Path of Earth

The dream

=====1=====

White background and the feeling of morning sickness after three days of nonstop work. That's what it felt like. 
Beli woke up and opened his eyes to the surroundings, white slowly waning, his sight dropped on the familiar room. The holograms still working, small diodes, resistors, chrystals and other parts on the table, and over the whole room.
Strange thought popped up in his mind, dirt, freedom and a touch of light, something reverberated through his mind that made him unfocused. He tried to stand up, but his hand passed through the wall, and then it hit him.

The dream. 
He jumped. He finally did it. The main focus of his last 5 years, plotting, learning, hacking, gaining the trust of his teachers and the community leaders, helping the Cities grow and produce more food, freshwater, and sustainable city growth...
He felt tears collecting behind his eyes, the pressure of the desire leaning in on him, like a heavy iron ball resting on his chest and on his back, magnetic power pushing them together. 
"I'm still here." passed through his mind as he grabbed his head with both hands and let go to punch the bed yelling "Fuuck THIS! FUCK, FUCK, Fuck...!"
The resentment, the feeling of failure, the pain of separation fed on his state of being and he stopped, knowing this. He will continue in silence and determination he decided and reminded himself of the words of a Stoic he loved, "How does it help...to make troubles heavier by bemoaning them?"

He rose up and asked Sara to open the city map. Nothing happened. He repeated himself "Sara, open up the Gateway 2 Map and show me the guards routine."
Again, no response. "Sara?" his voice shaky as he started closely examining the surroundings and noticed something wonderous. A glitch here and there, a clock stopped and lights on, the holograms repeating the same pattern every 5 seconds. 

It was a dream.
 
That realized,  the walls caved and the endless gray emptiness appeared. 
"Dear friend," the shallow voice husked, while nowhere in sight, "welcome to the Allplace. I've suspected you're alive..."

The sight disappeared at the play of darkness and trickling light in the room. 
Confused he fell into a dreamless sleep as the words around him passed by him hearing only "...white...clans...it's been days..." before black dawned on his soul.

======2======

The door moved and the shadow casting in the frame was of small proportions like the girl stepping in the room where the whitehaired boy lay. 
She had oils and herbs in her hands, all for the stranger in her bed. Chief and Saya had a big fight on allowing the outsider to stay, but eventually, Saya won, giving in to Magun only on matters of security, like wards and keeping him in the farthest hut of the village, at Sayas place of course. More exact, the home of Triss and her parents, missing parents that is.
Triss thought about them for a minute, when observing the strange-looking outsider and waved the thoughts away. Observing him a little longer she explored his thin limbs and white skin, the singed clothes now changed for the linen trousers and shirt made by herself. His face looked gentle and he was smiling in his unconscious sleep. 
"Time to get to business," she thought to herself, pushing all else away. She thought it would be more of a struggle to convince her grandma than chief though, but Saya was unusually keen on keeping this fellow. She wondered why, as she took the oils and herbs on the table, taking the separate bowl to mix those and started chanting to Iva-on. The green glimmering spread from her heart down her hands to the bowl while she mixed the herbs and oils, now focusing only on the tones and the humming background of the tune, feeling how the dried maidenhair tree leaves and the marula oil were splitting the structure of their bonds and creating new ones, dancing to the tune, forging the healing balm for the boy.

She finished the tune and slowly applied the balm on the boy's body, especially on the head, where it seemed he suffered much damage. He had these weird things in his ears when they surveyed him and that gave chief Magun even more reasons to deny his welcome. Triss got his look on though, and he swayed. 
There was something strange though. Saya checked him with her sight and saw he had ethereal damage, one gained only from magic powers used on him or by him in unhealthy proportions. 
Triss got a bit worried about that but made grandma promise not to tell chief anything because she felt something special from this boy, like a warp of feeling she did not quite know or remember. Like the strange feeling she had before Karin, chiefs daughter almost drowned in the lake, but this time it was bright. 

The boy stirred in the bed, saying something like "domni" or "odomnis" and "allplace". She'd have to tell that to her grandma.

Before she left she cleaned the table and checked the warding proxies in the room, and above the door. "All good," she thought and went to take the lunch. 
"Oh shit," she recalled "I forgot to give him water."