autumnalwalker

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Offending A Bird

I am standing on the edge of a cliff, overlooking a wide, jungle-filled canyon.  Pressed up against the far canyon wall is a shimmering tower of shadows; a demonic gate from which a horde of winged beasts are spilling out.  I launch myself from the cliff, meeting them aloft and rending them in twain with conjured crescent waves of white.  It is a technique I copied from one of their own and, while I cannot hold such imitation spells for long, for now it is fresh in my mind and stronger than any other power I have ever wielded.

I break through the demonic flock and with one final effort I conjure my greatest wave of energy yet bifurcating the shadow geyser of a tower.  The structure evaporates into black mist as it falls, and so too do all who passed through its gate into this world.

I do not realize it at the time, but demons harbor especial grudges against those who steal and copy their secrets.

Later, a crow whom I have offended flies into the window of the home of whom has recently died.  The crow wets its feet in the cooling puddle of blood and attempts to use this crimson ink to write up a demonic contract on a stretched out roll of toilet paper.  A comedic scene ensues in which the disembodied voice of a demon repeatedly refuses to acknowledge the crow's calligraphically arranged bloody footprints as legitimate writing for a valid contract while the increasingly offended crow keeps writing more and more while persisting in its negotiation attempts.  The demon will not accept an offered soul or name if it cannot even read the contract, no matter what creature's blood said bargain is written in, but when the demon realizes that it is me the crow wants revenge against merely telling it my location becomes payment enough.

The crow does not exactly know where I am at the moment, but it can narrow the location down to the correct city.  This is enough for the demon.

Later still, I am walking down a city street with a friend when we are approached by a crowd of what I initially mistake for zombies.  They are in fact living people, hollowed out with wills given over to a single mind and pushed far past the point of exhaustion that they can no longer feel.  The mind behind them explains as much, assuming direct control over the person at the front of the pack.  The tired, hollow-cheeked face twisting from a blank expression into an arrogant smirk is an unsettling sight.  A vampire, powerful enough to not fear the sun is there as well and it soon becomes clear on whose behalf they are here and for what purpose.

My friend and I flee into a maze of flea market stalls, quickly losing our pursuers but keenly aware of how little time we have until they catch up.  Knowing that we are about to be running and hiding for a long time, my friend and I try to grab what supplies and disguises we can; paying at first, but then simply grabbing and stealing as we argue one another into a greater sense of urgency.  We are debating whether broad-brimmed witch hats, or even tophats, are too obvious a clue to our identities when our pursuers find us once more.

We run out into an alley, then leap from ground to wall to rooftop.  Below us we are becoming surrounded and across the alleyway instead of another rooftop is an upward sloping green hill.  The vampire is charging down that hill towards us and I vault across the gap at the same time he does.

That great white crescent of magic has nearly faded from my mind, but the last scant remnant of its power is enough to send one vampire crashing to the ground, stunned.

My friend joins me on the hill and we keep running.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Unexpected Tails

In 2020, over ninety percent of the human population spontaneously grew hairless tails approximately the length of their legs.  In 2025 people's tails began falling off.  New tails were regrown in almost all cases but the new tails were all shorter.  The cause of this phenomenon remains unknown, but it is estimated that humanity will be tailless again by 2053, much to many people's displeasure.

Official health recommendations are to dispose of lost tails as biohazardous waste, but many people, myself included, prefer to preserve their first tails as keepsakes and mementos.  Dried out for preservation versus cleaned down to the bone and restrung on wires or string is a common topic of debate.  Putting the preserved tails on display versus incorporating into clothing and accessories is a related debate, with the skeletonizing crowd tending to favor the latter.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About A Celebration Of Rain

I am in a large city that I have visited before but is not my home.  It is frankly too large, too crowded for my tastes.  I am here traveling with family, but they are all otherwise occupied at the moment so I have a day to myself.  I browse an animated flyer of shows and attractions in the area and one in particular catches my eye.

It is a venue with two shows, two experiences advertised.  In both, a key part of the experience is a constant indoor rain.  It is usually a light rain, but it varies in intensity to match the moment-to-moment drama and when there are true thunderstorms outside as there are today they do something special in the thunder's honor.

The first experience on offer is a walk through an enchanted garden where mannequins and puppets of fantastical creatures dance in fountains and flit through the winding, puddle-filled hedges and henges.  The second, more dramatic show is a sort of amphibious lion dance where costumed performers constantly dip in and out of a broad pond that surrounds the audience.

A lover of the rain, I decide that this is something truly magical that I must see for myself.  There is a thunderstorm this evening.

I navigate streets of concrete and steel to find the venue and head inside.  In the entry vestibule where one waits in line to purchase tickets it is dry, but the sounds of the rain outside mixes with the sound of rain further in.

As I wait in line I strike up a conversation with the woman in line next to me.  Or perhaps it is she who approached me and got me talking more than I normally would with a stranger.  We hit it off and she tells me that she is actually one of the performers in these shows.  She is taking a few days off but she's realized that she never gets to see these shows she's put so much work into from the audience's perspective.  We move through the line in a blur and at some point I realize that we've walked right past the ticket booth without making a purchase.  

The woman tells me that there is a third show the group puts on; a larger, more elaborate, more sensual one with audience participation that goes on all night and into the small hours of the morning.  This third show is not advertised and is only booked by request for weddings and other special occasions but those who know to ask may still get a ticket to crash the event without an invitation, so long as they do not become a disruption.  She hands me a purple ticket and tells me that there is one such show tonight.

I come back in the evening, wearing my ticket on a silver chain like a dog tag.  I am led to a chamber hall that seems too large for the building.  Dozens of people sit at a grand U-shaped table at the edge of a pool so large that the indoor rain makes it difficult to see the far side.  Thunder rumbles in sync with the storm outside.  The guests' attire ranges from formalwear (some water-resistant, some utterly soaked) to swimwear that gives only the smallest nod towards the idea of modesty.  I spot the woman I spoke to earlier and take a seat next to her.  It is one of the few empty seats still available and it is the second from the end of one of the table's arm's, right next to the water's edge.

One of the performers emerges from the pool into the ankle-deep water that fills the interior of the table's U to welcome us, congratulate the couple to be married this night, and to issue a warning that those who are disruptive or do not get into the spirit of things will be thrown out unless they take a chance to redeem themselves by joining in the show to the players' satisfaction.

Opening remarks complete, the show begins with a rumble of thunder and shapes moving beneath the water.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About A Cat Colony

I am watching a documentary filmed by a woman with a terminal illness.  The documentary is about a colony of feral housecats in a certain forest.  These cats have learned to hunt in large packs, swarming together to bring down prey many times their own size, including humans.  They will not, however, attack humans that are seriously ill, instead treating them with attitudes ranging from indifference to curiosity.  They do not fear what they now see as a prey species.

The woman filming the documentary finds an old mansion in the middle of the woods, seemingly abandoned.  There are no cats within the mansion itself, but around the back where the hill the mansion was built atop has eroded, there is a hole beneath the foundation, just large enough for an adult human to squeeze through.  This hole leads to what may be an extensive cavern network, but the woman does not go very far in.  The ceilings are still low enough that she needs to crawl and she is not equipped for such an expedition.  The entire time, she is surrounded by what must be hundreds of cats.

For the first time since this cat colony has been known to humans, the woman finds kittens.  The kittens are being communally raised and cared for in a way unusual to cats.  The kittens have no fear of her either and she is quickly nearly covered in tiny purring bodies when she lays down.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Catering

I am delivering food to a collective of mad scientists working on some great and important project.  Even at the best of times they don't tend to be the best at interacting with other people or taking care of themselves, and with the current work most of them haven't seen the sun in weeks.  Making sure that they actually eat the food I bring them is part of my job.

From the outside it's an unassuming building with an empty parking lot that I park my oversized motor scooter in front of; not too different from any beige-ish block you might find on any modern campus.  Instead of going through the facade of a front door I go around the back and down a stairwell to swipe my credentials and go directly into the basement where they keep the scientists.

Most everyone's got their own separate labs, or at most work in groups of twos and threes.  I go down the plain carpeted corridors and knock on doors one at a time until I get an answer from each.  If I just leave the food in the hall it's liable to still be there untouched when I come back tomorrow.  One by one, doors open and I catch glimpses into the too large spaces with impossible contraptions on the other side.  I know better by now than to let any of them draw me into their lairs, so it's an awkward dance trying to make sure they at least eat one bite before I move onto the next room.  They'll usually remember that they're hungry after that first bite.  Getting them talking about their work helps.  None of them are supposed to, but they all will at the slightest invitation.  The hard part is not getting stuck in a twenty minute monologue.

My first stop, as usual, is with a woman I've been friends with since before the great work started.  She stands in the doorway, hair and labcoat disheveled with deep dark bags under her eyes.  I try to encourage her to get some sleep after eating and do my best to hide my exasperation when she places her delivery on the floor while talking.  Her dog immediately gets into it and devours the muffin, as it always does whenever she does that.  Brilliant as she is, she never seems to notice.  I try not to roll my eyes when I hand over the muffin I'd bought for myself as a replacement.  Our favorite café is an hour drive away and they don't have these muffins every day.  She's out of it enough from the sleep deprivation that by the time I hand her the replacement muffin she's forgotten that I already gave her the rest of her delivery.

She's brilliant, but I do worry about her.  Especially these days.

The rest of the deliveries go similarly.

Once upon a time I could have been one of them, but I just don't have it in me anymore.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About False Priests

A woman long since lapsed from her faith dons the vestments of this land's priests.  It is not like what she's used to, but she admits she cuts a striking figure.  One of her companions calls her "Prior" and she feels nostalgia at the old title.  It carries a certain gravitas of authority that she's fond of.

Together, they take a car and circle around the grand cathedral in the middle of the city.  Around the back corner, and out of sight in the narrow gap between the place of worship and a parking garage.  They ascend the garage and make the impossible floating leap to the top of the cathedral where they slip in through an upper window.

Inside is a great vaulted space of light and air.  Their approach would be terribly unstealthy if only anyone thought to look up.  No one ever looks up.

The service is ending when they arrive.  Once the last faithful stragglers clear out, the party descends to find their target, the middle-aged priest who had been leading the sermon.  They find him in a red-capretted side hallway, pushing an elder member of the clergy in a wheelchair.

They wait for the old man to safely get out of the way, deposited in a room and then attack the priest without warning.  Blades of light, conjured ice spikes, and a thrown chair that separates into a hail of splinters all collide against a holy shield.

“You would dare assault a priest in the house of the Lord?!” the outraged-but-unharmed target demands.

The Prior smirks.  “You and I both know this isn’t your Lord’s house any more than it is mine," she says.  "I’ve seen the thing you keep in the basement, bleeding it dry to paint the halls with runes.”

The battle ensues.  The Prior tells her companions to disperse and take care of their other objectives, leaving her to duel the priest.  The hallowed halls fill with golden fire, shining swords, chiming bells, angelic feathers, gleaming aegises, and all the other trappings that the people of this land associate with divine power unleashed in smiting justice.  The Prior and the priest, it seems, are evenly matched.

Seeking to tip the scales, the priest chants a new, more ancient invocation in a different tongue, summoning hungry crimson flames to devour his foe.  For a moment the Prior is consumed in a hell of fire, and then a strange wind snuffs the old flames like a candle.

The singed Prior cracks her neck and wipes blood from her lips with the back of her hand.  Charred scabs fall away, leaving behind new, unblemished skin.

"So I guess we're finally going full mask off, huh?  Fine.  Two can play at that game."

A sharp green light appears in her right hand.  She points and the light leaps towards the priest, striking him and inundating him with -

"Healing magic?" the priest asks incredulously as the few cuts and bruises he's suffered in this duel fade before the Prior's eyes.

"It's something no one configures their barriers to keep out," she says.  "And why would they?"  Her stance is relaxed now, her voice increasingly smug with every word.  The tone of one who knows she's already won and is all to happy to explain why.  "But the thing about healing is that it's ultimately just cell division."

She raises a finger and a mote of green light appears above it.  The mote splits into two, and then four, and then eight.

The priest tries to speak but doubles over in a sudden cramp.

"Amplify that enough, let it run wild, and that's how cancer works."

The priest lets out a wheezing gasp.  There is a lump in his throat.

"Take that to an even further extreme, and, well…"

By the time the Prior's companions return, an insensate lumpy blob of flesh fills the hallway.

"I've been meaning to ask," one of them brings up later, "how do you still have power?  I thought you said you lost your faith a long time ago."

The woman who was once a Prior makes a toothsome grin. "I still believe in something."

"What?"

"Control.  Power itself.  Me." 

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Missing Children

I am a teacher, or perhaps a teacher's aide at school after-hours.  Or perhaps school is out early today.  Either way, there are still some kids around, roaming the halls knowing that their parents will be late in picking them up.  It is a cloudy, dreary day outside.

There are flickering lights coming from one of the restrooms, but when two kids step out of the restrooms with guilty expressions, I assume they were just playing around with the light switch and let them off with a warning.

Another teacher sees me in the hall and calls me over to where she's looking out the window at an utterly bizarre sight.  A small cloud has come down and is flying low over the ground.  The cloud dissipates and reveals a red-and-black ship or drone.  Neither of us know what to make of it.  The drone turns around and comes towards us and then passes through the window, taking up most of the hallway.  We watch, paralyzed in fear and wonder and it slowly drifts by and then out through another window.

Neither of us know what is going on, but we decide that it's time to leave and get any remaining kids out too.  The flickering lights from the restroom seem more ominous now in retrospect.

We pick up four kids near the restrooms (the two from earlier and two others that had apparently been there with them) and head out, saying we'll get them home and trying to hide how afraid we are.  Just outside the school's main entrance/exit I find two more kids poking at the blue-painted brick wall as if they are expecting something to happen; like if they find just the right combination of bricks a secret passage might open up.  On any other day I'd write it off as a fun game of imagination, but now the possibility of them being right and finding something terrifies me.  I warn them to stop and be careful what they're looking for, and offer to give them a ride home.

That thirty seconds or so of turning around to address the wall-poking kids is all it takes to lose track of two of my charges.  I catch up with the other teach and she says she thought they were with me.  We send the remaining kids off with some parents who have arrived and go searching for the two missing kids, calling their names and checking my phone to see if they or any of their friends might have posted something on social media about where they might have gone.

The internet is abuzz with stories (and irreverent jokes about memes, movies, and the rapture) about people and objects suddenly getting sucked up into the sky.

Our search lasts the rest of the day without success.  Several times we hear crashing noises and soon after come across statues, cars, lawn furniture, or tree branches that all look as if they have been dropped from a great height.

We expand our search to the nearby woods, despite the sun nearly being down.  In the dark with flashlights, we wander the woods, shouting the names of the missing children.  We don't notice until too late that two trees are actually the legs of some giant entity.  

It chases us.  We run.  It catches the other teacher.  It smashes her head against a rock, painting it red.  I stumble over a large stump and writhing roots emerge from the ground to entangle me and drag me down.  The giant entity catches up with me and the thing within the stump decides it is a better meal.  I am let go and the two kill one another.

I find the two missing kids.  They are scared and scratched up, but ultimately alive and without major injury.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Clean Anxiety

I am on my apartment's balcony, shouting to my neighbors whose balconies overlook the same courtyard, asking if I can borrow a ladder.  While cleaning my bathroom I accidentally mixed chemicals to fill that half of my apartment with toxic fumes, and that is the half of my apartment that the door to get out is on.  I suddenly find myself grateful that I don't have any pets.

I get several neighbors' attention, but none of them have a ladder.  One does however offer to go around and unlock and open my door to let my apartment air out if only I'll throw him my key.  I am about to when I am suddenly struck by the fear that he will take the key and have a copy made so that he can come back later to rob or hurt me.  I recognize that this fear is irrational - he'd have to make the long and obvious delay to go all the way out to a hardware store or locksmith instead of simply walking over and unlocking my door, and who would even do that sort of thing anyway? - and yet I find myself frozen in indecision all the same.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Nuptial Inconvenience

I was to marry a king soon.  An unfortunately timed assassination attempt threw that plan into disarray however.  It wasn't even a successful attempt, but the caliber of witch sent after me meant drastic measures needed to be taken in response.  I split myself in two and sent the kinder, more innocent me bearing the part of my heart the assassin was after to go live with a dangerous old woman out west for safekeeping.

While the king had been all for this plan initially, he changed his mind an hour too late, after the deed had already been done.  Now he refuses to look at me and spends his days locked in the greenhouse atop the castle with the bees, leaving me and his advisors to run the kingdom.  What a bother.  I can only hope that he learns to listen to what the bees have to say while he's in there.  Then at least he might still have some use.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Lost Joy

I am looking through old photos and I come across one of myself and two other witches coming in for a landing at the edge of a waterway, little wakes of waves being kicked up by our passage.  I smile and check the date.  Two years ago.  It occurs to me that this photo was the last time I'd flown.

I wonder why that is?

The overwhelming weight of everything going on with the world these days, combined with having a day job, I think.

I try to remember what I last heard the other two in that photo are up to.  I think the younger one, on the left, was working on knitting a sweater full of inward-pointing needles to bind some terrible entity.  The older one, on the right, claimed she was retiring to a small village, but I'm pretty sure she joined up with a cell out west.  Last time I saw her, she was carrying a stolen imperial rifle.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Pronunciation

It is vitally important that one correctly pronounce the names of the faire folk, even when they are mere aliases with no power of binding rather than true Names.  To do otherwise is considered a grave insult and their wrath is not to be incurred lightly.

Be sure to go with the pronunciation introduced to you, even if the pseudonym is a common noun.  Glib comments about "po-ta-to, po-tat-o" cannot be heavily enough advised against.

Especially when the fae in question whose home you are in introduces themself as "Potato".

~An adventuring scholar speaking from experience

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Insectile Omens

The death's head cicada is a useful insect.  It is drawn to points of otherworldly incursions to feed off the ambient energy, but will position itself far enough away from the center of radiation to serve as an early warning.  Swarms of these ominous arthropods will form a concentric ring, spreading evenly so that they may all have an even access to the feast.  The trained observer can estimate the size and strength of the creature or creatures at the incursion's heart by the radius of the cicada circle.

The line of tiny, chitinous skulls perched on twigs and at the tips of tall blades of grass was our first clue that a nightmare drake had taken up residence in the woods behind my childhood home.  Unfortunately, the swarm rings tend to stay fixed around the point of incursion rather than moving with whatever it was that came through.

Thus it was that the truck-sized blur of purple and black was our second clue.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Yearning

How I long to emerge from these murky waters and be with you upon the ochre shores I’ve so often watched you walk.  But the sun would surely burn me and I’ve never seen you at night.

Then again, you yourself are never without protection from those harsh rays in your suit of beautiful bright orange.

For now I tell myself that I am content to merely swim alongside you - sinuous, many-legged, and unseen - as you pick your ponderous bipedal way down the winding shore, taking your samples and checking your instruments.

It is early morning, the sun still rising and you have just arrived at the edge of my waters.  At last you’ve noticed me.  Or is this just the first time I’ve noticed you notice?  You seem to expect me.

I take a chance and rise up in the safety of your shadow, rusty head high and front claws resting on the mud.  You bend down and clink your glass visor to my forehead chitin.  You smile and I chitter in happiness.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Wizard Golf

I am watching a movie trailer for a slapstick comedy about wizards in a retirement community playing golf.  The wizards are all bearded old men in white robes more reminiscent of depictions of classical philosophers than modern wizard imagery.  This variation of golf is apparently a team sport, and they all wear colored sashes denoting their team.

The main plot of the movie seems to be about the blue team wizards trying to recruit one particularly ancient wizard to help them defeat their long-time rivals on the red team.  This ancient wizard is so old that he is expected to drop dead any day now, and it is a recurring gag for him to be briefly mistaken for dead right before he suddenly springs into action to make a seemingly impossible shot via sending the golf ball through a convoluted series of ricochets that set off Rube Goldberg machine-esque chain reactions.  Such shots comprise a significant portion of the film’s slapstick humor.

At least one of the blue team wizards is a trans man who gets a visit from his kids at one point.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Fighting A Horse

I am a sorcerer standing in a golden field on a moonlit night, arrogant in my newfound power.  I am waiting for a train that will soon be passing through carrying its precious cargo of specially chosen infants, touched by dark powers since before their birth.  I intend to steal one.  Or rescue one, depending on your perspective.

A blinding thunderclap shatters the night's silence and suddenly across the tracks from me looms a towering horse with a coat of shining black and mane of purple-white flame.

The beast propels itself towards me in an explosion of light and trail of smokeless fire and I only barely manage to go untrampled before our duel can truly even commence.  The horse runs in widening gyres around me, disappearing as my bolts of magic hurtle towards it and then reappearing in great bursts of that terrible light before attempting to run not over me but through me once more.  Again and again this cycle continues in a battle that can surely be seen and heard for miles.

Unbeknownst to me, an old, retrofitted yellow schoolbus slowly clatters its way towards the midnight light show.

By the time the battle has ended, the horse is nowhere to be seen, the train has come and gone without my robbing it, and I am utterly spent like I have not been in years.  I try to fly after the train, only to crash down next to a long, isolated, single-story house.  If anyone is home they have apparently slept through the distant rumble of the sorcerous storm that just ended, for all the lights are out.  I try to fly once more but barely make it into a cicada-filled tree.  My attempted leap from tree to rooftop lands me back on the ground, too exhausted to do so much as raise an arm.

I am overcome with the horrifying urge to simply give in and fall asleep here on the grass.

My last sight before all goes black is a rusty old schoolbus pulling up and family I believed had long given me up for dead rushing out to pick me up.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About Codependence

I am two women trapped in something like but not exactly a time loop.  They care deeply for one another, but if that care can be called love it is not a thing either would ever say aloud.

The first woman is small and physically weak.  Her mind is deteriorating and she knows it.  Early on, she holds up a large rock that has opened into a giant eye with an iris like blue patterns on lacquered porcelain.  She asks her companion if it is real.  It is not.  Somehow, this loop is about her.

The second woman is large and physically imposing.  None of this is about her, yet she cannot leave.  She is devoted to her companion for better or worse.

My perception jumps back and forth between the two women's perspectives and forward and back between iterations of the loop.  

It is easy to tell between early and late iterations.  In early iterations the two are dressed fairly normally, but in later iterations they are garbed in black robes and - in the second woman's case - a dark leather chestplate and armguards.  In early iterations the first woman is clearly in charge - imperious even, outside her rare moments of questioning reality - while the second reluctantly goes along, always working in some quip or barb.  In later iterations the first woman has been reduced to a state of near dependency, her body and mind both deteriorating, while the second woman has grown grim and serious yet carries out her duties as caretaker with gentleness and without complaint.

There are others here, in the loop, but they fully reset every time.  As the first woman's mind falls apart, so does reality.  Things grow surreal and fantastical, where not outright nightmarish.  The old man behind the cash register becomes "The Gnome King" trading in names and favors.  Hallways become gothic stone corridors.  The ground warps and twists into a starry abyss.

I experience the iteration in which the loop is broken and the two escape.  This terrifies me, because I do not get to experience what comes after as my mind instead continues to jump backwards and forwards in time between iterations.  I begin to wonder if that escape was truly the final iteration or just a point that caused a reset.  That is if I didn't simply imagine it.

[autumnalwalker]

A Dream About A Swarm Of Rats

My companions and I are spending the night in a castle allegedly haunted by a vampire.  Swarms of rats are sent to harass us, but somehow I sleep through it, mistaking the swarm for my blankets having a surprise built in heating and massage function as the thousands of tiny feet scamper over my sleeping form.

I only realize that there were any rats when in the morning I find that I had rolled over in my sleep, trapping one of the rats beneath my arm.  I release said rat and it mistakes me for some manner of capricious-yet-merciful fey lord and spreads the word of my having spared it.

I find that my companions fared far worse during the night, as they are now in various states of fear and disgust over what happened.  Some bear injuries from having fought against the swarm.  I confess that I have concerns about how hygienic the whole ordeal was.

Once we finally track down the vampire the next night he once more unleashes a swarm of rats upon us.  The murine sea parts harmlessly around me; repayment for my act of mercy.