My girl was very good at sneaking about, although I think she was still drugged or whatever was wrong with her last time. Occasionally she would stop and develop a lost and confused expression, and once was nearly caught during an unfocused moment. When she wasn't confused she seemed upset and frustrated and angry, again reminding me so much of Ys' fulminating determination.
I didn't see the outside of the building she was working her way through, but it seemed to have an awful lot of rooms, and three or four levels. It wasn't until she reached the central chamber that I realised we were in some kind of pyramid. The walls stepped upward in tiers to a small square ceiling which was glowing with a greeny-gold light, picking out glints which might be symbols in a big black...dome tent made of stone. That's the best I can describe it – the shape of a big black cloth which had been pinned to the ground at the corners and then blown upward so that it formed a stone bubble, the unpinned sections curving higher to provide four entrances. It was hard to see what was underneath it – just dark and glints of the greeny-gold light, giving the space an aquatic gloom.
There were guards in the room, and the girl was watching from the uncertain shelter of one of the corridors leading into it. She grew very keyed up and nervous as she watched and waited, and shrank back at the first sign of movement under the stone tent. And then they came out. Eight foot tall, dressed in simple robes, blindingly beautiful. These weren't fit, good-looking people like the Setari; they had an extreme physical perfection which makes me think Michelangelo, or Photoshop. Beyond flawless, honed to an eye-flinching glory which declared their importance, like they had their own personal lens flare.
The Photoshop Gods made me feel small in a way which had nothing to do with height. They just were...powerful. Power-filled. Maze might have called Inisar 'beyond formidable', but Inisar has never made me feel like he could effortlessly squish me like a bug – even if that's true. I swear the air vibrated as they walked past.
All the stern guards either bowed their head sharply, or turned to follow the Photoshop Gods, and that was the girl's chance. She dashed silently forward toward the dome, except the closer she got the slower she moved, like she was trying to walk under water. She made it, though, staggering through into the shadowy light to a place which was full of sarcophagi standing tilted upright like at Arenrhon, except without lids or little nameplates. The sarcophagi were arranged in a circle around a central pillar, and one still had a Photoshop God in it, a man laying all limp and motionless, his golden skin looking weird and waxy in the odd light, and his lens flare turned off.
And there was noise, a low whispering which instantly brought me back to my dream of being trapped.
The girl was heading toward one of the empty sarcophagi, her face all screwed up from effort. But she hadn't gone unnoticed, and one of the guards was already racing toward her, and her spear flashed forward, and my vain attempt to stop it woke me up.
I think – I'm not sure, but I think the spear went through the girl, not in a blood and piercing way, but in a one-of-these-things-isn't-tangible kind of way.
I was still very upset, of course, and though I tried to be all analytical and detached describing it to Kaoren, I ended up bursting into tears and crying all over him. Again it was really hard to explain why I was so upset, beyond that she reminded me of Ys and I felt sorry for her.
"Don't discount the strength of your reaction," Kaoren said. "Whether this just happened, or is the past, or on some level a fiction, it gives us new possibilities to follow."
"Do you think that she might have been a ghost – an Ionoth like my Ghost – or is there any super-rare talent for being insubstantial?"
"You said she kicked a ball in the earlier dream."
"That wouldn't necessarily make her not a ghost. Ghosts are supposed to be able to focus their energy to move things. And that would explain all those kids being afraid of her."
I hope some sense can be made of it all, and soon. No progress during today's test in the Ena, where they decided to let me try and project the last room of my dream, and all I succeeded in doing was straining myself to the point that I started shaking and spent the rest of the day having muscle tremors. They still haven't quite gone away.
I slept in medical, so of course can't sleep now, but at least I can watch Kaoren sleep. I'm working on him getting more rest, and spent a big portion of the evening distracting him with what I'd written about my trip to Earth, and extended hand-holding. He doesn't even remember calling me a stray, and said he was consumed by the discovery of the Pillar, and simply relieved I did exactly as he told me. I had to laugh at him for that. And I've found that if he starts having a nightmare while I'm awake, that if I think about something peaceful which made me happy, and kind of push it out to him, he settles down and sleeps more deeply. The power of positive thinking.
October
Wednesday, October 1
Respite
No dreams last night, which meant I spent the day trying not to fret about my dream girl. Fortunately Mara was in the mood to work me hard, which helped me not stress too much about it. My tremors are almost gone, but they decided not to do any testing today, so it was a full day of training.
Fortunately me sleeping through means Kaoren had another good night, and the shadows are gone from under his eyes. At the end of the day First and Fourth had a joint dinner in the canteen, and amused themselves interrogating the kids about what they've been doing at the Setari school. Rye's so cute, drawn irresistibly out of his shell, and really wanting to not make a fool of himself among all these people who think he's worth spending time on. Ys seems resigned to the attention, and is working to hide how much she hates the two people she cares about most letting more and more people into their lives. She reminded me so much of my dream girl that I couldn't resist reaching out and rubbing her shoulder just for a moment. I can't make her be happy, but I can do my best to be sure she's comfortable and not pushed beyond her limits.
They haven't decided what I'm doing tomorrow. Still debating risking returning me to Muina, but currently the no vote is winning.
Thursday, October 2
Big Sister
When I'm curled up in bed drifting off to sleep I spend at least a few minutes noticing the people around me – it's like noticing the noises around you more when you're trying to sleep. And especially when I'm asleep and not dreaming I often am at least partially aware of people moving around me, so I usually know if Sen has climbed into bed with Ys, and when Kaoren moves about. Of course, if my attention is caught up in something I can be completely oblivious to
everything
going on, which Kaoren wants me to make an effort to overcome. I'm getting a little better about it, I think.
Anyway, so long as I'm living in close quarters with people I'm always going to know who is sleeping with whom – certainly everyone within 'comfortable range' distance which at the moment seems to mean all of First, Second, Third and Fourth, and a bit of Fifth and Sixth as well (I'm kind of glad I can't reach Kajal's room without deliberately trying). I can't actually tell what anyone's doing, just where they are, but if there's two people in a bedroom all night it kind of becomes obvious. Alay often sleeps with one of the device technicians, and Ketzaren spends most of her nights with Jeh (I feel so thick for not realising they're a couple). Maze and Zee don't sleep with anyone so far as I can see and, for all his reputation, neither does Nils. Well, unless you count Ghost, who divides her favours between him, me and Rye. Though I guess Nils' reputation isn't about sleeping.
I'm less aware of Third and Fourth's relationships, but still am awkwardly conscious of knowing more about a few of them than I expect they'd be comfortable with. The thing that surprised me today, though, was Inisar and Taarel. Not sleeping together, but just I've noticed them together a handful of times over the last few days.
Inisar's been kicking his heels while my projections fail, so I suppose it's possible Taarel's been assigned to be his native guide – or pump him for information. But they make an interesting pair – she's so kingly and he has such presence. Though since Taarel thought she wasn't a match with Kaoren because they both like being in charge, maybe Inisar's someone she wouldn't consider.
I've been in a very in-love-with-Kaoren mood all day, because when I woke up this morning he just had this look of contentment in his eyes. Being with me makes him happy. Spending an hour with him in the shower in the morning makes Ys give us scornful looks all through breakfast.
I didn't dream of my ghost-girl again last night (which is probably at least part of the reason I'm burying myself in adoration of Kaoren), but on the up side Maze suggested that I try projecting my dreams of her as if it was a movie, and that worked in a patchy, disjointed way because it took a lot of what felt like mental gymnastics. Still, I was able to show them what the outside of the city looked like, and the guards, and that central room of the pyramid. The three Sight Sight observers (Kaoren, Tsur Selkie and Inisar) were extra-serious while examining the inside of the weird stone tent bubble with the one limp Photoshop God slumped in the upright sarcophagus.
They think it's a door. Or a lock, like the metal boxes the Tarens put around gates. Or something. After that Tsur Selkie had me try to reproduce every view of the city's outside that I could, particularly from when I was up on that roof, and they're doing some topographic analysis of the land contours to see if they can figure out where all this happened.
I started getting muscle tremors again, not really severe ones, but that's the last of the experiments for me for a while. A bunch of days of training and medical tests instead, while they try to analyse the jumble of images I'd produced.
Friday, October 3
Close Calls
Siame visited for dinner again. She seems to be swapping through approaches with these visits, first ignoring me, then interrogating me, and now making very polite conversation but looking completely bored. The most she achieved with that was annoying both Kaoren and Ys (who probably thinks she has dibs on being rude to me), and prompting Sen to offer her one of her dolls and then Ghost for cuddling. But Ghost doesn't currently approve of Siame and went off to haunt Nils instead.
Rye was either oblivious to undercurrents, or determined to pretend not to notice and distract us with the latest news from Muina. A handful of the breakaway group of Nurans had returned to Pandora carrying one boy with a broken leg. Who'd had a broken leg for a couple of days. The leaders of the breakaway group had refused to allow anyone to call to Pandora for help, and since they had no skilled medics with them, the poor guy spent a short eternity in agony until finally his closest friends 'rescued' him and tried to carry him all the way back to Pandora. I'm not exactly sure what the settlement's Nuran Setari observer was doing during all this, but I expect he's the reason a group of greensuits in a flier happened across them almost straight away and gave them a lift. Details are sparse, but KOTIS did make a short statement that those who had returned had chosen to stay.
Inisar went back this morning, before the news broke, and more news arrived after the kids had gone to bed that about two-thirds of the group had upped and followed the injured boy's group and started marching back to Pandora. Some more fliers were sent out to pick them up. There's a little under thirty Nurans left at 'Nurenor', which is what they apparently have named their little settlement. The news stories showed some aerial shots of Nurenor, which looked muddy and muddled and dispiriting. I was most interested in the number of hairy sheep that they'd managed to pen up. There's more hairy sheep in that region of Muina than any other animal, I swear. Apparently being butted by one of the rams was how the injured boy's leg was broken.
A reminder to me of how lucky I am.
Saturday, October 4
Two Feet
Still no dream of my ghost-girl. Odds are I was dreaming the last days of her life up until she died.
Kaoren could see I was down, but worked with my mood rather than trying to change it. I wish I could be as perceptive about him in return. I didn't even realise he'd been injured in training until I saw this huge black bruise on his back. The padding covering one of those swinging booms in the Sight training course had come loose when he jumped on it, and that had delayed his jump long enough for another boom to hit him in the back. He said minor injuries were to be expected, and shrugged it off.
Since his Sights make it almost impossible for me to hide that not knowing dismayed me, I just accepted that he would know that I was feeling bad about not even realising, and distracted myself giving him foot rubs while reading him another installation of my diary. I made it all the way up to Unara Rotation, and then he fell asleep and I could let myself freak out.
That boom could just as easily have hit him in the head.
Sunday, October 5
Bruised
Kaoren's shoulder was so stiff and sore this morning, he took himself off to medical. Nothing's broken, just unhappy muscles, and the medicking has helping it along tremendously. By the time he was feeling better, I was stiff and sore and bruised instead, as Mara continues to push my training (including, sadly, dodging and learning how to fall down in clever ways). I am quite fit now, but not a fan of throwing myself on the ground.
Sen had a marvellous time investigating our injuries and playing doctor by applying the green goop the medics give for bruises. We finished our current book at bedtime, and I told Ys it was her turn to pick the next story, and she told me straight away. I think she's been looking forward to it, and for a minute I had to blink at how pleased I was and how much I want her to accept me. In return I asked her if she'd take Sen through her sleep visualisation exercise, and I think that pleased Ys a lot. One thing I can't let myself forget is that Ys and Rye raised Sen, and it upsets them immensely to be in any way sidelined from her life. Ys had obviously paid a great deal of attention to the exercises, and was very calm and measured taking Sen through her favourite.