We Dream In Color But Live In Black And White (Liminal)

[Kavala]

When the scene changed, it didn't make any sense to Kavala. First they were on the beach, and then they were in front of this extraordinary building with Trelissa saying everything she wanted to know was inside and yet she wouldn't let her in. It seemed to be some sort of test, a challenge of sorts, but definitely one Kavala was going to take a lot of time to think about.

Violence was definitely out of the question. If Trelissa couldn't let her in, then why in the world did she bring her here? An invite was no invitation if there was an obstacle blocking their pathway. Kavala made no move. She would not force herself through Trelissa. She would not raise a hand to fight someone whom she had no quarrel with. This wasn't the way Kavala's world worked.

"I won't fight you. I won't force my way through. If you want me to see the inside, and I'd very much like too, there has to be another way." Kavala said softly. Then, carefully, she settled cross-legged on the ground to wait Trelissa and Hatot's reaction.

[Hatot]

Hatot felt that nauseating feeling enter his system once again as lights danced before his eyes and colors began to form over his vision. He did his best to center himself, to breath in and out, as much as he could considering that he was once again entering a realm where he was a little sure breathing was just an imagined state. As imagined as the solidity of the grasses and earth he stood upon.

When everything came into focus, Hatot found himself standing in front of the gates, peering at the structure beyond. It was only a short time after that his gaze finally fell to Trelissa, a new look on her face and tone in her voice. When her words rang into his ears, a frown crossed his features. His hands fell to his waist as his gaze lowered to the grass at his feet. He eventually looked up after Kavala had stated her position on the matter. “So very true.” Hatot then said. “You showed us all of this, and now you tell us we have to fight for such? Those who use violence to obtain what they want are the elements in the world that represent the worst. They’re the raiders, the thieves, and the killers.”

Hatot’s gaze slowly looked over towards Kavala for a moment. “They are the slavers of the world.” Hatot said before looking back to Trelissa. “I, for one, am not someone who fights to gain. I fight to defend. I will not combat you.”

A moment of silence passed by then as Hatot looked to Trelissa. “Hell, I'll fight you.” Radris’ voice then echoed out as he suddenly stepped forward between Hatot and Kavala. “I always like a good tussle.”

“Radris!” Hatot then said sternly.

“What?” Radris said, looking back to Hatot for a moment as he began squeezing along his hands, the knuckles popping out loudly. “She’s got the tone, she has that look of determination. The little filly wants to have a battle. She wants to prove herself. I’m more than happy to oblige.”

Radris then stretched a little bit, beginning a series of weird stretches that made even Hatot gaze upon him weirdly. “Course, I’m not doing this for some fat cat prize behind gate number one. Nor do I care why you want to prove yourself in the end.” Radris said as a smile spread across his lips. “I want to fight just to enjoy the fight alone.”

“But you gotta want to fight me as well, little string strummer.” Radris said as he began slipping off the teethed gauntlets on his hand. “You gotta want to take that little instrument of yours and crack it over my head. Otherwise I don’t really want to partake.”

Radris then began motioning Trelissa forward. “So how about it little girl,” Radris said as he slowly formed a stance, “wanna play?”

[Liminal]

Trelissa looked carefully at Kavala and Hatot. There was an expression on her face that might have been approval, though it passed quickly. She inclined her head respectfully in their direction.

At this point, Radris approached her, all testosterone and chest-beating. So like the men who had taken her from her home, her family, and very nearly from this lifetime itself. Performing her assigned role was always satisfying to Trelissa, but somehow this might be even more satisfying than usual.

"I'd be happy to play," she said, and there was a coldness in her voice that none of the three would have heard before.

As Radris came forward, Trelissa didn't react in any of the ways that the group might have expected. She didn't set herself up to block, or prepare herself to meet an attack. She didn't throw a punch, or flex a muscle, or attempt to hit him with her instrument, as he had unpleasantly suggested. Instead, she simply let her fingers brush the strings of her instrument in a simple chord.

The sound was overpowering. Ridiculously overpowering.

It was so loud that, had Radris been outside the Chavena, his hearing would have been permanently destroyed. As it was, the vibrations took away his ability to strike, to move, even to think, as the unbelievable volume assaulted him. It knocked him back on his heels, and it would be at least a minute before he would regain the ability to move.

Trelissa, on the other hand, seemed entirely unaffected by the noise. She wore a look of grim satisfaction, but she didn't appear to have even a mild headache, as opposed to the army of sledgehammers currently assaulting Radris's skull.

Perhaps even more oddly, though both Kavala and Hatot would understand what had just happened, they weren't affected by the noise either. In a way that would have made no physical sense in the waking world, the act of aural terrorism only affected the one who had confronted the Guardian.

"You did say you wanted me to play," she said to Radris as she reflexively smoothed her hair. "Did you...enjoy the fight?" Then she changed her address to the other two. "This is not the way," she said, and her voice was suddenly back to that of the shy woman who had first come upon their campfire.

[Kavala]

Kavala didn't want to fight. Fighting was never always the answer. Sometimes it was, but they weren't in a situation where it should have been. She settled carefully, and began to think. They weren't in the real world, that much was certain. They were in some sort of dream realm. It wasn't the Chavena that Trelissa had shown them either. It was someplace different, some place neither all the way in or all the way back to reality.

Did that mean things here weren't what they seemed? DId that mean the rules that applied to reality and to the Chavena didn't apply here? Witnessing Trelissa's attack.. if one could call it that.. on Radris seemed to reinforce this idea. So music didn't work the same way here either. Neither did combat it seemed.

Kavala wondered if motion didn't behave properly either. Azure eyes opened from her meditative musings and she studied the building as the Akalak and the follower of Nysel spoke. Her imagination ran wild. She pictured the building bending, flexing, opening its walls and welcoming her. She wanted to be within it, to learn its secrets. And so she did what she thought might work in the circumstance. She willed the building to let her in by reaching out and snatching her up. In her mind, its walls bent and flexed and took on a life of their own. It reached out like some great shining monster and snatched her up, taking her within despite the guardians wishes and Radris' posturing.

Kavala didn't know if it would work, but she tried with all her might visualizing the building doing this, being welcome, enfolding her without destroying or consuming her.

[Hatot]

Radris stood there like a statue for a long moment, a wincing expression on his face and his eyes tightly shut as all of the muscles along his body remained contracted and his body rigid. Eventually, Hatot simply shook his head, his hand swinging up to smack Radris in the back of his head. “You’re a fool.” Hatot simply said.

“What?” Radris finally yelled, raising his pinky to his ear and wiggling it around inside for a moment. “Yeesh, I expect a little throw down and she strums the guitar. I feel defeated by disappointment alone.”

Hatot once again shook his head slowly at Radris, before slowly turning his gaze to Trelissa. “So then, you’ve proved that fighting here is an act in futility.” Hatot then inquired, his arms folding over his chest. “Of course Kavala nor myself plan to fight. So what happens now? What is the way you speak of?”

[Liminal]

There was a hint of a smirk on Trelissa's face as Radris slowly came back to his senses. If you wanted to call them that, the girl thought. Fortunately, Hatot was a good deal more reasonable.

She nodded soberly. "Here, in the Chavena, you will only fail by fighting with me. There is indeed another way; I can't tell you what it is, but she's found it." She inclined her head in Kavala's direction.

As Kavala began her visualization, it was as if the world itself began to swim. The walls of the building swirled, reaching out for her like a giant hand. There was a sudden burst of light, almost blinding, and then an immediate darkness...

*****

To Hatot and Radris, it was as if Kavala simply vanished. One moment she was there, and the next she was not. A broad smile broke across Trelissa's face, an unusual expression for the girl.

"Your friend is smart, and strong as well. She's made it in. She found the way. You can do it too." She spoke only to Hatot, ignoring Radris for the moment.

What had happened? It was difficult to say, but somehow, Kavala had managed to get around the entire situation. And the Guardian certainly seemed to approve...

*****

When Kavala's senses returned, she was standing in what appeared to be a temple, on a polished granite floor. Though it had been bright outside the temple, moonlight flooded in through a series of high, circular windows; this was the only source of light. The architecture was spartan, and the building was empty. The multicolored lights that had so dazzled her outside were nowhere to be seen.

"Welcome, Kavala Denusk."

The voice seemed to come from everywhere, or nowhere. It wasn't loud, but it carried an indescribable force. The hairs on the back of Kavala's neck stood up automatically. The voice seemed content to await a reply, for no additional words were spoken.

[Kavala]

Kavala slowly began to turn a circle. There was reverence in her but also an incredible curiosity and need to know just who was speaking and what this place was. Her eyes missed nothing as she turned her full circle, scanning the stark beauty and unassuming marble. It wasn't so much what she saw, either, that had her feeling humbled. It was what she felt in the place. There was a sense of the sacred filling her up and bringing her to the edge of her curiosity. She bowed low, rose, then offered up a smile.


"Thank you for the welcome and for allowing me to see all this. I must confess a long standing curiosity and wonder in regards to what forms dreams and worlds beyond our own. I have read a great deal in my life, but there is a frustration inside of me about the secrecy of beyond the veil of wakefulness. Standing here I know now that my instincts weren't wrong and that dreams hold truths I cannot yet begin to understand. I long too though. The world is a vast and beautiful place. But it seems wholly isolated as if it is just one layer, one level, much like an onion has in combination with multiple other layers. One doesn't have to see a whole onion to enjoy its taste and aroma, but just a bit leaves you longing for more. Please, can you tell me. Is this a place where I can learn more? I've never been one to be satisfied with just one layer, one taste. I want more, the whole of the truth, the understanding of it all. And I do not say this lightly. I understand things cost, especially knowledge, in this world. And there are some prices I am willing to pay. Others, I am not. I assume I was brought here because someone somehow knew this. I hope I am right." She said thoughtfully, passionately, with a strangely uninhibited manner as if somehow not being in the 'real' world was liberating for her.

"Are you Nysel? Are you one who creates life beyond life and walks between worlds creating his own path? If so... thank you. You have inspired me more than you might know. Your dreams strengthen hope and your nightmares strengthen my resolve. Both have toughened me and helped me survive that which I would never have dreamed survivable." She said softly, humbly, shaking in the beauty of the temple and in the sound of the voice still reverberating.

[Hatot]

Hatot quirked a brow as Kavala disappeared, his arms slowly folding. A slow nod was given to Trelissa’s words. “Yes, she always was the smart one.” Hatot remarked before turning his gaze back from the empty space where Kavala had been standing to look at Trelissa once again. “I’m sure she’ll be able to succeed at whatever’s ahead of her.”

Hatot then nudged Radris step further away when he stood next to him, still wiggling his pinky in his ear while making weird noises every now and then to test whether his full hearing had returned. “As for me, yes it’s likely I could to.” Hatot replied, looking at Radris for a moment. “But Radris and I are more of the physical realm.”

Hatot slowly shook his head, looking around where he was at. “All of this, it’s completely alien to Radris and myself. Of being consciously aware of it all and the possibility of manipulating it.” Hatot explained as he kicked idly at the dream ground. “Whatever Nysel’s plans are, I don’t think Radris or myself would fit well in with them.”

“I’m flattered by his interest, but…..” Hatot said as he looked back to Radris, “I think it best if Radirs and I simply returned to the beach. Keep all the crabs and undesirables away from the sleeping bodies and all that.”

[Liminal]

Trelissa nodded solemnly to Hatot. "This choice, of course, is yours, and it shall be as you wish." Then she struck her instrument again, but this time, neither Hatot nor Radris heard its sound. Instead, the world around them abruptly vanished, to be replaced by the beach and the smoldering fire. Trelissa and Kavala were still resting as if asleep, but other than Trelissa's presence, there was no sign that anything out of the ordinary had occurred.

*****

There was a motion to Kavala's left. Though she could have sworn there was no one there earlier, a man stepped across the stone floor, stopping some five feet away. He appeared Akalak, with a face that was neither kind nor cruel, and his arms were folded across his chest.

"Knowledge is a complicated thing," he said, and though the voice was now possessed of the volume and pitch of a normal person, it was still recognizable as that which had greeted Kavala. "It's made out of the intersection of a near-infinite number of moving parts, and one's understanding of them rarely, if ever, repeats. Is any understanding illusory? Is every truth fiction? Are you a woman of the waking, dreaming of dreams, or a woman of the dreaming, who dreams of waking?"

He smiled, though it was a smile of uncertain meaning. "Who makes knowledge? Qalaya, hidden away with her pictures of the past? Avalis, with her watery drawings of the future? Lhex, who casts the fate of those whose souls come before him? Or me, who can alter perception and change one's very eyes?"

His gaze met Kavala's, and it seemed to burn into her. "I can show you how to use the dreams, Kavala Denusk. But to learn to walk through the Chavena and weave the strands is to owe to me an allegiance that cannot be broken. Your gift will be yours, and I give no instructions as to how you use it -- except that, when I ask, you must use it to follow my commands."

[Kavala]

Kavala's mind was still whirling. There was so much to understand, so much to absorb. She'd just been told there were worlds within worlds, and that all the worlds were connected by storehouses of knowledge that linked each person, living or dead, to the divine and housed all their experiences... experiences she could view or change if she had the know how and skill. The Konti all but trembled with excitement, with the overwhelming weight of what this meant about both the living and the dead. It was proof life existed and kept existing and that all the talk of coming again and again and again was true. She could look at the past and present and future. She didn't have to be so helpless. Kavala felt as if she stumbled upon the one thing that lead her to control - lead her to an awakening within her own consciousness - and a promise of never being unaware again.

The man's voice rolled across her psyche and she tilted her head listening, nodding, understanding finally. His first set of questions were rhetorical, but the next set she felt the urge to answer. "We all make knowledge. With every breath, with every motion, with every thought. That is why people are so important to the Gods and why Gods are so revered by the people. It's so beautiful, so special, that it is all collected. No breath is wasted, but it is all stored away so we can look later, and so we can understand walking forward or walking backwards." She said softly, simply, with an awe that carried into her trembling alto voice.

Her azure eyes felt caught in his and she loved him for that moment, loved him for the gift he gave her - the awareness of what was out there - and the strength that came with it. Kavala craved strength and to her knowledge was power. She'd set her life up so that she'd never be a victim again. Not ever. But this... this went beyond her burning need for internal strength. It went so far beyond it Kavala felt like she had reached out to touch the sky and had ended up dancing in the stars.

Locked in his gaze, all this was in her eyes. There was no need for the word yes, or a please, or for her to fall on her knees and beg for what he offered. With every breath she took and exhaled her entire existence said yes. And in a way it was her first lesson, because she'd payed attention to the 'class' so far.

"You don't need my answer, not my vocalization of it, because of who and what you are you already know how this effects me and what I feel about it. You know because you hold my Chavi in your hands and walk its length like your guardian taught us. You know how right and good and welcoming this is to me and how badly I want it. You know I will agree to follow your terms, answer your command, all in exchange for the freedom of the knowledge to walk the chevena and experience the chavi. You don't need my answer, but I'll tell you anyhow. Yes... Yes, with all I am." She said firmly, strongly, not a hint of hesitation in her voice.

Kavala stood there, quivering like a newborn foal, but not with fear or weakness, with an overwhelming sense of the gift just offered her and the knowledge that would come with it.