Born Of Dreams

20260122

Written for Luna Asli Kolcu’s “Myths of Winter - Week 8” event.

Why am I afraid? This is a dream. I’m in control. But the fear persists regardless. For the first time since I was an apprentice I find myself wishing the guild dispatched us in groups.
Back then, I was wary of getting lost in the sprawling non-euclidian labyrinth of the city’s dreamscapes. Not a cause for fear - wherever my astral self might be when I choose to wake, I will immediately return to my body - but losing my way and failing to perform my duties would be cause for embarrassment and perhaps chastising.
By the time I achieved journeyman status I was proficient at navigating the dream-ways and my work was interesting enough that I never longed for company.
Faced with the prospect of documenting a never-before seen dream phenomenon I should be jittery with excitement, not antsy and jumpy and fighting a strange urge to find a deep cosy hole and hide in it.
Seasonal variations in dreaming is a well-studied field. In winter, dreams become darker. Both literally, reflecting the weather, and metaphorically, as the lack of sunlight takes a toll upon people’s psyches.
But this… this was unprecedented.
We’d caught dreams linking. Even merging! With no sign of enchantment. A natural dream-walking phenomenon? They’d have to rewrite the entire Principles of Somnio Arcana!
While most of the senior dream-walkers were charting the details of the event, the rest of us had been dispatched to try and find it’s physical root - assuming it had one. We’ve no idea how far this mysterious force deviates from our established rules.
Of course, trying to dowse across an entire city full of dreamers would be impossible. We needed a clue. Teams had been combing through the recorded dreams, looking for a landmark. A recurring physical theme.
I’m pretty sure I’ve found one.
Few people have ever been to the basements under the old Grantstone Chapel. It’s only a minor place of worship these days. More a historical site than anything. That historical value - and it being near where I grew up - is why I mapped it during my journeyman training.
The arches are what stuck in my mind. Perfect curves of russet bricks carved into flowers. I was fascinated by how much work had been done to make the basement beautiful when it then sat empty. Serving no purpose except to hold up the building.
Arches formed of brick-coloured roses cropped up again and again in the linked dreams. So here I am, entering the dream-state of the chapel, possibly about to seal my place in history.
And I can’t stop shivering.
There’s something here. I’m sure of it. Not just a phenomenon - something alive, something aware of my presence.
What should I do? If only I had some way of alerting other dream-walkers without waking up! If I leave, will this entity vanish? Flee? But pressing on alone… I have no way of knowing what this thing is capable of, beyond it being able to reach into people’s minds and link dreams with never before seen finesse, which is enough to be daunting.
I dither. Mind racing.
Then I hear it.
A… whimper?
Oh. Of course.
If Dame Myra finds out I made such a rookie mistake, I’ll never hear the end of it.
I touch a finger to my forehead - a meaningless gesture in dream state, but one which helps me focus. While searching I had lowered all my shields, the better to sense the source of the mysterious magic with. But that also left me open to melding.
How long have I been inside its dream? I suspect it links to any mind that brushes close enough. Instinct? Perhaps.
Yes. This isn’t my fear.
I suppose the poor thing could sense my approach, and that I was searching for it, but couldn’t understand my intentions. It was trying to hide, and couldn’t - not from a trained dream-walker.
What to do now?
My standing here pondering seems to have helped. The fear has lessened somewhat, and its attention feels more… curious, rather than wary.
I gather my thoughts. “Can you understand me?”
What bounces back is a garble of raw emotion and mismatched distorted images. It’s like trying to read the dreams of an infant. But there’s definitely no aggression. Nor does it seem inclined to flee. In fact, I get the impression this space is its den. Possibly where it was born - or however it came to be.
“I’m going to fetch some friends. They’re nice. And they’ve been wanting to meet you.”
Anxiety. Tentative acceptance. But under that roil there’s a sparkle of curiosity.
No matter how I stretch my awareness, I can’t sense anything living. At least not in a physical sense. It’s like… the space itself learned to dream.
Oh, we’re going to need to rewrite a whole bunch of the literature after this. And I can’t wait to be part of that.

Prompt was “A guild that maps the dreams of a sleeping city. In winter, the dreams change. Darker. Colder. And lately, they’re starting to connect—the same locations appearing in different sleepers’ minds. You’ve been assigned to chart the convergence point.”