GREEN
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2824 15.65 KB 243
2824 15.65 KB 243
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>You wake with a chill.
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>During the night, you had somehow slumped over on the couch.
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>Now that morning’s come, you’re laying down on it now, mostly, awkwardly.
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>One of your legs hangs off over the side, foot planted on the floor.
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>You squirm a bit to adjust your clothes to a more sane arrangement.
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>But not enough to displace what your arms are wrapped around.
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>Noire’s half atop you and half beside you, wrapped around the side of your body, one wing covering your waist.
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>One of her forelegs is tucked into the side of your ribs, along with her chest – still adorned with the peytral you designed for her – which isn’t the most comfortable arrangement.
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>Her other foreleg is over your stomach, which is much better.
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>Her head and neck are still cradled in your arms against your chest.
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>Her cheek has remained more or less over your heart.
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>And you somehow hadn’t put your eye out on that horn, in whatever shifting left you like this.
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>You might have to do something about that, for nex-
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>Then it hits you.
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>You just slept with this mare.
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>Not SLEPT slept, you know.
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>But you slept with her.
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>You look up past the upward-drifting sparks emanating from the base of her mane at the ceiling.
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>This house has never been this cool before. She must have been regulating its temperature, as you’d sorta planned all along.
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>Which, then, she must not be able to do while she’s asleep.
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>Makes sense, honestly, but this is the first time so it’s good to think about it a bit.
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>It’s a good thing she’s as warm as she is, then. You’re still pretty toasty, even though the fire’s gone out.
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>But the world didn’t end overnight, so Greater Noire must be keeping things running smoothly even if Lesser Noire is indisposed.
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>In your arms.
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>You look down at her still-sleeping form.
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>Her halo-crown, oddly enough, still appears behind her head to you even at this awkward angle, where some of it appears to slice through her own neck.
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>You are by now pretty comfortable with the rest of her anatomy – much of it is currently pressed up against yours, after all – but that thing still bothers you.
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>Even the strange sparks-and-smoke of her mane and tail, and the rippling over her wings, you’ve gotten pretty used to.
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>It’s still weird, but you’re used to it.
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>As that smoke always seems to ascend, you’re not being choked by it presently either.
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>Noire had never been a particularly energetic pony.
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>She’d always moved carefully, deliberately.
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>Unless you caught her off-guard – and you were the only one who could fluster her – she’d always comported herself with a dignified grace.
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>So this quiet peace she exudes should be something familiar.
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>However, just as the night before, this Noire seems different.
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>Rather than calm by way of self-control, she’s calm as innate presence.
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>Perfectly relaxed against you, no tension at all.
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>Whatever her concerns while awake, however difficult it is to deal with the circumstances of her current existence, none of it seems to follow her into slumber.
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>No nightmares then, you suppose.
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>All the better; you’re not sure what kind of impression it’d make if her first time asleep brought her those difficulties, and little respite from what she fled into sleep from.
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>It’d be a bitch to explain, that’s for sure.
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>Your breath catches when she stirs beneath your hands.
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>Her big eyes open, sluggish and lazy.
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>After several long blinks, she turns them on you, fire opal inside obsidian, but lacking an intensity they normally display. Instead, softness.
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“Good morning, sleepyhead.”
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>She blinks again, head still resting on your chest.
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>Then, just as slowly as she looked up, she does the same in reverse, looking back down and closing her eyes.
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>You chuckle.
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>Watch her head move with your chest as you do.
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>She resettles her head against you, heaves a mighty sigh, and goes right back to looking placid.
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>You run a hand down her neck, stroking her soft coat.
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“Can’t sleep forever, silly.”
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>She mumbles something you don’t quite catch, but it ends with “-warm”
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“You’re warmer than I am.”
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>Just like that, the temperature inside the house goes up some ten Fahrenheit.
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“That does help though.”
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>She nestles into you again, this time freeing that forelimb jabbing into your ribs and laying it over your shoulder.
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“That was pretty nice too, thank you.”
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>You’re still amazed at how relaxed she is now, moving your hand over her coat. You hadn’t been handsy with her, but you hadn’t been avoiding contact either, and she always seemed pretty firmed up.
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>Incredible what a good night’s sleep would do.
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>Especially if it was one’s first.
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>You wiggle a little more, to adjust your back against the couch, and finally bring that leg up off the floor.
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“So how was your first night gone?”
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>”Dununo”
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“You’re not supposed to guess how you were when you were actually asleep. That doesn’t make sense.”
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>”Hrmuh?”
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“How do you feel now, on the other side?”
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>”Was not able to dream.”
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>Ah.
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>Maybe she wants to try again.
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“That’s fine. You’ll get plenty of chances.”
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>She doesn’t answer for the longest time.
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>When she finally does, it’s another nigh-unintelligable mumble.
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>Something about your heart.
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“Gonna have to speak up a little.”
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>”Faster when you breathe in. Slower when you breathe out.”
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“So you’re awake enough to keep the time of my ticker, but not awake enough to speak clearly?”
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>”Mmm.”
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>That gets another laugh out of you.
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“We’re gonna have to get up eventually.”
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>”Mmm.”
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>You sigh and, with some difficulty, sit up.
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>Noire moves as little as possible, and ends up contorted, slumped against your chest.
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“You know, it’s possible to overindulge.”
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>”Still feel half asleep.”
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“Yeah, you gotta shake it off sometimes.”
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>You tap the fingers of one hand against her barrel.
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>She makes a plaintive noise, then wraps her wings around you haphazardly.
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“I’m not laying back down.”
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>She doesn’t move.
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>You wrap your arms around her in a hug.
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>Then take the opportunity to adjust her into a position more comfortable for both of you.
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>Part of you wants to apologize. Tell her about what this sort of stuff usually means.
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>But you’re not sure what concepts would jump the gap from your head to hers, when you do.
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>That scares you, just a little bit.
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>Because you’re not quite sure how you feel yourself, right now.
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>Whoever you were back home, it may have been quite a bit of time since you’d last had another warm body with yours like this.
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>You don’t want to go making any silly decisions.
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>Not yet.
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>It is a pretty intoxicating sensation.
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>Instead you gather more of her body up in your arms.
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>Then try to lift her in a standing motion.
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>She’s heavy at first, but after a moment makes herself lighter for you.
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>Not without complaint; “Cannot go back to sleep like this…”
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“That’s the point.”
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>But you betray yourself, turning and laying her right back down on the couch.
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>She doesn’t stay there for long, hauling herself into a reasonable approximation of an upright position.
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>Then, finally, she opens her eyes again.
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>”How long?”
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“Dunno. Probably some seven hours or so. Usually you’d like to get a little more, but I took a nap before, remember?”
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>The gesture she gave you was less of a nod and more of a vertical wobble.
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“Is this something you’re going to want to do on the reg?”
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>That was definitely a nod.
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“Then in the interest of not freezing to death, we’re going to have to redesign this house.”
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>”We are?”
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“Yeah. I put it together on the assumption it only had to sleep one, and you could keep it warm. We’ll have to spin it around so the big windows face south to gather more of the sun’s heat, stick another bedroom somewhere for you. I’ll draw up some-”
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>”We will not be sleeping in the same place?”
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>Should you tell her the meaning of what she’s asking?
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>No.
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>Not yet.
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>Not before you’ve done some serious thinking.
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>It really does feel like it’d been a long time since you’ve had another warm body against yours.
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“I’ll, uh, I’ll work out a couple different plans.”
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>That sleepy smile she’s just turned on you is going to make that serious thinking a little harder.
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>You rub the back of your neck.
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“I’ll go make breakfast.”
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* * *
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>Fortunately, Noire can shrug off sleep inertia like a champ, if she’s actually given an incentive.
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>Breakfast was a pretty good incentive.
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>The meal went well enough.
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>She did have a lot of questions about sleep, and dreams.
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>Fortunately, none about sleeping with you, specifically.
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>Somehow you’d been able to avoid any uncomfortable conceptual leakage on that front.
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>You put the finishing touches on the third rough floorplan sketch, and tap the magical slate to pop the page out.
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“This one puts a big bedroom in a sort of loft, and a decent-sized room on the first floor that we could turn into a workspace instead of a bedroom like mine is down here now. That way we wont have to keep moving around the furniture in the great room unless we need its added height.”
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>And that workspace can return to being a bedroom, if you decide it proper, not that you’ll say that right now.
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>”That sounds sensible.”
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>You think to yourself a moment, then look around you.
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>Something about all this paper.
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>Ah. Right.
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“Actually, lets make a little change up here…”
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>Move these walls in.
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>Not like you need all this closet space.
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>Shelving here, and here.
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>Make sure you can actually access them.
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>Maybe a sitting area too.
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“I’m going to want some space for books eventually. I’ll probably have a lot of time to kill, and there is a lot of things about my home I want to record, even if not make widely known. Advice for the future, I guess. How to avoid some problems we ran into.”
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>”A little library.”
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“Yeah. A library of hard-won wisdom.”
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>Inflict your curses upon them.
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>But no, this would not be a curse.
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>If Noire can’t see past a certain point in the future, she can’t plan ahead for them.
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>They’ll need this help.
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>And judging by the way she relaxes, she’s thinking something similar.
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>Even if you made them to be nothing like your world, there are still important lessons they can learn from it.
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>Besides, they’d have to learn how to read first, so it’s not like they’ll have access to it all right away.
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>Noire said their language and writing systems will develop similar enough to yours so that, at first at least, there will be mutual intelligibility.
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>They do already know basic phrases, probably from when you first spoke to each, before they left the ring of their birth.
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>Getting far enough to read what you write will be something of a timer, then.
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>It’ll be up to you to make sure that timer doesn’t open Pandora’s Box when it hits zero.
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>You know, Pandora’s myth would probably make a very good preface.
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>”Anon?”
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>You blink back to reality.
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“Ah, sorry. Daydreaming.”
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>”You can dream during the day too?! How?”
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“Haha, no, it’s a different thing. Getting distracted by your own thoughts, basically.”
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>”I see…”
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“You’ve probably already done it before. Not dreaming, seriously. Don’t look so let down.”
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>”I just wish to access this magical dimension soon.”
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“You’ll get your chance. It’s not really something you can control without a lot of practice, anyway.”
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>”I will endeavor to do my best.”
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>You look over at her.
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>So full of confidence.
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>You laugh, then brush her cheek.
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“Dreams aren’t the kind of thing you tackle like a chore, Noire.”
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>You show her your most recent plan.
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“I think this is gonna be our best bet.”
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>”I can do that.”
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“Cool. First, we gotta-”
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>The view outside the window shifts between seconds.
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>No sensation of movement, no lurch underfoot.
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>What looked out to the ocean now looks towards the interior of the island, with its grassy hills and upthrust schist and sugar maples scattered all around.
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>The denser, more varied forest surrounding the Garden is visible in the distance even from here, adding texture to the horizon.
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>All changed as seamlessly as someone switching a slide on a screen.
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“Well, that was easy enough.”
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>”What next?”
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>You turn and point at the storage loft.
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>Which is now the direction you had just been facing.
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>Is that turning BACK, then?
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>Your sense of direction might be off for a bit.
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>At any rate, there’s not much in it now, but there’s a few things.
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“All that’s gonna go in the workroom for now, so if you can bundle it up until we get that space set.”
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>The items are teleported out into a loose cube near the center of the great room, held together against gravity.
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“Next we make the kitchen a little bigger.”
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>She looks at you and tilts her head. “Why is that necessary?”
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“It isn’t. I just want a bigger kitchen.”
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>She laughs, and the far wall pops out a couple more feet.
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“And THAT will have given us enough room to expand this bedroom out a little, and that’ll be the new workroom. So you can just stick everything in my bedroom up in the loft now.
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>Snap. Pop.
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>Your few items of furniture are now above you, nestled into the loft in their exact same relative positions.
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“Balcony off the back. So we can still look out across the sea if we want to.
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>You can’t see the balcony form off the far wall of the house, but you can hear it. You think.
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“And I guess the door over there’s not as important now but it’s good to have multiple exits.”
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>You look up at the now-bedroom loft.
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“And maybe put some skylights up there. Would be nice to see the stars at night.”
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>Give her something to look at besides your mug.
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>No, you haven’t made that decision yet, stop it.
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>Four clear panels form in the ceiling, two to each half of the roof, over the bed.
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>”They are the same hard material as the big windows.”
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“Good, we don’t want anything falling inside if, I don’t know, some particularly heavy bird gets up there.”
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>”A clumsy pegasus, perhaps.”
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“Yeah, we do have a lot bigger things flying through the sky here than back home. Hrm.”
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>And a lot of them are sapient.
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>Which could cause some embarrassment.
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“Maybe put some sort of curtains or shades we can draw, too, up there. Just in case.”
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>She gives you a puzzled look.
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>No, it’s not just the kind of puzzled about the reasoning behind what you said.
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>Something else back there.
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>What leaked through that time?
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>Best not think about it.
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>She does, however, comply without further mention of it.
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>A curtain also appears between the loft and the great room.
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>Uh oh.
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>What idea-jump prompted this unrequested feature?
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>It would be handy at least.
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“Now that the big windows face south, and there’s no wall between the bedroom and them, it should make for some nice sights waking up, if we don’t have those curtains drawn.”
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>You look around.
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“I think that about does it.”
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>The cube of stored items a few feet away from you disappears again, presumably for their final placements.
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>Noire spreads her wings and, with a single powerful downbeat, launches herself onto the very edge of the loft’s open wall.
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>”I will attempt to dream again.”
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>You squint up at her.
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“If you sleep too much during the day, you wont be able to sleep at night.”
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>She hesitates at this, and turns. “I will heed your advice, then. What will you be doing?”
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>You rub your face with both hands.
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“I, uh, I got some thinking to do. I’m heading down to the Garden.”
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>”I will follow you!”
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“Nah, I gotta do this alone. I’ll be back for dinner, don’t worry. “
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>She looks dejected, but nods in acquiescence.
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>You give her an apologetic smile, nod, and turn for the door.
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>As you strike out, you can hear behind you the soft rustle of bedding.
by E4-NG
by E4-NG
by E4-NG
by E4-NG
by E4-NG