Highwater and Glass

The Red Falcon, Chapter 3 - Oran

Often when Oran slept, his dreams would take him to wild far off places. Sometimes he lived a life in a different body than his own. He had been a destitute pregnant mother, a princely child, a battleworn warrior, or a free-spirited bard. When he told Eloise of his dreams, she couldn't relate. Eloise was always Eloise when she dreamt. She hypothesized that it was because of his connection to magic. Yet neither Horus nor Cirrus shared his experience. So Oran wondered if the dreams were due to his nature. He felt simultaneously distanced from humanity and highly empathetic, independent, yet part of the whole. He felt so quintessentially himself, but could also imagine himself in the place of anyone, just trying to get by with the hand they were dealt.

He dreamt in the body of a young woman with black hair tied back in a long braid. She was walking through a desert far from home. She was in a world that was not her own, in a time that was not her own. A young man strode beside her. He was her enemy. She felt incredible hate in her heart for something that he had done.

She trudged up to the crest of a dune and found what she was looking for; a great slab of rock stretching across a wasteland. It was a bleak shade of gray devoid of spirit or magic. Its mere existence made her sad.

"There it is," said the young man. "That should set things right."

The woman stared out ahead, watching the sun glint harshly off the surface.

"It's miserable isn't it?" the man offered. "Everything we have done trying to make things right has just lead to more death. Maybe this time, it will lead to our own."

"I'm not like you," responded the woman.

Blood sank onto the hot sand. A rattlesnake coiled beneath a boulder. Then, Oran was awake.

Otis leapt from Oran's cot. The soft hit of his paws against stone jostled Oran from his dream. He sat up as the door to the Archmage's chamber opened.

A small party of three made their way into his quarters each carrying a lantern. It took him a moment to realize it was Magister Toris, Eloise, and The King. It was an unusual array of characters who Oran would not expect to see flocking together for any reason.

"Highwater, wake up!" shouted Magister Toris.

He was the magister who oversaw the guardsmen of The Blue Keep. He was rotund and had a reputation for overindulging in wine and prostitutes. He had once made a pass at Oran in the men's bathhouse. Oran politely declined, but had endured the man's leers ever since. He considered this now in the dead of night, as beneath the sheets and furs of his cot, he was in a complete state of undress. A green woolen night robe was draped over the back of his desk chair, but that was paces away. He had no desire to streak in front of Toris, let alone Eloise and The King. But there was an urgency in the magister's voice and the king's presence assured importance to their visit.

Oran grimaced and whipped the covers from his body. The King and Eloise politely looked away, but Oran could feel Toris drinking in every inch of him before he reached his robe and hugged it around his body.

"Yes, hello, I'm awake, your grace," Oran quickly added. He cinched the tie around his waist securely. The stone floor was frigidly cold beneath his feet and he began to search for his slippers beneath his cot. "What has brought you to this tower tonight? Pressing news from the war?"

"Pressing news indeed," said King. There was immense worry on his face. "My grandchildren have been abducted. Princess Annette, the Marquess Renard, both stolen out of their beds tonight."

"We received word from The Fingers concerning Renard," said Toris. "Hardly a moment had passed before Lady Glass stopped into my office to tell me Princess Annette's disappearance. Thank goodness for her instinct to check on the Princess after she found no guardsmen standing by to relieve."