though that, as had been stated by the iridescent dragoness, both truly did seem to take all their sustenance from dreams. This came to her attention because she had caught herself daydreaming about the pair eating and being nourished.
“As long as they have what they need for strength, it doesn't matter much how they eat it.” She decided, watching herself eat one of the dumplings while idly observing the daydream.
“Fascinating... Thy dreams happen even whilst thou art yet awake, and always are beginning and ending all at once...” Her guest observed, seemingly having been watching her as closely as she was them.
“Like I said before,” Amehana replied, taking the old dialect in stride easily, “I am old. I have had a long time to reach my level of Awakening. And it probably does help that I am a two-soul collective. I still have quite some way to go yet though to achieve full enlightenment.” She sipped again. “So what brings you to my humble shrine?”
“In my feedings I camest unto a small child of most poor means after following strangest urgings.”
Amehana began to stir in her mind, preparing to speak, but Diamondixi continued and overrode it. “I know, there are many, and I know that you help all that you can. This one is different though. This child needs to be in another world, for he be a Changeling, and so sickens where he be kept hostage.”
“A Changeling of what sort, per se?”
“He seemeth to have been meantst for the land, but he dwelleth on the bottom of the sea, amongst the rocks, with a people of scale and slime.”
“Scale and slime?” Amehana thought, and debated with herself over what this could possibly be, before both portions of herself were presented by the same image from Diamondixi's mind.
A lad, whose teen years were soon to fall behind if age could be judged by look, was clad in what looked as if it had once been naturally occurring fur. This fur, where it sprouted from his body, was turning to scale, and he oozed a strange greenish slime. As terrible and confusing a sight as it was, his humanity still clung like the vestiges of one of Gastro's savoury pies in an unfortunate dragon's colon- stubbornly. The vision panned to those around him, the cave grubby and the occupants green and scaly fish-people hybrids. Or at least so they looked to her eyes.
“What are those?”
“They calleth themselves Finmen, according to his dreams and those alongst thine shore I hadst explored for more information. Most be not born thus, but are stolen as babes or corrupted later to become what I hath shewn.”
“And the boy?”
“Clingeth to vague memories of a mother he was stolen from, and a song she used to sing him. He does not wish to be so, but to return someday, and trieth often to escape.”
“So... you're here for help to spirit him away from... that?”
“Rumor and dreams have it that thou hast or perchance art the Storm Mirror, and that if one gazes into it, they see themselves as thou truly art and recover what soul hath been stolen from themselves. I mean to, in his dreaming, cause him to look into it and recover his self, so that he may eventually become truly free.”
Amehana frowned a bit as she thought, trying to see how her sacred object would play into the boy's fate.
“It is not a plan that I understand. Why not simply free him physically and make him quest for his soul?”
“If he escapeth now, they would counteract the fraying of their spells that I wreaketh. I am strong in magic. Yet, they too have their own, and theirs is based in entrapment very well and heavily. They couldst recapture him.”
Amehana sighed deeply.
“Very well. Bring the boy to the Honden, the hall in the very back of the shrinegrounds, with my Father's spear on the roof. The Mirror is there, and I will be there to unveil it for him. It long ago became too large to transport unless I put it in one of my sleeves, and the more I put it back, the more it wants to stay hidden fully.”
“I thank thee...” Diamondixi nodded. Her phoenix watched Amehana finish her tea and dumplings, waiting for what it could feel stirring.
“In return, as I suspect you want me to go with you as well, I would like to ask for a favor in return, to be repaid at a later date of my choosing and within your abilities.” A scroll materialized in front of Diamondixi, along with a calligraphy brush and well with ground ink ready. The writing on the scroll, in Amehana's primary language as well as Diamondixi's, echoed the same statement.
“I don't like it, it's too open ended, it is.” The phoenix broke in. “She could ask for anything at any time.”
“It is the rules. I must abide by Reciprocity. This is part of musubi, interdependence, and the way of my people. I cannot ask for something now, for I have what I need and know of no one yet that I would use my favor for.” Amehana rose, picked up the plate, and drifted to the kitchen to clean up, leaving them to talk. The clink of pottery and sound of water soon came from that quarter.
Far behind them at the shrine, Hana had been left to guard the mirror and tend to the needs of any other visitors whether dragon, kami, or other. The separation had been instantaneous, the phoenix jumping back at the suddenness and dropping a feather when a human sized fox woman stepped out of and away from the dragon woman, black tipped ears twitching and nine matching tails wrapping around her mostly white self for warmth over her kimono. Ame smiled to herself at the memory, always finding such amusement when they could get a reaction like that from anyone.
The ground passed below them as they rode the winds, and as it too fell away, Ame was unable to keep her hope out of her scent. Perhaps she could get a glimpse of her mate's ship, if they passed over the right area. Her eyes glowed a deep teal green as she scanned the waters below and the horizon ahead of her, then dimmed as she gained control of herself.
The ice phoenix soared above her, glancing overhead often. Ame seemed to generate her own weather he had observed, the skies tending to clear or cloud based on her emotions at the time. And to his worry, those emotions shifted and ran like quicksilver even after she had left her other self behind. The whiff of excitement stuck in his nose, surprising him enough to miss two wingbeats and lose altitude.
“Ah! Cold!” Ame tucked her wings and barrelrolled to drop whatever freezing thing had landed on her back.
The poor phoenix dropped from where he'd landed and righted himself. Diamondixi looked back over her wing at the ryuuonna's cry, her phoenix' squawk, and the surprised jabs and pulses from both of their minds. The scent of evaporating water below them intensified and mixed with the dust of the air, and the electricity from Ame began to charge the air. In the far distance, a cry answered her, and the air thickened.
Ame sighed.
“Oops. Sorry. Didn't mean to start a storm seed.”
“It ist in your nature. Thou art one, are ye not?” Diamondixi smiled when Ame gave a wordless reply, then gestured ahead. “We go down at that place.”
She grumbled. “Yes, but I still prefer seeds to be intentional. And started with my mate.”
They dove beneath the cold winter sea as it churned at rocky island shorelines. The phoenix and the ice dragon were protected from the effects of the water by magic, being airbreathers. Ame breathed deeply of the water and swam deeper after them, stifling purrs at the memories that once more taking seawater to her lungs evoked.
After a short time, the rocky sea floor began to take on a more ordered appearance, as if someone were purposefully arranging the shell beds, cultivating plants, and herding the groups of fish. The hollows below rocks looked less as if they were naturally occurring, and more as if their placement had been chosen and encouraged.
Ame felt a tingle of recognition. Part of her childhood below the waves in Ryuugyuu's capital had accustomed her to what settlement starts would look like. As she briefly remembered the times she would sneak away from nursemaids and her father's meetings with other lords, she felt Diamondixi draw on the energy of them, despite how brief the dream had been.
The further they went, the more often came the signs of occupation, till they reached a thickening in the water, similar to what the air around Ame's shrine did. At the border, where it formed an actual shell Diamondixi placed her hand and drew a sigil, breathing a few words. The barrier melted slightly, allowing them passage without waking the old Finman Seidhrmann that all could feel attached to the barrier. As Ame passed through, Diamondixi held the passage open for her considerably larger companion. Even then, it was only just, the barrier solidifying again with a snap barely after the last of her tail plumes crossed through.
“It is stronger than the last... He must have another aiding him tonight.” Diamondixi observed, feeling around with her mind as much as her companions.
“They moved him...” The phoenix pointed with a wing in the direction he had been moved.
Diamondixi nodded, and the three set in that direction through the village. Fires, or what passed for them below the waters, lay low in cooking pits, and tattered rags passed for doors. Near each door, guards snoozed, leaning in or beside so as to be awoken if one of their charges tried to leave.
“Why aren't we helping these other children?” Ame asked after passing the tenth holding cave.
“Those are too far gone, they had the least that had to be stolen, or were born here.” Diamondixie was a white flutter ahead, pausing finally at the cave nearest the center cave. “They have him here.”
Slipping in, Ame saw what was meant by the boy's state, versus that of the others.
Curled beneath salvaged wool sailor's blankets and rough weavings of kelp, the boy's fur warred with the scales that crept inexorably over his flesh. Beside his head was a pouch, with the end of a coral flute just visible. Incised into his skin, various sigils had been, and then overlaid with ink. New tattoos of this sort had been recently wrought upon the lad, fiery red. Weakly a force could be seen fighting back, green witchfire sputtering like dying embers.
Diamondixi knelt beside the lad, stroking his forehead. In response, the furrows of his brow smoothed and a sigh escaped him.
There was a stirring, and they all met eyes over the sleeping lad. As one, they began to move. Diamondixi entered the teen's dreams to fortify him and rebuild what had been damaged while there was time. The phoenix took guard by the door to protect his mistress. Ame slipped out of the cave and into invisibility to deal with the movement that they had felt in the settlement's energy.
The disturbance came from the cave in the very center of the settlement. There, Ame found the Headman embroiled in talk with the settlement's Seidhrmenn. Quietly, carefully, she counted how many she could see. To her relief, there were only five that she saw, though it still meant two more than their own number.
“Let us know if they moveth.”
“Hai.”
Inside, the conversation continued in barks and jabs, clicks and clucks, interspersed with what sounded to be Nordic words. Now and then, someone tossed carved bones onto a painted leather spread.
Diamondixi grew less responsive to what was immediately around her for now, confident that she would be given the time she needed. Entering the lad's dream, she found him where she had found him before, in the arms of a woman with a mass of dark hair, bright blue eyes, and bare shoulders resplendent with warm, soft brown fur. She was fragrant with milk, and the scent of rosewater. The sound of the sea washed into the room, and when looking out, the water greeted her eyes. The mother sang a quiet song as she nestled the furry little boy-child into his bed, and the gate across the bottom of the door was testament to the fact that the boy was already mobile.
Diamondixi exerted her influence, encouraging the dream. She watched as the nameless mother leaned into the crib, planted a kiss on the boy's brow just where Diamondixi had stroked before entering. Chubby little hands reached for her as she pulled away and walked to the window, peering out first at the horizon as if watching for a boat to come to the natural harbor below.
“How much longer till you're back in port with me, Finnol? You're missing so much,” she sighed, then looked to the ground below. The softness of her eyes turned to a hardness, then she left the room quietly.
Diamondixi prompted as many memories of this mother as she could. Each memory, each dream that she took the lad through, she could see as torn parts of his self gained strength. Great gashes had been left in his spirit, as if things he had done, or been forced to do during his time there had gone so greatly against his nature that it was tearing out his kindness, his sense of right, and the core he was constructed around.
Diamondixi pressed deeper, looking closer at his soul while in the lad's dreams. In the deepest recesses, she discovered a small child, perhaps five, resolutely clutching a pebble, and a small cloth doll. Not so much to her surprise, the boy saw her as well.
“Who and what are you?” Piped the boy, covering his fist with his other hand and holding both close to his heart. His large eyes flashed a dark blue, so dark as to be almost muddy, locking with hers.
“My name ist Diamondixi. I'm a Dreamweaver.”
“You're here why?”
“I wantst to help you getst away and heal. What ist your name, little boy?”
“You talk weird.” He observed, the words dropping with childlike finality. “They call me Justin, but I don't know if that's really my name. They rename some of us. 'Cause of me, maybe.”
“Why wouldst they do that?”
“The Seidhrmenn change some of us and take or taint our souls so there will be more Finmen. Not many Finwomen, and those women here don't like the men. I don't want to be a Finman. I want my mother. I want a proper wife in a few years. I want to stop hunting other children.”
Diamondixi considered his answers. “I, we, canst helpeth thee to get away, if thou wantst.”
“The Seidhrmenn would stop you. They catch us all again, eventually.”
“Mayhaps not where I wouldst take thee. It ist verily some distance from the sea, mayhaps beyond where they mayst travel.”
“Ok. You can try. But I want to go home eventually.”
“Thou wilt.”
Amehana pressed for the minds of her companions when the Headman and his people began to turn their attention.
“They're finishing. Seems they've felt something. If we're getting the boy out of here, we've got to get moving.”
“I canst starteth waking him now.”
Diamondixie stepped back from the little boy dreaming inside Justin's heart. “Justin, we need you to wake.”
With the end of the dream, came a surge of power, a tingle, and Diamondixie gathered as much as she could. This she used to fuel her spell, further fraying the grip of what the Seidhrmenn had woven. With this, Justin woke, even more aware of the parts of his soul that had been lost or taken.
Justin sat up, looking around lost, seeing the small white creature from his dream beside him, and another feathery white and blue creature by the door. Quietly he rose and gathered his things.
“He wakes,” Diamondixi sent to Ame.
The phoenix raised the doorflap carefully, while Diamondixie sent everyone else that she could further into sleep. Carefully, the trio picked their way out.
Ame looked over at them, waving them on, then paused outside of the holding cave the boy had been in to create the illusion the lad still slept within. She followed swiftly, though hanging behind as rearguard in the case that anyone chose that moment to come out.
It was a choice that turned out for the best, as indeed, the Seidhrmenn did emerge at just that moment. Before they had a chance to raise a cry, Ame hurled bolts toward them and used her large wings to stir the waters and fling them back right into the cave they had emerged from.
Diamondixi grabbed Justin and tried to get him moving faster, but her small size did little, and pulled backwards some by the current the larger dragon had made. Ame moved faster, long used to arrowing through waters with strong current, and by instinct Justin grabbed her horns as she offered them. Diamondixi and her phoenix did likewise while the dragon accelerated and angled toward the surface.
The Seidhrmenn were not thrown off as long as Ame had hoped though. One raised an alarm, though the settlement did not rise in answer... all held fast by Diamondixi's spell. Two others strengthened the barrier. The final two swam after them as swiftly as they could, summoning the power of the waters to slow them.
Ame fought her pride and continued going, though her eyes began to slip from teal to red at the insult of something trying to use the waters against her, due to storms being born from the seas. The phoenix hurled a cry ahead of them, the force hitting the barrier and weakening it.
A spear winged past them, hurled by one of the Seidhrmenn behind them. Their eyes caught on the glowing runes carved along the shaft, and the wicked stone point that sliced though the barrier. A muryky red-black tinge spread there, and Ame turned, seeking another route through.
“Why are you turning?” Screamed Justing. “I thought you were going to get me away.”
“That will be poison for me. They may be insulting, but they seem to know a storm dragon and what makes us weak.” Ame replied through the red haze in her eyes, desperately trying to keep hold of her senses.
“There.” Diamondixi pointed. “It still be weak there, and the murk hast not yet spread fully to it.”
Ame dipped for that spot, sliding through the membrane. A tendril of the red substance brushed against her as it inexorably spread, but she was through before the main of it was able to contact her. She continued on, diverting some of her energy in an attempt to purify herself of the taint, and the area too if possible.
Within moments, she and the others were above the water, and in the skies on their way back to the storm shrine. When the phoenix and Diamondixi were dry, they flew on their own, to give less weight, as Ame had begun to lose her luster, though her eyes were at least clearing.
The flight was a quiet one.
When they arrived, the sun had begun to rise. Hana, in miko's robes of red and white, her white fur and nine tails resplendent in the pale rose light swept the walks of the shrine compound, looking up at them when she felt the group pass through the barrier. The boy, for his part, stared at the strange fox woman.
“I'm not fully convinced that I am actually awake...” Justin mumbled, still staring at the foxwoman going about her duties and waiting for them to land.
“You lived with a bunch of scaly stinky filthy rude fish people. And even dried out, you've still got a bit of fur that doesn't look like any human hair I've ever seen. Maybe this is my dream. People aren't hairy like that.” Ame landed in the snow, purposefully spraying as much of it in the air as she could in testament to her opinion of the Finmen.
The fact that some of that snow landed in the walkway that Hana has only just recently finished sweeping had said kitsune shaking her broom at Ame.
“Honestly! Just because our mate isn't home yet, and you have to leave the warmth of the fire, you undo all my work?!”
Ame stuck her considerably long forked tongue out at Hana. “Oh hush. I'll help you after we've got this boy sorted.”
Justin looked quizzically at Diamondixi and the phoenix, hoping for some sort of explanation. They just shrugged, having no idea themselves.
“Fine then. You get to bake Obs' pie when he gets up here too then. I had a messenger shortly before you arrived that he'd be up today.”
Ame rolled her eyes and let Justin off her back, slipping back into her half dragon form, taking off her outermost kimono and putting it over his meager coverings, then heading for the Honden without further comment. The boy still looked confused when she slid the doors open and waved him in.
“My sister-self. Don't mind us, we always snap and poke at each other. Keeps us sharp.”
Justin's eyes could not go any farther up his head, but he followed where he was led. The hall was large enough for a dragon of Ame's size to fit comfortably inside, but seemed to have been arranged mostly with human sized occupants in mind. At the back, a silver-grey length of silk draped over a large frame. He stood where indicated, Diamondixi and her phoenix nearby, then Ame slowly pulled the cloth away...
The log popped and crackled in the kotatsu, carrying through the room. Amehana jumped, looking around in confusion. The room smelled heavily of the rich incense that her father had brought from his last visit, where it had been mixed by her brothers in the Mountain Kingdom of the shared mythic space of several neighboring Asian countries' spirit realms. Spring flowers were mingled with autumn fruits, the summer's heated rain, and the crisp winter snow... with a hint of her father's ozone.
Outside, snow fell softly, the clouds having rolled in and obscured the moon's trek across the skies.
“A dream?” She asked herself, unfolding herself from where she kneeled on the zabuton in front of her teak desk. Tea had long since gone cold, and the ink she had ground had gone dry.
No answer came, and with a sigh, she picked up the brush, examining it to make sure she had at least rinsed it before falling asleep. Satisfied that she had, she got fully up and went to prepare fresh tea.
At the window, a diminutive white dragoness smiled, equally satisfied. As the snow fell softly, she and her companion continued onward, mission, for now, complete.
~~~~*~~~~
© 2012 Teresa Garcia. All rights reserved. This material may not be reproduced, displayed, modified or distributed without the express prior written permission of the copyright holder (Teresa Garcia). Exception is made for schools and libraries.
Other Permissions
This story is set first around Rhian in the world of Dragon Hearts, the online browser based RPG owned, created, and maintained by Rowan Wookey of the Obsidian Project and Web Design for All. The Dragon Hearts universe is ever expanding, and many different cultures mingle there. This story also does cross over into the Selkies' Skins universe, as it provided an excellent opportunity and explanation for one character's personal happenings, despite that character not being in the book's storyline yet. Teresa Garcia is one of the game owners and is a quest writer for the game.
Diamondixi and her phoenix are the property of Kristina Stumf and are used with her permission and request in this story, which was a reward for having backed my Kickstarter project raising funds for the editing and publishing of Selkies' Skins.
All other content besides what is copyright to Rowan Wookey or Kristina Stumpf and used with their permission is copyright to Teresa Garcia. For usage inquires you may write the author, and I will be happy to direct you to the proper person with whom to speak.