Ingress of the House of Arch (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
smallestopener) wrote2010-05-09 12:38 am
smallestopener) wrote2010-05-09 12:38 am
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.
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.
Re: Not all is as it seems
Brighter.
A fin the size of a sail breaks through the surface, sudden and swift and arrowing straight toward the shore.
Toward Ingress.
And a voice rises from the water too, cool and dry and dull as death.
(It has teeth in it.)
"Well met, little Opener, little Herald-to-be. Shall you choose, at last, to venture out for a swim?"
Re: Not all is as it seems
At least that's what she seems to remember.
She only knows that no, she shall not swim with him for a long time.
"No thank you," she says, polite and quiet, and how are her toes that close to the water line?
"Not yet."
Re: Not all is as it seems
The vast fin that heralds the presence of ed'Rashtekaresket turns slowly away from the shoreline, beginning to circle.
"My bite would have been swift."
No ripples mark his passing.
Not this time.
Re: Not all is as it seems
She's worried. She can't Mr. Julia, she can't find Megwyn, and it's too dark for the butterfly, either. It's night, so there are only moths.
She crosses her arms over her chest. Frowning, she starts towards the lights again.
Re: Not all is as it seems
When he sighs, it is a familiar sound.
Re: Not all is as it seems
"Tom, you're here. Good. It's scary at night. I thought I was lost for a minute."
Re: Not all is as it seems
The man doesn't move. The hood shrouds his face.
"Perhaps you are."
Re: Not all is as it seems
"Are you-"
you?
"-okay, Tom?"
Re: Not all is as it seems
The man's voice is Tom's, but it's not. It's more sibilant.
"Darkness is to be feared. Lies, as well."
The man turns toward her.
"You'll know in time. And then where shall we be?"
Re: Not all is as it seems
It will never be.
She would be scared, but the voice is sad. Terribly sad.
That doesn't make him pleasant. Ingress backs away. She does not wish to linger. She has to go on, towards the light, no matter what.