Ella and Renee

the cloud realm of the dreamkeepers; separated into two regions known as heldaniea and soucre, home of the nightmares and daydreams respectively. the areas are divided by a long, winding river called the dialinda.  the arts, especially music, are of high importance to their culture.

soucre is a bustling city of soft pastels and clean whites.  daytime lasts longer than the night and the climate is usually warm and mild.  along the outskirts of soucre resides most of the realm’s agricultural area.

heldaniea is a smaller, quieter area accented with muted colors. nights here are longer and the climate is colder.  typically more industrial than soucre, though it does have a prominent agricultural community as their climate is more suited for growing one of the dreamkeeper’s most important crops: nishi fruit.

the nishi fruit is essential in the dreamkeeper’s bonding ritual, kemlan.  bonds can be platonic or romantic, and involve as many or as few people as desired.  the ritual involves the intended partner(s) sharing a nishi and then touching foreheads.  it is said that the fruit contains a strange spiritual essence that can connect the dreams of the consumers.  upon touching foreheads, the partners will fall into a dream state and will be able to walk in one another’s dreams.  this connection lasts until one partner partakes in the juice of the vigash fruit, instantly severing the kemlan.

daydreams are in charge of dreams and daydreams of the humans (and any other creatures that dream).  they keep the hopes and good thoughts and help craft dreams accordingly, mostly concerned with keeping up morale and mental health.  nightmares deal with the fears and anxieties.  they concoct dreams to keep fears in check and, when necessary, provide a bit of a reality check to their charges.  they maintain balance and allow people to keep in touch with the things that ground them.

there is a lot of competition between the nightmares and the daydreams.  daydreams generally see themselves as above the nightmares, considering nightmares unlucky and something to avoid.  nightmares, likewise, consider themselves to be more important than the daydreams, usually of the mind that daydreams are weak and naive.  violence is rare among the dreamkeepers, but when it does occur it is usually between a feuding nightmare and daydream. 

relationships between nightmares and daydreams are uncommon but not unheard of.  there are no rules against it, but the differences between the two groups and a bit of social stigma usually deters people from becoming involved with anyone outside of their realm.

ella and renee met when they were young at the annual biawark festival, a celebration marking the end of a year where all dreamkeepers would gather and release the dreams crafted and collected.  they never really could consider one another friends because they had very limited contact with one another, but every once in a while they would spot each other from across the river.  each year at the biawark they seemed to run into each other, until one year when ella was nowhere to be found.  renee, worried, travelled to the capital of soucre and demanded to know where ella was.  they told her that the young daydream was fine, just stubborn.  they gave her ella’s address and renee went to find her.  she was amused to find ella laying on her back in front of her small family house, glowering at the dimming sky.  renee sat with her and they talked for hours about destiny and what they wanted from life.

the two were inseparable - well, as inseparable as two can be when they live on opposite sides of a river - ever since.  they make frequent trips to visit when they aren’t busy with their duties. 

renee is much more cheerful than ella who considers herself the realist of the two.  renee is chipper and hard-working though she often feels out of place in her life.  ella, on the other hand, is wholly resistant to her lot in life and generally just refuses to do her job.  meant to be a daydream, she has opted out of the life and works at a small flower shop in a suburban area of soucre.  she often urges renee to quit and work at the shop with her but renee declines every time, insisting that she needs to find her own path. 

never intentionally cruel, ella has a way of bringing renee back down when she’s going a bit overboard.  renee understands her concern but often feels that ella thinks of her as a child.  the two make an effort to communicate effectively, especially considering the somewhat illicit nature of their relationship, but they occasionally have trouble meeting each other halfway.  it’s not until they are summoned to save their world that they learn to work as an effective team, ella learns that she can’t grouch her way through conflict and fear, and renee learns that sometimes happiness requires more than just hope and wishing.

”tybalt’s been acting strangely”

they all brushed amelie off repeatedly.  tybalt was a young daydream.  he still had a lot to learn.  he was the baby of the family, of course he was acting out.  he had a crush.  he was sick.  there were so many reasons why, no one thought to look at the poor boy for a moment.  his skin was turning an unusually dark shade of green.  his dreams were jarring and disorganized.  sometimes he made dreams without even meaning to.  something was wrong.

not too long after, he vanished.

when a rogue daydream started sabotaging healthy dreams, no one suspected it was someone they knew - someone they cared about.  some blamed the nightmares.  some retreated, keeping their dream creation entirely private.  some stopped altogether, not wanting these bizarre dreams to get back to the humans. 

it wasn’t until, after several months, a bizarre figure with glowing green eyes and painful crystalline projections growing from his skin suddenly appeared and just as suddenly collapsed, that they figured out who it was. 

the next questions to ask were why and how

despite the cries damning him as a monster, amelie convinced the royal court to let her take her brother home.  she tended to him, tried to return him to health with only marginal success.  this became her fulltime job, and ella was often at her home, picking up the occasional bottled dream to release for her.  she brought cakes and cookies and fresh flowers and asked every day if there was anything else she could do.

in private, ella would admit to renee that she thought tybalt might be better off if they just let him go.  he was rarely lucid, and he often sputtered out dreams that made ella’s stomach turn.  they were too bright, too fast, too short, too much.  he wasn’t a danger, but many considered him to be one. 

on a whim, renee mentioned the bizarre occurrence to an acquaintance one day as they sat by the thellous pool, a window of sorts that allowed them to observe the earth.  trina instantly paled and began peppering renee with questions.  renee answered to the best of her ability, but was overwhelmed and eventually offered to take her to see the poor boy herself.  so renee, ella, and trina all went to amelie’s home.

trina examined tybalt for only a moment before pulling the other girls aside.  eyes wide, she told them of a nightmare she knew who’d been displaying similar symptoms.  he was far more lucid than tybalt, but the dreams he crafted were just as strange and broken, often appearing at random times.

who could this be? they asked, having never heard of such a nightmare.

“his name is mellou, he is my father”

trina, ella, renee, and amelie travelled to mellou’s home, hidden away in the snowy mountains near heldaniea’s eastern border.  everyone but trina was shocked to see the strange crystaline shards scattered around the small cottage.  trina sighed, informing her companions that they had begun growing from his skin many years ago.  he shattered them, a painful process but an effective one, to keep himself at least somewhat appearing healthy.  amelie’s heart sank as they knocked on the door.  would this man have the answers she needed?

after a brief reunion between father and daughter, the young dreamkeepers began peppering him with questions about his condition, the symptoms, what had caused the onset, how he coped.  he admittedly couldn’t tell them much, only that it had begun one day after a trip to the basilt caves. the girls immediately were abuzz with curiosity.  the basilt cavern system was considered one of the most important spiritual areas of the dreamkeeper realm.  the energy within the caves was said to refresh and replenish, not corrupt and destroy.

mellou apologized for not having any more answers, and wished amelie well in finding a way to help her brother.  devastated, she led the way home.

ella and renee couldn’t help but wonder if there was something else mellou knew, but didn’t want to say.  they approached trina who admitted she wasn’t sure her father had been entirely honest with that, but that she wasn’t sure he would give them anything else.  the girls were on their own.  ella continued to check on amelie and tybalt daily, but the girls spent most of the free time researching everything they could find on the history of the basilt caverns, and anything at all that related to weird dreams and strange crystaline growths.

after months of searching, they found a total of 6 cases similar to mellou and tybalt.  they seemed entirely disconnected.  they occurred randomly in time, to daydreams and nightmares alike, no preference to age or gender.  in all cases, they had strange growths and produced weird dreams which they were sure never made it to the human realm for fear of what might happen.

the girls were stumped. none of them mentioned anything about the basilt caves, and they all lived a normal lifespan, just somewhat handicapped.  none of them seemed as severe as tybalt’s case, either.

there only seemed to be two options, neither of which appealed to them:

1. go to the basilt caves themselves
2. release one of tybalt’s dreams to the humans and see what happened

in the end, they opted for both.

amelie was not happy at all when they proposed bottling up one of tybalt’s bizarre creations and giving it to the humans.  renee insisted that it would only be one, and that it would be harmless.  she was a nightmare, she specialized in bad dreams.  she’d never done anything quite so weird and disjointed, but she assured them that the humans weren’t as delicate as the daydreams liked to believe.

finally, amelie consented.  after all, they hadn’t been able to find answers any other way, and tybalt’s condition wasn’t improving.

renee was careful when securing the dream when tybalt finally produced one. she knew, logically, it couldn’t hurt her, but she was still wary.  then, promising they’d be back soon, trina, ella, and renee made their away to the thellous pool.  settling around the water’s surface, they peered through to the human realm.  scanning a small neighborhood, they found a young woman who was sleeping soundly and decided she would be as good a recipient as any.  meeting each other’s gazes, they all nodded and renee retrieved the bottle from her pocket.  uncorking it, the dream burst out and disappeared from sight.  they watched anxiously until the small glowing orb appeared in the human’s realm.  however, to their shock, the dream did not target the sleeping woman as they intended, instead, it went straight for an older man who had been walking down the road past her home.

wide-eyed in horror, they watched as the dream manifested itself as a large black bull with glowing red eyes to the man. he let out a terrified yelp and turned to run in the opposite direction.  he glanced over his shoulder a moment later only to the find the vision gone.  he stopped, rubbed his eyes, looked around warily, and finally headed home.

the girls stared at each other in shock.  the dreams appeared to humans who were awake?

this was something completely new.  something very foreign to the dreamkeeper realm.  this strange new phenomenon needed a name, for they were dreams created by a dreamkeeper.  but they attached themselves to creatures who were not sleeping, and thus not dreaming.  trina suggested the name, hallucination. it sounded like nonsense to the girls, but they supposed every word sounded like nonsense in the beginning.  so tybalt was creating hallucinations. 

this raised more questions than it answered, however.  was tybalt now a different race? the dreamkeepers had always been divided between daydreams and nightmares.  the throw a third group in seemed outrageous.  this was some sort of mutation, a sickness, not a way of life… right?

this left the young dreamkeepers scrambling for some sort of answer.  it still didn’t make sense how this had happened in the first place.  so, of course, they were back to option 2: go to the basilt caves and see for themselves where this… mutation was coming from.  trina, ella, and renee prepped for a journey, though to be honest it was hardly more than a day’s trek from the royal palace, which was situated squarely between the two realms.  ella and trina were frightened, but renee was abuzz with a strange excitement.  there had been a certain guilt to neglecting her duties, but she wondered if these strange hallucinations could answer part of her questions about her own life.  she knew that she was a born and raised nightmare, but something had always felt wrong.  maybe the caves could shed some light.

when they arrived at the mouth of the caves, the piercing crystal formations growing from the rock walls instantly put the girls on edge.  they hurried inside and found… nothing.  all was quiet and wholly normal, exactly like what everyone had described, like they had read in all the books.  the normality of it all was somehow worse than whatever it was they were expecting.

as they journeyed deeper and deeper through the winding tunnels and caverns, trina mentioned feeling a presence, like there was something in there with them.  try as they might, they couldn’t find the source of this feeling, though the deeper they went the stronger it got.  it was eerie, the feeling of being watched, of being haunted.  renee suggested they return home, that she had a bad feeling, but the girls knew they had to press on.  they were getting close, they could feel it.

finally, they stepped into an enormous cavern where, in the center, stood a large crystal structure with projections pointing out in every direction.  it pulsed with a brilliant teal light, though it glowed purple in the center.  the girls approached carefully, and as they got closer they realized that there was the silhouette of a small figure curled up on the floor.  renee hurried forward but ella yanked her back, weary of the strange creature in the crystal.  finally it was trina who stepped forward and gently placed her hand against the cool surface.  immediately the light grew to and almost blinding brightness and the girls all leapt back as the cocoon of shards began to rattle themselves loose.  chunks fell off one by one until, when the light faded and the dust cleared, all the remained among the rubble was…a young, slumbering boy.

they weren’t sure how much time passed before the boy started to wake.  the girls sat in a semi-circle around him, fretting in hushed voices, wondering who he was and how he got there.  he had two curious set of horns growing from his head, a rare mutation among daydreams.  he also had fangs poking from his lips which was a decidedly nightmare trait, along with the sharp claws growing from his fingers and his upright ears.  however, his skin lacked the distinct greyness that a nightmare’s should have. 

when his eyes finally fluttered open, he immediately scuttled away from the three girls staring at him with wide eyes.  eyes still bleary from sleep, the boy demanded to know who they were and where he was.  the girls introduced themselves and explained that they had gone to the caves to find the source of the hallucination’s powers.  they asked who he was and how he’d gotten there.

“I am Prince Dartheleon, son of King Thurston and Queen Corra,” he declared, drawing himself up and puffing his chest, leaving the girls in shock.  the king and queen only had one child, princess nina.  how could this boy be the prince?  they pressed, asking again how he had gotten trapped in the caves and how long he had been there.  wearily, looking again like a scared little boy, he admitted he didn’t know.

the king and queen wouldn’t see them.  dart stomped his feet, demanding to see his parents, but they guards outside shook him off.  the royal family has one child, they insisted, and princess nina was attending her lessons at the moment, safely within the palace walls.  crestfallen, they took the boy back to ella’s house where they prepared lunch.  dart ate ravenously, like he hadn’t eaten in years.  the girls watched, picking at their own plates.  ella pulled renee away and they discussed whether or not to trust the boy.  they couldn’t deny his strange appearance, but a royal cover up didn’t make sense.  the kind and queen were a happy couple and they had been kind and just rulers.  they didn’t seem the type to cast aside a son on the basis of a few strange mutations.  they weren’t sure what to do, but when they returned to their meals, they found trina sitting on the floor with dart’s head in her lap.  the boy was fast asleep.  whoever he was, he didn’t seem like a threat.

late that night, with everyone camped out in ella’s living room, there was a soft knock at the door.  she almost thought she’d imagined it, but when it sounded again, she hurried to the door and opened it a crack.  outside stood a member of the royal guard, a tall nightmare with a fretful expression.  he introduced himself and asked if he could come in.  after rousing everyone but dart, they gathered in the kitchen and the guard let out a long breath.

“Dart is the prince,” he began slowly.  “They told everyone the lost the baby after he was born because he… well.  He isn’t a Nightmare or a Daydream.”

what was he, then, the girls demanded to know.

“We’ve been calling him… a Nightdream.”

“what does that mean?”

the guard - Jethro - sighed.  “exactly what it sounds like.”  he couldn’t explain exactly what had happened, as no one really knew.  the king and queen did not speak of dart. rumour abounded, however:  most of which centered around the queen and her closest advisor.  the king and queen were both daydreams, however her advisor was a nightmare.  the two had been childhood friends, and he’d been appointed by her almost as soon as she took the throne.  though the royal couple never showed any sign of marital dispute, all the palace staff suspected something had happened between the queen and him. 

the theory went that when the child had been born, he had seemed as normal as any other daydream child, but as he grew, he began to develop more obvious nightmare traits.  this was unheard of.  couplings between nightmares and daydreams were uncommon but not impossible.  many happy, healthy dreamkeepers had been born to couples, and as far as anyone knew, children were always either one or the other.  a cross between nightmare and daydream just didn’t make sense.

besides, how could they just get rid of a child without anyone noticing, ella was quick to point out.

“they said he died,” Jethro whispered, looking past the girls towards the sleeping boy.

but that obviously wasn’t the case.  which begged the question: how had he ended up trapped in a giant crystal within the basilt caves?

jethro kindly excused himself, not wanting to be caught off palace grounds and gossiping about the royal family.  he swore to try and gather more knowledge, however, and hoped he could do something to help.

the girls sat in silence.  their world seemed to be falling apart.  for as long as anyone had known, the dreamkeepers had been firmly divided between daydreams and nightmares.  it was simple, easy, black-and-white.  but now… with the discovery of hallucinations, and now a strange crossbreed - a nightdream - the girls were forced to confront the fact that their straight-forward lives had been lies. 

renee, however, knew this.  she’d always known, deep in her bones, that there was more.  something different.  something new.  she’d been born a nightmare, but it had never felt quite right.  maybe all of this could help explain the feelings she’d always carried, tucked safely within her, right beside her heart.  she was excited, more than anything, to get to know the young nightdream.

but in the meantime, the girls had more questions than answers.  why would the royal family trap him in the cave?  did they, or did they truly think he was dead?  had he run away?  been stolen?  did he have anything to do with the strange appearance of the hallucinations?  the crystal theme seemed prevalent.  the girls glanced outside to see the sun was just beginning to appear below their cloudy home.  it was too late - early? - to go back to sleep.  trina set about making breakfast for everyone while they waited for dart to wake.

when dart finally awoke, to the smell of fresh pastries topped with succulent peapa berries, he was groggy and confused.  it took a moment before the girls’ gentle soothing reminded him of where he was.  once he’d calmed down, he joined them for breakfast and ate rapidly, again like he hadn’t eaten in years.  which, they realized with a start, he probably hadn’t.

when breakfast was done and cleaned up, they sat dart down with a cup of water, and gently began to probe him for information.  did he remember anything before he was in the cave?  how old was he?  what were his parents like?

all the poor boy could remember was being in his bedroom.  he’d been sleeping in his enormous bed of the finest quality fabrics, then woke up in a cave surrounded by shards of crystal.  (okay, the girls thought, so he didn’t run away, he’d been taken while he was sleeping.)  he was 6.  (the girls had no opinion on this, since none of them had ever heard of him to begin with).  his mother was good and kind, though he never spent much time with his father.  (this struck them as odd, and perhaps reinforcing the theory of him being fathered by another man, since the king regularly spent time with his daughter.)

all in all, not the most helpful information, but it was a start.  the girls were at a loss as to where to go from that point.  ella left for work at the florist shop.  renee produced a few half-hearted nightmares.  trina showed dart how to properly knead bread dough.