Diabolicus

Dreamscape

Kennyo stood in the shadows of the forest edge, awaiting the last candle to be extinguished in her little shack of a house just as he had the past fortnight. Luckily, the Lady Nephilim tended to find sleep quickly once she finally landed in her bed.

He crouched to the earth and braced himself against a tree in the copse of a windbreak that would be the resting place for his body while he traversed the Dreamscape. Dream walking required his physical form to remain on the same plane the dreamer resided and within a certain proximity. The garden greenhouse on the leeward side of the hut would have been ideal but the Lady Nephilim had impressively warded it against angels and demons alike.

The Dreamscape was always the same. The starless indigo sky swallowed all light and consumed the topography of the mortal plane, leaving a vast, dark flat that stretched until eternity ended. The only illumination hailed from the life-sized floating spheres that displayed the nightly imaginings of the nearby villagers. Many dreamed of fortunes they would never attain in their lives while others relived past memories. Several envisioned their greatest fears attempting to consume them.

Then there was the Lady Nephilim.

Hers was… simple. A small pond over looked by a grassy knoll with a blossoming tree of some sort and she sat at its base, gazing over the water while a gentle breeze swirled locks of silver about her shoulders. Kennyo paused in front of the portal that would allow him to enter her realm as a final battle warred inside him that he was not worthy of such tranquility, even if it should end at dawn.

He was just stepping back to leave when her eyes suddenly lifted and he could feel how they bore through him as he paused in shock. She can’t really… Can she?

“I can’t see you, if that’s what you’re wondering.” Her eyes shifted slightly to his left as she swayed her hand in a broad span. “I feel your general presence, but I can’t sight you. Please, join me, you have nothing to fear here and I’m quite interested in learning how you found me.”

Too late to turn back now.

He knew the moment she could finally see him as her eyes widened in surprise and she had to look up to meet his face.

“Oh, so I do get to meet the Puzzle Maker. Or are you the shadow I’ve had this past fortnight?”

“Both,” he grinned in response.

“Ah, the traveler from the festival… and here I half expected the Puzzle Maker to be a woman.”

Curious creature… “Would you prefer a woman?”

Her lavender eyes widened yet again in shock as she now stared upon a feminine visage of his usual appearance. She gaped a moment but managed to recover quickly. “Uh, no, not unless you do that is. I have no preference. Man, woman, both, neither… I only wish you as your own preference, whatever that may be.”

“Has anyone ever called you peculiar, Lady Nephilim?” His brow wrinkled as he shifted back to his usual guise. Her head tilted back as a bark of laughter escaped her, the action at odds with the humorless gleam in her eyes.

“With my coloring?”

All his years negotiating deals with angels desensitized him to the plethora of different colorings the race possessed and he had forgotten that silver hair was abnormal for humans. And mortals were so often petty creatures when they found something unusual. “My apologies.”

“Don’t. I'm use to it, I’m just surprised that would be the first thing you ask, especially since you know what I am. Other dream wraiths tend to focus on my lucidity in the Dreamscape and then disappear altogether once they discover my particular parentage. So, why haven’t you?”

Straight to business then? Perfect. “You have a brother that—”

“Had.”

A pause. What does that mean? He must have misheard her. “Had?”

“Yes. I had a brother, but he was converted decades ago and became something… not my brother. I only see the angel he is now when Heaven has need of a new Guardian or Crossroads Angel and he is sent to persuade me to join him. So, if you sought me out because you have business with my former brother, I would be happy to deliver the word but it may be several years until I next see him.”

“No,” he shook his head at the offer. “That won’t be necessary if what you say is true.” If the angel no longer has feelings for his sister then the plan was for naught.

She nodded in understanding before gesturing the way he came. “Feel free to enter of your own conviction… and without invitation next time.”

He barely caught the last of her statement as he left the dreamsphere, but even he could hear the grin once it landed upon his ears.

Well, what to do now?

Nothing. This indulgence of diversion was simply at an end.