Venus Rising Deleted/Altered Scenes and Snippets

Dreamscape Take 4

That night she managed to drop me into a dreamscape. Unfortunately, she couldn't pull Otrera in with us.

I drew in a relieved breath as I glanced around the empty, white space that seemed to go on forever. I'd teach her to decorate later. "You did it!" I exclaimed, pleasantly shocked.

Even Persephone took weeks.

I shrugged the thought off, dismissing it as an unfair comparison. Persephone hadn't been in full possession of her powers, and she'd been pretty new at using them in general. Medea might not have experience dreamwalking, but once she got the hang of one aspect of her powers, picking up the rest didn't seem to be as hard.

"Ready to move on to step two, or do you want to bask for another minute."

She squealed again, bouncing up and down with glee. "Oh, I'm ready."

"Okay. We really should pull you out and see if you can get back here a few times for practice, but we also need to take advantage of every minute we've got." I glanced around the blank dreamscape, nibbling at my bottom lip. I didn't know how much time she could maintain a dreamscape on her own, so what would be the most efficient way to handle this? "Let me go ahead and teach you to identify power signatures. This is going to sound weird, but just go with it, okay? If you focus on the space beyond the dreamscape, you should be able to--"

A flicker of awareness caught my attention. Someone else was dreamwalking.

"Okay." I drew in a deep breath, trying to ignore the pain that caused. "Close your eyes and focus. Let all of this fade to the background."

The white walls faded around us into a deep and disturbing darkness that predated Chaos. Within the void, the minds of sleeping deities would stand out like beacons. You couldn't see them, not exactly. It was more like catching a glimpse of something out of the corner of your eye only to have it move before you turned your head. Impressions twinkling in the vast emptiness like stars.

"Dreamwalking isn't true walking, despite the name." Which I'd had nothing to do with. "You can't get closer or further away from someone. Once you notice another power signature, just focus on it, and everything else will fade away."

A flicker of flame caught the corner of my eye, leaving me the impression of a smoldering warmth. Ares.

"There!" I directed Medea's attention. "Focus and send out a ping. Just a little nudge with your powers. Like you know how you focus on the place you're going to teleport? That moment before you actually push to make it happen."

"What'll that do?" Medea asked.

I grinned, sending my own mental ping. "It's our way of knocking."