40th Winter, 512 AV – A Dream Within A Dream
Consciousness came suddenly, there was no gradual realization or memory of what had come before, only the scratching scratches of a quill that jerked its way across a sheaf of parchment. Vision came first, bubbling in a close second to the physical motions of her arm, her wrist delicately crossing a letter before she dipped the point of her quill into the ink well once more. The message was hazy, the writing upon it neither clear enough to be read or understood as its fogged appearance caused her to frown. She paused with quill half-pulled from the ink and drops rejoining their brethren slowly. She looked at the heavy oaken desk before her, felt the plush comfort of the high-backed chair she was sat in and found confusion rushing into her mind
“How in the name of the Goddess did I get here?” she asked the empty room.
Looking around her vision was the third thing to truly coalesce, the rectangular nature of the stone room emerging for her eyesight, followed swiftly by two large fires that were aflame and spitting slightly as the sap of the wood was heated. Bookcases, tables, chairs and rugs appeared as if through cheap glass, always there but she had not known of them before. A large door was opposite her and she found herself in-advertently raising herself towards her feet – quill and message now forgotten. She was not so much puzzled now as fearful, if she was caught in such a place then she would surely suffer for her intrusion. She stepped sideway, extricating herself from the chair and walking towards the fireplaces. Warmth hit her next, the sense of touch now dulling her initial panic with its comforting embrace.
“Where am I?”
You’re home of course… the setting whispered secretly into her skull.
Memory returned then, though it was fractured and she would never guess it to be so. She smiled and rubbed her hands together in front of the flames to ease her knuckles as the ache of too much writing helped to enforce the illusion of reality. She stretched her back a little, her worries now forgotten and her mind fixed upon the task before her – she had been helping to create false information upon one of her client’s fronts, a small business that sold more drugs than it did weapons but she would see to it that they were not subsumed beneath the petty cruelties of the law, it would not do to inhibit free trade for all parties after all. She returned to her desk after a few moments and read through what she had already written.
“Hmmm, so far so good. We have someone working on those who would gain from accusation, hands sifting and selling off the merchandise before the premises are searched, clean up being done to dismiss any evidence from the picture…” she muttered to herself as she tried to discern all possible variables and outcomes.
It was a foolish task, she knew, but one she rather enjoyed doing. Puzzles were interesting until they were solved so the more complex the better for her mind, the more it would be improved. People were just another kind of puzzle after all and they were so infinitely complex one could never become bored. She expected no company this night and so had plenty of time to think as she jotted a few random notations upon a scrap piece of parchment beside what would soon become the finished product.
She paused again, twisting the long stemmed quill between the tips of her fingers, lips pursed in concentration.
Pleasure, enjoyment…miss-direction she smiled to herself as she did so.
