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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Ingress runs along the path. She knows that voice.

"Susan!"

"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.

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."

"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."

"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."

"I've missed thee too," Susan tells her, "but thee'll find me -- all of us, do'ee ken? -- when it's time."

The glint of the coin reflects from the gold of her hair, and she looks down at it in surprise, then beams a smile back at Ingress.

"A madrina true, thee are. I knew ye'd be."

"I ken," she says.

The clearing. Further up and further in. The havens that wait.

They'll wait a good long time, she knows.

"I think we're going to a picnic," she says, smoothing Megwyn's mane. "Now that I've found Megwyn. Door said."

Purple butterflies appear in the air. One lands on Susan's head.

"You can't come, though, can you?"

She reaches up to brush her fingers lightly against the butterfly's wing. It flutters to her hand, and Susan shakes her head at Ingress.

"Say sorry, I do."

A beat, and a quick breath, and oh, but her smile is radiant.

"It were so good to see thee, Ingress, say true."

"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.

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

"I was wondering what was keeping you!"

"I knew you'd make it, little one," Tom says, offering her his hands to help her swing down from Megwyn's back.

"We're ready for the picnic. We saved you some cake."

"Can we go flying, too?" Ingress asks, looking around the meadow.

Gavroche and Clement are juggling bowling pins beside the rivulet of fresh water that flows to the Thames. 'Dora waves to her from the green blanket upon which she sits. She's taking food out of a giant wicker basket. And behind her, under the shade of a spreading chestnut tree, are three figures.

They step out into the sunlight.

"MUMMY!" Ingress yells, and she begins running. "DADDY! ARCH!"

She flings herself into their solid arms. She smells her father's cologne and feels her mother's soft lips kiss her forehead and hears Arch's ever present laugh, and she laughs and laughs as Tom and Door and Megwyn join the giant hug.

Embraced by her family in the ancient London sun, she floats up and up and...

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

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh

Re: Green grow the rushes, oh