Solo A Knotted Dream

[Moritz Craven]

25 Spring 522

Generally when Moritz dreamed he did not remember much when he awoke. This morning though before waking he was in a half awake half dreaming state where he was a bit of neither and both.

Sitting at a table drinking tea, the Kevic in his human form looked across to his table mates. Nearest him was a bear who seeing Moritz look his way let out a bear groan, before daintily picking up a cup of tea and taking a small sip. For some reason Moritz knew it was a female bear, but he was unsure why.

When someone suddenly began talking Moritz attention was diverted, and he turned to see the other person at the table who spoke as if continuing a conversation. This person was a long horned Okomo which marked her advanced age. For some reason though she seemed to be wearing a large floppy hat which had two holes perfectly cut to allow her horns through. "Yes, very tragic, very tragic. But you are avoiding the question. What do you actually want? I don't think you've made that clear. Will you stay? Will you go? Who are you exactly Moritz? Are you an honest man who lies? A liar who is honest? You seem to be..."

Here the Okomo paused to take a sip of tea which seemed to float off the table and stop before her mouth as if an invisible hand was grabbing it, while she gestured with her right hoof. "You seem to be avoiding many things. I just think you should reassess things."

The bear let out another groan as if in agreement, before tossing her cup across the table to smash on the floor. Moritz for his part took another sip of tea, only to realize his bladder was full and he needed to relieve himself.

"Yes but, I really need to..."

Cutting Moritz off the Okomo spoke while setting her tea cup back down again, having taken another sip. "I think you really need to sort things out. I mean if your having a dream about this, it probably has some deeper meaning to it right? Guilt? Something on your conscious. Or maybe an uncertainty about who you are."

Once more Moritz began to speak again, before puzzled he tilted his head.

"Wait, did you say dream. Right, I'm in a dream... Wait, if this is a dream how do you know its a dream? Aren't you a part of it? And am I just dreaming I need to go to the bathroom, or do I really need to go?"

Smiling as only an Okomo could she took a bite from her teacup, before taking another sip. "Who is to say. Both. Neither. What is a dream? What is awake. Either way, you had better go relieve yourself before you ruin the tea party. I'm sure if you don't work things out we will meet again."

"Wait but?..."

Moritz started, only for his dream to end and for him to realize he was laying in bed. After a few more moments of staring up the ceiling he got up and ran to relieve himself, not wanting to ruin his bed sheets or an imaginary dream tea party.

WC: 537

[Moritz Craven]

Done with his ablutions Moritz returned to his abode, sitting quietly on the edge of his bed. As he did he tried to remember the dream he had just had, but as time passed it become that much murkier. There was an Okomo... And a bear... Tea? Was he at a tea party? And someone had been asking him questions.

What did he want, he thought to himself? Did he even know? He was less than sure, he had to admit to himself. He had come here out of a desire to help Morwen, but so far as he knew no one had done anything about it. He had spread the word far and wide, but nothing had been done. He would go himself, but he knew that would just end with his death. A pointless death with nothing gained. And that just seemed to him... Illogical...

Laying back across his bead Moritz closed his eyes and worked on controlling his breathing. Just as Kyra his combat instructor had taught him. Mindfulness... Mmm... calming... Meditation! That was the word. The Jamoura, whats his name, he had seen at Caiyha's arbor, he had spoke on meditation. Though he was unsure he did it exactly the way he did. His eyes closed Moritz tried to block out sound. Distractions. Anything else. It was just him.. His breathing... And he was floating on a cloud of blank emptiness. Nothing. Darkness. He pictured this in his mind, and focused on not focusing. Keeping it clear. This however was easier said than done, and small things immediately began to creep into his mind.

An itch on his left shoulder. A bit of hair that had fallen into his eyes. A bird cussing outside his window. Who had taught it that? All such distractions entered his mind and took him from his task at hand. One by one he tried to silence them, ignore and move on, but he found it hard. And the itch, he fought the temptation but eventually scratched at the spot until it stopped itching. With that settled his hair didn't seem so annoying, and the bird... well it didn't matter, and he could just ignore it if need be.

His eyes still closed, laying across his bed, Moritz closed his eyes and breathed. In. Out. In. Out. Over and again. As the empty black void wasn't helping much he tried to picture something... A grassy field... A creek... A bit of water flowing through among the grass.... And, remembering his dream, a table. A medium sized wooden table big enough for several people to sit at. Deep brown wood, a thick grain... Perhaps treated for the darkness? Was wood normally that dark? No, it didn't matter, he just needed to picture the table. A table... A table among grass with a creek running nearby. He imagined a breeze going through and pushing the grass one by one, until all bent, and then after a few moments they swayed back.

Grass did not break when pushed or bent. It moved with the force... And then when the force as over, it sprung back into place. Rather than fighting with weight or might like a tree, which either forced the wind to go around or was felled, the grass let the wind change it and then moved back once the change was not needed. He pictured this in his mind, and he recalled something else the Jamoura had said... Something about seeing everything from even the smallest thing... Or something like that. Was this what he meant?

WC: 594

[Moritz Craven]

His eyes still closed, Moritz tried to picture it all in his mind, focusing on the image and nothing else. The breeze among the grass... Bending, flexing, moving and then moving back. Breathing in... Breathing out... In... out.... Could he be like the grass? Flexing, but not breaking. Accepting the change, and then changing back. A shape was just bending, was just... A temporary thing. If he lied, wasn't that just a temporary thing. He was not choosing to lie, so he was not a liar. He was being pushed by the thing making him lie...

In... And out... In... And out... was that any different? He was taking the shape he was being forced into, flexing and bending, but once it was gone, once the pressure abated, he would just go back, wouldn't he? It didn't make him any different, no more than kneeling and changing ones form of position made one a different thing...

In... Out... The grass among the creek... The table among the grass.... All a part of one view, but also disparate things. Together, and apart. One, and more than one. He wasn't the wisest, wasn't the strongest, but he tried. He kept going. Like a mole trying to tear down a mountain, he moved one little pebble at a time if need be... Even if it took time, he would get there...

In, out again, then back in, then out... Though unlike a human, he did not have their span... Would he live long enough to do that... To grow. A human had many years, but he was only a few years old and nearly full grown... Was his speed of growth fast enough?

In, then out, then just to change things up he breathed back in... Focusing his mind he pictured the grass up close... A small spread of grass... Green... What was green... Was the green he imagined in his mind the same as the real green of the grass he was trying to emulate? What was green?

In, then out... Just breathing, floating among nothing, with a tiny island he created in his mind... A bit of grass, some water forming a creek... A table... Chairs... Yes, chairs went with a table... Tables and chairs for sitting on.... And off in the background a familiar sight, one which hummed with him... A mountain... An expanse of stone moving upward, blocking out a chunk of the sky... A mountain, like back home. Like in Lhavit. In Kalea. Even now... He felt that was home... A place where he fitted, where he belonged... He was unsure why, but the vision he was imagining in his meditation felt... Right... Even though he had never seen it before, had never been there, it was not even a real place as far as he knew... But it was a tiny notch... A space within his thoughts were he felt safe... And that was good enough to start from, yes? What was meditation but calming, centering, understanding... Warding off things... And to do that... To do that he needed a nice safe place to curl up when needed. What was a home without a door or something to keep others out?

WC: 534

[Moritz Craven]

His eyes closed, laying on his bed, Moritz imagined he was floating. Floating just above the grassy field he was imagining. The longer he tried to hold it however the harder it was to focus his mind, and soon enough the mental image from his meditation broke down. Distractions crept back in. He was thirsty, and feeling a driving need he got up from the bed and went to get a pull of water. Stretching his body and flexing his neck Moritz returned to his lying position and settled in.

Once more he tried to clear his mind, pushing away thoughts and distractions, before focusing on a blank empty void. Only once he had run through this for several cycles of breathing did he try to insert into his mental focus an image, rebuilding his earlier dream sanctuary.

Grass... A creek... Table... With chairs... And off in the distance a large mountain reaching up into the sky as the horizon stretched away. Now though he imagined some trees, ones he had seen in Syka and some he had seen in Lhavit, and focused on adding them in. A large one here... A small thin one here... But he found the more complex he made things the harder it became, and the trees and their divergence was much harder than field of grass. While each blade was its own thing, in his mind its stretched out expanse was also one large thing. Individual blades of grass, but one field of grass. The mountain had bumps and levels and rises and falls, but it was one mountain, and a shape he had seen many times in Kalea. And the table and chairs... Well those were normal objects he had seen many times and in many places, and were more singular. For some reason he felt those fitted better within his view as compared to the trees.

Thinking back to the last time he had tried to meditate, he realized it had been when trying to practice his magic, excepting the time when he had done it at the Arbor with the Jamoura. In that time all of the things he had focused on where just substitutes as he tried to examine and understand his own magic, and if possible better manipulate and control it. Not an easy task, he realized, and it had taken him quite some time... But he also felt it had worked, as he was much better at working his djed for Pathfinding now, and could basically turn it on or off the same way he willed his eyes to open and close. Whereas when he begun it had taken long concentrated effort to get it to do anything. A clear change.

Letting out a sigh Moritz focused again on his mental image, working on each part in turn within his focus. Grass.... A watery creek... A mountain... A table with chairs... And him floating above, taking it all in. Nice. Safe. Protected... Calm.

WC: 495

[Moritz Craven]

As he lay there with his eyes closed and tried to work within his mind, Moritz realized one thing about meditation. The loss of awareness of time. Had he been laying there for chimes? Bells? If nothing else his lack of awareness meant he was finally having some success with his task, but it also meant he couldn't be sure how long he had been at it.

Focusing his mind was also easier when he was relaxed, comfortable, and didn't have an urgent need to relive his bladder. While not much, if nothing else he felt those were things he had learned today.

Returning to his mental fort, Moritz pushed at the edges of black emptiness. He had learned his mistake earlier when he tried to do too much by adding the trees, and focused instead on controlling what he had already done. Keeping it stable. If he could do that and maintain it for awhile, then perhaps he would try to add more.

A grassy field, with a occasional gust of wind pushing down and moving the grass in a way as it crossed... A burbling creek... A constant flow of water with some changes as it went around or over rocks and things in the middle... A large mountain in the background... Perhaps this was where the water was coming from, a flow from a spring coming down off the mountain... Or ice and snow melting, finding a channel, and flowing down to form a creek on the grassy plain below... He spent some time working on such pointless details, enjoying giving each bit an explanation and backstory, a reason why it worked together as one... And a table with chairs, for him to sit at. Perhaps... drink tea? He focused his mind backward to that morning, to his dream, and tried to concentrate on the details, picturing them at the table... A bear? Yes a tea drinking bear... And an Okomo... He pictured them both sitting at the table he had set. And a hat, though was the bear or the Okomo wearing the hat while drinking tea?

As he focused on this Moritz began to lose his grasp on the tiny worldlet in his mind, and felt it fading away. Moving beyond his grasp.

With a sigh he opened his eyes, just after the bubble of his creation popped and faded into the background noise of his real world and his mind. There was the bird near his house, still cursing. And there was also a monkey staring into his home at him, eyes glaring - or so he felt. Feeling a bit more well rested than before Moritz rose from his bed, and checked on the sun. While not exact as a measure of time it seemed he had spent around two bells or so just imagining things... Time had gotten away from him.

WC: 478

[Moritz Craven]

Grade Award!

Name: Moritz Craven
XP Award:

• Meditation: 4
• Philosophy 2

Lores:

• A Dream of bears and Okomo's tea party
• Meditation: Trying to ignore distractions
• Meditation: Using visualization to focus
• Philosophy: Bending like grass
• Philosophy: Changing as needed and changing back
• Philosophy: What is green
• Meditation: Making a safe place within ones mind
• Meditation: Helpful in learning to control ones djed
• Meditation: Makes it difficult to keep track of time
• Meditation: Difficult to clearly picture too much at once

Penalties & Awards: N/A
Notes: N/A