Fantasy RPG Forum - Standing Trials

Vega had fallen asleep easily that night. Easier than the other nights since she'd arrived in Desnind because she'd stopped sharing a camp with Ti'niva and had set up on her own. It was better all around, the young woman thought and her sleep had been easier in coming. It was heavier, too and dreams came more quickly that night than they had before. Piling in one on top of the other as her silver blood shone reflected in the moons'light.

She was sitting on a crate, waiting for her father. The docks of the city they were stopping in were busy and resembled the docks of Rharne which she had thought about earlier that trial. She sat on the crate, hands folded in her lap, across which rested the delicate lace parasol which protected her fair skin from the beating sun. There were people moving all around, but she was still and serene, a sea of calmness. She wore a beautiful, intricate dress of green with lace and brocade, tiny details which one would have to be almost inches away from her to notice dotted all over the dress. It was, as dresses went, truly exquisite and she had a matching hat perched atop her head. The brim shielded her delicate skin from the sun and the green lace gloves covered her hands, providing the final touch for this lady's outfit.

In front of her, there were children playing. Three of them, all of them Biqaj were rough housing on the dockside. Two boys and a girl, the boys with long dark hair and the girl, of course, with the familiar tousled red. They were smaller than her, but broader, more stocky whereas she was all elbows and knees, long and gangly and not quite fitting together. For all of that, though, in the fight they were having, she gave as good as she got if not better and as she landed a blow on one of the lad's nose and blood started to run, Vega turned to look at the man sitting next to her. She smiled and lifted the fan which she didn't know she was holding in her hand, fluttering it to move the air.

"She got into awful trouble for that," she motioned to the young Biqaj girl who had just bloodied the boy's nose. "From the adults, of course, but he had his revenge, too. I thought I should wait here for my father." She gestured around and sighed slightly. "But I don't think he's coming, which is a shame. I wanted to tell him the stories of my trial. He'd be interested in that, I met a boy with a hat and I went hunting." Lifting the parasol, she opened it and covered herself from the sunlight. "We got lost in the woods once, him and I. Ten trials it was. In a place just like this. Nowhere, really. Somewhere and nowhere, just a place filled with people who are trapped and pretending not to be. What about you?" She turned and asked, with an interested expression on her face.

"This is a dock. Ships come in, they leave. Goods arrive and depart, it's constant. Everyone's going somewhere. Where are you going?"

"It was the hat I noticed about her first, you know. It seemed so strange, how it sat there and wasn't straight. I'd never seen anything like it," Vega gestured to the red-haired child. She had no idea she was dreaming and yet, on some level she knew that the child was her. "She seemed so out of place sitting there, like the hat and the corset and the gloves and the gown, they weighed her down. I mean, they're beautiful, but why would anyone wear them?" Beneath her perfectly placed hat, Vega grinned at him. "And I'm not a girl. I'm grown up now. I just wondered who she was waiting for, sitting there so still and held down. I hope it was someone interesting." It would be a real shame if it wasn't Vega considered.

She watched as the clouds became a marble arched bridge which then was beautiful white-sailed ships. It didn't seem to bother her that it did that, though she frowned slightly. "But they're going in a straight line. That isn't how it works, you know. On land, it might seem it, but that isn't how we sail." She seemed content to watch the children for a while, sitting in silence as she twirled the parasol. She looked at the man with no face, though, and frowned. "Is that your father? I thought you said you had a step father? Or was that the fish in the pond...... " Vega looked down at the ground where her idea of an ornamental pond suddenly was. It was a small and vivid blue pond filled with fish made from rubies and amethyst, diamonds and emeralds. "Did your father buy her fish too? We eat them, but we couldn't eat those. Too crunchy."

Was she trapped too? Vega turned to look at him, her eyes a deep gold. "Everyone's trapped, even if it's by freedom, aren't they?" She felt quite sure and she turned her golden gaze to the child with the red hair. "She's trapped. Doesn't fit. Lives her life on the sea, but gets seasick still. Father says it's in my head and heart, the sickness. Silver blood, changing eyes, ask about her mother, Eva cries." It sounded like a rhyme, a song even as she said it. But who Eva was, she didn't say. "I'd be trapped if I stayed there, I knew it. An almost- Biqaj, that's what he used to call me." She motioned to the boy whose nose the girl had bloodied. "His name is Reese, he's my cousin and I bloodied his nose more than once. He always won, though. So, I decided to leave and now I'm going to find out about the other half of me, then pick up what I have, wrap up what I know and still be me when I walk away. Is that trapped? I don't feel it. I feel free."

She shrugged, thoughtfully. "But I guess I might be. What about you, Arlo? Would you like this?" Vega took off the hat and handed it to him with a quizzical expression, whilst still keeping a copy of it firmly on her head. "Would you like to go hunting again? I bet you I could get him if I aimed well." She nodded at the boy who had tormented her throughout her childhood and her violet eyes looked equal parts mischief and mayhem. She was joking about shooting a child, but here in her dream where her subconscious was free, Vega was only mostly joking. "Or if you like, we can go play on the swings over there." True enough, hanging from a tree which looked remarkably familiar was a set of swings suitable for older children. Probably about the age she'd accused him of being and yet denied vehemently she'd said any such thing.

"I don't know if they ever came, I never saw who she was waiting for." Vega smiled, watching as the scene in front of them unfolded. A tall man, taller than his grown daughter stepped up and scooped up the redhaired girl, flinging her over his shoulder like a sack of potatoes. "My father came, see? Scooped me up and took me back to the ship. I got into such trouble, so I did. I never knew who she was waiting for, or if they ever came." She shrugged slightly and looked at Arlo with a quizzical expression. "I often wondered, though. Thought up stories and stuff about who she was. Might have been a princess or a warrior, a priestess or off to an arranged marriage to a fat and ugly man. I decided, though, she was running away." Why she'd decided that, she didn't know but as the Biqaj man hauled off the girl and grabbed the boy with the bleeding nose by the ear, taking him along, Vega watched too.

She looked like her father, or at least the father in her dream. More than that, though, by looking at him it was easy to see what she could become in terms of physique; a bit stronger, a bit more muscle and the easy grace with which her father walked and Vega would, undoubtedly, look a lot more like him. She laughed when he said that he liked the ships that way, though, a deep and almost manly laugh with no guile to it at all. "Well, if what we'd like to be was fish in the sea we'd never starve, would we?" It was good, though, that the raccoons didnt mind them and Vega nodded. "I was talking about raccoons earlier. I don't remember, though."

He declared it a fine hat and when it transformed into his hat she barked a laugh again. "You're an odd boy. For a farm boy, you're odd. I'm glad to have met you though, you taught me about how important a good hat is. I might even get one. Another one, that is. But yes! I'd like to swing." She moved over with him and sat on the swing, ignoring the flowing skirts and leaving the parasol behind her, she sat down and declared, "Oh! It's comfortable, too." When he told her about the swing his stepfather made him, Vega nodded. "Jewels for your mother and a swing for you? He sounds like a good father, a good man." Pushing with her feet, Vega curled her legs underneath her as she swung backwards and stuck them out straight in front of her whilst leaning back as she swung forward. Evidently, she'd done it before and more than once. She matched him, swing for swing and in the dream somehow, because of course it was a dream, they matched each other.

"My father did the same with me, all of us children on the boat, we had three swings in a line like this, but we were surrounded by a nice deep pond. The trick was to make sure you got far enough out that you didn't hit the side of the ship and die, of course. But I don't know if that actually could happen, he just warned us a million times. So I bet you that you can't, you know. I never had to aim for the pond, just focus on how far I could get, and I always won." She looked at him with a grin, not thinking to wonder how it was that they were both swinging so very high and fast and yet, both of their hats stayed firmly planted on their heads. "Together? You count us down."

Assuming that he did, the swing before the one they let go, she noted where the zenith of her swing was, where the absolute maximum was. That was the trick, she knew from childhood, to exit the swing just at the moment where you were still moving forward but without sacrificing any of the height. That was what she did and, without a care for anything such as dresses or safety, she let go and flew. With a delighted whoop of pleasure she felt herself soar and, as she hit the water in the dream, Vega woke up, turned back over and went back to sleep, almost immediately falling into a quite different dream.