elanya

I was feeling mildly creative today, so I did a little bit of writing. Nothing particularly wrong. This is, well, musings, I guess of one of my IC characters, Kolya, from when he was travelling in the dreaming. He's Kinain, and a bit special in some ways, so I figured, maybe things would be a bit different for him. He is also the same character I wrote the bit about visiting the fates about a couple of weeks ago. Anyway, this can be counted as either just random mental musings, or as an actual journal entry by him. I haven't decided whether or not he'd actually have kept one. But comments are good. About content, style, characterization.. I know it is short, but it was kind of diectionless anyway. And so is this introduction! So here, read, tell me what you think, please.

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How do you know whether or not you are asleep when you are in the dreaming?

I've been wandering for days now, I think. Or maybe this whole thing is a dream, and my memories of everything that has happened since I passed through that trod are just dream creations, and I'm still home, in my bed, and all of this is just the product of an overactive and wandering mind. Where do dreams come from, when you are *in* dreamland? I thought I was asleep, for a while, and I dreamed of a talking crow, and we were talking about Christabel, and Isabel, and the Baron... And then I woke up, and the crow was still there, waiting to continue our conversation. Stupid bird didn't have a clue what it was talking about.

And the landscape shifts. Where I go to sleep isn't necessarily where I wake up. This morning, I woke up in an inn. I'm fairly sure I didn't go to sleep here, but no one seemed surprised to see me, and they all seemed to have known I was there, even if I didn't. And things blur together, and fade, the way they do in dreams, as well. Maybe I'd only dreamed I'd been walking through a forest, and really had wandered in here last night and don't remember it. Sometime, I don't even remember going to sleep, I just... wake up.

Is everything this capricious for the fae? Follow the path, they say, never leave the silver path... Its been lost for a long time now. I don't remember leaving it, either, just one day, I woke up, and I was in a desert, and no path to be seen at all. Nothing but sand in every direction, and no shelter from the red glare of the sun... I thought about trying to dig down, make a hole, and wait for night, but the sand just filled everything in. I gave up, and just started walking.... I eventually found a road, I think... I don't really remember. I was so hot and thirsty...

Days like that, I just walk until I'm tired. How can you judge time here? I must be lucky to still be alive. That's what Titan said... but then, what trouble might he have had? Titan is like me, Kinain. He was born in the dreaming, though, and has never known anything else. His mother, Ella, is human, a child stolen away by the fairies, and they traded her for one of their own. For me, it seems like it must have been so long ago, that they even still did that sort of thing. How old is she, then? Titan doesn't look any older than me... but aging works differently here too. He told me the tales of beasts he tracked and killed... damsels rescued, and, well, you know. Years of work, I'm sure. And nothing has ever attacked me here, yet, except while I was travelling with them. Ella told me that the only way to mark time here, is every time you wake up, it's been a day. I asked her how long she'd been here, but she just smiled and said that she's lost count. So have I. I never thought to start counting before. And does it really matter?

I've been following a river, now, for three days. I'm hoping that it will bring me to some kind of town. I bought a map from a peddler I passed a while ago. It says that there should be a town... A town with an oracle, even. And the silver path. I wonder, if I find that again, can I stay on it? I hope the map is right. I feel so lonely, walking here, with no company but dreams. Dream people, though, are often better, and sometimes there are fae around to talk to, and they can tell me things, about where, and when they come from, and I feel more anchored. I need direction, though. I can't keep wandering with no direction. I don't want to be like Ella, content to be subsumed by the landscape, identity define by the whims of others.

And I can't forget Christabel, either. She is why I came here, why I left everyone behind. I can't imagine that there's nothing to be done for her... For her sadness. I want to see her smile, and be happy. I feel so pathetic sometimes. This whole idea... If her reverie is ever broken, what would she think of me? Some kid with dreams above his station. She's a Sidhe. She is married, though that at least might change. She has a daughter who is more than ten years older than me... But she so beautiful, and so sad... How could anyone not love her? How could anyone stand to see her the way she is now, trailing father away form the world every day, wrapped up in her own bitter dreams of better days? Maybe that's why the Baron carries on the way he does. Maybe he just wants to hide. I thought the Fiona couldn't feel fear, but maybe they can. If not fear, maybe... shame? I hope he feels ashamed.

I wonder... if I dream of her, here... is any of it real?