Glimmers of a Dream

[Jon Little Bird]

Jon lay down on the stiff, olive-drab Army issue folding cot that had been provided him in this small tent. What was he doing out of the courtroom and in the middle of a rolling field blanketed with hundreds upon hundreds of tents, with the drone of old Diesel generators permeating the silence and drowning out the crickets, providing barely enough power to keep a solitary bulb flickering dimly above him?

No, he knew what he was doing. He was keeping his cause alive merely by being present.

The ink had scarcely been dry upon the Supreme Court decision Jon had won declaring the removal of the Seminoles from their lands in Florida unconstitutional when the meltdown in Dayton had happened. Such a horrible thing; the very land having become poisoned by radiation to where it would kill those who sought to live there. Something must be done. Native Americans still had the ability to offer aid and comfort in some places. Additionally the pragmatic side of Jon reasoned it would be good PR for the Council of Native Americans to be seen rushing to help the Americans.

It had taken some convincing to do, but soon Jon had the CNA approaching tribes with lands bordering Ohio with appeals to aid the stricken in the disaster. The Potowatomi in particular had two reservations a scant two hours' drive from Dayton, and even in recent years had still managed to hold onto thousands of acres of virgin meadows and rolling pasture land.

The refugees hadn't taken much convincing to come. The Red Cross and National Guard had also been eager to accept the use of land strategically significant to helping those in the disaster area. With the influx of so many strangers, though, and many tribal members already wary of thieves and interlopers...well, tempers were bound to flare and altercations were sure to happen. Jon had decided that he was needed to be present in order to keep the peace.

That wasn't what kept Jon up at this hour, though. He had medicine for that, if it came to it. It was such an easy thing, to...nudge...a person's inclinations to become more agreeable with him. It seemed to be most effective when he could find a reason that person would naturally want to go along with him. No, what bothered him was the twin messages he continued to stare at on his Wallet. This particular model was top of the line, and needed for him to get reception in such a remote location.

One message was from the Minutemen, of all groups. Apparently Jon had gained some reputation of sticking up for the “little guy” after his victory in the Supreme Court. They claimed they were seeking his representation in order to free certain bank assets frozen since the CCD had declared the organization a terrorist group. Jon wasn't sure what to make of that. He could, in a way, sympathize with the organization. Many of the native tribes had resisted coming under the custody of the United States government, and perhaps for good reason: though the resistance in face of a greater power was ultimately futile, the spirit of the Indian was tramped down as his people had become essentially wards of the State. It had scattered his people, and put them in the position they now were, defenseless against interlopers and dependent upon another sovereign who might ignore the promises it made on a whim.

If Jon were to offer his services to the Minutemen, he would essentially have to get the CCD to reverse its declaration. Difficult, but there were ways. He would have to study CCD law further, and of course become recognized as a legal practitioner of their law to do so.

Which led to his second message: an invitation from the University at Moscow, the heart at the CCD, to participate in a debate on sovereignty and international treaty law in today's world. According to the invitation Jon was seen as having a unique perspective in this matter, having come from a people already under the custody of another sovereign state yet also being a people whose own sovereignty was – in letter – established as inviolate. Should he travel to Moscow to participate in this?

Perhaps he could work both angles.

Jon had to learn more before committing to any course of action. Careful as always, he needed more information. So he put his Wallet aside and closed his eyes, breathing deeply. The flickering of the Great Spirit manifested itself, singing to him, as it often did these days, but he ignored it for the time being and opened the other pathway with his third eye.

Jon stepped out of his body and into the Spirit World.

This place had almost become familiar to him, now. He strode from his tent, knowing to be wary, now. There were dangers here. Bruises and scrapes earned in previous visits had manifested themselves upon awakening before. It had not been difficult to reach the conclusion that he might as well really be in this reflection of the waking world. He had to be careful.

Jon's clothes shifted in this place, sometimes changing or disappearing altogether. It took concentration to maintain any particular look he was going for, but less so for one that suited his current mood. Oddly enough he found himself appearing this time as a traditional Apache scout, clothed in darken boots and breeches with an equally drab beige loincloth and shirt, his mouth and nose hidden by a cloth wrapped loosely from ear to ear. Odd, but he let it stay.

Jon ducked out of his tent into the open air. Here there was no moonlight but instead a soft glow that gently illuminated his surroundings. This must be because the moon itself was a transient object but its light was often present at night and thus must be more easily reflected in the Spirit World.

Jon turned away from the sky, and – he still wasn't sure how he did it – sought his destination, and shifted.

He found himself before a gray and alabaster behemoth of a structure. Testament to the old Soviet days, Jon supposed. Were those eyes watching him from the ever present darkness? He shrugged it off and walked inside.

He found himself among halls that flickered and changed in an eyeblink. Messages on bulletin boards came and went, and it was no use trying to read the video displays. Surely this was a busy place in the waking world.

Jon found himself inside a professor's study and idly rifled through papers on the desk. These also tended to disappear, and sometimes the wording changed. Still, he was able to glimpse enough to gain a semblance of the picture. Legal essays, mostly, at this desk. Students arguing the right of the CCD to bring other nations under the umbrella of security. Little dissenting arguments to be seen.

Jon breathed – although he wasn't certain he had taken a single other breath in this place, or needed to – and shifted himself upward, finding himself in a grand library. Books, thousands of books, lining walls so high ladders were needed to reach them all. He looked to a table and noticed it contained several manuscripts upon it. They made as if to move – and Jon somehow willed one to come to him. A recently used artifact, he supposed, to shift about as he walked here.

Jon leafed through the manuscript, and through several others he'd found. Uneasiness returned to him, an itching behind his shoulder blades. There were eyes watching him from somewhere. But that was not all that unsettled him. He'd read enough. Clearly from the essays he'd read the majority opinion of the law here was that which was of the whim of the Ascendancy and his confidants was good as law. Security triumphed sovereignty here.

And the CNA was thinking of reaching out to the CCD? For what? To trade one warden for another? One overlord for another? Who could say the CCD would have any better influence to protect native American interests than the increasingly impotent United States did? And what if, as often spoken of in certain circles, the United States ceded to them first? Would the native Americans become powerless wards of a puppet warden then, having been stripped of even the decision over whether they should maintain sovereignty or surrender themselves?

Those eyes Jon couldn't see were still watching him. He knew it. It was almost enough for him to seek out the flickering flame that was the Great Spirit and send fires to all corners of the room. Instead he just shook his head. The questions he'd had upon walking the Spirit World had been mostly answered, at least for tonight. No use sticking around. He turned, and imagined himself back in his sleeping body, and drifted off.

First, real sleep. He would act when he woke.


Edited by Jon Little Bird, Aug 6 2013, 04:21 AM.

[Jon Little Bird]

Twelve hours later, Jon closed his eyes and listened to the dull whine of the jet engines and turbulent vibration as his flight cut across the Atlantic Ocean. Hardly a soothing atmosphere conductive to getting work done, but it would do.

It would be an interesting trip for Jon. He hadn't been to Moscow, or any of the CCD lands before. There wasn't any real reason to be unnerved by it, as he was coming as a guest of the University. Perhaps the calls he'd made on behalf of the Minutemen were the reason. The last thing he wanted was to be thrown in a gulag under some accusation of being a collaborator with a declared terrorist organization – which he wasn't, of course. Only an attorney seeking legal remedies.

The trip would only last four hours, so he would have to be careful. He wasn't sure what would happen if he was still in the Spirit World when the plane landed. Would he be woken up and return to his body?

Additionally, he had to be extra careful when taking the pathway to the Spirit World. The power of the Great Spirit loomed there, and if he accidentally touched that it could cause an accident, and possibly doom everyone on board. Though Jon was reasonably certain he had gained some control, there had still been that freak lightning strike that morning at the refugee camp. Thankfully no one had been hurt, but Jon was pretty sure he had done that while attempting to warm his tent.

Jon closed his eyes, and woke up. This time not on the plane. It occurred to him that in the Spirit World he could move from place to place with a thought, so it was not necessary for him to enter at the place where his body had been. He was back at the University.

If Jon was going to do any good at this debate, and especially if he was going to be able to help the Minutemen (though he wasn't yet convinced he should), he needed to learn the intricacies of the CCD legal system, and fast. He sat down at a desk in the university library and concentrated. What did he need to know? Books flew off shelves and came to him.

Okay. The shape of the system came to him in his mind rather quickly. The court system was primarily involved with arbitrating civil disputes, criminal trials, what have you. They had no real power over the Privileges, they could not at the end of the day compel an action or force an injunction on the executive power. That meant that affecting any change in policy toward the Minutemen would rest in changing the mind of whoever declared the group a terrorist organization – in this case the Ascendancy.

It also meant that any treaty law signed by the CCD was also subject to the whims of the executive powers. This was chilling, but useful information.

However...looking over various court actions and the ways the executive powers responded to them showed that the court system was an excellent public forum, and the Ascendancy was quite concerned with public image. That could be a way to make use of the system.

As he read on, the feeling of being watched pressed on him. It was ever present, here. He wondered if there were spirits lurking in the shadows. People occasionally appeared and vanished. Two desks over, a young man popped out of nowhere and screamed at a half-torn notebook, then vanished. A student having a nightmare over his homework?

For one not used to it, this place was enough to give someone nightmares all its own. As practiced as Jon was, it still creeped him out a bit, enough for him to abandon his research and look around. What were those eyes on him doing? Unconsciously his garb shifted again to what he had been wearing on his last venture, bleached leather shirt and dark breeches with dark knee-length boots, his nose and mouth covered with a white cloth, hood draped over his head, revealing only his eyes. Traditional Apache scout garb again, useful for hiding or walking silently.

A noise alerted him. Where? Down that hall. He moved down the corridor, which led to another, quickly losing any sense of direction. Where was he? A peek in a classroom revealed an art studio. Canvas and oil paints moved on their own from shelf to floor. At the studio's center stood a young woman with fair skin and wavy, waist-length brown hair, in a white blouse and dress clasped at the waist with a wide leather belt studded with large black stones. She was painting, large eyes seemingly staring into nothing as she worked.

Obviously a student dreaming herself here, Jon thought. But she didn't vanish, just moved about the room, searching for paints and brushes whenever they vanished and moved, returning to her painting as if in a trance.

Well, this was something new.

[Thalia]

[Continued from "Home Sweet Home"]

Work had been on her brain. Work? The thought shuddered, then retreated to the comfort of oblivion as she moved about the studio. Unsurprising she’d found herself here. Or maybe it was. How was she supposed to tell? The smell of the paint lulled her, the familiar feel of it caked beneath her fingernails, the everyday motions of mindlessness. Memories dimmed; she felt sluggish as a slow drifting river. Calm. Absorbed in her work. Paint, brushes, sweeping colour and line.

Work. That word again. She always felt so disjointed when she woke. Her brows pinched at the schism. Sometimes she could grasp at equilibrium, allow herself to fade – it was always better if she faded. These brief moments of awareness were the closest she ever came to panic, because she could feel her grasp slipping on something important. It was like drowning.

But it could be worse. Sometimes she drowned in the worlds of others.

The brush she’d been holding vanished, and she stared down at her hands blankly. Memories rose and sank like bubbles, but whenever they burst across the surface the feeling of them dulled quickly. Her gaze lifted to the canvas she’d been working on, only to find it blank. Yeah, blank was about right. She narrowed her eyes, frustrated, desperate -- just go back! -- and finally empty.

It was only when she turned, not really sure where she was going, that she noticed the stranger. Curiosity solidified her presence further, and pushed the memory of before distant; her grey eyes widened, though she hadn't jumped at the intrusion. How long had he been standing there? She’d seen people before, blinking fuzzily in and out of existence; mostly she ignored them, and they her. She was unconsciously accepting of this place, whatever it was. Whoever she was. But it was still... unusual.

She could see nothing of his face but his eyes, and she’d never seen clothes like those. Had she? No, she didn’t think she had. "I don’t know you." A statement of fact; she seemed oblivious to the oddity of his garb in any contextual way, here, in the middle of... here. Her thoughts numbed, and her expression softened, puzzled. "Do I?"

[Jon Little Bird]

Jon blinked in shock. The pretty young woman had spoken aloud to him, acknowledging his presence! This was not merely a dream for her. Surely she must be aware she was in the Spirit World! That moment awareness had flashed into those large grey eyes, Jon was certain. This woman was not some casual visitor. Yet her impression was one of confusion, and possibly a little fright.

Slowly, so as not to startle her, Jon reached up and took down the cloth that masked his face and lowered his hood. "I do not think I know you either," he said slowly. "There are still some among my people who walk the Spirit World from time to time, but you are not one of them. You must have the same gift to remain here."

Jon paused. Maybe there was some glimmer of memory there. Did he know her? His grandfather had often muttered of things coming again in circle. There was some sort of ... affinity... he could feel.

Jon concentrated, and his clothes shifted to that of casual business dress, grey coat and black shirt, dark pants, thin-rimmed spectacles upon his face. Something he'd wear on a normal day -- though in this place, glasses were hardly needed. He walked over to see what the woman was painting. She yielded the view without a word.

Jon's jaw dropped as he saw her painting. It was a mishmash of images. Stars falling, a bear crossing the sea with fangs bared, a snake wrapped around itself devouring its own tail, a coyote jumping at embers on dry grass. Clearly she was talented as an artist...but what exactly was she painting? The grand picture made no sense to him.

The woman continued to stare at him to the point Jon started feeling awkward. He felt he could trust her, and however she'd managed to find her way here, Jon wanted to help. There were so many dangers that could come on a soul in the Spirit World this woman might not be able to defend against. "You seem lost in here," he said, offering a hand to her. "Perhaps I can be your guide. You may call me Jon."

[Thalia]

“Spirit World.” She repeated his phrasing curiously; turning it over in her mind like a foreign trinket, as if perhaps it might yield its secrets under enough scrutiny. No conclusions were drawn from her thoughtful expression, but she did take a moment to glance at her surroundings like things had finally been given a context. This place had lots of names, and she had probably known them once. No longer, though.

The stranger’s clothes melted as she watched, resculpting themselves into dreary attire. He added glasses. She stepped back when he moved forward to look at the canvas, though only to give him enough space. Scrutinising his profile, she began to wonder what this meant; the presence of another. There were other places she went - sometimes not wholly of her own volition. Occasionally, on the precipice of waking here, she was instead dragged toward the lights of others; then, once there, was chained to their whim and conceptions. It did not happen often, but she knew enough to recognise that this was not the same; nothing directed her now but the distractions of her own mind. Other times she was voyeuristic, with little shape or form. She saw plenty of people then, but none saw her. So this was not that, either.

“I do?” A faint smile pricked the corners of her lips. Lost suggested panicked, and she wasn’t that. She did not know where she was, granted, but she also didn’t care very much. Familiarity softened her view of this place, if perhaps not actual understanding. Her existence here was instinctual and she didn't question much; it went some way to explain her fuzzy edge of vacancy, the way she flowed from one moment to the next like water. If she was lost, then she was accustom to being lost.

“Jon.” She considered his hand a moment before offering her own. Would she remember? Could she remember? She'd never tested her memory of this place, this Spirit World - had never needed to. When she woke here she was so easily distracted, drawn to whatever remnant of thought sparked and died as oblivion settled on her like a well-loved blanket, then ever onward until her time faded. Consistencies strung some sort of tapestry behind her - cognition demanded at least some context - but she might have slept a thousand years between each one. She had never had a reason to look back.

“I’m…” She faltered, trailing off in a way that was more puzzled than distressed. She’d had lots of names, but they were all murky, distant things too formless to grasp. It had never before been necessary to pluck one out and dust it off, and now that it was, she found she was incapable. She had no name, not here; her reality was too vast to encompass something so mundane. Or perhaps she was too ephemeral; she was never exactly sure which. Still, she didn’t seem overly concerned by this lack of identity; she smiled somewhat ruefully, and shrugged. “You may call me what you like, I suppose. It doesn't really matter.” Her head tilted, content to abandon the absence of her name, and how strange he might find her not knowing it, for something more interesting. “A guide? To here?”

[Jon Little Bird]

It occured to Jon that perhaps he had been wrong about his first impression that this woman was either lost or unknowing of her entrance into the Spirit World. No, there was a familiarity of sorts, though he couldn't describe it. He realized at times her presence seemed almost insubstantial, as if her physical self - or, in this place, more accurately her spiritual projection of herself - was about to dissolve away. Yet her presence persisted, unlike those who just brushed the Spirit World in their sleep or failed to maintain the discipline to keep themselves grounded enough to remain.

That curious look in her eyes...the way she had dismissed her Apparent inability to remember her name, if she wasn't just making that up to avoid telling him...John wondered if he was seeing with someone whose very thought processes were completely alien to him.

Had the prospect of having a guide here really intrigued this woman, or was Jon reading her wrong? Was this his reason for being brought here to find her?

He regarded the woman. "As I said before, it is a known thing of my people to walk the Spirit World. To learn control over oneself enough to stay conscious in this place that is a reflection of the waking world, to see into the dreams of others, and To move about and even change things with a thought -" he concentrated, and a large, gray coyote Appeared momentarily before vanishing - "my people teach the first step is to acquire a spirit guide. When available it is often best for it to be a real person who is already accomplished at walking here, but it does not have to be."

Jon frowned. "I do need to have some name to address you by, though. It won't do to just say Hey You all the time." He paused. "Allow me to call you Nimeda. It means Girl who dances at night and draws pictures in the stars."

That wasn't exactly what the name meant, but Jon kept that bit to himself.

[Thalia]

It was like squeezing through a narrow passage when both mind and body were reluctant to be so channelled, but she digested the explanation seriously. Reflection of the waking world. Dreaming. She didn’t think of these things on her own – indeed, even when pointed out, they were heavy things for her focus on. He sounded purposeful. Intentional. Why had it never occurred to her that waking here might be a choice? Perhaps because it had always felt inevitable, like the rush of a tide –and why fight the river? Then again, why not? To her this place was intuitive, and she had never considered trying to shape it on anything but an unconscious level. She wanted a paintbrush? One solidified within her grasp – as it did now, in the moment she thought about it, and it vanished when her thoughts moved on. Such things were simply an extension of her expectations. She'd never questioned it.

Her gaze lingered on the space the coyote had been, thoughtful. "Nimeda," she agreed. "That’ll do. Thank you." She paused for a reflective moment, finally breaking her gaze from the stranger called Jon.

"I didn’t come here on purpose." She was confidant of that, not least because whenever she found herself here she had no purpose, just an existence. It was like dreaming. She was lucid, but she was also disconnected. And apparently she was the only one, since Jon seemed perfectly acquainted with the process that had brought him here. It is a known thing, he'd said. Of that, she was certainly curious. "How did you learn?"

[Jon Little Bird]

So she was not here on purpose. That implied an accidental waking in the Spirit World to Jon. And with that the implication Nimeda really was lost, here. Curiosity in her eyes, inquisitiveness upon seeing the changes Jon had manifested here, his change of clothes, the summoning of an apparition of his own spirit guide...That Wasn't how he would have expected a lost person to behave. He reminded himself that it could the dangerous to make assumptions about someone who may not even think as he did.

Speaking of dangers...these were many in this Place, and perhaps It would be best if he just told her what he knew of what she was asking.

"There are several that I know of," John said, "Who walk the Spirit World. Noah Crow's Eye. Bear. A couple others. I would think there would be many more if it were as simple as learning how. Many have Gone through the same meditations, or similar.

"Please understand I am being brief here for the sake of time. There are years of childhood stories and ancestral rituals that lead to one attempting to walk the Spirit World. But at it's heart, one is taught a meditation exercise where he lies down with eyes closed and feels for.awareness with his Third Eye which can be felt in the middle of the forehead. You feed you awareness and sensations of the body into this third eye. Let the body drift to sleep and it is through this third eye that sees a reflection of the waking world, and opens a window you can...step through."

Jon paused. Was he rambling? Nimeda continued to state at him as if she was drinking in every word. "You should be made aware there a a danger to this place. Here you can change what is with a thought. But while it doesn't change in the waking world, what happens to does. You can take wounds here that show upon you in the waking world. I am also pretty certain that you can even die here, having lost touch with your body in the waking world.

"Your first defense from such things is to ground yourself. Balance your surroundings by affiming your presence as you. Your own mind and sense of being will help you better control yourself here and -"

The room rocked. It seemed as If the whole place was threatening to dissolve! Nimeda appeared at the center of it all, her very self about to become a part of the nothingness that threatened to consume them both.

Jon flexed his mind to bring stability back and found his will pushed against by something imnensely strong.

"Nimeda!" Jon called out, buffeted by a force he had not encountered before in the Spirit World. "You must find something to ground your thoughts with, something real...before you kill us both!"


Edited by Jon Little Bird, Aug 9 2013, 01:22 AM.

[Thalia]

Nimeda retreated a little, to lean against one of the desks in order to listen more comfortably. He spoke of legacy, and she found that fascinating – even though she knew such methods of entrance could not work for her. When her presence here faded, the body and mind she returned to would remember nothing of its time here; just as she recalled little of it, bar those few moments when she woke. Not that it dampened her interest. Jon treated this place with a profound sanctity that stoked respect in her. And he did seem to care that, as he put it, she was lost.

He suggested that awakening here was a mix of gift and learning. She didn’t understand it the way Jon did; his knowledge surpassed hers like a mountaintop looms high over a riverbed, and though she did not feel completely ignorant she did not mind taking the role of pupil. The attention she gave him was studious; she soaked in his words diligently, even if the mark they left in her mind turned out to be fleeting. Ground yourself. She did not have labels and names and context. In this Spirit World she was utterly adrift, subject to whims far greater than she could really comprehend. But, she was not the unmoored boat rocking unsteady in turbulent tides. She was the river. He misunderstood that part. Understandable, really; she could barely comprehend it herself.

Shudder.

He broke off mid-flow. She did not know which of them caused the vortex, but when the room began to rock she believed in it whole-heartedly, even when it felt as though it might rip her apart. Are you believing me undone? Did he imagine the danger, or did she embrace too readily the depth of her roots here? Because the nothingness didn’t scare her. It was her, in a sense; a shade of her nature, at least. The end of old things, the beginning of new. She was the balm easing the passage of the Wheel, allowing it to press forward without regret. Or something like that; such grandiose thoughts sat awkwardly. Alien, even to her, and they always bled a little stupor into her thoughts, soothed her away from concepts beyond her consciousness.

She really did rock on the edges of forgetting herself; at least enough to calm the dissolution before it killed them both, because whichever of them had initiated it, she now controlled it. It wasn’t his fear that pierced her thoughts and coaxed her to action, nor fright of death, but the sudden if distant echo of… affinity? When he asked her to find something real, she took him quite literally; her hand reached out to wrap around his wrist, and the world about them quietened.

It was natural for her to imagine the studio now in disarray, as if racked by a storm, but solidity returned. Paint splotched her clothes and skin, but the fallen easels and destroyed canvases soon began to ease in and out of sight, ephemeral in the waking world as they were. Her expression now was solemn, though she had been calm throughout the whole ordeal. Whether that was because she had failed to grasp the danger or was simply a facet of her nature was unclear. Given everything, though, she was remarkably undisturbed.

“These others? You speak with them here also?” The question was blurted enthusiastically, despite how close they had just whipped past danger. Of everything, it was the one thing her mind hooked on. He’d been surprised to see her, but perhaps it was simply because she was a stranger. Was it possible to meet someone here? The idea appealed. Company made her feel more real; more tangible. Alone, this world was like a shifting backdrop, and with nothing to focus on and only instinct to guide her, she drifted through it aimlessly.

[Jon Little Bird]

Jon wondered if he was going to have to take drastic action to stop the disturbance. His attempts to impose his will upon the Spirit World ran up against such strong a wall he feared it would snap his very mind if he struggled further. This force-it must be coming from Nimeda, there was no other way he could rationalize what was happening. Either that or they were both caught in a wandering figment of a dream gone awry. That happened in this place from time to time, as Unseen demons created manifestations of horror. Those were usually easy to dispel though, by focusing the mind on what was real and not allowing oneself to be drawn in. This was much stronger.

All this flashed through his mind in mere heartbeats. He had to do something. He reached out with his third eye and took control of the force of Great Spirit. His senses sharpened, the sensation of dissolving reality pushed him to the edge of panic to the point he wasn't sure anymore whether he was trying to stop the chaos or contributing to it - or perhaps creating it. He felt for the threads and hoped he wouldn't have to hurt Nimeda much to stop it all.

The cool touch of a soft hand on his wrist.

In Jon's state of heightened awareness while in contact with the Great Spirit, the simple contact felt as vivid and severe that it suddenly seemed the only thing still solid, as if Nimeda's hand and his wrist were one entity.

This shocked Jon so much he released his connection. Suddenly he realized stability had returned to the Spirit World. He blinked in surprise. Had he been the one who had imagined the whole thing? He barely heard Nimeda's question - That energetic inquisitiveness, as if nothing had passed in the moments before. Had there been anything that happened? His struggle of wills - it must have been her!- had left his mind feeling strained and full of holes in his memory. But no, the evidence remained in splattered paint on their clothes and destroyed furniture, as well as her hand still grasping his wrist.

Well, then. If Nimeda had been the cause, she must have also stopped it. Surely there was no malevolence intended, then. Just a being walking awake in the Spirit World with no idea of what she was truly capable of.


"You must not-" he started, and stopped himself. Shame overtook him momentarily, gripping his heart. He had seriously considered harming this surely innocent woman, had almost done so...And it probably had been his fault in the first place. What if his ignorance of how she would take his instruction would lead to further dangers? Nimeda gave him a puzzled look, but he shook his head.

"Never mind," he continued, burying his emotions. "Yes, there are others. Some of my people, those who share the blood of the Native American people, have the ability to walk here, and it is possible to meet them and speak with them. You are the first I have met not of our people in this place. Until I met you, I thought that walking this Place awake was a thing only my people knew."

Perhaps another walker of the Spirit World, one he trusted, would have a better idea of What to make of Nimeda. He offered a small smile to her.

"Would you like to meet one of them?"


Edited by Jon Little Bird, Aug 12 2013, 04:31 AM.