--but!
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Abnaki, god of Dream. And what is a Sky, anyway? Just a place where clouds and dreams run free. I gesture to Aisling. "Announce my name, ye faithful servant. Declare me to the world, my herald, and we shall go to home and hearth with alacrity." I smile benignly, a my kind brow weighed with kingly wisdom.
As you all throw your little attacks and they land, shatter, and strike (whichever verb pleases you), the whole thing is just taking too long. I want Kallik to confront her twin brother and see that, in this reality, he's been alone in an axe for a thousand years. Oh, Unwritten Library! Your ironies never cease.
I promise -- no danger to you and your companions, my dear. Just bring the Once-Dreamt his little prize, and all will be well. Absolutely no harm will come of it. Dream your dream of Egret. Dream your dream of regret...
I could put you in a Dream she would both understand and remember. But will I? A desperate Kallik means a lopsided bargain. I will ask you for a favor...soon. When you reach the rift that lies between Earth and Air. ----- -- --- ---- ---- -- ---. You feel the presence of a task fill your mind, but it remains hidden...it regards fetching some kind of item. A trifle, really. What do you say?
Kallik. Don't worry. Not even that Fathead Beta can hear on this wavelength; pure narration. I know that you want to see the girl one more time. Egret. A pretty bird name, like so many tiresome sylphs. Sylphs lost their edge when Sky died, and most stopped dreaming--real dreaming. But that is entirely beside the point. What would you say, if you had one last goodbye? You hear the greedy smile in my voice.
]He thinks briefly of Abnaki, and the dream terrors he may yet inflict.
One kind of Abnaki winks from far away. I've still got the thrice-slain rug.
** Abnaki watches the whole fascinating thing play out on his story-appropriate crystal ball (sometimes the thing fizzles out for a day during bad weather, but nothing is perfect). He also watches the other Abnaki sleeping on the cold cement floor in front of him. He makes a good throw rug. All he needs is the Twice-Born, and all will be made right. ***
"Well, pooh. Down the toilet you go, I suppose." I make a lazy gesture and fling you into some convenient nightmar-ish place; I don't even really care where.
"Be my vassals in the dream realm. What you do in the waking world is your own business, but you will defend my domain from all who would seek to usurp me. You will still wake rested and refreshed in the mornings."
"There we are. Twice woken, good riddance." I smile in an irritating way. "You have no road out of Dream. Shall we bargain?"
I smile. "I rather like him this way." I chuckle warmly to show no offense was meant. No reactions. Hmm. "As for the name you, little Sneakthief, are thinking of naming to a name best not named....I don't think your Abnaki would like it very much." I give an elegant shrug. Throne of peacock feathers now. Still no reactions. No one wishes to have polite conversation these days. "Very well. You want Mister Sleepyhead to wake up? How about a rude awakening. No love for polite conversation, I say..." Still grumbling, I pluck a spell from the Samen-looking one, and a little bit of focus from the Gabriel-looking fellow. I shout very loudly, piercing and shrieky as a very unhappy banshee. It sounds like a long morning hangover condensed into one awful screech.
I sigh deeply. The throne is glass now; smooth, still uncomfortable, and basically impossible to see. "Elen obsession with naming things is the root of so much of your trouble. What's the use of labeling this 'dream' and this 'real'? If it feels real, it must be close enough to real as to make no difference." I give one small gesture, placing my palm up in offering. Before you, there is suddenly a modest meal of chicken, ham, bread and cheese, and strong-smelling mead. There are also ghostly rocks for Kallik. And a sarcastically small portion of birdseed for Osna. Nothing for the Thrice-Slain.
"Perhaps a feast?" I say cryptically.
You are ushered in, of course, with utmost squirrled courtesy. I sit upon the Uncertain Throne, which is currently made of gray stone and feeling very uncomfortable. To you, I look like Abnaki-- if he had missed one hundred nights of rest and lost most of his humor. I, Abnaki Once-Dreamt, gaze down at the Thrice-Slain. Bored-amused, I say, "So, him dying again and brought him you here? Appropriate and inconvenient, both." I make no move to greet any of you formally, for now.
"If he has a million copies, we just need to kill him a million and one times," Abnaki says brightly, "He may be legion, but he isn't the only one here nearing apotheosis, now is he?" "He's right, you know." But no one is there, and no one remembers. Thrice-Slains' smile falters for a moment, but nothing can mar his good humor for long.
While everyone else is distracted by the human transformation, Abnaki Exhausted, Abnaki Feels-Ten-Thousand-Years-Old, Abnaki Dreams-Don't-Get-to-Sleep, kneels down in front of Qizzlvutz. Only the mind of a child can understand the logic of his nonsense. "Child, take this book and let it guide you to the unwritten. The unknown libraries are fading." He hands Qizzlvutz a children's book with a crude crayon drawing of a tree on the cover. Abnaki was never there, and he continues to be absent. The book remains.
Samen, ever so briefly you catch a glimpse of Abnaki himself, standing tall at the back of the gathered crowd. He looks...tired. Grinning broadly despite his obvious exhaustion, he gives you a single nod. The wordsmith lets you know with no words at all that he is fine, and the party looks fun. In a puff of showy sparkles, he is gone, whisked back to the dream realm to...do something Abnaki would do. |