Fatima's Diary

reflections for the lost

60. "It was only a dream, correct?"

During some nights I enjoy cool glasses of spring water and amusing games of stone paper knife with Thea. Sometimes Rihana takes a small break from her busy schedule of being married, being baroness, being trained, and well, quite frankly, just being Rihana. During those times we laugh and share stories, poking gentle amusement at the differences in our perspectives on current and past events. Rihana occasionally teases me about my ignorance of some of the wilder experiences she has had. I do not regret the life I have led, perhaps someday those with whom my affections lie will return my feelings. Rihana has plenty of suggestions, but I believe that I do not dare to follow through with any of them.

Because inside almost everything has changed. At first, a set of serial dreams stayed with me for a month, from dark moonless night, to the full disk shining bright, to dark moonless night again I was visited by an asp in my dreams. I asked Labrinnon what he thought these dreams were meaning, and he chided me to embrace my visitor.

"It was only a dream, correct?" He said with one eyebrow cocked high on his smooth forehead, "what harm could befall you?"

That next night, the last night where the stars ruled the sky and the moon retreated into the Otherworld to regain her strength again for another journey high in the sky, I drew the asp close to my breast. Its yellow eyes again met mine, alien pupil reflecting my simple black circle. That night the sheets were not tossed about me, my burgundy top cover blanket was smooth and unruffled, just as when I had disrobed and slipped into bed that night.

I looked to my left, and about my outstretched arm was coiled a black snake, a little thicker then my thumb, with its head resting quietly between my breasts. I laid still for a time watching it, and something distinctly odd occurred to me. I could not only feel the pebbly scales press against my flesh, but I could feel the warmth of my body radiating into the Asp. This, in a foreign way, reminded me of my brief audiences with the Emperor.

With these thoughts, my scaled friend awakened, and curled about me, as I sat up in bed and we played a peculiar game; I would lift it's body above my head and the asp would coil its way down my arm, until it met my other hand, after which it would then coil and crawl up my hand and then back down again, to where it then met another offered palm. We played this game like it was already familiar with all the scars and callouses on my hands and arms. It was not until later, after I spent the morning eating and thinking to it that I came to realize that it responded to my thoughts in its own way, sometimes just a feeling, sometimes an image, and sometimes a directed, thought simple, though back.