Prompted Fiction

# 7 - The Modai-Ki (a dream) (Week 2 No. 3)

June 20, 2016

I had a dream where I was a teenager living in a very warlike society. Although I had not been trained among the warriors, there had been a raid and I had shown a great deal of tactical ability (although I'm not sure what I did to demonstrate this ability! I had somehow saved a group of people from the enemy through. . . er, sheer cleverness. Or something). Therefore, I had been sent to take a crash course in being a strategist by working with one of the more noted junior teams of warriors. The particular group I had come to work with was led by the son of the 'Great Warrior', so this was quite the honour, even though said son was still a rather young man and so far had led only the most elementary raids.

I joined the son in the 'Great Library', which, disappointingly, looked more like a high school library than anything else - low ceilings, modern metal shelving, lots of paperbacks, poor lighting. Feel free to imagine a much more awesome library instead, preferably with mosaic floors and ancient wood shelves and symbolic frescoes on the ceiling.

My team leader was a dark-haired, serious-looking young man only a little older than my teenaged self. Not the sort to smile easily, though surprisingly soft spoken, considering he was easily the best warrior of our generation (apparently this was self-evident in the context of the dream). He wore dark pants and a black vest over a butternut-coloured shirt. He was meeting with a girl who was leader of another team of warriors and her second/strategist, who was her brother. Both of them had reddish-blond hair and wore light colours - white, pale grey, light yellow. I was surprised that my new leader - and this was the first time I was actually meeting him in person, rather than seeing him from afar - had brought only me to advise him.

I took my place and 'remembered' some things about the history of the society and the young man. Our enemy were a people called 'Modai-Ki',and they had been our enemy from time out of mind. Their leader, called 'The Modai-Ki' was a woman who was dangerous and beautiful (in fact, when I pictured her she looked like a more exotic and dangerous version of myself, wearing a terribly Orientalist red robe and gold hair ornaments. I am a selfish, selfish person while asleep. Also, apparently, borderline racist. I am disappointed with myself).

As a young prince, the Great Warrior had been captured by the Modai-Ki, and when he was rescued and returned, he had been despondent for some time. Nearly a year later, the Modai-Ki had, under a flag of truce, delivered a child to him - his son. The boy resembled his dark-haired father fiercely, so it was obvious they were related. Rumour had it that the son's mother was, in fact, The Modai-Ki (and as the person whose subconscious this all sprung from, I think I have the authority to decide that this is sufficiently interesting to be certainly true :) - and also that it is perhaps also more interesting if the boy is unaware of this, or, at least, does not believe it).

I was surprised that the Great Warrior and The Modai-Ki had not instead pursued peace. A political marriage uniting both communities would have been better than having a bastard child with an enemy. The Great Warrior was known as a doting father, but still, what mother would send her child to her enemies to fight against her? It seemed like a pity, especially given the quiet, oddly kind, dark-haired boy they had produced. It was even more of a pity since I do not believe either had any other child, or even a romantic interest - they were apparently still in love with each other despite some 20 years of animosity.

Prompt: Dream-catcher: Write something inspired by a recent dream you had.

Source: http://thinkwritten.com/365-creative-writing-prompts/

So, I admit this is pretty much just taken out of my dream journal with some minimal editing for style and the insertion of some snarky comments. Please feel free to tell me your conclusions about my subconscious mind . . .