[Most of Kalmiya's dreams are those lost in the space between sleep and waking. The colorful chaos of the mind sorting whatever it's been given into wherever it needs to go, with no conscious memory of the process on Kalmiya's part. Most nights are functionally dreamless, for all she retains of them in the morning.
This means there's more than enough room for something else—more active, more troubling—to assert itself into the activity of her subconscious. One more thing to process, one more thing to put away. Though its source is unclear, that doesn't matter. Once her mind has it, it latches on as if it's her own.
And suddenly she's somewhere else. Someone else.
At first there's no recognition of anything strange. They're in the middle of a job and there are a lot of moving parts to keep track of, so she takes a moment to take stock of them, meticulous as always. This place she's never been (she hasn't, has she?) is exactly as expected, and the other players are in motion.
What takes her out of it, heralded by the classically deadly tap of approaching high heels, is the hand that clasps over her mouth—no, not her mouth. Because if this were her, she could get out. As easily as breathing, she could disappear from any deadly grasp like a shimmering specter; even in dreams, led by instinct, all she ever does is run. But she doesn't, and the voice—
Dear Arthur, it says. Kalmiya feels her heart, her own heart, drop into her stomach. There's too little context to understand what she's seeing and too little control over her own dreams to do anything but play the idle observer on this ride through Arthur's pain, sculpted into its current form by both memory and fearful imagination. She recognizes the woman, though. It would be hard not to now. She sits in it from Arthur's perspective, her own conscious feeling like it's beating against a stone wall, as his dead best friend sends him straight into the hungry teeth of the rocky shore.
She can't step in. She can't stop it. But as Arthur teeters over the edge and succumbs to gravity's inevitable pull, there is the distinct sense that someone reaches out, some invisible force stretching towards him just a fraction of a second too late, and—
What Kalmiya grabs onto is not the hand of her dear falling friend, but the other end of their Tether, electrified by the shock and panic of Arthur's sudden awakening. She holds tightly to it even as her own heart races and she shivers at the phantom clamminess of her dear Tether's cold sweat. The dream has woken her abruptly too, so it takes her a beat to find her own body and mind outside of the connection, deep breaths anchoring her bit by bit to her own form. Even in reorienting her being, she doesn't let go of the cord held taut between their hearts.
Once she finds some semblance of steadiness, her voice comes with clear concern and breathless insistence across the Murmur, accompanied by the solid feeling of weight settling next to him on the bed. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to let him feel her presence, bringing with it the faraway scent of guava and jasmine.] Arthur—?
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This means there's more than enough room for something else—more active, more troubling—to assert itself into the activity of her subconscious. One more thing to process, one more thing to put away. Though its source is unclear, that doesn't matter. Once her mind has it, it latches on as if it's her own.
And suddenly she's somewhere else. Someone else.
At first there's no recognition of anything strange. They're in the middle of a job and there are a lot of moving parts to keep track of, so she takes a moment to take stock of them, meticulous as always. This place she's never been (she hasn't, has she?) is exactly as expected, and the other players are in motion.
What takes her out of it, heralded by the classically deadly tap of approaching high heels, is the hand that clasps over her mouth—no, not her mouth. Because if this were her, she could get out. As easily as breathing, she could disappear from any deadly grasp like a shimmering specter; even in dreams, led by instinct, all she ever does is run. But she doesn't, and the voice—
Dear Arthur, it says. Kalmiya feels her heart, her own heart, drop into her stomach. There's too little context to understand what she's seeing and too little control over her own dreams to do anything but play the idle observer on this ride through Arthur's pain, sculpted into its current form by both memory and fearful imagination. She recognizes the woman, though. It would be hard not to now. She sits in it from Arthur's perspective, her own conscious feeling like it's beating against a stone wall, as his dead best friend sends him straight into the hungry teeth of the rocky shore.
She can't step in. She can't stop it. But as Arthur teeters over the edge and succumbs to gravity's inevitable pull, there is the distinct sense that someone reaches out, some invisible force stretching towards him just a fraction of a second too late, and—
What Kalmiya grabs onto is not the hand of her dear falling friend, but the other end of their Tether, electrified by the shock and panic of Arthur's sudden awakening. She holds tightly to it even as her own heart races and she shivers at the phantom clamminess of her dear Tether's cold sweat. The dream has woken her abruptly too, so it takes her a beat to find her own body and mind outside of the connection, deep breaths anchoring her bit by bit to her own form. Even in reorienting her being, she doesn't let go of the cord held taut between their hearts.
Once she finds some semblance of steadiness, her voice comes with clear concern and breathless insistence across the Murmur, accompanied by the solid feeling of weight settling next to him on the bed. Not close enough to touch, but close enough to let him feel her presence, bringing with it the faraway scent of guava and jasmine.] Arthur—?
I'm here. You're here. It was just a dream.