Trinket (Reverse Harem)

Dreams That Fled Long Ago

These words of a dark coloring

I saw written above a gate whereupon I said,

"Master, their meaning is hard for me."

Then he spoke like one who understands:

"Here you must give up all distrust,

here all cowardice must end."

~ The Divine Comedy : Inferno, Canto III 11-16

The storm broke over the temple that night, but didn't bring any bugs with it, so there was that. Ormiss was still missing. I tried not to think about anything. It still all seemed so damn real in my head, not like a dream at all.

Asund stayed in wolf-form curled up in the corner diagonal to where I stayed curled up, watching me. The others fretted and pined.

I didn't know what to tell them. I didn't know what to tell myself. This all seemed to have been for nothing.

The Priestess finally got around to summoning us to her throne room (was it a throne? I guess it was a throne) on the afternoon of the second day, while it was still pouring rain. Ormiss was still missing.

Maybe he wasn't missing, and he'd just gone home.

I had thrown my trinket away, and with everything that had happened, I wasn't sure I regretted doing it. But I did feel sad that I'd done. But was it the I made a mistake sad, or the I'm sad it had to happen sad?

"We need some damn answers," Itek told Korr under his breath as we went up some interior stairs to the chambers level.

Korr made a noise of agreement. Ethat fretted some pollen.

The Priestess sat on her bed/throne. She looked exhausted and gaunt, and her headdress seemed too heavy, like my dreams had taken something from her.

My dreams had taken something from both of us.

The males arranged themselves in a row behind me. I stood at the foot of the stairs.

Korr was the one who spoke first. "You tortured her, Priestess."

He stepped out of line to come beside me, and said again, "You tortured her."

The Priestess, looking very tired, stared at him, then shifted her feline gaze to me. "I couldn't gain entry to your dreams the usual way."

"You mean sex," I said darkly, anxiety twisting my gut as my brain flashed the memories of her and Asund entangled and the horrible things Asund had said.

"Dreams are private things, and I'm not sure even if we had played as I suggested I could have gained access to your dreams. Slipping into the dreams of anyone is delicate and difficult, there is a reason only Pantere can do it. But your dreams are surrounded by a dark ocean that I cannot traverse in the normal way. Your dreams tried to take me somewhere that was not the dream we were chasing. I needed you to take me to the other dreams. The ones that surrounded by that darkness nothing can cross."

Something chilled me, and it wasn't the rain falling outside.

"So," her gaze travelled down my scars, "I used pain. You are bound to the memory of that dream by pain. Pain sent you there, pain woke you. And I finally drove you there, and your screams summoned your wolf, and he was able to cross the darkness to you, while I clung to his fur, and I used him to run you down until you gave me your dreams."