The Uncanny Majesty (Dreamnoblade)

Unlearned and Renewed

Dream was watching the world in a confused blur. Maybe it was a worse disease than the one he thought it was, he wasn't sure, or maybe it was multiple ailments. This was the jungle after all, there were a million things that could kill him here. And he was a fool for thinking this was the place he belonged.

I was a fool for thinking this was where I belonged, he looked up at the sky and it's pale blue run through with white, a familiar sight in the recent days, and now I'm going to die out here. But even as he had those thoughts, sure of his own death and his losses, he never truly believed it. He did not belong in his village either, he didn't belong with the people. There was only one place in the world where he had found peace: in his lover's arms, and he would rather have had that for only a few minutes than spent an entire lifetime back in his company.

What would his life have been like, he wondered, the pale blue darkening quickly. A picture came into his head: A sweet wife, strong shoulders, strong hips. Her hair was dark and she wore it in a knot at the top of her head, for practicality of course. She smiled when she saw him, happy when she saw him, enough so that some of the exhaustion pressed into her features melted away in his presence. And kids, too, wouldn't there be kids? They'd look like me and laugh and be loud. I'd have neighbors and a home and a fireplace with red bricks and plenty of wood that I cut, and it would keep us warm through the night. In the evenings we'd all go together and sit on the porch and speak to the people passing by-

The illusion shattered with a cough that racked his body. He tried to sit up a little to make it easier, but he was very weak. No, he thought, in the middle of it, No that isn't real, that never could have been real. I couldn't have been happy like that. Techno showed up and in an instant he had his hands behind Dream's back, supporting him in his fit. Here is my happiness.

"Techno," Dream said, settling down. He gave the other man a warm smile, quite like the one his pretend wife would have given him only a million times better because it was real. "You've been gone all day! I thought you were abandoning me."

Techno laughed because they both knew he could never. "I found a way to get to the ocean. Do you still want to go?"

"You- you found me a way?"

"Yes, my dear, that's what I just said. Don't tell me your fading that quickly."

Despite his state, Dream scoffed and lightly hit him in the arm. "I was clarifying you daft. What is the way?"

Techno smiled at the show of strength and couldn't help but feel proud. My boy does not go down easy. "You're not going to like it," he said, suddenly sobering.

"Why?"

"You have to ride a hoglin."

"The- the ki-" He didn't entirely know what he was going to say but he knew it would have hurt his lover, and he cut himself off when he realized who he was talking to, who was holding him so delicately in his arms even though he did not need to. Who has loved him so thoroughly and so sweetly, plucked him from his casket and breathed new life into him. After all that time his brain was still wired with that instinctual fear. Maybe it would never truly go away. "They, they are a part of you and in my heart you are a part of me. Perhaps I am not so far off from them as it would seem."

Techno raised his eyebrows, surprised. "You accept?"

"I do."

"I'm a part of you?"

"You are." The world blurred out again, his eyes and fever fooling him. He thought Techno was a pretty angel and the burning sunset above was much closer than it actually was. "Let's take the train down to the station," Dream told Techno, "and when we get there we can watch the ladies laugh under the awning."