Chapter XXIII: The True Dreamer
Hello. I would tell you to wake up, but I’m afraid that’s quite a redundant thing to say here, isn’t it? The old, rough voice teased Stefi’s ears.
“Yes, wake up,” she murmured absently and held her eyes shut. “It was all a bad dream, all of it.” The sight of her friends all lying motionless leapt into view, forcing her to open her eyes.
She wasn’t in bed like she expected. A soft green carpet spread beneath her face, which she soon realized was closely cropped grass. The sweet, earthy scent of it clouded her head, dulling the trauma of what she’d just seen.
Oh, you’re awake, the dry voice continued. Truly Awake, I mean. When you’re ready, you may get up, Stefi Kay Valtela.
It took every tiny bit of her will to fight the urge to just close her eyes for a little longer, to wake up from what had to be a nightmare. And she would have gladly agreed, if not for more of those terrible visions flicking through her mind. She at last dragged herself into a sitting position and caught sight of her clothes.
Her shorts and baggy nightshirt were gone. Instead she found herself clothed in a strange material, disconcertingly light and sheer, woven with gold and silver threads. Certainly not a modest choice of dress, she thought; her midriff was bare and her modesty maintained only by the material that wrapped around her chest and shoulders, leaving her arms bare, as well as a flowing skirt about her waist. Maybe Ifaut would be more at home in something like this, she thought, feeling like she was wasting a small fortune just wearing it. And baring more than she felt comfortable.
Her hand wandered to her head, where she found a fine circlet wrapped around her forehead, and that her hair had been pulled back into an elaborate plait.
Had someone dressed her? She certainly hoped not. But if they had, they could’ve at least remembered shoes.
“What is this?” she said, finally finding her voice and her unsteady feet.
Iferona. It lies between Feregana and Crepusculum, neither here nor there, neither completely Dream nor Awake.
“Iferona…” she repeated drowsily. “But that star-ferret–what was his name? Keet, I think–said I would never come here alive. He said I would die before that.” She rubbed her head, hoping it would help clear her thoughts. It didn’t.
Little Shiny was almost right. He did say you would never reach its shores alive, yes?
What must have just happened struck Stefi with such force that she reeled as if punched. “I’m dead?”
More or less. I’m sorry.
She shook her head, still not sure what to make of whatever was happening. It had to be a dream, just had to. There wasn’t supposed to be a band of silently drifting rocks spanning the heavens like yet another bridge. She never dressed like this. Her friends couldn’t be dead…
Are you ready?
She looked to the ground, at last finding the source of the voice sitting casually upon the scented grass. It was a ferret the color of sand and dust, looking like he’d formed from the remains of a dust-devil.
“For what?”
The end.
“You mean…” she said, feeling like she would faint at any moment, “Awakening all ferrets, don’t you?”
I see Keet has already told you. I myself have only recently learnt of this development. The ferret appeared sad, refusing to look towards Stefi. I thought the arrival of the last two elementals heralded a new beginning. Who knew it would bring an end?
Stefi said nothing, not knowing what to say to the sandy ferret. There was nothing to say. Her friends had gone forever, and here she was in another world–between worlds–about to end Feregana. She didn’t know how. It would likely happen in good time.
Silence hung in the twilit air for several minutes, only disturbed by the eerie, lonely wind that whistled across the grass.
“Why bother fighting it…” she said so quietly the ferret couldn’t hear her. “Without them, what’s the point?”
“Precisely. There is no point!”
The voice came so suddenly that Stefi’s heart leapt into life and she wheeled around.
“Cédes?”
“Yes,” the figure replied, bearing a remarkable similarity to Stefi’s now-dead friend. “Though not the phantom you have come to know and love.”
Stefi didn’t need to hear her say that to realize they weren’t the same. For one the voice was devoid of any warmth; its icy tones froze any hint of kindness that might have flown on her words. And the eyes were different, the same violet shade as Kei-Pyama’s and Radus’s. The clothes, too, were something her Cédes would never deign to wear, the same garments Stefi herself now wore; only, much to Stefi’s amusement, with far too much cleavage for someone who, in her world, hardly flashed a bare arm.
“I see you are surprised,” the Cédes before her said. “That shadow,” she spat, “bore only my face and my gifts. Unfortunately, she also lacked my intelligence. Never would I have dared to fall for a human, let alone a female.” Her last words faltered.
“Shut up!” Rage exploded within Stefi. The Furosan may have looked like Cédes, but that wouldn’t stop the venom she felt. “My Cédes was more than you could ever hope to be!” She panted, her anger and frustration drawing breath through clenched teeth.
“More?” Cédes laughed. “More than I, Serena Cédes of Alzandia? She only wishes she could hold herself alongside me!” She tossed her knee-length snowy hair haughtily, narrowed her violet eyes. “She owes her existence… Wait, she never truly existed! She owes that pathetic reflection of a dream to me, the True Dreamer. As do you, the rest of your pathetic friends.”
“What are you?” Stefi’s fists clenched as she drew closer, longing to punch her smug face.
“I have just told you, simpleton. The True Dreamer. I suppose I owe you an ex-” Her sentence broke away as Stefi drew back her fist and lunged forward with a shout. Serena merely smiled, flickered, and appeared behind her.
She continued, unphased, as Stefi rounded on her again. “-planation. After all, only you can end this corrupted dream for me, Final Fieretsi.”
Stefi rushed again, not caring that some of her hair had come loose, framing her snarling face. Again Serena flickered and appeared behind her, laughing at Stefi’s futility.
“I won’t!” Stefi shot back, panting, her face hot with rage. “If you need me to, I won’t, you bitch!”
“I am afraid that is where you are wrong,” Serena said. “Your friends are no more. In your Feregana you are no more. What more is there to live for? More smoke and illusions in a false world?”
“It was real to us, meant something to us,” Stefi said. “Everything. Though I doubt someone like you bothers with something as petty as emotion anymore, am I right?”
A flicker of anger in Serena’s eyes showed Stefi she may have been right. “Not within your world!” she roared. “In my world, yes, MY Feregana! My Feregana that was destroyed by just such human arrogance, believing that your feelings are worth more than those of others. The ferrets survived, oh yes, but everything else was gone. A blessing, perhaps, though I once saw it as not so. The ferrets deserved to die as much as any other race! Pathetic, forgiving creatures!”
“Just shut up and make sense!” Stefi screamed, her voice strained and hoarse.
“Your Feregana only persists because I allow it to!” Serena’s voice grew more and more manic, punctuated every sentence by disturbed laughter. “I, the True Dreamer, I dream Feregana, this failed dream of a better world. I control the elementals here at Iferona, the beings left clinging fast to the old Feregana’s memory, giving the ferrets of Crepusculum a dream through them and my own power. I, I-”
Have gone utterly mad, my dear, the ferret said as he wandered slowly between Stefi and Serena.
“Quiet, Pishti, you abomination!” she screeched, pointing a finger that ended in a sharp, cruel claw.
Abomination? he laughed. That is quite hurtful. I am not the one who wants to murder an entire world.
“World? It is
nothing but a dream, a figment of reality, non-existent! A colossal failure!”
Slight problem there, he continued calmly. And I am but proof that you are wrong.
“An abomination like I said,” a livid Serena shouted.
Because I dared to dream, like you once did, you poor, corrupt little girl. Stefi couldn’t quite be sure, but she was certain she saw the ferret shake his head with pity.
Serena said nothing, only shook so hard with anger that Stefi decided to speak instead. “What was your dream?” she asked as she knelt next to him.
To fill the world with flowers. My human friend was killed in a war. Other humans killed their own, Kulla too. Though for some reason they burned only houses, leaving flower gardens untouched. I thought that if perhaps I could plant the world in flowers, humans would have nothing left to destroy.
“Then how did you come to be here?” Stefi pressed. Serena seemed momentarily distracted, standing still yet twitching with an internal pain that writhed in her head. Perhaps a memory was trying to remind her how to dream, Stefi thought. Or how to feel again.
I wandered years in search of the secret to do so. Eventually I came to Crepusculum, though I do not know how. There I met a young kit, Aegentus, who had unearthed a strange craft from the past. A boat, he called it. He sailed with me beneath the eternal twilight and we at last came here, to a land where beautiful flowers bloomed in my footsteps. He went home after a time, while some force here bound my soul to this world, bestowing eternal life. I’ve waited ever since for a way home with the seeds of these flowers, and an eternity to plant them for Feregana.
“Foolish! Pathetic!” Serena screamed. “Save a doomed world with flowers? That dream is worse than the one conjured up by the Crepusculans and myself, and even less likely to come true.”
Pishti seemed to smile as Serena twitched violently, her anger barely contained. There are things beyond your control and ken, poor girl, he said. This place being one of them. While you slept as the True Dreamer, I learned. You are correct that Feregana is a dream. That does not mean it isn’t a reality. Dream, yes. But a dream with physical form, reliant on Crepusculum and its ferrets for existence. Poor, ignorant girl, the connection goes both ways. End Feregana, and you also end what you see as real; the Awake is just as reliant on the Dream, if not more. But it is thanks to you that Feregana ascended to the realms of reality.
“I will make this wretched human, failed shadow of my Stefi, end it!” Serena’s violet eyes grew wide yet remained disturbingly blank. “It is not what I wanted!”
There was a flash and the next second a star streaked from the glittering sky, coming to rest beside Stefi. At once she recognized its light, and the small, innocent form.
Your opinion doesn’t matter, Keet said. The future comes down to what we want, not some corrupt, pitiable Furosan.
“Forget not that I made you, damn star! Forget not that only I may give your fractured soul rest!”
“What does she mean?” Stefi asked. The raging Furosan seemed repelled by Keet’s light, not daring to venture closer as she shielded her eyes.
Long, long ago, in the beginning, the souls of ferrets became cold stars in the sky to watch the living. I found the Rainbow Bridge, a pathway to sweet repose for all following ferrets and peoples. He became silent for a moment, composing himself, trying to remember exactly what had happened an eternity ago. He continued, I found the Bridge as I lay dying, as I saw my own light bloom in the heavens. Yet I also crossed it. A strange occurrence… my soul was split in two, part star, part Fieretsi to mind the Bridge. Only the True Dreamer, heart of Feregana, may make it whole so I may find rest. I apologize. That is why I did her bidding, came to visit you. I never knew it would harm your friends.
“Wow,” Stefi murmured. “I don’t blame you for what happened. You wanted rest. She used that against you, just as she’s using the fact that I have nothing and no one left against me.”
Wrong, princess. The words bubbled through her mind, bringing a current of relief and reassurance. We’re here.
A watery Furosan glided into view, accompanied by four other beings: a young girl of wind and dust, a ferret the size of a large dog made from the same earth on which he stood, a crackling bundle of lightning, sparking with excitement, and what looked like an ordinary sable with patches of flame on his body bursting from shiny burns.
“Shizai, everyone,” she said. “But why? Don’t you answer to Serena? Don’t you want to end Feregana too?”
The fiery ferret stepped forward, a Raphanos very different from what Stefi had seen summoned by her friend Cédes. The other Cédes is the only one I’ll listen to, he said in a childlike voice far belying his true nature. And we get a say in this matter.
Well said, brother, Shizai said as her body glistened in the strange twilight that lit the island of Iferona. It’s our dream too, Devil, she said, rounding on a still-cowering Serena. You dream it. So do we!
A sudden sneer erupted on Serena’s face. “Too late, daughter of water. You cannot give hope to the hopeless!”
Don’t be so sure! Fairun’s breezy voice interrupted. Stefi and her friends gave me hope when all seemed lost. We return our favors
It was my idea, Uespera chimed in as she and Utnali shimmered into being alongside their counterparts, from Gemmie and Maya. There is so much even this Serena doesn’t understand.
“Like what?” the Furosan spat.
What it is to truly dream.
She shook her head, glowering all the while as the beings encircled her. “No, I understand, unlike you, when it is time to wake up and face the truth.”
And that, Shizai said, is a concept you don’t understand, princess. Feregana is more real than you could have dreaded. The very emotion that you believe is false is the very thing that gave it form; we elementals who you intended to strengthen Nefairu’s prison only made it more so. You intended Feregana to be an eternal prison for Nefairu, perhaps even a dream of a better world; a noble pursuit but for two mistakes. Those mistakes, she said and winked at Stefi, stand right before us.