Dream 05 → What Do You Mean It's (Not) Symbolic?

[irregular]

Dream Effects: A slight feeling of disconnection. Confusion, lots of it, and the dawning awareness that you're having a (rather weird) dream.
Warnings: Rampant symbolism. Forgive me.


It's a bright, hot day and your arms are bare, but you can't seem to make yourself feel it.

Presume there's a field stretching away in every direction, wide and boundaryless and entirely empty; presume the grass is long and wild and tumbled by the breeze, and brushes against your sides as you walk. There's a hill - well, more of an incline, 'hill' seems a bit ambitious for what this is doing - and a small white building at the crest of it, a Greek temple of some sort with pillars and a triangular roof. Presume (and there's nothing else to see and nowhere else for you to go; you really might as well) that it's vitally important you get there.

Not that there seems to be any reason for it. When you get there the door's ajar and the building, too, feels quite empty.

But you're here now, and you figure you might as well go inside. You push open the heavy wooden door just wide enough to let yourself in, walk down a shallow flight of stairs. The door swings silently shut behind you and melts back into the wall.

Somehow, this simply feels logical.

(It's a dream. You're dreaming. It's kind of how stuff like this works--)

Presume you're standing in a long, narrow white room, at the bottom of the stairs. Black and white tiled floor, patterned like a chessboard; white-painted walls with high, white-framed sash windows on either side; the sunlight streaming in from both sides, casting pools of light across the tiles. The windows are closed, and yet the thin white drapes that frame them are billowing in a breeze you can't seem to make yourself feel. It's quiet here, and elegant, and utterly empty; you can't help feeling uncomfortable. It's a little bit like being in church, and you feel like you should lower your voice. You wonder if you're breathing too loud. You wonder where the Hell everyone's gone.

At the far end of the room, two heavy wooden doors and a large bowl of white flowers on a stupid, spindly little occasional table. Behind the doors-- something. People.

Pick one. Just try it.

Two doors, two rooms - you're hesitating.

You know (and you don't know how you do; you just know it's how things work, in dreams) you can only go through one. You should only want to go through one and yet the other one looks fine too, and... well, how on earth are you supposed to choose, when you can't see how there's even anything to choose between?

There's a person behind you, tall and dressed in some kind of vestments; there are arms about your neck. You know you must be dreaming, because you never heard them coming. Because you're not trying to fight--

"You see," they say quietly, "you can't decide, after all."


[Ken wakes up with the lingering feeling that he's missed something; he's not entirely surprised to realize that the stupid Dreamberry didn't miss a thing. Well, he probably was overdue for it. Could have been worse, he guesses. At least this time it wasn't stupidly embarrassi--

[Wait. What the Hell date is that supposed to be?]

... damn, how long was I asleep?

Comments

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

[Really.]

Wow.

[Ken's next question, while stupid, is only entirely logical. It's just unfortunately clueless-sounding:]

How does that work?

[alphaophiuchi]

I wave a magic stick and magic happens. [smirkysmirk.]

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

[Frowning at you, Draco.]

I'm not a kid, we don't have to start that basic. we just don't get people can do that where I come from-- [Okay, I didn't think we got telepaths and then Schuldig happened] Well, I ain't met any if we do. I mean, were you born doing it or what?

[alphaophiuchi]

[he shrugs.] Some people need the basics; I've learned to take my chances.

Yes. Magic's run in my blood for centuries, as long as my family's been around. On either side.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

So it's not like something you can learn, it's either there or it ain't?

[alphaophiuchi]

Precisely. And trust me, you would know. If not when you were small, by the time you were ten.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

So it's kinda like being one of the X-Men... Are lots of people wizards where you come from?

[alphaophiuchi]

...X-Men?

[MOVING ON. By the by, that's a silly question. It gets a silly answer.] Yes. The entire wizarding world. The rest are Muggles, like you.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

[... yeah, Ken's just gonna keep thinking you're a magical X-Man, Draco. It makes sense. To him, anyway.]

And how'd you get to be a wizard, then? I mean, I know you gotta be born one, but how's that happen? Like winning the lottery, or is it like having brown eyes 'cause your dad did?

[alphaophiuchi]

[better than Tamaki. Tamaki thinks he's a secret agent. This is what happens when you tell someone about the Dark Mark but not in detail.]

Like having brown eyes. Or in my case, grey eyes. My parents were wizards, and their parents before them, and theirs before them. There hasn't been a Squib in the family tree for generations, last I checked.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

A squib?

[You use words funny, mister.]

So how'd it all start, then? I mean, you're a wizard because your parents are, and their parents were and so forth-- so where'd it start? Aren't you gonna run out of parents after a bit?

[alphaophiuchi]

Something with magical blood who can't use magic.

[he shrugs.] I presume Muggles came after wizards, and once their blood was dilute enough, they just stopped being able to use magic.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

Wow, that must suck. [Sounds like being tone-deaf in a family of musicians only nine million times worse.]

You mean back where you came from everyone was a wizard way back when?

[alphaophiuchi]

Quite. The last one in the family tree - on my mother's side, at least - was burned out of the tree altogether. Completely disowned.

Probably. Something like that. [he doesn't know. But go with it.]

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

Just because they couldn't do magic? That's pretty harsh.

[Not that Ken sounds too surprised. Maybe the reasoning's a bit weird and not exactly fair - not like you could help being a brown-eyed kid in a family full of people whose eyes were grey - but at least there was a reason. Some families don't even bother to give you that much before they decide you just don't cut it with them any more. Naming no names, mind.

[Dad.]

We got people can do psychic stuff where I come from. I guess everyone might have thought they were doing magic, way back when.

[And don't ask me why I'm saying this. Just figure it's only fair.]

[alphaophiuchi]

That's how things work in a pureblooded family. You want kittens and roses and rainbows and a perfect life, go speak with a half-blood.

[he's only vaguely bitter - he's used to it, he's over it. It is what it is, and even he managed to get past the prejudices his family instilled in him.]

Likely so. What sort of 'psychic stuff'?

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

Ain't no such thing even without the magic.

[Families are families everywhere: that is to say, all varying degrees of messed up. You want a fairytale, go watch a Disney movie.]

Oh, uh... telepathy, I guess. Moving stuff with your mind. There's a couple others but I'm not sure what they could do. Guess it's not very common, but it's out there.

[alphaophiuchi]

I mean one here. Though admittedly you have your choice of me, another pureblood who's usually considered a blood traitor - you'll never find him on my family tree; you have to go back too far to even begin tracing the Weasleys out - and a...half-blood whose familial life leaves something to be desired.

[what's a Disney? 8D]

Like our charms, then. But with slightly less effort.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

... wow, is everything where you come from this complicated?

They certainly didn't make it look difficult. But there ain't that many of them, from what I can see. I think we met like... [Ken breaks off, counting on his fingers.] About six of them for sure? Maybe eight, depending if the other guys could do anything. Not many.

[alphaophiuchi]

One day I will draw out my entire family tree for you. And yes.

Hm. Fascinating. How'd you meet them?

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

[Now that, Draco, is a loaded question. And one Ken really should have expected.]

Just... around, I guess? One of them was hassling this guy I know.

[Yeah, Ken's a terrible liar. And not much better at evasions.]

[alphaophiuchi]

[he sees that Ken's clearly lying, and raises a brow.]

I see. You know, I can't imagine meeting a lot of psychics out and 'around'.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

Well I can't really imagine meeting wizards so I guess it's all what you're used to.

[Can we talk about something else please?]

[alphaophiuchi]

[Draco simply gives the camera a bland stare, then shrugs.]

I suppose so.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

[Well, this got awkward fast. Quick, think of something else to say--]

I guess that'd explain why you did dream stuff at school, though. If you were learning magic.