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

[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.

[alphaophiuchi]

Exactly. We were expected to take virtually everything in our first five years. [awkwardness rolls off Draco Malfoy like water off a leaf. Or something.]

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

Sounds kind of like middle school, just with less math classes. They made us take pretty much everything, too. Except most of it was boring.

[alphaophiuchi]

Most of it was boring. I have to say, when I no longer was forced to take Divination or Arithmancy, I was much happier.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

Divination'd be the dream stuff, right? Like... fortune-telling?

[alphaophiuchi]

That's right. Our professor may as well have been a glorified gypsy.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

Wow. Why'd they even hire her? If she wasn't even very good at fortune telling what was she meant to be teaching you?

[alphaophiuchi]

Merlin only knows. I heard some rumour about her being the one to have made the Prophecy, but I've seen no proof of that being possible. Particularly not in the rare Double Divination classes we had.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

[Prophecy? He's lost. And what's Merlin got to do with it?]

... someday you're gonna have to explain this stuff to me 'cause that really doesn't seem like a good reason to let someone teach people when they don't know what they're doing.

[alphaophiuchi]

[all you have to do is ask, and he'll go on a rambly spiel about it.]

Dumbledore seems - seemed - to believe she did know what she was doing.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

Dumbledore?

[What kind of a name is that I cannot believe I pronounced it right.]

[alphaophiuchi]

Our Headmaster.

[you question Dumbledore, but Draco Malfoy is normal?]

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

[It's all a question of what you're used to. Draco is at least familiar now.]

Mine was called Father Something and I never saw him except at entrance ceremony. Your school sounds really interesting, I'm kinda jealous.

[alphaophiuchi]

[and pretentious. He's named after a constellation.]

It's a school of magic, what do you expect? We had ghosts roaming the halls, and a poltergeist that liked to pitch things at the first years.

[insorrow.livejournal.com]

[Honestly? Language lessons. Ken thought that was just what happened at school: they tried to teach you English.

[Still. Eyebrow raise at that. It still sounds interesting to Ken.]

Really? Wasn't that a bit dangerous?

[And, feeling he should offer something back:]

... We had nuns. They're not as bad as everyone says they are.

[alphaophiuchi]

[Latin, more like.]

Of course it was. No more dangerous than Weasley's brothers wreaking havoc in the halls in fifth year, though. Honestly, it was a tragedy Professor Umbridge hadn't caught them.

Nuns?