Closed [The Dreaming Lady] Needle in a Haystack(Aela Calder)

[Chemar Tisserand]

The Dreaming Lady: Dream Chambers
Winter 13th 512 A.V.
Tag: Aela Calder

The dreamwalker sat cross legged on the floor, eyelids growing heavy as she casually threaded a long silk scarf through her fingers. The veined wall of the dream chamber acted as support for her straight back. She could smell the faint aroma given off by the mountain as she inhaled her altering gifts.

Chemar's day had already been full, but she was not ready to end her work for the night, not while she had the solitude to hone her skills and return to her dreaming world. She took each and every chance she had to strengthen her bond with Nysel. On this night she sought to test herself, to use her gift to find those souls that had drifted from their home, from her home, Wind Reach.

Gold ringed eyes closed and Chemar found herself with in the Chevena, the silken scarf had transformed into a glowing thread that pulsed with energy. Her own Chavi curled around her hands, dancing across her skin with the movement of a languorous serpent. After drawing a deep breath, she freed the strand to let it join the countless others around her. In the time it took to release a long breath, she watched it twist and curl itself into a cluster of Chevi, exploring with the same curiosity intrinsic in the woman whose life it represented.

Chemar scanned the writhing sea of Chevi, searching. Over the course of her life in Wind Reach, she had walked with more people than she could count, and many of them were regular visitors to Chemar's...den. Some of the Chevi were so familiar, she could now pick them out with little to no effort, the recognition imprinted on her so permanently that they seemed a thread within the fabric that made her who she was. Having been witness to so many, she had discovered a subtle, yet telling commonality within those Chevi; Each one of them conveyed a certain intangible impression. It felt like ...hunger. Perhaps it was the harshness of life on SkyInarta, and how hard it's people had to work that caused the similarity, the hunger. Or it could have been something altogether different, attributed to the physical needs of the inhabitants. Chemar could not identify its source, but she had learned to recognize it within the Chevena.

To test herself, she set out to find that trait in an unfamiliar Chevi, and confirm her intuition. With an ease that exhibited her comfort, Chemar walked through the curtain of Chevi. Some were familiar, and she let her hand slip along them for a brief moment to feel their connection to her life. Most, however, were foreign, unexplored. Her hope was that one day, she might discover the traits within unrelated Chevi that linked them within their place in the world, then within their races and so on. The connections she could uncover were limitless. Within the Chevena, the links were infinite, yet hidden, she had only to find them.

For now, she looked for the 'hunger'.

Ahhhh...there you are.

Before her, in a tangle of lives, was one glowing thread, standing apart from the others, pulsing with that aura of hunger. The dreamer approached it, but did not touch, standing to watch the pulses of warm light glowing through the strand for a few moments. when it recognized her presence, it reached for her, curling around her wrist with a tight snap. This one was more desperate than most, clinging to Chemar's strength like a lifeline.

There was something different about this one. Something isolated.

A rush of sensation flooded through Chemar's mind and she was immersed in the stranger's dream.

[Alori Sai]

It was a bright day in the city of Wind Reach, and all was well. Syna's light shined from above with an unusual bright red sky towering over the volcano. The rogue Avora found herself in the city once again living as if she had never left it. Perhaps it was the past summer that she remembered, or the Spring before that. Whatever the date and time, it had been distorted and days and the events that followed were intertwined together to form a new reality, one that wasn't entirely true nor false.

Aela walked through the streets of the city, her gaze lifting and staring at the crimson blended sky above. It seemed angry, as if showing the raging of the Gods who watched over them, and threatening to cast down their wrath upon them. She turned away then and continued to walk along. It was an odd feeling that gripped her, even as she moved through the crowds seemingly invisible to everyone around her. She didn't know why, but for some reason she felt as if there was somewhere she needed to be, something that she needed to see.

Finally she cleared the crowd and found herself in the courtyard of the sky. It was a place that she had been plenty of time in the past, and sometimes even just by passing through. But on this day she found cause to stop, and suddenly the blazing sky had meaning and she could understand it's rage. He was there, standing with two other women at his sides. He stood close to them, his arms around their bodies and kissed them both.

Aela looked on, her emerald green eyes burning and flaring in jealousy. She turned away and stormed off, not waiting to hear an excuse or reasons for anything. The teen had seen enough and there was nothing he could say that could explain away what she saw. The girl moved on for paces, fuming, until she couldn't remember what she was so angry about. Something was off, that day, that incident...it never happened.

Aela was confused, and she didn't understand what was happening, what she was experiencing. Then it came to her, the truth beyond the dream and the real reason she was so upset from the phantom items. Why she was upset with him...It happened on a camping trip in Thunder Bay. He took her there, told her he was leaving. What a cruel boy he was, toying with a young girl's emotions the way that he did. A girl who was willing to stand by his dream if he would only stand by hers. He said that he had too, told her that he was sorry, but she didn't believe him. Aela didn't believe a word of it.

"You're not sorry..."

Suddenly it was over, with the realization of her feelings, the world around her was torn away. The sky, even the mountain around her was chipped away like dried paint on a canvas. She was in the Unforgiving now, surrounded in the snow covered forest. A dream within a dream, and she had now been returned to her desolate solitude. Aela hugged her chilled shoulders as she glanced around at the nothingness beyond the forest trees.

"You're not sorry...."

[Chemar Tisserand]

Fractured into brief unexplained slivers, the dream that now absorbed Chemar was full of fear an confusion. The young woman at its crux seemed that most confused of all at the start, but suddenly, something seemed to snap into focus, and with that realization she was yanked from one environment to another.

The Unforgiving...Chemar recognized this place from her ill-fated trip with Kovac, but that was not her purpose here. Her attention returned to the woman, she had yet to reveal herself within the world that manifested around her. Upon looking, the woman looked small, and vulnerable, curled over herself as though trying to disappear. From what?

You're not sorry. The words kept chiming from out of thin air, as if to torment the saddened dreamer.

Who was not sorry, the man? She watched the diminutive woman's eyes dart from location to location around her, never settling upon one thing, like a flitting bird. Very soon the statement was answered, with the full-throated sound of a man's laughter, it sounded with happy abandon to punctuate the realization with cruelty.

The feeling of humiliation and betrayal began to manifest as a cloying murk, a dark sludge that seemed to seep from the ground. Chemar felt pity for the poor soul, knowing the depth of paralysis that accompanied the feeling of betrayal. The woman could not move, even as the oily slick began to discolor her skin, coating the soles of her feet and the tips of her fingers as it was absorbed by her. Her sadness was pulling the darkness into her until it would threaten to diminish her, or perhaps eliminate her all together.

The dreamwalker approached the woman, crouching at her side without betraying her presence, too focused now on the ravenous, phantom of despair that was consuming her. Chemar whispered beneath the sound of continued laughter, a laughter that had now grown hollow and maniacal.

"Relax." The woman started, and turned to Chemar with wide eyes, now unable to move at all, for either escape or defense. "Shhh...relax." Against natural instinct, the woman seemed compelled to take suggestion, and slowly her eyes closed, the weight of her lids carried through her whole body and she released into a crumpled mass on the frozen ground. The inky slick that had nearly covered her began to withdraw, no longer spurred on my her palpable anxiety.

"Let's get to the bottom of this..." As the last syllable left her lips, it formed into the source of the woman's misery. He stood there, still laughing at her misplaced trust. The laughter woke the woman, and once again they were thrown into a new setting. Chemar still crouched next to her 'ward', who now stared into the eyes of her betrayer.

"OF course I'm not sorry. " He almost spit the words at her, his obvious contempt making each word like a stinging dart. He rushed toward her, nearly slamming her back with the sheer force of his movement, but he did not touch her, as though repelled by the thought of doing so, no, he sat before her and stared, like she was some kind of freak to be viewed. "Why would I be...?" His eyes scanned over her, every inch covered adding a complexion of disgust to his features. "You are not worth my regret." The face of the man changed, growing sallow, and withered. Before their eyes, his skin lost it's color, growing translucent like the thinnest parchment stretched over bone so tight that dark lines of blood could be read like a map on his face. He reached out for the woman, gnarled hands curling around her neck with a force beyond their appearance, he drove her head against the ground as he overtook her, all the while laughing the same hollow laughter.

Chemar kept whispering to the woman. "He is no stronger than you. Show him your strength...Aela..." The name finally snapped into her head, the the clearing of fog. She wanted the woman to claim the respect she should have for herself, prove to the man that he had not diminished her by his betrayal. "You are not less because he thinks you are."

The course of the dream was in her hands now. It hinged on the strand of this one choice.

[Alori Sai]

The laughter that suddenly erupted into the air was familiar, and yet foreign at the same time. Was it him? His laugh was always kind and full of heart, showing the depths of his spirit. But this laugh was different, menacing and much like the laughter she had heard from another. It was all confusing and in her vulnerable state it only worked to deepen her sorrow. It wasn't her fault or was it? Had she done something? She didn't know or couldn't remember, but what she felt was pain and heart ache. She was alone and forgotten, tossed aside and turned into something less than human.

"I don't believe you.."

The darkness that appeared beneath her, reaching for her and coating her boots and fingers as it extended up her body. Her eyes widened as she found herself frozen and she could even feel the change in her as the darkness took her, turning her pale, soft flesh into ash hard flakes of grey. The hair on her head that had once burned like fire was now almost as black as the cloying murk surrounding her. The viscous laughter continued and the teen felt herself being pulled into different directions. Her mind screamed, begged for it all to stop. There was a dark pressure driving into her chest and it was hard to breathe at all...she was dieing inside.

"You're not sorry..."

"I'm not..."

Suddenly there was presences beside her, a voice calling to her and telling her to relax. The voice reached into her mind and bent her will to it's own, and before she realized it, Aela had closed her eyes, a weightlessness taking over as she collapsed onto the ground. The cloying murk withdrew from her body and the harden ash cracked and blew away into dust. Though the murk was gone and the ash that had covered her skin as well, the hair on her head was still dark, and her eyes had lost it's bright green glow which had faded into grey.

"What do you want from me..."

Again the laughter started, and Aela bolted up in surprise. She saw him standing there, a mirror image of himself and yet it was not him. The man she knew was a gentle soul, he would never be so cruel. But he had, although unintentionally..he had. And that fact made it harder for her to take. Aela swallow her breath, a hard thump slamming into her chest as his words reached her. She was sadden, angry and confused. "Petch you!" she cried out in defiance, digging her fingers into the dirt and snow before slinging it at him with all of her might.

Then he was upon her, forcing her backwards and almost to where she was laying flat on the ground. Aela frowned at his words, her emerald green eyes darting about nervously, furiously at the fact that she ever let this man near her. He wasn't an Avora like she, by caste he was less, he was worth less and still she cared for him. Still she allowed him into her heart and for this...it wasn't worth it. "I'm not worth your regret? Petch off dek-wad!"

Aela gasped then, as the man's appearance suddenly twisted into a monstrosity right before her eyes. She screamed loudly, a sound that was choked off as he grabbed her throat and slammed her into the ground. The frighten teen coughed and struggled beneath him, trying to free herself. She could hear the voice of the woman, but everything was happening so fast and she just wanted to get away. Again she cried out, kicking and thrashing around on the ground as she tried to pry his hands from her neck.

"You're not sorry.."

Aela glared up at him, her fiery temper reaching it's boiling point and causing her to rage out against the man on top of her. "This is your fault. You left, I'm still here!" she yelled and shoved her feet into his chest.

"You're not sorry..."

Aela kicked at him as hard as she could and forced him to release her and to fall backwards. "I won't forgive you!" There she had said it, and the moment the words left her mouth silence fell and nothing remained but the whisper in the winds.

"I'll never forgive you..."

The girl sat up, staring blankly into the distance as more of the truth broke through the barrier of fog and lies. Although she had never said those words, she had thought them, felt them in her heart and soul. She was angry, felt betrayed and her thoughts had been filled with emotions at the time. Finally she pushed herself up from the ground and stood hugging her shoulders again.

"You're not sorry.....You didn't even say goodbye."