Trust dreams. Trust your heart, and trust your story.

[smallestopener]

Ingress had a brilliant birthday. She’s eleven. Eleven is nearly grown up! It’s also the year when children in the stories she’s read come into their own. Adventures begin, schooling starts, worlds are saved… she can hardly wait to see what will happen next.

Her party earlier was such fun. Door was almost nice to Puck; Ingress had worried a little about that after she invited him. But he was very nice and charming, and Tom was nice, too, and Puck helped Ingress steal lots of roses off the cake while Havelock talked to Tom and Door, and it was brilliant.

She ate far too much icing sugar, but Tom had the peppermint potion waiting for her when the party was over. She feels much better now. And she’s eleven!

It sounds so good in her head. Eleven, eleven, eleven.

She should have asked Mary to stay the night with her, she thinks, as she tosses and turns. She’s never going to fall asleep, even with staying up past her bedtime. Tom and Door insisted she go to bed after she started yawning. They can be so silly sometimes.

She tosses one more time, and she thinks, again, how impossible it will be to go to sleep tonight. Her eyelids flutter and close. It is not long before she’s deep in dreams.

Comments

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[queenofmay]

When is, just maybe, when a smiling face finally peers down at her.

And somehow the length of a gown that managed to both be perfectly fine and untangled by the tree and it's branches, and quite as there as it had appeared to have not been there during the first wave of looking.

"Perhaps, you are right. I do not seem to have blue hair."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

"I want to climb up with you," Ingress says. She shinnies up the tree with ease, and her skirts don't get in the way either.

"Hi!"

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[honest-johns.livejournal.com]

"Oh aye."

His smile is faint and lopsided, and affectionate.

"But thee's ready for plenty."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[queenofmay]

Marian smiled brightly at the greeting, then reached out and cupped one of Ingress's cheek, with a light, soft curl of her fingers. "Trees should always be climbed, dear one. You never know what is hiding them."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[badinlatin]

Mal shakes his head no.

"My music comes from elsewhere I think, lil' chicken."

Re: There once was a little girl who came to Milliways

[oneman_onevote]

"I wouldn't know," Havelock says, eyeing Lilly in mild amusement.

"But it's very good."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

"Like friends," she says, and she shakes the branch above them.

The tree is bedecked with apple blossoms now, and the white petals flake down over both of them.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

"I'm not the chicken," she laughs. "You're the chicken. My Captain Chicken."

Chickens cluck from the other side of the stall.

They know the truth.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[the_lioness]

As Ingress looks up, a sharp purple glow from behind the girl adds to that of the fading torch and helps light the area around and above her.

"It isn't always a comfort to see your enemies more clearly," grunts a familiar voice, drawing ever closer, ever faster. "But see them you must, one way or another."

The added light illuminates one of the larger monsters swooping down, but Alanna is already running toward it and neatly slices off a wing with the razor-sharp steel of her favorite blade and a war cry worthy of a Lioness. Another barrels through the air, eager to accomplish what the first could not. Quickly, the purple light shifts from Alanna's left hand to form a wall that curves up and over herself and Ingress. It won't hold forever, and there are more and more monsters intent on finding a way over through around under it.

Alanna looks Ingress in the eyes, the violet of her own exactly matching the magic surrounding them. "Make ready, lass."

It is not the firm command of someone who means to protect any longer.

Those are the words of someone who intends to fight beside, and help defend.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[badinlatin]

"You've claimed me then?" Mal shakes his head as though he actually had a problem with this. "Captain of Chickens says it's time to go actually captain somethin'. Ma?"

Now silent, Sallie waves at her son and Ingress both - it's time for them to go.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[queenofmay]

Marian smiled, even as white blossoms mixed into her black hair.

"And other things, as well. It's important to go looking, for those things most hidden in places sometimes overlooked. Such wonders can be found in them."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

Ingress finally grabs her sword and pulls it out, trying to remember a fighting stance.

She can't. None of the ones Arithon taught her, none of Lan's own - her mind is blank.

There is a swarm of small bat monsters bearing down on her. For one moment, she thinks she'll run and hide. This is too real, too scary, and she's still quite small. Her Companion isn't with her. How can she fight these monsters off?

She doesn't run. She stands her ground in the purple light, and she hears others around her.

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[smallestopener]

"I guess I am, at that," she says, remembering the terrible dream battle by the lake.

A purple butterfly - normal-sized - flutters down and lands on her nose.

"Oh, I have to go. I think the butterflies will help me get to Megwyn. I'm glad you're here."

She waves at Alain and Lilly and then follows the butterfly. She reckons they'll do fine without her.

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

"Like butterflies?"

She giggles as the giant purple butterfly, the one she's been following floats by. Its antennae dip down in a bow to Marian.

"I have to follow her," Ingress tells Marian, her arms slipping around her neck. "I'm looking for Megwyn. And hidden things."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[smallestopener]

"Captain what? Serenity?"

She liked flying on Serenity when they went to that planet with the beach. It was neat to see the stars in all the black.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[blue_ajah]

The purple light is augmented by a golden glow as a woman gowned in blue steps forward to join them.

Moiraine's gaze is fixed on the attack from the sky as bright fire flashes from her fingertips, but her demeanor is as calm as ever.

"Courage, child," she advises. "Keep your focus; you will do well."

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[sai_delgado]

"There now, steady on," comes the cheerful admonishment from somewhere up ahead.

Susan Allgood, Susan Delgado-that-was, stands beside the beautiful white form of the Companion, brushing out her mane.

"Ye'll be free of twigs soon enough."

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[smallestopener]

Ingress runs along the path. She knows that voice.

"Susan!"

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[sai_delgado]

"Ingress-soh!"

She sets the brush down on a nearby stump and whirls, golden hair flying around her as she beams a bright smile at the younger girl.

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[smallestopener]

Susan's not nearly as old as Ingress remembers either. Why, she can't even be as old as Door.

But maybe that's how it always is in dreams.

"Oh, and you found Megwyn! I've been looking everywhere."

She's still some distance away, but in the beat of her heart, she's standing beside Megwyn, hugging her white neck. Then she reaches for Susan's hand.

"It's so good to see you."

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[sai_delgado]

"It's good to see thee too, dearling."

Susan squeezes her hand, and pats the Companion's neck.

"Ye've naught to worry for; I've been looking after her here."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

One of the small monsters plunges from the cluster and dives at Ingress' head.

When Ingress was a toddler, her mother and father took her with them into the Chislehurst Caves. They upset a bat colony, and the bats screeched and flapped around them. Ingress began crying hysterically in fear, and she wouldn't stop until her mother rushed her home to the House of Arch. Ingress doesn't remember this, but she remembers the fear.

Ingress squeals and ducks, her hand covering her head. She nearly drops her sword.

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[smallestopener]

"I knew I'd find her. I saw Alain, too. Oh, and Eddie and Charlie, and so many others. And there was a battle, and we won, but the butterflies went from one to many, and- Oh, I've missed you."

Ingress hugs Susan tightly. When she steps back, smiling, she feels something in her pocket. She reaches inside. It's not a slingshot or an apple or a charm. It feels cool against her palm. She pulls it out.

It's a gold coin.

"I still keep the coins for you."

Re: Fortify yourself with contentment, for this is an impregnable fortress.

[queenofmay]

Marian similarly lowered her head, a little regally, to the butterfly, and then hugged the little girl close, a kiss brushing across her temple and into her wind-rustled, apple-blossomed, blue hair.

"Go then, valiant one, and you will find all your heart seeks," is whispered close.

Re: There once was a little girl who came to Milliways

[smallestopener]

Ingress dances around the chairs and the fireplace, waving to the fishes, and then she pats the dogs from the House of Arch painting on the head. For once, they aren't playing poker. They are all lounging on the sofas or arm chairs.

She plops down on the rug, and Galatea, the House of Arch owl, swoops over her. She circles Ingress' head and then flies down, dropping a packet into her lap.

Ingress opens the packet and lifts out several photographs, some from Wizarding cameras, some not. Bernard and 'Dora, the kids, Sunny, Faith, Arithon, Elaine, Cuthbert - all the friends and family who she rarely, or never, sees any longer.

Pictures don't make her sad. She loves seeing the familiar faces.