Three Twisted Knots

From Lira:

This dreaming thing is weird. I looked up “dreaming” on the Internet, and apparently human mortals have written whole books about it. Entire philosophies seem to crop up. Some folk seem to think dreaming is simply the human brain firing synapses at night to keep itself busy, I guess, while the body is at rest. Others seem to think that dreams are ways of working out human problems. Still others assign more prophetic and spiritual meanings to dreams. Even if they don’t seem prophetic or spiritual, these folk ascribe almost magical (if not explicitly magical) attributes to dreams.

Sometimes, it seems that dreams change shape and setting according to what we have been doing or experiencing in waking life, and then somehow altering around us as we continue in our dream.

It feels funny to say that I woke into a dream, but that’s what this felt like. Waking into this dream was interesting, because I was alternately excited and scared. And then I realised what must be happening, especially when I had a look at the clothes I was wearing. I’d been bingeing the first part of Series 2 of Wednesday, which dropped recently onto Netflix. So I was deep into the world of Nevermore Academy.

Now, sleep, for most beings in the industrialised world (I hesitate to say civilised, given what folk are capable of doing to one another), takes place in some kind of a bed. So not waking into a bed, but having a bed be the first thing I saw, was a little odd.

Odder than that was the sense of instant history that sort of slammed into my brain. It’s how nothing ever seems odd in a dream, while you are in it. I know most of you already know this: have a little compassion for we poor Chimerical Librarians (all one of us!) who have only just had our first dream recently and are still figuring out what exactly dreams are and what they do.

And then there was the slamming of a door. I turned to look, but no-one was there. It seemed like a really thick door, but despite that, I could hear the shouted words more clearly than I should have been able to.

“No! She can keep everything but my bed! I’m not rooming with her, no way, no how. She’s a monster!”

And another voice: “There, there, dear. I’ll see if we can find you another place to roost before anybody so much as blinks an eye.”

First voice again: “How does someone like that get admitted here?”

Finally, the voices began to fade. I knew with certainty that the shouting was about me, that I was the monster. I wondered what I’d done to alienate a roommate so, and I seemed to see glimpses of long tubes with crystals and tentacles and stuff in them. Apparently, I liked to experiment.

The bed was, Wednesday-Addams style, completely black. In not-at-all-Wednesday style, it was large, bedecked with pillows, and looked so comfortable I just wanted to jump in.

Then, I felt something strange, under my hat. It did not feel strange to me that I was wearing a hat, although I almost never wear hats. Maybe I will start. I could be a hat person.

There was a noise, like an uncoiling spring, and I suddenly realised a bird had been hiding in my hat. “Oh, Uggla won’t like this,” I said out loud. There was a perch in the room, but no Uggla; maybe he had gone out the—OK, that huge half-rainbow window was very Wednesday— window hunting: he spends a lot of time hunting these days. I realised then that I was wearing what could only be described as a Nevermore athletics costume, with joggers and a cropped jumper, or I guess you’d call it a sweat shirt. I figured it would also make good pyjamas, for later, which meant I didn’t have to go digging around in not-Wednesday’s clothes, assuming I was here that long.

These boots, though. I have got to have a pair like this. I pulled back the cuff to reveal the Rakshasa tag. Ah, yes. I think Friðrós shops there. I will find out from her; maybe TAC can send her a letter or something on my behalf.

And what was with that eerie broken spiderweb mirror on the windowsill? I saw that a lot of the silver had worn off the surface, though it appeared to be reflecting normally. Until, that is, I stood up and looked into it.

The reflection, what there was of it, looked like me, but I was dressed in some kind of fancy outfit with a lot of lace. Or I think I was. The outfit bore no resemblance to what I was wearing now, which seemed much more comfortable.

And speaking of uncomfortable, I decided just staring at not-me was not-happy making. So I turned around to look at the rest of the room.

If there had been a second bed here, it was clearly gone and I couldn’t see where it had been. Instead, there was a workspace, several black-based rugs, and some parlour furniture which I supposed I might make use of at some point. And there was the most adorable orange tabby Persian cat, who informed me his name was Malaclypse. I should look that up and figure out what it means.

The writing workspace was just my speed, though I wasn’t sure if Wednesday would go for all the obviously-living plants.

The light on the other side of the room was a more true blue than that on what my brain wanted me to think of as my side. Even though that made it more colourful, the whole place still looked like a film set lit blue for atmospheric night-time purposes. I had a feeling I could be comfortable at such a desk. And the retro manual typewriter, well. It would be fun for a little while maybe, but surely there had to be a computer, or at least an iPad with a keyboard, around here somewhere.

I investigated the rest of the room, then went out onto the balcony, which overlooked not a school for odd outcasts, but some kind of a lake surrounded by forest. I tried climbing up the roof to see the other side, but I kept slipping off. Good thing I was wearing joggers and not some dress, huh, weird spider mirror? Mmhmm. Climbing down didn’t work either: somehow I kept getting bounced back on to the balcony, well away from the stone railing.

Fine: I would investigate this supposed school in another way, I decided, but when I reached the door I found that it opened onto a brick wall.

Right. I pushed down panic. I wasn’t trapped in a little room that looked an awful lot like a comedy horror television show set; I was having a dream. And I knew I was having a dream, which meant it was a lucid dream. That meant I could.

“Don’t forget,” said a Disembodied Voice. Oh, great. Some of you might remember I have, well, a history with Disembodied Voices. “You have a paper on the Tarot due tomorrow, and true to form, you haven’t even started it yet.”

“Well, that wasn’t very smart of me, was it?” I retorted. Vaguely, my mind told me that engaging a Disembodied Voice in an argument was no way to get out of this dream.

“You know what they say,” replied the Disembodied Voice. “The Only Journey is The Fool’s Journey.” And then it went silent.

Fine, fine. I could play along. I grabbed one of the five books on the Tarot from the coffee table and took it to bed with me.

Ooh. The bed was so comfortable. I put the book on the bed beside me—I didn’t even start reading—and took my glasses off. Ooh, these pillows. Very, very inviting. It’ll be good to just lie here and….

Don’t worry, said Malaclypse, who sounded an awful lot like a Disembodied Voice but was actually right behind my knee, purring like mad. I’ll watch over you.

Notes & Credits:

(As always, sponsored items are marked with a *)

Items available at Enchantment’s Nevermore, open now through 31 August:

Lira:

• Skin: Loa, Leila, in tone Opal*
• Makeup & Neck Tattoo: Loa, Leila Makeup Set*
• Clothes: The Annex, Nevermore Joggers & Sweatshirt*
• Shoes: Rakshasa, Medora Boots

On The Set:

• Bed, Bedside Table with Candles, and Rugs: Moss & Luna, Nocturna Gothic Bed Set*
• Creepy Spiderweb Mirror that Might or Might Not Show the Future: Static, Widow’s Mirror*
• Desk: Botanical, Nevermore Conservatory Desk*
• Moth, Raven, & Snake Frame, Globe Floor Lamp, & Bat Hanging Lamp: Raindale, Mourndale Set*
• Vivarium Specimen Vat: Cerridwen’s Cauldron, Brass Specimen Vat, Floor, Vivarium

Other Fancy Stuff:

Lira:

• Earrings: Andore, Shari
• Additional Earrings: Kunst, Owl Set Earrings
• Ears: Andore, MiHD Ears (Elf)
• Hair: Rama, Zooey Hair
• Glasses: Triggered, Lyra Glasses
• Birb Hat: Tardfish, Burdy Hat (At The Vault)
• Eyes: Shimm, CXLIII, Bonus 3
• Eyebrows: Simple Bloom, Deborah Eyebrows, Soft Arch
• Lira is styled on a Legacy mesh body and a Lelutka EvoX Raven mesh head.

On the Set:

• Malaclypse: Expertly portrayed by CKit Falconry’s Persian Cat*, available now at Mischief Managed!
• Desk Clutter, Typewriter, and Work Chair: Muniick, Lewellyn Vintage Writing Set
• Additional Rugs: Moss & Luna, Spring Rug, Leaf Rug
• Skybox: Minimal, Wednesday Skybox, PBR retexturing by Gwen Enchanted

All photos shot in Awenia’s Box Studio in the Minimal Wednesday Skybox.