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: Not all is as it seems

[oneman_onevote]

Tiny or not, a tool is made to be useful.

It just depends on how you apply it to a given situation.

With a hoarse scream, one of the creatures lurches in mid-air and drops writhing to the ground, sending the others into a brief flurry. From the other side, Havelock emerges from the shadows far enough from Ingress that the creatures have to split their attention or ignore one of them.

One hand calmly indicates for Ingress to raise her dagger as he draws out a small hand-sized device, flicks off the safety catch, and fires at a second.

As it turns out, a good flanking manouvre and a concealed horsebow are a pretty good tool, too.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

Her teacher's silence is, somehow, comforting. His distraction is even more so.

Ingress wields the dagger, slashing at the wall of beasts before her. Some have gone after Havelock, and her other friends, she reckons, but there are still plenty before her.

Before too long, she closes her eyes with each thrust of her blade. Her wrist hurts, and the black blood from the monsters coats her arms and splatters her face. They are no longer puffing into smoke as she kills them; their bodies flail messily about her.

It's horrible. Horrible. She wants to wake up. She can't do this. She can't save anyone.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[anthy-rosebride.livejournal.com]

"Ah, is that so?"

The rose garden isn't a garden at all; it's a gate, iron wrought in spirals and twists, with roses climbing its sides and spilling over the top in a red jumble.

Anthy smiles. "How lucky for you."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[river_meimei]

There's another young woman sitting with her back to the gate and her knees tucked to her chest. It's River, younger than she is in Milliways these days; a white lacy sweater spills over her arms, over her red-patterned dress.

"It's in the redefinitions," she says, to the sky or to no one.

"Don't look at her hand."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

"Her garden grows quickly," Ingress says, taking a step back and not looking at Anthy's hand.

The garden is like the wild ones in London Below. The ones that have been lost and forgotten, and grow as they will.

"But we're all friends, right?"

Re: Not all is as it seems

[anthy-rosebride.livejournal.com]

Her hand rises, twists a rose from the vine until the stem snaps.

"Perhaps we'll see each other again," Anthy says. "Someday."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[river_meimei]

River smiles, faintly, at the sky. When she tips her head down towards Anthy, the smile stays.

"I'll make the tea."

"Ingredients are renegotiable. It's an if."

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

[smallestopener]

"I'll ask Florean."

The purple butterfly flies overhead.

"Oh, I have to follow it," she says, taking one more sip of milkshake for the road. "Bye, Andrew!"

She walks off, her eyes to the ceiling, following the butterfly.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

"We could have lavender tea. Or maybe bubblegum flavor. Or marshmallow!"

The rose vines writhe along the iron fence and drape down to the ground, searching for purchase.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[anthy-rosebride.livejournal.com]

Anthy is walking through the gate, fading as she does, until Ingress can see the grass through her long red skirt, and the sky through her skin.

"Have you heard of cantarella?" she says, but she doesn't stop to wait for an answer.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[river_meimei]

"Yes," River says softly, and lifts her hand as Anthy passes. Her fingers ghost through Anthy's, or Anthy's through hers.

River doesn't lower her hand until Anthy's faded away entirely.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

"Will she be okay?"

Re: Not all is as it seems

[river_meimei]

"The soil is in flux," River says distantly.

Beat.

She glances at Ingress. The faint smile returns, and she confides, "Sometimes it's graves."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

"There are three in the House of Arch."

Three white doves fly up from the bushes behind the gate.

"I know about graves, I guess."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[river_meimei]

"I know it."

River offers her a hand. There's a rose leaf in the center of her palm, silver-grey and delicate, but River doesn't seem to notice.

Gently, "You'll learn more."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

She takes River's hand. The leaf is soft as velvet between their palms, but a thorn prickles there as well.



...blood sisters



"Ashes, ashes," she sings and pulls River into a circle. "We all fall down."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[river_meimei]

River laughs, spinning with her, bright and joyous and sunlit.








Between the space of one blink and the next, she's gone. Ingress is holding a knife with a blade that tapers like a leaf; there are two drops of blood on the bright metal.

And River? Perhaps she's gone the way of the roses. They've all vanished too.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[river_meimei]

"It's okay."

River's voice is gentle; somehow, it manages to carry over the shrieks and thuds and squelches anyway.

Black blood has spattered River's pink dress, streaked down her arms and legs and clotted in her hair. Whether there's red blood there too is hard to see in the shadows, but River's still moving swift and tireless. Somewhere she's acquired weapons, a ragged sword and a one-hand axe, and in spite of the mess her grip on them never slips as she spins and kicks and slices. There's a moment, now, when she kicks out high behind her, that her eyes meet Ingress's, and she smiles, small and sweet.

"Do the job, mèimei. What needs doing."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

River has cut a path through the monsters. Ingress can see through to the other side, and that, plus River's calm exhortation, keeps her moving. She hacks her way past the barrier, and she makes it to the waterside. She stops a moment, panting for breath and trying to figure out what to do next.

Mr. Julia is barely keeping the giant bat monster away from the purple butterfly, which is losing altitude. This battle is close to shore, but high in the air. How can she do this job?

She sets down the bloody sword and takes her slingshot out, and a steel ball from her pocket. She aims and fires.

The ball plops into the water after arcing up and out over the lake. It was a fine shot. A slingshot simply does not have the lift to hit the monster in the air.

Ingress frowns. Oh no.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[stillbecoming]

Buffy's on the other side of the mass of wall of monsters, too, swinging a red Scythe like she's trimming hedges.

"Balls," she says, ducking under a clawed limb, "are overrated as a combat necessity."

There's a hot pink crossbow in her other hand; then there isn't anymore, because it's flying through the air toward Ingress. "You have weapons."

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

Ingress catches the crossbow and smiles fiercely at Buffy.

"Thanks!" she calls out to her.

Wow, Buffy has a cool weapon. She wishes she had time to watch her in action.

Ingress turns to the task at hand. She pulls back the bolt, aims, but - just before she fires - the bat monster dodges past Mr. Julia's tentacles.

She lets the bolt fly, and it strikes the bat monster in the eye. It's not soon enough. The bat monster's talons descend upon the butterfly, clutching hold and shaking it in its grip.

The butterfly tears apart and bursts into a hundred fluttering pieces. Ingress covers her eyes as the bat monster plummets into the lake. She wasn't in time. This is terrible.

When she opens them again, the lake is quiet. Mr. Julia is gone; he's back under the water, hopefully. There are hundreds of small purple butterflies hovering around her.

Maybe not all is as it seems. Maybe she didn't fail.

Even if she was successful, she doesn't want to stay here. It's dark, and she's cold, and she can't see anyone. The butterflies flutter off into the direction of the forest. Ingress plods after them. She's so tired.

Re: Not all is as it seems

[treading_dawn]

As she walks the light grows brighter (or maybe it is only that her eyes are better adjusted) and the number of butterflies --

Does it double?

Triple?

The air, at least, has grown incrementally warmer, and the smell of honeysuckle and violets fills the air.

"Be welcome, Opener," says the Lion, voice deep and rumbling and warm, mane flashing tawny-gold in the ever-increasing light.

"Though you shall not linger here overlong."

The next time pays for all.

But that, of course, is another story, and shall be told another time.

Here and now --

Re: Not all is as it seems

[smallestopener]

Ingress takes a deep and shaky breath, and she feels ever so much better. She smiles at Aslan, for she knows him, and it is a smile of pure joy. Things are going to be okay. They really are.

She runs again, laughing, into the light, and when she opens her eyes, the clean, sunlit green of a forest rises about her.

She hasn't long to go now.

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[smallestopener]

"I know. It's okay. I'll see you again. Maybe here."

She waves to Susan as she threads the fingers of her other hand through Megwyn's mane.

Then they walk on through the trees. Ingress giggles as her Companion sends thoughts to her. As the trees thin out, she can just make out the meadow beyond them.

"Oh, it's the meadow!"

Megwyn kneels so that Ingress can mount. They ride through the last of the trees, Ingress' hair blowing behind her with the bright, ancient sun on her face. It's the meadow! Their meadow, the meadow in London Below where her family's always gone.

And there, in the not so very far distance, is her family. Megwyn trots towards them, with Ingress waving and calling out.

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

[iopenthings]

"Ingress!" Door says brightly, lifting one hand to wave.

"I was wondering what was keeping you!"