From:  "M. David Lankford" <mdl_ww_stuff@hotmail.com>
Date:  Fri Nov 16, 2001  12:45 pm
Subject: [DL-T] Fever Dreams and Stranger Things


[the lawn nearest the hatchling barracks; late night, perhaps three hours
before dawn]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

<Another story! More!> the demanding hatchlings chorused.

<Late,> Xye thought to them blearily. <Sleep,> accompanied by an image of
hatchlings curled up head-to-tail, snoozing contentedly.

<Not tired!> protested Pepper irritably, though she seemed to be having
difficulty keeping her eyes more than half-open.

<Not sleepy at all,> Dargen agreed, trying and failing to stifle an enormous
yawn.

Yanina nipped gently at Akina, waking her. Beyond them, the little tan
hatchling snored softly.

<Last one,> Xye sighed. This was a more tiring project than she thought.
The hatchlings truly seemed to enjoy her images, though. They had followed
her back from their midnight snack with minimal mischief-making, but they
had not been satisfied when her first story ended.

Xye thought of two hatchlings, the larger one bright orange, the smaller a
creamy shade of white.

<Hey, who are they? I don't recognize them. Are they real or just made up
for the story?>

<Real,> Xye said, concentrating on her imagery. The white dragon was kind
and playful, but the orange dragon was fierce and haughty. The orange
bullied the white, making her miserable.

<She's mean. I bet something awful happens to her!>

<This is a boring story. It needs more action. Have them fight some
wraiths!>

Unbidden, an image of dark swirling horrors appeared in the shared vision.
Xye was startled. She had been trying to teach the hatchlings to be kind to
one another, but the suggestion of a wraith had caused her to imagine one
almost without thinking about it. Xye had never actually seen a wraith in
person, but from the accounts of other dragons she had a notion of what they
should look like. The orange and white hatchlings fought as best they
could, squeaking out tiny belches of flame at the offending monstrosities.

<That won't work, they're too tiny to breathe proper fire!> The hatchlings
suddenly shifted to dragonet-size and began to fight more effectively.
<Much better! But they're outnumbered. Put some more dragons in the
story!>

<Put US in the story!>

Suddenly Xye's illustration contained a half dozen hatchlings battling
alongside the dragonets.
<But we need to be bigger and breathe fire, too!>

<She can't, O Dumb One. She doesn't know what we'll look like when we're
bigger!>

<*You're* the dumbest one! Besides she can just make up what we look like,
right?>

Xye did her best to oblige, aging the hatchlings in the story to dragonet
size, then beyond. Each of the young spectators watched with glee as his or
her older self did battle within their collective imagination. Unnoticed,
the sleeping tan hatchling whimpered slightly, legs twitching.

<HA! Take THAT, wraith!>

<*I* burned two at once, think you can do better?>

<Watch me! I'm gonna do a somersault in the air and then fry them...>

Xye drifted half into dreams herself, overcome with weariness and amusement
at the youngsters' enthusiasm. It hardly seemed possible that she'd been
that small herself, not so long ago.

<Look out behind you, there are more!>

<I saw them. We're tougher than any wraiths.>

<Yeah, this is easy.>

<TOO easy. It's not a good story without a scary part...>

<Maybe the wraiths should be bigger, too. Watch out, they're growing now!>

<Oh no, look out! That one over there is too big already!>

In the shared dream, the tan dragon flamed the suddenly-enormous wraith, but
it wasn't enough to kill it. The injured wraith wrapped tendrils of
tattered shadow around the tan dragon, obscuring it from view. There was
writhing and screaming and muffled bursts of flame.

<Save her!> The other 'dragons' rallied, and together they flamed away the
remnants of the wraith. What was left of the tan dragon fell from the sky,
landing with a sickening thud. In the same instant, the sleeping tan
hatchling spasmed once, and was still.

Xye snapped fully awake, horrified. The mental broadcast ended abruptly
enough to startle the other hatchlings; some of them were crying. The tan's
eyes opened slightly, but they were glassy... she couldn't be dead from
just a dream, could she? Xye nudged her desperately.

<Dalmar!> Xye thought-cried desperately. <Eth'n! Someone help!>

[TAG, whomever wants to intervene... so much for sleep that night, eh?]

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


Ada was drowning, unable to catch her breath... the caverns at Keldarra were
filled with some bitter liquid, and she was struggling to keep her head
above the surface...

This made no sense. These looked like the hatching caverns, but why were
they flooded? What was she *doing* here, for that matter?

She paddled desperately for a side passage, hoping to wedge herself in
against the current, but there was a dark shape bobbing in front of her.
She tugged at it, realizing with horror that it was a body, and it splashed
over to reveal the face of K'drik.

"No!" she protested. "He isn't dead, I know it! I still have time to find
him..."

The current swept her away, and she felt herself going under. Sputtering,
she fought for air.

A hand reached out from above and pulled her forth, helping her stagger up a
passage and out into the open air. Ada gasped, staring up at the night sky.
She rolled to the side and saw her rescuer.

"Fabrice!" Ada called happily. "You save me. I thought that -" she
stopped as her friend flinched from her touch.

"I couldn't let you drown," said the pale girl in a small, tired voice.
"But you have to leave. *He* doesn't want you here." L'talin stepped
forward from the shadows, smiling cruelly.

"Who the devil cares what *he* wants?" Ada protested.

"Can't you see?" Tears ran down Fabrice's face. "*I* care..."

"Best run along home, wherever home is!" L'talin chuckled. "But first, I
owe you one of these..." he hefted a large stone, almost a small boulder,
and prepared to throw...

Suddenly Jacinth and Lazara were there, squabbling the way they had when
they were hatchlings. This didn't make any sense... what had happened to
L'talin and Fabrice? And if K'drik was dead - no, he couldn't be - wouldn't
Jacinth be gone, too?

She realized it was all a dream, just as the wraiths appeared, followed
shortly by a half-dozen hatchlings that grew impossibly quickly into
dragons, fighting the wraiths.

I'm trapped in a nightmare, she thought. But is it mine, or someone else's?

One of the dream-dragons died, and Ada thought she could hear - or perhaps
feel - Xye crying, as if from impossibly far away.

Ada felt like she was on fire, her body wracked with tremors... why couldn't
she awaken?


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *


[morning after the hatching party]

Konrad whistled merrily as he strolled around the warren. There were fewer
people about than usual, and those that he saw looked unusually haggard and
bleary-eyed. He suspected a fair number of them had sampled the spiked
'goodies' and were suffering harsher-than-usual hangovers as a result. He
smiled to himself. Serves 'em right.

A sniffling sound caught his attention. He walked to a nearby storage shed
and peered around the corner. He saw his sister sitting on an old stump,
hunched over and quivering. Her eyes were bleary and red too, but it was
clearly due to weeping.

What did she have to be so upset about? She got to join, would be a
dragonrider, while he was stuck being treated like child instead of the
young man he longed to be. It was always like that - the others got to do
neat things, while Konrad was left behind, always too young to help, always
too irresponsible. Why *should* he help, anyway? His older brother and two
older sisters were so much better than he - in their parents' eyes, at least
- that Konrad had long since given up trying to live up to their standards.
Let *them* be angels, then... if he couldn't match them in virtue, he'd at
least enjoy himself in mischief.

Tanda snuffled, apparently unaware of her brother's presence. " 'I wouldn't
do something like that to you!' " she murmured to herself in a tone that
sounded mocking, as though she was repeating someone else's words in
disgust. "Of course you wouldn't," she continued in a flatter, more brittle
tone of voice. "Too better by half for that, I should imagine. What a
great fool I was, to think that you might genuinely be inter-" She glanced
up and locked eyes with her sibling. "Go away!" she shouted. "Leave me
alone!"

She was vulnerable, emotionally raw. Under their customary sibling-conflict
circumstances, this would be the perfect time to mock her... or else, run
for cover, if she was truly as angry as she looked and sounded. Strangely,
he found himself hesitating. Konrad wasn't sure what had upset his sister,
but he had a weird twisting sensation in his stomach that aftermath from his
prank might somehow be to blame. It was one thing to taunt and tease her,
to get a rise out her, but to cause her such abject misery...! It was too
much.

He swallowed hard. "Tanda, I - " He stopped abruptly. He couldn't exactly
apologize, for that would give away his guilt, and a tortured emotional
confession was something he wanted to reserve as a last resort. He still
felt sorry, though, so he felt compelled to say something. "Whatever's
wrong, I'm sure it's not as bad as you th-"

"Don't TELL me what I think!" Tanda screeched at him. "I'm pathetic enough
without listening to advice from you! Get out of here!"

"But-" He was confused. Couldn't she see that he was just trying to
comfort her?

"GO!" Tanda shouted, hefting an old chunk of rotting wood in his direction.
It didn't even come close to striking him, but it was a warning just the
same. "Begone! Scram!"

He fled. He was angry with himself for having ever felt sorry for her...
but not quite angry enough to erase all of the guilt he felt for upsetting
her so badly in the first place.

He bumped into two haggard-looking men in his haste. Mumbling a quick
apology, he pushed past them and scurried away, paying no heed to the
argument he'd interrupted...

"I tell you, the rogue rider are north of here, based on the edge of the
Wastes!"

"and I say they're to the south, and east!"

"On the border with Keldarra?" the first traveler said with frank
disbelief. "Between the largest warren and the most central?"

"It's the only explanation," the second traveler gritted. "I've lost four
cattle just this week, and my neighbors have lost sheep, to boot."

"So you have wolves or something. Big deal. We've actually *seen* dragons
and riders up north, and they're up to no good... I shudder to think of what
they might be doing right now!"

"Well, hopefully these Warrenfolk can solve *both* our problems... "


* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *

Respectfully submitted,

Dave Lankford
Ada & Xye, Tanda & Pepper, and Konrad, Telnor Warren


NRPG - thanks to John for the 'draconic virtual reality' idea, though I'm
betting he didn't foresee me taking it in quite *that* direction...

for the record, Ada's in the med center, fever-dreaming and not doing too
well in general.

The last bit with the disgruntled farmers alludes to the two 'rogue warren'
plotlines that are running... the hellspawn-associated one Jason mentioned
recently, and the brigand-based group I came up with as part of the T/K
crossover plot that Jason and Arlene have helped with.