Ephemeral Affairs [MXM]

Another Persimmon Dream

"There aren't much to me," I repeat myself.

Jotan doesn't look satisfied with my answer, "You said earlier that you chose this life of yours so you must be a giving tree. What do you mean?"

I feel like I am talking too much already, so instead of replying I shrug my shoulders.

"Then if I tell you why my father refused your invitation, will you tell me what you mean?" He offers the compromise, but...

"I don't want to know why he didn't as long as you do," I answer him honestly. "I can use my whole life to study yours and I would never understand all the tiniest things that made you 'you' this moment before me."

"So it is unimportant-no, it is 'insignificant' for me to tell you why I chose this life and the meaning behind my words," I say hoping he wouldn't push me any further.

Contrary to my wishes, he only smirks and comes at me with, "Being someone who carries burdens in a calm silent due to what the world sees me, even I see the importance of opening up to someone of a similar mindset. Even if in your mind it is insignificant and perhaps even worthless, I still want to hear you talk-"

Jotan stops mid sentence.

Yet I stay on the bed in silence unable to manipulate the flow of time.

I watch his lips for movement until it eventually happens, "I just want to hear you talk. Your voice, the way you speak is all so soothing that I want to be lost in. You are the only person I feel as if I can confide in and be selfish."

"Well! I think it's getting late," I gesture to the door.

He looks heartbroken at first until he realize why I stopped him.

Jotan knows that his words are not words that should be said to a married person alone in a sleeping chamber for they are flirtatious.

"I'm sorry. You must be tired traveling all the way from Asandria," Jotan bows and leaves wearing his indifferent-ness, the calm silent used by those who are burdened by high morals.

My back falls onto the soft surface of the bed feeling more exhausted then before I talk with Jotan.

I can feel my face squinting together in frustration. Me having a soothing voice? What in tarnation is that?

Then I look at my left ring finger where there is a jewel that represent my complete faithfulness.

There were no words, no vows, no promise, and yet I keep myself for you, Nillin, because it is this faithfulness that I value in a marriage.

I will probably never have a marriage like mother and father. I married Nillin knowing I will not be the only one who has his manhood-his youth.

After a long time of trying to clear my mind unsuccessful, I wipe my tears that lubricate my dry eyes and close them.

In a place where there is a physical line for the horizon, the sky is both the ceiling and the floor.

My reflection is my shadow.

There is a giant cloud shaped no less than a giant fish and it chases clouds of bunnies. Each one it swallows, it grows bigger. Until it excretes its waste in the form of rain.

Then there are clouds shaped like foxes that also eats the bunny, but it doesn't grow bigger or excrete any precipitations.

'What a weird dream?' I tell myself until I realize the line of persimmons flowing by next to my feet.

The feeling of wanting to vomit returns.

I feel my stomach, "It's your fault I can't eat them anymore. I used to eat them every autumn."

All of a sudden, my abdomen grows in size until it's the size of a ripe watermelon.

Then, I feel a sudden punch from the inside of my stomach. Did the child hear me?

I flinch back a little and see that there is a dot on the definite line of the horizon. Was it there before?

The line of persimmons also seems to be flowing from there, so I crawl to it because it feels like hours getting there and 'this' Nillin's child inside me is so heavy.

(One of the thing I'm scared about giving birth.)

As I feared, the dot is the persimmon tree from my dream the other day. I know this because it greets me, "Hello again, 'Princess'."

"Don't call me that. I have no sovereignty," I sit with my feet fanned out to my right.

"I see. The persimmon I worked so hard to cultivate is now growing inside of you."

It is only now that I am able to catch the feminine tone in the tree. It's a woman.

"Who are you?" I ask hoping to come to the part in this conversation where I can ask it to stop being in my dreams.

It's bothersome.

"My heart is like a half-moon, the more I wait the more jealous I get," it whispers and suddenly a half-moon is hovering above the horizon in the distant.

What? I definitely asked who it was, but it gives me a different answer. Actually, I don't think it's an answer at all.

Because this is a dream, and I think it know what I'm thinking, it answers, "You will soon know the many persons I am."

"Many people?" Then I catch myself. My mother told me that if I dream of persimmons, it means money and transformation; but if I dream of a persimmon tree, it means someone I know will die. This is the second time...

"Milord. Milord," Carcyne looks nervous while calling me.

I get up and comment, "What an awful nightmare."

"So is it 'that' bad or not?" Caria notes my monotone comment.

"It was," I hold in my laughter. "Apparently, two persons I know will die soon."

"Oh."

"But things are changing and the child inside me will be a golden child," I get off the bed and walk to the bath behind the screen dividers in the room.

I take off my clothes for a quick morning bath.

"Then isn't that a 'good' dream?" Carcyne asks from the other side of the dividers.

I slide into the bath that I think Caria and Carcyne have prepared. I heave of a sign of relaxation, "Any death is still sad. How can I erase the two deaths just because of the good change that will happen?"

"What really happened in your dream?"

It might be good if I tell them. I trust them completely.

"Well, two weeks ago, I dreamed..."

And I told them the dreams as I bathe and dress.

"I need to tell this to the Queen immediately!" Carcyne's face is as white as snow.

"Why?" Caria seems really new to dream interpretation.

"The two persons are the Queen and her son, King Lozen." Carcyne storms out of the door.

But the only thing in my mind is how I could've miss that? The Cliff of Resolve is definitely father, and I don't know where Carcyne got grandmother from.