Dreaming of the Finale (Gossamer)

[Stitch]

Step after step, and the staircase continued on. Stitch followed it endlessly, his booted feet walking it for hours on end, his Auristic eyes focused on the glowing threads that wound through the ruby red steps. He had found the core of his dream, some kind of woven thread that defined it... and he would follow it until he had explored every ounce of his inner-most heart. Perhaps he would find here there. Perhaps he would find Sadrina, the memories of which he had locked away so deeply... that only nightmares covered them. He only dreamt of her death. Never of their time together, the time that had made him happy. Did it even exist anymore? Night in, and night out, he stepped through his dreams, stubbornly walking through each and every chapter to try and find the story he really wanted to read. Eventually, his footsteps had led him to this stair. And so, the blind man climbed. It was a forest, densely wooded, the tall and thin trees rising higher than the eye could see. They disappeared into rolling clouds of red and orange, illuminated by a variety of distant and glowing planets. Stitch didn't pay them no attention. They were generated by his own mind, so they likely were of importance... but they didn't contain his wife. She was the one he wanted to see. The steps that he followed were a dark red, made of thick blocks of wood, with a deep red mulch softening each step between them. A single wooden handle trailed along the left side of the staircase, giving a place to rest a weary hand, a place for a tired traveler to lean upon. Stitch did not bother. He had quite a ways to walk he felt, and any kind of rest would only make the journey that much longer. Anyways, he was already asleep. What did rest matter? --- Stitch lay on his bed within the Icewatch Barracks, uncovered, looking as if he had just collapsed onto the thin mattress. In one of his hands lay an empty vial, one that had contained a poison just moments before. The blind man had taken a full dose of Pillowsap, a poison that had been made from the Giant Beetles encountered in the Northern Reaches. It was a poison that would put someone to sleep for at least four hours, without a chance of them waking up. He had four hours of uninterrupted time to explore his dreams. To a man who constantly awoke because of the nightmares he found... four hours would be a blissful eternity. --- The staircase was walked for another few hours, but it eventually gave way to an open plain. The sky was still swirling with it's dark colors, but still, Stitch turned a blind eye to them. No pun intended. Instead, he walked with the same determination he had possessed throughout this entire dream. Only a single moment of thought was given to the great black stalks of fiber that towered from the ground, waving and weaving in a wind he could not feel. They were likely of some significance to him as well, but once again, he did not care. They were not the woman he would eternally search for. The eyes on the base of the black stalks slightly bothered him. Each towering stalk had at least a dozen eyes clustered around the base, every single one of them focused upon him. What was that supposed to mean? Was he being watched, even through his dreams? Perhaps it had something to do with Drainira, or the cursed Puppeteer. Maybe all of those black stands were actually clustered puppet strings. At the moment, he didn't really care. --- The black stalks eventually vanished, and gave birth to a new horizon. A bright green field had a path curling across it, the path defined by rows of bright silver flowers. The path led to a patch of earth that had ripped itself free, and curled into the air, forming a natural curling slope that led to a crooked house. The house itself sat on a pink blanket, with a variety of smiling and frowning faces printed onto the fabric. Once again, likely some hidden meaning that Stitch would have to meditate on for years to come. He was sure he would agonize over it when he awoke. But for now, he had to stick to his mission. Quickening his pace, he followed the path of flowers, hurriedly walking towards the house on the twisting hill. The house was actually elevated on several wooden poles that acted as support pillars. Trees grew underneath the house, curling out from underneath it to spiral around it, making a sort of natural wall. A single ladder led up to the small, one-story, two room house, making it just a short climb to reach the wooden door. Stitch hurriedly made his way up the hill, jogging the last few feet, pausing only for a moment as his feet landed upon the pink blanket material. What an odd feeling. And those trees underneath the house, they were growing from the blanket? Pushing the questions from his curious brain, the blind man hurried up to the ladder, and began to climb. His bare blind eyes, not a single bandage to hide them, stared upon the door that he had finally reached. Priskil forbid that there would be anything behind it but his Sadrina. Perhaps another nightmare, though? The blind man couldn't help but be afraid. Strangely enough, as he whispered a prayer while reaching for the door, another name found it's way to his lips. "Nysel help me."