From Callas de Navarre's Journal, 1/9/1348

1/9/1348
St. Petersburg, Russia

I will not strangle my sister.

I will not strangle my sister.

I will. Not. Strangle. My. Sister.

Much as I may want to.

We used the Grail to heal Gemma's legs. Now comes the hard part: teaching her how to walk. She's never done a lot of walking, and her leg muscles aren't well developed. The problem is trying to keep her awake and interested long enough to get anything done! Every time anything gets the least bit difficult, she falls asleep, sometimes even midsentence, sliding out of her body and away. I have an advantage in that I can go after her, but I can't bring her forcibly back to her body--she's stronger than me in dreams.

This afternoon, I was trying to prop her up and help her walk around, when she simply gave a little sigh and her whole body went limp. Knowing she'd gone into dreams, I held onto her and sank down onto the floor myself, pulling her onto my lap. She's such a little thing, so thin-boned and starved.

I contacted Dream and told him I was going after Gemma, and he told me to be careful. And then I was out of my body, traveling through dreams, looking for my sister.

I found her on a bridge over a a clear stream, dangling her bare feet in the water. I came up and sat beside her, putting my own feet into the cold water, looking down at them and not my sister.

We sat in silence for a while. Gemma said, "It's not like I thought it would be."

I glanced sidelong at her. "How did you think it would be?"

"I thought...oh, I don't know what I thought. I wanted the pain to stop, I wanted Morgan to stop torturing me. I thought everything would be easy after that. Then you came, and it was like everything I ever wanted had come true. But it's not. I don't hurt any more, but everything's so hard! I can do anything I want in dreams. The material's so boring, and so much work." She kicked at the water, startling a school of small fish that were swimming by.

"It's got compensations, though."

"Like what? Name me something I can do on the material that I can't in dreams."

I thought about this for a few moments. "Have you ever made any friends here?"

"Not...many. Some. They keep going away. Like that friend of yours, that half-orc. I haven't seen him since, and neither have you."

"People on the material stay longer. And they're not just there while they're dreaming. They're there all the time."

"Who's going to want to be friends with me, the cripple?" Her mouth was twisted bitterly. "I've seen a lot, big sister, I've seen how people look at cripples. I saw a bunch of boys throwing rocks at a woman who couldn't walk, once. I've heard the names they call us."

I shook my head. "Gemma. You're healed. You're not a cripple, not any more. You can't walk just yet, but that's because you've never tried, you were never given the chance to try. And to answer your question, I know Galvin would be your friend. I think you remind him of his sister, and he misses her. Tamsin is very sweet, once you get to know her, and I think you'd get along fabulously with Aiden. He's crazy, but it's usually a fun kind of crazy. None of us bite, you know."

She didn't answer, frowning down at her swinging feet.

"And I'm your friend, too, already. And so is Dream."

"You don't count! You're my sister."

I snorted. "And? Can't I still be your friend?"

She stuck out her tongue at me. I took a little heart; silly and petulant was better than sulky and depressed. I splashed my feet in the water and said, "You know, I think we're going about this all wrong."

"What, playing with water?"

I laughed. "Teaching you how to walk. You know, the children who are raised in the Temple learn to ride long before they can walk. Sitting a horse does strengthen your legs....and on a horse, you're just as fast as anyone else. And I, for one, think that riding is one of the most amazing things you can do on the material. You can ride in dreams, but it just isn't the same."

She kept looking at the water but I could tell the idea intrigued her. I added, "We can ride Dream. I'll bet he'd be happy to let you ride on him, and I know he'd take care of you and wouldn't let you fall." To myself, I thought, Okay, little sister. There's the bait...come on, take it. I know you adore Dream. You're our mother's daughter. Come on...

She was silent. Finally, she looked at me sidelong, and said, "Well...maybe. We can try it. Just for you. All right?"

I reached over and hugged her. "Thank you. Now...while we're here, why don't you teach me how to do something here?"

She flashed a grin at me. "I thought you'd never ask! You're all right at changing the little stuff, now. Let's try some impossible stuff."

"Like what?"

She rolled her eyes. "Use your imagination, Callas. You *do* have one, don't you? Here, like this." She waved at the water, and the school of fish she'd scattered before swam up out of the water, circled her head twice, and swam away through the air as if it were water, darting silver through the leaves of the trees. "This one's good for confusing regular dreamers and even some people who live here part-time. People who spend a lot of time in the material expect things to be predictable. You know, like the fact that things fall down when you drop them, or that fish swim in water, not air. Change things quickly enough, staying one step ahead of them, and you can keep them confused. It's something I learned when Morgan was trying to send me false dreams. You try it."

I looked around for inspiration. Gemma had taught me how to change things in the dream realm a few days before, and I could do it now without really thinking about it or expending much effort on it. My eye fell on a large rock in the middle of the stream, about the size of a loaf of bread. The back had a sort of ridge on it, and there were two bumps on the sides...and before I knew it, a tiny dragon made out of white stone burst out of the stream and, squalling, tumbled out onto the bank, shaking itself dry. It looked at me, jeweled eyes burning, and leaped into the air, translucent wings pulling it towards the sky.

"Interesting choice. Is Aru always the first thing you think of when you think 'dragon'?" Gemma had a sly smirk on her face.

I tried not to blush. So that was why the little dragon had looked familiar... I shook my head. "Coincidence. I happened to be thinking about Aru a few minutes ago. It's only been a few days since he died."

I realized my mistake as Gemma turned away from me, wrapping her arms around herself in a gesture that I recognized, having done it all too often myself. "Gemma...what?"

Her voice was almost too soft to hear. "He died getting me out. An ancient white dragon in trade for a cripple who sleeps most of her life away. Someone you loved in exchange for a sister you barely know. Your protector for someone you have to protect." She turned towards me, and I flinched at the raw pain in her eyes. "Was it worth it, Callas? Am I worth what you lost to save me?"

(Was I that moody, when I was her age? I have the sinking feeling that the answer is yes. I have no idea why nobody ever killed me in my sleep.)

I held her eyes with mine. "Whether I think it was worth it is irrelevant. What is relevant is that Aru thought it was, little sister. I didn't ask him to go in and rescue you, he did it all on his own. He made his choice out of love, and I have to take it on faith that the price he paid was equal to what we received. You. You're the key to defeating Lazlo, evidently."

Hearing Lazlo's name, Gemma smirked, her cockiness reasserting itself, covering the pain I'd just seen. "Oh, him. Thinks he's so hot, that one. I ran into him a year ago, in one of my own places--it looked a lot like this one, actually. I tied his tail in a knot and sent him bouncing back to the material. I've seen him since, and tweaked his tail every time."

"Ah, you do realize who he is, right?"

She wrinkled her nose at me. "Some hotshot dream wraith. Dream's much nicer, even if he's never told you his *real* name."

"And what, exactly, do you mean by that, Gemma?"

She grinned at me. "Ask him." I rolled my eyes at her. "What, did you think his name was really Dream? He's your guide, you can't go peeking into his past without him knowing about it, but I can." She was smirking at me, and I was having to fight down a definite urge to strangle my smug little sister.

"I am so not having this conversation with you. I am not."

"But it's so much fun to get your goat. You know that's why Dream likes to tweak you about things. You make such interesting faces!"

I shook my head, exasperated. "Look, if you've been violating my familiar's privacy, I don't want to know about it, all right?"

She laughed and kicked at the water, sending an arc of droplets into the air that turned into diamonds on the way down, plinking back into the water and coming to rest between the stones at the bottom. "You're so serious all the time. All right, let's try something else. I'm going to change things, you try to keep them the same." And we were off again, I spending the next hour attempting to keep Gemma's winter from coming to the little glade. In the end, I was able to hold everything except the stream, which froze over, an odd contrast to the green grass on the banks.

Riding lessons were something of a success, though she did have a bit of a tantrum a couple of times when something got hard enough to frustrate her. I think I may have found something that will interest her enough to keep her from sleeping all the time. She does love Dream. I recruited Gaius to help when it turned out that I needed another pair of hands, and Gemma actually tried talking to him, one of the few times she's actually talked to someone other than me or Dream on the material.

Enough progress for one day, I think. I love her, even if I do want to kill her sometimes. Okay, a lot of the time. I'm not exactly the teacher type, but...I'm managing.

(I wonder what Dream's real name is? Hm.)

Still in St. Petersburg tomorrow, Gaviao and Galvin and Riyor just came in from drilling, and I'm going to see how it went.

Here's to the hope of a few more peaceful days like this one. We'll need them.

<< Previous | Next >>

Back to Callas de Navarre | Back to the Twilight of the Gods campaign