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

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.

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From:

smallestopener

Ingress takes the cookie, and she winks at Princess Susan.

Then she giggles, rearranging her skirts so as to fit on the hay bale a little better. It was easier to do so when she was six!

"There have tea in Valdemar, but they don't quite have tea like this."

From:

once_a_queen

"Worlds can be different, but you take what's important with you. I should think the denizens of Haven wouldn't mind learning something new. It was so at Cair Paravel."

She gazes into the distance a moment, but she's not sad. She's simply thoughtful.

"And it shall be for you, Ingress."

From:

smallestopener

She takes the torch, more relieved than she wishes to say.

Ingress isn't afraid of the dark. No child of the Underside is truly afraid of darkness. However, if they've any sense at all, they are scared - and respectful - of what might be found in that pervasive dark.

The beam of the torch tilts up so that it shines on her face, hollowing out her eyes for a moment before she sets it right.

"Sometimes angels are filled with shadows."

Islington's eyes certainly were. They were blacker than the Night on the bridge.

From:

kitchen_maid

"You can be quite at home in a land you weren't born in," Amy says.

"More than one, even.

"And you'll do brilliantly, wherever you go."

She leans closer, holding her left hand just in front of her heart, near the dreamcatcher she wears around her neck, light catching on her betrothal ring.

"And all of this will always be with you here, whenever you need it."

Edited Date: 2010-05-23 03:07 am (UTC)

From:

youowemeafavor

The lady Ingress is no longer as small as she used to be, but that's to be expected as someone grows. They do say people grow up for a reason but still he crouches now so that they might be closer to eye level. Well aware of his reputation and his somewhat stormy relationship not only with Lord Portico's family but with most in the Underside, he also knows how to talk to the young when he sets his mind to it.

"A lesson learned. People are rarely what they seem." Standing again, his hand meets a small carved item in his pocket. If that doesn't serve as a reminder, nothing does. "Even angels. We'd all be wise to remember that."

He's very good at fading into the shadows, and the fog doesn't hurt that ability in the least. "Tell me, what brings you out here tonight?" It's not a good night for a young lady, but most nights in London Below are unfit for proper company. That's precisely why he fits in so well.

From:

smallestopener

She nods. Fair can seem foul, and foul can seem fair. That's what Tom says.

"I can't find Megwyn, so I'm looking for her. But I think I'm supposed to be here. I'm supposed to- I don't know. Do something? And then there were butterflies."

Which makes no sense at the same time it makes perfect sense as a reason to Ingress.

"I'm not following them blindly, but they lead the way."

From:

youowemeafavor

Though she might not see it in the darkness, he raises one eyebrow, all skepticism, and sets his hands on his hips.

"You see butterflies? And do you suppose these butterflies are without shadows themselves?"

It's a question with value, and one worth exploring. Angels aren't the only beings who can be deceptive.

From:

smallestopener

Ingress glances down to her own chest where a locket rests. Tom and Door's pictures are inside, but her mother and father have pictures there, as do others dear to her, Amy included. She needn't open the locket to know this.

"Your heart holds a lot of things. I suppose that's why it's so big."

From:

kitchen_maid

"And there is always room for more," Amy says, reaching down to ruffle her daughter's hair.

"Hearts are even bigger than dragons," Susan adds, decidedly.

"Bigger and stronger," Amy says.

From:

honest-johns.livejournal.com

Alain's eyebrows lift. "So old?" The tone is light, halfway between teasing and genuine surprise.

"Thee's grown for true. How are your tricks?"

Alain dreamed this dream a long time ago. For Ingress, he went to the clearing years ago; for him, in the waking world, Lilly is curled against his side, and Ingress is a little girl.

But in dreams, many things are possible, and few things are as surprising as they might be.

From:

smallestopener

"Raven gave them to me," she explains. "They fly true."

There is enough certainty in her voice and in her manner that there is no doubt for her that this is the case.

In dreams, sometimes surety is what helps you navigate the nightmares best.

"I know this." She places her hand on her heart. "I know here."

From:

youowemeafavor

"And a heart never lies." It's not a question, but a statement of fact. Thoughtful now, he taps a finger against his lower lip, sending the trailing sleeves of his shirt fluttering in the night's stillness.

It's time.

"Do you need an escort through the darkness, Lady Ingress?" Now he leans to whisper into her ear. "I'm beholden to Lord Portico." His voice is soft; no one else gets to hear about his debts or about those who owe him favors. That's a good portion of London Below. He's been offering his assistance -- in exchange for favors -- for a very long time.

From:

taishar_malkier

"Yes."

She's young, but she learns well.

"The fighter who forgets that becomes a dead fighter soon enough. Carelessness will let the shadows grow unhindered."

Or perhaps he said the Shadow. The forest is vast, silent, dream-hazed; words shift in its still air.

From:

smallestopener

She nods, and her shoulders sag a moment before she stands up straight once more.

"It gets tiring, doesn't it? I mean, how do you always stay ready? How do you manage to fight for what you must when you it's such a hard thing to do?"

She'd never ask such a thing in a lesson. She doesn't think about it much. She doesn't need to yet.

But this is a dream, and sometimes you can say things in dreams you'd never speak in the waking world.

From:

taishar_malkier

"It does."

Still calm; still grave, but there's a deeper sobriety in his voice and his stony face now.

"They say in the Borderlands," he says, "that duty is heavier than a mountain, and death lighter than a feather. But we all must carry that mountain, because the alternative is far worse."

"That is how you fight on, Herald." She's not a Herald yet -- but this is a dream, and one day she will be. "Because that is the price we pay. At times it will be the hardest thing you have ever done to simply carry on, but that price is worth the gain, so it must be paid. And so you will."

From:

smallestopener

She almost nods her head yes, glad of the help. But this is her bridge. It's her story. She has to go alone.

In the light of the torch, she can just make the glimmer of a purple wing fluttering above the bridge.

"Thank you, Marquis, for your offer. I, and those of my House, appreciate it. I must go on by myself. Perhaps there will be another time when we can go together."

She turns, a small figure in gleaming white, and walks towards the bridge. She holds the torch as she would a sword.

From:

smallestopener

"But... even when it's hard," she says, and she slowly begins Apple Blossoms in the Wind, for she knows, even now, that she will be lucky indeed to fight only one opponent at a time.

"Even when you're tired, there's ice cream and butterflies and family and friends and laughter and tea. So you keep walking on."

From:

taishar_malkier

"Yes." Lan doesn't smile, but sometimes the hard planes of his face lighten a little.

This is not what Lan holds to himself, in the darkest times. But it's no bad thing, for someone else who thinks of happier things than duty first.

"For all of that."

From:

once_a_queen

"Bigger and stronger than the southern sun," says Queen Susan the Gentle.

She hands Ingress a cup of tea, and the saucer does not even clink once. They are no longer in the barn; the tea is laid out under the trees by the greenhouse now.

"By the Lion's mane, dearest, thou art brave and true of heart. Take this joy wherever you go."

From:

smallestopener

When Ingress looks up from taking the cup and saucer, she is on her own under the trees. The breeze is cool, and her tea is hot.

She sips it and smiles.

From:

puckishly.livejournal.com

Puck the robin swoops past Lilly with a titter of bright laughter and comes to land on Havelock's shoulder. By the time he has done this he is quite small, small enough to perch relatively unobtrusively and nuzzle his downy, feathery head against Havelock's cheek.

"Quite so," he agrees cheerfully.

"And you, Ingress? What of the people you like best?"

Edited Date: 2010-05-24 12:33 am (UTC)

From:

smallestopener

"But of course they're all here, too," she says, and there are ice cream cones in her hands. "With me."

The ice cream cones are from Florean's in Diagon Alley, twisted into fanciful shapes like unicorn horns and intricate loop-de-loops. The flavors are unusual, too, and Lilly's smells a little like her drink. Okay, Ingress thinks, it smells a lot like her drink, but just as there are adult milkshakes, she reckons there are adult ice cream cones, too. She hands Lilly's to her and then Havelock's to him.

How a bird can eat an ice cream cone, Ingress isn't sure, but she has faith that Puck will figure it out. He's clever!

From:

awesome_lilly

"Damn straight," Lilly says cheerfully, beaming up at Ingress. She figures this includes the kids, who are... somewhere around. Havelock probably knows where.

"Ice cream and everything," she says, sampling hers. It's very good, in that special adult way that will give Tom apoplexy when Lilly teaches Ingress about it in a few years.

"You definitely know how to party."

From:

awesome_lilly

"Eleven?" Lilly tilts her head, briefly confused, but shrugs it off. In the dream, it makes perfect sense.

"What happens when you're eleven? Magic owls?"

She's pretty sure that's traditional on Tom's side of the family, at least. Well, magic owls or the start of a descent into madness, noselessness and killing sprees, but that's not their Tom and it's definitely not their Ingress.

From:

smallestopener

That is a pretty brilliant compliment. It is akin to Lan not frowning as much when he tells her she's progressing.

She beams and her wings flap. "Thanks!"