8 Who Are You? (1/2)
”So, how was it, as I told?” the shade asked appearing as she had appeared before, as if she had come from nowhere, in the same strange clothing.
Isilla looked up from her wilting flowers, a small frown on her face. ”It wasn't anything. We didn't, well he didn't. I mean nothing happened,” she finished at a loss to explain the event.
The shade frowned, ”Could he not?” she pointed at her crouch. ”Some men are like that too.”
”No! I mean, I don't know but that wasn't the problem. His darkness, the nightmares, they filled the room. I've never seen anything like that before.”
A smile spread across the other woman's face, ”Oh he must be mighty. Must be a powerful one! Be happy, your husband is strong. Did you connect, draw the chain between you?
Isilla's eyes turned to slits, ”Are you listening? I said nothing happened.”
The shade waved her hand in front of her face, dismissing Isilla's response, ”No need to meet as man and woman for that.”
”I don't know what you're talking about but there wasn't time for anything. Not even to talk before he, before changed,” Isilla turned back to the flower. ”Why are these wilting? They shouldn't wilt. They're not real.”
The shade joined her, her head tilted to the side, ”You made with light in a land of dark.”
Isilla brushed her fingers over the petals, the light touch causing them to break and fall to the ground. ”Does that matter?” she asked more to herself than the shade, who she still wasn't sure was real at all.
”Matter? Of course, Sorgia! Everything, light or dark, hope or madness! You try to make dreams but you only have nightmares to spin from. But it's alright, it's alright. You know, Sorgia, you know you can change things.”
Isilla spun her finger around the flower, bringing it back, ”I need more light.”
”Yes,” the shade hissed in her ear. ”Go back to him, tie him to you!”
”I don't understand you at all,” Isilla replied.
The shade grabbed her arm, pulling her attention to her. ”Connect with him, draw him to you! You can use his power as your own!”
She pulled her arm away from the woman's grasp, shivering at the unnatural feeling of her palm against her skin. It wasn't like a dreamer's hand at all. She hadn't noticed it before, the pain had masked it but now, she was sure, this woman was something that shouldn't be. Backing away she wiped the spot with her arm. ”Don't touch me,” she said slowly.
The woman held up her hands, ”Sorgia, you see now, you see. I am not a dream. I know things, things you need know but not yet, not yet.”
”Who are you?” Isilla asked, drawing the dreaming around herself for protection.
”Ah, I have moved too soon, too fast, A mistake. Your light cannot hurt me. I am a shade. No one. My name, lost. Here, I tell you something. Help you trust. If you find that one, out there,” she pointed with her chin, gesturing to the greater expanse of the Veil, ”Meet him and you can do greater things then you imagined, eyes closed and open.”
Isilla blinked and the woman was gone, leaving nothing but her strange advice.
It's this place, or maybe being so close to him, the nightmares are driving me mad, she thought, shivering. Whatever the woman was or wasn't, Isilla knew that she was correct about her light. She could feel it in her being. The power that she drew around herself, found in endless amounts in her own lands was weak here. She needed more.
For the first time since arriving in the Dark Realm, she stepped through her courtyard gates and into someone else's dream.
She released a long, slow breath. Small stones dug into her feet, all around her, rocky hills dotted with thin grass rose and fell under a gray sky. ”What a bleak place,” she said as she began to walk, the ground turning to soft earth before her feet fell with each step.