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60th of Zi'da 717

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Dancing to Another's Beat

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60th Zi'da 717
The party was in full force, and they were all dancing. Arlo knew, of course, that he was dreaming but, unusually these trials, he wasn't entirely sure whether it was his dream or not. It felt at once very familiar and very different. All the men and all the women wore plain white masks with very minimal features. Those masks were strange, really, for two reasons. First, they had no eye sockets, yet everyone could see and second, the masks did not in any way match the outfits.

Because the outfits were something to behold.

If this was his dream, then from somewhere Arlo had dreamed up intricate brocade, glittering sequins and glorious ball gowns for the women who currently danced in lines throughout the room. p the sweeping marble staircase they danced. As he looked, from where he sat, Arlo saw that there were four lines of dancers; male, female, male, female they went. The women all wore different dresses, but always in the colours of gold and black. Intricate and impossible hairstyles, shining jewelry worth more than he could possibly imagine and delicate lace fans. Every woman looked different and every detail was unique.

Same too for the men.

Black suits, gold suits, cream jackets, plain outfits and extravagant ones. All, too, wearing the masks. There were accessories everywhere, from canes with gold-tipped handles to dark fans and lace kerchiefs. Light and dark, dark and light they danced in lines and he could not see their faces. Yet, they danced and he watched them.

"It's nice here, isn't it?" Lyova said. He was sitting on a raised chair, suspiciously throne-like, and she was sitting on the arm. The tiny creature was wearing, in this dream, a tiny golden dress and she sparkled a beautiful, glittering gold.

"I'm glad you like it, Lyova," the woman sitting on his right said. Honey blonde hair, dark circles under her eyes and glowing freckles of moonlight, it seemed, on her skin. "It's Arlo's library. His repository of dreams and dreamers." She smiled at him, he recognised her from when she'd marked him and Jesine was not prone, or able in fact, to changing her appearance. She wore a white dress, lacking any of the details of the women who danced. "I suppose it makes sense that you store it all. Tell me, Arlo, what have you been doing since I saw you last? Or, I suppose," she added with a chuckle, "since last time you saw me."
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Arlo Creede
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Dancing to Another's Beat

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It was the first time he'd dreamwalked since learning his mother had died. He'd dreamed of course. Everyone did whether they meant to or not. Some people didn't remember their dreams once they'd woken. But Arlo did. Always, and he always had But there'd been dozens of opportunities since he'd received that letter from his stepfather, and it had taken a particular force of will not to dreamwalk. Dreamwalking came naturally without thinking. It had taken a deliberate train of thought to step out again.

Once he'd though he might never do it again. These trials, he figured he would, but hadn't got round to it yet. Then again, as he looked around him and considered, it occurred to him that this was no one's dream but his own. Even stranger was the subject matter, the scene, the setting. Definitely not his usual inclination to dream up things like this. He could have changed it too if he wanted. Or at least he believed that he could. But something told him he shouldn't try. At least not this time.

But why was he sitting on a throne, overlooking all that pageantry? "I s'pose it is," Arlo said with a curious frown when Lyova piped up, there at his side."If you like this sort of thing." He grinned a little though, eyeing his little companion. "You look awful nice though Lyova." Unlike all of them however, he was wearing his usual, right down to his hat atop his head. And as if there'd been nothing and no one there before, he looked quickly to his right. Arlo would know that voice and that face anywhere. Even though there had only been the once. Some things you just remembered.

Dipping his head in respect to the mortalborn, he realized that this wasn't so much his dream as it was Her creation. Or it was a mix of both. Either way, he wondered what he'd done to have attracted her attention yet again. "My repository?" he asked curiously. It did make sense that he'd store all those dreams and memories away. Just like the stories he wrote down, retold, he recorded his dreams in much the same way. "Why this fancy setting though? It's not my usual," he admitted.

As for what he'd done since last they met, there was too much to tell, but he tried at least. He'd traveled, Desnind to Ne'haer to Rharne to Scalvoris, he'd found a friend and lover along the way, he'd fought monsters and explored strange and wondrous places, met a handful of Immortals. Collected stories and he'd walked in dreams, if less frequently just lately than he had before.
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Dancing to Another's Beat

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The praise from Arlo was enough to have Lyova spinning around, showing him how pretty she was from every angle. All with extra sparkle and every now and then a high pitched squeal of "oh look! look!" ~ tiara, wand, fluttering wings and even tiny glass slippers all caused extra delight from the small companion. "But you look just like you. Why don't you want to look fancy?"

The appearance of the mortalborn caused Arlo to consider the setting more and Lyova buzzed around him, as she so often did when he was thinking. It was her own unique brand of help, after all. Jesine sat and watched, content to let him come to his own conclusion about that. Until, that was, he asked why this setting and then she smiled. "It's your dream. Maybe it's something to do with how you view dreams and dreamers? Or perhaps it is so far out of the norm that it is instantly recognizable for you?" Lyova fluttered in front of him, all big eyes and fluttering gold sparkles in her wake. "Maybe it's because you secretly want to be all fancy?!" she wondered, looking at him with a beaming smile. "Or it's a dream you had when you were a child and it just happened to be where it started?" Lyova seemed to be about to launch into a whole flurry of possibilities, but a glance from Jesine stopped that.

She listened, carefully, to what he had done ~ or more precisely what he chose to tell her of what he had done. She made no comment on most of it, although she smiled as though she was pleased at what he had seen and experienced. As for the lower frequency of walking in dreams just lately, Jesine nodded. "Tell me, Arlo." The mortalborn asked, watching the dancers as they danced. "Lyova and you, you have grown close, she tells me. She is your constant friend and protector. This is good. She hasn't pushed you to walk lately, either." Of course, Jesine knew his dreaming mind, she knew Lyova too and his waking actions and thoughts shared with the small diri. However, it seemed, she would still ask. "Do you understand why she did not tell you?" Lyova stopped buzzing around and had sat back down, on the brim of his hat. Jesine had things to tell him, to discuss with him about that, but first it seemed she wanted to know what his thoughts were now.
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Dancing to Another's Beat

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Lyova had always been a bit high strung, Arlo knew, and a showboat too. He guessed it came with the territory. On an ordinary trial she resembled in form at least a over sized drop of crystal blue water that was able to float and glide freely, independently on its own. But he'd seen her change shape a number of times, even stretching herself so thin she could slide through a keyhole, on to the other side of any given door. Which, come to think of it, was showing off since she could just as easily pass through surfaces like a wisp. He'd just never seen her take a form like this one before but he wouldn't begrudge it. She was like a child that way. "Like a regular princess," he said.

As for himself, he told her, fancy had never really been his thing. Except for once or twice when there'd been some sort of dress code. Or in another's dream. Like Vega's. Which caused him to wonder, if this was his dream, and as Jesine would come to tell him, a repository of sorts, why would he have chosen it even on a subconscious level? "Maybe," he conceded when the mortal born suggested several possibilities. Emea was her domain. Surely she'd know better than him?

"I guess I've mostly thought of others' dreams as their subconscious, let out to play. Maybe their deepest desires. Or in the case of nightmares, their fears. The ones they don't speak about when they're awake." As for Lyova's suggestions, he didn't think so. But he'd had some pretty strange dreams, back as far as he could remember. Arlo wouldn't rule anything out. Jesine was right though. She was probably right about everything that was a part of her domain. But Lyova and him were close. Their connection meant that she knew his mind and he knew hers. It was an effortless connection, not one that needed focus or forethought.

The little diri was also his friend, which had made it all the more difficult after learning that his mother had passed the morning after his dream. Surely Lyova had been capable of knowing? She'd never confirmed or denied it. "No, she hasn't," he confirmed. Lyova hadn't once prodded him to dreamwalk. Not since he'd gotten that letter telling him his mother was gone. "I don't really," Arlo admitted, in regards to understanding. "Maybe I couldn't have changed anything or maybe if I'd known I could have convinced her to fight harder. Or maybe I could have just told her things that I didn't before."

He hadn't told her during that dream that it was him. He hadn't told her that she was dreaming. But nonetheless according to his stepfather, the way she'd put it, his mother knew. If not during then after, once she'd woken from the dream. The truth was, he still didn't understand how it was that she'd known. He didn't understand why Lyova hadn't told him either. "Was it not allowed?" he asked the Mortalborn.
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Dancing to Another's Beat

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He was right, of course, Jesine knew why this dream was what it was, but it was not her way to tell him, he could come to his own conclusions about that. It wasn't important, however, although she smiled slightly at the antics of Lyova.The relationship between Arlo and Lyova was important to her, very much so and she watched it with care. The small creature was his protector, her representative in Emea, "I'm pleased with you both." Jesine said, causing Lyova to puff up with pride and sparkle just a touch more. Lyova had taught him well and he had learned well, also. It seemed to be a good pairing.

The conversation about his mother, though, that had to happen before she could consider what she was considering. When he answered her questions, Jesine glanced at the small diri and Lyova looked at the mortalborn a little awkwardly, then she sighed. "I wasn't supposed to take you to her dream at all, Arlo. We do not interfere in our Lady's father's domain." Vri, Immortal of Death, Sorrow, Love and Remembrance was Jesine's father. Lyova sighed again and looked at him, and Jesine, with large eyes. "I kept an eye on your mother after we left Rharne. Vega, too, just popped in to see them. That's part of being your protector. I knew how bad you'd feel, and she was a nice lady." Lyova took on a slightly defiant air, then. "And you're my friend. He is," she said to Jesine, who watched the tiny creature impassively. "There was nothing you could do. Vri was waiting for her, but I thought if I let you and her see each other one more time, then it might help you both."

Jesine looked at the little creature and then turned her gaze to Arlo. "Lyova acted rashly, but from concern for you. She also made sure that your mother knew that she had dreamed with you. I believe that eased her in the time before she met my father." Lyova looked at him, all big eyes and no glitter in sight now. "I'm sorry I couldn't do more, Arlo, but it was too late for helping her and I thought it would be nice for her to have a nice memory with you. If you knew, you'd have been upset and she'd have been worried about you. I just wanted to put her mind at rest." Jesine watched and waited, seeing what transpired between the two of them, now, because that was important, vital even, to what happened now.
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Dancing to Another's Beat

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When the mortal-born said she was pleased, on the one hand Arlo couldn't have been more grateful, more humble or pleased. But on the other, he wondered if he'd really deserved it lately. When it came to the prospect of dreamwalking, he'd avoided it since learning of his mother's death. And if he was honest, he'd been a little bit angry. At least at first. That initial flare of anger though had faded away quickly, but he'd still been left with not understanding why. Ultimately he'd concluded that there were things he wasn't meant to understand, and accepted it for the most part. Maybe it had been pride, the angry part of it. Too much youthful pride and him thinking that if he'd only been given a chance to try, he could have changed things.

"I'm not sure I've deserved it lately," he said, frowning as he watched the strange party goers going...wherever they were going. He could have explained that he'd been caught up in a cycle of grief, a new realization that there were things he just couldn't control. But Jesine probably already knew all of that. When Lyova piped up though and told him why, how, and that it wasn't allowed, Arlo looked the diri's way and frowned. "You knew, and you broke the rules for me?" he asked. Surely, his little friend had risked a lot when she'd done that. He'd said things to her too, after he'd gotten that letter, that he wished he hadn't. It wasn't the first time Arlo had wished it. He'd regretted it right away. Still, he just hadn't known or understood.

"You're right Lyova. If I'd known then and couldn't change it, I'd have been upset and angry," he admitted. And his mother would have felt that too during the last dream she'd ever have. "I'm sorry, for being upset with you before. I didn't understand. Thank you. Friend," he said. "for breaking the rules for me." Looking back to Jesine, he continued, "I understand now. But please don't be angry with Lyova. Surely there's room for having the best of intentions?" If there wasn't, then Arlo figured he was probably in big trouble himself, since he'd once inadvertently let it slip to a dreamer that she was dreaming. It probably wasn't the only time he'd gotten tripped up while dreamwalking. But it was the one that immediately sprung to mind.
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Dancing to Another's Beat

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Jesine watched the interaction between the dreamwalker and his protector. That was what was most important to her, although the why of that wasn't entirely clear to most, not until much later. So, she observed and said nothing as Lyova fluttered slightly, the little diri shuffling her feet as she spoke to him. "Of course I did, Arlo," she said, looking at him with an expression which was almost entirely mortal ~ and quite female in its form. "Just like you would for me. You're my friend, aren't you?" When he thanked her, though, and called her friend, Lyova puffed up her chest and looked at him with impossibly long eyelashes fluttering atop wide and, dare we say it, soulful eyes. "You were upset, Arlo. You don't need to be sorry to me," she was entirely genuine when she said, "I just wish I could have helped more. Done something for her, or you."

When Arlo turned to Jesine, he made a plea on the behalf of the small creature who had broken the rules and the mortalborn looked at him, her gaze stern. "Breaking rules has consequences. It must." Lyova fluttered up and hovered, looking at Jesine with a serious gaze. "I'd do it again, I'm sorry, but I would." Jesine turned her gaze to the defiant little creature and then she smiled. "That is good. The two of you, your bond, it is vital."

She smiled then, all stern expression gone from her face as she spoke. "You must stand together, the two of you. Protect the dreamers from the darkness of Nightmares and nightmares." Somehow the two words were different. "Teach people to defend themselves, move through dreams and be a beacon of light." She looked at Arlo, then and her eyes seemed to see straight into him. "It was the right choice to not walk whilst grief held you. It was the responsible choice." Her brother, after all, would be quick to identify weakness and see where he could sew discord. So, there was no problem there. "Will the two of you go together, forward, and stand as beacons of hope against the darkness?" Lyova looked at him and gave a beaming grin. Jesine turned a steely glare to them, though the little stars of light on her skin glowed and twinkled more brightly. "Within the rules, both of you."
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Dancing to Another's Beat

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"Well I'm sorry anyway," Arlo said when Lyova insisted that he didn't need to be. "It was wrong of me. My feelings about my mother got in the way and I should have realized that whatever had happened, whatever you knew or did, it was for me. And I would," he said. Do the same for her, he meant, and he said it without reservation. While fully aware that the mortal born seated on his other side might frown on the admission.

Except that Jesine seemed to view the devotion of one to the other, and the same in reverse, as a good thing, and how it ought to be. Arlo wasn't sure he'd ever understand the ways of the Immortals, or the mortal born either for that matter. But then he guessed he wasn't meant to. There were consequences though, and that he completely understood. Not this setting though. This hall full of faceless...Dreamers, were they? He still hadn't quite figured that out.

"I wasn't sure I'd do them any good," he admitted when Jesine seemed to approve of his choosing not to dreamwalk lately. "I feared I might do more harm than good. But now?" Things were better now, no question about that. He still missed his mother. He figured he always would. But the more time passed, well, the feeling of loss, the nature of it had changed. Of course Arlo never would have expected anyone to refer to him as a beacon of light. But maybe he did have the potential to be after all.

Lyova's enthusiasm was in stark contrast with Jesine's stern expression. But it managed to remind him somehow of how his mother used to look at him while she scolded him about this or that. But at the same time, there was always something else there. Exasperation, maybe, sometimes humor. Did it mean she was giving them a second chance, him and Lyova? It appeared so. And ny vow that Arlo took, any promise at all, he took seriously. And so solemnly he nodded. "We will. And we'll do better at minding the rules," he promised.
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It was a rare sensation, being hugged by something so tiny, but Lyova hugged his face and left a perfect, lip-shaped glittery kiss mark on his cheek."I know you would, Arlo. It's alright," his small companion spoke in quiet words, before settling one more time on his shoulder. Jesine looked at the two of them and she half-sighed, almost yawned. Yet, she was alert, focused on them.

"There is darkness coming, and my brother is at the fore," she said, looking at the dancers as they moved. It was a strange, unnerving thing to see, the faceless masks and beautiful clothes. What a strange mortal boy, she thought, as she watched them. He made this place, each dancer a representation of a dream. The more that he walked in the dreams of others, the more full this hall would be. She turned back to them, both, and spoke.

"What you have done, thus far, is good. But now it is time to take the next step. You have taught well, Lyova, choosing the dreams you have led Arlo to well." The little diri puffed up and bits of glitter floated around her. Jesine turned to Arlo, "And you, like the wanderer you are, have explored each one and you have learned. More than that, you have helped." Arlo felt, of course, the sensation. Tickling the back of his neck, where the mark from the Immortal glowed like a spiderweb, so too did a freckle on her face grow just a little brighter, should he notice such things. "Now that you can, explore my realm more deeply. Stand against the terrors beyond and remain ever vigilant." And as quickly as she had been there, Jesine was gone and the dream became Arlo's own.

Arlo

Overview

I had agreed with Anomaly that I was going to do this as part of the global as that was very much his trial for this - but I decided to put it in a spin off thread, so as not to confuse things with the other players. Hope you enjoyed this - I really enjoy Arlo and Lyova's relationship, they are a very interesting couple and I think Jesine chose very well for him. Go forth and be a beacon of light against the darkness!

Points

XP: 15 (+1 dreamwalking)

Fame: None

Loot

Congratulations! You have been marked as "Trusted" of Jesine. You have unlocked the first of the three abilities, namely:
PathfinderAs protégés of Jesine, blessed individuals enjoy a level of protection that others don't when they Dreamwalk deeper into Emea itself, past the layer of dreams. When granted this ability, marked individuals will have a built-in sense of direction, allowing them to always know how to return to the dream they originally left from to prevent them from getting lost in Emea. When and if they encounter other static locations within Emea, they'll intuitively know how to find their way back to them the next time they Dreamwalk.

Knowledge

Lyova: Took you to your mother's dream
Lyova: Broke the rules for you
Lyova: Considers you her friend.
Jesine: Does not interfere in her father's domain
Jesine: Wants you and Lyova to stand against her brother.
Nyvora: Ability: Silent Guardian
Nyvora: Ability: Pathfinder
word count: 549
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