I'll Follow You To...

Our Way

The brief moment of contact as she brushed Loki's lips was almost enough to make Sylvie abandon her mission entirely.

"I'll count that as growth, I suppose." She thought to herself. At least this time she didn't push him away, the dream had just run its course.

She was awake now but she wasn't supposed to be, and since her mission depended on it this time she was doing her best to make it happen.

She tried to focus on only the relaxing things around her. She lay on the floor in a large cave cut into the side of a canyon. It was only about fifteen feet high but at least a hundred feet at its widest point. Intricate designs were carved deeply into the ceiling as if generations of artisans had gone over them again and again.

The floor was fully carpeted in thick fluffy wool that made probably one of the most comfortable mattresses she had ever slept on.

The mouth of this room was enclosed with a wall made of stone and iron but openings near the ceiling allowed a gentle breeze from outside to circulate and fill the room with the scent of the giant flowers that grew on the rock face of the canyon outside. The canyon itself was at least a thousand feet deep and a river of lava flowed at its base. The cave system was high enough above the lava that it provided a gentle heat.

In one spot a natural spring emerged from the rock in the ceiling and trickled into a basin before spilling over the edge and continuing into the rock once more.

Sylvie couldn't really ask for more, and considering she was used to sleeping on the run in apocalypse's, she shouldn't be having trouble at all.

Except for the fact that she was surrounded on all sides by about thirty sleeping demons of the incubus variety.

A third of these were snoring loudly in a symphony of unworldly tones, and two off to the side (who were definitely awake) were enthusiastically competing with the decibel level of the snorers.

They had given her a generous buffer zone, but still every so often she would get smacked in the face by someone's stray tail.

Even with all this she had still usually managed to sleep over the past few months, not that the passage of time was easy to track in this realm. She hoped it hadn't been that long for Loki.

Another swat in the face and she decided to get up for a while and walk around. She looked over at the most frequent culprit. A Loki of course, so she wouldn't rule out that she was doing it on purpose. She did look just like Sylvie after all, and she had a mischievous smile on her sleeping face.

This particular demon had been her close companion on their journeys into the dream world. The demons spent a large amount of their time sleeping, but instead of their own dreams they inhabited the dreams of others and absorbed their excess energy. Fortunately they enjoyed more traditional means of sustenance as well so Sylvie had been well fed while she was here. 

She moved off into a side chamber that served as a kitchen for the group. A demon named Heimdall stood turning three imps skewered on a spit over a rock heated by a hidden source.

He seemed older and wiser than the others. He had golden eyes and a long thin beard on his chin was braided and tucked under a copper chain he wore around his neck. His long hair hung in braids matching his beard.

"Looking for a meal?" He asked as he sliced a leg off one of the roasted imps.

"I just got up for a walk, but I guess if you're offering", Sylvie had gotten used to Heimdall shoving food at her every time she came through here. It was conveniently placed between the sleeping cavern and tunnels below so that one almost had to pass through. She suspected that feeding people was his way of getting them to stop and talk for a while.