Sophie's Dream [c]

"If you want to talk more, dream." The words hung in the air as the boy disappeared. Sophie was breathless. She continued to lie there in the field for a few moments, taking it all in. Then the chill arrived, and she realized the sun had almost completely left the sky. Now it was dark, and she was alone in an empty field in the middle of winter... and in the Rose District. She stood up suddenly and wrapped her arms around her torso to keep herself warm. Then she began the trek home, cursing herself for going out barefoot and without a coat, as well as for staying out after dark. Still, that boy... Cyrus... he was fascinating. Meeting him was... worth it.

She made her way home as quickly as possible, thankfully managing to avoid being noticed by anyone with poor intentions. Just before climbing the steps to her apartment, however, her bare right foot did manage to find a small sliver of glass on the concrete. She scowled but did not have the time, nor the light, to find it and pull it out. Instead, she hopped her way inside, trying to avoid causing a ruckus.

The light came on immediately, and the fight began. As Sophie sat and tried to find the glass in her foot, her mother lectured her on the dangers of the way she'd spent her evening. Everything from the thin chiffon dress in this frigid weather to her lack of coat, her bare feet, and of course she'd gotten glass in her foot. How could she be so irresponsible? How could she worry her poor mother this way?

Sophie went to bed angry with tears streaming down her face. She didn't even bother to remove the dress as she dropped onto her bed and buried her face in her pillow. She sobbed for several minutes before finally drifting off, entering the astral plane slowly and gradually.


She was alone in the house, and the sun had come up. It was Sunday. She peeled herself off the bed and wiped her face on the sleeve of her pink floral nightgown. It was evident she'd been crying, but she couldn't remember why. At her bedside was a wooden paddle brush; she picked it up and brushed her hair until it fell, neat, straight, and fluffy, down over her shoulders and across her back. Then she departed from her bedroom and entered the kitchen, where the natural light made the place look beautiful and eclectic. She started a kettle on the stove and walked to the window to gently lift the leaf of a red-and-white amaryllis. She smiled to herself. They were her favorite flower. She distinctly remembered not having any. That must mean... she was dreaming.

She suddenly remembered the boy from the field. Cyrus, something inside her reminded her. His last words to her rose to the surface of her mind. So, she thought slowly, turning back towards the kitchen table, if she was dreaming... did that mean...?

Her slow, climatic turn back towards the table left Cyrus with only one sensible entrance. By the time she turned around, Cyrus had materialized in a seat next to it. Immediately he looked far more awake and alert than he did earlier, his exhaustion replaced with energy. He also looked far more at home here than in the field, despite the fact that this was the home of another. He was dressed in the same shirt, waistcoat, and pants as before, although they looked completely pristine in spite of the fact he had been sitting and laying in grass not much earlier. "I noticed that you realized you're dreaming already. Usually I have to get people to notice that unless they lucid dream a lot. Is this your house?" Normally it'd be an odd question to ask, but in a dream it was just as likely that someone was in their own house as somewhere completely different.

"I like those flowers," Sophie explained lamely, taking a seat at the table. "I always wanted some." She looked down, tracing the table's wood grain. She had forgotten about the kettle on the stove, meaning that it currently didn't exist anymore. Perhaps if she felt she needed a distraction, later, it might begin to whistle. Dreams were funny that way. "This is our apartment, yes. My parents picked it for all the natural light it gets. It can be pretty creepy at night, though." She didn't mean to reveal that she scares easily. The focus on her made her feel uncomfortably warm. She'd never actually had a boy in her home before. Though he wasn't actually in her home, he might as well be. Sure, it was all her imagination, but didn't he say he had power over dreams, not just presence in them? "You look... rested," she said, raising her gaze look at his face. "Less strained. It really takes a toll on you, doesn't it?" She bit her lip, not sure if she had the right to pry. But he could choose not to answer whatever she asked, couldn't he? Was there any harm in asking? "Why do you do it? Project yourself into the physical world, I mean."

Upon taking notice of the kettle simply popping out of existence for the time being, he simply "stabalized" the room by willing it so, before anything else forgotten started disappearing. While it hardly mattered when anything that vanished would return just as quickly if it became relevant again, watching random objects change and vanish and appear as they tended to do in dreams bothered him. After all, it hardly worked that way in real life. Not to mention that clocks and such were useless when the time on them was completely changed every time you looked at them. "It is very tiring. I do it so that I can see what is going on in reality, and because I miss it sometimes. I haven't always been trapped in dreams. I used to be just as real as everyone else, even if I don't really exist anymore. Not for very long at one time, anyways." Cyrus leaned back in the chair and crossed one leg over the other casually.

"Well you certainly existed enough to make a difference, this time," Sophie thought, saying it aloud by accident. She blushed, even as she slept. Apparently her thought-to-speech filter was almost completely useless in her dreams. She would have to work on that. "I just mean... you know... I noticed you." The kettle began to whistle, and she stood to silence it. "Would you like some tea?" she asked, taking a mug from where they hung over the kitchen sink.

Per usual, her curiosity was turning questions over in her mind so quickly that she could hardly focus long enough to ask one. But there was one thing she wanted to know most, something he kept bringing up but seemed to be skirting around. "What happened?" she blurted before she could stop herself. "How did you get... stuck here?"

"Tea sounds nice." Cyrus had only said yes because she was offering and it was already done. Otherwise if he wanted tea he would just will it into being, rather than have someone go through the trouble of actually making something for him. He started looking around the room again, before turning back to Sophie when another question came his way. "Because of my gift. Besides that, I don't know. One day I went to bed and found waking up difficult. When I finally managed to wake up I started to get tired fast and eventually I found out that I started to just... disappear whenever I went to sleep. I know that I am literally a dream now because my gift to control dreams works on myself, but not any actual people I meet inside of dreams. Not directly, at least. And inside of dreams, other people still feel "real." But I don't." Cyrus let out a heavy sigh as he finished, still looking at Sophie.

"You don't feel real?" Sophie asked as she poured the tea carefully. She tried to imagine what that would be like. When she was dreaming, the dream felt real. It only ceased to feel real once she woke up and the dream became a memory. She wondered if Cyrus felt like he was living in a memory. He must not, though, because he still had control of things. She knew what it was like to have her hand fall asleep and be void of feeling, though she could still see it and control it. She wondered if it was anything like that.

Setting the tea in front of Cyrus, she sat down across from him and sipped at her own, still thinking. She still had so many questions. "Did you have family and friends in your life... before? And now?" Part of her answered for her that he must not, since he was spending his time alone or here, with her, a perfect stranger. But he must have had a life before, something that drew him back to the physical world and put that searching expression in his eyes. She had seen it there, in the field, despite his stillness and his apparent resigned sadness.

"Now I don't have any real friends, not that it really bothers me. If I wanted companions badly enough I could just dream some up. Not to say that I don't like having you around though." He knew he was dodging the first half of the question, but he still wasn't sure he if wanted to divulge the answer to it. Even though he'd been willing to answer whatever questions Sophie had thus far and satisfy her curiosity, he did still have his limits. Cyrus picked up his tea and sipped from it, smiling a bit. "The tea is really nice, especially when you literally made it made it in your sleep."

She smiled at his comment, a backwards way of saying that he did like having her around. She liked having him around, too. It was nice to sit and talk with someone her own age, but also someone who understood what it was like to be alone. Sometimes she enjoyed it, but sometimes, even surrounded by people, she felt lonely. Last night was one of those nights. She was glad to have met him, then.

She had noticed him dodging the question about his family, but she didn't blame him. It was pretty personal, and she didn't like talking about her family too much, either. It was upsetting. Knowing that he had become this dream figure gradually, he probably did have a real family in the real world. Or, like hers, maybe his had been struck by tragedy. Maybe the loss of their son was their tragedy, or maybe it was something else. As always, she was curious, but this time, she held her questions back. Maybe she would find out later; maybe not. It was his secret to share, though, and she wouldn't press it.

"I make tea every day," she said, laughing a little at herself. "I guess it's just what felt natural. I had to dream something..." She paled a little as she thought about what she had been dreaming about lately. She was glad none of those nightmares had been the setting of her first dream with her new friend. That would have been embarrassing, and would have shared more information than she would have liked to divulge all at once. Generally, she didn't have a problem with answering the kinds of questions she liked to ask, but in the case of his appearing in her nightmare, he wouldn't have asked; he would have had her past imposed on him, like... well, like a nightmare.

"I don't usually have a lot of control over my dreams," she explained. "Or my powers, for that matter. That's part of why I drink tea. It's calming, so I don't have to worry as much about random plants reaching out and grabbing people." She laughed sheepishly. "But, normally, my dreams aren't as peaceful as this one."

"It wouldn't have been a big deal if this turned out to be a nightmare instead of what it actually ended up being. Nothing would have stopped me from making it stop being a nightmare. Sometimes I do that for people. Sometimes I do the opposite, too." For a brief moment a look of concern came to his face. It probably wasn't particularly good if nightmares were as common for Sophie as she was letting on. Might even be wise to do something about it at a later time. But right now she wasn't having a nightmare, so at present there wasn't anything to fix. For now. Cyrus paused to take another drink of his tea before taking a few steps back in the conversation. "Your gift is controlling plants?" Although he didn't make any mention of the fact, he was well aware of how gifts like that were viewed by many: pure, the root of all other gifts, et cetera.

Sophie's eyes widened. "You can stop a nightmare?" She asked, hopeful. "Wow... I guess I should have known, since you can control dreams. But that's...really cool." She didn't want to ask him to do that for her, but now that she knew about it, it was hard not to at least wonder if he would be willing to. She didn't know him well enough to be asking favors, though. It wasn't like her to ask anyone favors. "What would make you want to give someone a nightmare?" She asked instead, pondering what kind of nightmare he might give someone. That wasn't very nice, but who was she to judge? She barely knew him, and a nightmare wasn't the worst thing a person could experience. Besides, he could use them for good, if he wanted to. He could use them to convince someone not to make the wrong choice, by showing them what would happen if they did. That was why Sophie always asked; she preferred to give everyone a chance to show the good they had inside. She didn't want to assume the worst about anyone, and since she did have the tendency to at least consider the worst, it was better just to ask.

"Maybe later, I could control plants," she said, once again thinking back to the time she had accidentally made a plant grab someone, because of her emotions. "Right now, I just kind of... affect them. One time, I was reading in the library, and the book got really intense, and one of the nearby plants wrapped a vine around some random person's wrist and wouldn't let go. I couldn't really do anything about it, because I never learned to control my powers. It was really embarrassing! We just talked a little, until I calmed down, and then it relaxed and fell off. I felt so stupid!" She was blushing again, just thinking about it. She shook her head, trying to clear it, and took another sip of tea. "Was it hard to learn to control dreams?"

"Sometimes someone will do something that makes me think they deserve it. Or they might actually ask me to do it, for one reason or another. It is usually as simple as that, really. I don't do it just for fun or anything, though. I always have far better reasons than that for tormenting people." He went back to drinking his tea as Sophie continued, nodding in affirmation as she told her story. "To be honest, controlling dreams isn't any harder than just imagining something. That has always been the easy part of my gift. The difficult part is making parts of dreams, myself included, become reality. I don't know how to describe it beyond somehow flipping a switch on something from 'dream' to 'real.' Except it isn't even that simple. More complex things are increasingly difficult to make real without some sort of error, if I can manage it at all. I suppose I'm lucky that making myself real without error is as easy as it is. Trying to make anything else that's alive into reality is unimaginablely difficult right now." Cyrus took a breath and opened his mouth to continue speaking before he paused. "Sorry. I keep going on and on."

"Don't be sorry, I'm having fun getting to know you," Sophie replied. "I didn't think you seemed like the type to give people nightmares for no good reason, so I'm glad to hear I was right about that. It's really cool to think you could someday make anything from a dream into reality. The possibilities would be truly endless, limited only by your imagination. That would be a big limit for me, I think. I don't think I'm very imaginative. I never even thought to see if I had powers, and once I found out I did, I didn't care to use them much. It's only now that I'm in school at Beata that I realize how far behind I am, in comparison to other students. If I'd been practicing, I could probably do some really cool stuff with plants by now. But you... you can probably create entire worlds, can't you? That must be so amazing!"

"Yes. I can and do somewhat often, at least when other people are dreaming and around. Otherwise there isn't much point to it. But right now, I could do so easily if you wanted me to." He finished drinking the last of his tea after speaking, setting down the empty mug. He could have easily just willed more tea into existence inside of the mug if he so desired, but he had the feeling they wouldn't be sitting at the table drinking tea for a whole lot longer now that he had thrown his offer out there. "If you would like, you may be able to try practising your gift as well. If something bad happens it wouldn't be difficult to get it back under control, after all."

"Practicing... in a dream... that's brilliant!" Excited, Sophie jumped out of her chair, and another bloom opened up on the amaryllis. She giggled. "Like that! Wow! It's so cool when it... responds to me. It's hard to imagine ever getting control of it. Anytime it reacts to my emotions, I'm just so stunned that I don't know what to do with it. I wish I could get it to respond to thoughts or commands instead of emotions. Like... grow, or wither, and it would just do it." She stared at the flower, willing it to do something, but it didn't. Instead of fussing with it any more (and risking getting too frustrated), she turned back to Cyrus. "Well, that was short-lived. Let's see yours! Take me somewhere! Or, maybe... would you take me to your favorite place?" She left their mugs on the table, now recognizing that, since this was a dream, there was no need to clean up. The room and everything in it would disappear as soon as they went someplace else.

"Oh wait! Um.." She looked down at her pink floral nightgown, wondering what the best protocol was for leaving the house in a dream. She wanted to get dressed, but with Cyrus in her dream house, would he see? Even if he weren't in the room with her, he might. But this was her dream, right? Could she simply change her outfit with a thought? She tried to remember what her lucid dreams were like before she met Cyrus. Normally, like with the tea, she would choose her actions, but she would have to actually do things in order for them to happen. She couldn't just will herself into different clothes. "Ok, I know we're just dreaming, but... can you hold on a second? Stay right there." She went into her bedroom and closed the door. "You're being so stupid," she whispered to herself, even as she tossed off the nightgown and donned a pair of jeans and a wool sweater that matched her grey-green eyes. She dressed as quickly as she could, wanting to get this ridiculous, silly ritual over with as fast as she could so she could just forget about it. Then she opened the door and came out to see the amaryllis dotted with tiny, hastily grown and unopened buds, almost as if the plant was rushing to look presentable, just like she was. She blushed and turned away from it. Damn that beautiful plant, being so expressive, she thought.

"Okay, um... let's go! Take me to your favorite place!" Hopefully somewhere without plants to give me away, her thoughts added.

Cyrus looked slightly confused as Sophie ran off to change, but waited patiently for her to return. "Were you uncomfortable continuing to be seen in a nightgown? I have total control over the weather and such wherever we go, so you're free to dress as you please." Cyrus, admittedly, almost always wore the exact same thing, simply willing cleanliness upon the outfit whenever necessary. He didn't have any reason to change it up, so he just picked one outfit that he thought fit him well enough and stuck with it. Cyrus brought a hand up before snapping his fingers, and in the instant the two were standing on a familiar stone platform that seemed to be suspended in midair, a starry night sky surrounding it from every direction. The sky also had large bubbles gently flowing all around it. At one end of the platform were steps leading up to a throne, but rather than move to sit in it Cyrus simply stayed seated in the same chair he had been, which had been transported along with him. "I suppose this is the closest I have to a favorite place. This is usually where I bring people when I decide to pull them out of their own dreams for one reason or another. Other dreams are certainly close to this place, anyways." On closer inspection each of the bubbles appeared to have their own little worlds contained within, presumably the dreams of others asleep around the city. "If you don't like it here, I can take us somewhere else or just change it. And if you want to practice your gift..." Another snap of Cyrus' fingers, and a large plot of grass appeared alongside the stone platform, complete with a large oak tree and various flowers of different species, including amaryllis.

Sophie shrugged. "I didn't know where we'd be going, and I feel weird being anywhere but home in my pajamas."

Sophie gasped as they were transported to the suspended platform. It was amazing and chilling at the same time. It took her several minutes to take it all in, as she observed the stars, the stone beneath her feet, and the floating bubbles of moving dreams. "This is incredible..." She said, her eyes getting caught by one dream or another as they floated by. She smiled when he conjured the grass, oak tree, and her favorite flower. It was so nice, albeit out of place. He was sweet to bring her flowers here.

Finally, her eyes shifted to the steps, then the throne. Slowly, she turned back to Cyrus, meeting his eyes with a careful gaze, and biting her lower lip with nervousness again. "Whose--" Her voice came out quiet and breathless, just above a whisper. She tried again, just a little louder. "Whose is that?"

"I usually sit on it when I want to act more like a god. I don't feel like doing that right now, though. But usually I think it's fitting in a way, since I am effectively a god here. I usually enjoy putting that act up for people." Another trip back into the real world proved too humbling for him to want to act particularly divine right now, the weakness having left him feeling weaker than mortal. So he found it more fitting to remain sitting in a regular old chair, as opposed to a stone throne. Not to mention that Sophie had seen the limits of his power long before getting here, so he could only think that sitting up on a throne would be even less impressive. "Is there anything else you need here?"

Sophie just stared at him for a long time, thinking but not saying anything, trying to match what she had seen here to the profile of Cyrus she had been making in her mind. Her expression showed her confusion, doubt, and a touch of fear. Something didn't add up, which told her there was much more about him to discover. There was a darkness in him that she didn't understand, a person who gave people nightmares and drew them out of their dreams to this place where he sat above them, on a throne. And that this is where he took her when she asked him to take her to his favorite place meant he liked to feel powerful. It was interesting, for sure, but it was also dangerous. She dropped her eyes to the ground. "No," she said, "I don't need anything else here."

"Sophie!" The high voice shook her mind, echoing through the vision. Confusion crossed her face for a moment. "You're going to miss the bus!" Her mother. She was dreaming. It was time for school.

She couldn't control it; she was waking up. And just like that, she was gone.