Robbin

18. Lasting Comfort

Terra had never dreamed while conscious before. There was one second she realized she was lying, no longer standing. Another second she was standing. It was a rather odd sensation, or rather, vision.

Terra gazed up toward gorgeous stone, stretching high into the dark sky in the form of a dozen towers. She spun in place between them, their tops circling around her frame of vision. Her dress swished. Circling. Circling...

A split second of reality told her she had collapsed on her back. She stared forward, only black sky speckled with climbing rough towers could be seen by her involuntary, unmoving eyes.

She sprinted across the clearing; her small one inch heels clacked against the rock ground. The trees behind her retreated as the buildings before her approached...

She felt a cold soft ball against her neck, like a finger.

in response to her dash for the shadowed outline of a small female figure tucked between their hulking presence. "Madiera!" she yelled.

The ball of cold retreated from the vein which still pumped in her neck. It brushed her chest where the hot ring of her necklace rested in pleasant warmth against her skin. The ball retreated quicker this time. The echo of Madiera's ghostly name, which had previously filled her ears, was replaced by a very real male yelp.

Her eyes saw sky, then a tower as her face involuntarily tipped back. He was carrying her. Her floral flats lightly slapped the dirt and her head was swiftly supported by a palm of cold. She felt dumb for being mute as her head cradled against his shoulder. She supposed she couldn't help it. She looked up at her savior as she was let down; reality disappeared from her wide eyes once more.

She followed her, eyes looking toward the lining of red silk which lined the back hem of Madiera's dress. The light feminine fabric waved at the bottom where Madiera walked.

Robbin's face studied her, blocking her line of sight. His dark eyebrows raised at the corners in distress.

"Robbin..." someone said. He was pulled back into the fray.

Their pace was brisk. Dressed in corsets, farthingales, like princesses, they wandered among the darkness cast by deep inclines in the form of stone alleyways, like trespassers in a hideout. Terra was dressed in green, Madiera in red, and they studied the creepiness of the desolation which the towers seemed to trap in their close rows. Beautiful slate made smooth and tall, interrupted only by long thin holes which made defensive rectangular windows was nothing if not inhabited, she felt.

"One day they'll all come back." Her voice drifted back to Terra from where she paced ahead.

"They've all gone for good," Terra replied.

The embroidery of the beautiful red dress spun as Madiera's heels turned and she was facing Terra. Terra looked up, shocked at the perfect face to meet her. She felt terror go up her spine, studying the minute details of the pale cheeks, peach hair and yellow eyes. She was staring at the exact, immaculate replica of her own face reflected in the other woman.

Though, she found herself clarifying in a bored tone as if not shocked at all: "you know it's true. Look at this place, it's abandoned, left to be taken over by savage creatures and violent nature." Small animals scattered along the floor of a thin stone porch as if to prove her point.

"You don't know that!" Madiera responded forcefully, and she was turning back around to continually pace ahead.

"Wait, Madiera, do you hear that?"