#aggheldene

[nightmule]

I was part of a group of people who did some sort of physical feat. I don't fully remember what it was, just that it was long/had multiple stages, was very taxing, and what happened at the end. It wasn't exactly a competition, more like a challenge or task. About 10 people, give or take a few (you know how inconsistent numbers are in dreams) finished whatever the feat was and were gathered in a field next to a forest for our picture to be taken. This was not our modern time where a photograph means nothing, this was a big deal and the image I had in my head of what our picture would look like was a slightly washed out, sepia tones affair. I was ravenously hungry and eating a fruit that I mentally referred to as an apple but knew even in the dream looked more like a bloody hunk of flesh and tasted sweeter than an apple I've ever tasted. The texture or the fruit was like an over ripe peach and the way I ate it was... obscene, for lack of a better word, dangling the fruit by just it's stem and slurping off pieces of the soft flesh without caring how much the bloody red juice stained me. In fact, I reveled in the stains and refused to put the fruit down or clean my face for the picture. There was something animalistic about my enjoyment of the fruit that seemed to compound itself. As I ate I became more aware of the sharpness of my teeth and it seemed to ignite a possessive feeling over the man next to me. I settled for putting my arm around him but what I wanted was to claim him, to leave a permanent imprint with my bloodstained hands.

Then The Bishop came to congratulate us on our achievements. He revealed that he had commissioned a page of an illuminated manuscript to commemorate what we'd done. Like with the photo I got the sense that having my name down in writing this way was a big deal and went closer to look at it. My name in the dream was Aggheldene and the man next to me who I kept taunting with my fruit was Shenkel. We were linked in some way, partners. He may have even been my husband. I pointed to our names side by side on the page and kissed him messily on the cheek, staining him with the red fruit juice and feeling overcome by my immense fondness for him.

Next thing I knew I was trying to find my way to New York from somewhere on the Mediterranean (perhaps near Tripoli? The maps looked essentially like real maps but the names people used for places were nonsensical and inconsistent). This may link back to my dream earlier in the night where my family went to aide with some natural disaster relief effort then there was a supernatural storm and the lighting kept catching all the houses and cars on fire so I drove further and further out into the desert to try to escape the flames, but as I was driving my car kept getting older until it looked like a car from the 1920s. I don't know where that was supposed to take place either.

Anyway, I somehow end up not only chartering but captaining a large pirate ship. There are a few other people aboard, notably my mother and an unidentified woman about my age. I steer the ship not with the wheel but by pulling two ropes and two joystick like posts in various combinations of directions. There's a very disorienting view down off the front of the ship at the waves that makes me feel like we're falling as we crest each one, but I adapt and we are soon in the shallower waters of the next land mass.

Here there are large trees that arc across narrow inlets creating tunnels that my ship barely fits through, and wide ramshackle bridges we must pass under to find a place to dock. My mother gets off in this port and does not join me for the rest of the trip.

We reach the next port quickly, following along the shore. Here the UYW (unidentified young woman) and I leave the ship to gather information. She "reminds" me that we must find some artifact that The Bishop wants before anyone else can. It's unclear to me whether we're finding it on behalf of The Bishop or trying to keep it from him. This port is a labyrinth of narrow hallwayed buildings and courtyards filled with weather bleached wooden shacks. The cold wind and gray light lead me to believe we are now in Northern Europe. At this point I also realize that my clothes have changed at some point from the "split skirt" and pale vaguely Edwardian blouse I was wearing for the photo to something more stereotypically pirate-like. Tall boots with a pointed toe, something like a frock coat in a leathery material, I'm not sure what else. UYW and I sneak along a corridor with little rooms separated by curtains. I draw one back and see a collection of powerful items on a table. UYW tells me not to touch them, but I don't listen and take a slim Rowan branch out from under a scrap of cloth.

I find a door that leads outside thinking I can leave without anyone noticing, but there's a man out there. He's middle aged with long faded brown hair and a scraggly beard, a tricorn hat and very roughly made simple clothes. Although I've slipped the Rowan branch into my sleeve before opening the door he immediately knows I've taken something somehow. He comes toward me but stops several feet away and instead of attacking me physically he scratches something into the soft wood of the wall with a disgustingly hooked yellow fingernail then dashes away. I try to follow, thinking the Rowan will protect me from whatever magic he's tried to do, but as a pass the rune a sort of shockwave emanates from it and nearly knocks me down. I run after him brandishing the Rowan since somehow I have no other weapon. He carves something into another wall and points at me laughing as the Rowan starts to glow and gets hot as an ember. I drop it and suddenly the walls are all in ruins, crumbling with age and already charred from a fire that never was. I can feel my mind grasping at pieces of this reality: my ship, Shenkel, the fruit. But I am waking and it all crumbles like the wooden courtyard around me has.