A Light in the Darkness

[IamLEAM1983]

Respite Point was silent, and there was a heavy pale in the air. Meris would've briefly heard the city's gentle chorus of snores and the distant calls of the night watchmen, but the rebels' outpost was as silent as the grave. The faces she'd see were all set in worried or severe miens, the most that dared to shake the air being the occasional uneasy cough. Some of the battered and crippled Weavers kept vigil from their narrow doors, a cup of steaming seaweed tea sometimes held in their hand. A few residents looked sleepy-eyed and repressed yawns, but everyone knew just how serious the issue was.

Meris would also have had time to meet Mereth, a Finwoman who'd quickly joined in with the rebels after surviving tremendous levels of abuse that had left her blind. Maybe it was the hardships imposed by slavery, but she didn't quite carry the severity most other aquatic theriomorphs liked to imagine the Finmen sported. If she'd ever carried something like her king's grim countenance, it had been torn away from her. Her angular features were taut with pain, as she'd taken some of the leader's agony for her own, using some of her people's arcane skills. Like her, she was a healer. Her skills were largely herbal in nature, however, her only arcane advantages being the removal or relocation of someone else's physical pain.

"He doesn't have long," she said, lifting her scarred irises to the roane's. "His lungs are seeping and I can't drain the fluids without performing a puncture," she explained, pointing at a spot between two of the Revered's ribs. "If we puncture him, he dies. He is too weak to survive any further stress."

Delmar's own eyes slowly creaked open, and his intake of air would have sounded positively graven on someone else. Here, it evolved nothing except the most pathetic forms of weakness imaginable, coupled with an immense amount of courage. Lesser men would have released their grip on life long ago, and there he was. Holding on against all odds. He spoke the roane's name in a thready, wheezed breath, barely managing to turn his eyes in her direction.

He looked utterly exhausted. Still, as he locked eyes with her, Meris would realize there was a smile behind those withering tentacles. Slowly, as if moving his head were an effort of titanic proportions, he nodded his head, followed by one arm being lifted. One bony hand was raised, and he gestured for her to come closer.

"I will find.. a quiet place," he rasped, as if to reassure her she wouldn't feel him rooting around in her subconscious. "I won't disturb you or Nereus, but... Should you need company in the days to come... I will be near."

He closed his eyes and briefly turned away, visibly gathering his strength. "Your Darkhallow is yours... But you will find me where books dwell. Find me... In these places that inspire Cantors. Where all our tales... Can be told."

[TennyoCeres84]

The selkie quickly knelt next to the dying Void Weaver and delicately grasped his frail hand, nodding gently. "Ye're certainly welcome in me mind, Delmar. Ye're me friend an' mentor. Ye're like family tae me," she murmured, gazing down at him with features of someone who loved him like a grandfather. "Whenev'r ye're ready."

[IamLEAM1983]

Delmar nodded, that weak hand of his suddenly feeling warm against her cheek. As before, Meris would find herself falling asleep, only to awaken next to Nereus' Darkhallow seeming.

It was also night-time in their sanctum, but the sky was turning brighter by the minute. Color was slowly bleeding back into the world, and something deep and primal inside the roane would know the local sparrows and finches were about to start their endless yapping. Twenty minutes, at the most, and the world that might one day be hers to live in would awaken. As always, Nereus was lighter in the dream, even if his arms were still fairly plump. One had lovingly encircled her waist, her mate's dream-self echoing the simple comfort and contentment of his true body, back home. It might've been a case of things going well, but Nereus was no longer the first to awaken in Hope, when they crossed over. The poor fellow now honestly needed his alarm clock, but he couldn't be blamed, either. After lifetimes spent sleeping with one eye open or while nursing a wound, he had lifetimes of decent rest to recover. The body and mind were basking in well-deserved restorative stillness, something that only seemed to strengthen both appearances, real and constructed by the powers of this place.

An early-bird version of her usual routine would follow, Hope's radio gently accompanying her motions and underscored by the Squid's continued rumbles, upstairs. They'd both done some research and attempted to focus the dream's foggier aspects, and they'd both seen some measure of success. They knew the city's name, now, and they knew where it would stand. They knew the year they found themselves in, as well as the ins and outs of their apparent occupations. Some nights out had actually involved going through their respective professional work and getting acquainted with their respective mundane skills. The dream came complete with a university campus, and every two nights, Meris would find herself instinctively preparing classes for groups of thirty to fifty faces that kept growing sharper with the passage of time. Names came up, other people's jobs and pasts - everything that would've anchored their living in Hope into the place's own sense of reality.

As for the people in some of their picture frames, however - these remained out of focus. At the most, Meris would know that there was another Void Weaver in the birthday photo for Holden Hall's group. That tubby-looking gentleman with the beige vest and the herringbone jacket... That was no mustache, of that she'd be certain. He was too pale to be Nereus, and the Augur had certainly never shown any interest in bow ties. It had to be someone else, right?

Taking Cailean for his morning walk, once Nereus would've awakened, Meris would find herself walking alongside the dryad's abode, that big park that still had no name...

One thing, however, was different. There was a man on a bench that had usually remained empty. He seemed old, but not so old as to be bereft of a certain youthfulness in his stride. She couldn't see his face immediately, too occupied as he seemed to be to be reading the morning's newspaper.

Then, just as she'd walk past him, he used an index finger to push the corner of a page away from his eyes. Delmar's face lit up with the serene and measured cousin to an impish grin, and he folded his newspaper out of the way. He'd seemingly taken to her fabricated reality quite quickly, the robes of old changed for beige suit-cut pants and a fitting jacket, paired with a casually-worn white shirt. A straw fedora of some kind was perched on his head, and he remained silent long enough to slip a pair of reading glasses inside his front pocket.

"Bright and vivid," he said, looking about. "I wouldn't have expected anything less from you, Meris. It's such a welcome change from our darkened halls and eerie lights, with that dreaded script of theirs covering every bare inch of stone..."

He stretched his legs out in front of him and then slipped his arms behind the bench. "I know I should get to work, make sure you've everything you need to face the challenges ahead, but can you blame me if I sit here and just - rest for a bit?"

Delmar sighed happily, briefly closing his eyes. "My mind is at peace, my ailing body is no more, and I just might finally get to see if we Squids can get a tan."

[TennyoCeres84]

Chuckling, Meris shrugged and grinned. "I don't blame you for wanting to rest, Delmar. You've earned it," she replied, losing her Orcadian dialect for the time being. "I noticed Nereus was also asleep here. Would he potentially see you if he were standing next to me?" she inquired, sitting down on the bench.

Instead of the white robe she normally wore in Respite Point, she was dressed in a gauzy, seafoam green sundress, straw hat, and sandals. In the created reality, she appeared older, but still youthful in her features.

[IamLEAM1983]

"He might," replied the former rebel leader with a shrug, "but this place has no real limits. If I don't want to be seen or heard, I won't be seen or heard. It's that simple. I have no body anchoring me, so I can be in this dream's farthest reaches by the time Nereus even thinks that catching up to you would be a good idea."

He then canted his head to the side, in allowance. "Someday, once the dust settles and we're all free, you'll have to let me confront him, however. It's not fair for you to have to keep this kind of secret for so long. I would do it right away, but exposing myself would be too dangerous at this point. Whatever Nereus knows about me, others might be able to exploit. The less he knows, the better for me, yourself, and our shared plans. The better, especially, for his plans.

Not that I'll have to go too far, Nereus just doesn't seem to be the library type, and I picked up a few things about such a place existing in this town of yours... I'll have my own little sanctum, a mental representation of your stored knowledge that I'll be able to interact with - and maybe enrich - and you'll have your man. If I come across any decent books in architectural design, I'll be sure to pass them on to you. Just say you found them after a bit of browsing, I'm sure he'll believe you."

[TennyoCeres84]

The seal woman nodded and sighed. "I'll keep your secret for as long as possible," she answered, then glancing around. "I'm surprised at how quickly you adjusted to this place. It took Nereus and me a while to learn everything about it, and there's still more to see. Some things are still quite blurry, obviously. Certainly peaceful, though."

[IamLEAM1983]

Delmar shrugged. "It's nothing, really. Spend a few centuries delving deep into the layers of this place - I mean, the entirety of the Darkhallow - and your mind gets used to how intimate and unique certain things can be. I've learned to accept anything this place puts me in contact with as being real. It's all real, as long as you're both down here, you and Nereus, dreaming it all into being."

He scoffed happily. "I'm just a tourist. I've seen all kinds of secret shames, which people on the surface would actually find commendable. There's millions of us in Dalarath, all trying our damnedest to be evil, to reach some kind of unattainable purity of wretchedness and deceit - and then you come down here and find cozy little nooks and crannies. Isolated little boudoirs where mated pairs can exchange and express their love, or a solitary Weaver's constructed fantasies of love and acceptance, or some other's hidden desire to engage with its slaves in a more meaningful way...

The one difference is you aren't grasping for anything. You have a goal. It's expressed all around us, even now. So few people have that, in Dalarath; defined aspirations and dreams, things to latch onto when the going gets tough..."

As he spoke, a woman passed by the both of them, growing more distinct as she grew closer. Her face wouldn't look familiar to Meris, but she'd soon realize she was looking at a construct - an assembly of various features from several of Respite Point's women. She had Mereth's eyebrows and that poor effete Weaver's slender arms, Leila's burnished cast and another woman's untamed shock of red hair.

"If I were to show myself to the surface world,"' continued the former Augur, "people would scream and cower away. They'd think me a beast or an unnatural creature. They'd certainly kill me. This place, though - is our common hope of a better world for everyone."

He briefly lifted his straw hat from his head, the corners of his mouth pulling up. The citizen nodded back, in the sort of hurried-if-politely well-behaved and even-tempered way people could manage in front of strangers they had no reason to fear.

"Besides," he added, "Flesh Masks can be terribly uncomfortable. You can't be the only woman in the world who finds some appeal in a finely-developed set of tentacles, after all. Nereus has you, Lucian has Mary... I'd say there's hope enough for all of us."

[TennyoCeres84]

Meris gave a happy chuckle and nodded. "I think there is. I remember when Nereus seemed so doubtful at my being able to be attracted to him physically and to love him for who he is," she admitted, smiling. "I find myself even caring for the nameless Void Weaver in the photo of our future friends, even when he's a mystery."

[IamLEAM1983]

"Ah," replied Delmar, to the tone of someone who'd just heard of a tantalizing mystery to solve, "but that means I'll have to slip in at your place for a quick coffee cup. I'd love to take a look at that photo, if you wouldn't mind. I'll just make it a point to fortuitously knock on that door of yours, once your husband-to-be heads out for work."

Again, he scoffed happily. "It's funny, really. The both of you implementing the concept of remunerated work in a context that could've stayed as casual as you could've imagined. You had access to an endless succession of lazy Sundays, but preferred to stick to the future's variant on the daily grind... Not that I'm judging you, it's simply remarkably... lucid, I'd say. Using the ultimate in escapism to acquaint yourself with future responsibilities."

The Revered shrugged lightly. "Best get to it while it's still fun, eh? You'll have time enough to hate Mondays in the coming centuries, anyway."

[TennyoCeres84]

Meris smiled cheerfully and scoffed lightly. "In a sense, I suppose it gives us a bit of hope and normalcy that we don't have in the waking world. I find myself having students I'll teach one day; he has all sorts of projects to work on, from architecture to whatever other flight of fancy he dreams of. He relishes being able to create things without someone having to suffer for it," she stated. "This world has had a major impact on him: healthier, more well-rested, and more productive. I'm happy that he is feeling so fulfilled here."

Thinking back to the photo, the roane nodded. "Of course you can look at it, once Nereus is gone. Having someone else's perspective would be very helpful in deciphering information."