Ice Forged Rose

[Vega]

29th Cylus, 718

What she didn't really understand was why it was so dark. It was because it was Cylus, she supposed, but that didn't make sense because of all the roses. She was sitting on the cliff edge, looking out at the water which was a beautiful shade, swirling like her eyes and the roses were frozen all around her. But it was dark, and yet, she could see. Her gloved hands held tight to the parasol and she breathed in. "I think I might be a little bit afraid of the dark, you know." Turning to him, she knew he was there and yet there was no doubt that Vega was not lucid in this dream. She was wearing an outfit he'd seen her wear in Emea before - the first time the pair of them dreamed together, in fact. A tight green coat, well tailored and her hair was pinned back. The hat she wore was at just the right angle and everything spoke of a wealthy woman, sitting on a crate on a cliffside and looking out over the water. Surrounded by frozen roses.

Vega sighed and looked back out, over the freezing waters. Nothing moved there, the water didn't lap, ebb or flow; it looked like a painting and yet she frowned. "They're late. It's because I bloodied Reese's nose. They're going to come and then you can go with them. I have to stay here." The grass around them didn't move, the ice-encrusted petals didn't sway with the wind and, when she looked at him, Vega's eyes were a single shade of green. There were no flecks, no movement at all.

They looked like human or sev'ryn eyes. Not like hers at all. Yet they were.

"I don't want you to go," she said, then pointed her rolled up parasol towards where the mist was rolling in. It glowed slightly and, as it came towards them they both saw that the ice on the roses melted. "I have to wait for that, and they'll be here. Will there be a swing here, Arlo?" She lifted a gloved hand to his face. "Your face has changed. Since last time I sat here and we swung together. Did you get older?" She shook her head, slightly, as though trying to clear it. To shake out the noise. "I think we both did. You look very handsome. Less like a kid." Tilting her head to the side she allowed her gaze to travel over him, rather slowly. Her lips lifted in a familiar expression, although her eyes remained resolutely the colour they were, not darkening to the familiar shade when she looked at him like that. "You don't look like a kid at all. How long has it been since I saw you here?"

Sighing, she considered it and then a frown crossed her face. "It's been a lifetime, hasn't it? That's a shame, I wanted to have adventures with you. So what happened to you? We may as well chat while it's far enough away, while we're waiting for the ship that takes you. Where are you going?" Sitting on the crate, she smiled at him and then frowned in some confusion. "I love you. Why are you here, knowing that? You should be on the boat, where you're safe. Or swimming in the pond. I'm trying to protect you, don't you know that?" It was a strange mist which rolled towards them but then, the constant darkness probably made it look like it was glowing slightly.

Confused by the whole situation, Vega looked back out over the unnaturally still ocean. As the small paper boat floated across it, she smiled and pointed. Her father and cousins would be on that. Turning to him, she winced slightly. "My legs hurt. Why's that?"

[Arlo Creede]

Suddenly Arlo was seated across from her on the edge of a high cliff overlooking the sea. It was very like the first time that he and Vega had dreamed together, him knowing it and her not. Close, but not identical. But this time was exactly like the first, in that Vega wasn't dreamwalking, and Arlo knew she knew how. There was a reason why she wasn't, but old codes remained the same. He wouldn't tell her. And even if it was allowed, he suspected that she needed him not to.

"Are you?" he said when she claimed to be afraid of the dark. "My mother used to say that what's in the dark is the same that was there in the light." Then again, even back then he'd told her that just wasn't true. There were creatures in nature, not to mention the supernatural, that only prowled in the night. "I think it's the unknown," Arlo concluded, smiled a little and shrugged. If that was true, it didn't surprise him even a little that Vega would be dreaming about any number of worrisome uncertainties.

Funny how their surroundings were frozen in time, but a breeze whipped his curls around his face. But that's how dreams worked and he had no intention of changing the landscape Vega had dreamed up. Not even her eyes flickered colors, in fact and Arlo frowned. Not because of that. He understood it. Instead it was because no matter how much he reassured her in their waking time together, she dreamed of him going. "Why would I want to do that? And why not you with me?" he asked. He didn't want to go either, after all, and wouldn't.

Of course her dream wasn't at all identical to the first time they'd dreamed together, though there were elements of it. Instead it was any number of events, concerns, worries all rolled up in one. Arlo grinned though when she looked back at him and wondered how he'd aged. "I got a little older," he confirmed. "Time passes, and everybody does." Even her, but certainly not to the same extent as him. "Some things never change though. You can rely on it." And with a gesture, a smile, he encouraged Vega to look off to the side of them where there was a large oak tree looming over a deep blue pond, and a rope swing suspended from one of the tree's branches.

"It doesn't look like a very safe boat," he said, frowning out to sea and spotting the paper boat. And her, continuing to insist he'd be leaving. "Besides, I love you, and we've got a lifetime of adventures left to go on. What makes you think I'd want to go? Now or ever?" he asked. As for her legs, he looked, tilted his head and considered that in her dreams, she could be running, jumping, tumbling about but wasn't. "A temporary inconvenience," he told her. "That's all. Nothing to worry about."

[Vega]

"I used to think that, like your mother. But she's wrong," Vega said. She frowned in thought as she considered what she was trying to explain. "It's cold, in the darkness, and even fire freezes. And there are monsters in it, waiting for you to be judged. I guess if they'd finished the judgement and decided I had to go with Vri, the monsters might have been able to eat me, because I'm not going with him. I'm staying with you even if you have to tap your fingernail to see me. But I'm not sure what the monsters can do," she was sitting on the grass, not a crate, suddenly, and for all that what she spoke about terrified her in one way, she grinned at him. "I guess I have to wait for it to arrive, before I find out that bit." Motioning to the mist, she watched it moving inexorably closer but, like any dream, it moved in time with her unconscious and she wasn't ready for it yet.

Why not her with him? Vega's expression was of the regret she felt at that question. But, she took off her hat, laying it down next to her and she put on her best brave and brash face. "I can't go with you, you dweeb. The mist is coming for me. If you stay here, I don't know what will happen to you. Maybe the mist will take you too, or maybe you'll have to watch it again. I don't want either of those." Vega was quite sure about that. "When I was burning, I remember hoping that you didn't find me. My body, I mean." She let out a gasp of absolute delight, though, her mind jumping around away from what she found intrinsically uncomfortable, much preferring what she saw when she turned at his behest and saw the swing. "Arlo, look! Oh, it's perfect." Her delight was evident on her face and her eyes swirled in a brief cacophony of colours.

But no, not the safest boat, she had to admit. "I don't know what Papa's thinking. Peg and Storm aren't going to fit on there. Where's your hat?" Vega wondered and then he insisted that they had a lifetime of adventures. "No, not me. I didn't finished getting judged, I haven't got a lifetime to give you. I'm sorry, I really wanted to and I asked, told them." Unaware that she was creating it, her speech to the twins, her assurance that she was not done and that the love she held for him, and him for her, meant that she had to come back played out above and behind her. It was unseen and unheard by her but clear to him like ghosts on her shoulder and she realised something. "I'd decided not to say that to you, not to show you it. There's no point worrying. It's all blurry, Arlo. But they didn't judge me, and I'm worried that they're going to come and finish the job. So I have to be practical. Just be practical and not think about it." With a deep sigh, she explained. "They were arguing. One with the other. One called me selfish, the other said that I brought hope. Then one said I was feral beast tamed by you, but the other said I was an avatar of passion, and my heart spills out violently and beautifully. There was a lot of that stuff going on." Vega rolled her eyes, obviously unimpressed with the twins themselves. "It was all a bit silly if you ask me."

And as the scene she was thinking of played out behind her. Pier and Pre hovering above her and showing him what she was telling him. "And then, I started to glow and they asked who or what dared interrupt the judgement. I didn't hear the answer but they said, really clearly, I must be judged. I can't tell you that, I'm working really hard to not remember it, but I do, all the time." What strangeness went on in her mind when awake was hard to put into words. In sleep, she made even less sense. "But it's why I want you to have someone there. In case they come back and finish and I have to go with them. Which I guess I must, since the mist is here." She didn't want to be judged again, she told him, but she was afraid that it would happen. If it did, she might stay dead this time and then? He'd need someone. "Papa will be grieving himself. You need someone who can look after you, help you. You'll be sad." Her eyes looked at him and there were a thousand emotions behind them. "It's our first rule, I know it. Me and you, a lifetime of adventures and I don't want to be anywhere without you, but if I'm gonna die, Arlo, that's definitely an exception to that rule, you know?" That was obvious, she thought and she plucked one of the frozen roses and handed it to him. It opened up it's petals and bloomed in her hand. "We just have to hope that I'm not. But I don't want you to worry about that, so I'm not going to tell you." Logic, Vega-style.

But her legs not working seemed much more interesting to her. The mist would come, she'd be judged. If they let her back, she promised him, she'd be on the boat in a heartbeat. Though, with another glance at the paper boat on the water, she frowned. "Although, maybe you should think about not getting on that boat. If it rains, it's going to be mulch. Where's our boat? Where's the Wanderlust? I hope he hasn't lost her in a game of cards." Looking down at her legs, she frowned. "I can't make them work. I think I need you to help me. Will you?" Looking at him she shrugged slightly. "Or maybe I have to sit and wait for the mist. Maybe that's it. Can we try?" With a smile, she held her hands out to him.

[Arlo Creede]

Any other time, any other place, saying his mother was wrong about...anything? Those might just be fighting words. Even if his mother ever had been wrong about anything, and during a time, a younger, brasher Arlo had told her she was...Well, it just wasn't done. He'd have teased Vega about that at the least. But then her talk of what she'd experienced stopped him, and Arlo frowned. He'd seen her die, but hadn't seen what she'd seen. Was that what it was like, after you died, he wondered?

If he was, he wasn't in any hurry to get there. He hadn't been before, truth told, but it was the case now more than ever. "It's there for everyone Vega," he said, referring to the mist that was off in the distance. "Most people don't know when, or how, but eventually? Well it's there for everyone. But no one ought to be going about their trials as if they're busy dying. They ought to be busy living instead." She'd seen it though, and Arlo knew that was different than the ordinary fears about death, that ordinary people had. They feared the unknown. She dreaded what she'd already seen.

"And of course you've got a lifetime to give me, just as I have a lifetime for you. Nobody can say what the extent of a lifetime will be. But if you sit around just waiting for it to play out, then it hasn't been lived at all." But then what she'd seen, witnessed and experienced, he did too as it played out behind her, all in plain sight for him. No wonder she worried, but his thoughts remained the same. In fact? "You got a second chance. They saw your spirit, the fight in you, and you got a second chance. Maybe they wanted to see what you'd do with it," he suggested. "So you'll sit here and wait for it to come round again?"

He only wanted her though, and replacements were out of the question. And so far as Arlo was concerned, she really needed to snap out of this place she was in. Both in the dreaming and the waking. How to get her to see it though? "The Wanderlust is in dock, waiting for us to set sail," he told her. And as for his hat, as he stood up and dusted himself off, he pulled the thing out of mid air and placed it on his head with a grin. Holding his hands out to her, Arlo grasped hers and encouraged her to stand. And with each gesture she made to do it, he altered the landscape of her dream just a little, thinning out that mist bit by bit, and pushing it farther away, inch by inch.

[Vega]

He spoke like she was waiting to die and, whilst she understood it, he was misunderstanding her. It was not a surprise, really, it was hard to explain and she was far from the eloquent sort. Still, he was arguing something which she knew, something she agreed with. "I'm not waiting to die, Arlo, don't be so dramatic. I'm waiting to be judged." She had to emphasise that to him, to explain, because it was that which he really wasn't understanding. "They didn't get to pass judgement on me, and as I was coming back they said that I must be judged." So, she explained, the pure fire or the fire element thingie that turned into a bow or the spark of magic which he had tried to force upon her, she said, one of those things brought her back and interrupted the judgement. "I'm not worried that they're going to come back and judge me for a second time. I'm clear. They haven't finished judging me the first time." She frowned slightly, wondering if that was clear. It felt clear to her. "And they might send me back, I argued the best I could for them to do that. But if they would have made me pass over, if they come back to finish the job? I must be judged."

She took hold of his hand and smiled, lifting it to kiss his knuckles. "Whatever time I have, if it's a trill, a break or a century, I want it with you. But I'm stuck and nothing's moving." The water, the grass, the roses. She gestured to her eyes and then her legs. "Not even me. I have to wait, I can't out run it. Just sit here, lay there, wait." It didn't sit well with her, this being still rubbish. She frowned, slightly, looking at him in some confusion. "Why can't I move my legs? You said it was temporary, but I don't want it. It's making me stay still and then I think stuff and go round and round. I need to do. To move. I'm not real good at patiently waiting to find out what might happen or might not, Arlo." And then she made plans for what she should do, and more plans and more thoughts. It wasn't her strength she explained, earnestly.

He had his hat, though, and Vega beamed. She was pleased, too, when he told her where the Wanderlust was. "Is it? I thought we were stuck there, too? Couldn't move out of the docks. It's like everything's waiting, isn't it?" That was a strange way for things to be and it wasn't like them. But he took her hands and she looked up at him. In the moments before, she had been trying to get up, to move herself and she simply couldn't do it, yet the touch as his hands clasped on to hers, she stood without pause or hesitation. In that moment, everything changed. As she stood, the mist moved of it's own accord, although he helped it but it was already disippating. Her clothes were her own and when she spoke, it was her voice. "How'd you do that, you clever little snossage?" She beamed at him and stepped into his arms without hesitation. Her hands wrapped around the back of his neck and she didn't notice the mist leaving until it was more or less gone as she concentrated on kissing him. Nor did she pay any attention to the breeze which made the grass and roses sway and caught her hair, seemingly in time with the lapping of the waves and the sounds of the animals and birds. As soon as she stood, it seemed, movement and normal began all over again. She was far too busy kissing him, though, to worry about such stuff. Touching her nose to his, she whispered mischievously, her lips against his. "You know, do you 'ave any idea 'ow long it's been since I swung on a swing?" She looked at him with a challenge in her gaze. " We have a tradition of a competition, righ' there. An' if I remember right, I won las' time, Arlo Creede. D'ya wanna swing?" She didn't doubt the answer. Of course he did. The colours in her eyes swirled in delight at the thought of it.

[Arlo Creede]

He didn't think he was quite as wrong as she told him she was. She was waiting to be judged, she said. Judgment, he knew, came with the death of the body. Death, for whatever reason, had been averted, reversed for her. Therefore the act judgment rendered moot. But Arlo saw no reason to argue the point. Waiting to die, waiting for judgment, it would have been splitting hairs to argue that, at least so far as he was concerned, there was very little difference..

So instead of insisting to the contrary, Arlo simply smiled sadly and seemed to agree. He knew all too well that this was her subconscious mind at work. The fears she didn't talk about or even acknowledge to herself when she was awake and alert. They weren't his to sort out for her. They were Vega's, and Vega's alone and he could only help to the extent that she was willing.

"It's only your legs, Vega," he argued though when she returned to the worries regarding her legs. "And only for a little while. But your mind is as free as always. Your imagination, your will...You've never been very good at being patient," he'd added with a grin as he'd stood and took her hands in his. It was true though, he told her. The Wanderlust was in dock for now and while they could set sail if they wanted, it was better to wait. Like her legs, just a little while. "Everything waits," he said. Just like things were still in the winter, and sprang to life again come springtime.

And then she took his hands, stood and everything around them came to life again. Even Vega's eyes. He smiled and shook his head. "I didn't do anything special. That was all you." And he'd let her win, Arlo reminded her when she recalled the last time there'd been a swing, and a pond to drop into. "Not this time though. Every man and woman for themselves," he said, winking at her, and with a wave of his hand there was no longer just one swing, but two for the taking.

[Vega]

She knew him. The boy he had been who was not ever really a boy at all, but the man he had grown into, she knew him and Vega looked at him with her still and motionless eyes and her smile back was tinged with a little melancholy. It wasn't something she felt often and the expression on her face was rare. "And you're waiting, too." There was no doubt about that in her mind. "Waiting for me to work out what you think you already know. Well, let me be clear with you, Arlo Creede." She folded her hands in her lap and glanced out over the still ocean. "More than anything, I hope that you're right and I'm wrong. I figure, though, every moment that passes, it's more likely that you are." Her lips lifted in a more genuine smile as she added, "I look forward to you being unbearable and declaring that you never doubted it." She did, it was true. More than she had words to express, she looked forward to that.

She'd never been good at being patient? Her grin back to him told the simple fact that she couldn't argue with him. "No, that I have not. It is one of my many not-virtues. But then, there have been times when I've shown a lot of patience. Your affair with the girl at the university that broke my heart, so it did." She chuckled at the memory, she'd been totally sure. "And for the record, Arlo Creede, I'd have waited for you for the rest of my life." If she remembered this dream, that would be enough to have Vega sticking her fingers down her throat, but it didn't change the fundamental truth of it.

He took hold of her hands and the world came to life. Standing, she kissed him and shook her head at his suggestion that she'd done it. "It's a diff'rent me, Arlo, don't you know that yet? The person I am with you, that's a different person entirely." She moved her hand to bury in his hair and then tugged gently at his curls. "I thought you were th'clever an' learned one of the pair of us. You're supposed to 'ave worked that out, you know."

But he'd let her win? Vega hooted laughter and that and shoved him. "That's a bunch o'fish guts, that is, an' you know it. You showed off an' did fancy flips an' stuff, but I went further. Any'ow, we should jus' swing. It's fun." Without thought about what had been but moments ago, she lifted her skirts and ran to the swings. "Come on, Arlo, stop lollygaggin'!" Getting herself onto the swing, she looked at him and grinned. "I love you, more than anythin', an' you bring life into the world, but I'm gonna whupp yer ass, Creede." Her eyes shone with challenge, the delight at it evident in every part of her expression.

"What's the bet? Highest? Who can jump off an' go furthest like last time? Or somethin' else. I don't mind," she said, grinning wickedly. "What's the dare I'm gonna win at, Arlo?" The sun shone brightly in the sky as she asked that and she looked at him with swirling, amused and delighted eyes.

[Arlo Creede]

Was he waiting like she said, Arlo wondered? He had to conclude, well maybe. Maybe he was in a sense waiting for Vega to realize that the key to a quicker, more effective healing process was her. But how quickly or slowly she came to that realization wasn't for him to dictate. He might nudge her in the right direction, but it was all he could do. Much as Arlo wanted to, this was not something he could do for her. Still, it was their way not to be too agreeable, too often, even in their dreams together.

"I'll be unbearable only to the extent that you are," he teased her, "on the rare occasion that you're right and I'm wrong." Which, implication was for teasing' sake, close to never. The girl at the university though? "She never had a chance. You outshine her at every turn Vega." It wasn't just her that could engage in syrupy sap, after all. Even if he tended to want to gag on the sticky sweetness of it, the sentiment was no less sincere.

And he'd worked that out long ago, he teased again. He'd just been waiting for her to realize it. But in all seriousness, he smiled when the world around them was put back into motion. It was her doing, and not his. "The person you are Vega has always been there, long before me. It was laying dormant, maybe, waiting for you to recognize, then come into it. If I'm the one that in any part prompted you to come into your own, well then I couldn't be prouder."

This time though, he told her, there was no bet and there weren't any dares. There were two rope swings, side by side. Separate but together in a sense, and just as she'd said, they'd just swing. Together. It was what he'd do, just swing beside Vega and if she jumped? Then he'd jump with her, in the same way that he'd be by her side while she recovered from her injuries inside and out.

[Tristan Venora]

Name: Vega

Knowledge: N/A

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: N/A
Magic XP: N/A

Points: 15

---

Name: Arlo

Knowledge:
Discipline: Being who you're needed to be
Discipline: Waiting requires a lot of patience
Dreamwalking: Shaping another's dream
Dreamwalking: Guiding, not forcing

Loot: N/A
Injuries: N/A
Renown: N/A
Magic XP: N/A

Points: 15

- - -

Comments: I loved this thread even though it is so sad. Vega is so different in it, thoughtful and melancholic instead of cheerful and slightly crazy. I hope that she’ll be able to walk again and that she’ll recover from what happened to her, both physically and emotionally. It pains me to see her like that, and I’m glad that she has Arlo. He seems like a good person!