The Dreamscape

by K9Lupus

It finally happened.

Within the tiny, fragile interval of infinite possibility between moments of time, Zeydaan had pushed through, although not wholly of his own accord. Powdery wisps of his mother's accompanying mental magic still clung to his dark-grey coat of fur as his body continued to fall into the void. Darkness surrounded him, complete and self-assured in its absolute dominion. Only the disheveled contortions of his body into haphazard flips as he struggled to right himself gave any indication Zeydaan still held tight to his former existence through the grip of fear which seized him.

He had now traveled further than ever before within the confines of his own mind; the feat would be considered a marvelous prospect and accomplishment if not for the fast-impending sheet of shifting, watery ground quickly rising to meet him. His hands clenched into tight fists at his sides, his thoughts casting chiding lashes in rejection of the self-imposed ordeal Zeydaan was forced to endure yet again. If only time were available to savor the loosening of the last traces of trepidation which had prevented access to this innermost sanctum, he would relish in it gladly. Instead, however, only screams warped themselves helplessly into oblivion as he plunged further down. At the last second before contact, he willed himself to relax, his arms spreading apart as he surrendered to whatever fate may come next.

********

Zeydaan landed into the dark pool awaiting his inevitable banishment back into the waking world, but none was to be found. Instead, as he became enveloped by the amorphous liquid, he was slowly cradled back to its surface with a soft, caring grace unbecoming of the foreboding, featureless land before him.

He braced himself on the smooth surface of the semi-solid floor, and with a grunt, lifted himself up to stand. The last strands of mental magic sloughed off and vanished, leaving him bare and exposed to the ways and means of this world. Opening his eyes, Zeydaan made out only dim twinkles of faraway light illuminating his surroundings, as bleak and featureless as any desert. Each faint, shifting quake of the ground beneath him moved and flowed in staggered, off-beat mimicry to his own movements, as if the land itself searched for understanding of the strange wolven creature present here where visitors were so few. It was to Zeydaan's bewildered fascination that upon further focus, he could nearly invoke the liquid ground to respond to his call and whim. The living plane slid in agitation with his excitement or calmed to stone stillness as he steadied himself in this new and unfamiliar place.

Despite the lack of trees or any greenery, the air in this open landscape was fresh and clean. He took several deep breaths, acclimating himself to his surroundings. Finding himself soon revitalized, he resolved to move with utmost haste before his good fortune decided to have a change of heart and reject him back to the starting line. The distant lights, few in number, and paltry in size, appeared to slightly swell and pulse with his sustained focus. It was as good a place as any to begin, and Zeydaan set off with slow, cautious footfalls, still not fully certain whether to consider this place friend or foe.

*******

The meditation had been going on for days now. Their collective magic had been focused there at this place of power to grant the greatest likelihood of success. Even then, what Zeydaan hoped to accomplish was a tenuous hope his mother Cynthia dare not admit. Her thoughts could not be filled with such worries and doubts now. No distractions would be permitted as she served as the anchor for him in this world to the ever-changing internal one he sought out. While Zeydaan's mother always believed in his magical prowess, even this was pushing it too far. Zeydaan sat motionless in the secluded glade at her side with only an occasional shallow breath betraying his fleeting connection to this plane.

But for as deep as he was inside himself, there was no compromise to his connection there with his mother. In his own instinctive manner, an unconscious piece of Zeydaan's being continued to reach out from that unknown place. During the peaks of struggle or resistance his hand would tremble toward her, and she would cup his furred hand in hers, ever so softly as to not impact his grand introspection. A loving thought would pass from her to him, conjuring a new glowing pulse of positive intention to find him well. Still, it served as a paltry substitute for her heart's calling to sweep her boy up in her arms, and make the struggle vanish, but for now it was enough.

She knew Zeydaan had seen much of the world's surprising and unfortunate machinations. He had experienced both the light and dark, its dual-faced parade inviting all in to sort, categorize, and leave behind what did not most readily fit within the inner workings of the great machine of progress. He had observed these lessons as an outsider, little more than a drifting satellite passing overhead on the edge of a meaningful existence in his mind's eye.

Cynthia knew her son had spent a great deal of time traveling and seeing the world. He had visited the range of lofty cities and quaint, off-the-map, little towns. Nowhere satisfied him, at least not completely. She had witnessed the gradual decline in his disposition and outlook over the years away. He was good about hiding it, but she was a mom, and prided herself in having an uncanny sense toward identifying his struggles sometimes before he even knew. His constant search for the next big thrill had made him weary, and to seek an adequate answer to the questions which plagued his heart, she wholeheartedly welcomed him to return to one of the few, truly safe spaces available to him–home.

When he had returned, the two had spent a great deal of time talking to one another. The bond was still there, intact. They caught up on all the moments that letters or phone calls couldn't fully capture, and the running throughline she observed from his tales was of a peculiar nature. As best she could tell, Zeydaan did enjoy his time in these places, and he met good people, helpful people in most settings. The crux of his hardship was borne of an internal dissatisfaction, a questioning and wandering that had pervaded his thoughts until it had grown to become all-encompassing.

Zeydaan understood that he possessed great ability, and struggled with bouts of sadness at the perception of not achieving the untapped potential borne of his unique heritage. For all of his time studying the nature of fey power, he was still only able to invoke and utilize an unstable transformation of his physical form. Cynthia had been informed of such. She knew that in his travels Zeydaan had taken on several dominant forms, each of which she still recognized as her child, for no molding of the flesh could compromise her love to him. The most dominant of which she recalled was Isabella, the lovely fey-dragon who Zeydaan spoke of with particular interest and had inadvertently drifted in form too on several occasions. When he took the shape of Isabella, some of those aches did indeed fade, but it wasn't ever complete. Instead, they slid to the far reaches of his thoughts as a slow, viscous, omnipresent pudding; they lurked with glee to return to assault his senses once more with his mental guard lowered.

Some of these ill-forces grew from an innocent place. From his youth Zeydaan had been dazzled by tales from his mother of the ability to not only alter one's body, but also that of space and time itself. It was an ability born of recognition of the shared connection between all living things, pure and unclouded. With Zeydaan maintaining some inherent disconnection from that source through the mental demons which pervaded his mind, it prevented him from reaching the full depths of his power.

The deep question which plagued him: “Who are you, and who do you want to be?” was held close by his mother, and so when he finally asked her if they could prepare a special spell together to find the root of what had gripped his heart and mind so tightly, she was happy to oblige. In no time at all, she had prepared the finishing touches for the spell without question, and had selected a place of power at his side to begin the rite. She knew that once cast into the winding whirl of his own mind, the space he found would most likely be unsettling despite its intimate familiarity in much the same way that gazing too deeply at one's reflection reveals hidden blemishes of the flesh. More than any of these worries or struggles, Cynthia's greatest wish was to see her child happy and whole.

It wasn't an absence of kindness or love which had elicited this compulsion in her son to learn more his mother reasoned. In fact, it was quite the opposite. Seeing the love given so freely by others had caused deep reflection on why those same qualities could not be divined to himself. Getting to the root of that barrier in his psychological well-being was imperative if Zeydaan were to ever go on to enjoy the rest of his life. As a mother, knowing he was well and able to carry out his days as he best saw fit with his head held high brought great reassurance. That same nurturing quality is also what made being at his side with him right now in such a seemingly devoid state all the more painful for her to endure.

*******

Whoever is in charge here really should consider a new interior decorator. Heck, I'd even take some rusty street signs or lobby music just to add some variety, Zeydaan mused as he begrudgingly placed one foot in front of the other. Strangely, as he had propelled himself deeper in this space, he felt no physical needs. Hunger, thirst, and fatigue were utterly absent and did little to quell his curiosity of how far he had gone, or how long he had been traveling this same way for what had felt like forever. Only the glow of the lights had steadily blossomed into a murmuring fullness as he traversed this inner realm. Then, after kicking the ninth or tenth invisible pine cone, he brought his eyes back up and paused. Further ahead he finally spotted something new.

A tall figure stood, calm and assured. The yellow scales of her cheeks were dimpled up into a brief, relieved smile. Her bold coloration against the dark void around and below them both compelled him closer like a searching moth finding a speck of sun in the dark. She wore a maid-cafe outfit, pristine and unmarred with stunning butterfly-like wings stretched out on either side. Zeydaan suddenly felt utterly underdressed in only his fur by comparison, but quickly forgot about his clothing woes as he studied the scoffing expression quickly taking hold of the dragon-person's features. It was as if for all his attempts to reach this exact place, it was she who was deeming him late for an appointment he was not yet aware of.

Zeydaan pulled his lips tight, eyes squinting nearly shut as his broad ears rolled back against his skull studying the person before him. Then a spark of recognition. In the depths of his mind, Zeydaan remembered this person from many adventures and visions within the waking world.

“Isabella?” he cautioned as he took a step forward.

“The one and only,” she greeted with an accompanying regal curtsy.

“I don't understand. If you're here, then that must mean you're some kind of...mental projection my head is making up to try and...lead me through this place?”

Her gloved hand snapped to her chest as if she were to faint.

“Of all the things I've been or could be called, I have to honestly say a mental projection was nowhere in my top ten. Not even close. Especially having that come from Mr. Mental Projection himself,” she stated with a stern furrowing of her brow and a pointed finger. “Because I'm not sure what you're thinking this whole get together is about, but I'll have you know I've come quite a long ways to be here. There's something important I'm looking to get back, and it sure took you long enough to show up here. I've been waiting for–” She paused then, and her eyes cast a sidelong glance at Zeydaan as one hand gently stroked over the other. “–too long.”

Zeydaan softened. “I'm sorry to say, but I really don't know about that. Maybe there's something one of us can do to prove that they're meant to be here and not the other.”

The two looked at each other, assessing the other's viability in the distorted chaos of the world. Zeydaan drew near, holding a hand up toward the yellow fey-dragon, half-expecting her own hand to sway in a mirroring arc. Instead, Isabella loosed an unimpressed snort.

“Was that the end of your little magic trick? Because I'll make it very clear to help us both out. You don't control me. I've been wandering through here looking for answers for quite some time. I was thinking today was my lucky day running into you, but I wasn't expecting this all to be so...complicated.”

Zeydaan sat back, the weight of his body creating ripples of shifting rings of dark fluid out in all directions.

“I don't get it. I came down here to try and find myself, and all I ended up finding was you.”

Isabella straightened her already immaculate apron. “Uh, hello? I'm still here. And that's two for two now with some not great stuff to say out of the blue like that.”

“No, no. That's not what I meant. I'm sorry. It's just...after using mom's magic I was thinking that I would end up coming across some type of thing that's been holding me back from being able to use my powers properly. Kind of like a spiritual blockage.”

“Sounds like a good name for a rock band,” she quipped back without missing a beat.

“You're ridiculous–”

“–And you're still here. We both are,” she interjected before another word could be said between them.

“So obviously we need to put together what's actually going on,” Isabella continued with a friendlier tone, taking a seat next to Zeydaan.

“I'm not trying to be the bad girl here. It's just that I've been looking through here for a really long time, and you have no idea how badly I want to find peace from whatever it is that I'm feeling inside. It's the worst not feeling completely settled wherever you go.”

Zeydaan looked up from his knees and met Isabella's gaze. “I might have some idea what you mean by that.” They smiled. Then silence as they retreated by to their minds until Zeydaan ventured forward again.

“So, tell me, how did you get in here anyway?”

“I'm guessing the same way you must have. I fell into this place. Literally. There was something really warm and soothing the whole way down. It didn't take all of that scary feeling away, but...it was enough to make it through.”

“Yeah, that was mom,” Zeydaan muttered, looking up to the seemingly endless ceiling above them. His brow furrowed then, replaying Isabella's words in his head. “Something I don't understand though. If we got here at about the same time, how come you said you were waiting so long since I assume you saw the lights too?”

A flurry of movement jostled the fur at Zeydaan's neck and back, and Isabella wore a smug grin.

“Wings are helpful in that regard.”

Zeydaan nodded. “You know, maybe there's a third alternative to all of this we haven't considered yet. But before I'm certain of that, there's something that might help make what we need to do a little clearer, and at least get our heads on a little straighter and not think about everything else.”–he scanned the bereft panorama and chose to amend his previous statement–“Or nothing else I suppose.”

“What do you mean?”

Zeydaan stood tall and confident for the first time since their encounter together and held his hands low and open to Isabella.

“Would you care for a dance?”

*******

Faster he spun and rolled aided by the yielding ground beneath him, nearly leaping with each weightless stride at Isabella's side. There was no set style or cultural calling to be found in the manner of movements each invoked. It was a simple celebration. Movement, the heart, and the thrilling chaos of life all showcased beyond the limits of time or region. The initial trepidation both had cloaked themselves by at the start of their dance had since been discarded in favor of leveraging the bond of their shared existence.

But there was a tug too, a pool of tension woven inexorably between the two. It was wordless, formless, but undoubtedly there. This was the aspect needed to be examined; this was the doubt burned deep within their spirits. Zeydaan's hands found Isabella's shoulders as they slowed together to a slower, waltz-like pace to more closely examine this particular aspect. There was a breadth to this hurt, wider than either considered possible. In its range and depth, they experienced the powerful force behind maintaining the "split" between them in their minds. Any gap available with the same amount of energy would render their efforts less effective, for a broad light would not shine as intensely as a focused one.

Rumbles of subsurface energy rolled like a distant stampede across the dreamscape, the world welcoming this new discovery, and beckoning for more. Zeydaan and Isabella separated themselves, taking a loose, relaxed stance some distance apart before they inched closer with a single confident step. Another followed with a leg sweep pulled through to lowered shoulder, and soon they were lost in the thick of the action which compelled them so. And as their dance grew in fervor and intensity, they reflected on the great many triumphs and tribulations they had individually endured: friends made, bonds broken, and hopeful reality conjured and shattered as they worked their way through the accumulated time of their adjacent memories.

Elements of critical moments of their lives conjured themselves up from the very ground itself to be viewed with the same hazy glow of the lit portal before them. People and places and feelings all rose to be viewed and analyzed with each side offering their own countering perspectives on flaws and shortcomings with an elegant raise of the arms or lowering of the torso to the floor. They interacted with one another, had dialogue, came to disagreements and understandings all at once in splashes of burgeoning color which trickled like misty rain below.

It was in this dynamic, mutual exchange both finally realized that for all of their perceived differences between them, both had the same experiences within the same physical representation that has been parsed out into this void-like space. They shared the same heart.

At the height of their glorious display, their thoughts reached back even beyond them – back to their history, back to the time of the first lycanthrope Patrick Jem, and how he had passed and been returned to the waking world to be met by the shining smile of his dear fey dragon Cynthia. But as they considered their past there was no compulsion to draw strength from it, nor to further it through legacy. They hoped for an existence which would grant them peace at this current time and at this current place.

With fondness, one last detail stood out to them. In synchronized movements, they invoked one special memory not yet shared, and the face of a wonderfully kind woman intimately familiar to them both appeared. Surprise did not last long for them. Their mother had been supportive through the many comings and goings of her child, a child whom she loved from the bottom of her heart. Despite the pain and the grieving, and the soul-searching Zeydaan and Isabella both sought out in their individual ways, Cynthia was the anchor now for this powerful magic between them, and she willed with all the innate ability present within her spirit to be able to forge a new path for her treasured offspring.

They stopped then and looked at each other with deep, unyielding certainty.

“We are of one mold,” they spoke in unison.

The dance winded down to its conclusion, its participants exhausted with heaving breath. They each trembled from head to toe, in pained recognition and recollection.

“I didn't know you had memories of that man with you too,” Isabella muttered under her breath.

“The werewolf of our heritage? Of course. He began all of this for us with his courageous act all those years ago.”

“Some would say courageous, others self-serving,” Isabella countered with a raised quirk of her brow.

“And both would be right, but we at least have that in common now.” Zeydaan said with a genuine chuckle.

“There's so much more than that we have in common Zeydaan,” Isabella replied.


A humming glow, barely perceptible at first made its way into existence within the shifting rivers of darkness surrounding them. The light grew and wove its way deeper and deeper into the spectacle before them, creating a marveled display unlike any they had seen before. The misty colored magic pooled around and beneath them began to radiate out in all directions. They stood stone still, afraid even the slightest breath would disrupt the wonder unfolding before their eyes. Golden tendrils blossomed and crawled from the depths of the cascade, slowly making their way over to the base where Zeydaan and Isabella stood, unfurling into a bevy of freshly-scented blossoms.

“I never knew it was like that for you. Any of this,” Isabella said.

“You neither. But I'm so glad I know now.” Zeydaan answered back in turn before rushing forward to embrace this other, inherent piece of who he was. And it was one of the best feelings of his entire life to feel that aspect meet him in kind as they hugged tight there in the magic of their newfound understanding.

Amid these fractured remnants of their identity, they had crafted a new, previously unseen whole together. The motions were phantasmal, as if operating through a channeled will outside of either of them; laced with uncertainty, they found their corresponding pieces into a new and all the more beautiful configuration settled easily into once jagged edges.

“You know, I was thinking...” Zeydaan trailed off.

“Hmm?”

“When you think stop to think about it, this whole realm is like one of those light prisms people love to show off that splits light through It lets each of us see each other where otherwise we would have had no sense of the other even though all of who we were was there the entire time. This space is a kind of 4th dimensional rotation. Like, if you were to take a two-dimensional being as they are, they wouldn't have any idea how many faces a cube would have. It'd just be flat to them. So, right now we're both working another dimension up. If I were to imagine myself rotating myself, I'd still be me, just a different “face” is visible, and to be here at this moment we're both partway turned in the other's direction.”

Realization of the implications of his discovery dawned on Zeydaan, and his tail swished hard with exuberance.

“This space could even be a tunnel! We could use it to travel between dimensions. That's how we can use our fey-powers! They've been here the whole time!”

Zeydaan paused his near-feverish rant, pulling back into a sheepish slump.

“Now of all the flabbergasted things you've said you are finally starting to make some inkling of sense around here.” She smiled, then continued with that same smug look from ear to ear. “So, Mr. I Figured It Out, which one of us is the real one?”

“We both are,” he answered with unwavering tone. “At different times and different places, but we all come back to this,” Zeydaan emphasized, swirling his hands every which way and that with hers.

Isabella smiled at this, also satisfied with his conclusion.

“So in one world, maybe I'm a boy rejecting their ape heritage.”

In one, I am cursed into this form.

In one, I am a miracle of science.

In one, I am separated from myself.

In one, I am a being of great evil.

In one, I never knew what I could be,” they exchanged back and forth together until the last line was said in unison.
*******

And as their newly kindled magic finished unfurling, even the empty world around them came to life. A peppering of twinkling stars swirled into being and illuminated the distance, so that all paths would now bare shining light for those who followed them. They beheld the wonder elicited of their self-trust and came to meet in a place of mutual understanding and respect. Neither was to be valued more than the other, but rather to be held alongside so as to lift one up when the other was low, and to look with utmost pride and loving celebration of the rising stars of their successes.

Isabella's grip tightened in Zeydaan's, and they held the other's gaze in this place of dreams and inner magic with the knowledge that once departed from here, their individual understanding of themselves would fundamentally change. Their sense of self would expand, the effects of which would be held by all whose lives they touched. And that fact alone was enough reassuring justification for their efforts. They had each gained what they needed most from here.

With a mutual squeeze of the other's hand in theirs, they struck out together toward the opening of light that had remained patient for them all this while. Ripples of radiant energy cascaded beneath them with each and every step, adding to a growing cacophony of spellbound wonder that grew to fill every inch of this now incredible realm. They stepped together into the vibrant glow, and in the tepid warmth of their passage home, the two dissolved into nothingness until Zeydaan, Isabella, and the light were indistinguishable from one another.

*******

No longer was the world a shifting, searching mass, but as Zeydaan and Isabella traveled back through the passage to return, the bright corridor contained a rather calm and serene presence, and for the first time in a very long time they knew it would stay that way. They drifted this way for what could have been only seconds, but what felt like months as they consolidated all of the new information they had learned about themselves. They had gotten the answers they sought, and so drifting away from the murky realm of introspection, Zeydaan stirred back in the waking world, their legs completely numb and asleep from their extended foray. A smile edged their lips and a bright twinkle of hope dwelled within the passionate pools of their fiery eyes. The first thing they saw upon their return was their mother still at their side. She was a little worse for wear; the mental focus had left her fatigued too, but none of that mattered as she rolled forward to embrace them with hot tears streaking down into their fur.

No matter where the path ahead brought them, it would bring them There– to the place and time meant just for them–and they couldn't wait to discover where these new journeys would go. They would carry this new understanding and light forward to enable their goals and dreams, to set aside fear in exchange for possibility, and cradle close the understanding that not all days will be positive and feeling up, but all will be geared toward moving forward.

They had spent so long deflecting outward for these answers in a bold, genuine search for truth. To think everything had been so close at hand, yet immeasurably unattainable until now dredged a pang of guilt and loss in Zeydaan's gut. All of that time and effort in that pursuit wouldn't be given back, but it was a necessary journey to get to the place they were now, and that was all Zeydaan could ask for. Their life didn't need to become someone to make it right. They only needed to stay themselves and bring that self to the world to experience it in its full range of hues.

Zeydaan's mental gymnastics were interrupted by a fresh squeeze of their mother's embrace as her hands brushed through their fur and kissed the top of their head. Zeydaan grumbled and flashed a not-too-pleased expression back at her.

“Seems like you're all there still”–she smiled, her teary eyes bright in the late afternoon sunlight–“I'm so glad. And it seems you also found whatever it was you needed while you were in there,” she whispered, finally pulling back to regain her composure.

“I already had everything I needed. I just needed to remember where I had kept it. Thanks for making it a bit easier to get at,” Zeydaan said as their head fell onto their mother's shoulder where she happily stayed for a little while longer.

END

*******

Another fun commission project and idea worked on for the immensely patient featuring his main character reaching deep into their inner self to reflect on their past and embrace a new path forward with a convergent sense of identity. Transformation's a little loose as a tag here, but I'll let you all be the judge of that. ;) Self-growth counts as personal TF right? :P

As always, I appreciate feedback in the comments below, and thank you so much for engaging with me and my work!

~Lupus

*******

Interested in getting a story commissioned by me? I am currently open! I'd love to get the chance to bring your ideas to life. My commission info can be found here:

K9 Lupus Commission Info

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