61. You Are Real

Over the last few nights, I’ve gotten more accustomed to [Lucid Dream]. It’s a dangerous skill, I think—one that you could easily get caught up in, discarding the waking world entirely in favor of an endless, vivid fantasy. I’m ashamed to admit that it was how I intended to use it myself, at first. Yet, for all that I appreciate her company, I see River as something of a cautionary example.

This night, like every other, I find her sitting in the sanctuary garden, gazing listlessly up at the empty sky.

“See anything interesting up there?” I ask, more to make her aware of my presence than anything. River doesn’t usually acknowledge simple greetings.

“No,” she replies airily.

...

Right. I should have expected that. She’s not actually that difficult to speak to—just to understand.

“Don’t you get bored?” I try instead.

She lowers her head to meet my eyes with her own half-lidded gaze. “Sometimes. Not since you started visiting, though.”

“But what about when I’m not here?” I press.

“Then I’m not here either,” she replies. “I usually sleep while the others are awake. Maybe if you decided not to dream? I’m not sure whether I would wake up or not, then. I don’t always.”

River is remarkably candid about her own transient nature. What I used to think of as an endless nightmare is not only her standard mode of being, but also her preferred one.

“I’m going to go exploring some more,” I inform her. “Will you join me?”

“Certainly.”

She drifts weightlessly to her feet, hovering inches off the ground and meandering after me as I make my way to a set of double-doors set into one of the sanctuary walls.

This garden has become a sort of “home” for my dreams—a safe and familiar starting point that I can always retreat to. “Exploring” might be a misnomer for what I’m doing, but it’s the word that fits. When I open the doors, I’m not sure where they will lead or what I will find there, but they represent a way back.

As I open them, I’m met with the uneven cobblestone bricks of the candle labyrinth.

“This again?” I complain. “Why?”

“These bricks and candles are part of us now—an image burned into the screen of our mind,” River muses. “We never quite left it behind us.”

I suppose not, but I wish I didn’t have to traverse it every time. I’ve been refining my abilities over the last few nights—trying my hand at conjuring up little trinkets or places to explore, or trying to levitate the way River does. It’s a lot harder than she makes it look, and I prefer the feel of my hooves on solid ground anyway.

At first I thought about practicing my reading, but getting anything legible inside of the dream is a challenge. I tend to end up with a vague image of Allison’s notes and lessons, rather than the actual articles. I tried playing Vi’s game with River, but I struggled to remember all the rules, and River tends to make nonsense plays or add new rules that she finds interesting, which doesn’t help. So mostly, I’ve been sticking to “exploring.”

The labyrinth appears often, but it’s only a gateway. I’ve managed to navigate to dream representations of the Goa estate, Lady Talla’s clinic, and the main chapel of the Grand Cathedral—but there’s a trick to finding truly interesting things in this dream world.

“River, we always meet in my sanctuary, but do you have your own home?”

She cocks her head in thought. “We struggle to remember anything about our previous world.”

“No, I know that—but I didn’t mean you as in Maev, I meant you,” I explain. “Do you have a sanctuary of your own?”

Rather than answer, she leads me around a corner, where the cobblestone seamlessly transitions into smooth, white walls forming a narrow corridor that terminates in a solid wooden door with simple decorative reliefs carved into it.

River doesn’t open the door—instead waiting for me to let myself in. Inside is a room like nothing I’ve ever seen. The floor is made of long wooden panels, fitted together in an offset pattern, while the walls are the same unidentifiable smooth material as before, now painted light pink. The ceiling is still white, with a round light fitted into the center, illuminating the room in a soft white glow—like a much brighter mana stone. Across from the entrance, the wall is dominated by a huge window covered by some sort of flexible shutters.

The left wall is dominated by a bookshelf that runs nearly the entire length of the room. The shelves are filled with a colorful array of books, writing supplies, oddly shaped statues that seem to be purely decorative and...Violet’s cube? A much more colorful version of it—several of them, in fact, all different sizes.

Along the far wall, beneath the window and nestled into the corner against the bookshelf, is a bed with huge fluffy pillows and slightly crumpled pink and white sheets. Next to the bed is a small end table with what might be a lamp of some kind perched atop it and a single drawer on the bottom.

The right side of the room is the most incomprehensible of all. An odd piece of furniture that can’t seem to decide whether it’s meant to be a dresser, a table, or a shelf sits against the wall, with a weirdly shaped chair perched on a set of small wheels in front of it. Its surface is an absolute mess of things—most of which I don’t recognize. What little I do recognize I don’t really understand. A small clay pot with a tiny tree growing out of it, more books and writing supplies, another lamp, and a mirror are the most recognizable elements.

“River, what is that table, and why does it look like it’s trying to do everything at once?”

“Hm? Our desk?” she asks. “It sort of is, I guess. Give it enough time, and the coffee table in our current room will look just like it. Well, minus the laptop.”

“The...what?”

I understood the word, via our strange linguistic link, but the concept it attempted to communicate is so utterly alien to my mind that my only takeaway is that it’s a portable version of an otherwise stationary tool.

River drifts over to the desk and gestures to a glossy slab that I’d written off as another decoration, before folding it open to reveal a blank glass window and a grid of tiny tiles painted with the symbols of Maev’s language, among others that I don’t understand.

“Anyway, this is our room,” River goes on, apparently satisfied with her explanation. “I was glad when Allie dreamt it up again. It was a little blank at first, but I’ve been filling in the details.”

“This is...a place from your world?” I ask. “Your former dwelling?”

“It probably didn’t look exactly like this,” she clarifies. “But something like it. There should probably be a closet or an actual dresser somewhere, but I couldn’t remember where to put them and it’s already a little cramped.”

The space in the room certainly is...occupied. Even the walls are adorned with colorful decorations—maybe paintings, though when I try to examine them they just look like indistinct blobs.

“All these books and writing supplies,” I wonder. “You truly are scholars.”

“Students,” she corrects me. “Well, student. The way we shared our life before was...different from how it is now. A little.”

I do recall some of the arguments they had amongst themselves. Much of it went over my head at the time, and I wasn’t particularly invested in listening, but I know that was a point of contention for them.

“And this is the place you come back to, when you dream? Like my garden?”

“Not always. But it’s safe. Comfortable.”

She drifts over to the bed and sinks into it face first, hugging one of the oversized pillows to her face. With nothing else to do, I try looking around. Most of the things I find make no sense, like a thin metal coil with several oddly shaped bits of metal dangling from it—keys, maybe? They seem a bit small and I can’t think of a reason for them to have so many. The books are illegible, not that I’d be able to read their language anyway. Vi’s puzzle cubes are all solved, and if I try to adjust them, they correct themselves as soon as I look away. There’s something oddly intimidating about the “laptop” so I avoid it for now, instead pulling open the drawer of the end table to take a curious peek inside.

I’m met with several different pairs of spectacles in different colors and styles and a small, loosely bound book that feels...heavier, for lack of a better word. More real than the things around it.

“I wouldn’t touch that if I were you,” River’s muffled voice calls through the pillow. She lifts her head enough to peer up at me. “They’ll know if you do. Even here.”

That’s strangely ominous, but I notice that she isn’t stopping me. In fact, she’s now more focused than I’ve ever seen her before. Waiting in anticipation of...something.

I look back down at the booklet in my hands—when did I pick it up? Its cover is decorated with stylized drawings of flowers and the word “DIARY” written in block letters. Not only is the word legible, but I understand it without knowing the language.

“Oh...” I mutter, now starting to grasp the gravity of what I hold. “Why are you even giving me the option of looking at this?”

River—no, Reverie cocks her head, fixing me with an unblinking stare that grows increasingly unsettling with every passing moment.

“It’s yours too,” she says quietly. “We’re all in here together, but we don’t share everything. For better or worse.”

I’m not sure whether the weight of her gaze or the book in my hand is heavier—both feel like they’re trying to crush me.

“And this...?”

“Private,” she replies simply. “By definition. Not meant to be shared. If you read it, it will read you back. They’ll know.”

I think I understand what she means. It’s not a literal journal—it’s what the idea of a private diary implies. Private thoughts and ideas. Secrets, kept from each other or even ourselves. I should not open this. Doing so would be an unspeakable violation—and likely a mutual one. And yet, the way Reverie still stares at me...

“You were expecting this, weren’t you?” I ask quietly. “You wanted to lead me here. I thought it was a bit too easy to prod you into it.”

She doesn’t reply, just staring expectantly. I sigh and shake my head.

“I should have known better than to underestimate any aspect of you, Maev. You are all dangerous, in your ways.”

She nods once. “Mhm.”

“Why?” I ask, resigned.

“I like you,” she says. “But you don’t understand. None of us do. Maybe we should.”

“Is it going to hurt?”

“Only as much as it hurts to be seen.”

That’s the furthest thing from comforting she’s ever said. But before I can talk myself out of it, I open the book and look down at its pages, bracing myself.

Nothing happens. Despite all the fanfare, it’s still just a book. Words on a page. And then I start reading.

It’s not fair! I want to go home. I can’t drink, I haven’t gotten laid in months, won’t be able to for like a year, and I have to keep apologizing for everything you fricking jerks keep doing with my body! I never asked for this! I hate all of you!

I’m useless. Worse than useless. All I want to do is keep us safe, but I don’t know how. My idiotic fumbling is going to get us killed eventually. I’m a danger to myself and others. I’d be better off dead. I’d do it if I could find a way not to take the others with me. Too much of a risk. I’m sorry.

“Wait—” I sob, my heart clenching harder with every word.

“It’s too late to stop now,” Reverie says, placing her hands over mine and turning the page. “Read.”

Get out of my fucking head, you bitch! I know what you’re doing! I won’t let you—I won’t...oh, fuck it. You win. I’m a fuckup, okay? Is that what you want to hear? I’m a selfish bitch that would throw every single one of you under the bus in an instant if it served me. I hate myself as much as the rest of us. I know nobody likes me. I’m unlikeable. I pretend to hate everybody else because it’s easier that way. It makes it hurt less when they hate me back. I hope you’re happy. I just want us to be happy.

“I can’t do this!” I cry. “This was a mistake!”

“There’s more,” Reverie says, her voice gentle and soft and unspeakably painful. She offers me neither cruelty nor mercy—only the unwavering turn of the page.

I’m not real.

No! NO NO NO!

I died two hundred years ago and I never came back. E’ava’al’n is with the Goddess. She never abandoned me—because I was never Hers. My access to her skills was a mistake. An error. I’m nothing but a fleeting memory, plucked from infinite possibilities by either dark magic or cosmic coincidence. I have no purpose here. I’m nothing but a fragment of a deranged mind. I’m nothing. I’m nothing. I’m nothing.

I don’t have any fight left in me. Tears stream down my face, soaking my fur and doing nothing to keep me from reading as I mechanically turn to the final page.

I’m sorry. You are real. We are all real. These thoughts are real—but that does not make them true. I didn’t want to hurt you, but I couldn’t let you hurt us either. We are not our weakest moments, nor our darkest thoughts. They remain part of us—but only part. Keep reading.

There are no more pages left, but when I flip the page, the journal continues from the beginning.

Oh my gosh, Evie’s crush on Draga is so cute! He’s not a bad catch, either. I’d love to make that work out somehow. But there’s also Maggie’s thing with Talla—I don’t think she’s against it, but she’s playing it close to her chest. Dang noble obligations make things tricky. Vi and Anna? Does she like Draga too? She’s always hard to read, but whatever she wants, I’ll be here to support her. I hope I can find a way to make everyone happy.

What about herself? It’s such a dramatic change from the venomous resentment of the previous entry. Yet both are just as real as the other, locked in conflict as she tries to resolve that paradox.

This is all so terrifying, but I have to be strong. I can do this, and if I can’t, then I can learn. I’m just glad I don’t have to do it alone. Thank you all so much. I love you.

She pushes herself so hard. Why can’t she spare some of that love for herself? She can’t care for us all without also caring for herself.

Oh, we’re still going? Ugh. I’m no good at this sappy shit. I just—I want us to be who we are. Completely, and without compromise. It doesn’t matter if you’re a ghost, a memory, or the literal transplanted soul of a long-dead priestess snatched straight out of your precious Goddess’ embrace. You are real. You are E’ava’al’n. You are you. And nothing in this world or any other can take that away.

And what about you, self-proclaimed witch of chaos? Why, even in your deepest and most private thoughts, do you refuse to allow yourself more than the most superficial identity? If I am me, then why can’t you be you?

“That’s all we have,” Reverie whispers. “All we are, for now.”

I realize that the book is gone, as is the room. We’re back in the garden sanctuary, with River kneeling in her usual spot, picking idly at the grass. I wipe my eyes.

“What about us?” I murmur. “You and I didn’t have entries in the second chapter.”

“You haven’t written yours yet,” she replies without meeting my eyes. “And as for me...I haven’t hidden anything but what you chose not to see.”

“I suppose not. What’s going to happen when we wake up?”

“There’s only one way to find out,” she muses. “But I think you’ll probably level up.”

I awake to the sound of my own laughter, and tears rolling down my cheeks.

[Level up!]

Incandescent Souls has grown from level 5 to 6.

+3 Power.

+3 Resilience.

+3 Awareness.

+3 Ego.

Lucid Dreamer has grown from level 0 to 3.

+6 Ego.

+6 Will.

Instigator has grown from level 0 to 5.

+5 Ego (Reverie).

“Uh...Evie?” Allie squeaks. “I...think we need to talk.”

“Yeah,” I sigh. “We do.”