Chapter Eleven

When Cierra opened her eyes in the dream world, she was half shocked her plan had worked. Getting in touch with Goldie had proven to be such a challenge that she hadn't quite been expecting her plan to be successful on the first try; she thought it was more likely that she would simply wake up in her bed the next morning having dreamed nothing. Only now did she wonder what would have happened if she were to wake up at the foot of a giant, raging goddess.

Luckily, that wasn't the case.

Looking around, Cierra was pleasantly surprised to find her and Cid alone, no weird yellow imps, nightmares, or angry deities. Everything around her was sunlight and sand to the point that Cierra was certain the world couldn't possibly hold much life other than a struggling plant or dried out lizard.

Then again, she thought, every world was different, and nothing could be compared to real life when in a dream. The world of living yarn was a testament to the wild nature of the dream worlds.

What was it that Goldie always called them? Dream realms? Cierra made a mental note to ask what the difference was between the two next time they met.

The heat waves coming off the sand in the distance made her silently thankful that a world's environment never affected her much. She could feel the sun on her skin, but it was nothing more than a pleasant warmth.

The real problem was the light, there was so much of it that she was struggling to see anything nearby, much less in the distance. As she squinted into the light and looked around, she saw that there wasn't just one, but three suns in the sky each one at a different point going across the horizon.

Cierra briefly wondered how she could get a pair of sunglasses in the dream world; maybe there was some divine sunblock and a divine set of sunglasses somewhere she could find one day.

Even Cid seemed to have problems, as he angled his head downwards before completely giving up and laying down.

Putting her hand over her eyes to shield them from the light, she tried to get a better look at her surroundings. To the right was nothing but heat waves and sand stretching for miles, the left looked similar, but at the edge of a distant heatwave looked to be the top of a pale, distorted shape. It reminded Cierra of a cartoon mirage, the heat from the sand making the image dance around.

"Alright Cid, let's get going over that way." She gently nudged the cat with her foot. He had taken the time while she was surveilling to enjoy his time in the sun, stretching out so his stomach was completely flat against the hot sand.

"You're such a cat." For some reason she had been expecting him to prefer the cold, with his mythological history suggesting he used to live in the north and pull chariots like some pre-historic sledding dog. Wouldn't his fur make all this heat insufferable? Or maybe he felt the heat like she did, as a soft warmth against her skin.

"Should we get you a little heat lamp at home and treat you like a lizard?" She teased, playfully. All she got was a brief side eye as he got up and started following her. Cierra was happy that no one was around to witness her talking to a skogkatt, though at the same time she wondered just how much he understood.

As if reading her mind, he looked back at her, tilted his head, doubled back, and pushed her forward.

"Alright, alright," Cierra laughed, "I'm going."

The desert was easier to walk in than Cierra had expected, her shoes resting easily on top of the yellow surface, rather than slipping in and slowing her down. Much like the space inside of the home where she had first met Goldie, her and Cid's steps did not leave any tracks behind them. Thinking back, Cierra tried to remember if that was a staple of other dream worlds she had visited, but she couldn't recall ever paying attention before.

She made a mental note to keep track in the future.

Cierra and Cid walked for what felt like hours, trudging towards what now looked to be the side profile of a giant woman with a large, misshapen head. On the very top, it looked as though the figure was wearing an oversized orb of a hat. From what she had seen online, this didn't look like Freya. Google had been full of drawings of beautiful women with golden or strawberry blonde hair flowing down past delicate white shoulders. If anything, Cierra expected Freya to look like more like Norse goddess Barbie, not whatever this pale sandy statue was supposed to be depicting.

Then again, had any of those drawings been created by people who had ever seen Freya? Or were they simply based on the common beauty standards of today? Cierra was all too familiar with the whitewashing so many prominent figures went through. Even in traditional Chinese culture, paler skin equated to beauty.

Once, when visiting Auntie Guo's, she had overheard the owner talking to her own Aunt, telling her "Ni pifu zhenbai!", or "Your skin is so white!" From then on Cierra had noticed her own skin more, with its Asian coloring. She suddenly wanted to look more like Dawn, with her more pink undertones, especially after noticing how people's favorite characters tended to either be white or light skinned. Even main characters in T.V. shows tended to be lighter, up until recent years, but still stars from her aunt's country like Angelababy, Fan BingBing, and Liu YiFei were famous in part because they of their lighter skin tone and how well the fit into modern beauty standards.

Maybe it was the same with gods and goddesses; maybe they couldn't help but be portrayed in whatever the beauty standards were at the time they were written about or drawn.

Cierra was surprised to notice she was smiling to herself, what if even mythological figureheads couldn't even live up to the standards of the people that once worshipped them?

As they got closer, it became obvious that the statue was that of a woman with a lion for a face. What Cierra had thought might be a hat, seemed to be an orb that somehow stood on its own, floating above a wild mane. As more details came into focus, the more lifelike the statue became.

The mane, which from afar had simply looked wildly and unwieldly, now looked as though it was in slow motion, blown out by some unknown breeze. Even the orb overhead seemed to move in a gently pulse from side to side. Wrapped around the torso of the lady, just under her breasts, were tattoo like patterns. There was no extra color to her or the orb, everything a smooth pale color that reminded Cierra of a beach.

Circling around to the front, Cierra found that the statue's eyes were closed, but its nostrils moved slightly when she stared at them, as though it was breathing. It almost looked as though the figure had simply been frozen, as though they were a living being waiting to wake up.

What would this being be like if they did wake up? Cierra wasn't sure she wanted to stand around and find out. She had come here looking for Freya, not some creepy breathing statue in the middle of the desert. Cierra's stomach suddenly tightened into a ball. Why was this figure here when Cierra had purposefully set out to find Freya? And if this was Freya, she was in no state to help Cierra.

This statue didn't look like Freya, and combined with their surroundings, Cierra found herself wondering if she had accidentally stumbled into a different pantheon all together. If anything, the sand reminded her more of Egypt and the statue was like some odd version of a Sphinx.

Were Egyptian deities good and kind or more focused on death and retribution? Cierra wasn't sure. She regretted never reading more about myths, legends, and other cultures earlier in life.

Why would she end up here instead of where Freya was? Was this the true form of Freya? Cierra didn't know, but she suddenly felt like taking Goldie's advice and waking up. Something about the statue and her and Cid being the only two living creatures within eyesight in the vast desert made Cierra increasingly uneasy.

Wherever she was, this wasn't somewhere she wanted to be.

"What do you think," She turned to Cid, "Are you ready to—" She stopped, surprised to see Cid was crouching low, his orange-white fur sticking up along his spine.

Looking in the direction that he was pointed in, she saw an odd shape heading towards them. Whatever or whoever it was seemed small, but wide, with a mane much like that on the statue behind them.