la belle dame sans merci | carlisle cullen

46

Even with the promise of a good night's rest, Minerva had a hard time adjusting. When she closed her eyes to go to sleep, she lay awake for a long time, struggling to let her guard down to rest. Eventually, sleep did come for her.

It was uneasy to begin with. The awful dream started as it usually did but Minerva could dig her hooks into lucidity enough to call out her God's name. Names held significant weight. No matter how much it wasn't the case, to invoke the name of a God was a claim to power over them. It was always My Divine this, Powerful one that. You always appealed to the ego, never speaking the name. Of course, in casual conversation Minerva would utter it from time to time but that was far off from invocation. Far from calling her God to service like she was in her dreams.

Calling out Hecate's name, the scene around her rippled like a stone dropped into a still pond, striking the mud and stirring up the dust until the bottom was only a memory. With every ripple it faded and with it went the fear. Minerva was left lucid in the dark, doing her best not to wake herself by thinking too hard.

The dreams always settled into something of comfort. Often, they returned to dreams she'd had before: good dreams, really good dreams. Her unconscious, when dreams did arrive, was either unsettling fallacy or manifested comfort. Before the constant nightmares, Minerva dreamed of Carlisle.

Sometimes it was extremely mundane, sitting in his passenger seat or across from him at her kitchen counter. Other times, it was comforting delusion. In her dreams, there was no harm in indulgence. She could be honest with herself and with him. Maybe they were cooking dinner and he would come up behind her, wrapping his arms around her waist, just watching as she diligently worked. They usually involved having him close, not separated by a counter top or couch cushion.

On occasion when the dreams did transcend the innocent touch barrier, even something as simple as dreaming of his lips against hers, she would wake up feeling foolish and any attempt at eye contact with her friend the next time she saw him was utterly impossible. If she looked him in the eyes, he might see it tucked into the details of her iris— the immense longing she felt for him.

With a lucidity to her dreams, Minerva often went to her delusions of Carlisle. They were dreams she could settle into, let go of her tether to consciousness and enjoy the familiar safety of Carlisle's presence.

The monotony of her day to day got a lot easier with a good night's sleep. She was happy to be of sound mind getting Bella acclimated to the flower shop. With her mood improved, her patience for small talk had skyrocketed and the performance of normalcy wasn't such an impossible task.

The girl caught on quick, she was good with patterns and that's all assembling bouquets really was. Her company was a nice distraction from the ever impending doom. Minerva had gotten to know Bella quite well over the couple days work she'd put in.

She discovered that though the girl was born in Forks, she spent a great deal of her childhood in California before they moved to Arizona. She loved reading more than just about anything. The girl was happy to answer any questions the older woman could think of and Minerva was just as happy to answer (or make up answers) to any she had in return.

Today, Minerva was desperately trying to think of more questions. "You haven't told me much about your friends at school." She noted from her place behind the counter. With a paint brush in hand and a paper plate dotted with colours at her side, she was  painting a new pot while Bella cleaned the windows in spite of being given express permission to do whatever she wanted.