The Daydream Club

I wake up in the night to the sound of footsteps.

A voice, calling out

“I don’t want to go.”

“Please, let me stay here.”

I roll out of my rest chamber and onto the frigid stone floor. The sloping walls of my home surround me, bathing me in a natural glow. It’s probably pretty early since the blossoms haven’t come out yet and everything’s still so cold. I’m so tired, I just want to sleep. I don’t want to turn down a guest, though, so I force myself to stand up and see who it is. It’s a girl, about my age and tired-looking, slightly obscured by the inky blackness of the night. She has long, waist-length brown hair, and her eyes are a beautiful iridescent green. She’s a bit shorter than me, maybe five foot three or so. She’s scared. I want to help her, to say something, but my mind is blank and nothing comes. After a few seconds of awkward silence, I manage to choke out a sentence. 

“I’ve got open arms. Stay all you like.”

She walks out into the light, and I get a better look at her. There are rings under her eyes, and it looks like she hasn’t had a night’s rest in days. Her journey must have been long.

“You’re safe here, I promise. What’s your name?” I say, trying my best to sound polite.

“I’m Katya. Katya Riverstone.” 

“Katya. That’s a pretty name…” I say softly.

“Can’t be any better than yours,” She replies, jokingly.

“I’m Aethrynn.”

“Aethrynn what?”
“I don’t want to talk about it.”

I lean up against a wall and the wood feels warm against my back. I can barely keep my eyes open, much less keep a conversation going.

“How far have you come? You look like you’ve been on a long journey…” I ask. Her name sounds Northern, maybe from the forests in Alaveth, but my mind is too clouded to tell.

“I’m from the mountains. I thought Lumysse would be safe since the rules here are different.”

Apparently, I’m housing a criminal.

“What did you do?”

“Will you let me stay here if I tell you?”

“You have a better chance if you do.”

In my mind, if the crime was harmless, I don’t have any issue with keeping her here. On the other hand, she could just as easily be dangerous.

Katya sighs and takes a deep breath. She looks around the room. A moment of silence passes.

“It was a ritual. I was turning seventeen, and I had a ceremony where I was supposed to slay an animal, to prove that I was strong enough to provide for the village. Everyone before me didn’t have any trouble, so I assumed it would be the same for me. When I was in the arena, though, I caved. I couldn’t do it. I wouldn’t. From that day on I was an outcast. I wasn’t powerful enough to be a warrior, wise enough to be a mage, or polite enough to be a diplomat. I had nothing they wanted, and I had no destiny there. They were going to take away all of the things I’d earned, strip away my rank, my weapons, and my horse. I ran. I took my belongings and journeyed as far as I thought I could go, somewhere where they wouldn’t find me.”

I’ve heard stories about the nomad clans up north, but the laws up there are relatively unknown to me. I’m just grateful I’m not hosting a murderer.

“So can I stay? I really have nowhere else to go…” The silence is broken.

“Sure, I guess.”

“Thank you. So much. You have no idea how much this…”

“I know. I’ve been there before, or something like it, anyway.”

It’s a bit more complicated than that, but it’s what I felt was right to say.

“I have somewhere you can stay. It’s not much in the way of wiggle-room, but…”

“It’s fine, as long as it’s warm.”

I lead Katya towards the spare chamber. Our footsteps echo off the cold, stone walls. The walls of the crevice in the rock emanate warmth, and the soft, faded colors of the plants and flowers bring a warm atmosphere as well. It seems especially welcoming since I’m so tired.

Katya stares at the rest chamber in awe. I figure since I’ve lived here for so long it’s become normal for me, but for her, it’s probably pretty strange.

“You sleep… in… plants?”

“It’s more comfortable than it sounds. It’s like laying down in a meadow… except it’s in a cave.”

“That’s gonna take a while to get used to.”

Katya climbs into the chamber. She lays herself down on the grass, and the blossoms close around her. I can see her silhouette through the thin blanket of the petals.

She looks so peaceful, at night. I wish I could be that still.

I walk back over to my chamber, occasionally stumbling. It seems so far, even though it’s only a few feet. I have to use my arm to steady me as I walk.

I finally make it back to the small, rocky opening. I awkwardly crawl into the space. I’m usually a little more graceful than this, but I’m so tired I can’t really function properly. Two in the morning isn’t the best bedtime.

The petals close around me, bathing me in a sea of filtered light. I can hear the voices, again. I can never tell what they’re saying, but I know, instinctively, that I’m safe here. Safe, for now. But I know I’ll never be safe, not really. 

I’ve been dreaming, dreaming of another place. A sea of stars. I dream of swimming in the cosmos. I don’t know what it means, but it has to mean something since Lumysse is a spiritual place. It’s said that by standing on the peak of the soul falls, you can hear voices from other worlds, calling out to you. 

Something always happens, though. A voice, calling out in pain. A broken soul. Something’s off. What’s happening isn’t supposed to be, I know that much. The sea is gone. There’s a white room, devoid of any life, and it’s so, so cold. There’s a myriad of flashing lights, each one blinding me more than the last, and then it all fades away, and I’m back in my room. 

It’s started again. I’m in the sea, and I know that this is the last time I’ll be calm. It’s soothing, for now, the stars passing me by as I float in the ebony shadows of the deep. Tiny pricks of fire in the cloth of darkness.

I hear the voice beginning to call. It’s a long, haunting tone, crying out from the aether. A siren song of broken hearts. I can feel it, in my soul, pulling me down to the deep. I can hear it in my ears, see it in my eyes, and feel it in my body. I don’t know what it’s saying. I never do. But I know what it’s feeling.

Everything begins fading out. Quick flashes of white light fill my eyes as the room begins to appear around me. The walls are icy. I can feel them pulling the heat out of me, and I feel empty, like a shell of myself. I get a feeling in my soul that I’m not supposed to be here. This place is haunted, or cursed, or something of the sort. What its purpose is is just out of reach, but it’s not a kind one. It feels as though this is where I go before I die.

The lights flash before my eyes, again. The voice is back, a calling, deep within my soul. The lights get brighter, and I can hear a ringing in my ears. Everything fades in and out. It’s ending… finally…

But it doesn’t end. Instead, I hear a different voice, and this one I can understand. It’s calling out my name, again and again.

“Aethrynn… Aethrynn…”

The voice gets louder in my ears, and my eyes swim. It fills my headspace and I can’t think about anything besides the pounding rhythm of my own name, again and again. I cry out, the resonance echoing around the chamber, bouncing off the walls and corners. Louder, and louder, and I’m fading out.

The world fades with me, losing its color and texture, until all I can see is nothingness, a void. I feel a sense of dread, staring off into the darkness like there’s nothing I can do to prevent this, like everything is going to fall apart and I can’t catch any of the pieces before they fall.

Suddenly, the blackness itself fades away.

——————————————————————————————————————————-

A sea of pink washes over me. The world swims into focus. It’s morning, again. I’m back in my chamber. It’s morning, I think. The soft light of blossoms filters through the thin petals. I crawl out of the crevice in the wall, and back into the main chamber. I walk over to a dresser with a large mirror on top and peer into it. My hair is a mess of tangles and curls, and my eyes are faded. I frantically take a comb off the dresser and run it through the tangles, each stroke a painful reminder of the sleepless nights I’ve been getting, as my life falls into disrepair. Katya’s not awake yet. I don’t want to wake her up and subject her to my vastly unhealthy sleep schedule. 

I sit in silence for a few minutes, staring into the mirror, into the void. Everything moves so fast outside, beyond the reaches of this little sanctuary I call my home. I know the feeling that drives it. The restlessness, the hunger for adventure and places to explore. Here, though, everything is serene, around me. My mind is a different story, but I’ve been working on that for years.

I hear the sound of rustling coming from the other crevice in the rock. Katya’s up. I head towards her chamber, my footsteps echoing around the walls and ceiling. As I approach her, Katya pops her head out of the petals.

“Morning, Aethrynn!” She says excitedly. She’s gained some energy back since last night.

“Morning, sleepyhead…” I mumble. I try to sound enthusiastic, but it comes out lackluster.

“Any plans for today?” Katya asks. She brings a lot more excitement than I’d expect for someone visiting a cave.

“Just fishing on the lake, and gathering some leaves for steaming.”

“That sounds peaceful.”

“I’d hope so. I was brought to this place to find peace.”

“What’s your story?”

I was hoping we wouldn’t get into that. 

“As a child, I had nightmares that plagued me every night. I could never rest, and I was tormented. It got so bad that I started missing meals, and eventually, I didn’t even leave my house. My parents were worried. They thought I’d been possessed, or something. Whatever it was, they knew something was wrong with me. They got desperate and asked for me to be sent to a place where I could heal. Lumysse was meant to be that place. No one’s been down here in years, so it would be quiet enough.”

Katya looks shocked, then sympathetic. A moment of silence passes, and Katya begins to speak, but pauses for a moment, contemplating what to say next.

“Did it work?”

Wasn’t expecting that. Usually, the response is something like “I’m so sorry, that sounds awful,” from a person who obviously doesn’t care. Or it might be, anyway. I haven’t exactly had a lot of visitors in the last, well, most of my life. Or any visitors, for that matter.

“I’m more at peace. The nightmares haven’t gone away, but at least the days are alright.”

“Just know, if there’s anything I can do, I’m here.”

“If there was I probably would have thought of it by now.”

——————————————————————————————————————————-

We head out to the lake early, before the glow-shrooms have begun to emit their soft, white light. Our trail is guided by a path of moss, glowing a small amount, which makes the path through the darkness much clearer. That’s how this place got its name; Mossglow. Everything that lives here has some sort of luminescence, whether it happens to be a fish, a glow-shroom, or a blade of grass. It’s an adaptation to living in a cave for generations, I think, and it certainly makes things prettier.

Katya looks around in wonder as we go, admiring the silver hue of the gushing underground rivers, the silky curtain of the soul falls, the tight, cozy little bulb of the cave lilies opening up into a flurry of color and a sea of petals. I don’t notice those things as much anymore, as I’ve grown accustomed to them, but her childlike wonder is more of a gift of naivety than a curse. 

The fish seem to notice a disturbance in the air around the lake, and as they begin to grow restless, their illuminated stripes and spots little dots of light, flitting around below the glassy surface of the lakes. I watch one leap out to catch a small, yellow glowfly buzzing around, searching for a nearby blossom. Everything is usually up before I am, but it’s relatively inconsistent. When you can’t see the sun, sleep cycles tend to shift throughout the seasons, and that applies to all creatures, not just me.

“It’s so beautiful,” Katya says, softly, almost in a whisper.

“That’s… not the right word. It’s too simple, too enveloping, too descriptive,” I respond.

“What would you say instead, then?”

“I don’t think it can be described with words. Beautiful is reasonably close, but things like this really defy description.”

“Nothing wrong with calling something pretty.”