Not Until We Are Lost

Simon wouldn't laugh, he shouldn't laugh, as Niks got lost in her reflection in the pond. She hadn't notice him go, but she knew he had gone. She hadn't bothered with waking up. Not yet. No one would miss her; she was sure of it, even if she did have a small concern. There were reasons she wouldn't be missed, and a few did sadden her.

There she sat, staring at herself, trying to understand the woman staring back at her. Her fingers would now and then tap on the surface of the water to blur the image, to make it feel more real. It was almost too perfect, and the blurred, rippling image made it all messy. She needed that.

Eventually the newly formed...her brows furrowed as she actually had to ask the question of who she was. She need to find a name for what or who she was, yet she knew she wasn't ready. She had to accept it fully perhaps. With a hint of frustration, she dashed the water and the image with her hand, needing something, anything else to look at and watch.

She watched the trees, felt the movement in them. She listened to the song that the breeze played on the water's edge. She lay back on the grass and breathed, and she might have stayed there had the world not felt different. Someone had come into her, no, the Dreamlands, or somethings had.

The once historian found her feet easily enough and started toward the new, the different. She didn't know what she was looking for, but the feeling was a curious one. She didn't own this realm, but she was connected to it, more so than she had ever felt before. She was a part of it, and it was a part of her. She belonged in it, to it, with it, yet it wasn't all she was. Perhaps it was a good that she had been what she was before. Though, she was still upset and shocked by Simon's invasion into her reality.

Moving through the trees, she searched for the new, the different, but she soon came to a full stop. Whatever had pulled her attention was becoming larger, and it was possibly too large. There were so many emotions, and they were all very raw. Something beautiful and private was happening, and it could have been any number of happenings. She didn't know if she should see what it was or if she should have let it be. But, her curious nature demanded just a peek, just a little one.

What she saw through the tree tops was one of the most beautiful and frightening sights she'd ever seen. The fire, no, fires were truly awesome, in every sense of the word, and she watched, feeling more like the indecent voyeur than the keen observer. Yet, she didn't turn away. It was too wonderful not to watch before it ended all too soon.

After seeing the strange, strong woman who called herself 'Jack' to safety, Ilyien walked for a time in the deep night streets. He was far from the place where he'd taken up residence, and wasn't particularly keen on returning at the moment. Because he was not expected to show to the ship yards the following morning, he had no obligation to see to the need for rest that his human body preferred. And so he walked.

Eventually, when he'd bled all the vestiges of anger out of his heart, he found himself staring up at the building where he and his companion resided. He had not yet reached out to her mentally. The knowledge that she was there was still a constant. But he didn't allow her access to anything else. Sabev couldn't even know that he stood here. Quietly, he returned to his room and began dressing for sleep.

Not long after his return, he dropped between the sheets and closed his eyes. Consciousness faded.

Simon found Niklas easily. He didn't speak to her when he did, though. And he paid no attention to the women in the house who tried to stop him as he headed toward the stairs. The fairy waved a hand and they forgot he was even there. He didn't even knock on her door, just slid the elegantly written note under it and left again.

It stated simply to meet him in the Dreamlands in two nights time.

The time passed easily for him, he found many things to occupy himself while he was waiting. The citizens of this world weren't too exciting, but Simon did like their clothing, and he liked the cars. There was plenty of interesting sights, despite the lack of interesting people. He knew he could have sought out any of the ones who he had been moved with, they would at least be better than any of the ones they were now stuck with. But he wanted his mind clear when he spoke to Niks. There was already Isaac to think about, and what he might be able to do with the youth. Or to him.

Simon waited in the forest at the bottom of the stairs, not hiding his true face, and even displaying the wings he more often than not kept hidden. He knew that she liked them. He lay on his stomach in a patch of beautifully colored flowers. The brightness of everything in the Dreamlands was a bit startling after all the black and white, even for him. He found himself fascinated with a particular purple color at the moment, gently touching the edges of the petal to move it into light and shadow respectively. The green of the grass was beautifully rich, and the fairy wondered how anybody could live their life forever never knowing color.

He wore nothing other than a bit of cloth around his lower bits for modesty. His bare feet wiggled in the lush foliage around him, and he listened to the sounds of birds and other animals. Simon didn't know if he was ever as truly at peace as he was when in the Dreamlands.

Jo’s dreams hadn’t been pleasant since her return from the dead. Then again, she’d had nightmares before then too. What hunter didn’t? Though these dreams were worse. It was getting to the point where she could almost predict them. They almost always started out with her parents. With sunshine and happiness and everything they’d had on their best days when her dad wasn’t out hunting. And she’d always been ripped away from all of that by chanting creatures that felt... demonic, even if they weren’t like any demons she’d ever seen in her time awake.

She knew now that the dreams were just reenactments of being ripped out of Heaven. She knew exactly what she’d lost, and why sometimes she woke up crying.

This dream was different. She was yanked out of Heaven as always. Saerian was there, which happened sometimes.

What was different was that there was an escape route. She didn’t care where it went, as long as it was away from them. She let herself into the doorway and ran down the stairs, paying very little attention to what they looked like.

In fact, she didn’t pay much attention to anything until she’d found herself in the middle of a forest. She felt a slight breeze and looked down. She was naked from head to toe.

“So it’s one of those dreams now,” she murmured with a sigh.

After all, who didn’t have those “whoops, I went to class/work/the DMV and realized I was naked?” dreams?

She would have covered herself, but she was trying to stick with the idea that this was a dream as she moved through the forest. She thought longingly of her favorite pair of well-worn, faded jeans. And her Misfits t-shirt. Those didn’t magically appear, but slowly-slowly, clothing began to form.

There was the amulet that had once been Dean’s. Though a part of her wondered if that had been there throughout the entire dream. It was one of those things that was a part of her now that Mary had done the blood ritual to anchor her and keep the things that had brought her back out of her head.

She was wearing her mom’s jean jacket. Jo swallowed the tears as she looked down at the jacket, which seemed to fit like a glove. It covered the black dress that she’d worn the night before she’d died. It was simple, elegant, and everything she might have wanted to be and wear if she could ever get a day off.

The boots that she sometimes wore hunting topped off the strangely paired ensemble.

Jo was confused, but she decided to just go with it. It was better than being chased by Saerian, wasn’t it?

( Follow me down... )

The dream was nothing abnormal. Just one of those sorts that comes along when you've been spending too much time in an office, unable to do the things you really loved to do. He was filing papers. Endless papers. Every time he thought that he was almost done, he'd look at the stack would be almost to the ceiling again. His phone constantly rang, but when he answered, nobody would be there. The office he sat in was abnormally small, the sides of the desk almost touching the walls on both sides, the front of it made it so the door couldn't open all the way. But the faceless people who wandered in from time to time didn't seem to think it was all that strange.

Evan hated it.

He spilled cold, too thick coffee on himself while reaching to get more papers to file. How big was the damned cabinet anyway? How could it fit all of this? He stood too fast, the chair not going back very far because of the wall directly behind it, and he felt the bruises start to raise on the backs of his knees. That was a strange sensation, he'd never had a dream be that real before.

Exiting the office, having to squeeze through the door with a lot of effort, Evan was confronted by a set of stairs. They went down only. There was nowhere else to go, unless he wanted to return to the office, which he did not.

He walked carefully, unsure of what was happening or where he was going. His only thought was that in this dream, down could only mean a more hellish place than the office he'd been sitting in. He was going to end up somewhere where he had to sort number two pencils by the shade of their yellow and how much length there was between the point and the eraser, he was sure of it.