Open Chronicles Ever More than a Dream?

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How many years, how many dreams?

Or was it a memory? Carmelea had forgotten how to tell long ago, but this one felt as though she were pulled to some purpose, vividly even. She let it take her, walking peacefully into this new dream. Soft grass prodded gently at her ankles beneath the hem of a white dress as the scent of a woodland spring guided her deeper.

It was not until she was brought into the clearing that her eyes flickered open, themselves a white-blue just as her dress, whiter still than her pale skin.

They traced gently round the clearing and up the tallest trees she had ever seen until narrowing at the blackened sky. Not a memory then, for a sun should have made itself known in the burning of veins and eyes both. Finally they fell upon the two men, one elder and an elf, though who was truly eldest remained to be seen.

The raven-haired woman's statuesque expression barely changed, a subtle tilt of the head and regal footsteps that dragged with them long silk being the only sign of acknowledgement.

She sat down on a mossy log that appeared on it's own, hands folded in her lap.

"...and where do I find myself...?" came her husky voice.

---

White stretched before Nuir endlessly, the fog of a billowing snow storm.
Yet he felt calm. There was no chill to it. Was he meant to be headed somewhere? Looking down at himself he was in the same cloak and warm blue clothes he had worn when he first left home. Yet, he didn't remember why he was out here.
In the blink of an eye the storm had cleared.

As if he had always been standing there he was met with soft sunlight and lush grass underfoot. His eyes flitted about the greenery with a furrowed brow. There was an odd quality about the flora, a sort of quasi-ness about it's shape, as he began to walk through the brush, sometimes he swore he recognized a rare plant only to look closer and find it to be something else entirely. In this meandering way he discovered a path with a sort of luminesce to it. Insistently so, as if the the path was hurrying him onward.
Nuir let his curiosity for the shifting landscape lead him along the path out towards a much more open area.
He quickened his pace a little as he saw three beings stood about a fire.

As he approached it turned out to be two pale figures who seemed to be waiting and a man tending to the fire.
There was a woman with raven hair and a dignified air. The Other an Elf, with features not so unlike his own.
There was something about the posture of them that struck him that they weren't necessarily a group. If anything the woman's low utterance implied to him that at least the two of them were potentially as perplexed as he was.
He contemplated the answer even if it seemed her question was more rhetorical. There was something familiar about the landscape here, not in that he recognized it, but in the same way a half-remembered name is familiar, or a forgotten word.

Erën
Carmelea Nosfir

A dream not of his own making, then.

It lacked the gentle music of dripping rocks and gurgling streams. The prismatic glow of his caged sun. The comely ripple of steam among damp cave walls and the petaled scent of skikudis 'anon ((steel flower)) in the warm air.

Instead, mist and flora of a surface nature surrounded him. Unexpected.

"Ssiks Orbb ((Sun Spider))."

Something whispered his adopted name. Something knew him. His pale red eyes sifted through the fog, attempting to locate the source of the voice. Basalt grey fingers snapped and gesticulated swiftly, followed by a muttered incantation from pursed lips. Nothing. His magic did not work here. Unfortunate. His mouth curved down into a scowl, a dark crescent upon otherwise smooth skin. Well, it would not do to linger here like dumb rothé.

Perhaps this had been the result of his work on the Araumycos fungus; and in a moment of incaution, it could have unleashed its golhyrrl' fhaazht ((Dream Trap)). But no, probably not — such fungi were nowhere near sophisticated enough to rip out names from skulls.

A long, nasal inhalation of patience followed. Whoever had decided to play games with him today, it was sorely depreciated. He pulled the layered ends of his robe with him, setting one foot before the other in this strange undergrowth. At least he had been allowed to keep his clothes within this reality. A click of his tongue and pronounced eyeroll came close in the wake of this observation.

"Xsa brorn ((blasted surprise))." Whoever had constructed this waele tlarnia'l'en ((daft prison)) deserved a thorough flogging. Perhaps even flaying.

Moving through the mist, caution duelling with impatience in his stride, Nimruil came upon the bonfire and the four figures. Two elves and two humans, best he could tell. Three males and one female. The elves looked Aerai, sporting their kindred white hair. Where theirs was vibrant and silvery as twin moons, his was the colour of ash and singed alchemy. They looked contemplative and curious. He was incensed and staring daggers at this mystical environment, gaze finally landing on Erën, seeing another who carried his weight of years with some grace.

Nimruil spoke in Elvish, pointedly, slowly, each syllable a twisting needle, disdaining the need to communicate with the humans present:

"Surface magic. I should have known. To what do I owe this unwelcome interruption, then, eldalie zephirus ((elven brethren))?"

A smile seared his features like burning acid. It possessed all the poisonous courtesy of a slighted drow.

Erën
Carmelea Nosfir
Nuir