The lingering dream

Roland breathed deeply and opened his eyes. 

He was here, again. 

Sitting up, he ran his hand across the now-familiar shimmering ground. The sky was the same color. 

"Hello," He said, almost dejectedly. "I hate that I can't remember these dreams when I'm awake. Could that be changed?" 

"Would you be able to fully hold the memories?" The Sorcerer's voice came from behind him, but when Roland turned, there was nothing. Only more landscape in all directions. 

"Surely I could take back enough information to be helpful. With the Final Battle coming... It's all on me and I can't fathom how it's going to play out unless I can get all the help possible from you." Roland tried not to complain. "What is your will? The Fae claim to follow it. How can I, if I do not know it?" 

"The Fae follow what they know, as must you. If you knew all, would you still be you? Or would you be me?" The Sorcerer had become more talkative over the many dreams they'd spent together. 

"I'm not sure I understand," Roland admitted. "Are you saying… if I knew everything that you know, I would make the same decisions you do?" 

"In part, yes, but your knowledge is also part of you. As you learn, you change, yes?" The Sorcerer's voice held a smile as Roland turned again to try and catch a glimpse of the elusive man. Man? Being? 

"What are you, exactly? I never have worked that out." Roland's brow furrowed. "Did you create all, like the Ceto say? Do you control it all still?" 

"You ask several questions. Which would you like answered?" 

"All of them! I want every question answered!" Roland threw up his hands, "for all the good it does me. I always forget all of this the moment I wake up, and it drives me mad!" 

He looked down at the broken pottery on the ground. 

"Will you at least let me see the end this time? The end of the dream?" He pleaded. He always woke up before he saw what the shards made. 

"What will you do if you know the end?" The Sorcerer asked. 

"You probably know far better than I do," Roland mumbled. "I know the Fae can see portions of the future, and I'm sure your picture is far more complete than theirs." 

"Indeed it is. But what do you think you will do if you know the end of the dream?" The voice spoke from yet another angle. 

"I will do what I think is best, for that is all I can do." Roland closed his eyes and knelt down, knowing it was futile without the Sorcerer's help. 

He began to gather the shards, as he always did. They were beautiful. Each one unique, colorful, matte, glazed, shining, intricately designed. 

As it always did, the one as black as night cut his palm when he reached for it. He reflexively drew back with a gasp of pain, splattering blood across them all. The earth shook, and the pieces trembled on the ground, shuddering and colliding, sticking together. 

Roland stood, holding out his hands, as the shaking increased and the unbreaking object flew up into his grasp. 

He studied it as the last few pieces wriggled into their place. It was almost perfectly round, slightly flattened on the bottom, with a hole in the top. The patterns and glazes danced together in a design unimaginably beautiful and intricate. 

Planned out by a master potter to form a matchless design that almost overwhelmed Roland's mind. He was stunned for a moment by its unspeakable delicacy and workmanship. 

As he held it, from the hole in the top, a single blade of green emerged. Blinking, he watched as it stretched into a stem, pulling and reaching towards the indefinable light source above. 

It grew further, taller and rounder, and then its top exploded into a silky, colorful bloom. 

"A flower pot?" Roland queried, fascinated by the ethereal shades of the flower, which looked different from every angle. Somehow, it was even more striking than the pot from which it had grown. 

"This is the answer. The end of the dream you have asked for," The Sorcerer explained. "Though what is being put back together is as beautiful as it is painful, it is what grows from it that is the true treasure." 

"If… if it is the world that has been broken and is being put back together, what will grow from that?" Roland leaned closer to sniff the flower. His senses filled with its sweet, soft scent. He closed his eyes, inhaling deeper. 

"Creation was made to hold that which is truly valuable to me," The Sorcerer whispered. "You must nurture it, care for it. Do not let it fall into the wrong hands or weeds will strangle it. The sun will scorch it. Feet will trample it." 

"Trample what? What am I to protect?" Roland asked, feeling the dream begin to fade and becoming desperate to learn it all before wakefulness robbed him of the knowledge. 

"What do you think?" The Sorcerer's answers were sometimes as infuriatingly vague as the Fae's. Roland wondered who had begun the practice and who had perfected it. 

"I think it's incredibly frustrating to know so much more when I'm asleep than when I'm awake!" Roland yelled as the world faded from view. 

He gasped awake as he sat up in bed. Breathing heavily, he looked around in the dark, and wiped the sweat from his brow.

Finn stirred beside him. "Rooooland?" She slurred, "everythingss allllright?" 

"Just a dream," He blinked as his eyes adjusted to the darkness. Finn rubbed her eyes with the heel of her hand as consciousness more fully captured her. 

"Do you remember it this time?" She sat up a little clumsily. 

"Yes," He breathed. "Yes, I remember." 

"Tell me," Finn stretched with a yawn. "Tell me the dream." 

"The dreams." He said. "I have dreamed it so many times and not been able to recall more than a vague impression of what it was, and that the Sorcerer was involved. I remember now," He whispered. "And I finished the dream, but I don't know what it means. The worlds are being put back together. There will be blood, and pain, but it will be beautiful. And something will grow from it." 

"What will grow?" Finn shook her head in confusion. 

"I'm not sure," He said. "A flower. A splendid bloom that I can't begin to describe." 

"Please try," His wife encouraged. "I will sketch it and ask our favorite horticulturist if he's known anything like it." 

The king resisted the urge to roll his eyes. "You still go and talk to him? I thought you'd given that up. He's so finicky." 

"It's not often, he's around far less than before. Mayra and I take turns. He suffers, with the absence of magical herbs. Fewer things to smuggle." She shrugged. 

"Smuggling. Ha! I offered him a lifetime exemption from import and export taxes for his services in the War Between Worlds and he rejected it because he 'didn't want to be a part of government corruption'," Roland shook his head. 

"Jimmy can't stand the thought of operating fully within the laws," Finn covered her mouth to hide her growing grin. "He can't help it. Just let him keep pretending he's getting away with smuggling." 

"It's a terrible example," The king grumbled. "But you're right that he knows much about unusual plants. Maybe I'll go ask him myself when I have time. There's so much to be done." 

"I'd better come with you. Let me know when you'd like to go and I'll make butter tarts." Finn lay back down. "He's much more talkative with a full belly." 

"He's plenty talkative regardless, just not usually about anything useful," Roland shot back. 

"Hush now. Sleep. See if you can learn anything further when you dream again," The queen yawned and planted a sleepy kiss on his cheek before snuggling back under the covers. "Now come down here. It's chilly tonight and I don't feel like getting up for an extra blanket. I need your body heat." 

The man smiled and lay back down, holding out one arm for Finn to eagerly snuggle against his side. "It's not that cold," He whispered, "but I'll cuddle you regardless." 

"It's always cold," She insisted lazily, "so I will always need you." 

"Then, happily, my lovely wife, I will always be here to keep you warm." He kissed her hair and she sighed against him. The anxiety of the dream faded as Finn's breathing slowed and deepened with her head on his chest. He held her closer, pushing away the new anxieties that flooded in to replace it. 

Riley and the army, Gabe and Victoria and the halflings, the newest messenger bird telling of the giants, and of course the ongoing water poisoning combined with his children's efforts to raise enough crops to feed a nation of refugees. 

It all, ultimately, fell on his shoulders.