The Dreamer

Serenica was sitting in a comfortable armchair, looking at a bowl of grapes. There were no mirrors, but the room had a large window that displayed an unfamiliar view of some fields and houses, built in a style most commonly found in Eastern Sennas.

She was wearing her usual clothing, practical garments that didn't restrict her movements. She felt nourished, as if after a hearty breakfast.

She got up and examined the books. Many of them were dictionaries and scientific studies. There was nothing unusual - just a very blue-blooded and civilized bookshelf.

Disappointed, she tried the knob of the door.

It wasn't locked.

She let herself into a narrow corridor, carefully looking away from the walls, in case there happened to be mirrors.

Someone was coming. She couldn't see or hear where the footsteps were coming from. She withdrew into the room she had come from.

The room was now furnished with two chairs instead of one.

In the other chair, a man was sitting, looking away from her, but as she tried to swiftly exit the room, he turned to face her and she recognized him immediately.

The pale face with hollow cheeks, way too emaciated for Neulian beauty standards, also decorated the wall of a certain Mariana Kinley. This lanky man was the Dreamer. A prince of the royal family of Lean.

"Sit down, girl," he instructed her.

Serenica was too frozen to even panic. She obeyed him and sat in the chair opposite to the Dreamer.

"Rarely do I see people visiting my dreams, let alone a common woman," the man mused. "Usually, it's the other way around."

"I am sorry for intruding," Serenica said. Her voice sounded so hollow. She was completely lucid by now, very much aware that she was in a dream right now.

"You know who I am, don't you? Aren't you afraid of me?"

Serenica examined the Dreamer, his striking green eyes and the subtle pulse of some invisible power that radiated from him. He was nothing like Serenica had imagined. He wasn't afraid to take up space. Much like Spade, he sat with his thighs wide apart, but unlike the good old captain, he did not try to compensate his masculine behavior with anything. No fidgeting, no twirling of hair, nothing fancy. Just his raw essence on display. His gaze was hungry, rude, even, and it swept over Serenica's body like a hawk circling over a mouse.

"I am afraid of you," Serenica whispered.

"Good," the Dreamer said. "So impolite of you to come banging on my door like that. Where are your bloody manners?"

Serenica was completely frozen with fear. She was at the mercy of this stranger, in a dream, unable to wake up.

"Have you got anything to say in your defense, or should I throw you to the Pit?"

Serenica didn't want to know what the Pit was.

"Mariana Kinley."

She said the name as her last hope, in case by some miracle the Dreamer happened to hate her too.

"What about that wench?"

The man was crude for a prince, he would have been crude for a commoner, and as Serenica watched him rub his temples with his pale, thin fingers, she couldn't help feeling some sort of kinship to him. She was crude, too. She knew it; she had seen too much to deny it and she wasn't ashamed of it, either.

"You know she wants you, right?" Serenica said, dropping the niceties. "And you don't seem to want her."

The Dreamer groaned. "I am very much aware of the disgusting things she wants to do to my body. I had to lie to her."

"You've been sending letters back and forth..."

"She seems to be getting even more paranoid every damned year. I don't know, honestly, I don't know what to do with her. I, and I mean we, have to keep good relations to the great West."

Serenica shook her head. "Is your family going to marry you to her? I can't imagine anything more awful."

"We're just pulling her leg. She is more useful to us as an unwed, desperate woman. She is working hard to mold Neul to her image. I guess I should respect that, but hell, I am out of respect."

"I have heard she barely sleeps. I guess you don't get to visit her often."

It was a brave question, but Serenica had already made the mistake of being seen. She had to make amends, get some information.

"Sleep?" The Dreamer bursted into mad laughter, his bony form bouncing in the armchair. "She doesn't know what it is! I have tried to spy on her, but you know what, I think she's actually avoiding me! Staying awake for days and days on gods know what substances..."

The mention of substances made Serenica curious enough that she asked:"What do you think she's doing? The paw, the good shepherd, both?"

The Dreamer got very serious. "Are you spying on me in order to assassinate her or something?"

"No, I -"

"Don't bother me with that manure." The Dreamer stood up, and for a moment his eyes blazed with the light of thunder and occut forces.

"If you harm her, they will send me after you. I will not spare you. Frankly, I will turn your soul into beef jerky. Do you understand?"

Serenica felt the skin on her palms, sweaty, slippery like her lies. She felt her heartbeat and she felt something more - it was almost as if she liked this man on some level. They were alike, so out of place, too brilliant for the mundanity of the world outside. That was how Serenica wanted to see it.

"I do," she lied.

"Keep that in mind when you make your little plans, witch. Wake up. Wake up. Wake -"

Serenica felt a pull somewhere behind her navel, something drawing her inside herself, everything was falling into darkness, and she heard a voice say those two words again and again. Wake up. Wake up. They kept repeating themselves over and over again, until they didn't sound like the Dreamer's voice at all.

"Wake up, Serenica."

She opened her eyes in the cold, bloody water. She realized she was looking at Spade, who stood over her, poking her side with a stick.

She got up, the memory of the Dreamer and his suffocating power still clinging onto her skin. Her heart was racing so fast, it could hardly go on beating.

"We can't do this," she breathed.