Dreams that do come true can be as unsettling as those that don't.

[goddessnanshe.livejournal.com]

Wednesday, sometime, somewhere in Dream

Once upon time there was a beautiful princess. Her hair was the colour of jet and her skin was the colour of nutmeg, and each of her teeth were like pearls. Flowers grew where she walked, so that the fields around the tower that was her home was carpeted in blooms as white as snow. The princess was very happy, all save for one thing: her fear that one day the thorn of one of the flowers would prick her. Her servants combed the field for thorns every day, trimming the stems so that it would be safe for her to walk. But still the princess was afraid, and she neglected to notice that each month the forest encroached closer on her home, until one day, standing in her field of flowers, she looked up to see the trees looming around her, undergrowth thick with thorns. Frightened, she fled inside, and as she ran she began her first bleeding, and the blood that trickled down her thigh fell to the earth and stained the roses around the tower a deep and brilliant red.

Inside the tower the princess was afraid that she was dying, for her father had always insisted that royal blood was the most precious of all things and must never be spilled. Weeping, she showed the blood to her old nurse, who laughed and kissed her cheek and told her this was the secret gift of women, and now she was blessed. So the princess wiped her eyes, and was no longer afraid of bleeding. But the thorns of the forest came for her all the same.

Comments

[marbasthefallen.livejournal.com]

I was more than ready to ditch this odd band of dreamers, but CeeCee bounced on her toes, and begged me so prettily to go on an adventure, I was hard pressed to refuse.

So on we sailed across the sea to the lands of green and thorns. The China Doll announces she can see us and we can go straight to the Tower. So again, CeeCee and I tag along, following behind the group a pace or two.

As we walk, there is a sense of urgency, a sense of tension building up. I tilt my face to the breeze, catching scents in the air. Lush greenery, roses, the scent of decay and old blood and... and... inhale deep.

Fir needles, smoke and cedar, leather and musk mingling in a singular colonge. My grin widens, and my eyes glow in the shadow of the forest. "Luciennnnnnnnnn......" I growl softly. Oh, he is here. I lift CeeCee up to my shoulders and hasten my steps a bit.

[syl-thorn.livejournal.com]

S'hard fer me not t'leave th'bloody boat b'hind...swear't's movin' slower'n a damned wounded jellyfish. I skim through th'water, breakin' inta th'air ev'ry so often so's'ey c'n see'm still'ere, otherwise doin' turns 'round't, checkin' b'low t'make sure ain't nothin' comin' up from under. Journey's slow, least t'me't is, but we make't fine. Girl steers th'boat nice'n easy into a bay, an'ere's an op'nin' inta a river. Come up fer breath an'I hear th'faceless woman sayin', "If we get out here, then we can walk directly to the tower."

Well grand, an'I guess'at's what we's'ere fer. But I wonder if'n any ovvem've noticed 'at'is river tastes'a salt, annat th'water's blacker'n deeper'n a river's gotta right t'be. Th'forest's th'ocean an' th'ocean's th'forest, both ovvem tangled up so tight t'gether't y'can't hardly tell th'diff'rence, an' mebbe'ere ain't no reason to.

An' parta me 'members another dark salt river ('r mebbe 't wuz th'same one), water'n m'ears 'n th'taste'a blood'n cold meat, an' m'second heart pumps black blood harder'n m'chest.

Th'boat crunches onta th'shore, an' th'folk start t'disembark. Me, I ain't so eager t'leave th'water 'n go back t'bein' cold an' skinny an' slow, so I hang about...an' somethin' catches m'water-eyes. Somethin' gleamin', way down deep 'n th'blackest parta th'water, where th'current's hardest an' th'bottom's far outta sight. Somethin' says, Here.

Bark 'n m'seal voice t'th'others 'n slap th'fins'a m'tail on th'water 'fore swimmin' out, right over. An'en I raise m'head inta th'cold air, fill m'lungs 's full'f air's 'ey c'n get, an'I dive.

[sapphira-ststep.livejournal.com]

The selkie calls out, and I see her dive; turn towards the sound and my line of sight does not change and still I see her dive. I move closer to the edge of the bank, carefully, waiting to see what she will bring.

Something wet is in my hair; I lift a hand to the sky, and the drops come down thick and cold. The sky above is roiling, grey and cold as the sea before.

[leah-pontarlier.livejournal.com]

After much talk on the beach almost all of us get into Zann boat which is now much larger so we all fit in. One woman turns herself into a seal and swims along side us. Maybe I should have kept her company but she didn't seem to want any. So in the end I went with everyone else and now that we are here there are even more people at the tower. There might even be as many people as there were at the masquerade!

I am about to join them when the seal woman pops up calling to us before diving after something in the water. I lean out of the boat trying to see what it is that she saw, but the water is dark. I reach out my hand to ask the water what it might be.

[kateohara.livejournal.com]

Syl turns back into a seal and dives into the water. Everyone else rushes off to the tower, but I've been in the forest and I'm in no hurry to run into a wolf again.

"I'll wait here for you," I call out to Syl. It seems fair, given how she helped me. The blank-faced woman stays too on the bank. The pretty pale girl sits in the boat, trailing her hand in the water.

"I think it'll rain," I say, and as I speak the sky opens. It's cold, but I was already wet through so it doesn't make much difference. "If you don't mind me asking," I say to the doll woman, "how did you lose your face?"

[sapphira-ststep.livejournal.com]

"If you don't mind me asking," Kate says to me, "how did you lose your face?"

"A man stole it from me," I say, and my fingers reach up to trace where it should have been. "He was a traveller, came down the road with a patchwork coat and an apology and a smile, and I was living outside--" I hesitate a moment. "I think it was outside Excolo," I say, "but perhaps I would have remembered the word better if that was so. I let him in, and gave him bread and water and a seat by the fire, and while I slept he cut my face from me. When I woke I did not know myself, and so I set out looking for him or for my face, and I found neither." I shrug a little, because those were hard times on hard roads but they seem... curiously distant. I suppose that is not so surprising in light of Arik's claim.

"But I heard of the wishes that might be granted, if you caught one of the fish from that sea and promised to let it go, and so I crossed to that beach to try. I think my face might be near, now," I add. "I am seeing myself, our selves, here, but from elsewhere. But I've seen no-one that looks like him."

[syl-thorn.livejournal.com]

Deeper, deeper, as th'sun fades from sight 'n th'warmth leaches away. But m'fur an' m'fat protect me, an' m'eyes adjust t'th'dark, an'I got plenty'a air left. M'tail pumps, pushin' me down, down, t'wards whatever't izzits callin' me. Can't tell how far 'way't is yet. Hope ain't much further. Gotta feelin' I ain't 'lone down'ere...