Dreamweaving, Page 3

  Amehana sipped her tea, waiting for her guests to have their fill of the dumplings she had provided for the sake of warmth and full bellies. She noticed though that, as had been stated by the iridescent dragoness, both truly did seem to take all their sustenance from dreams. This came to her attention because she had caught herself daydreaming about the pair eating and being nourished.

  “As long as they have what they need for strength, it doesn't matter much how they eat it.” She decided, watching herself eat one of the dumplings while idly observing the daydream.

  “Fascinating... Thy dreams happen even whilst thou art yet awake, and always are beginning and ending all at once...” Her guest observed, seemingly having been watching her as closely as she was them.

  “Like I said before,” Amehana replied, taking the old dialect in stride easily, “I am old. I have had a long time to reach my level of Awakening. And it probably does help that I am a two-soul collective. I still have quite some way to go yet though to achieve full enlightenment.” She sipped again. “So what brings you to my humble shrine?”

  “In my feedings I camest unto a small child of most poor means after following strangest urgings.”

  Amehana began to stir in her mind, preparing to speak, but Diamondixi continued and overrode it. “I know, there are many, and I know that you help all that you can. This one is different though. This child needs to be in another world, for he be a Changeling, and so sickens where he be kept hostage.”

  “A Changeling of what sort, per se?”

  “He seemeth to have been meantst for the land, but he dwelleth on the bottom of the sea, amongst the rocks, with a people of scale and slime.”

  “Scale and slime?” Amehana thought, and debated with herself over what this could possibly be, before both portions of herself were presented by the same image from Diamondixi's mind.

  A lad, whose teen years were soon to fall behind if age could be judged by look, was clad in what looked as if it had once been naturally occurring fur. This fur, where it sprouted from his body, was turning to scale, and he oozed a strange greenish slime. As terrible and confusing a sight as it was, his humanity still clung like the vestiges of one of Gastro's savoury pies in an unfortunate dragon's colon- stubbornly. The vision panned to those around him, the cave grubby and the occupants green and scaly fish-people hybrids. Or at least so they looked to her eyes.

  “What are those?”

  “They calleth themselves Finmen, according to his dreams and those alongst thine shore I hadst explored for more information. Most be not born thus, but are stolen as babes or corrupted later to become what I hath shewn.”

  “And the boy?”

  “Clingeth to vague memories of a mother he was stolen from, and a song she used to sing him. He does not wish to be so, but to return someday, and trieth often to escape.”

  “So... you're here for help to spirit him away from... that?”

  “Rumor and dreams have it that thou hast or perchance art the Storm Mirror, and that if one gazes into it, they see themselves as thou truly art and recover what soul hath been stolen from themselves. I mean to, in his dreaming, cause him to look into it and recover his self, so that he may eventually become truly free.”

  Amehana frowned a bit as she thought, trying to see how her sacred object would play into the boy's fate.

  “It is not a plan that I understand. Why not simply free him physically and make him quest for his soul?”

  “If he escapeth now, they would counteract the fraying of their spells that I wreaketh. I am strong in magic. Yet, they too have their own, and theirs is based in entrapment very well and heavily. They couldst recapture him.”

  Amehana sighed deeply.

  “Very well. Bring the boy to the Honden, the hall in the very back of the shrinegrounds, with my Father's spear on the roof. The Mirror is there, and I will be there to unveil it for him. It long ago became too large to transport unless I put it in one of my sleeves, and the more I put it back, the more it wants to stay hidden fully.”

  “I thank thee...” Diamondixi nodded. Her phoenix watched Amehana finish her tea and dumplings, waiting for what it could feel stirring.

  “In return, as I suspect you want me to go with you as well, I would like to ask for a favor in return, to be repaid at a later date of my choosing and within your abilities.” A scroll materialized in front of Diamondixi, along with a calligraphy brush and well with ground ink ready. The writing on the scroll, in Amehana's primary language as well as Diamondixi's, echoed the same statement.

  “I don't like it, it's too open ended, it is.” The phoenix broke in. “She could ask for anything at any time.”

  “It is the rules. I must abide by Reciprocity. This is part of musubi, interdependence, and the way of my people. I cannot ask for something now, for I have what I need and know of no one yet that I would use my favor for.” Amehana rose, picked up the plate, and drifted to the kitchen to clean up, leaving them to talk. The clink of pottery and sound of water soon came from that quarter.