This is real, Dani.
Who: Lara and Dani What: Lara finds her pendant When: Last Thursday Where: Casa de Croft Status: complete Rating: PG-13
Lara padded out of her bedroom, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and trying to make sense of what she’d been dreaming about. A dig? She was, what, six? Seven? And her father had taken her on a dig. Her father never went on digs, not that she could remember. So what did this mean?
She smiled to herself. She’d been so proud of that Jade Pendant.
It was then she realized there was something in her hand. She opened her palm, and the pendant was in her hand.
She wouldn’t admit it later, but Lara Croft let out a surprised yelp.
It was loud enough of a yelp to make Dani - who had thankfully been awake long enough to be dressed - to rush out her bedroom door. Her head bobbed this way and that, looking for signs of trouble, only to find Lara standing in the hallway.
Well, the situation didn't seem emergent anyway, "Are you alright?"
Lara turned towards Dani, fixing the camisole she’d been sleeping in, and wordlessly held out the jade pendant. She pointed at it. Point. There was a perplexed and utterly disbelieving look on her face.
Dani arched an eyebrow, then glanced down at the woman's hand. Her face went back up to take in Lara's expression, then back down to the object, and she snorted out through her nose, "Let me guess, you've never owned that before in your life, and only dreamed about it up until now."
“Yes.” She forced the word out through a clenched throat. “I dreamed I found this on a dig when I was a girl. I was… so excited when I ran up to show my father…”
"It happens." Dani's voice was low, and she made an effort to sound like she was trying to soothe her friend. She walked a bit closer to inspect the pendant, "It's really pretty. That's about all I can tell by looking at it, though. You found it on a dig, in your dreams? It must be pretty old, then."
Lara looked the pendant over, and as she spoke her voice grew calmer and more fond. "It's a maori koru design. It symbolizes that everything continues and is reborn, hence the spiral pattern. It's based on a fern from New Zealand. It could also represent the purity and strength between people."
"We've got similar patterns in our own culture," Dani replied, with a nod of her head. There was a way of thinking and a way of living that she felt was more universal back then. It made her wonder sometimes what the hell everyone fought about.
The native woman picked it up out of Lara's hand, running a finger over the braided leather cord that was attached to it, "This is good quality leather, too. Do you want me to put it around your neck for you?"
“I’ve seen some of them. I did a lot of reading on the flight from London. About native cultures, I mean.” She was always in a book or a paper anyway, and she wanted to know about the history and cultures of the country she was going to spend a great deal of time in. “I even have a map in the study with little markings of all the places I’ll probably never get to visit but want to.”
She only then registered the rest of what Dani was saying and her cheeks grew warm. “Ah Uh...sure. Please.” She turned around and moved her hair aside with her hand.
Was Lara blushing? Dani took in the sight of that and decided it was absolutely adorable. But she'd already made up her mind not to go scaring her roommate away by being attracted to her, so she kept that thought to herself.
These days she felt like she was attracted to anything with a pulse, too, and that didn't help. But Lara was special. Dani didn't want to screw up their friendship with her own crap. She put the pendant around Lara's neck and tied it up with a quick knot, glancing around just once to make sure it was at a good enough length, "There. it looks good on you."
Lara couldn't help but think back to Bo. Sure, she'd been a little in her cup but the woman had had an effect on her. And she couldn't deny that Dani was attractive. What the hell did it mean? She'd looked at men before. Plenty of time. Admired them even. She'd just..only dated a few and none of that had been particularly spectacular.
So why did Dani's fingers on the back of her neck make her pulse race?
Lara decided she needed to find a nice bloke. And soon.
All of this passed through her head while she stared into space a bit.
"Uhm. Thanks." She looked down at the pendant dangling past her collar bone. "It feels..right."
Dani nodded, "I have a sword from my dreams, and whenever I hold it I feel like..."
She squinted one of her eyes shut and wrinkled her nose while she tried to find the wording she wanted, "...like I'm myself again. Only that's stupid because I'm already myself and my dream self isn't me."
“I feel like the woman I am in my dreams is who I want to be,” Lara admitted. “She’s a little better with people and better at hiding her uncertainty. She also gets to go on a lot more adventure. There was this backpacking trip in Bulgaria that I wish we’d gone on in this life! And this pendant, and all these other places and ruins we visited…I couldn’t get Sam to shut her camera off most of the time, either. That’s not too different. She’s brilliant, with film and lighting and all that.” Lara smiled fondly, though she wasn’t even sure which Sam she was talking about any more.
She realized she was too close to Dani and stepped away a little bit.
The way Lara spoke about Sam reminded Dani greatly of the way she spoke about Rahne. That love had waxed and waned over time, morphed and changed and grown as the two of them had. Grown apart, too. But she knew if Rahne ever showed up it would pose some problems to her and whoever she was currently with.
She smirked a bit. Lara obviously had no idea about her own feelings, but Dani thought she might figure it out eventually, "My dream self is a lot stronger than me. But she's also got severe PTSD issues, and never gets the time to have a normal life, or keep loved ones around who aren't connected to her job... she never even got to finish college."
"I got to finish at least. God, I think I'd go stark raving mad if I couldn't finish school. I can understand how you'd end up with PTSD after all of that." Lara rubbed at her own arm, and worried about her dreams again. No one seemed to have pleasant ones, and she didn't want to be a superhero or get involved in politics or violence. She just wanted to be a normal archaeologist.
"She's got her own issues, that dream me, and I have mine. I try not to let her issues get to me too much. Sometimes, I succeed, and sometimes, I don't. But Wrex used to always say that the dreams weren't like... destiny. You decide how much you take from them. Even if they give you powers, or change your complexion. You still control how you use them, or if you use them at all," Dani said, softly.
Lara tilted her head, and thought about that. About it not being her destiny. She wasn’t sure that she completely agreed with that. She liked the experiences she’d had in the dreams. “Well, nothing seems out of the ordinary yet. No magic or powers or anything like that, even if my father was a bit… eccentric.” And always trying to tell her about things that were impossible.
"Nothing out of the ordinary at all, except for this pendant that arrived out of nowhere," Dani corrected.
“It’s not magic,” Lara insisted. “It has… a whole other kind of meaning and power, I suppose.” She closed her fingers around it. Sam used to play with it when they snuggled for a movie or something. “Even if it’s from a different life.” She looked at Dani, her hair bouncing lightly on her shoulders. “This is real, Dani.” She squeezed it. “I mean, it’s a real artifact. It’s old enough, and it’s the right material and shape and design, it’s not like it’s a fake.”
"... no, it isn't a fake. It is real. It's the real necklace, from your dreams, that you dreamt of having. The magic is the fact that it appeared here. You're going to have to wrap your head around that, Lara, because it's just going to keep happening." Dani snorted, then stepped back into her room and came out with her valkyrie crown, "Just like this showed up on my dresser one morning. It's not made from any metal anyone's ever heard of. Because it was forged in Asgard."
“I mean it’s a real…” Lara trailed off, and dropped her hand from her neck. She looked at the crown, her mouth forming a bit of an O shape. She reached out to touch it. It was clearly norse but not any norse she’d ever heard of. “Asgard. It was forged in Asgard?!”
"Asgard, yup." Dani nodded her head, "THE Asgard. Where Odin and Thor and Hela live. And the Valkyries. I was one of them."
“You were a valkyrie?” Lara blinked her eyes, though she didn’t actually sound that surprised. She doubted the valkyries, if they were real, would really give a damn so long as the warrior was strong. And Dani was strong, despite her achilles heels. “Back up. You dream about gods and magic?”
"DREAM me was one, anyway." Dani corrected herself, then folded her arms a bit, "I dream about a world where mutants exist, magic exists, and people with superpowers due to other unexplained phenomenon exist. In that world, everyone only really hates the mutants, oddly enough. If you've got superpowers but you weren't born with them you're apparently off the hook."
“That’s utter shit,” Lara said, her mind swirling at the possibilities and the information. A world where myths were real? What kind of fantastic discoveries could someone like her make?
"Yeah, we all thought so too." Dani agreed. She took her crown back, and patted Lara's shoulder, "Come on, why don't I make you some coffee."
“I could use some coffee.” It might help her mind focus. She had some research she needed to do, too. About Yamatai, and this pendant, and now she wanted to refresh her memory of viking archaeology. “Thanks, Dani. I’m really glad you moved in.”