honest_johns | (no subject)

(no subject)

It's well past midnight.

Alain's asleep.

In his dream, he's talking to Cuthbert at Milliways -- except Milliways looks like the Traveler's Rest in Hambry.

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The Traveler's Rest was never next to the ocean, but that doesn't really matter in the Dreaming. It is now, and outside its windows there's a stretch of golden sand and long, rolling waves breaking upon it.

There's a girl sitting on the sand, watching the waves.

"I'll ask the lookout," Cuthbert says, his face solemn and his eyes dancing with laughter. "Aye, cully, what do'ee say?" he asks the Big Bert kooshball hanging from a chain around his neck. After an appropriate listening silence, he shakes his head sadly. "He says there's no help for it. We'll have to get Jamie to plan it."

Grinning, Alain turns away from his table -- empty now, Cuthbert faded in the way of dreams -- to the window.

Sea-breakers and sun, and Lilly.

In the space of a wave, Alain's beside her. She knows it's him without looking, the way you do in dreams.

"Wei," she says softly, still watching the water.

He settles down next to her on the sun-warmed sand, slipping an arm around her.

He's barefoot, though he wasn't a minute ago -- this is Lilly's dream, even if now he's dreaming it too, and in Lilly's world workboots are not acceptable beach wear. He digs his feet into the sand, feeling it sliding between his toes, and waits for her to talk.

Lilly leans her head against Alain's shoulder, but it's a moment before she speaks.

"I saw Mel. And I saw Logan's dream."

It's what she was trying to do, but she doesn't sound very happy about having accomplished it.

He tilts his head enough to rest it against hers, and watches the breakers crash against the sand. Rhythmic.

White horses of the sea, some of the fishermen in Mejis called them.

Quietly, "And?"

Lilly sighs.

"Mel... she's in Hell. She's trying to find her way back, though. It's been... longer than a month for her. She misses us."

"I miss her too."

In the waking world, it would be a hope.

In the dream, it's plain fact. Not because of foreknowledge, but because in a dream you know things, and for as long as the dream lasts they're solid truth.

"Yeah."

More silence, except for the sound of the sea.

"I saw Logan's dream too. Felix... he's dead, and Logan was unconscious with the knife in his hands. I don't... I don't think he killed him, but I don't know what the police will think."

"You think it really happened, then?"

Lilly nods, slowly.

"Yeah. Dreams that are mostly memories... they feel different. I can't really explain it, but I felt it all the time when Veronica'd dream about us."

They feel different from the inside, too. Certain types of memories, anyway.

He nods, slightly, against her head.

The waves wash the sand, and recede, and gather and break again.

"Anything we can do?"

We here probably means Lilly.

There is very little Alain hates more than feeling helpless.

Milliways gets you used to the feeling in a hurry.

Here in the dream, that's pushed back, some. We is an honest question.

"Not really," Lilly replies and it's the honest answer for both of them even if she doesn't like it either.

She can't get Mel out of hell any faster, can't change what happened to Logan, can't do anything but sit here at the edge of the ocean.

At least she's not sitting here alone anymore.

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