Breathing Sky
Feb. 2nd, 2012 01:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
beccaelizabethI dreamed I was running errands around my old boarding school, sent with messages by my current college tutor. She thought I'd nip across the road, but I'd rather go around three sides of a long rectangle and down and up the stairs to take the tunnel route, so I was not as swift as she had hoped. So I added in some flying, which at least helped the stairs part, but I couldn't get high enough to just jump the stupid road. Double deckers are a big jump even with magic.
We were organising some kind of event that felt a bit like an SF con. But wasn't about SF. Just a lot of people geeking out about their favourite obscure thing together.
So there was a con hotel, and a big meal was on. The staff were calling us Lords and Ladies, which made everyone grin. They'd needed proper legal names on check in, but after that we were the paying customers, they'd call us Grand High Whatsiflip if we felt the need. So I was Lady Quinn for the weekend. And they were being ever so nice and helpful and yet all had those fixed grins of customer service. I was eating slow and picky, and then I realised I hadn't had my meds yet, and looked in my handbag for them but could not find. So they had to be taken with food, and I had food left, but I'd have to go back to my room for them. Decisions. So I called a staff person and told them I wasn't done yet, and I'd be back in just a tick. I was nearly the last one there, so it wasn't hard to find a person. I checked and made sure they understood and they nodded and nodded. So a quick trip up and down the lift later... my food was gone. And the eating room was all dark. And someone was getting the vacuum cleaner out. I was about ready to get a good sulk on, but then a very nice staff member arrived to inform Lady Quinn her private dining room was ready, so I was mollified. And it were quite nice. A little conservatory of my own, with the glass making the candles twinkle back in the darkness.
So the next day was the big event, something like a sponsored walk. Only many of us were proceeding by methods not strictly speaking identifiable as walking. I was using feather fall, so it made me really light, and I could walk on the top of wobbly bricks and monuments and if I ran out of path just float down gentle. It was fun. But a lot of the people around me weren't just doing it for fun, it was their only way of getting anywhere. They were short people with much broken bones, or people who would usually need a wheelchair. Their magic was compensating for their disability, and that was what brought us all together on this grand walk, being disabled people with magic. It was the most creative display of ability our minds could conjure, so we could ignore the labels for a while.
That didn't mean we had much else in common. I'd got stuck walking next to a guy who'd been whining about his ex for ages and ages and ages. He looked like the Doctor's subconscious, the Dream Lord, only much shorter. He kept going on and on about how she probably didn't mean it and she'd come back to him again and it would all be great again blah blah whine whine only the longer he did it the creepier it sounded. I kept taking the winding route but he kept being right there a couple of feet away. Boo. And then I saw his ex, half way up an iron fence. And then she fell, with an awful crack. Osteogenesis imperfecta, and she'd still rather climb a fence than get stuck near him. That dude is staying ex. Creep.
So at the end of the walk there was a pub. And there was a grand speech from a guy welcoming us all to the after party. It sounded like it would be fun. But the guy was kind of down in the dumps, because he didn't qualify any more. He was president of the association right then, but he was moving on, and this was his last year here. Technically, he wasn't one of us, so technically, he couldn't come in the pub, he had to wait outside with the helpers. He had a sad. So I gave him my best blanket. The deep red one with the plushy softness. Then he had a warm and a hug.
... yes this implies I was carrying my blanket around all day. But you never know when you might need one.
So then I went inside to the pub to my first big party with people a bit like me!
... most people a bit like me were exhausted or kind of drunk or staring morosely at the alcohol because they couldn't mix their meds. There was a lot of sitting slumped in corners. The music reminded me of Sunday afternoons in 'family pubs' with only one family there, who still have to argue to get a turn on the arcade machine, where it is grey outside and probably Margate. All in all the party lacked a certain party vibe.
Ah well, I was there now. So I had a sit down.
And then I had a sit down somewhere else, as a dude who was either very drunk or very slurred of speech kept following me around and, intermittently, falling over in my general direction. It was either very unfortunate or a very direct approach. The more he kept following, the more direct seemed likely. *facepalm*
So then I ended up in a corner wishing I could afford another lemonade...
... and then I woke up, probably many hours later, face down on a table, sticky with something pub related. The world smelled extremely boozy, and something hot had happened to my hair. Hot in a flamey way.
Not good.
And then I couldn't find my bag, and hence my phone, and my money for a taxi, and my ability to leave the stupid pub at all at all.
Asking at the bar produced my little folder of ID, including my bus pass, but there were no useful buses running. And they had found my bag, at some point, but since they couldn't find whose it was they'd sent it off with someone's trustworthy old nana so she could investigate further.
Which wasn't massively helpful.
So then I went back outside. My blanket was still there :-) Yaay fuzzy blanket. The president dude had gone home, but apparently had passed the fuzzy red mantle before he went, so an efficient young lady was wearing it as a very warm sarong.
So I sighed and went up to her and Asked For Help. I hates having to do that.
But they were very helpful! I got a volunteer to walk me all the way back to the hotel. The fact that this was the other end of a walk that had previously required a lot of magic made this slightly less than perfectly useful, but it was what they could do, so it would do. He turned up looking all studenty in a navy blue pea coat and grinning at me like this just made his day. I suspected sarcasm. But I started walking with him. I didn't recognise the route, but then he'd hardly be taking the pretty way if he was being helpful. But then I did start to recognise it, as I'd arrived by rail, and we were almost at the central rail station. I considered this most unhelpful as it had been a bus trip between there and the hotel already. But he just grinned and led me over to the desk, and got me to shop my bus pass with my photo and my rail card with my name. And they looked me up in their computer and found my tickets! Even without my handbag I could get home. Big win! Aaaaand, it turned out the helpful nana lady had taken the handbag to the rail station, because they had a lost property place she could direct enquiries to, which didn't make whole sense but then neither did most of the people in the pub that night. But I got my handbag back too! My day was looking up.
Then we walked outside, and it was sunshiney early morning, and people were out doing people things, like walking dogs and going to church at the great big cathedral and also playing tennis, which isn't how I'd start my sunday but it takes all sorts. Only while I was looking at the tennis something shifted in my head. The player went all kaleidoscope. And while the ball was heading towards her she split into three, three different moves she could use yet, and then snapped back whole while the thwack happened, then kaleidoscope out again as her possibilities multiplied. All the things she could be doing next were showing up. And I looked around, and everyone in the street was that way. Except the blonde guy who was leading me around, because what he would do next was help me, and what I would do next could only be one thing. I sighed and asked if I could hold his hand, because I was seeing double, and I couldn't tell which of the things was about to, well, hit me.
He remained cheerful and took my hand readily enough, and we went on. And now instead of the pretty view he was taking us the way with the absolute least cars, which was a bit winding but very helpful given I effectively couldn't see anything that moved. Or could see it a lot. You know what I mean. We ducked in and out of pedestrian plazas and around the back of private car parks and even through little alleys, which I wasn't keen on, but the man was leading me blind by the hand, I didn't have many options. And besides, it seemed to be working great.
We were walking through a pedestrian zone, big building surrounded by a tree and leaf park on our right, shops all closed on our left, when we saw a car coming. We slowed and he tucked me in to the side of the path, keeping us close to the shops. But the car didn't change course, and it was tight to our side too. So he frowned and pulled me just off the path entire, ducking into a doorway and trying to be small.
The car was odd, looking like a classic car from far away, like Bessie from Doctor Who or something, but the closer it got the odder it looked. It was green, and from far away it looked painted, but from close to it was more like it was woven together. Woven out of living thorns and thistles. Shining in the sun, like metal. And then when the driver passed we saw him, sitting bolt upright with his hands still on the wheel, and for all the world looking carved of wood. He looked twisted and stretched, his eyes bugged out, his hair all elongated points. But then the light caught it and it wasn't hair, it was a crown, or maybe flames, dancing golden and sharp above him.
He passed in near perfect silence, wheels slapping so lightly on the bumpy paved street.
And after he passed the scene changed.
And the man leading me tightened his grip on my hand and pulled me fast into an alley. It wasn't much shelter, only brick on two sides, but he found a buttress to duck us behind and pushed me in to the best corner, and then we tucked our hands in, covered our eyes and pushed our faces to the wall.
Someone came up to us, hiding like that, and asked what we were about. I didn't look up. He'd be like the others. Not fractured, not any more, no possibilities shining around him. They were all walking still, but all I could see after the thorn man passed was black, blackened flesh, seared and charred.
My guide had seen the same, and tucked us in here hidden. We kept our eyes closed, hoping not to go flash blind, and waited for the bomb.
Not having seen it, our interlocutor, seeing that we weren't looking, naturally went to the end of the alley to look. And he was impressed. He said he saw, he didn't know what, something huge, it had to be an art thing, lovely, such a beautiful creature! Look, there, behind the trees. Oh man, is it moving? Is it looking at us?
At which point we reconsidered 'bomb' and weighed the likely results of staying still while any huge creature turned to look, and we untucked from our corner and ran for it down the alleyway.
So we came out in an open space, one of those urban places that's six of one and half a dozen of the other, and after all the building up around it happens is not good for any of it. It was patchily concrete and sort of scrubby, full of nodding flowers and tall grasses. And then I realised, they were all nodding in time. Every blade of grass, every flower, moving together, up and down. We're standing in a courtyard, on a day that had been perfectly still, and yet... "The sky is breathing." I said it looking around, feeling it, air on my skin, gentle puffs at first but then huffs and shortly buffets. And in the glass around me I saw the light go shadowed, and bright, and shadowed, and bright. And slowly, I looked up.
And cast my hand up, grabbing air and holding on hard, while above me dived down the most enormous creature, the most beautiful, impossible, bright green and barbed around the edges, scales shining, fangs flashing, and gaping wide onto a FURNACE inside as the dragon let out it's breath!
... and around us turned into swirling smoke and fog, as the two conditions met, the fire and my little dome of air, and made soot and water fall out around us.
But I held.
And when the fire cleared I was standing there with my guide beside me, the bricks around us glazed and the glass slagged, and we were the only things left moving.
And with that dome held so tight I hadn't even heard the screams.
After that the guide looked at me solemnly and held out his hand again, but I shook my head. The great change had happened now, and all the possibilities snapped closed. All I could see was a singular response to that one great thing. But at least that meant I could see normal again.
I still needed a guide though. Never could find my way for toffee.
But he didn't take me back to the hotel. Instead we went back to Central Rail, which was in this emergency an assembly point, especially for everyone wanting to get out of town. I explained my one good trick to the staff, in case it might be of use again. And while it very well might not, next time I tried it, it was more of a chance than they'd had a second ago. So they took me in, and assigned someone to guard me, and made it his job to feed my fussy self.
My guide left me his coat, since I didn't have a blanket. It was nice. On closer examination it had a roaring bear worked into one shoulder, in a very slightly lighter blue that sometimes caught the sunlight and might have reacted to UV. It seemed right for him, happy though he'd been. He didn't stay though. There was more he could do elsewhere. Last I saw of him he was heading out the door again, while I headed in to the tiny station supermarket.
I kind of wish I could screencap my dream, because that dragon was spectacular. It looked like it was CGI, but not in the blocky pixelated way, just because it was more vivid, saturated, spectacular than anything in the world around it. It looked like it had dropped in from another reality, and made our reality look rather shabbily designed.
The view from the breathing end though was not something I'd want to repeat though. Certainly not in my sleep, when I felt and believed it. Yowch.
We were organising some kind of event that felt a bit like an SF con. But wasn't about SF. Just a lot of people geeking out about their favourite obscure thing together.
So there was a con hotel, and a big meal was on. The staff were calling us Lords and Ladies, which made everyone grin. They'd needed proper legal names on check in, but after that we were the paying customers, they'd call us Grand High Whatsiflip if we felt the need. So I was Lady Quinn for the weekend. And they were being ever so nice and helpful and yet all had those fixed grins of customer service. I was eating slow and picky, and then I realised I hadn't had my meds yet, and looked in my handbag for them but could not find. So they had to be taken with food, and I had food left, but I'd have to go back to my room for them. Decisions. So I called a staff person and told them I wasn't done yet, and I'd be back in just a tick. I was nearly the last one there, so it wasn't hard to find a person. I checked and made sure they understood and they nodded and nodded. So a quick trip up and down the lift later... my food was gone. And the eating room was all dark. And someone was getting the vacuum cleaner out. I was about ready to get a good sulk on, but then a very nice staff member arrived to inform Lady Quinn her private dining room was ready, so I was mollified. And it were quite nice. A little conservatory of my own, with the glass making the candles twinkle back in the darkness.
So the next day was the big event, something like a sponsored walk. Only many of us were proceeding by methods not strictly speaking identifiable as walking. I was using feather fall, so it made me really light, and I could walk on the top of wobbly bricks and monuments and if I ran out of path just float down gentle. It was fun. But a lot of the people around me weren't just doing it for fun, it was their only way of getting anywhere. They were short people with much broken bones, or people who would usually need a wheelchair. Their magic was compensating for their disability, and that was what brought us all together on this grand walk, being disabled people with magic. It was the most creative display of ability our minds could conjure, so we could ignore the labels for a while.
That didn't mean we had much else in common. I'd got stuck walking next to a guy who'd been whining about his ex for ages and ages and ages. He looked like the Doctor's subconscious, the Dream Lord, only much shorter. He kept going on and on about how she probably didn't mean it and she'd come back to him again and it would all be great again blah blah whine whine only the longer he did it the creepier it sounded. I kept taking the winding route but he kept being right there a couple of feet away. Boo. And then I saw his ex, half way up an iron fence. And then she fell, with an awful crack. Osteogenesis imperfecta, and she'd still rather climb a fence than get stuck near him. That dude is staying ex. Creep.
So at the end of the walk there was a pub. And there was a grand speech from a guy welcoming us all to the after party. It sounded like it would be fun. But the guy was kind of down in the dumps, because he didn't qualify any more. He was president of the association right then, but he was moving on, and this was his last year here. Technically, he wasn't one of us, so technically, he couldn't come in the pub, he had to wait outside with the helpers. He had a sad. So I gave him my best blanket. The deep red one with the plushy softness. Then he had a warm and a hug.
... yes this implies I was carrying my blanket around all day. But you never know when you might need one.
So then I went inside to the pub to my first big party with people a bit like me!
... most people a bit like me were exhausted or kind of drunk or staring morosely at the alcohol because they couldn't mix their meds. There was a lot of sitting slumped in corners. The music reminded me of Sunday afternoons in 'family pubs' with only one family there, who still have to argue to get a turn on the arcade machine, where it is grey outside and probably Margate. All in all the party lacked a certain party vibe.
Ah well, I was there now. So I had a sit down.
And then I had a sit down somewhere else, as a dude who was either very drunk or very slurred of speech kept following me around and, intermittently, falling over in my general direction. It was either very unfortunate or a very direct approach. The more he kept following, the more direct seemed likely. *facepalm*
So then I ended up in a corner wishing I could afford another lemonade...
... and then I woke up, probably many hours later, face down on a table, sticky with something pub related. The world smelled extremely boozy, and something hot had happened to my hair. Hot in a flamey way.
Not good.
And then I couldn't find my bag, and hence my phone, and my money for a taxi, and my ability to leave the stupid pub at all at all.
Asking at the bar produced my little folder of ID, including my bus pass, but there were no useful buses running. And they had found my bag, at some point, but since they couldn't find whose it was they'd sent it off with someone's trustworthy old nana so she could investigate further.
Which wasn't massively helpful.
So then I went back outside. My blanket was still there :-) Yaay fuzzy blanket. The president dude had gone home, but apparently had passed the fuzzy red mantle before he went, so an efficient young lady was wearing it as a very warm sarong.
So I sighed and went up to her and Asked For Help. I hates having to do that.
But they were very helpful! I got a volunteer to walk me all the way back to the hotel. The fact that this was the other end of a walk that had previously required a lot of magic made this slightly less than perfectly useful, but it was what they could do, so it would do. He turned up looking all studenty in a navy blue pea coat and grinning at me like this just made his day. I suspected sarcasm. But I started walking with him. I didn't recognise the route, but then he'd hardly be taking the pretty way if he was being helpful. But then I did start to recognise it, as I'd arrived by rail, and we were almost at the central rail station. I considered this most unhelpful as it had been a bus trip between there and the hotel already. But he just grinned and led me over to the desk, and got me to shop my bus pass with my photo and my rail card with my name. And they looked me up in their computer and found my tickets! Even without my handbag I could get home. Big win! Aaaaand, it turned out the helpful nana lady had taken the handbag to the rail station, because they had a lost property place she could direct enquiries to, which didn't make whole sense but then neither did most of the people in the pub that night. But I got my handbag back too! My day was looking up.
Then we walked outside, and it was sunshiney early morning, and people were out doing people things, like walking dogs and going to church at the great big cathedral and also playing tennis, which isn't how I'd start my sunday but it takes all sorts. Only while I was looking at the tennis something shifted in my head. The player went all kaleidoscope. And while the ball was heading towards her she split into three, three different moves she could use yet, and then snapped back whole while the thwack happened, then kaleidoscope out again as her possibilities multiplied. All the things she could be doing next were showing up. And I looked around, and everyone in the street was that way. Except the blonde guy who was leading me around, because what he would do next was help me, and what I would do next could only be one thing. I sighed and asked if I could hold his hand, because I was seeing double, and I couldn't tell which of the things was about to, well, hit me.
He remained cheerful and took my hand readily enough, and we went on. And now instead of the pretty view he was taking us the way with the absolute least cars, which was a bit winding but very helpful given I effectively couldn't see anything that moved. Or could see it a lot. You know what I mean. We ducked in and out of pedestrian plazas and around the back of private car parks and even through little alleys, which I wasn't keen on, but the man was leading me blind by the hand, I didn't have many options. And besides, it seemed to be working great.
We were walking through a pedestrian zone, big building surrounded by a tree and leaf park on our right, shops all closed on our left, when we saw a car coming. We slowed and he tucked me in to the side of the path, keeping us close to the shops. But the car didn't change course, and it was tight to our side too. So he frowned and pulled me just off the path entire, ducking into a doorway and trying to be small.
The car was odd, looking like a classic car from far away, like Bessie from Doctor Who or something, but the closer it got the odder it looked. It was green, and from far away it looked painted, but from close to it was more like it was woven together. Woven out of living thorns and thistles. Shining in the sun, like metal. And then when the driver passed we saw him, sitting bolt upright with his hands still on the wheel, and for all the world looking carved of wood. He looked twisted and stretched, his eyes bugged out, his hair all elongated points. But then the light caught it and it wasn't hair, it was a crown, or maybe flames, dancing golden and sharp above him.
He passed in near perfect silence, wheels slapping so lightly on the bumpy paved street.
And after he passed the scene changed.
And the man leading me tightened his grip on my hand and pulled me fast into an alley. It wasn't much shelter, only brick on two sides, but he found a buttress to duck us behind and pushed me in to the best corner, and then we tucked our hands in, covered our eyes and pushed our faces to the wall.
Someone came up to us, hiding like that, and asked what we were about. I didn't look up. He'd be like the others. Not fractured, not any more, no possibilities shining around him. They were all walking still, but all I could see after the thorn man passed was black, blackened flesh, seared and charred.
My guide had seen the same, and tucked us in here hidden. We kept our eyes closed, hoping not to go flash blind, and waited for the bomb.
Not having seen it, our interlocutor, seeing that we weren't looking, naturally went to the end of the alley to look. And he was impressed. He said he saw, he didn't know what, something huge, it had to be an art thing, lovely, such a beautiful creature! Look, there, behind the trees. Oh man, is it moving? Is it looking at us?
At which point we reconsidered 'bomb' and weighed the likely results of staying still while any huge creature turned to look, and we untucked from our corner and ran for it down the alleyway.
So we came out in an open space, one of those urban places that's six of one and half a dozen of the other, and after all the building up around it happens is not good for any of it. It was patchily concrete and sort of scrubby, full of nodding flowers and tall grasses. And then I realised, they were all nodding in time. Every blade of grass, every flower, moving together, up and down. We're standing in a courtyard, on a day that had been perfectly still, and yet... "The sky is breathing." I said it looking around, feeling it, air on my skin, gentle puffs at first but then huffs and shortly buffets. And in the glass around me I saw the light go shadowed, and bright, and shadowed, and bright. And slowly, I looked up.
And cast my hand up, grabbing air and holding on hard, while above me dived down the most enormous creature, the most beautiful, impossible, bright green and barbed around the edges, scales shining, fangs flashing, and gaping wide onto a FURNACE inside as the dragon let out it's breath!
... and around us turned into swirling smoke and fog, as the two conditions met, the fire and my little dome of air, and made soot and water fall out around us.
But I held.
And when the fire cleared I was standing there with my guide beside me, the bricks around us glazed and the glass slagged, and we were the only things left moving.
And with that dome held so tight I hadn't even heard the screams.
After that the guide looked at me solemnly and held out his hand again, but I shook my head. The great change had happened now, and all the possibilities snapped closed. All I could see was a singular response to that one great thing. But at least that meant I could see normal again.
I still needed a guide though. Never could find my way for toffee.
But he didn't take me back to the hotel. Instead we went back to Central Rail, which was in this emergency an assembly point, especially for everyone wanting to get out of town. I explained my one good trick to the staff, in case it might be of use again. And while it very well might not, next time I tried it, it was more of a chance than they'd had a second ago. So they took me in, and assigned someone to guard me, and made it his job to feed my fussy self.
My guide left me his coat, since I didn't have a blanket. It was nice. On closer examination it had a roaring bear worked into one shoulder, in a very slightly lighter blue that sometimes caught the sunlight and might have reacted to UV. It seemed right for him, happy though he'd been. He didn't stay though. There was more he could do elsewhere. Last I saw of him he was heading out the door again, while I headed in to the tiny station supermarket.
I kind of wish I could screencap my dream, because that dragon was spectacular. It looked like it was CGI, but not in the blocky pixelated way, just because it was more vivid, saturated, spectacular than anything in the world around it. It looked like it had dropped in from another reality, and made our reality look rather shabbily designed.
The view from the breathing end though was not something I'd want to repeat though. Certainly not in my sleep, when I felt and believed it. Yowch.